[Peace-discuss] Biden Warns of More Lies in Afghanistan

[C. G. Estabrook]

[This is practically unbelievable.  The administration cannot even be bothered 
to work up a creative lie for its vast and illegal war in AfPak. (The Bush people 
at least did that for the invasion of Iraq.)  Instead they cover their oil 
imperialism with the droning repetition (and who better for that than Biden?) of 
"9/11."  Anyone can see that killing people in AfPak makes terrorists, rather 
than discouraging them.  Osama bin Laden said the 9/11 attacks were in 
response to three things: (1) the murderous sanctions on Iraq in the 1990s; (2) 
the oppression of the Palestinians; and (3) the stationing of US troops in the 
Muslim holy places (Saudi Arabia).  What will the response be to (1) the killing 
of a million Iraqis; (2) the Blitzkrieg on Gaza; and (3) the occupation of Iraq and 
AfPak?  *The crucial point is that the US government doesn't much care*: it 
*needs* the threat of terrorism to justify the presence of its military in the 
region, the real reason for which is control of Mideast energy resources (but 
not for use within the US, which gets its oil from the western hemisphere).  
Since WWII, the US government has been determined to control these resources, 
not for domestic use, but as an advantage over its international rivals. Biden is 
a decadent modern example of the diplomat described by the 17th-century 
British ambassador to Venice, as a "man sent to lie abroad for the good of his 
country" -- altho' here only a small fragment of the country profits.  --CGE]


     NYTimes - July 24, 2009
     Biden Warns of More ‘Sacrifice’ in Afghanistan
     By ALAN COWELL

LONDON — Entering a debate that has stirred political tumult in Britain, Vice 
President Joseph R. Biden Jr. said in an interview broadcast Thursday that more 
coalition troops will die in Afghanistan but the war was “worth the effort.”

Speaking during a tour of Ukraine and Georgia, Mr. Biden told the BBC that the 
lawless region along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border was “a place that, if it 
doesn’t get straightened out, will continue to wreak havoc on Europe and the 
United States.”

His remarks have a particular resonance here at a time when the American-led 
coalition has recorded some of its worst casualties since the overthrow of the 
Taliban regime in 2001.

Britain has some 9,000 soldiers in Afghanistan — the second biggest contingent 
after the United States — and so far this month alone has lost 19 soldiers to 
bring the total since 2001 to 188 — higher than the British death toll in the 
Iraq war. The latest fatalities came Wednesday when bombs killed two United 
States service members and one Briton in southern Afghanistan.

While some newspaper columnists have questioned the reasons for fighting the 
war, Prime Minister Gordon Brown is locked in a dispute with the main 
opposition leader, David Cameron, over the government’s track record in 
providing the right equipment — particularly helicopters — to shield British 
soldiers from increasingly deadly roadside bombs planted by the Taliban.

In the interview, Mr. Biden said that in terms of the national interest of Britain, 
the United States and Europe, the war “is worth the effort we are making and 
the sacrifice that is being felt.”

“And more will come,” he said, referring to the current phase of hostilities as 
“the fighting season.” He did not comment specifically on the debate of British 
equipment.

He said that the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region was “the place from which 
the attacks of 9/11 and all those attacks in Europe that came from Al Qaeda 
have flowed, from that place between Afghanistan and Pakistan.”

He called British soldiers “among the best trained and bravest warriors in the 
world.”

The debate over British troops’ access to helicopters sharpened Wednesday 
when a Foreign Office minister, Lord Malloch Brown, told a newspaper 
interviewer that “we definitely don’t have enough helicopters.”

But he withdrew the comment, apparently under pressure from the prime 
minister , who has insisted that access to more helicopters would not have 
saved British lives in the latest wave of fatalities. Mr. Brown’s critics argue that 
lives would be saved if troops were transported by helicopter rather than by 
road, where they are more vulnerable to attacks.

“In the operations we are doing at the moment, it is completely wrong to say 
that the loss of lives has been caused by the absence of helicopters,” Mr. Brown 
said Wednesday. “For the operations we are doing at the moment we have the 
helicopters we need.”

The deaths coincide with a major American offensive, supported by British and 
other troops, in Southern Helmand Province, a Taliban stronghold, in advance 
of presidential elections next month.

On Monday, four American soldiers were killed by a roadside explosion in 
eastern Afghanistan, making July the deadliest month for American service 
members in the country since the 2001 invasion and underscoring the 
frightening rise in the sophistication and accuracy of roadside bombs.

With the newest fatalities, more than 30 Americans have died in the first three 
weeks of July, surpassing the highest previous monthly toll, 28, reached in June 
2008.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/24/world/europe/24afghan.html