Nice speech, Mr. President.

Now explain to me why, when committing 30,000 more Americans to this endless debacle in Afghanistan, you aren’t asking those of us who are not in the military to make some real sacrifices. You invoked the noble acts of some of your predecessors, but they were not reluctant to ask for the able-bodied to serve (even if many had “other priorities”) or the relatively well-heeled to pay more taxes. Why are you so reluctant? Don’t feel as though I’m singling you out. I could, of course, ask this question of George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George H. W. Bush, and the sainted Ronald Reagan with equal justice. The difference, I believe, is that you are probably brighter and more worldly than any of them. I know what their excuses would have been. What is yours?

Explain, also, why it is so much more urgent to keep Al Qaeda, violent extremists, the Taliban, etc., from taking hold in Afghanistan than in, say, Jordan or Syria, where literally hundreds of thousands of Iraqi refugees are living in squalor, driven from homes they will likely never see again. You and your advisors seem eager to draw dubious lessons from Bush’s “surge” in Iraq, but not so eager to consider the broader implications of massive land army invasions of foreign lands and the misery they generate. If we’re going to pour resources into preventing extremism in the Muslim world, it might be a good idea to start where we’ve made the biggest mess and spend some serious cash on helping those people whose world we turned inside-out (admittedly prior to your tenure) instead of investing in similar mayhem directed at others. Remember – Al Qaeda is more than just a group; it’s a brand, and one that can easily be emulated by disaffected and disenfranchised people anywhere.

You have said that this will not be an “open-ended commitment” to defending the Afghan government. That’s all well and good, but how do we determine when, in the cold light of failure, it is time to leave? Indeed, we do not even seem to be aware of how self-defeating our efforts in Afghanistan truly are. An article by Aram Roston in The Nation described how our practice of contracting out logistical operations is providing a substantial revenue stream for the Taliban. For safe passage through hostile territory, contractors are paying protection money, in essence, to the insurgents. Roston writes:

US military officials in Kabul estimate that a minimum of 10 percent of the Pentagon’s logistics contracts–hundreds of millions of dollars–consists of payments to insurgents. 

Now, I’m not a Pentagon analyst, but last time I looked, the Taliban was not a resource-intensive organization like the U.S. military. “Hundreds of millions of dollars” is likely still a lot of money in their world of warcraft. If the claims of these U.S. military officials are even partly true, it sounds to me like we may be underwriting something close to the total cost of Mullah Omar’s war effort. Is your plan going to address this? Wouldn’t it make more sense just to deny them those funds, rather than pour more lives and money into this rathole?

Isn’t this an enormous mistake, Mr. President? Just askin’.

luv u,

jp

Hey, what can I tell you? For a few days, it almost smelled like Obama would resist the call to send tens of thousands more U.S. troops into the hell-hole that is Afghanistan. That cloud of wispy optimism has surely passed, and while the announcement, as of this writing, has not yet been made, it’s clear that something like 30,000 to 35,000 more American bodies will be placed between the religious fanatics, drug smugglers, blood-stained warlords, and underworld entrepreneurs that dominate both sides of the Afghan struggle. To what end? Well, we’ve been promised that Obama will explain his strategy in a nationally-televised address this coming week. My guess is that it will be somewhat reminiscent of Bush Jr.’s address announcing the surge in Iraq – a change of strategy concentrating on the fundamentals of securing and holding territory, investing more dollars in reconstruction, and promoting regional cooperation. Bush’s speech was in the wake of the major disaster that his team had created in Iraq, prompting the U.S. institutional foreign policy establishment to, in essence, reassert itself and save the empire. In Obama’s case, concern for the empire is at the very center of his administration, and the burden of rescuing it will continue to be consigned to our “all-volunteer” military force. Whatever the stated strategy may turn out to be, that is the underlying motivation.

One would hope that rooting out corruption will not be offered up as a goal. I think, after eight years of this war, we are at least owed a little honesty. Corruption is the platform for the Afghan government; it cannot stand without it. Karzai and company are reliant on many of the same characters that ran the country into the ground following the Soviet departure; a patchwork of petty kings profiting on the immiseration of their countrymen and women (and particularly women). Much has been said about how much better the current government is than the Taliban. What doesn’t get mentioned is that the Taliban was a step up from what preceded it; and that what preceded it was bankrolled by us for more than ten years. The Taliban itself is made up of people who benefited from the billions we spent on training the mujahedeen during the 1980s. Just as during that period, it is clear that we are in Afghanistan for reasons that have very little to do with the Afghans themselves. The stated goal is to keep that country from becoming a haven for Al Qaeda and other similar organizations that attack western targets. It seems to me that an important part of that mission is not making thousands of new enemies every month we operate in that region.

Some might think that ending this conflict would be political suicide for any president. That may be so – it’s hard to say for certain, since the country seems divided pretty evenly on the topic. It’s never been a comfortable thing to do what’s right. If stopping these wars cost Obama his job, I would hope he would consider it well worth the cost – I can think of worse things to be remembered for… like driving us into another decade of this pointless death and destruction. But to ignore the political calculus of overseas military entanglements is to ignore history. Absent vigorous anti-war activism right here at home – to the tune of many, many thousands in the streets – all of the prevailing political winds will blow Obama toward increasing deployments of military resources to the Afghan “trap”, as Bin Laden called it. As I’ve said in this blog before (probably too many times), this is one of the perils of empire: our foreign policy is supported by a professionalized foreign legion made up of volunteers and mercenaries (or, if you prefer, “contractors”) and floated by borrowed capital, thereby insulating the vast majority of our population from the actual costs of war.  

If this were still a democracy, as opposed to an empire, we would be right back where we were in 1964-65: on the cusp of a conscription-fueled popular revolt against an unjust war. As it is, we’re… well… next to nowhere.

luv u,

jp

I am probably the millionth blogger to comment on Major Hasan’s alleged massacre of 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, and I’m sure it won’t stop there. I have to say, though, that the rhetoric I’ve been hearing over the past week has made it impossible for me not to toss my screed onto the growing pile. Commentators pretty much across the mainstream spectrum of opinion have latched onto this idea that Hasan was given the chance to do this heinous act by virtue of a culture of “political correctness” within the military, i.e. the Army being over-sensitive to Muslims within their ranks and overlooking Hasan’s failings. This strikes me as wildly off the mark and – worse – an attempt to utilize an unspeakable act of murder to make political points. It’s also part of the very common practice of mainstream commentators to avoid the elephant in the room when discussing matters related to our two simultaneous wars; namely, the true costs of such extended conflicts on those who fight in them, and the unwillingness of so many of the rest of us to share that burden in any meaningful sense.

One point few will disagree with – Hasan is a nut job who could have done a lot of things other than shoot up a roomful of people to express his rage. And his superiors obviously ignored many warning signs. But I think there’s a better explanation for this than “political correctness”, and it’s (wait for it): resourcing a major overseas deployment without conscription. They need trained professionals, and they sure as hell can’t draft them, so they take what they can get, even if they are severely incompetent. And homicidal maniacs? Who knows…  perhaps they get waved through, as well. We are sending them over to kill people, among other things. But in a nation run by politicians who would rather bankrupt us all than institute something as deeply unpopular as a military draft, the military must take the bad with the good in order to fulfill the demands of our seemingly endless wars. And even then, we’re talking about multiple deployments (some brigades on their fifth), reservists tapped, national guard troops sent overseas, the works.

So here’s this army psychologist tasked with counseling soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan – individuals who are having severe problems, no doubt. They are coming back from Iraq with stories of the kind heard in detail during the Winter Soldier hearings of a couple of years ago – telling them to a devout Muslim with fundamentalist leanings. This Major Hasan has a skinful of this stuff and is taking abuse about being a Muslim himself. He is told he is to be shipped overseas for the first time and is working on getting himself out of the military entirely. Like so many instances in the modern military, this was another atrocity-producing situation in the making. But the fact that this very screwed-up guy got as far as he did speaks volumes about how thinly stretched our armed forces are, particularly with 120,000 troops still in Iraq and major influxes planned for Afghanistan (it appears).

Not to worry, America – Joe Lieberman is going to investigate. Civilization is saved. I’m sure we can rely on him to get to the bottom of this issue, in a manner of speaking.  

luv u,

jp