[Peace-discuss] Obama on Bush: too much development, not enough war in Afghanistan

[C. G. Estabrook]

But it shouldn't be a surprise.  US control of Mideast energy has been a
cornerstone of US policy since WWII. It was the collapse of the Soviet Union
twenty years ago that allowed the US to use the military (theirs and others')
more freely to enforce that control.

Until then the USSR had been to some extent a check and balance on US actions in
the region.  As its decrepitude had become clear -- it was of course never the
military challenge that US Cold War propaganda pretended -- the
Carter-Brzezinski administration recruited Islamic fanatics "to give the
Russians a Vietnam in Afghanistan," as Brzezinski said.

The result was the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, which lasted a decade
(1979-89).  Their departure cleared the way for the US: Clinton could launch
missiles against the country ruled by the Taliban (recognized as legitimate by
Pakistan and Saudi Arabia), at suspected bases of Osama bin Laden, accused of
bombing US embassies in Africa, and impose an air embargo and financial
sanctions to force Afghanistan to hand over Osama bin Laden for trial (years
before the 9/11/2001 attacks).

Those attacks -- and the disappearance of the USSR -- gave the US the occasion
to invade Afghanistan in 2001 and fill the military gap.  Last February, in the
seventh year of that occupation (which the US roped a reluctant Nato into), Jaap
Scheffer, Nato’s secretary-general, "told the Brookings Institution that the
continuing occupation had less to do with good governance than with the desire
to site permanent military bases in a country that borders China, Iran and
Central Asia. Contributors to the organisation’s house magazine, Nato Review,
have argued that the preservation of Western hegemony in the Asia-Pacific region
requires a permanent military presence" in Afghanistan (Tariq Ali).

As a minor point, the success of Obama in selling himself as an "anti-war
candidate," when he clearly wasn't, and the consequent co-option of the anti-war
movement, is an idiosyncratic feature of U.S. politics, but doesn't much affect
the direction of its foreign policy -- as Obama himself has always admitted.

The day before his speech at the 2004 Democratic convention -- which first
brought him to the notice of people outside Illinois (and many inside) -- he
told reporters, "There's not that much difference between my position and George
Bush's position at this stage. The difference, in my mind, is who's in a
position to execute." In the speech Obama criticized Bush for invading Iraq
"without enough troops to win the war, secure the peace, and earn the respect of
the world."  That's continuous with the assertion that more killing than Bush
was willing to do is needed in Afghanistan.  --CGE


unionyes wrote:
> This is even worse than the Bush gang!
> 
> This is going to cause even more hatred towards the U.S., not to mention the
> exponential increase in the loss of life and limb.
> 
> They are just digging a deeper hole.
> 
> David J.
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "C. G. Estabrook" <galliher at uiuc.edu> To:
> "peace-discuss" <peace-discuss at anti-war.net> Sent: Wednesday, January 28,
> 2009 10:44 AM Subject: [Peace-discuss] Obama on Bush: too much
> development,not enough war in Afghanistan
> 
> 
>> Aides Say Obama’s Afghan Aims Elevate War January 28, 2009 By HELENE COOPER
>> and THOM SHANKER
>> 
>> WASHINGTON — President Obama intends to adopt a tougher line toward Hamid
>> Karzai, the Afghan president, as part of a new American approach to
>> Afghanistan that will put more emphasis on waging war than on development,
>> senior administration officials said Tuesday. ...