by Ralph
Nader)
The
photographs in the New
York Times
told contrasting stories last week. One showed two Taliban soldiers
in civilian clothes and sandals, with their rifles, standing in front
of a captured U.N. vehicle. The Taliban forces had taken the northern
provincial capital of Kunduz. The other photograph showed Afghan army
soldiers fully equipped with modern gear, weapons, and vehicles.
Guess who
is winning? An estimated thirty-thousand Taliban soldiers with no air
force, navy, or heavy weapons have been holding down ten times more
Afghan army and police and over 100,000 U.S. soldiers with the
world’s most modern weaponry – for eight years.
ISIS
forces from Syria have taken over large areas of northern and western
Iraq, including its second largest city, Mosul, and the battered city
of Fallujah. ISIS forces in Iraq and Syria are estimated to number no
more than 35,000. Like the Taliban, ISIS fighters, who vary in their
military training, primarily have light weaponry. That is when they
are not taking control of the fleeing, much larger, Iraqi army’s
armored vehicles and ammunition from the United States.
Against
vastly greater numbers of Iraqi soldiers, backed by U.S. weapons,
U.S. planes bombing daily, 24/7 aerial surveillance, and U.S.
military advisors at the ground level, so far ISIS is still holding
most of its territory and is still dominant in large parts of Syria.
The
American people are entitled to know how all this military might and
the trillions of dollars spent in Iraq and Afghanistan, since 2003
and 2001 respectively, can produce such negative fallouts.
Certainly
these failures have little to do with observing the restraints of
international law. Presidents Bush and Obama have sent military power
anywhere and everywhere, regardless of national boundaries and the
resulting immense civilian casualties, in those tragic, blown-apart
countries.
The
current perception of the U.S. in these countries is that of invaders
on a rampage. Recruiting motivated fighters, including a seemingly
endless supply of suicide bombers, is easier when the invaders come
from western countries that for over a century have been known for
attacking, carving up boundaries for artificial states, intervening,
overthrowing, propping up domestic dictators, and generally siding
with oligarchic or colonizing interests that brutalize the mass of
the people.
It hasn’t
helped for these invasions to be supported by an alien culture rooted
in the Christian crusades against Islam centuries ago, whose jingoism
in the U.S. continues among some evangelical groups today.
But of
course more contemporary situations are, first and foremost, the
wonton destruction and violent chaos that comes with such invasions.
With the absence of any functioning central governments and the
dominance of tribal societies, the sheer complexity of the invaders
trying to figure out the intricate “politics” between and within
tribes and clans turns into an immense, ongoing trap for the western
military forces.
When the
U.S. started taking sides with the Shiites against the Sunnis in
Iraq, or between different clans and tribes in Afghanistan, U.S.
soldiers, not knowing the language or customs, were left with handing
out $100 bills to build alliances. Our government air-shipped and
distributed crates of this money. With the local economies at a
standstill, public facilities collapsed, fear gripped families from
violent streets and roads, and all havoc broke lose in the struggle
for safety and survival.
Afghan
soldiers, who are paid only $120 a month, will do almost anything to
supplement their income, including selling weapons. At higher levels,
bribes, payoffs, extortions create an underground economic system.
The combination of lack of understanding, the systemic bribes, and
the ensuing corruption has produced a climate of chaos.
Then there
is the reckless slaughter of civilians – wedding parties, schools,
clinics, peasant boys collecting fire-wood on a hillside – from
supposedly pinpoint, accurate airplanes, helicopter gunships, drones,
or missiles. Hatred of the Americans spreads as people lose their
loved ones.
Our
“blowback” policies are fueling the expansion of al-Qaeda
offshoots and new violent groups in over 20 countries. On 9/11, the
“threat” was coming from a corner of one country – northeastern
Afghanistan. The Bush/Cheney prevaricator frenzy led to local bounty
hunters taking innocent captives, falsely labeled as “terrorists,”
who were sent to the prisons in Guantanamo, Cuba. These actions have
damaged our country’s reputation all over the world.
All this
could have been avoided had we heeded the advice of retired,
high-ranking military, national security, and diplomatic officials
not to invade Iraq and their advice not to overreact in Afghanistan.
But the supine mass media, and an overall cowardly Congress let the
lies, deceptions, and cover-ups by the Bush regime go unchallenged
and, as Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX) put it, Bush/Cheney “lied us
into the Iraq War.”
It isn’t
as if the Taliban and ISIS are winning the “hearts and minds” of
the local people. On the contrary, while promising law and order,
they treat local populations quite brutally, with few exceptions. But
the locals have long been treated brutally by the police, army, and
militias jockeying for the spoils of conflict. Unfortunately, there
is still no semblance of ground-level security.
All
Empires fail and eventually devour themselves. The U.S. Empire is no
different. Look at the harm to and drain on our soldiers, our
domestic economy, the costly, boomeranging, endless wars overseas and
what empire building has done to spread anxieties and lower the
expectation level of the American people for their public budgets and
public services.
Not
repeatedly doing what has failed is the first step toward correction.
How much better and cheaper it would be if years ago we became a
humanitarian power – well received by the deprived billions in
these anguished lands.
What
changes are needed to get out of these quagmires and leave a
semblance of recovery behind? Press those gaggles of presidential
candidates, who war-monger with impunity or who are dodging this
grave matter, for answers. Make them listen to you.
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"The
master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has
always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and
nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and
everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs