[Peace-discuss] What are we fighting for?

[C. G. Estabrook]

"...the real plot of the non-stop tragicomedy is never spelled out. The US and 
its NATO allies will do - and spend - whatever it takes to implant military 
bases on the doorstep of both Russia and China and ... get their Trans-Afghan 
Pakistan gas pipeline on track.  From November 2001 to December 2008, the Bush 
administration burned $179 billion in Afghanistan, while NATO burned $102 
billion. Former NATO head Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said the West would keep troops 
in Central Asia for 25 years..."

	Enduring Freedom until 2050
	By Pepe Escobar

	And it's one, two, three
	What are we fighting for?
	Don't ask me, I don't give a damn
	Next stop is Vi-et-nam...
	- Country Joe and the Fish, 1969

After eight long years, now more than ever, the United States invasion and 
(partial) occupation of Afghanistan is on a roll, courtesy of US President 
Barack Obama's "new strategy".

This - which Pentagon supremo Robert Gates insists is "working" - includes US 
and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) staging mini-Guernicas, al la 
the bombing of Guernica, Spain, by German and Italian warplanes in 1937, as 
painted by Pablo Picasso.

It also includes General Stanley McChrystal - the former number one hit man for 
General David Petraeus in Iraq - assaulting Washington to demand (what else is 
new?) an extra 45,000 US boots on the ground.

Add 52,000 US troops and no less than a staggering 68,000 US contractors as of 
late March - don't even count NATO - and soon there will be more Americans 
wallowing in the Afghan mire than Soviets at their occupation peak during the 
1980s. In only 450 days, Enduring Freedom plus NATO boots swelled up from 67,000 
to 118,000.

Does it matter that, according to a McClatchy/Ipsos survey, almost eight years 
after the "war on terror" bombing of the Taliban, 54% of Americans think the US 
is "losing" the war while 56% are against sending more troops? Of course not.

We want our cut

The latest mini-Guernica is the air strike on two fuel trucks hijacked by the 
Taliban and stuck in a riverbed near a market in the Ali Abad district in Kunduz 
province. The strike was ordered by a helpless, intelligence-impaired German 
colonel under the NATO banner, and has now degenerated into a caustic war of 
words between Washington and Berlin.

NATO's "mission" in Afghanistan is extremely unpopular in Germany. According to 
Kunduz locals, the NATO air strike killed more than 100 villagers; NATO says no 
more than 25; all this while insisting it made sure no civilians were in the 
area before the hit. It's the same mini-Guernica scenario of Herat in August 
2008 and Farah in May 2009.

None of this slows down the relentless Gates/Mullen/McChrystal gravy train - the 
Pentagon superstar trio obsessed with milking a Vietnam-style escalation of 
Obama's self-described "necessary war" whose final objective, according to 
super-envoy Richard Holbrooke, is of the "we'll-know-it-when-we-see-it" kind.

As for the United States Agency for International Development, it has just 
"discovered" that the Taliban - as a protection racket - take a cut from the 
international development aid pouring into Afghanistan. But the cut pales in 
comparison to what the Hamid Karzai government and his warlord compadres divert 
from the European Union coffers under United Nations supervision - via one 
"Afghan reconstruction" bash after another (Tokyo 2002, Berlin 2004, London 
2006, Paris 2008).

Maybe not as much as Americans, European taxpayers are also being fleeced. In a 
devastating post at the Italian byebyeunclesam blog, Giancarlo Chetoni explains 
how Afghanistan is costing Italian taxpayers 1,000 euros (US$1,433) a minute, or 
525.6 million euros a year, to "free the country from terrorism and drugs". 
Surrealism is the norm. Italy famously gave 52 million euros to "reform 
Afghanistan's judicial system" when, Chetoni notes, "3.5 million penal cases and 
5.4 million civil lawsuits are currently pending" in Italy. During the next four 
years, Italy will practically double its contingent, from 3,250 troops to more 
than 6,000.

New NATO head, former president George W. Bush-friendly Anders Rasmussen from 
Denmark, has been trying to explain the new "strategy" in pyrotechnic NATOese to 
skeptical Europeans. But the real plot of the non-stop tragicomedy is never 
spelled out. The US and its NATO allies will do - and spend - whatever it takes 
to implant military bases on the doorstep of both Russia and China and - Allah 
only knows - get their Trans-Afghan Pakistan gas pipeline on track.

 From November 2001 to December 2008, the Bush administration burned $179 
billion in Afghanistan, while NATO burned $102 billion. Former NATO head Jaap de 
Hoop Scheffer said the West would keep troops in Central Asia for 25 years. He 
was corrected by the British army's chief of general staff, General David 
Richards: it will be 40 years. Expect the "evil", fit Taliban - immune to global 
warming - to be fighting Enduring Freedom by 2050.

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is 
Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007) and Red Zone Blues: a snapshot 
of Baghdad during the surge. His new book, just out, is Obama does Globalistan 
(Nimble Books, 2009).

He may be reached at pepeasia at yahoo.com.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/KI09Df01.html