Three Things to Think About When Obama delivers his War speech next week
by: Eli Zaretsky on November 27th, 2009 | 13 Comments »
1) The US Has a Mercenary Army.
Since the ancient world conscription has been a fundamental principle for all democratic and republican forms of government. The reason is obvious. When people are going to die for a cause, they should spread the risks evenly. In 1974 the United States abolished the draft, supposedly temporarily, for one reason. If there were a draft Americans would never tolerate the kind of adventure in which Obama is engaging. The people who support this war are relying on the poor, often racial minorities, to fight for them: people who have no opportunity for jobs and education other than what the military provides. Ask the supporters if they would support the war if they had to fight, or their children.
2) The Taliban Will Not Take Over.
Everyone knows by this point that there are more “safe havens” for terrorists in Hamburg, London or the Paris banlieues than in Afghanistan. Supporters of the war argue, rather, that the Taliban will return if America doesn’t expand the war, and that the Taliban will protect “Al Queda,” whatever that may actually be.
This argument rests on a little knowledge: the Taliban did run the country from 1994 to 2001. However, they are much too weak to take it back. The reason the Taliban gained power in 1994 was that Pakistan backed them as an anti-India ally, as did Saudi Arabia, because of their anti-Shia policies. Behind Pakistan and Saudi Arabia was the United States, which created the fundamentalist movement in Afghanistan in the first place as a way to hurt the Soviet Union. The Taliban will not return to power if Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the US do not back them.
3) The Messenger Is Not Reliable
Obama supporters claim that during his campaign he promised to wage this war in Afghanistan. This is not true. Obama ran as the antiwar candidate, filling the vacuum left by Hillary Clinton’s refusal to apologize for her vote supporting the war in Iraq. He did often refer to Afghanistan but had he ever said he want to expand that war, Hillary Clinton would be in the White House today.
Only a few weeks after taking office, on March 27, 2009, Obama sent 34,000 new troops to Afghanistan (21,000 combat troops and 13,000), announcing “a comprehensive, new strategy,” the conclusion of “a careful policy review, led by Bruce [Reidel].” In May he fired General David McKiernan, the NATO commander in Afghanistan, and appointed McChrystal. This was only the third time in American history that a General was fired out from under his own command during a war. McChrystal’s memo asking for another 40,000 troops appeared on September 20, 2009. Anyone who believes that McChrystal leaked that memo without clearing it with his boss doesn’t understand America. Since September, Obama has engaged in his usual shell game, meant to demonstrate his thoughtfulness, reflectivity, listening to all sides and all the rest of it. Please give me a break. He is every bit the liar that Bush was, appearances notwithstanding.
Dear Mr. Zaretsky:
Dear Eli–
On the Draft, you are so right! The single biggest deterrant to an unjust war that becomes perverted into cultural domination and exconomic opportunism as this one did as we blundered into greedily and ill advisedly Iraq and a war of occupation, expansion and “oilagarchy”.
When this war began we had not demonized Islam, we had not marginalized muslim nations and Arab nations away from supporting us, we had in fact the symapthy of the world to strike and to rebuild, and Afghanistan was so sick of war and so eager for chnage, that there we had loyal allies.
And we had the sypathy and support of the world to be reasonable and retaiative, and wecould have been proactive and built there and received global support for a Marshall Plan , perhaps not so intitally powerfully beautiful as the Spiritual progressives’ intitative, but certainly so many of our soldiers and military leaders wanted to strengthen the goods in Afghanistan, not destroy it as we have.
There is one problem with conscripted war: as in the past, a nation with superior migh may chosse to inflict mericless and mind-numbing numbers of civilian casualties as we did in Hiroshima rather than drafted army on the ground with children of the uberrclass,that is the plutocratic rich, the lobbyists,the President her or himself, or the kids of the politicans who have populated congress with their infernal personal carpetbagging for far too long.
Now over seven years we have decimated civilian poulation of Iraq, alienated almost every muslim nation as well as most of the European nations, and used bigotry helped along by a dishonest irresponsible media and media hype, to exacerbate misunderstanding about Islam and fan global prejudice. Right on this very board we had a beautiful article about Jewish women wearing a prayer shawl and the outrgae and hurt at her being arrested, yet how many readers would be smart and sensitive enough to realize that it is at heart the very same issue as hijab? How many readers claim my muslim sisters are brainwashed or stupid rather than prayerful and brave, when they choose to wear simple graceful modest clothing that is a sign of their faith in the One God? Only a nation closer to group hatred of muslims and Arabs than even before, is blind to the hypocricy and prejudice in this POV.
In any case, on to the second of my points
Please do not allow your feelings to pervert your recollection of the facts. throughout his candidacy Barack Obama stated that he supported the war in Afghanistan as a necessary military objective for security due to the threats posed by terrorists based there and in Pakistan’s nether regions bordetring Afghanistan.
I am a muslima nd I support the war on Afghanistan, although we have allowed the cancer to grow for over 7 years, and have destabilized the entire region by entering Iraq and making it an oilagrachy’s cash cow.I do pray and hope we will find a way to win there and to rebuild, but i do not fear the war we wage there as much as inaction, appeasement, or throwing more black market money around to arm muslim factions that only God knows why we choose the most violent and crazy and reactionary among them, and we have been doing that in iran for a long time covertly now, just a swe did in Iraq., allowing the moderates and the progressives to all be killed in the first thrity to ninety days, for the most aprt. Having seen what i have seen here in USA as a muslim i NYC for almost a quarter century, i ahve to doubt it is an accident.
In Aminah Carroll’s note there is much wisdom. I can respect muslims who want the US more involved. This is important, even if the nature of the involvement is in doubt. However, I do want to respond concerning Obama’s campaign. His main speech was called “Remarks of Senator Obama: The War We Need to Win” Washington, DC | August 01, 2007. In it he says “When I am President, we will wage the war that has to be won, with a comprehensive strategy with five elements: getting out of Iraq and on to the right battlefield in Afghanistan and Pakistan.” That can seem like he is proposing a war in Afghanistan, but did anyone think he wanted to go to war in Pakistan as well? One the contrary, throughout the speech he talks about getting the terrorists in both countries, not about fighting an insurgency. Most important, he says that when he is President he will send “at least two brigades” to Afghanistan. Two brigades is 5-8000 troops. In other words, Obama was suggesting that he would devote more attention to strengthening the Afghan government, and to anti-terrorist activity in Afghanistan, not entering into another war.
As a navy veteran of WW2, I would only add that the fundamental reason the draft was abolished was the increasing uncertainty concerning the loyalty of the draftees sent to slaughter Vietnamese who resisted our efforts to impose our
will and determine the political make-up of a former French colony.
Many draftees, alienated and fearing death in an unjust war on the Vietnamese people, saved their sanity by joining
the major drug culture that became endemic in the US Army and the USMC and caused major complications for the
commanders charged with pursuing the war. The alienation of many soldiers and marines became an even more serious
problem when enlisted personnel started ‘fragging’ their officers, that is, murdering their superiors who were part of the
command structure. ‘Fragging’ referred to the act of rolling a ready to explode fragmentation grenade into an officer’s
billet.
Murdering our own officers was an act that was unconceivable during the course of WW2, the ‘good war’, even though almost all non-commissioned personnel were draftees, they served willingly. Many like myself were volunteers.
Because our country is determined to impose hegemony over all human occupants of Earth and their various governing institutions, our government now has no choice but to recruit and pay for ‘Hired Guns’, volunteer mercenaries,
willing to put body and soul at risk for good pay and benefits. Even then, we have difficulty in finding enough Americans willing to risk life and limb in the cause of political and economic aggression, so that the Defense Department (formerly
more properly known as the War Department; the name was changed to make the institution seem more benign) is
now recruiting young foreigners to volunteer to serve in return for eventual citizenship.
onwe of Ho Chi Minh’s strategy throughout the war was to addict American soldiers. He referred on more than one occasion to the devastation adn ruin that would attend amwerica as he planted the seeds of drug addiciton in our soldiers. The war in Viet Nam was a very different theatre of war, and i was opposed to that war, as i was opposed to iraqw.
However, there are many muslims who did and do support curbing the Taliban and Al Quaida in Afghanistan and the mountain ranges bordering Pakistan, and taking a hands on approach to ensuring women’s rights and peace in Afghanistan that includes reconstruction of the nation torn to its oul by the French ,the Tribal warfare, and the proliferation of misogynistic and violence- sick perversion of muslim beliefs and culture that attacked WTC in USA.We celebrate applaud and are grateful for the sacrifice of USA ssoldiers and the British and other nations too, though we deplore the loss of life in iraq of civilians and soldiers in a misguided, remains -to- be -seen -how- deeply -destructive colonization of that nation.
President Obama did not speak just once about Afghanistan. for those of us who believin ajjust war, and believe that fighting Al Quaida and the taliban is such a war, and that it can be won, we were listening and believed in and hope that we would take this struggle to its successful conclusion and then rebuild the land and invest in the land with a new Marshall Plan. i sincerely hope it is not too late.
To me President Obama has spoken the truth all along. It is my sense that we have become very jaded as a nation that is sued to politicans who are liars,and that most people expected that obama was saying things just to get elcted. In fact he got elected because he was truthful and conveyed the way he intended to govern and the things he intended to do, such as elict bi-partisan change and win the war in Afghanistan, and look there for Osama Bin Ladin (the former American agent that USA oprobably doesn’t really want to find, in the echlon of the covert actions teams who are responsible for making so many awful decisions the jury is outr as or stupidity), In any case, speaking as one who listened very caredully to what Obama the candidate said, i can say with certainty that id do not belive him to be a liar as were the past two presidents, but rather, i believe him to be able to to be guided by information and the voice of ALL the people (not just we progressives) as well as one who has only just begun to guide the nation,and one who needs as much positivity and prayer and respect and PATIENCE as we can summon.
We have been placated or ignored almost 16 previous years of our nation being destryed from within and livng on illusions and tricks and outright lies, and an economy full of sleaze from Clinton as well as Bush…why do we suddenly expect that President Obama is going to hamstring himself by playing to one small group of ALL the people who elected him?
i appreciate so much your forebearance in allowing me to share here, and i am rtying so ahrd not to write anything and just read, but the calibre of the writinga nd the originality and creativity and passionate caring of the posts are so extremely good and inspirational, that i pray you will forgive my occasional over enthusiasm…thank you very much Eli and all./
Draft-as-Deterrent. I grew up with my first encounters with the notion of a President and a nation-state in that of the Nixon Administration. My Dad dodged the draft thanks to his owning-class peers who “bought” his draft card and made it disappear so he could continue to make their families ever-increasing amounts of money. Ever since my childhood exposure to the deeply depraved levels of official corruption and caprice, I have never believed in the idea that a draft would deter any owning-class politician from engaging in a war, particularly if that politician stood to gain financially from doing so. My own father’s experience with the Vietnam era draft was such that NOT ONE ruling class son was drafted and many upper-middlings who propped up the owning-class’ pursuits were exempted as well. This is a continually repeated fallacy that a draft would deter the US government from foreign military adventures. To do so is to completely ignore the well established, historically documented functions of class structure, hierarchy and praxis in American culture.
Ever time I hear it I recall my first experience watching the film Platoon as a draft-age kid where young women in the audience continually mocked the protagonist and the film’s presentation as evidence of male-cowardice. “If we had a draft today…” one girl waxed on loudly… and all I could think of was, ‘why are you in such a hurry to put every male in the room at risk to experience what you’re seeing on the screen?’ Whenever I hear the call, “we outta have a draft again…” that’s all I can think of: why is it that older folks are in such a hurry to end the lives of so many of my generation? Didn’t they hate the draft in their day? Why in such a hurry to prop up a delusion with my life (or now, that of my son & daughter)?
We need accountable leaders and a political mechanism to hold them accountable. We don’t need any more slaughtering of other peoples’ kids. Fix what’s broke, but please, don’t use a sledgehammer where a scalpel is needed.
I should cease being “shocked” and/or “surprised” by anything. I am not. In regard to the article on Afghanistan, the first thought that came to my mind is that few people seem to want to know “reasons.” Not only are there three “whats” discussed,: mercenary army, Taliban rebirth and unreliable messenger, but each discussion includes factual evidence, reasons, why, history. I am struck by a seeming unwillingness to include more than one aspect of a presentation in a response. We are, selective, pre-occupied with a single story, POV or event, and are reluctant to follow a conclusion from the implications of summation and synthesis, that pulls that evidence into a whole. Most importantly, those who read Tikkun and any thoughtful, principle based discussions are, generally, already converts to thoughtful positions–even where there is disagreement. None of the “popular media” pays attention to historical, reasoned information. As so, we continue, hell bent to disillusion and decay.
The facts are on the table:
A. A conscription army is definitely a deterrant. The last time i read literature on this there were only 2 members of congress who ahd children serving in the militarty. A draft would at teh very leats force the congress to put their kids lies on the lines just as the families do who truly love and value this nation as well as need the help for theirown kids’ growth and training and often, education, that only the military provides.It would prevent drawn out wars with squandering of our soldiers for corollaries such as attaching land and assets, and allowing oil and arms and miltary lobbyists and contractors to become filthy rich on bloid of patriots and oor people.
B. The Taliban rebirth is not the primary problem anymore…except in Afghanistan. Where the Taliban are already reborn, lease check your facts. the biggest problem is a defensive ideology and terrorist pollution by false notions of ” freedom fighting ” against multi-state invaders who are committing genocide against muslims along with continued sustaining of apartheid in Israel .It is NOT true that terrorist cells abroad are bigger than in angry muslim countries.That is speculation not fact, and unsupported by fact. That is not to say there are NO terrorists in these nations of the muslim diaspora.But they are far easier to find monitor and disarm because of muslims who live according to Islam and not some blighted nationalistic chauvinism that mirrors the USA’s and Israel’s.
It is infuritaing to me that my poverty precludes me from doing much besides feeding my animals and basic necessities.I had a few thousand articles from the election and from the political world arena which i have been too sick to use and were slowing my computer so much i finally deleted them all within the past month.would that i ahd means to back up and dave the files.
in any case,
C. about shooting the messenger is not just disingenuous it is absolute falsehood. Please you do the work and check the facts you have probably got more access to back articles than i do now. there are clear statements about barack Obama on Afghanistan and the war. Virtually none e of those statements are amabicuous He has stated from the beginning he planned to fight the war in Afghanistan and rebuild the country there.
The criticism you make had far mor to do with the tunnel view that change and ultimately positive goals can only be reached in the fashion the liberal elite prsecribe.
Where is the demonstrated success of these goals? Why would you deny the practice of authentic change according to the emans that are the ones that actually amke for sound change”honesty, accountability, and insight that is at its roots respectful of a mayraid of voices adn approaches? people decry teh appointment of capable and gicted bi-partisan adminsitrators–as if the people who know the most about their fields cannot be part of a vision that includes change and growth and development beyond their own views. Yet this was the rule and not the exception when our nation’s governent functioned ioptimally. Fuirst yiou want a person with integrityy and ability, then you work with that person to develop your won plan.
i am so tired of the demonizationa dn shrill voices of negativity that are raised up now because real change is happening but those who wsigh to control it from its inception have not the patience to nuture it.
if you would be this negative to your own family and critical of their dceisions and untrusting when they are trustworthy i would ahve to say you are abusive, and likely to ruin your child’s future.thank god the future is in teh nads of god to some degree, but we are supposed to be co-creating, not doing the ugly work of unjustly crippling and destroying here.
CHANGE IS SO OFTEN INITIALLY INCREMENTAL , LET US CELBRATE THE MEANS WHICH ARE ULTIMATELY THE ARBITER OF THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE CHANGE.
Please do not state untruths and couch them as truisms. Barack Obama has been honest , direct, accountable, even about his mistakes, and is also judicious, measured, and committed to governing transparently as he can in a dangerously corrupt world and he still is.
there is no eprfect leader, but we can do our best to be a more perfect people. that doesn’t mean attacking when support and trust, generosity of spirit, hard work in the field, and inspiration that helps to find a plethora of ways to solve the problems not write or shout about them.
An afterthought– there are so many folks here without experience of sytems change on the ground …there is often this sense that the end justifies th emans and it is okay to lie or to adhere to an ideology instead of to teh prcinicples of truth adn justice and the sacrifices and sublimation that may be required to ACTUALLY walk the walk instead of just talk the talk and write it down on paper.
so much of this suggests to me the same old failed polarizing rhetoric that is top heavy and bottom murderous.
WE know there are many folks on this forum who espouse constructive engagement and believe it is a superior and effective means to systems change, far better than war. Here are vicious yet unproductive and hurtful character attacks. Here are flights from facts to micheivous and mean fancy?
WHERE is the constructive engagement of the Obama adminsitration?
There is a very clear distinction between an anti-terrorist strategy and an anti-insurgent strategy. Obama said he would pursue the former. This was not ambiguous. It is clear by specifying “two brigades,” i.e., less than ten thousand troops. He is now pursuing an “anti-insurgent” strategy, in other words, entering a civil war. It contradicts the program on which he ran, and I think it will destroy his Presidency.
President Obama knows more accurate intelligence information, which we must believe he has done a better job of vetting than the previous administration, than we do. he is not interested in pursuing the war for personal profit, unlike the previous administration.He does not in any way fit the profile of the sabre rattler or war mongerer. I think we need to begin to learn to trust again.
He is the Commander in Chief. if the war destroys his presidency it will be because the usual folks who are experts at words and criticisms and high and fine talk about engaging our enemies peacefully rather than with the violence( without terrible civilian casualties and cruelty ) that may be necessary to overcome them will not engage him on the myriad of issues where there is a critical need for change to which he is attuned and willing to work, cooperatvely, and which present far more grounds for leftist joy.
There are those who don’t want him to be the leader of integrity he is, who want him to be a tool for the Left only. Those who were complicit when the so-called left chased the bottom half of our nation into black market economies to support their chidlren as best they could while the crime of those economies destoyed them…via Clinton’s “welfare reform” ie balancing the rich’s need for more riches on the backs of the struggling poor, and the technocrats need for more technical riches again on the backs of the poor as always. We have a leader capable of leading, but the yammering that we do not want to sacrifice our own of whom we have already almost exhausted the numbers, we were okay with that.
Now we will bring down the wrong president and in the wrong way, and for the wrong reasons: ideology and unwillingness to actualize the personal sacrifice required to protect our nation’s security and rebuild her economy and society.That is always the way. Liberals talk but do very little of substance.Progressives do much more, but not when it requires discomfort, let alone sacrifice.But oh we are so quick to demonize the right who actually live their ideals.
Anyone who celebrates the fall of this Presidency is very similar to the madding crowd who were unwilling to put Howard Dean in office because of their hurt feeling over Kucinich’s unviable candidacy.Who ignored the shrill soundings of the manipulative, dishonest, violent and cruel machinations of the Clnton adminstration’s placation of liberals and economic national short term gain for their long term personal profit from our nation’s rotten descent into Plutocracy.
So where is the object lesson there–perhaps to pray for a leader like Obama who is devoted to and able to be a change agent–and to mistrust those who believe they ougtta be runnning things their way because they pay $45,000 for kindergarten,a quarter million for their kids’ education instead of fixing the broken system of public and higher eductation, keep up with the Beltway Joneses in cosmetics, drugs, booze,number of second homes, cushy jobs and vacations, prohibitively expensive for the poor and working poor natural and organic food,and become vindictive against a good and decent and honest and concientious leader of which they cannot concieve becasue they themselves know so few and do not do as he does, which is say and do what hem enas and beleives to be ebst for america instead of follow a narrow ideology of polarization and recurrent divisivenmess that gridlocks change.Folks who tell us to work out a peaceful solution with the Taliban but attack a peace-loving president instead of practice the compassion and patience they preach.
Wewould sink the presidencey of the first President that we have ahd who can strengthen the goods in this nation in tangible ways for all of us, and refine and evelop social oprograms as we go along in his presidency, for the .benefit of the whole nation.
But because he does not practice Clinton’s yes manship and then sleazy sneaky betrayals that allow popularity of position and mob governance by phony polls, wewill superced his authority and try to bury him.
There is such a sickness here of control freakism and dishonorable actions in place of respect, trust, inclusion, cooperation, and patience as we work together to nurture democracy in a country which is on the verge of being split into a fiefdom that i am just saddened and shocked.Will we have any better future when we shoot our messengerswho speak the truth, destroy our prophets who bring us messages that require us to sublimate our lower selves and make personal sacrifices tio help others, and cripple our truly GREAT leaders?
You have misplaced your anger and your ideals dear sir.You would assassinate Obama’s presidency before he has even had a term in which to accomplish his mandates, in his way, as our elected leader. How is that any different or any better better than a racist thug murdering him because he is Black?
Here is a quote from the campaign literature of barck Obama that i handed out and circulated in the hundreds:
i can send it to you if you like:
“I opposed the WAR IN IRAQ (caps mine) from the start, and as President I will bring it to an end.
“Instead of fighting this war, we should be fighting the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 and who are plotting against us in Afghanistan and Pakistan. We should be securing our homeland and stopping the world’s most dangerous weapons from falling into terrorist hands.”
from “A Leader who Inspires” handout campaign literature.
also, the ablove sentence
that ends
but the yammering that we do not want to sacrifice our own of whom we have already almost exhausted the numbers, we were okay with that.
should actually read..
but the yammering that we do not weant to sacrifice our own comfort and safety, for national security, after we have for 7 years squandered the lives and health of the hundreds of thousands of children of the true BLUE patriots who believe in making the sacrifices needed to assure our nation of longevity, stability, security and freedom, o f whom we have already almost exhausted the numbers…well we were okay with that.
Just found this NEWSTRUST/ BBC report on the Taliban which supports my comments above: in fact the Taliban controlled more than 90% of Afghanistan in 1998, and with just one fall back have emerged more strongly since.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/1549285.stm
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