Ever-changing reasons for war

[IndianaGreen]

Ever-changing reasons for war

Eight years later, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown can’t seem to make up his mind why the war in Afghanistan is still going on.

December 9, 2009

BIT BY bit, as happened with Iraq, the reasons for staying in Afghanistan slide into gibberish. So Gordon Brown's reasons for the war seem to change every week.

At one point, we were there to stop the opium, then to install democracy, now to prevent terrorist attacks in Britain. Next week, he'll tell us the Taliban must be defeated as emissions from burqas are the greatest cause of climate change, or the plan is to buy the Taliban with public money until Afghanistan is back on its feet, and sell off the profitable sections such as jihad training camps at a rate that makes sound economic sense.

At least Tony Blair used to come up with a pile of nonsense and stick to it. In his latest speech, Brown promised "early action on corruption." How early is this likely to be, given that even if he starts this morning, that will be eight years after we arrived? Even the shabbiest of builders, if they'd been round for eight years, wouldn't have the cheek to say, "Right, we'll have one more cup of tea and then get started 'cos it's nice to get some action in early."

Their most important ally in this early crusade against corruption is Hamid Karzai, who became president in an election that had to be re-run because of corruption, and will now take place again with only one candidate. Still, it's always best to have someone in charge who is familiar with the subject.

The scale of the task is such that yesterday, the human rights group Transparency International published a league table of the world's most corrupt countries, with Afghanistan coming second after Somalia. And Karzai will probably feel offended by this, saying, "We should have come first," blaming the Somalians for cheating by bribing the judges.

This isn't just a matter of Afghan fiddling. Private militias are employed by the U.S. Army, so The Asian Times reports: "U.S. and NATO contingents spend hundreds of millions of dollars annually on Afghan security providers, most of which are local warlords guilty of human rights abuses."

http://socialistworker.org/2009/12/09/ever-changing-reasons-for-war

[truth2power]

1. The rest of that piece is even better than the snips you posted...

I'd be LMAO if the whole situation wasn't such a travesty.

These changing reasons, on the part of both Obama and Brown, would seem to indicate that the real motive is the one thing no one will talk about...the pipelines.

[IndianaGreen]

2. Obama and Brown are a rerun of Bush and Blair

The same imperialist foreign policy, with lots of sugar coating.

[avaistheone1]

3. Blair was Dubya's poodle.

Obama is the Pentagon's and the military industrial complex's poodle.