Gary J Carter
2008-08-07 20:24:08 UTC
Should Americans Really Consider Afghanistan the "Right" War?
Posted by Liliana Segura, AlterNet at 11:00 AM on July 31, 2008.
With Americans still convinced it is the "good war" and more troops
headed its way, an honest debate about Afghanistan is long overdue.
Watch "Meet the Bloggers" on Friday at 1pm EST to join the discussion
on U.S. policy in Afghanistan.
In the spring of 2004, Time Magazine ran a cover story posing the
question: "Remember Afghanistan?" One year after the U.S.-led invasion
of Iraq, the message was clear: the war in Afghanistan, started in
retaliation for 9/11 and continuing years later, was "The Forgotten
War."
That was March 8, 2004. A few weeks later, in Fallujah, a group of
Blackwater mercenaries were ambushed and slaughtered, their burning
bodies hung from a bridge on the Euphrates River. It was, as Jeremy
Scahill would describe it, "the day the war turned;" the U.S. military
laid waste to the Iraqi city, the resistance to the war caught fire,
and the rest, well, one can only wish the rest was history.
Regardless, Iraq at the time was front page news.
Four years later, the war has fallen off the media's radar. Network
coverage, consistently on the decline, has been "massively scaled back
this year" alone. With recent news coverage of the occupation abysmal,
perhaps it should surprise no one that Afghanistan, traditionally the
more neglected of the two, should be even more marginalized. But now
that's beginning to change. The U.S. presidential race -- not to
mention thriving opium production and a recent succession of bloody
attacks -- have shifted people's attention back to Afghanistan. The
picture isn't pretty -- and it's getting worse. A Pentagon study
released last month predicts a rise in already steep levels of
violence in Afghanistan, reporting that the Taliban "regrouped after
its fall from power and have coalesced into a resilient insurgency."
"It now poses a challenge to the Afghan government's authority in some
rural areas. The Taliban is likely to maintain or even increase the
scope and pace of its terrorist attacks and bombings in 2008."
The trouble in Afghanistan is hardly a recent development, invisible
though it has been to so many for so long. Reporting from Kabul in
September 2006, Nation reporter Christian Parenti described the
country "in a deepening crisis," citing government corruption and an
alarming lack of security "due to Taliban insurgency and general
lawlessness." Nevertheless, with the American public increasingly fed
up with the war in Iraq, efforts to revive the popularity of the
mission in Afghanistan are working -- even as most Americans aren't
certain what the mission actually is. "Americans Say Afghanistan, not
Iraq, Should be Priority," reported Congressional Quarterly on
Wednesday, citing a USA Today/Gallup Poll that found that "a plurality
of Americans believe the war in Afghanistan is more important than the
one in Iraq by a 44 percent to 38 percent margin," As for the rest?
"Ten percent say 'both equally' and 8 percent have no opinion."
" Despite the succession of polls that say it was a mistake for the
U.S. to invade Iraq, support remains high for the decision to go to
war in Afghanistan, which was made in response to the Sept. 11, 2001
terrorist attacks. Asked if going into Afghanistan was a mistake,
Americans said no by a 68 percent to 28 percent margin.
In addition, more than half of Americans would support sending
additional troops to Afghanistan and diverting troops from Iraq to
Afghanistan.
What polls like these reveal, beyond the ease with which the
candidates' rhetoric on Afghanistan melds with public opinion, is a
pretty glaring misunderstanding of the war on Afghanistan, or, as Time
called it on its cover this week, "The Good War," by most Americans.
The notion that Afghanistan was the "right front" of the so-called
"War on Terror" has long been perpetuated by everyone from Barack
Obama to Jon Stewart, who has cheerleaded the war for years. As he
told Colin Powell in 2005, "The Afghanistan war, man did I dig that.
I'd like to go again."
Note to Mr. Stewart: the war in Afghanistan is far from over. In fact,
as former UN ambassador Richard Holbrooke wrote in the Washington Post
earlier this year, "the conflict in Afghanistan will be far more
costly and much, much longer than Americans realize. This war, already
in its seventh year, will eventually become the longest in American
history, surpassing even Vietnam."
Indeed, just weeks ago, Congress approved a major spending measure for
the wars of Iraq and Afghanistan that makes it clear the U.S. has no
plans to leave Afghanistan anytime soon, including $62 million for an
ammunition storage facility and $41million for a 30-megawatt power
plant at Bagram Air Base. According to the Pentagon, "As a forward
operating site, Bagram must be able to provide for a long term, steady
state presence which is able to surge to meet theater contingency
requirements."
Plans to escalate the military presence in Afghanistan come at a time
when, like Iraq, the country is in dire need of humanitarian
assistance. "Falling Short," a report released this past March by
Oxfam, lays out what's needed in financial assistance to help rebuild
Afghanistan. As the title would suggest, it's a lot more than what's
being provided. "The prospects for peace in Afghanistan are being
undermined because Western countries are failing to deliver on their
promises of aid to the tune of $10 billion and because aid going to
the country is used ineffectively," the report concludes.
Whether a moral and effective way to end the occupation in Afghanistan
exists, the larger problem is that the notion of open-ended war
currently known as the "War on Terror" continues to function as
legitimate U.S. policy. One would hope that a new administration might
mean a new perspective on the use of U.S. power, given how devastating
the "War on Terror" has been, both in terms of its victims abroad and
the erosion of democracy at home. Unfortunately, there are few signs
that the departure of the Bush administration will bring something
more imaginative or humane than a military solution to the problems we
face abroad. (This is not a new problem, of course; just look at the
ongoing "War on Drugs.") For now, the overheated language of the
presidential campaign promises to provide even less to be optimistic
about. While certainly it is reassuring that Barack Obama considers
diplomacy a legitimate way to address potential threats to national
security -- especially compared to the madness of John "Bomb Iran"
McCain -- he nevertheless has consistently adopted the language of the
War on Terror to articulate his foreign policy ideas. In an example I
pointed out earlier this year, in a 2007 speech in Chicago, Obama
described "five ways America will begin to lead again when I'm
president."
The first way was by "building the first truly 21st century military
and showing wisdom in how we deploy it." Such a military would "stay
on the offense, from Djibouti to Kandahar." "No president should ever
hesitate to use force -- unilaterally if necessary -- to protect
ourselves and our vital interests "
Obama's plan to withdraw troops from Iraq to send to Afghanistan
should surprise no one who has followed his plans as would-be
commander in chief.
As Afghanistan once again becomes a topic for discussion nearly seven
years after the invasion, it's about time Americans realize that it is
a country that represents much more than a battleground against
al-Qaeda. It is a country whose population has suffered for decades at
the hands war and foreign occupation. As for the "good war," as
Marjorie Cohn points out, "the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan was as
illegal as the invasion of Iraq." "The invasion of Afghanistan was not
legitimate self-defense under [the UN Charter] because the attacks on
September 11 were criminal attacks, not 'armed attacks' by another
country. Afghanistan did not attack the United States."
Posted by Liliana Segura, AlterNet at 11:00 AM on July 31, 2008.
With Americans still convinced it is the "good war" and more troops
headed its way, an honest debate about Afghanistan is long overdue.
Watch "Meet the Bloggers" on Friday at 1pm EST to join the discussion
on U.S. policy in Afghanistan.
In the spring of 2004, Time Magazine ran a cover story posing the
question: "Remember Afghanistan?" One year after the U.S.-led invasion
of Iraq, the message was clear: the war in Afghanistan, started in
retaliation for 9/11 and continuing years later, was "The Forgotten
War."
That was March 8, 2004. A few weeks later, in Fallujah, a group of
Blackwater mercenaries were ambushed and slaughtered, their burning
bodies hung from a bridge on the Euphrates River. It was, as Jeremy
Scahill would describe it, "the day the war turned;" the U.S. military
laid waste to the Iraqi city, the resistance to the war caught fire,
and the rest, well, one can only wish the rest was history.
Regardless, Iraq at the time was front page news.
Four years later, the war has fallen off the media's radar. Network
coverage, consistently on the decline, has been "massively scaled back
this year" alone. With recent news coverage of the occupation abysmal,
perhaps it should surprise no one that Afghanistan, traditionally the
more neglected of the two, should be even more marginalized. But now
that's beginning to change. The U.S. presidential race -- not to
mention thriving opium production and a recent succession of bloody
attacks -- have shifted people's attention back to Afghanistan. The
picture isn't pretty -- and it's getting worse. A Pentagon study
released last month predicts a rise in already steep levels of
violence in Afghanistan, reporting that the Taliban "regrouped after
its fall from power and have coalesced into a resilient insurgency."
"It now poses a challenge to the Afghan government's authority in some
rural areas. The Taliban is likely to maintain or even increase the
scope and pace of its terrorist attacks and bombings in 2008."
The trouble in Afghanistan is hardly a recent development, invisible
though it has been to so many for so long. Reporting from Kabul in
September 2006, Nation reporter Christian Parenti described the
country "in a deepening crisis," citing government corruption and an
alarming lack of security "due to Taliban insurgency and general
lawlessness." Nevertheless, with the American public increasingly fed
up with the war in Iraq, efforts to revive the popularity of the
mission in Afghanistan are working -- even as most Americans aren't
certain what the mission actually is. "Americans Say Afghanistan, not
Iraq, Should be Priority," reported Congressional Quarterly on
Wednesday, citing a USA Today/Gallup Poll that found that "a plurality
of Americans believe the war in Afghanistan is more important than the
one in Iraq by a 44 percent to 38 percent margin," As for the rest?
"Ten percent say 'both equally' and 8 percent have no opinion."
" Despite the succession of polls that say it was a mistake for the
U.S. to invade Iraq, support remains high for the decision to go to
war in Afghanistan, which was made in response to the Sept. 11, 2001
terrorist attacks. Asked if going into Afghanistan was a mistake,
Americans said no by a 68 percent to 28 percent margin.
In addition, more than half of Americans would support sending
additional troops to Afghanistan and diverting troops from Iraq to
Afghanistan.
What polls like these reveal, beyond the ease with which the
candidates' rhetoric on Afghanistan melds with public opinion, is a
pretty glaring misunderstanding of the war on Afghanistan, or, as Time
called it on its cover this week, "The Good War," by most Americans.
The notion that Afghanistan was the "right front" of the so-called
"War on Terror" has long been perpetuated by everyone from Barack
Obama to Jon Stewart, who has cheerleaded the war for years. As he
told Colin Powell in 2005, "The Afghanistan war, man did I dig that.
I'd like to go again."
Note to Mr. Stewart: the war in Afghanistan is far from over. In fact,
as former UN ambassador Richard Holbrooke wrote in the Washington Post
earlier this year, "the conflict in Afghanistan will be far more
costly and much, much longer than Americans realize. This war, already
in its seventh year, will eventually become the longest in American
history, surpassing even Vietnam."
Indeed, just weeks ago, Congress approved a major spending measure for
the wars of Iraq and Afghanistan that makes it clear the U.S. has no
plans to leave Afghanistan anytime soon, including $62 million for an
ammunition storage facility and $41million for a 30-megawatt power
plant at Bagram Air Base. According to the Pentagon, "As a forward
operating site, Bagram must be able to provide for a long term, steady
state presence which is able to surge to meet theater contingency
requirements."
Plans to escalate the military presence in Afghanistan come at a time
when, like Iraq, the country is in dire need of humanitarian
assistance. "Falling Short," a report released this past March by
Oxfam, lays out what's needed in financial assistance to help rebuild
Afghanistan. As the title would suggest, it's a lot more than what's
being provided. "The prospects for peace in Afghanistan are being
undermined because Western countries are failing to deliver on their
promises of aid to the tune of $10 billion and because aid going to
the country is used ineffectively," the report concludes.
Whether a moral and effective way to end the occupation in Afghanistan
exists, the larger problem is that the notion of open-ended war
currently known as the "War on Terror" continues to function as
legitimate U.S. policy. One would hope that a new administration might
mean a new perspective on the use of U.S. power, given how devastating
the "War on Terror" has been, both in terms of its victims abroad and
the erosion of democracy at home. Unfortunately, there are few signs
that the departure of the Bush administration will bring something
more imaginative or humane than a military solution to the problems we
face abroad. (This is not a new problem, of course; just look at the
ongoing "War on Drugs.") For now, the overheated language of the
presidential campaign promises to provide even less to be optimistic
about. While certainly it is reassuring that Barack Obama considers
diplomacy a legitimate way to address potential threats to national
security -- especially compared to the madness of John "Bomb Iran"
McCain -- he nevertheless has consistently adopted the language of the
War on Terror to articulate his foreign policy ideas. In an example I
pointed out earlier this year, in a 2007 speech in Chicago, Obama
described "five ways America will begin to lead again when I'm
president."
The first way was by "building the first truly 21st century military
and showing wisdom in how we deploy it." Such a military would "stay
on the offense, from Djibouti to Kandahar." "No president should ever
hesitate to use force -- unilaterally if necessary -- to protect
ourselves and our vital interests "
Obama's plan to withdraw troops from Iraq to send to Afghanistan
should surprise no one who has followed his plans as would-be
commander in chief.
As Afghanistan once again becomes a topic for discussion nearly seven
years after the invasion, it's about time Americans realize that it is
a country that represents much more than a battleground against
al-Qaeda. It is a country whose population has suffered for decades at
the hands war and foreign occupation. As for the "good war," as
Marjorie Cohn points out, "the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan was as
illegal as the invasion of Iraq." "The invasion of Afghanistan was not
legitimate self-defense under [the UN Charter] because the attacks on
September 11 were criminal attacks, not 'armed attacks' by another
country. Afghanistan did not attack the United States."