Just what is going on in Afghanistan?
Any “news” that can be trusted is damn scarce. We have heard about the car-bombings that have killed over 300 people. We have heard that two military helicopters collided killing 9 U.S. soldiers. And that President Hamid Karzai’s brother – Ahmed Wali Karzai, suspected to oversee the largest Afghan heroin trafficking ring – has been on the C.I.A. payroll for the last eight years.
We learn that Predator drones, warfare by unmanned stealth bombers inspired by the likes of Israel, make up the foremost military strategy for overcoming terrorism in Afghanistan, a tactic that has resulted in thousands of civilian deaths and which has been deployed by President Obama more times since he’s taken office than in the last three years of the Bush Administration. Sold as a revolution in tactical warfare, “drones are the technological step that further isolates the American people from military action, undermining political checks on…endless war.” U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton defended the use of drones, saying, “there’s a war going on.” Really? Looks like a different military term would sum it up more clearly: FUBAR. The U.N. announced last week that the U.S. drone policy may violate international law.
And assassination – which was outlawed in 1976 by Pres. Ford – is now standard practice for fighting terrorists, as terrorism went from being a criminal act to an act of war. The suspension of all laws concerning terrorism has become the norm in countries that used to pride themselves on the rule of law. “The things we were complaining about from Israel a few years ago we now embrace”.
Posing as the Voice of Reason, Thomas Friedman’s latest NYTimes editorial advises pulling out of Afghanistan as soon as the last soldier can be put on a plane for home. It is clear that any mention or thought of ethical considerations in Afghanistan are off the table. While the Taliban increases its fighting power every day – thanks in part to the endless millions, coming in part from Karzai’s CIA-protected drug empire, along with the millions ‘gone astray’ in U.S. government programs and the thousands of weapons successfully stolen or diverted to Taliban forces in Pakistan – the Obama Administration is listening to the cooing of doves and chicken-hawks, who now want out of this disgraceful debacle for all the wrong reasons, while being besieged by his generals to increase troops and “win”, whatever that can possibly mean at this stage.
What I understand from all these ‘facts’ is that everything we are being told about the current situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan – including the circumstances under which Pat Tillman was killed by friendly fire – is suspect. That’s not exactly news, of course; with the kidnapping and killing of reporters who try to remain within eye-witness range of events, and even U.N. workers being ruthlessly bombed in their sleep, as happened last week in Kabul , can anyone confirm what “government reports”, with their own twisted agendas, are telling us to be true?
Now, Hamid Karzai, puppet of the Bush regime, has been handed a second presidential term though his election was a fraud. As with the suspicious appointment of the man himself, this is just another indication that this is still Bush’s war, doomed to the criminal ineptitude of that administration.
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Mayer, Jane, “The Predator War”, The New Yorker, 26 October, 2009, pp.36-45.
ibid, p. 40.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/nov/01/abdullah-withdrawal-afghanistan-election-clinton