We’re Fighting in a War We Lost Before the War Began

[rug]

By Phyllis Bennis

It shouldn’t surprise anyone, but support for the longest U.S. war is dropping further and faster than ever. The latest national U.S. poll, released on May 9, shows 66 percent of Americans are against the war in Afghanistan – with 40 percent “strongly opposed.”

We can expect to hear the usual spin, claims that it’s a hard slog but Afghans are still better off and we have to finish what we started. That only the presence of our brave troops is giving the Afghan government and military the chance to consolidate their rule. That only our troops provide the possibility for stability and security in Afghanistan. That we have to stay to protect Afghan women.

But the reality is people have watched – and paid for – this war for more than eleven years now, and some facts just can’t be spun anymore. Half of the 66 percent who oppose the war say that the presence of U.S. troops is actually hurting the people of Afghanistan more than they are helping. They’re the ones who got it right.

U.S. troops urinate on the bodies of dead Afghans. U.S. troops burn Qu’rans. One or more U.S. troops goes on a murderous rampage killing 17 civilians, 9 of them children. U.S. troops photograph each other grinning with the body parts of dead Afghans draped over their shoulders. As for protecting women, according to Save the Children’s new “State of the World’s Mothers” report, Afghanistan is the second worst place in the world for a mother to give birth and try raise a child.

http://www.rawa.org/temp/runews/2012/05/11/we-re-fighting-in-a-war-we-lost-before-the-war-began.html

About RAWA

http://www.rawa.org/rawa.html

[xtraxritical]

1. We might have learned something from the Soviets, the English, even Alexander the Great.

It's a tribal society and always will be if not permanently occupied.

[KG]

2. Lost DURec

[Luminous Animal]

3. I think this is a good place to post this. Afghanistan: A Gathering Menace

Letter From - Spring 2012

http://theamericanscholar.org/a-gathering-menace/?utm_source=LF+Newsletters&utm_campaign=bb0216f298-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email

Traveling with U.S. troops gives insights into the recent massacre
Photo by Neil Shea
By Neil Shea

We sat on the patio in the late, hot afternoon, airing our foul, boot-pruned feet. The soldiers of Destroyer talked about how their house searches had become demolition parties. They shattered windows and china, broke furniture, hurled civilians to the ground. Earlier that day, they had blown up a building. They tornadoed through Afghan houses and left such destruction that their ANA (Afghan National Army) allies at first tried to stop them, then grew angry, sullen.

“They were so pissed they wouldn’t hang out with us anymore,” Givens remembered. “They kept saying ‘No good, mistah. No, mistah.’ And I was like, ‘Yes, fucking good. Plate? Smash. Is this a drum? Smash.’ ” He laughed. “ ‘Oh, mistah, no.’ ”

I imagined the Afghan soldiers standing by, helpless, while Destroyer destroyed. I thought of attacks over the past several years in which Afghan policemen or soldiers had suddenly turned on their NATO allies and opened fire. Such betrayals have been increasing. Sometimes the Taliban claim responsibility for them, but often it seems the assailants have been taking revenge on foreign soldiers for some perceived insult to their honor. It was not hard to envision the seeds of such an attack sown in the ruts of Destroyer’s visit.

[rug]

5. “This is where I come to do fucked-up things.”

[Luminous Animal]

4. RAWA protested the invasion before it began and members toured the U.S. speaking to

feminists groups asking women to please do not allow the U.S. to use the plight of women in Afghanistan as a justification for invasion.

[rug]

6. And it's still being used as a justification ten and a half years later.

[sad sally]

7. Is the fact of the majority of Americans are opposed to continuing support - to the tune of $2

billion a week - lost on President Obama?

Why did he chose to make a duck and run trip in the middle of the night to sign an agreement to keep an American presence there until 2024? Oh, sure, supporters of the war will say "combat troops will be gone by 2014."

If in 11 years whatever the objectives of this disasterous war haven't been met, why should combat operations continue another 18 months? So more US soldiers can die and be wounded, or have their mental health go to hell? So more innocent Afghans can die and be wounded, or have their mental health go to hell? So American arms manufacturers can profit? So China has safety guaranteed while they start drawing out oil, gas and minerals?

Does anyone think that after December 2014 the daily life of the Afghan people will be any different that the daily life of the Iraqi people is today? Are we to believe that training Afghan forces will be anymore successful that it was with Iraqi forces?

If we believe what the government tells us that there are very few al Qaeda left in Afghanistan (less than 100 we're told), why would 20,000+ Special Ops forces need to stay past 2014? The agreement says the US won't use Afghanistan land to launch attacks against their neighbors, so isn't the 20,000+ to 100 overkill?

[onethatcares]

9. if the russians were doing the same thing

in the same place, the u.s. of a would be all over them for every one of their crimes, but in the name of democracy and freedom, the u.s. of a. runs amok over the world.

I was taught in school that we were better than that.

[Luminous Animal]

10. Kick.

[DreamGypsy]

11. The title of the article ...

comes, of course, from the Phil Ochs song "White Boots Marching in a Yellow Land"

...
Train them well, the men who will be fighting by your side
And never turn your back if the battle turns the tide
For the colours of a civil war are louder than commands
When you're white boots marching in a yellow land

Blow them from the forest and burn them from your sight
Tie their hands behind their back and question through the night
But when the firing squad is ready they'll be spitting where they stand
At the white boots marching in a yellow land

Red blow the bugles of the dawn
The morning has arrived you must be gone
And the lost patrol chase their chartered souls
Like old whores following tired armies

The comic and the beauty queen are dancing on the stage
Raw recruits are lining up like coffins in a cage
We're fighting in a war we lost before the war began
We're the white boots marching in a yellow land

It happens again, and again, and again.

[rug]

12. I didn't realize that.

Welcome to DU!

[MadHound]

13. Worse yet,

We've been down this path before and apparently haven't learned our lesson.

Hell, we're taking the Soviet style of ending an empire, putting everything into our military while wrecking the rest of the country.

[malthaussen]

14. Sad thing is, the USSR at least had an excuse...

We really were trying to destroy their society. What's our excuse?

-- Mal