Afghanistan: The "just" war PDF Print E-mail
Tuesday, 06 May 2008 06:58

Matt Walker

Foreign intrusion and occupation are the preeminent recurring historical themes in Afghanistan’s past when observed even at a superficial level, the 2001 U.S-led invasion becoming the most recent chapter in this sad long story of a nation unable to escape the inevitable consequences of imperial aggression.

From Alexander the Great to the British Empire and the Soviet war machine, Afghanis have encountered, resisted and eventually defeated several of history's most feared and powerful superpower antagonists. Now with the US and its NATO allies entering their seventh year of counterinsurgency warfare against a resurgent and increasingly organized enemy, pessimism among elite circles in nations with boots on the ground is manifesting as many are realizing "victory" in the idealistic notion of the word trumpeted by the propagandists in the Bush administration is unrealistic and unattainable.
Recently the US announced a ‘mini surge’ in Afghanistan involving the deployment of an additional 3,200 troops. This decision follows the bloodiest year in the country since 2001, and multiple governmental and NGO reports confirming that Afghanistan is on the verge of becoming a ‘failed state’ while the Taliban insurgency continues to grow. According to an article in the Observer Taliban attacks have increased by a third over the past year, a figure which has also translated into the group expanding their base of operations to even include the capital Kabul. “Make no mistake, NATO is not winning in Afghanistan” an Atlantic Council of the United States report last week warned. Such reports have contributed to a reluctance by many of NATO’s European members to invest more money and troops into what is seen as a sinking ship.
Unlike the staunch domestic opposition displayed in reaction to Bush’s announcement of a troop surge in Iraq, the implementation of a similar policy in Afghanistan is unlikely to be the subject of similar criticism, reflecting the lingering mainstream conception that the war in Afghanistan embodies the pinnacle of selfless western intervention in the name of ‘just’ moral imperatives.
Once the facts are properly examined, the entire propagated idea that foreign troops in Afghanistan perform a positive function can be dissected as a well devised sham, a sham that has become embedded as truth in regard to public opinion. The Taliban only reverted to the status of US enemy number one in the aftermath of 9/11. In the late 1990s President Bill Clinton tacitly supported the movement after they emerged as the victor in Afghanistan’s civil war. Motivated by the prospect of a lucrative Central Asian natural gas pipeline, Taliban officials were even invited to Texas (whose then Governor was G.W. Bush). Although such ambitions never materialized under Taliban rule, the pipeline has been pursued vigorously by the US since inheriting control following the deposition of the Taliban regime in 2001.
The fact that the US has almost exclusively contracted the job of the pipeline's construction to foreign (predominantly American) corporations exposes a hidden agenda of criminal profiteering. It is diabolical that in 2006 American pressurizing resulted in a deal with the puppet administration of Hamid Karzai that will see Afghanistan (one of the poorest nations on earth) receive a pitiful seven percent of the project's total revenue, while the rest will fill the pockets of excessively affluent corporate bureaucrats.
But while it is plausible to treat the American desire to create the pipeline as a major incentive for invading Afghanistan it was certainly not their overarching objective. In the days immediately proceeding 9/11 the mouthpiece of American policy itself, the White House press secretary openly stated the US’s willingness to “capitalize on this new opportunity”. And when the bombs began falling on the mountains of Afghanistan it was blatantly clear the American empire project had found the perfect pretext to begin its militaristic expansion into the key geo-political areas of the world. Afghanistan represented the ideal testing ground for how US power was to be utilized in the new millennium, and provided a precursor to Iraq where the new Rumsfeldian doctrine of war could be experimented with in practical application.
A major distinction between US adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan is the role played by the UN in each respective conflict. Former UN ambassador for the US, John Bolton famously stated the US would only use the UN if such a collaboration were in its own ‘national interests’. Obviously it was not in 2003 when the US opted for the unilateral path. But in 2001 there was enough international solidarity with the US to allow its invasion of Afghanistan to proceed with full UN sanction. This has had a major impact on shaping the public perception of the war by giving it the illusion of legitimacy, as it has before in places like East Timor and Somalia.

Peace keeping to imperialism

The end of the Cold War initiated the collapse of the bi-polar world system, a system that had for over forty years encouraged a climate of militarism in the west and east. Nearly universally “To me, I confess, [countries] are pieces on a chessboard upon which is being played out a game for dominion of the world.” These are the words spoken by British viceroy of India Lord Curzon in 1898 regarding Afghanistan during the ‘Great Game’ with Tsarist Russia.after its demise militaries downsized and the role they were to play in global affairs was reassessed. In many nations such as Canada, Australia, Germany and France
it was decided the need for an offensive military had diminished and instead forces should predominantly be designated for use in ‘humanitarian’ or ‘peacekeeping’ missions. But the war in Afghanistan has spearheaded a disturbing trend that has witnessed a reversal back towards blatant imperialism.
An example of this revived imperial agenda is the controversial Canadian Strategic Advisory Team (SAT) in Afghanistan. Although not well known the SAT program effectively places senior Canadian military officers into ministerial positions on the Afghan Government. As reported on WSWS.com the Canadian State Department itself describes, “the teams are embedded in their partner Afghan Government ministries and agencies.” John Hiller, head of the Canadian Armed Forces openly stated that the programme was in place to ensure Canada acquires real power as a result of its intervention, and the ability to “shape regions and populations in accordance with our interests and values.” Such words sound all too reminiscent of imperialism's nineteenth century heyday.
Opposed to allowing Afghanis to determine their own future as the US and its allies so frequently claim they're trying to do, instead they are enforcing Afghan conformity into their own pre-determined vision of what Afghanistan ‘should be like’. Which inevitably equates to how Afghanistan can be the most beneficial to its Western occupiers. Don’t be fooled by the corporate media - altruism and imperialism are never compatible.
The US installed central government is a mere façade that has little control beyond the city limits of Kabul. Warlordism (not ‘democracy’) has been employed by the US in Afghanistan since 2001 as a method of controlling and pacifying the Afghan elite. By empowering former warlords, many of whom possess atrocious human rights records, and consolidating their allegiance with money and weaponry, the US is attempting to create a
controllable state, where a loyal elite will remain submissive to US interests at the expense of the Afghani people. Ismail Khan is one of these warlords, but despite his notorious reputation Donald Rumsfeld described him as, “an appealing person, thoughtful, measured, and self-confident". Human Rights Watch has reported the meaning of ‘democracy’ in Afghanistan, “a closed society in which there is no dissent, no criticism of the government, no independent newspapers, no freedom to hold open meetings and no respect for the rule of law".
Concurrent with much of the third world an attempt is being made to transform Afghanistan into a neo-colony, ripe for political manipulation and bourgeois exploitation. The forced imposition of by-the-book neo-liberalism into the Afghani constitution has had disastrous if not predictable implications for Afghan society. Inequality has been exacerbated even further as unemployment and poverty skyrocket causing increasing disillusionment and frustration among Afghanis, while a few in the upper echelon of Afghan society make millions profiting from this widespread misery.
“To me, I confess, [countries] are pieces on a chessboard upon which is being played out a game for dominion of the world.” These are the words spoken by British viceroy of India Lord Curzon in 1898 regarding Afghanistan during the ‘Great Game’ with Tsarist Russia. In those days imperialism was far less subtle in its pretexts - imperialism itself was open justification enough to expand an empire with popular support. Now attempts are made by the powers of the world to conceal their agendas through the thinly veiled guise of ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy promotion’.

Iraq death toll hits 1 million

The polling company Opinion Research Business (ORB) has released detailed data confirming that the death toll from the Iraq war has exceeded 1 million people — more than the total number killed in the Rwandan genocide of 1994.

The data is from a sample of 2400 face-to-face surveys throughout Iraq in which one in five people reported that at least one person from their household has been killed “as a result of the conflict”. When compared with the results of the 1997 census — the last complete census in Iraq — the survey indicates that 1.03 million people have been killed.
The surveys also recorded the cause of death (and specifically excluded people who died of old age or other causes unrelated to the US occupation). Deaths as a result of gunshot was the single biggest cause of death at 40%. Deaths attributed to “sectarian violence” accounted for only 4% whereas double that number were killed by “aerial bombardment”.
Since only the occupying armies have an air force, these latter deaths — 85,000 — can be attributed to no one else.
The data was collected from 112 unique sampling points in 15 of Iraq’s 18 governorates. The three governorates where no data was collected are Karbala, Al Anbar and Irbil. The first two of these were excluded for reasons of interviewer safety; the third because local authorities refused permission.
“The net result of these exclusions — two areas of relatively high volatility since 2003 and one relatively stable — is that the casualty estimates reported are unlikely to overstate the actual figure”, according to an ORB information sheet.
ORB had released similar data in September indicating that 1.2 million had been killed. The latest data is an adjustment to those figures and takes into account an additional 600 surveys in rural areas.