Afghanistan - Why We're There (Or Top 18 Reasons To Get Out Now)

3. Generating more terrorists is the most likely outcome -- Maj. Gen. Andrew Leslie: "every time you kill an angry young man overseas, you're creating 15 more who will come after you." We're there TO GENERATE TERRORISTS, so that there will always be a "need" for US bases. (Hunting for the elusive Bin Laden -- a conveniently unrealizable goal -- will provide a reason to be there endlessly.) Maj. Gen. Leslie: "Afghanistan is a 20-year venture". If one unfortunate consequence of all this is to draw terrorist attacks onto Canada at home, the US is indifferent to this, and so, it would seem, are our own policy-makers. 4. CONSEQUENCES TO CANADA of 20 years in Afghanistan quagmire: - depletion of our treasury (US can't bear to see our surpluses! Keeping gov'ts in debt so that there's no room for social policy, is neo-con doctrine) -- - thousands of casualties -- killed, maimed, injured, traumatized, and bereaved -- - and that's not counting the casualties of terrorist attacks on Canada -- - permanent militarization, fear directed toward our Muslim minority, deeper identification with US, loss of our independence, our ideals, and our reputation -- - probability that in 20 yrs there would be no end in sight. 5. Consequences to Afghanistan -- just look at Iraq. Permanent destabilization, aggravation of the society's existing tensions. The "stability" that's wanted is the permanence of US presence and control -- nothing else basically matters. String of US military bases is along the route of future pipeline that will carry oil from Central Asia. In true colonial fashion -- just build infrastructure to get the resources out. 6. US is following in steps of imperial Britain's "Great Game" against Russia for strategic control of Asia. Russia -- be it Soviet or otherwise -- is always a potential rival that must be contained. This predated the discovery of oil and dependence on it. 7. Control of oil trade routes out of Central Asia is the present more specific objective. To this end the US has fomented rebellion -- frequently utilizing Islamic fundamentalism as a tool of the trade -- in the ring of countries flanking Russia's south (such as Georgia, Chechnya, and Uzbekistan). 8. One of these covert operations was the encouragement of jihad against the pro-Soviet gov't of Afghanistan in 1979. Brzezinski (Pres. Carter's National Security Advisor) now admits this was done in the full knowledge that it might precipitate a Soviet invasion -- all the better if the Soviets walked into the trap. 9. 1979 saw 3 events in rapid succession: - Feb: sudden success of Islamic revolution in Iran -- this was an Islamic movement which the US did not plant or control! - April: emergence of Saddam Hussein as sole leader in Iraq -- and tilting of Iraq's foreign policy away from union with Syria and toward war against Iran (for which Saddam had a longstanding hatred). - July: start of US covert operation in Afghanistan, following which the Soviets invaded (on Dec. 24) and soon became bogged down. 10. The "pincer movement" against Iran has taken 27 years to get in place, but it's finally ready to go in 2006. Or so Bush hopes. Gaining control over both Iraq and Afghanistan is proving much harder than the Americans ever imagined back in 1979. But if they can hold on in those two countries and successfully put the squeeze on Iran, then the circle of US control around southern Russia will be complete. (And with it, complete control of the oil trade.) 11. Saddam proved an incompetent warrior against the sophisticated (and US-armed) Iran, so the US had to support him briefly. By the time Iran announced its surrender in 1988, Iraq's treasury was depleted and its advanced social programmes in ruins. (This had been one of US goals.) But Iran was the winner of the peace -- not the way it was supposed to turn out. 12. Scrolling ahead to 2001: US attack on Afghanistan was planned before 9/11: - talks between Unocal & US govt about building oil pipeline through Afghanistan started in 1997. At first they supported Taliban to this end (as the only force that could unite Afg), but Taliban proved too weak to control the whole of Afg. - July 2001: US ultimatum to Taliban to form a gov't in collaboration with US-friendly factions or else be bombed "before the snow flies". Taliban refused. - Aircraft carriers had moved close to Afghanistan before 9/11. - Hamid Karzai, previously on payroll of Unocal, was handpicked to lead "transitional government" after defeat of Taliban in Dec. 2001. 13. Once 9/11 happened, events moved very rapidly. One need not be any conspiracy theorist to note that: - blame was quickly attached to Bin Laden without there being very much evidence connecting the event to him or to the other suspects, - the propaganda connection was made to the Taliban regime in Afghanistan quickly and smoothly, while people were in an emotionally vulnerable state, - bombing of Afg was started less than a month after 9/11 -- how could preparations be made so fast (considering that the attack on Iraq had taken 5 months of mobilization in 1990)? And why was there no time for reasoned discussion? 14. Note as well, that the Taliban regime had to be eliminated because of the things it was doing right (asserting sovereignty, and clamping down on the heroin trade), not because of the things it was doing wrong (the social ills we've heard all about). (The same principle applies to Saddam, by the way.) 15. Ever since that time there has been a strong taboo against questioning the causes of 9/11. We should wonder why somebody needs the official line to be BELIEVED UNQUESTIONINGLY. (Regardless of whether official line is correct or not.) 16. In 2003 (when all eyes were by then on Iraq), the Afghanistan mission was imperceptibly changed to a NATO mission, but the media kept calling the Canadian participants "peacekeeping troops". 17. Now our leaders are saying there's no change in our mission from peacekeeping to war-fighting, because it NEVER WAS peacekeeping! Somebody forgot to tell the Canadian people that. All that's changed is that the Conservatives now do openly what the Liberals did in secret. The fig-leaf is off. 18. Meanwhile, US plans to attack Iran are proceeding. Most of the troops in Afghanistan are still American, and the supreme commander is an American. If a ground war starts between the US and Iran, what are Canadian forces in Afghanistan going to be doing -- building schools and wells?