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A lot of people will make the point today that we should leave Afghanistan as soon as possible now that our top goal of going over there has been accomplished. This comes, ironically, eight years to the day after President Bush declared Mission Accomplished in regard to Iraq — and can anyone remind me what that mission was?
We declared two wars to target Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. They were in Afghanistan and Iraq. We killed bin Laden in Pakistan.
The idea that Iraq had anything to do with Osama bin Laden and the attacks against this country was comical and tragic at the same time. Now that we have killed bin Laden in Pakistan, can we ask the incredibly wrong neo-cons what Iraq had to do with 9/11 again? And will they apologize for leading us into Iraq when it turns out we were right, the enemy was many countries away?
But that’s obvious, though it will not be mentioned enough today. So, let’s talk about Afghanistan. Yes, we did chase bin Laden from there initially — about ten years ago. But since then we have been fighting a senseless war with the Taliban and God knows who else, when we knew or suspected that bin Laden was in Pakistan. So, what did all of those nearly pointless campaigns in different parts of Afghanistan accomplish when Osama bin Laden was sitting in a house in the suburbs of Pakistan’s capital?
Bottom line — endless war didn’t work. In the end, we found the man who authorized the attacks on 9/11 through good intelligence work and killed him with a very small, targeted strike with our best trained forces. We didn’t use an army battalion or a surge or huge ground troops backed up by Abrams tanks. It was a surgical strike pulled off by a small unit. Imagine if we had invaded Pakistan instead to accomplish our objective (they were only nominally cooperating with us — he was sitting right outside their capital). How little sense would that have made? Just about as much sense as the other wars made — not much at all.
War is the wrong strategy when fighting terrorism. Whether it was our tactical strike against an Al Qaeda leader in Somalia or this tactical strike in Pakistan, it’s obvious what the much better strategy is compared to big, lumbering, incredibly costly and casualty heavy wars that we have started in the past. I hope we learn from our mistakes and our successes.
19 Comments
Thanks Cenk! I think you have that part right. The reason to avoid going to war is not just the cost and the death but that you can never really know how it will end in advance there are far more negative endings than positive ones.
“So, what did all of those nearly pointless campaigns in different parts of Afghanistan accomplish when Osama bin Laden was sitting in a house in the suburbs of Pakistan’s capital?”
It accomplished the goals of the elitists to securely steal the natural gas fields of the Muddle East.
I know it’s common practice to use the word “we” when describing the actions of the government but please everyone stop doing it. It’s like the bailout of the “too big to fails” where they monopolize the leveraged profits and rig the system so “we” pay their losses.
Likewise when using “we” it spreads the guilt to all the people of the US when we well know that “we” don’t have any control of what the psychos who run the country do.
Maybe we are doing the war leaders a favor by taking them at their word that 911 and bin Laden were the reasons for their wars. Of course, the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan was artificially drawn, by the West, and never a real one. But we had a semblance of an arrangement with Pakistan that kept us from just invading that country.
Not only was he sitting right outside Islamabad, but next to their version of West Point!
The Indian press and politicians are using these facts to tweak both Pakistan and the US — Pakistan, for harboring the world’s most despised terrorist not named “George W. Bush”, and the US, for putting up with Pakistan’s lies over this.
Bins usefulness had run out. He was never going to taken alive and nobody not even the Pakis wanted that to happen. I don’t believe for a sec. we didn’t know where he was long ago. We simply turned our eyes away because Pakistan is our supposed ally. What changed is anyones guess?
The war in Afghanistan has never been about Osama bin Laden any more than Spanish American war was about the Maine. Just another, (lame), excuse to flex our muscles and impose our rules on somebody else in order to exploit them and/or their resources. Just another justification for feeding the MIC endless treasure. There will be another booger man and they are already floating candidates.
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Okay think about the following:
1. When Saddam Hussein was captured, they didn’t just quickly “bury away his body at sea“, did they?
2. There is no “Sea” anywhere near Pakistan. Hmmm….
3. With over 70% of the Country now opposed to the endless Foreign Occupation of Afghanistan, even more against the Iraq War, and pressure mounting against the endless Pakistan and Libya operations from both Parties, what better way to prop-up brand new pro-War fervor than to announce that this 6-and-a-half-foot, 70-year-old man with a cane, and dialysis machine that nobody could find before (with a Trillion dollar Military budget?) is now “dead”. Whoopie! Mission Accomplished! Meanwhile we’re still wasting away Trillions of dollars overseas, the value of the dollar is shrinking, and we’re going Bankrupt. Some victory.
Sorry, I ain’t buying it.
I claim this is more manufactured CIA-Pentagon-WhiteHouse propaganda to boost up their unpopular expanded and obviously endless Warfare policies.
For if we were to actually receive honest news about Foreign Policy, it would then have to be said that Osama Bin Laden was actually a recruit and trained employee of the American CIA. How does it feel then to be attacked/killed by CIA operatives? Should they exist from our tax dollars in the first place? The anger would have properly been directed at the CIA itself, and not one man. We would have to also hear that Osama himself had stated that it was the U.S. violence, and its Middle-East Bombings, Military Installations, and U.S. sponsoring of repressive and murderous regimes in Saudi Arabia which was the motivation for retaliation against the United States.
It’s hard to imagine that Americans would not also want similar retaliation — if some other Country did to us what we’ve been doing to these poor third-world Middle East Nations for years and years and years.
Either way you look at it, The United States has systematically killed, slaughtered, mamed, burned, jailed, and tortured far, far more innocent people (numbering in the Millions) than any alleged “terrorist” ever has, ever will, or ever could even dream of.
The real terrorsts are still at large.
And until The United States is finally uprooted and drowned in the Atlantic Ocean, The King of Death and Terror…..will not have been “buried at sea”.
Thank you, freesociety. A voice of reason in the wilderness.
Yeah. Just like Alex Jones….
If the rest of “we” just stand around paying our tax dollars and allowing this global killing machine to thrive why should the guilt not be “spread around” (like the wealth).
The corporate media campaign has already begun marginalizing anyone who questions the official story. “Whats you problem buddy!” It’s perfectly normal to shoot a guy in the head, proclaim to the world that he is dead and dump his body at sea before anyone can see it!
Are we really that gullible?
Golden oldie from Arundhati Roy :
http://www.commondreams.org/views01/1003-09.htm
Lots of gems but this one takes the prize:
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Someone recently said that if Osama bin Laden didn’t exist, America would have had to invent him. But, in a way, America did invent him. He was among the jihadis who moved to Afghanistan in 1979 when the CIA commenced its operations there. Bin Laden has the distinction of being created by the CIA and wanted by the FBI. In the course of a fortnight he has been promoted from suspect to prime suspect and then, despite the lack of any real evidence, straight up the charts to being “wanted dead or alive”.
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Heh! When you’re right, you’re right. Guess when a socialist agrees with a libertarian, people should sit up and take notice. Whatever they agree on is probably the truth.
“2. There is no “Sea” anywhere near Pakistan. Hmmm…. ”
I suppose the Indian Ocean doesn’t count as a “sea,” then. Slouching towards Jerusalem, another conspiracy theory is about to be born.
Oh. Joy. The Jewish Zionist International conspiracy controls the banks. The Masons practice satanic rites and run the banks. JFK was killed by the CIA/LBJ/anti-Castro Cubans/Mafia. 9/11 was planned years in advance by the American government. Obama was born in Kenya. Elvis and Osama are still ALIVE!
I’m in the wrong business. I really should go into conspiracy fiction.
You are so right. Unfortunately,sometimes this country goes to war on impulse and sentiment, not for strategic reason, ala Iraq. At the same time we already have a battle in Afghanistan fighting terrorism. We shift assets into the new fight and hire contractors in Afgahanistan. Cenk, you have to understand many Corporations would fold if we had Peace.
You clearly already operate in fiction (by your statements above). And if you really think that John Kennedy was assassinated by just a “lone gunman” … then there is no hope for you.
Truth is treason in The Empire of Lies.
Maybe that’s why Bradley Manning sits in a Jail cell, and Dick Cheney still gets Secret Service protection.
One must look outside the U.S. Media for the actual News in such a society.
Wrong, endless war works perfectly at accomplishing the real objective, which is profiting defense contractors, oil companies and all the other corporate vermin who dictate US foreign and domestic policy.
Not merely “profiting”, contractors and corporations, ratfood, but also allowing and “encouraging” both, the first through state secrets, and the second by legal fiat … to be enshrined in their power of increasingly total control, unchecked, unchallenged, and essentially un-remarked upon.
Wars are NOT about “justice” or reasonable reaction to perceived threat, wars are the excuse used to further debase and destroy civil society and the rule of law.
DW