…we are still left with a disaster of a war in Afghanistan that cannot be won and that the country as a whole will not support.

Winning in Afghanistan & Pakistan will require that Saudia Arabia stop using our oil dollars to fund the Taliban, their Wahhbi missionaries.  It will also require that Pakistan have blackout-free electricity and adequate supplies of clean water.  The winner will have to deliver shoes, clothes, food and education to the youth of Pakistan and Afghanistan, as the Taliban now do. Further, population growth has to be accounted for in planning and the governments of the US, Pakistan and Afghanistan must be willing and able to pay more than the Taliban.  Currently, the Taliban use their Saudi funding to be the highest wage payers.  Paying dearly to fight and enemy that we are at the same time superbly funding with our mindless energy policies is the height of folly and puts us squarely on the road to disaster.  To make matters worse, our tax policies are not aligned with our military and political objectives.  In fact, our tax policies demonstrate that we are hooked on the magical thinking that we can have it all:  ”guns and butter” with victory on the cheap.  Our opponents know full well that this confirms our lack of commitment and staying power.  Much the same could be said about our drug policies and their internal contradictions.  Why is none of this being broadly discussed here in the US?  Charlie Wilson and the CIA created the Taliban but then we abandoned our friends with the bitter fruit being a Taliban that has morphed into an out of control  monster.  Lastly, we must confront and reduce the level of deeply entrenched and systemic corruption that bedevils all parties in this conflict. Until we honestly face the ground truths listed above, and eliminate the flow of our energy dollars to Saudia Arabia, we will be locked in an unsustainable and un-winnable conflict, largely of our own making.

Author: Jock Gill

Do you really think 100,000 contractors and 30,000 more troops in Afghanistan are about do for the Afghans what we will not, cannot, do for ourselves? And if we cannot, do not, what chance of success do we have there? Or Iraq? Or at home? Where is the change we can believe in? When will Obama stand up to the monied interests of Wall Street and the Military Industrial Complex?

If what people see is mainly greed and rigid ideologies run amok and contaminating the highest levels of our government, what should they believe? We talk one talk, but we walk quite another walk. In a word, our propaganda and our actions are in conflict and provide no reliable reference point. Would you trust anyone who did this?

During this past week, disturbing news about where Pakistan is currently headed have surfaced. The magnitude of mis-governance indulged in by Musharraf and the situation which has brought Zardari into the forefront of power in the “establishment” in the country is now squarely in focus of national and international media. On September 11, after there had been four incursions into the Pakistani territory in five days by US forces from across the borders of Afghanistan into the FATA areas, the COAS announced rather tersely that it was the duty of the armed forces to defend the country and would take appropriate defensive action if such incursions continued. This warning had little effect as on the very next day, the US fired missiles on a private dwelling in Miran Shah killing 12 civilians and demolishing the house. However, on the13th when US drones were again seen coming towards the Pakistani territory, the armed forces sent PAF jets in the air causing a retreat by the US drones.

The question that needs to be answered by the government in Islamabad is: did the Americans act unilaterally or was this a part of the agreed upon rules of engagement? The New York Times reported on September 11 that in July this was ordered by President Bush allowing US Special Forces “to carry out ground assaults inside Pakistan without the prior approval of the Pakistani government.” In other words, without any prior information being given to Islamabad the US Commanders in Afghanistan could act without notifying the Pakistani government.

The innuendo in this report is quite alarming that “the Pakistani government had privately assented to the general concept of limited ground assaults by Special Operations forces against significant militant targets, but that it did not approve each mission.” According to the Times, “the Pakistani government is quietly winking at the idea of such attacks.” If one believes the Times report then there are startling reality to be faced!

There could hardly be a worse strategy. It risks inflaming the Pakistani public opinion against the US and boost the religious parties. It clearly makes the new Pakistani government look like puppets in the hands of the US, which hardly makes them popular among Pakistanis. It is equally certain that such ad hoc actions by Washington won’t be successful in eliminating Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Historians of the Vietnam War might compare the strategy to President Nixon’s ill-fated decision to expand the war across the border into Cambodia in search of alleged Viet Cong “sanctuaries.” That policy badly failed and didn’t work out well. Could it be believed that perhaps some Pakistani officials, under intense US pressure, did “wink” at this idea? From public statements, at least, it appears that Islamabad isn’t happy. The larger question if Musharraf had already winked earlier when he had the chance to do so therefore requires an answer?

Support for such a treacherous perfidy vis-à-vis nationalistic feelings in Pakistan are certainly visible. Lt Gen (retd) Shahid Aziz, who served as the chief of general staff (CGS) from Oct 2001 to Dec 2003, reveals in a startling manner that the army as an institution was in complete dark about what was going on between Washington and Islamabad on the War On Terror and the GHQ and top army commanders had strongly opposed the handing over of Pakistanis to the US, but Musharraf did so on his own. General Shahid Aziz confirmed that though the office of the CGS in the GHQ was considered to be the nerve centre in the army, the GHQ did not know most of the controversial things Musharraf did, including the handing over of Pakistani nationals to the Americans.

The whole post is here.

As my friend John Mallery points out, the key strategy of the Cold War era was Tit-for-Tat, derived from John Nash’s Game Theory. In the 20th century world where you knew the name and address of your antagonist, tit-for-tat might be claimed to have worked — even with the very negative unintended consequences Friedman enumerates. Today, however, in the era of widely distributed cyber warfare, not requiring state actors, it is impossible to know, in any meaningful time frame, who your opponent is, much less his or her address to which to deliver your tit-for-tat. So how do you respond? Especially if you do not want to let your opponent know you know, much less HOW you know? The answer is probably to use cooperation and collaboration for the common good, values that game theory explicitly denies.

This has the interesting implication that Friedman correctly identifies: vote for the candidate who most clearly rejects the Cold War world view, associated economics and military strategies. Our future success depends on replacing the Cold War world view as fast as we can. We would be much better off, for example, if we displaced the old Cold War world view with a new Peer-to-Peer World View.

Note: For a more detailed analysis of the limits and consequences of the Cold War social, political, and economic dogmas see here and here.

Author’s preface:

After 40 years of retrospection, I decided it was time to question the hero worship we give most recently to those who join the military, so I started writing, driven by my own experiences in the war of my generation.

No newspaper would print the letter below, unless it was substantially changed. Perhaps it can serve as a counterpoint to the genuine emotion of the combined losses by our troops during our two hundred years of warfare.

gk

They talk about “honor” and “pride” a lot. Their TV ads show young men slaying mythical dragons, climbing walls of fantasy, standing tall in multicolored uniforms. But is that the reality of our men and women in the services?

Few decisions are as important as those regarding life and death, yet we have come to idealize those who cede those decisions to others; people willing to perform draconian tasks automatically, without reflection. Is that what we want our young adults to become – unthinking followers? Where is the pride in surrendering life’s most important decisions to others? Where is the honor in killing on command?

The trials at Nuremburg have already shown us the answer. There will be an enormous price to pay for our self-righteous aggression – far worse than letting our sons and daughters be used for terrible purpose, far more than the tens of thousands of physically, mentally, and morally wounded troops coming home in and out of boxes, more than the trillion dollars wasted in the application of extreme violence.

We have lost our humanity.

Democrats should welcome and not shy away from debate over Iraq. It provides them with an opportunity to make the election a referendum on leadership and political judgment in matters of war and peace. The Republicans are understandably trying to use the recent small signs of progress in Iraq to whitewash their irresponsible decision to go to war in Iraq, and their mismanagement of the war. This offers the Democratic Party an opportunity to use the debate over Iraq as a “teach in”, to help American voters understand how America was stampeded into war, and what the consequences have been for the national security interests of the country. If the voting public, regardless of political persuasion, understands what happened, and the price that America has had to pay for an unjustified “war of choice,” it will have a chance at the ballot box to repudiate the Administration and policies that led us to this debacle. The hope is that future Presidents will learn from this rebuff that the American people expect in its Presidents better judgment, vision and understanding of the national interest when asking the nation to support a “war of choice.”

THE MOVING FORCES BEHIND THE WAR.

Lobbies are an essential feature of the American democratic process. It is vital, therefore, that whoever is President is able to distinguish the national interests of the United States from those of the many vocal self-interested parties. In the case of Iraq, the Administration gave undue weight to the views of an odd alliance of interest groups who saw war with Iraq as promoting their own separate agendas.

* There were exile politicians like Chelabi, who saw in the destruction of Saddam Hussein the means for their return to power in Iraq.

* Some of Israel’s friends argued that the destruction of both Iraq and Iran would be in the U.S. national interest. It is understandable why they might see advantage in a policy that destroyed Israel’s most serious regional rivals, and in the process further alienated the U.S. in the Muslim world, increasing its dependence on Israel as its “only real friend in the region”. But what is good for Israel is not necessarily in the U.S. national interest.

* An energy lobby led by Vice President Cheney had shown an interest in the untapped oil reserves of Iraq before 9/11. The longer the American military presence in Iraq, the greater the opportunities for the energy giants to cut themselves profitable deals. The establishment of four large U.S. military bases in Iraq and McCain’s talk of America being there indefinitely,, on the Korean model, would be consistent with a long range oil strategy.

* There were the Evangelical Christians who linked the destruction of Israel’s enemies to the final Armageddon battle between Good and Evil.

* Many of those hoping to benefit from the destruction of Saddam Hussein shared a Neo-Conservative belief that American power could and should be used to resolve American problems in the Middle East by imposing democracy on the region, starting with Iraq. This same hubris underlay the Neo-Conservative disdain for International treaties or views of the international community that might limit U.S. freedom of action.

THE NEED FOR OBJECTIVE ANALYSIS.

A President who seeks objective judgment in filtering out these many competing voices must be prepared to listen to conflicting views. This is particularly so when a President knows that he has strong personal feelings on the subject, as President Bush had against the man who had tried to kill his father. But the Administration failed apparently to give adequate weight to the loud voices ol opposition to a war of choice against Iraq. Among the dissenters were:

* Senior statesmen associated with the President’s father, who shared the view that Bush Senior had expressed after the Desert war that we must have an exit strategy if we were to press on to Baghdad, occupying this volatile region of historic religious conflict.

* Middle Eastern experts who shook their heads in disbelief at the Don Quixote idea that democracy could be imposed by American bayonets on a complex, profoundly different culture, where change must come about primarily through evolution within the society.

* Reservations were also raised in the Congress by both parties, and within the Administration, including reportedly by the Secretary of State.

The only credible justification for an attack on a sovereign state was that it represented a clear and present danger to its neighbors. But there was no “slam dunk” evidence that Iraq had acquired a nuclear weapon.. Indeed State intelligence and U.N. inspectors questioned the evidence.. And logic should have told us that Saddam Hussein was too calculating a despot, concerned for his self-preservation, to consider inviting the devastation of Iraq by using a nuclear weapon against America’s ally, Israel. If he was tempted to use a nuclear weapon, it would have been against Iraq’s hereditary and vulnerable enemy, Iran. Under the circumstances, the logical policy would have been one of continued containment, pressing Iraq for inspection, with an attack on any known nuclear site as a fall back position. But containment did not satisfy the ambition of those who sought the occupation of Iraq

STEAMROLLING THE OPPOSITION

It was essential for the “war party” to discredit and isolate all those voices of opposition who might otherwise arouse the public to the dangers of the enterprise. To this end, the Administration:

* Used Defense Secretary Rumsfeld’s Pentagon to emasculate the State Department, setting up a rival intelligence unit to counter “defeatist” reports from CIA and State, preventing the Pentagon from using in its planning either the information or the personnel involved in the production of a 13 volume study on Iraq prepared by State and CIA intelligence.

* Discounted the views of American Middle Eastern experts on the grounds that they were pro-Arab and Anti-Semite, a common Israeli complaint.

* Lent credence to a fabricated report that Saddam Hussein and al-Quada, who were bitter secular enemies, had been in secret negotiation.

* Dramatized all the human rights violations of Saddam Hussein’s brutal regime that we had chosen to ignore when we were aiding Iraq in its war with Iran.

For America to make a war of choice, it was essential to prove to a sceptical world that Iraq was a threat to peace in the Middle East. The main argument used by the Administration was the scare-mongering charge that madman, Saddam Hussein, was producing Weapons of Mass Destruction. There were certainly grounds for suspicion given Hussein’s past record but the lack of conclusive evidence and the logic of the situation, discussed above, all argued for caution.. But persuading Secretary of State Colin Powell to “document” the case for war proved persuasive.

MISMANAGEMENT OF THE WAR

To run its war, the Administration wanted only loyal warriors not sceptics in its ranks. Hence it selected as American pro-Consul in Baghdad, Paul Bremer, a Kissinger acolyte who had some German but no Middle Eastern experience. It was under his leadership that some of the most grievous mistakes were made, trying to apply to Iraq the policies of De-Nazification and Demilitarization that had worked in the totally different situation and culture of Germany.

If the Pentagon had listened to the advice of its own military, and the Middle Eastern experts who wrote the 13 volume report on Iraq, many of the most costly initial mistakes mighty have been avoided. At least we could have gone in with a sufficiently large force to establish law and order and intimidate any opposition. The Pentagon’s hubris cost unnecessary lives and blackened respect for the occupying power on the part of the Iraqis.

THE CONSEQUENCES OF THIS “WAR OF CHOICE.”

* The invasion of Afghanistan was also a “war of choice” with the enormous difference that we were supported by our allies and the United Nations. By diverting our war effort from Afghanistan to Iraq, we have allowed Bin Laden and the Taliban to begin working their way back into regional power, and it has become necessary to bring American forces back to Afghanistan, where they should have remained in the first place. In the light of Iraq, NATO governments have become reluctant to commit combat troops to Afghanistan.

* After 9/11, sympathy for America and our prestige were at their peak . This global political asset was squandered by our unprovoked attack on a sovereign state, that no one considered a “just war” by international standards. American prestige and credibility hit a new low, from which we have still to recover.

* We transformed Iraq from a brutal but stable secular state abhorrent to al-Quada into the most effective recruiting and training ground for insurgency that Bin Laden could ever have wished for.

* By the same token, we played into Bin Laden’s stated strategy of weakening the U.S. by drawing us deeper into the Middle East quagmire.

* We also played into Teheran’s hands, by destroying its historic enemy, Iraq, offering Teheran the chance to strengthen its ties to the Shiite majority in Iraq, and to exploit America’s weakened position in the Muslim world. Our efforts to develop a united front against potential Iranian efforts to go nuclear, were also weakened.

* And America itself has been weakened: our military have been stretched almost to the breaking point, and is in no shape to meet a serious threat elsewhere; and we have added enormously to the national debt at a time of potential recession and need for serious reconstruction at home.

* There is no way, of course, to measure the cost in human lives, American and Iraqi. But at a time when the scars of Vietnam were beginning to heal, we have opened another potential sore of disillusionment among the soldiers and their families, who thought that they were sacrificing for a noble cause.

* Finally, like poor chess players, we have become so fixated on defending one pawn, that we have lost strategic sight of the global chessboard. Russia’s President Putin has been quick to try and take advantage of the global resentment of American hubris. He has tried to dramatize the differences between a proclaimed Russian policy of multilateral cooperation and support for the United Nations with the “unilateralism” of the Bush Administration, and to strengthen Russia’s relations with our European allies. Russia and China both contrast their booming economies with an America weakened by war

CURRENT ADMINISTRATION STRATEGY

America will, of course, recover but at a price it should not have been asked to pay. Belated efforts by the Administration to return to traditional policies of international cooperation, and to the Clinton policy of trying to play the honest broker in the Arab-Israeli conflict, are all to be welcomed but lack credibility. This is particularly so in the light of the apparent Administration determination to maintain a military presence in Iraq, until we can claim victory and go home. But realistically, we are tying American policy in the Middle East, and American budgetary outlays for the indefinite future to the internal developments in Iraq, where “victory” will continue to recede as the inherent sectarian conflicts in Iraq take their toll. Whatever the arrangements we may make with the Iraqis, a continued American military presence in Iraq, particularly if accompanied by efforts to corner the Iraq oil market, will be resented throughout the Muslim world and undercut any serious American efforts to promote regional stabilization in the Middle East. To replace the bogeyman of al-Quada with Iran, as an excuse for staying in Iraq, and organizing a Suni alliance against Iran, insults the intelligence of sophisticated Middle Eastern leaders.

THE VOTER’S CHOICE

The vital question for the American voter, regardless of political affiliation, is what price we are prepared to pay for a policy that would have us bogged down in the Middle East indefinitely, with little hope for a victorious outcome. A policy that presently is costing over $12 million a week at a time of mounting problems at home. And the larger question is how do we make sure that another administration does not stampede us into a “war of choice” where our vital interests are not involved. The answer to both questions lies in the ballot box.

* The voters should make clear that we are not prepared to stay any longer than necessary to withdraw our troops safely from Iraq, stationing any residual intervention forces elsewhere.

* And by administering a crushing defeat to officials associated with the Iraq fiasco, make any future American President hesitant to lead America into a war of choice where the threat to American security is not self-evident.

Certainly by Republican standards of impeachment in the case of President Clinton, impeachment of the President and Vice President over their war in Iraq, would be fully justified. But it would be extremely unwise. The emphasis of the next President should be on overcoming the crippling partisanship of recent years instead of further dividing the nation.

In practical terms, the electorate is faced with a sharp choice between the past and the future.

* Senator McCain is a man of great integrity and courage but he remains traumatized by defeat in Vietnam;

* He failed to learn from Vietnam that, for there to be public support in any prolonged conflict, the threat to American interests must be fully credible.

* He should also have learned from Vietnam about the power of nationalism in opposing occupation by a foreign power, whatever the good intentions of that foreign power.

* Finally he should have learned, that our retreat from Vietnam did not have the predicted “domino effect” of toppling our allies in South Asia . Similarly there is a lack of reality in McCain’s scare talk about what might happen if we were to leave Iraq. The states of the Middle East will work out their complex relations in a way that protects their national sovereignty without the clumsy intervention of Nanny Auntie Sam.

* There is reason to be concerned that, as a military man, McCain may be inclined to see military solutions to problems that are essentially political.

* But, as a military man, he should understand that withdrawal from Iraq is the equivalent of tactical withdrawal from an ultimately indefensible outpost to strengthen the nation’s central front.

* The Administration’s shrinking definition of victory in Iraq as essentially “stability” promises a prolonged American involvement in the domestic affairs of Iraq. To label those who question the wisdom of such a policy as ”defeatists” serves only to deepen the polarization of America at a time when the nation needs to unite behind a policy that is more credible and sustainable.

Either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama would be a welcome change from the Republican Administration. But Senator Obama offers the more appealing and credible alternative.

* While a number of Americans, including Senator Clinton were genuinely persuaded that the Iraq war was necessary to protect America, Senator Obama opposed the war from the outset.

* Unlike those who would demonize states, with whom we are in conflict, like Iran and North Korea, he would be prepared to discuss our differences without making surrender by them a preliminary condition of negotiation. In other words, he is a negotiator.

* He has a different approach to the threat of global terrorism. By declaring an unqualified “global war on terrorism”, the Administration encouraged every despotic state to label as “terrorists” dissident movements whom we should welcome. Obama would replace the military emphasis of the war on terror with an emphasis on precision intelligence, police and special forces work, identifying the terrorist cells and neutralizing them with a minimum of anxiety-creating publicity, on the European model.

* Our goal should be to increase the sense of isolation and
vulnerability on the part of the small, radical Muslim cells that metastasize like cancer around the world. Trumpeting that these cells are part of a global Islamo-Fascist movement undercuts this strategy by reassuring the militants that they are not alone but part of a global movement that obviously frightens the “imperialists.” It also strengthens the belief among Muslims generally that the West is indeed their enemy. To build up fear in the American public of this new bogey, Islamo=Fascism, may serve the interests of the Republican Party, but it does not serve the interests of the nation. It is time to “cool it” and focus on the many more serious threats to the country, both at home and abroad.

* In dealing with contentious issues, international or domestic, Obama’s first instinct is to reach out to the other side to see whether we cannot find some common ground without in any way compromising American interests, or his own progressive principles. He is a unifier not a divider.

* It follows that, in dealing with the outside world, Obama believes that, respect for international treaties and cooperation with other states is a more effective way to strengthen America than unilateral diktat.

* In that same spirit, he would seek to strengthen the authority and institutions of the United Nations, and of regional organizations so that they may reduce the need for America to intervene politically, or even militarily in conflicts that have been allowed to fester.

In short, Senator Obama has a mindset for the 21st century, prepared to rethink America’s problems outside of their old paradigms. To offer America a change from the failed policies of the recent past.

Standard Operating Procedure

Is it possible for a photograph to change the world? Photographs taken by soldiers in Abu Ghraib prison changed the war in Iraq and changed America’s image of itself. Yet, a central mystery remains. Did the notorious Abu Ghraib photographs constitute evidence of systematic abuse by the American military, or were they documenting the aberrant behavior of a few “bad apples”? We set out to examine the context of these photographs. Why were they taken? What was happening outside the frame? We talked directly to the soldiers who took the photographs and who were in the photographs. Who are these people? What were they thinking? Over two years of investigation, we amassed a million and a half words of interview transcript, thousands of pages of unredacted reports, and hundreds of photographs. The story of Abu Ghraib is still shrouded in moral ambiguity, but it is clear what happened there. The Abu Ghraib photographs serve as both an expose and a coverup.

The trailer for the film is here.

The New Yorker magazine also recently published:

EXPOSURE, The woman behind the camera at Abu Ghraib.

by Philip Gourevitch and Errol Morris.

All that the soldiers of the 372nd Military Police Company, a Reserve unit out of Cresaptown, Maryland, knew about America’s biggest military prison in Iraq, when they arrived there in early October of 2003, was that it was on the front lines. Its official name was Forward Operating Base Abu Ghraib. Never mind that military doctrine and the Geneva Conventions forbid holding prisoners in a combat zone, and require that they be sped to the rear; you had to make the opposite sort of journey to get to Abu Ghraib. You had to travel along some of the deadliest roads in the country, constantly bombed and frequently ambushed, into the Sunni Triangle. The prison squatted on the desert, a wall of sheer concrete traced with barbed wire, picketed by watchtowers. “Like something from a Mad Max movie,” Sergeant Javal Davis, of the 372nd, said. “Just like that—like, medieval.” There were more than two and a half miles of wall with twenty-four towers, enclosing two hundred and eighty acres of prison ground. And inside, Davis said, “it’s nothing but rubble, blown-up buildings, dogs running all over the place, rabid dogs, burnt remains. The stench was unbearable: urine, feces, body rot.”

Read the whole essay here.

And see also:

SOP site

War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the many.

I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we’ll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag.

I wouldn’t go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.

There isn’t a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has its “finger men” to point out enemies, its “muscle men” to destroy enemies, its “brain men” to plan war preparations, and a “Big Boss” Super-Nationalistic-Capitalism.

It may seem odd for me, a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent thirty- three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country’s most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.

I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service.

I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912 (where have I heard that name before?). I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.

During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.