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Swan Song for NATO
The Real Cost Of Defeat In Forgettistan
By Mike Whitney
"It is our right to defend our country. We are not a threat to
other countries. But we have to use our rights when our country
is occupied by foreign forces." - Mullah Omar, Taliban leader
13/02/08 "ICH"
-- - It was supposed to be "the good war";
a war against terror; a war of liberation. It was intended to
fix the eyes of the world on America's state of the art
weaponry, its crack troops and its overwhelming firepower. It
was supposed to demonstrate—once and for all-- that the world's
only superpower could no longer be beaten or resisted; that
Washington could deploy its troops anywhere in the world and
crush its adversaries at will.
Then everything went sideways. The war veered from the
Pentagon's script. The Taliban retreated, waited, regrouped and
retaliated. They enlisted support from the Pashtuns and the
tribal leaders who could see that America would never honor its
commitments; that order would never be restored. Operation
Enduring Freedom has brought neither peace nor prosperity to
Afghanistan; just occupation. Seven years have passed and the
country is still ruled by warlords and drug-merchants. Nothing
has gotten better. The country is in shambles and the government
is a fraud. The humiliation of foreign occupation persists while
the killing goes on with no end in sight.
War is not foreign policy. It is slaughter. Seven years later;
it's still slaughter. The Taliban have taken over more than half
of Afghanistan. They have conducted military operations in the
capital of Kabul. They're dug in at Logar, Wardak and Ghazni and
control vast swathes of territory in Zabul, Helmand, Urzgan and
Kandahar. Now they are getting ready to step-up operations and
mount a Spring offensive. That means the hostilities will
progressively intensify.
The Taliban's approach is methodical and deliberate. They've
shown they can survive the harshest conditions and still achieve
tactical victories over a better-equipped enemy. They are
highly-motivated and believe their cause is just. After all,
they're not fighting to occupy a foreign nation; they're
fighting to defend their own country. That strengthens their
resolve and keeps morale high. When NATO and American troops
leave Afghanistan; the Taliban will remain, just as they did
when the Russians left 20 years ago. No difference. The US
occupation will just be another grim footnote in the country's
tragic history.
The United States has gained nothing from its invasion of
Afghanistan. US troops do not control even a square inch of
Afghan soil. The moment a soldier lifts his boot-heel; that
ground is returned to the native people. That won't change
either. General Dan McNeill said recently that "if proper US
military counterinsurgency doctrine were followed; the US would
need 400,000 troops to defeat Pashtun tribal resistance in
Afghanistan." Currently, the US and NATO have only 66,000 troops
on the ground and the allies are refusing to send more. On a
purely logistical level; victory is impossible.
The battle for hearts and minds has been lost, too. A statement
from the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA)
sums it up like this:
"The reinstatement of the Northern Alliance to power crushed the
hopes of our people for freedom and prosperity and proved that,
for the Bush administration, defeating terrorism has no meaning
at all....The US doesn’t want to defeat the Taliban and
Al-Qaeda, because then they will have no excuse to stay in
Afghanistan and achieve their economic and strategic goals in
the region....After seven years, there is no peace, human
rights, democracy or reconstruction in Afghanistan. The
destitution and suffering of our people is increasing everyday.
...We believe that if the troops leave Afghanistan, our people
will become more free and come out of their current puzzlement
and doubts...Afghanistan’s freedom can only be achieved by
Afghan people themselves. Relying on one enemy to defeat another
is a wrong policy which has just tightened the grip of the
Northern Alliance and their masters on the neck of our nation."
(RAWA www.rawa.org)
Gradually, the Allies are beginning to see that Bush's war
cannot be won and that continuing the fighting is
counterproductive. There is no military solution to the conflict
in Afghanistan and the political objectives are getting murkier
all the time. The lack of direction just adds to the growing
frustration.
Recently Secretary of Defense Robert Gates tried to bully the
allies into sending more combat troops to fight in the South,
but he met with stiff resistance . He said:
"I am concerned that many people on this continent may not
comprehend the magnitude of the direct threat to European
security," Gates said. "We must not become a two-tiered alliance
of those who are willing to fight and those who are not. Such a
development, with all its implications for collective security,
would in effect destroy the alliance."
But public support for the war is waning in Europe. This is
America's war, not theirs. Europeans don't need to occupy
foreign nations to meet their energy needs. Their economies are
thriving and they can simply pay for their fuel on the open
market. Only America wants the war. It's all part of a crazy
geopolitical "grand strategy" to project US power into the
region to control its resources. So far, there's no indication
that the plan will succeed.
Germany has the third biggest economy in the world. Over the
last few years, they have strengthened ties with Russia and made
agreements that will satisfy their long-term energy needs. But
German involvement in Afghanistan has put a strain on relations
with Moscow. Putin thinks that the US is using the war to put
down roots in Central Asia so it can control pipeline-routes
from the Caspian Basin while surrounding Russia and China with
military bases. Putin is right. Naturally, he'd like to persuade
German Chancellor Angela Merkel to withdraw from Afghanistan
which would strike a blow against the US-led alliance. And, that
is the way it will probably turn out, too.
Eventually, German leaders will see that its foolish to tweak
the nose of the people who provide them with energy (Russia)
just to support Washington's adventures. When Germany withdraws
from Afghanistan; NATO will disband, new coalitions will form,
and the transatlantic alliance fall apart. The cracks are
already visible.
President Bush has said that the war in Afghanistan must
continue or the country will become a haven for drugs, terrorism
and organized crime. He says we are fighting a “poisonous
ideology of Islamic extremism which threatens to become a global
movement”.
But the Taliban and Pashtun tribesmen see it differently. They
see the conflict as an imperial war of aggression which has only
added to the suffering of their people. A recent report by the
United Nations Human Development Fund appears to support this
view. It shows that Afghanistan has fallen in every category.
The average life expectancy has gone down, malnutrition has
risen, literacy has dropped, and more than half the population
is living below the poverty-line. Hundreds of thousands of
people have been internally displaced by the war. The occupation
has created plenty of misery, but no democracy. The war was a
failure.
Afghanistan now produces 90% of the world's opium; more than any
other country. The booming drug trade is the direct corollary of
the US invasion. No one even denies this. Bush has created the
world's largest narco-colony. Is that success?
Presently, there are no plans to improve the lives of ordinary
Afghanis or to remove the warlords. Reconstruction is at a
standstill. If the US stays in Afghanistan, the situation 10
years from now will be the same as it is today, only more people
will have needlessly died. Most Afghanis now understand that the
promise of democracy was a lie. The only thing the occupation
has brought is more grinding poverty and random violence.
There's no back-up plan for Afghanistan. In fact, there is no
plan at all. The administration thought the Taliban would see
America's high-tech, laser-guided weaponry and run for the
hills. They did. Now they're back. And now we are embroiled in
an “unwinnable” war with a tenacious enemy that grows stronger
and more resolute by the day.
Eventually, the Europeans will see the futility of the war and
leave. And that will be the end of NATO.
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