Marisacat

War Forever 19 July 2009

Farmers along the Euphrates say that they may have to abandon Anbar rice, a higher value grain that commands patriotic pride in the area, for cheaper varieties. [Photo: Moises Saman for The New York Times]

NYT has an article up on the shrinking of the Euphrates…

The shrinking of the Euphrates, a river so crucial to the birth of civilization that the Book of Revelation prophesied its drying up as a sign of the end times, has decimated farms along its banks, has left fishermen impoverished and has depleted riverside towns as farmers flee to the cities looking for work.

…

“Next winter will be the final chance,” said Hashem Hilead Shehi, a 73-year-old farmer who lives in a bone-dry village west of the marshes. “If we are not able to plant, then all of the families will leave.”

***

Elsewhere, exhibiting drought of a different sort, Peter Bergen says we (and who is that?) can win in Afghanistan. His writings on this are loaded from top to bottom with propaganda…

Washington Monthly:

[N]or has the U.S. intervention in Afghanistan been anywhere near as expensive as Vietnam was—in fact, that’s in part why American efforts have not met with as much success as they could have. During the Vietnam War, the United States spent almost 10 percent of its GDP on military spending. Today’s military expenditures are somewhere between 4 and 5 percent of GDP, and of that, Afghanistan last year consumed only 6 percent of the total expenditure, while Iraq sucked up some five times that amount. And unlike the Vietnamese and Iraqis, Afghans have generally embraced international forces. In 2005, four years after the fall of the Taliban, eight out of ten Afghans expressed in a BBC/ABC poll a favorable opinion of the United States, and the same number supported foreign soldiers in their country. Contrast that with Iraq, where a BBC/ABC poll in 2005 found that only one in three Iraqis supported international forces in their country. While the same poll taken in Afghanistan this year reported, for the first time, that just under half of Afghans have a favorable view of the United States, that’s still a higher approval rating than the U.S. gets in any other Muslim-majority country save Lebanon. And a solid majority of Afghans continue to approve of the international forces in their country. What Afghans want is not for American and other foreign soldiers to leave, but for them to deliver on their promises of helping to midwife a more secure and prosperous country.  …snip...

And for maximum insanity, he slobbers out the propaganda on McChrystal, that he is mindful of “collateral damage” civilian casualties.. and well, he’ll be “mindful”.

This evening I also landed on a strangely straight forward and direct article in the Telegraph on Afghanistan, saying quite directly that Obama plans to build up the Afghani security forces and quite showily ”depart”, in the months prior to the re election, November 2012.  Really?  I doubt it.  Another fake withdrawal, like Iraq.  And fake food for Africa, with guns.  And a lecturing US President with a smiling black face.  Advancement?  I don’t think so.

[G]host soldiers and an enemy that never seems to be beaten despite big losses is reminiscent of another war that went awry. Journalists who have been here since before the Helmand operation of 2006 have a sense of foreboding that was present during the latter stages of the Vietnam war. There was a substantial surge in troops before the Americans withdrew from South Vietnam, leaving behind a corrupt government and army that collapsed at their first test.

The Kabul hacks struggle to be persuaded by commanding officers who fly in for six-month tours talking about a “winnable war” and keeping the terrorists off the streets of Britain. There is also growing cynicism over the politicians – Gordon Brown included – trotting out the line that we are there to prevent another September 11 or July 7. Even some officers are beginning to ask if “we are creating more terrorists than we are killing”.

…

The Americans have showed that numbers work. In the first six hours of Panther’s Claw, 4,000 men backed by Sea Stallion helicopters secured an area of southern Helmand that had been held by the Taliban for three years. Contrast this with the couple of hundred British soldiers clinging on to the same area since 2006 supported by the handful of Chinook helicopters serving an entire province.

There are now 10,000 US Marines arriving in Helmand, and the numbers and equipment could mark the “tipping point” that British commanders have been hoping for. Things could also improve once the Kabul government starts talks with members of the Taliban not wholly committed to its nihilistic ideology. That could happen soon after the elections next month.

To leave the country secure, an Afghan force of 250,000 trained men is needed. This is expected to be in place before the next US presidential election in 2012. A swift departure before American voters go to the polls is what the Obama administration wants. The current American review of Afghanistan is probably going to set low, achievable targets so it can reduce its forces. …snip…

I don’t even know what to say anymore…

***

On the flip side, Cockburn has a post up with several of the recent comments from Obama and Hillary.  Geesh.  It only matters if Bush (or Cheney, satan incarnate) says it.  Very clearly.

Against the backdrop of their co-mingled gurglings is this:

Meanwhile the troops and weapons flow towards Afghanistan, with vast, Vietnam-style “sweep” operations under way.

And how is the antiwar movement here dealing with that? Answer, what antiwar movement? We certainly can’t watch what it’s doing, because the answer is nothing. And we can’t hear what it’s saying, because there too the answer is nothing.

Where are the mobilizations, actions, civil disobedience? Antiwar coalitions like United for Peace and Justice and Win Without War (with MoveOn also belatedly adopting this craven posture) don’t say clearly “US troops out now!” They whine about the “absence of a clear mission” (Win Without War), plead futilely for “an exit strategy” (UFPJ). One letter from the UFPJ coalition (which includes Code Pink) to the Congressional Progressive Caucus in May laconically began a sentence with the astounding words, “To defeat the Taliban and stabilize the country, the U.S. must enable the Afghan people…” These pathetic attempts not to lose “credibility” and thus attain political purchase have met with utter failure, as the recent vote on a supplemental appropriation proved.

A realistic estimate is that among the Democrats in Congress there are fewer than forty solid antiwar votes.