They hate us for our occupations.

George Bush famously claimed of terrorists that, "they hate our freedoms", which many of us thought was ludicrous. If they hated our freedoms, why weren't they attacking Sweden or Norway?

Glenn Greenwald highlights a 2004 report, commissioned by Donald Rumsfeld, which addresses the question of, "Why do they hate us?" It concludes:

"Muslims do not 'hate our freedom,' but rather, they hate our policies": specifically, "American direct intervention in the Muslim world" through our "one sided support in favor of Israel"; support for Islamic tyrannies in places like Egypt and Saudi Arabia; and, most of all, "the American occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan".

Does that conclusion surprise anyone? I mean, seriously? I well remember after 7-7, the government of Tony Blair attempted to argue that there was no link between that terrorist atrocity and our involvement in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

I found that claim ludicrous at the time.

Now, Robert Pape, a University of Chicago political science professor and former Air Force lecturer, is to present his findings on Capitol Hill arguing that suicide terrorism around the world since 1980 has had a common cause: military occupation.

"We have lots of evidence now that when you put the foreign military presence in, it triggers suicide terrorism campaigns, ... and that when the foreign forces leave, it takes away almost 100 percent of the terrorist campaign," Pape said in an interview last week on his findings.

Pape said there has been a dramatic spike in suicide bombings in Afghanistan since U.S. forces began to expand their presence to the south and east of the country in 2006. While there were a total of 12 suicide attacks from 2001 to 2005 in Afghanistan when the U.S. had a relatively limited troop presence of a few thousand troops mostly in Kabul, since 2006 there have been more than 450 suicide attacks in Afghanistan — and they are growing more lethal, Pape said.

Deaths due to suicide attacks in Afghanistan have gone up by a third in the year since President Barack Obama added 30,000 more U.S. troops. "It is not making it any better," Pape said.

That strikes me as blindingly obvious. In our culture we celebrate the men who made up Dad's Army; a group of decent old British men who were prepared to fight Hitler with pitchforks if necessary. Why should it be surprising that there are Muslims who share our genuine outrage at the thought of being occupied?

And why, for so long, were most of the western media allowing George Bush to peddle his nonsensical claim that "they hate our freedoms"?

Click here for Greenwald's article.

Tags: 9-11, 7-7, terrorism, Iraq war, Afghanistan

Julian Assange: WikiLeaks founder hits out at rape smears as Swedish warrant for his arrest is withdrawn.

When Julian Assange, the secretive founder of WikiLeaks, leaked 77,000 documents relating to the war in Afghanistan, many of us expected some reaction from those embarrassed by the leaks. Is this it?

Swedish authorities have withdrawn an arrest warrant for Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, stating that the accusation of rape against him was unfounded.

The move came just a day after a warrant was issued by Sweden's prosecutors' office in Stockholm in response to accusations of rape and molestation in two separate cases.

"I don't think there is reason to suspect that he has committed rape," the chief prosecutor, Eva Finne, said.

She made no comment on the status of the molestation case, a less serious charge that would not lead to an arrest warrant.

Assange has denied both accusations, first reported by the Swedish tabloid Expressen, which were described as dirty tricks on the Wikileaks' Twitter account.

He implied that they were linked to the release by the whistleblowers' website of a huge cache of US military records on the Afghan war, which were published in collaboration with the Guardian and two other newspapers.

Friends of his certainly think that this is revenge for the leaks.

Gavin MacFadyen, director of the Centre for Investigative Journalism, and a friend of Assange, said: "A lot of us who had any notion of what he was doing expected this sort of thing to happen at least a week ago. I'm amazed it has taken them this long to get it together. This is how smears work. The charges are made and then withdrawn and the damage is done."

"It seems an unusual time to embark on a career of multiple rape," said Guardian journalist David Leigh, who has worked closely with Assange over the recent WikiLeaks Afghanistan documents. "He certainly didn't come across as a violent man, not in the least. Julian was clearly preparing to release more sensitive documents."

Obviously, as with any claim of this kind, none of us have any way of knowing what is true and what is untrue.

But the fact that the arrest warrant was made public and then withdrawn, does allow for maximum embarrassment to be heaped on to Assange without anyone having to come forward with a shred of evidence to implicate him.

It goes without saying that everyone is innocent until proven guilty, but, nevertheless, there is a whiff of a warning in the air about all of this. A distinct feeling that he is being told to back off.

A Pentagon spokesman said:

"These documents are property of the United States government," he said. "The unauthorised release of them threatens the lives of coalition forces as well as Afghan nationals."

Yesterday the Wall Street Journal claimed both the US Defence and Justice departments were exploring legal options for prosecuting Assange and others on grounds that they encouraged the theft of government property.

So many threats to prosecute. So little prosecution. This reads like a dirty tracks campaign. An attempt to blacken the man's name.

Just look at the glee with which the right wing blogs jumped all over this:

Shouldn’t be hard for the cops to find him. Just follow the trail of slime.

This guy has an awful lot of enemies in the pro-war camps. They are simply dying for him to be discredited.

Click here for full article.

"Spreading Democracy"

Johann Hari reviews Richard Toye's new autobiography of Churchill in today's New York Times book review.

He describes Churchill's attitude to "the natives":

Churchill was born in 1874 into a Britain that was coloring the map imperial pink, at the cost of washing distant nations blood-red. He was told a simple story: the superior white man was conquering the primitive dark-skinned natives, and bringing them the benefits of civilization.

As soon as he could, Churchill charged off to take his part in “a lot of jolly little wars against barbarous peoples.” In the Swat valley, now part of Pakistan, he experienced, fleetingly, an instant of doubt. He realized that the local population was fighting back because of “the presence of British troops in lands the local people considered their own,” just as Britain would if she were invaded. But Churchill soon suppressed this thought, deciding instead that they were merely deranged jihadists whose violence was explained by a “strong aboriginal propensity to kill.”

Of course, we no longer claim that our imperial misadventures are designed to "civilise the natives", as even those who support such misadventures realise how patronising and deeply racist such claims are. Oh no, we now do it to "spread democracy", but the underlying principle remains basically the same. Our way of life is infinitely superior to yours and you should be grateful that we take the time to bomb your cities and murder your citizens as, in the long run, it will all prove to be worth it. You will have our gift of democracy. Which will liberate you, unless, like those foolish Palestinians, you vote for the wrong people in which case we will starve you.

And should the adventure go pear shaped, it will never be because of our invasion and occupation, it will be - just as Churchill found it to be - the fault of the local inhabitants themselves, as explained when Iraq went up in flames by Ralph Peters:

We've done what we could in Iraq, and we've done it nobly. We should not withdraw our troops precipitously, but the clock is ticking. It's now up to the Iraqis to succeed - or become yet another pathetic Arab failure. If Iraqis are unwilling to grasp the opportunity our soldiers and Marines bought them with American blood, it's their tragedy, not ours.

We did the right thing by deposing Saddam Hussein. The Arab Middle East needed one last chance. Iraq is it. If Iraqi democracy fails, there will be no hope, whatsoever, for the Arab world.

You see, it wasn't an invasion, it was an opportunity; and when the whole thing resulted in the inevitable chaos which was always predicted, Peters immediately decided that it was the fault of the Arabs, whilst astonishingly and patronisingly stating this:

Above all, societies and cultures that refuse to accept responsibility for their own failures can't build democracies.

And he says this whilst absolving his own country of any responsibility at all for the mess which existed in Iraq.

It's possible to read of Churchill's world view and imagine that these are values we have long dispensed with.

But look at the Iraq war and compare it with what Churchill did in the Swat Valley and substitute "spreading democracy" for "civilising the natives" and that mindset is still in evidence. Especially in the minds of people like Ralph Peters.

Click here for full article.

Tags: Churchill, Bush, Iraq war, Swat Valley, British Empire

Wikileaks and Afghanistan.

It is blatantly to this war what the Pentagon papers were to the Vietnam war.

The details emerge from more than 90,000 secret US military files, covering six years of the war, which caused a worldwide uproar when they were leaked yesterday.

The war logs show how a group of US marines who went on a shooting rampage after coming under attack near Jalalabad in 2007 recorded false information about the incident, in which they killed 19 unarmed civilians and wounded a further 50.

In another case that year, the logs detail how US special forces dropped six 2,000lb bombs on a compound where they believed a "high-value individual" was hiding, after "ensuring there were no innocent Afghans in the surrounding area". A senior US commander reported that 150 Taliban had been killed. Locals, however, reported that up to 300 civilians had died.

Other files in the secret archive reveal:

• Coalition commanders received numerous intelligence reports about the whereabouts and activity of Osama bin Laden between 2004 and 2009, even though the CIA chief has said there has been no precise information about the al-Qaida leader since 2003.

• The hopelessly ineffective attempts of US troops to win the "hearts and minds" of Afghans.

• How a notorious criminal was appointed chief of police in the south-western province of Farrah.

Speaking at a press conference at the Frontline Club in central London yesterday, Julian Assange, of Wikileaks, the website which initially published the war logs, said: "It is up to a court to decide clearly whether something is in the end a crime. That said, on the face of it, there does appear to be evidence of war crimes in this material."

The strangest thing about this release is that so little of it is of surprise. The US is killing many more innocents than we are being told about. They are failing in their efforts to "win hearts and minds" in Afghanistan. Pakistan intelligence have links to al Qaeda. Am I a cynic to say that none of this surprises me?

I remember, as the US were preparing to invade that country, reading a Russian general saying that the US could pound those mountains for a decade, just as the Russians had done, but that they wouldn't win a war in Afghanistan.

During the election I always believed that Obama was focusing on Afghanistan simply because he couldn't promise to withdraw from there and Iraq without being perceived as being soft on national security. I always believed him to be too intelligent to buy into the notion of a military victory in that place. To that end, I was pleased when I heard that the US were about to negotiate with the Taliban.

That, at least, showed that the US were prepared to think outside of the box. To search for an exit that didn't demand military victory.

For, reading what I have of the Wikileaks story, only confirms that wars cannot be won in Afghanistan through military means alone. But, we knew that anyway.

UPDATE:

Crooks and Liars say this:

But what I find more interesting is trying to determine who might have sent these documents to WikiLeaks - 92,000 classified documents, mostly tactical level reports, over a six-year period. Is this person a military officer who has seen one too many operations go south? A low-level DOD civilian, secretly frustrated at the mismatch between reality and the manufactured news on the television? A poorly-screened defense contractor, taking advantage of stressed out defense personnel to slip messages out to other confederates?

Who is this modern-day Daniel Ellsberg?

But I think we might know who leaked the papers as Bradley Manning has already been arrested after confessing on-line to a former outlaw computer hacker, R. Adrian Lamo, that he had passed the material to Wikileaks.

In a series of online chats in late May with a fellow computer geek, Manning claimed he had leaked a staggering 260,000 classified diplomatic reports, along with secret video of U.S. service members killing civilians, to the whistleblower website Wikileaks.org.

And the leaks contain exactly what UK intelligence analyst Crispin Black said they would:

Diplomatic cables don't usually contain huge secrets but they do contain the unvarnished truth so in a sense they can be even more embarrassing than secrets.

The reason the US government will prosecute Manning with the full force of the law has almost nothing to do with national security and everything to do with the fact that this embarrasses them.

Click here for full article.

Tags: Wikileaks, Afghanistan, Obama

White House shifts Afghanistan strategy towards talks with Taliban.

It's taken a long time for Washington to come around to this idea.

The White House is revising its Afghanistan strategy to embrace the idea of negotiating with senior members of the Taliban through third parties – a policy to which it had previously been lukewarm.

Negotiating with the Taliban has long been advocated by Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, and the British and Pakistani governments, but resisted by Washington.

The Guardian has learned that while the American government is still officially resistant to the idea of talks with Taliban leaders, behind the scenes a shift is under way and Washington is encouraging Karzai to take a lead in such negotiations.

"There is a change of mindset in DC," a senior official in Washington said. "There is no military solution. That means you have to find something else. There was something missing."

That missing element was talks with the Taliban leadership, the official added.

People forget that the Taliban were not actually the enemy at the start of all this. Bush invaded Afghanistan to capture bin Laden and to destroy al Qaeda. When he realised that this would not be possible, both he and Blair changed their language and started to talk of al Qaeda and the Taliban as if they were both the same thing.

Indeed, Blair - before the invasion - famously said that if the Taliban were to hand over bin Laden then they would be allowed to remain in power. And anyone with a memory of Russia's invasion of Afghanistan will well remember that Ronald Reagan referred to the Taliban as "the moral equivalents of America’s founding fathers.”

So, it is not actually that outrageous for Obama to seek another way to end this conflict, certainly it is not without precedent.

The US has laid down basic conditions for any group seeking negotiations. They are: end all ties to al-Qaida, end violence, and accept the Afghan constitution.

A senior Pakistani diplomat said: "The US needs to be negotiating with the Taliban; those Taliban with no links to al-Qaida. We need a power-sharing agreement in Afghanistan, and it will have to be negotiated with all the parties.

I have no idea whether or not this would be successful, but I do think that the US needs to start thinking outside the box. There was never going to be a purely military victory in Afghanistan, but withdrawal will be impossible until you know that the government you are leaving in place can survive. And that can't be guaranteed unless you know that it is at least as powerful as the forces opposing it.

To that end, these proposed talks make some kind of sense.

Click here for full article.

Tags: Afghanistan, Taliban, Pakistan

Government to compensate torture victims as official inquiry launched.

David Cameron has announced an unprecedented inquiry into whether or not British intelligence officers acquiesced in the torture of suspects during the war on terror.

Honouring a promise while in opposition that he would set up a judge-led inquiry into mounting evidence, emerging mainly from court hearings, the prime minister told the Commons he had asked Sir Peter Gibson – a former appeal court judge who privately monitors the activities of the intelligence agencies – to "look at whether Britain was implicated in the improper treatment of detainees held by other countries that may have occurred in the aftermath of 9/11".

He said that while there was no evidence that any British officer was "directly engaged in torture" in the aftermath of 9/11 there were "questions over the degree to which British officers were working with foreign security services who were treating detainees in ways they should not have done".

Though he did not point directly to a particular case, he made clear he was referring to evidence disclosed by the high court that MI5 knew about the abuse of Binyam Mohamed, a British resident held incognito in Pakistan in 2002 before being secretly rendered to jails in Morocco, Afghanistan, and Guantánamo Bay.

That is to be applauded. However, Cameron is also having to be very careful not to upset the Obama administration, who have already threatened to cut off intelligence sharing with the UK should any details of US torture be made public.

Cameron told MPs the government intended to publish a green paper setting out "proposals for how intelligence is treated in the full range of judicial proceedings, including addressing the concerns of our allies".

Government officials made clear ministers are seeking legislation that would in future prevent judges release information passed to MI5 by the CIA or by any other foreign intelligence agency.

He said the government wanted to pursue "mediation" with six former Guantánamo Bay detainees who had brought civil claims about their treatment – and who are demanding the disclosure of MI5 and MI6 intelligence. They will be offered out-of-court compensation.

So what kind of inquiry is this actually going to be? At the moment Cameron is saying that he will pay off people who claim to have been tortured rather than have the Americans embarrassed by having these claims made in a court of law.

And he is saying that he is going to change the law to prevent judges from demanding that information be made public if that information would embarrass our ally in the United States.

So we are not searching for the truth, we are having an inquiry that will only reveal that which does not embarrass Obama.

Obama's almost fanatical need to prevent us from ever finding out what the Bush administration did undermines the claim he made when running for office that he would restore the US to a nation of laws.

He does himself and the US no favours by sticking to this stance. And Cameron, who is to applauded for commencing this inquiry, undermines his own good work by promising that nothing will come out that ever embarrasses our American friends.

An inquiry that offers such a promise cannot be said to be seriously searching for the truth.

Click here for full article.

Tags: Cameron, Obama, torture, inquiry

Republicans call for Steele's resignation.

Michael Steele is a ridiculous Republican Chairman, that goes without saying.

His recent comments, that Afghanistan is a war of "Obama's choosing", was blatantly false; as that war was started by George Bush. But he has made statements regarding that war which are breathtaking.

STEELE: Keep in mind again, federal candidates, this was a war of Obama’s choosing. This is not something the United States had actively prosecuted or wanted to engage in.

[...]

It was the president who was trying to be cute by half by flipping a script demonizing Iraq, while saying the battle really should be in Afghanistan. Well, if he’s such a student of history, has he not understood that you know that’s the one thing you don’t do, is engage in a land war in Afghanistan? All right, because everyone who has tried, over a thousand years of history, has failed. And there are reasons for that. There are other ways to engage in Afghanistan.

This undermines everything which the Republicans have been saying since the start of this war. A war which, lest we forget, they started.

Inevitably, they are lining up to call for his resignation.

- Leading conservative pundit and McCain presidential campaign advisor Bill Kristol called Steele’s comments an “affront…to the commitment of our soldiers” in Afghanistan and demanded that the chairman step down. [7/2/10]

- RedState founder, leading movement conservative, and CNN contributor Erick Erickson said that Steele “has lost all moral authority” and he “must resign.” [7/2/10]

- Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK), former chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said Steele’s remarks were “totally unacceptable” and said that he should “apologize and resign.” [7/03/10]

- Former Bush State Department official and Keep America Safe founder Liz Cheney said that Steele’s Afghanistan comments were “deeply disappointing and wrong” and that it is “time for Steele to step down.” [7/4/10]

- This morning on ABC’s This Week, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said there was “no excuse” for Steele’s comments and told host Jake Tapper that “Mr. Steele is going to have to assess as to whether he can still lead the Republican Party as chairman of the Republican National Committee.” [7/4/10]

- Speaking on Fox News Sunday today, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) demanded that Steele “apologize to our military” and said that Republicans “need a chairman who’s focused.” [7/4/10]

- On CBS’s Face The Nation, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) called Steele’s remarks “unwise” and said “we must win this war.” The senator was thankful, however, that Steele was “backtracking so fast he’s gonna be here fighting in Kabul soon.” [7/4/10]

The irony is that Steele is right. As the Russians have already shown, war in Afghanistan is a hopeless affair. It's ironic that Republicans are demanding Steele's resignation for stating that bald fact, even as he tries to blame Obama for a war which was not of Obama's choice.

Click here for full article.

Tags: Republicans, Steele, Afghanistan

Liz Cheney baselessly claims "[w]e don't know if Obama is all in" on the war in Afghanistan.

Only Liz Cheney could agree that McChrystal had to be fired, agree with the choice of Petraeus to replace him, and yet still doubt that Obama "is all in" when it comes to Afghanistan.

She's such a snake...

Tags: Liz Cheney, Afghanistan, Obama

Afghan man on Taliban death list refused asylum.

How does this happen?

Sultan Mahmood is under a death sentence from the Taliban. The torture they inflicted on him has led to a leg being amputated. His teenage son was kidnapped and beheaded. A school he ran has been burned down.

But the British Government has now decided that the 70-year-old former army officer will be safe back in Afghanistan and he must go back. He has been told by the UK Border Agency that he has until 10 June to leave after his application for asylum was rejected.

The Independent learned of Colonel Mahmood's predicament from Whitehall officials with knowledge of the current situation in Afghanistan. They believe that he will face very real danger of being harmed back in his country.

And we are saying that he will be safe if we send him back to Afghanistan? That's not remotely feasible.

I know that certain people in this country are obsessed with immigration, but sending this man back is simply taking a disgraceful chance with his life. If he is not in danger then no-one is.

Click here for full article.

Tags: Afghanistan, immigration

Karl Rove: Obama took 80 days deciding, it only 'took us 50-some-odd days to remove the Taliban from power'.

Listen to these two tossers bloviating. O'Reilly is upset that Obama didn't "define evil" or "get emotional". He complains that Obama is almost too intellectual. He is actually making the argument that Obama is too clever and doesn't rely on his instincts enough.

What he utterly ignores is that it was Bush - who he supported - working from that infamous "gut" instinct of his who got the US into this shithole in the first place.

But listen to Rove prattle on:

It took him 80-some-odd days to do this, it took us 50-some-odd days to remove the Taliban from power after 9/11, and it took him some 80-odd days to say, 'I'm gonna give McChrystal three-quarters of what he requested in order to get done the job I told him to do on March 27.'

50 days to remove the Taliban from power and yet, eight years later, they are still an influence in Afghanistan because Bush took a sidestep into Iraq, which had bugger all to do with 9-11, terrorism or anything else.

The very fact that the people who rushed the US into two disastrous conflicts can now berate Obama for being too reflective is simply breathtaking.

These guys simply - even now - don't get just how badly they f@cked it up.

Tags: O'Reilly, Rove, Afghanistan, Obama

Barack Obama sets out final push in Afghanistan.

He always argued during his election campaign that the real battle the US should be engaging in was in Afghanistan rather than Iraq, so I suppose I am not surprised that Obama has announced the troop increase.

He presented the troop surge as a necessary part of creating the conditions for eventual withdrawal. "As commander-in-chief, I have determined that it is in our vital national interest to send an additional 30,000 US troops to Afghanistan. After 18 months, our troops will begin to come home. These are the resources that we need to seize the initiative, while building the Afghan capacity that can allow for a responsible transition of our forces out of Afghanistan," Obama said.

My problem was that I always thought he was emphasising Afghanistan in order to highlight the catastrophe which is Iraq, and that he was talking about Afghanistan so that he didn't appear soft on national security.

But, he appears to be determined to push ahead. Although there was some silver lining to the cloud he was laying out:

Although Obama and his officials were careful in public not to talk about a date for complete withdrawal, in private administration officials hinted they were working towards a date of well before January 2013, the end of Obama's first term in office.

The White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, almost said as much publicly when he noted that Obama did not want to leave the problem to his successor.

My problem with all of this is that I don't see how the US can win in Afghanistan. It is a much more difficult and complex conflict than even the war in Iraq. Karzai to this day has no control outside of Kabul.

I wish him well. I would be delighted if he could wipe out al Qaeda and establish a national government which took charge of the whole of Afghanistan. I simply don't see how he is going to pull this off.

Although, I am also pleased that he has set out a timetable which determines when US involvement will end in that country. That's a first. It inevitably led to Republican complaints.

Republican criticism was swift. "The way that you win wars is to break the enemy's will, not to announce dates that you are leaving," said Senator John McCain, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee and Obama's campaign rival in last year's presidential race.

The Republicans would stay in Afghanistan forever rather than admit defeat. Obama has, at least, set a time limit for this war.

He also set out the need for Pakistan to work on the area of Waziristan, which has always been the problem of defeating al Qaeda; as long as they have a safe haven in that region of Pakistan then all US effort in Afghanistan is essentially a waste of time.

In the past, there have been those in Pakistan who have argued that the struggle against extremism is not their fight, and that Pakistan is better off doing little or seeking accommodation with those who use violence. But in recent years, as innocents have been killed from Karachi to Islamabad, it has become clear that it is the Pakistani people who are the most endangered by extremism. Public opinion has turned. The Pakistani Army has waged an offensive in Swat and South Waziristan. And there is no doubt that the United States and Pakistan share a common enemy.

In the past, we too often defined our relationship with Pakistan narrowly. Those days are over. Moving forward, we are committed to a partnership with Pakistan that is built on a foundation of mutual interests, mutual respect, and mutual trust. We will strengthen Pakistan's capacity to target those groups that threaten our countries, and have made it clear that we cannot tolerate a safe-haven for terrorists whose location is known, and whose intentions are clear. America is also providing substantial resources to support Pakistan's democracy and development.

If he can get Pakistan to engage in this way then there is the very slightest chance that he can make this worthwhile.

But, the history of foreign intervention in Afghanistan tells it's own story and implies that hope of success in that region is always going to be a long shot. He is seeking to unify a nation which has defied foreign conquest for 2,500 years. A nation which saw off Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan and many others.

It will be well nigh impossible for him to achieve what he has set out in the time scale he has given. The Russians spent ten years pounding those self same mountains before packing their bags and going home.

I genuinely wish him well, but I'd be lying if I pretended that I was remotely optimistic about this.

UPDATE:

Glenn Greenwald identifies a welcome change in Obama's rhetoric:

The claim that we must stay in Afghanistan in order to reduce genuine threats to our security is at least cogent, though ultimately very unpersuasive. But the claim that we're fulfilling some sort of moral responsibility to the plight of Afghans by continuing to occupy, bomb and wage war in their country -- and by imprisoning them en masse with no charges -- is sheer self-glorifying fantasy. Some credit is due Obama for refusing to promote that fantasy last night when doing so might have helped his case. Now that the "Commander-in-Chief" who is prosecuting the war has largely dispensed with this fictitious rationale, will other war supporters do so as well?

Obama has, at least, dropped all the shit about promoting democracy and helping Afghani women. That's not to say that those are not noble causes, but they were never actually anything to do with why the US were in Afghanistan.

Obama, at least, is avoiding sugar coating what he is doing with that familiar right wing bullshit. He's talking to the American people as if they are adults, which is why O'Reilly and Rove hated it so much.

Tags: Obama, West Point, Afghanistan

Rumsfeld let Bin Laden escape in 2001, says Senate report.

A new Senate report has found that Donald Rumsfeld failed to capture or kill Osama bin Laden when he was trapped at Tora Bora and that this failure has left the US more vulnerable to terrorism.

The report by the Senate foreign relations committee is damning of the way George Bush's administration conducted the aftermath of its bombing campaign in Afghanistan, saying it amounted to a "lost opportunity". It states that as a result of allowing the al-Qaida leader to flee from his Tora Bora stronghold into Pakistan, Americans were left more vulnerable to terrorism, and the foundations were laid for today's protracted Afghan insurgency. It also lays blame for the July 2005 London bombings on a failure to kill the al-Qaida leaders at Tora Bora.

Republican critics are likely to dismiss the report as a partisan work designed to deflect the current military troubles in Afghanistan away from President Barack Obama and on to his predecessor. The committee is Democratic-controlled.

But the report contains a mass of evidence that points towards the near certainty that Bin Laden was in the Tora Bora district of the White Mountains in eastern Afghanistan, along with up to 1,500 of his most loyal al-Qaida fighters and bodyguards, in late November 2001, shortly before the fall of Kabul.

Further evidence came from al-Qaida suspects detained at Guantánamo and, most authoritatively, from the official history of the US special operations command, which confirms bin Laden's presence at Tora Bora.

"Osama bin Laden's demise would not have erased the worldwide threat from extremists," it concludes. "But the failure to kill or capture him has allowed Bin Laden to exert a malign influence over events in the region."

The Republicans make much of the fact that the US was not attacked (again) during the presidency of George W Bush, often ignoring the fact that Bush was warned that al Qaeda intended to attack inside the United States and that he took no steps of any kind to prevent or even inquire into how one could work to prevent 9-11.

Warnings about al Qaeda began to pour in. The Bush Administration was repeatedly warned by both the U.S. and foreign intelligence agencies that al Qaeda was planning an attack. In his testimony before the independent 9-11 commission, Richard Clarke asserted that both he and Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) George Tenet "tried very hard to create a sense of urgency by seeing to it that intelligence reports on the Al Qaida threat were frequently given to the president and other high-level officials." Clarke further stated that "President Bush was regularly told by the director of Central Intelligence that there was an urgent threat...He was told this dozens of times in the morning briefings that George Tenet gave him." The White House has confirmed that, on August 6, 2001, President Bush's Presidential Daily Briefing (PDB) specifically focused on al Qaeda's intent to attack the United States, and specifically warned that airplane hijackings could be involved. According to press reports, the PDB included a fresh report from British intelligence warning that al Qaeda was planning multiple hijackings.

The Associated Press reported that "President Bush's national security leadership met formally nearly 100 times in the months prior to the Sept. 11 attacks yet terrorism was the topic during only two of those sessions, officials say..

And now we find that bin Laden was at Tora Bora, surrounded by US troops, and yet, somehow, he managed to get away.

When it comes to the subject of terrorism, it has always seemed to me that it matters more to the Republicans (and their supporters) that they talk tough, rather than that their actions actually be effective.

That's why they advocate torture, even though most people say it is highly ineffective. It's why they always advocate sending other people's children to war rather than attempting any kind of diplomacy, because at all times it matters more to them that they are seen to be making "tough" choices than actually being effective.

Click here for full article.

Tags: bin Laden Tora Bora, al Qaeda, Rumsfeld, Bush

Just Do It... I Don't Care What You Do... But DO IT!

Beltway logic:

It is evident from the length of this deliberative process and from the flood of leaks that have emerged from Kabul and Washington that the perfect course of action does not exist. Given that reality, the urgent necessity is to make a decision -- whether or not it is right.

So, making a decision quickly is far more important than whether or not one makes the right decision?

Isn't that the logic that led the US into Iraq? Why is Broder considered an intellectual when he is actually spouting spurious nonsense?

Read his article here.

Tags: David Broder, Afghanistan

Gorbachev Advises Obama to Withdraw From Afghanistan.

As we read that Obama's advisers are leaning towards suggesting that he send an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan, we also learn that Mikheil Gorbachev, the last head of state to order withdrawal of his own forces from that country, has advised that the best thing Obama could do is to get out.

“There is no prospect of a military solution,” Gorbachev warned, “what we need is the reconciliation of Afghan society – and they should be preparing the ground for withdrawal rather than additional troops.”

As the General Secretary of the Soviet Union in the mid 1980’s, Gorbachev oversaw the last four years of the failed decade-long occupation, and materially all of the pullout from the country.

The US government’s war has followed largely the same path as the Soviet one, with ever escalating numbers of troops and rising expectations failing in the face of an ever growing insurgency.

I remember reading a Russian general, shortly after the US invaded, saying something along the lines of, "You can fire into those mountains for a decade but it will achieve nothing."

And, it's hard eight years on, not to think that he had a point. I understand the need to disrupt al Qaeda, but I find it hard to believe that they are still in Afghanistan. They are much more likely to be in Waziristan, which only makes the loss of American soldiers in Afghanistan seem all the more futile.

But, it's unlikely that Obama will take Gorbachev's advice. It's almost as if - because he wants to withdraw from Iraq - that he fears being seen as soft on defence.

And, of course, there is that never ending line of insane right wingers who are screaming at the top of their lungs that the US must win in Afghanistan, and who will quickly blame Obama should the US have to concede the inevitable.

My problem is that I simply don't see how victory is possible there, I honestly don't even know what that would look like.

UPDATE:



Here is Gorbachev's interview.

Click here for full article.

Tags: Obama, Afghanistan

Jon Krakauer: McChrystal's Explanation For Pat Tillman Cover-up Is "Preposterous" .

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McChrystal is currently being sold as the most brilliant military mind - oh how quickly Petreaus has been forgotten - mostly because he embraces the right wing narrative that a surge will end the US's problems in Afghanistan.

However, as Jon Krakauer points out here, McChrystal was involved in the cover up surrounding the friendly fire incident which killed pat Tillman, and Krakauer also goes on the describe his explanation of how this happened to be "preposterous".

MR. KRAKAUER: After Tillman died, the most important thing to know is that within--instantly, within 24 hours certainly, everybody on the ground, everyone intimately involved knew it was friendly fire. There's never any doubt it was friendly fire. McChrystal was told within 24 hours it was friendly fire. Also, immediately they started this paperwork to give Tillman a Silver Star. And the Silver Star ended up being at the center of the cover-up. So McChrystal--Tillman faced this devastating fire from his own guys, and he tried to protect a young private by exposing himself to this, this fire. That's why he was killed and the private wasn't. Without friendly fire there's no valor, there's no Silver Star. There was no enemy fire, yet McChrystal authored, he closely supervised over a number of days this fraudulent medal recommendation that talked about devastating enemy fire.

GREGORY: And that's the important piece of it. And, and he actually testified earlier this year before the Senate, and this is what he said about it.

(Videotape, June 2, 2009)

LT. GEN. STANLEY MCCHRYSTAL: Now, what happens, in retrospect, is--and I would do this differently if I had the chance again--in retrospect they look contradictory, because we sent a Silver Star that was not well-written. And although I went through the process, I will tell you now I didn't review the citation well enough to capture--or I didn't catch that if you read it you could imply that it was not friendly fire.

(End videotape)

GREGORY: Even those who were critical of him and the Army say they don't think he willfully deceived anyone.

MR. KRAKAUER: That's correct. He, he just said now he didn't read this hugely important document about the most famous soldier in the military. He didn't read it carefully enough to notice that it talked about enemy fire instead of friendly fire? That's preposterous. That, that's not believable.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/01/jon-krakauer-mcchrystals_n_341545.html

Tags: Krakauer, Tillman, McChrystal

Obama's Afghan strategy hit by deaths and dissent.

Call me a cynic, but I never really believed in Obama's Afghanistan campaign claims. I know that al Qaeda operate out of Afghanistan and Waziristan but, nevertheless, I thought Obama made his claims about Afghanistan as a way of highlighting what was wrong with the war in Iraq, whilst refusing to give the Republicans a stick to beat him with by claiming that he was soft on national defence.

I never believed for a second that Obama was foolish enough to think that this war was in any way winnable.

And the recent news from Afghanistan only highlights the danger of the US's continued presence in that field.

Taliban militants killed six UN foreign staff in an assault on an international guest-house in Kabul today, raising questions about security for a presidential election run-off due in less than two weeks.

Rockets were also fired at a foreign-owned hotel in the Afghan capital, forcing 100 guests into a bunker.

An increasingly resurgent Taliban have vowed to stage attacks ahead of the run-off on 7 November and as US President Barack Obama weighs sending more soldiers to Afghanistan to fight an insurgency that has reached its fiercest level since 2001.

"The number right now is six dead, all of them UN staff," said Adrian Edwards, Afghanistan United Nations mission spokesman, adding at least nine others were wounded in the attack on the guest-house.

Obama meets on Friday with military chiefs to decide whether to increase troop levels in that place, with Republicans like Dick Cheney, John McCain and Sarah Palin all demanding that he send more troops without hesitation.

But the feeling on the ground appears to be far from convinced that this war has any purpose.

For Matthew Hoh, the sacrifice has simply become so pointless that he felt no alternative other than to become the first US diplomat known to have resigned over the war, citing reasons that reflect not just his own doubts over the conflict, but those of an increasingly disillusioned American public.

"I have lost understanding of, and confidence in, the strategic purposes of the United States presence in Afghanistan," says the resignation letter of the former Marine captain and Iraq veteran, who joined the State Department to work as the top American official in Zabul province in eastern Afghanistan, close to the border with Pakistan.

The US involvement was simply fuelling the insurgency, Mr Hoh wrote, and was causing American servicemen to die "in what is essentially a far-off civil war", or more accurately a number of small local wars in which the sides are united only in their resentment of a foreign intruder. His problem was not how Washington was pursuing the war – the issue Mr Obama is grappling with in round after round of consultations with his top national security and military advisers – "but why and to what end" his country was fighting it in the first place.

It is said that the Obama administration went to great lengths to try to persuade Hoh not to resign, and certainly not to do so whilst stating this as his reasoning.

But the facts on the ground remain resolutely harsh:

On Friday the President is to hold a further meeting with his military chiefs. He will be doing so at the end of the bloodiest single month in the conflict. The latest deaths bring to 55 the number of troops already killed in October, more than the previous high of 51 in August. They came the day after 14 US personnel died in separate helicopter accidents. In all more than 900 US soldiers have so far lost their lives in an eight-year war whose end is not in sight.

I'd love to know what people think could be achieved by a continuance of this war that could not have been achieved already during the past eight years.

The truth is that Cheney, McCain, Palin and - yes - even Obama, are playing politics with this war. It's all about positioning. Can they make the other look weak, hesitant? If Obama backs away can the Republicans hand him their failure?

Like Hoh, I admit that I have lost all understanding of the purpose of this war. I have certainly lost all sight of where the US could ever plant a flag and claim victory.

It seems to me that, facing an enemy as loathed as al Qaeda, the US is simply unwilling and unable to ever admit that the time has come to leave: that Cheney, McCain, Palin and others are only making the noises they are making so that they can blame Obama for any future attack on US soil should he ever do the sensible thing and pull out.

I understand the political difficulty Obama faces, and will understand if he feels compelled to send more troops so that he is seen to be "doing something". But hopes of military success seem beyond wishful thinking to me.

Hoh's resignation letter: 'This reminds me horribly of Vietnam'

"In the course of my five months of service in Afghanistan... I have lost understanding of and confidence in the strategic purpose of the United States' presence in Afghanistan.

"My resignation is based not upon how we are pursuing the war, but why and to what end... I fail to see the value or worth in continued US casualties... in support of the Afghan government in what is, truly, a 35-year-old civil war.

"Like the Soviets we continue to bolster a failing state, while encouraging an ideology and system of government unknown and unwanted by its people.

"If the history of Afghanistan is one great stage play, the United States is no more than a supporting actor, among several previously, in a tragedy that... has violently and savagely pitted the urban, secular, educated and modern of Afghanistan against the rural, religious, illiterate and traditional.

"The Pashtun insurgency... is fed by what is perceived by the Pashtun people as a continued and sustained assault, going back centuries, on Pashtun land, culture, traditions and religion by internal and external enemies. The US and Nato presence and operations... provide an occupation force against which the insurgency is justified.

"The bulk of the insurgency fights not for the white banner of the Taliban, but... against the presence of foreign soldiers and taxes.

"[This] reminds me horribly of our involvement with South Vietnam... against an insurgency we arrogantly and ignorantly mistook as a rival to our own Cold War ideology."

Click here for full article.

Tags: Obama, Afghanistan

From the People Who Brought Us the Iraq War.

It's from the same people who brought us the war with Iraq, so what can possibly go wrong?

A group of neo-cons - in their new guise as the more modest sounding Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI) - have sent an open letter to Obama asking that he “fully resource” the war in Afghanistan. These are mostly the same people who used to identify themselves as The Project For a New American Century; the same people who wrote to Clinton demanding that he remove Saddam Hussein from power using U.S. diplomatic, political, and military power.

The names of those who have signed are all familiar enough, with the exciting addition of that well known foreign policy guru, Sarah Palin:

Steve Biegun, Max Boot, Debra Burlingame, Eliot A. Cohen, Ryan C. Crocker, Thomas Donnelly, Eric Edelman, William S. Edgerly, Jamie M. Fly, David Frum, Abe Greenwald, John Hannah, Pete Hegseth, Margaret Hoover, Thomas Joscelyn, Frederick W. Kagan, Robert Kagan, William Kristol, Tod Lindberg, Herbert London, Clifford May, Robert C. McFarlane, Joshua Muravchik, Sarah Palin, Keith Pavlischek, Beverly Perlson, Danielle Pletka, John Podhoretz, Stephen Rademaker, Karl Rove, Jennifer Rubin, Randy Scheunemann, Gary Schmitt, Dan Senor, Marc Thiessen, Peter Wehner, Kenneth Weinstein, and Christian Whiton.

When you see signatories like Kagan, Kristol, Rove and Palin, you know that the document, however innocuous it may sound, is probably toxic; which is why so very few of their liberal cousins have bothered to sign the letter, despite Obama's open commitment to Afghanistan.

The truth is that when nutters like Kristol and Palin start congratulating you on your foreign policy, it would only be sane to start questioning what you might have overlooked.

If I was Obama I would have read this letter and shit myself. "If they agree, just where am I going wrong?", I would have thought.

And, as always, the mere sight of Kristol's signature would make me wonder just where bombing Iran featured in all of this.

Click title for full article.

Tags: Afghanistan, Obama, FPI, Kristol, Palin, Kagan

Portillo: al Qaeda and the Taliban.

It's not often that I agree with Michael Portillo, and there's lots he says here which I am in disagreement with, but he does make one point which I have been making for years:

Sometimes the government has defended the war by appealing to popular causes at home. The British military commitment is extending women’s rights, say ministers, and bringing democracy to a repressed population.

The problem with that explanation is that it is true. The campaign in Afghanistan suffers from debilitating mission drift. It began with a clear focus on removing Al-Qaeda and the objective now ought to be simply to keep it out. Our forces have been diverted into defeating the Taliban (a different aim completely), bringing good governance to Afghanistan, creating a capitalist economy, educating the people and effecting social change, especially in the status of women.

One of the reasons why Brown and others find it so hard to sell the Afghan war is because they have so often changed the rationale for why this war needs to be fought.

Originally, this was a war against al Qaeda and an attempt to arrest or kill bin Laden. Early on in the campaign, when it became obvious that getting bin Laden wouldn't be as easy as Bush and Blair had hoped, this segued into a war against the Taliban.

That's an utterly different thing. And, perhaps it's not as confusing to Americans as it is to Brits, but we all remember Blair's offer that the Taliban could remain in power if they only handed over bin Laden.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair warned the Taliban: "We will put a trap around the regime. Its choice is surrender bin Laden or surrender power."

So, Portillo makes a very good point when he speaks of the ever changing rationale's which have been used to justify this conflict. And those ever changing rationale's have a lot to do with why this war does not carry a great deal of public support.

(That, and the fact that it has been going on for eight years with no end in sight.)

But public support for wars relies on there being an easily understood objective and an easily identifiable enemy.

From very early on in this campaign, Bush and Blair performed a subtle sleight of hand, morphing al Qaeda and the Taliban into the same thing.

To those of us paying attention, it was obvious why they were doing what they were doing, but to people simply getting on with their lives, they merely succeeded in making the Afghan war slightly confusing.

And confusion never helps sell a conflict.

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Tags: Portillo, bin Laden, Afghanistan, al Qaeda, Taliban, Blair, Bush

Michael Ware "You're NEVER Gonna Win In Afghanistan With Bombs & Bullets!

I always find Michael Ware fascinating when he talks about what's happening in the world. Here, he tells us that the solution to the war in Afghanistan lies in Pakistan and it's relationship with India.

And he says that American soldiers dying in Afghanistan are doing so because of Pakistan's fear of India, much more than anything bin Laden is doing.

Tags: michael ware, afghanistan, iraq, rachel maddow

Voters turn against war in Afghanistan.

I find it fascinating that both the US and the UK governments should announce that they are willing to talk with the Taliban at the very moment when UK support for the war dissipates, with a majority of people polled stating that the war in Afghanistan is unwinnable.

A majority of the public believes that the war in Afghanistan is unwinnable and British troops should be pulled out immediately, a poll for The Independent has found.

The growing opposition to the military offensive emerged as another two UK soldiers were killed, bringing the number of deaths so far this month to 22. Gordon Brown declared yesterday that Operation Panther's Claw – the five-week onslaught on Taliban positions in Helmand province – had been a success.

But today's ComRes survey suggests that the public mood is switching rapidly against the war – and that people do not believe it is worth sending reinforcements to Afghanistan.

More than half of voters (52 per cent) want troops to be withdrawn from Afghanistan straight away, with 43 per cent disagreeing. Opposition to the military action is even stronger among women.

By a margin of nearly two-to-one, the public believes that the Taliban cannot be defeated militarily. Fifty-eight per cent view the war as "unwinnable", with 31 per cent disagreeing.

There is overwhelming agreement – by 75 per cent to 16 per cent – that British troops in Afghanistan lack the equipment they require to perform their role safely.

Despite that, 60 per cent of people do not think more troops and resources should be dispatched to the war zone. Just over one third (35 per cent) are in favour of reinforcements being sent in.

The problem with the war in Afghanistan is that most of us have lost sight of what it is supposed to be for. It began as a search for bin Laden and then morphed into a war against the Taliban, the very people Blair had said could remain in power if they only handed bin Laden over.

But, no matter what the war aims, it's very hard to believe - eight years later - that there can be some dramatic change on the ground which suddenly reverses the pattern of the last eight.

Brown continues to insist that progress is being made and that this war is ensuring the safety of Britain's streets.

Mr Brown yesterday announced the first phase of Panther's Claw had been a success, clearing out Taliban insurgents from a wide area of Helmand ahead of next month's Afghanistan elections.

He acknowledged the "tragic human cost" among UK troops who were killed or injured, but insisted it had not been in vain. "What we have actually done is make land secure for about 100,000 people," the Prime Minister claimed.

"What we've done is push back the Taliban – and what we've done also is to start to break that chain of terror that links the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan to the streets of Britain."

There's a fundamental flaw to that logic. It was the government of Tony Blair which insisted that there was no link between the war in Iraq and the terrorist attacks which took place on 7-7.

So, Brown is now insisting that this link does, indeed, exist when he argues that fighting in Afghanistan is ensuring Britain's safety.

It's that lack of intellectual consistency which is undermining support for this war. Very few of us remain convinced that it can be won. And our politicians are not making a consistent case as to why we should keep sacrificing young British lives for what most of us conceive as a lost cause.

Click title for full article.

Tags: Afghanistan, British troops, Brown, public opinion