News & Analysis
The Madness of Afghanistan
Leaving Afghanistan without a peace deal is madness ... General Sir David Richards, the head of Britain's Armed Forces, is right to flag up the likely difficulties British troops will experience as they begin the difficult task of withdrawing from Afghanistan next year. As Sir David and his military colleagues know only too well, the Government's decision to cease combat operations in Afghanistan by the end of 2014 has been driven by political expediency rather than conditions on the ground. The bottom line, as I have been saying since the Coalition came to power two years ago, is that David Cameron has lost interest in the Afghan mission, and simply wants to withdraw British troops irrespective of the situation on the ground. – Con Coughlin/UK Telegraph
Dominant Social Theme: Let's make sure we leave on proper terms.
Free-Market Analysis: Con Coughlin is one of the most persistent and consistent of Afghan war reporters. In fact, a UK Telegraph feedbacker noted recently:
I admire your consistent position on all matters war, Mr Coughlin. There hasn't been one single war (or the threat of it, such as against Iran and Syria) that you have not supported. My only problem is with your unwillingness to pick up a rifle yourself. Why not? More to the point, why must other people and their children keep dying for your interventionist convictions?
Coughlin ALWAYS supports Western wars and thus, as the feedbacker suggests, the logical next step is picking up a rifle himself. But that is not Coughlin's way. He will keep advising from the sidelines.
In this case, Coughlin is upset that the war is being finalized along the neat terms that Western military men might find most desirable. There is no "peace deal" and thus NO reasonable way for Britain and the US to disengage.
Here's some more from the article:
The Government's policy, though, takes no account of the military advice, which is that any draw down of forces should be "conditions-based" – ie when the overall security situation in Afghanistan has been stabilised.
It is, of course, possible that the Afghan security forces will, as our politicians keep telling us, be in a position to safeguard their country's interests by the end of 2014, although, to judge by what I saw when I visited Kabul in the spring, the Afghans still have some way to go before they have the capability to take care of themselves, especially when they are confronted by a determined and resourceful enemy like the Taliban.
The Afghans rely heavily on NATO resources to function, and without that support many wonder whether the Afghan security forces will survive.
But the biggest problem I have with the Government's ill-conceived withdrawal strategy is that it completely ignores arguably the greatest challenge of them – getting the Taliban to negotiate a peace deal.
One of the cornerstone's of the counter-insurgency strategy signed off by President Barack Obama at the West Point Military Academy in 2009 was to force the Taliban to the negotiating table through a mixture of military force and political coercion. But three years on, the office opened in the Gulf state of Qatar to facilitate the reconciliation process stands empty, and the prospects of a deal with the Taliban remain as remote as ever.
Indeed, as Sir David remarked in his speech last night to the Royal United Services Institute, "Why should the Taliban reconcile if they thought we were 'cutting and running'?"
Despite the politicians' protestations to the contrary, this is precisely what we are doing, and in the absence of any serious attempt by politicians in London and Washington to address the Taliban issue, the insurgents are simply going to bide their time and wait for Nato to pack up and go home before seizing control of the country again, with all the implications that will have for our security.
This is more of a yawp than an opinion. The Taliban is not negotiating. This much is clear. So what does Coughlin suggest? It sounds as if he wants Western forces to fight on until the Taliban finally realize they must negotiate.
But, in fact, Western troops are leaving because apparently it is not feasible to sustain the fighting. After ten years and a trillion dollars nothing has been accomplished.
From our point of view, the power elite that is trying to create global government wanted to subdue the Taliban once and for all. The tactical retreat that is being waged is proof positive that the high-water mark of elite Western control has been reached.
The subduing of the entire world is not possible and this will have tremendous ramifications in the future. The proverbial tide is turning.
But that is not enough for Coughlin. Western forces will leave behind a civil war in Afghanistan between the Pashtuns, the Punjabis and everyone else.
And Western forces will leave behind a shattered land, as well, poisoned by depleted uranium and sown with deadly mines. The Pashtuns' mild form of Islam has been replaced by the Taliban's far more ideological brand. Poppy cultivation has actually increased under Western supervision.
So what does Coughlin want? None of these trends are going to be diminished by the West's continued aggression. Continued fighting can increase the misery without providing any alleviation.
Poor Western boys will continue to get blown up and families will continue to lose loved ones. A war that never really made any sense will be pursued on behalf of a theoretical acquiescence that will never arrive.
Coughlin is worried that leaving Afghanistan will make a mockery of the cause that the West was fighting for and make the world a "more dangerous place," as well.
In fact, it may do just the opposite. A chastened power elite that has learned once again, as it did perhaps after Viet Nam, that immoderate force is not the solution to all things may be less apt to utilize violence to pursue its world-spanning plans.
Conclusion: The abandonment of Afghanistan is a hopeful sign. It was never a war that was in the interest of the Western middle classes, only their elite masters.
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Posted by 1776 on 12/19/12 04:49 PM
US Boots in Bulgaria? Foreign Troops are Threat to Sovereignty by grtv
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Posted by RoyalHumanist on 12/19/12 01:14 PM
It is clear that NATO/British/USA/EEC are not serious about peace in Afghanistan, they only want to impose their system there. The only sane system acceptable to Afghanis is Constitutional Monarchy; the Western Democracy systen had never worked there ...
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Posted by seer on 12/19/12 12:21 PM
Given the evidence over time, it is evident Afghanistan was a war perpetrated without a true cause. Because the Taliban offered some resistance, it morphed into a war against the Taliban while al quaeda (if it exists) moved to Pakistan?
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Posted by dave jr on 12/19/12 11:29 AM
@ Abu
Absolutely, I never intended to imply the British don't invade. I wasn't in any way, shape or form sticking up for the top oligarchs on this planet, but merely suggesting their method. First the explorers, missionaries then officers are deployed. Commanders, if civil war is in the offing, then troops if needed to tip the balance. Seldom do they show up on the shores unannounced with infantry and artillery to out right conquer. As I said subversion is more their way. The goal is to make a safe environment for the mercantilist. To conquer in the military sense is the last choice because it is the least effective and carriers the highest risk of failure.
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Posted by ephraiyim on 12/19/12 03:33 AM
please forgive the spelling errors. I am on a computer that I am unfamiliar with and don't know the spell check shortcut command.
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Posted by ephraiyim on 12/19/12 03:29 AM
No doubt that without the US Military gaurding the fields and CIA providing logistical support for the export of raw heroin the Poppy farmers will once more return to the abject poverty they were in under the Taliban.
They are about the only ones who have benefitted as a result of thi little war on a tribe of people amounting to no more than a few thousand at best,(the Taliban).
Unfortunate the CIA will have to steal more from taxpayers now since they will have less drug income. The Bush family will have a cash flow issue as well. Not to say O doesn'y have his own nefarious sources of income as well.
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Posted by Danny B on 12/18/12 09:57 PM
"be in a position to safeguard their country's interests by the end of 2014,"
I think that is a typo. It should read "3014".
Pelligrini told me that the Afghans were the most interesting people in the world. He should know. COOL pics from there.
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The Afghans are tribal. They don't have a big desire for all the trappings of civilization. The Russians and MANY others made it clear. You can invade Afghanistan but, you can't subdue it. How can an advanced military subdue a country of nomads?
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Posted by Abu Aardvark on 12/18/12 07:21 PM
@ dave jr
"British have invaded nine out of ten countries - so look out Luxembourg ... A new study has found that at various times the British have invaded almost 90 per cent of the countries around the globe. The analysis of the histories of the almost 200 countries in the world found only 22 which have never experienced an invasion by the British"
Click to view link
@ Bobby7
"The LORD is a man of war; the LORD is his name" (Exodus 15:3)
Here's a list you may want to contemplate ...
1. God drowns the whole earth.
In Genesis 7:21-23, God drowns the entire population of the earth: men, women, children, fetuses, and perhaps unicorns. Only a single family survives. In Matthew 24:37-42, gentle Jesus approves of this genocide and plans to repeat it when he returns.
2. God kills half a million people.
In 2 Chronicles 13:15-18, God helps the men of Judah kill 500,000 of their fellow Israelites.
3. God slaughters all Egyptian firstborn.
In Exodus 12:29, God the baby-killer slaughters all Egyptian firstborn children and cattle because their king was stubborn.
4. God kills 14,000 people for complaining that God keeps killing them.
In Numbers 16:41-49, the Israelites complain that God is killing too many of them. So, God sends a plague that kills 14,000 more of them.
5. Genocide after genocide after genocide.
In Joshua 6:20-21, God helps the Israelites destroy Jericho, killing 'men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys.' In Deuteronomy 2:32-35, God has the Israelites kill everyone in Heshbon, including children. In Deuteronomy 3:3-7, God has the Israelites do the same to the people of Bashan. In Numbers 31:7-18, the Israelites kill all the Midianites except for the virgins, whom they take as spoils of war. In 1 Samuel 15:1-9, God tells the Israelites to kill all the Amalekites - men, women, children, infants, and their cattle - for something the Amalekites' ancestors had done 400 years earlier.
6. God kills 50,000 people for curiosity.
In 1 Samuel 6:19, God kills 50,000 men for peeking into the ark of the covenant. (Newer cosmetic translations count only 70 deaths, but their text notes admit that the best and earliest manuscripts put the number at 50,070.)
7. 3,000 Israelites killed for inventing a god.
In Exodus 32, Moses has climbed Mount Sinai to get the Ten Commandments. The Israelites are bored, so they invent a golden calf god. Moses comes back and God commands him: 'Each man strap a sword to his side. Go back and forth through the camp from one end to the other, each killing his brother and friend and neighbor.' About 3,000 people died.
8. The Amorites destroyed by sword and by God's rocks.
In Joshua 10:10-11, God helps the Israelites slaughter the Amorites by sword, then finishes them off with rocks from the sky.
9. God burns two cities to death.
In Genesis 19:24, God kills everyone in Sodom and Gomorrah with fire from the sky. Then God kills Lot's wife for looking back at her burning home.
10. God has 42 children mauled by bears.
In 2 Kings 2:23-24, some kids tease the prophet Elisha, and God sends bears to dismember them. (Newer cosmetic translations say the bears 'maul' the children, but the original Hebrew, baqa, means 'to tear apart.')
11. A tribe slaughtered and their virgins raped for not showing up at roll call.
In Judges 21:1-23, a tribe of Israelites misses roll call, so the other Israelites kill them all except for the virgins, which they take for themselves. Still not happy, they hide in vineyards and pounce on dancing women from Shiloh to take them for themselves.
12. 3,000 crushed to death.
In Judges 16:27-30, God gives Samson strength to bring down a building to crush 3,000 members of a rival tribe.
13. A concubine raped and dismembered.
In Judges 19:22-29, a mob demands to rape a godly master's guest. The master offers his daughter and a concubine to them instead. They take the concubine and gang-rape her all night. The master finds her on his doorstep in the morning, cuts her into 12 pieces, and ships the pieces around the country.
14. Child sacrifice.
In Judges 11:30-39, Jephthah burns his daughter alive as a sacrificial offering for God's favor in killing the Ammonites.
15. God helps Samson kill 30 men because he lost a bet.
In Judges 14:11-19, Samson loses a bet for 30 sets of clothes. The spirit of God comes upon him and he kills 30 men to steal their clothes and pay off the debt.
16. God demands you kill your wife and children for worshiping other gods.
In Deuteronomy 13:6-10, God commands that you must kill your wife, children, brother, and friend if they worship other gods.
17. God incinerates 51 men to make a point.
In 2 Kings 1:9-10, Elijah gets God to burn 51 men with fire from heaven to prove he is God.
18. God kills a man for not impregnating his brother's widow.
In Genesis 38:9-10, God kills a man for refusing to impregnate his brother's widow.
19. God threatens forced cannibalism.
In Leviticus 26:27-29 and Jeremiah 19:9, God threatens to punish the Israelites by making them eat their own children.
20. The coming slaughter.
According to Revelation 9:7-19, God's got more evil coming. God will make horse-like locusts with human heads and scorpion tails, who torture people for 5 months. Then some angels will kill a third of the earth's population. If he came today, that would be 2 billion people.
Click to view link
See also:
"A list of the top 10 worst Biblical verse has been drawn up, which includes approval for sexism, genocide and slavery"
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Merry Christmas!
@ ALL
"Dreams in Infrared: The Woes of an American Drone Operator"
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Posted by StevenVandervelde on 12/18/12 07:09 PM
By the way, there is one thing that no one seems to have noticed. How the hell does any reasonable person expect the Taliban to negotiate if the Western forces keep assassinating all their known leaders in drone attacks? (not to mention murdering their families and neighbors) Who would ever want to pop up and say "I'll negotiate." if the next thing one expects to happen is death from above? Who would ever want to negotiate if the enemy were murdering their friends and family? Wouldn't that just increase their will to fight? Besides, is anyone really in charge of the Taliban? Haven't they made it impossible to surrender or negotiate by killing off the leadership? The Taliban is an ideological movement based in fanatical religion. It is not psychologically possible for such a movement to stop without leaders. Only the rank and file and mid level fanatics are left. No one can tell them to stop.
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Posted by moneylender on 12/18/12 04:54 PM
No one should not have entered into this illegal illicit un winnable conflict, serves them right.
Instead for 1/100 of the money spent, homes, hospitals, schools , clean water etc would have been provided. Another 1/100 would have been distributed among the people would have made them all millioners in their own currencies.All the lives would have been saved the Afghans would have flown booth the American and British flags in every conceivable places and loved the West.
NOW there is so much hatred
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Posted by 1776 on 12/18/12 04:00 PM
Putin's Arms Dealers Are Selling More Weapons to More Dirtbags Than Ever BY ROBERT BECKHUSEN12.18.12
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Posted by dave jr on 12/18/12 03:35 PM
DB:"In the First World War, 703,000 English service men and women were killed and 1,663,000 were wounded... "
You are right. My statement was misguided. At least I made the exception "in a last act of desperation". And Britain didn't set out to conquer Germany... or did they? And I need be more carefull in that I'm not thinking so much about the Commonwealth but the mercantilist, London Square.
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Posted by fabien on 12/18/12 03:06 PM
Somer Western nations spent a great deal of money and human resources theres but it seems that Afghanis will do a better job of killing themselves than we can ever achieve.
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Posted by dave jr on 12/18/12 01:30 PM
DB: Hmmm. And the Germans? ...
Yes The British flew some planes and commited some troops. But the US did the heavy work for them. And then Btitain sat at the head of the treaty tables.
Also, we know the British, as well as the Dutch mercantilist were heavy in the drug trade since the day of sailing vessels. Is that game over today?
Reply from The Daily Bell
In the First World War, 703,000 English service men and women were killed and 1,663,000 were wounded.
If you include British and Commonwealth troops those figures rise to 908,000 killed and 2,123,000 wounded.
In Second World War 382,600 English were killed and 369,267 wounded.
Again if you include British and Commonwealth troops, the figure rises to 580,000 killed and 475,000 wounded.
In the Second World War 67,800 British civilians were also killed in bombing raids e.t.c.
Source(s):
Click to view link…
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Posted by dave jr on 12/18/12 01:09 PM
DB: A draw-down is already taking place within NATO. Soon the US will be involved as well, just as it has been in Iraq.
And ramped up in Libya, Syria, something going on in Turkey, etc.
DB: he war was never about the poppy trade. Poppies can be grown in many places.
Maybe, but not so remotely protected and defensable.
DB: On this we disagree. The British have tried to conquer Afghanistan two or three times. Sometimes a war is really a war. Perhaps not in the case of Korea, or even Viet Nam, but the British have no love for the Patshuns or Punjabis that are legitimate tribes and unconquered as well ...
I don't think the British try to "conquer" anyone except in a last act of desperation. Subversion is more their way. They would rather have others do the dirty work. Could the Patshuns or Punjabis be the "independent farmers" I refered to?
Anyway, it is all conjecture on my part. I repect your opinion.
Reply from The Daily Bell
"I don't think the British try to "conquer" anyone except in a last act of desperation. Subversion is more their way."
Hmmm. And the Germans? ...
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Posted by dave jr on 12/18/12 12:56 PM
Now, there may appear to be a conflict in my views, where in this thread I claim it is all about the drug money; and in the Paul Craig Roberts thread I claim derivatives is not about the money.
I can reconcile that in view of taking down the Western economies, the US in particular, being the goal. In the West, usurping assets, wealth and means of creating wealth: while in the East, unrest is used to punch holes in Western economies. And then "take a pill or take a hit of this, it will all blow over soon" is also helpful.
Boy, I AM mired in conspiracy theory!
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Posted by dave jr on 12/18/12 12:13 PM
"There is no "peace deal" and thus NO reasonable way for Britain and the US to disengage."
There will be no disengagement. If there is a draw down, it is because there are fish elsewhere that need to be fried.
"The Taliban is not negotiating."
What is there to negotiate? The Taliban polices independant farmers to make sure they don't enter the controlled lucrative poppy trade. Who needs who?
"In fact, it may do just the opposite. A chastened power elite that has learned once again, as it did perhaps after Viet Nam, that immoderate force is not the solution to all things may be less apt to utilize violence to pursue its world-spanning plans."
It is not a war that is ever intended to be won. It is a police action disguised as a war.
Reply from The Daily Bell
There will be no disengagement. If there is a draw down, it is because there are fish elsewhere that need to be fried.
DB: A draw-down is already taking place within NATO. Soon the US will be involved as well, just as it has been in Iraq.
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"The Taliban is not negotiating." What is there to negotiate?
DB: he war was never about the poppy trade. Poppies can be grown in many places.
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It is not a war that is ever intended to be won. It is a police action disguised as a war.
DB: On this we disagree. The British have tried to conquer Afghanistan two or three times. Sometimes a war is really a war. Perhaps not in the case of Korea, or even Viet Nam, but the British have no love for the Patshuns or Punjabis that are legitimate tribes and unconquered as well ...
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Posted by 1776 on 12/18/12 11:15 AM
Defending the World, Bankrupting Ourselves! After decades of American protection, our friends can form their own alliances to confront any adversary. Steve Chapman December 6, 2012
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Ron Paul says U.S. has military personnel in 130 nations and 900 overseas bases: Republican presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, gestures during a Republican presidential debate on Sept. 12, 2011, in Tampa.
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