THE PRESIDENT'S GAMBLE

Of course no one can predict with any assurance the
outcome of Mr. O's decision to up the ante and step
up the violence in Afghanistan. What we know for
sure is that more people (of all kinds) will be dying.
As Jon Meacham wrote in the Sept. 14 Newsweek:
"Local Afghans, of course, quickly resent our widening
footprint, as it leads to frequent Taliban attacks and
the planting of mines and IEDs everywhere, not to
mention the insurgents' use of indiscriminate suicide
bombings. The U. S. gets blamed for these, not the
Taliban. The logic: if the U. S. weren't there, the
Taliban wouldn't be attacking. So if the Afghans can't
step up, and so far they haven't and won't, then what's
the point?"

So it's a poker game: "we'll raise 30,000." "We'll see
that raise and re raise you whatever it takes -- after
all, there are only 1.3 billion Muslims we can draw on."
And "the more of our Muslim people you kill, the more
are motivated to replace them. The math is against you,
as is the logic."

They have a point: how can you fight al Qaeda in Afghan.
if al Qaeda isn't in Afghanistan? (In more than token
numbers). The Pres., in his speech, spoke as if the Taliban
and al Qaeda are all the same "enemy." He does this
because he is going back to 9/11 as the whole reason for
our action there. But the Taliban was not involved in
9/11, and probably didn't know anything about it before
the fact. So his rationale is faulty, and he is fundamentally
mistaken in lumping the groups together. Qaeda can
strike us from anywhere. They don't need Afghan. They
are Arab led and mostly Arab manned. The Taliban are
Pashtuns. There are 41 million Pashtuns, most of whom
live in Pakistan. That's part of the reason why Pakistan
is the key to any success in Afghan. But 15 million Pashtuns
live in Afghan. and make up the ethnic majority there. No
outsider has ever ruled them, and Pakistan doesn't even
try to rule theirs. They are ruled by warlords, as is the
rest of Afghan.

The Pashtuns are great fighters, and we aren't going to
whip them in 18 mo.s (or 18 yrs.), but we may drive
enough of them into Pakistan next door to destabilize
that already shaky government. Then the fat is really
in the fire! People in Pakistan already dislike us. That's
an understatement: in spite of $bns. in aid to them, we
are more hated there than anywhere else in the Muslim
world. That's partly because we back India in its
brutal occupation of 80% Muslim Kashmir, and refusal
to obey the U. N.'s long-standing order to hold a plebiscite
there.

In addition to our refusal to back democracy for Kashmir,
we are terrorizing Pakistan's population via CIA drones.
To assassinate one Qaeda kingpin hiding in Pakistan took
16 separate strikes over 14 mo.s. The first 15 strikes
missed him, but killed bystanders. By the time he was
liquidated, a reported 538 other folks had been killed in
"collateral damage." As far as Pakistanis are concerned,
this is simply terrorism on our part. They see no moral
difference between what we do, and the suicide bombings
by Muslim radicals. (If you want more information about
CIA activities in Pakistan, see a recent article about that
by Jane Mayer in The New Yorker.)

David Bromwich writes about these drone attacks (and
holes in the logic of Obama's speech) in an article ("The
Afghanistan Parenthesis") in The Huffington Post (12/2/09).
In the article he observes: ". . . from the president's West
Point speech, one would not guess that he has reflected
what our mere presence in West Asia does to increase the
enchantment of violent resistance and to heat the anger
that turns into terrorists people who have lost parents,
children, cousins, clansmen, and friends to the Americans.
The total number of Muslims killed by Americans in re-
venge for the attacks of September 11th now numbers in
the hundreds of thousands. Of those, few were members
of Al Qaeda, and few harbored any intention, for good or
ill, toward the United States before we crossed the ocean
as an occupying power."

So no, we probably won't be getting a lot of help and
genuine cooperation from Pakistan. And as Fareed
Zakaria wrote recently in Newsweek: "If the problem
with Pakistan cannot be solved, the war in Afghanistan
cannot be won." To recap the president's speech: On the
one hand, our very survival depends on defeating the
Taliban and wiping out al Qaeda. On the other hand,
we'll give Afghanistan 18 mo.s to cure corruption and
get their army up and running; then we'll start leaving!
It's highly unlikely that any of the good stuff is doable.
There is not now and never has been a strong central
government in Afghanistan capable of doing these things.
The country has always been run by powerful warlords.
Mr. Karzai serves only with their consent and backing.
They have the security contracts from our government
to protect our truck convoys supplying our troops. They
do so by paying the Taliban to lay off our convoys. (See
a recent issue of The Nation for details.) Between the $
the Taliban gets from us for not attacking our trucks, and
the money they (and the warlords) get from poppy sales,
and other rackets, they are able to pay their fighters and
bide their time. They live there, and aren't going anywhere.
Our patience is running out.

jgoodwin004@centurytel.net