The Matrix of Death: (Im)Precision of U.S Bombing and the (U

The Matrix of Death: (Im)Precision of U.S Bombing and the (U

Postby Oscar » Thu Oct 09, 2008 5:34 pm

The Matrix of Death: (Im)Precision of U.S Bombing and the (Under)Valuation of an Afghan Life

http://www.rawa.org/temp/runews/2008/10 ... -life.html

Only one dollar is officially spent in “reconstruction” for every ten dollars spent on achieving U.S. geo-political aims.

October 06, 2008

Prof. Marc W. Herold

Conclusion: Obama’s Afghanistan as a Surreal Hunting Estate

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over againand expecting different results” – Albert Einstein

Candidate Barrack Obama, his Clinton era advisers, and sadly all too many others fail to recognize a web of inter-connected, persistent constraints, or given realties. One might label them as the “five cannots”: US/NATO cannot send 400,000 combat troops to garrison Afghanistan’s towns, hamlets and countryside (which is a pre-condition for reconstruction to win hearts and minds); the US/NATO cannot impose a powerful central government upon Afghanistan ; the US/NATO cannot neutralize the very effective least-cost weapons of choice of the Afghan resistance (IED’s and suicide bombers); the US/NATO cannot seal the Afghan-Pakistan border and hence will not eliminate the vital sanctuary so necessary to a guerrilla movement); and lastly, the Pakistan government has never been able to dominate its vast tribal borderlands and there is no reason to believe such will change. Those who choose not to understand these “five cannots” advocate change in a vacuum. The present military impasse begets a political solution and the abandonment of any nation-building fantasy.

The perceived poison of a foreign occupation, the rampant corruption, the all-too-frequent desecration of Islam by the occupiers, the sheer folly of the US/NATO seeking to extend the writ of a central government into the Pashtun tribal regions, the spiraling count of civilian deaths has shifted the Afghan struggle towards being a war of national liberation. The presence of foreign forces is furthermore, according to the United Nations’ senior expert on Al Qaeda, providing the glue with which Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network is bonding support in the region. Anatol Lieven of King’s College (London) puts things aptly. Afghanistan is becoming a sort of surreal hunting estate, in which the U.S. and NATO breed the very terrorists they then track down.

No matter that in Kabul even foreigners speak about being “inside a living hell.” No matter that veteran reporter Kathy Gannon notes that Afghans are fed up with the U.S. and Karzai. No matter that Karzai and U.S. bombs have transformed what was once a backward looking Taliban primarily espousing sharia into a thriving modern movement of resistance and national liberation. No matter that anti-Americanism is spiraling in Pakistan as U.S raids take place. Obama and McCain propose dusty death without end in Afghanistan.

For the full report visit the RAWA website: http://www.rawa.org/temp/runews/2008/10 ... -life.html
Oscar
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