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20 November 2010 By Rick Rozoff The mainstream news media and alternative sources
alike have seized on a recent revelation – though it
is hardly such – published by McClatchy Newspapers
that "The Obama administration has decided to begin
publicly walking away from what it once touted as key
deadlines in the war in Afghanistan in an effort to
remove emphasis from Barack Obama's pledge that he
would begin withdrawing US forces in July 2011." [1] An article in this series of over a month earlier,
U.S. And NATO To Wage War 15-Year War In Afghanistan
And Pakistan [2], documented that much and more, and
any attentive reader of news on the Internet during
the preceding weeks would not have been surprised by
the McClatchy feature. On October 25 Edmund Whiteside, North Atlantic
Treaty Organization Council Secretary, spoke at
Concordia University in Montreal, Canada, and
according to the local press said, "Expect the war in
Afghanistan — the longest military engagement in both
Canadian and American history — to continue for a
‘very long' time." In his exact words, "Afghanistan
will be a very long military venture." His position will be confirmed at the NATO summit
in Lisbon, Portugal next week, as will a major
commitment demanded by the U.S.-dominated military
bloc's new Strategic Concept to be adopted at the
meeting: The retention of nuclear arms in NATO's
arsenal and the continued stationing of American
nuclear bombs in Europe. Whiteside also argued:
"Canada says that it doesn't need ballistic missiles.
But Canada is part of a nuclear policy alliance.
There's no getting around that…." [3] On November 8, the day before the McClatchy article
appeared, the spokesman for the 152,000-troop,
50-nation, NATO-led International Security Assistance
Force in Afghanistan, German Brigadier-General Josef
Blotz, stated that "no timetable has been set for
withdrawal of coalition troops from Afghanistan." Blotz confirmed that "There has been no timetable
yet." In regard to transferring security control to
Afghan forces, he said, "We will not [proceed]
according to a fixed timetable, it will be carried out
based on conditions to be achieved over the next
couple of years." [4] On November 11, Prime Minister Stephen Harper of
Canada spoke on the sidelines of the G20 summit in
Seoul, South Korea and said that "he's decided…to keep
troops in Afghanistan in a noncombat training role
after Canada's combat mission ends in 2011." Associated Press cited a senior Canadian government
official verifying that his nation "will keep 750
military trainers and 250 support staff in Afghanistan
until 2014…." [5] A similarly bleak perspective on any withdrawal –
or beginning of one – next year was offered on the
preceding day by the commander of British forces in
southern Afghanistan, Major General Nick Carter, who
"gave a devastating assessment of the war effort in
Afghanistan." Carter admitted that "In my tour I lost 302
soldiers. Most of them American. The cost in blood and
treasure has been enormous." He added that NATO
wouldn't know if it was winning – whatever that word
signifies in a war already in its tenth year and
escalating to new heights by the day – until June of
2011, "when the fighting season begins again" and the
Atlantic Alliance and the Pentagon can "compare
Taliban attacks with this year." [6] The U.S. and NATO – the distinction is merely
formal as recent estimates are that 140,000 of the
150,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan now serve under
NATO command – have lost 633 troops in the war as of
November 11. That compares to 521 for all of last year
and 295 in 2008. 1,184 of the total 2,203 Western
military deaths in the country have occurred in the
past 22 months. Citing U.S. Air Force statistics, an ABC News
report of November 10, "Number of Afghan Air Strikes
Highest Ever," disclosed that the amount of air
strikes conducted in Afghanistan in October –
approximately 1,000 – was the highest monthly total in
the war that began in 2001, up from 700 the previous
month, which itself marked a 172 per cent increase
over September of 2009. The article also detailed that the amount of
American and NATO combat sorties so far this year,
26,948, exceeds the previous high of 26,474 from last
year. [7] Across the border in Pakistan, the U.S. has
launched at least 20 drone missile attacks that have
killed 130 or more people since the beginning of last
month. A violation of Pakistani airspace by a NATO
helicopter gunship in the Federally Administered
Tribal Areas occurred on November 2 for at least the
fifth time since September, with one killing three
Pakistani soldiers on the last day of the latter
month. Earlier this month opposition parliamentarians in
Pakistan "expressed serious concern over the violation
of Pakistani airspace by North Atlantic Territory
Organisation (NATO) forces" and "staged a walkout from
[a] Senate session in protest and strongly condemned
the airspace violations by NATO forces." [8] According to a feature in India's Frontline
magazine, "President Obama has substantially increased
defence spending and has expanded the war in
Afghanistan," and "the Obama administration has
wholeheartedly endorsed the Bush administration's
policy of eliminating terror suspects using pilotless
high-tech drone aircraft. "Instead of using the laborious technique of
capturing alleged terrorists from their hideouts in
crowded cities and remote villages, the drones just
bomb the house or village where the suspects are holed
up. In the process, there has been huge collateral
damage. Innocent civilians killed far outnumber those
killed in the fight against the occupation. "Ever since he took office two years ago, Obama has
made the deadly drones a key instrument in his fight
against the militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The
drones are also being used liberally to target
militants in Yemen and Somalia." [9] The Afghan war in its tenth year has expanded into
a far broader conflict, one which grows in both scope
and lethality with each passing week and will escalate
yet further before it begins to wind down, if it ever
does. President Obama's pledge last year to "draw down"
U.S. and NATO combat forces from South and Central
Asia – they are also stationed in Kyrgyzstan,
Tajikistan and Uzbekistan – next year is now revealed
to be the transparent political manipulation it was
from the start. A piece by Stephen M. Walt was published on the
website of National Public Radio on November 11,
entitled "Foreign Policy: Bait And Switch In
Afghanistan." Walt is a professor of international affairs at
Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of
Government, serves on the editorial boards of Foreign
Policy, Security Studies, International Relations, and
the Journal of Cold War Studies, and is the co-author
of The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy with John
Mearsheimer. He wondered at the chorus of surprise, genuine or
feigned, that has greeted the McClatchy article,
stating: "I don't know anyone who thought the U.S. could
turn things around in 18 months, and that particular
deadline was little more than a piece of political
sleight-of-hand designed to make escalation look like
a temporary step. Reasonable people can disagree about
whether Obama's decision to escalate in Afghanistan
was the right one (I think it wasn't), but Obama's
straddle on this issue is one reason why some of his
most enthusiastic supporters have become
disenchanted." Listing historical precedents, and at least hinting
at the public's inveterate gullibility, Walt added,
"there's a long tradition of presidents telling the
American people that some new military mission won't
take long and won't cost that much. Nixon told us he
has a ‘secret plan' to end the Vietnam War (he didn't)
and Bill Clinton said U.S. troops would only be in
Bosnia for 12 months (it was more like nine years).
President George W. Bush and his advisors said that
the occupation of Iraq would be brief and pay for
itself yet we are still there today. And now Obama has
done essentially same thing: selling an increase
committed by suggesting that it is only temporary, and
then backing away from his own self-imposed deadline."
[10] Further vows to deescalate the conflict, not only
the longest war in American history as was noted above
but also in Afghanistan's, will predictably follow the
U.S. political cycle, especially the 2012 presidential
election and Obama's presumed reelection bid, but will
prove as false as last year's. The Pentagon and what on November 19 and 20 will be
officially unveiled as global NATO have reaped
substantial benefits from the war in Afghanistan that
both are reluctant to relinquish. They have insinuated
their militaries into the center of Eurasia for the
long haul. And they have built an international
network of installations and military partnerships to
service the war, from the world's first multinational
strategic airlift operation in Hungary to a transit
base in Kyrgyzstan through which at least 50,000
troops pass each month in and out of Afghanistan and
the subordination of the armed forces of scores of
nations in Europe and Asia. In recent days, for example, the Afghan war has
provided the U.S. and NATO with unprecedented
opportunities to expand their worldwide military
reach: President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan, which
has the largest oil and natural gas reserves in the
Caspian Sea Basin and borders Russia and China,
visited NATO Headquarters in Brussels to meet with
Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen. Rasmussen
"thanked President Nazarbayev for his country's
support for the NATO-led International Security
Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan," [11] and
Nazarbayev announced that "Several Kazakhstani troops
will serve at the headquarters of the international
coalition in Afghanistan." [12] Admiral Giampaolo di Paola, Chairman of the NATO
Military Committee, visited Georgia to meet with the
country's defense and foreign ministers and the chief
of the Joint Staff of the Georgian Armed Forces and to
inspect the NATO-supported Krtsanisi National Training
Center, the newly established NATO Liaison Office in
the nation's capital, and the "33rd Battalion of the
III Infantry Brigade going to replace [the] contingent
of the 32nd Battalion currently deployed in
Afghanistan." [13] Georgia fought a five-day war with
Russia in August of 2008 and NATO is training its
armed forces for more than just the war in
Afghanistan. U.S. Special Operations Command recently concluded
training exercises for troops from the Czech Republic,
Lithuania and Poland in Germany. The Pentagon
described their purpose as follows: "Coordination and synchronization between
conventional and special operations forces (SOF) is
crucial on the modern battlefield since both share
integral roles within an area of responsibility –
whether it involves intelligence gathering or
conducting combat operations….[T]he training event was
part of an annual brigade-level mission rehearsal
exercise…to prepare conventional force units assigned
to the U.S. European Command area of operations for
deployment to Afghanistan." [14] Lithuania and Poland have borders with Russia and
both host NATO forces, at an air base in the first and
a training center in the second nation. Earlier this
month the Czech parliament approved the deployment of
additional troops, including special forces, to
Afghanistan next year, raising the nation's NATO
contingent to 720 soldiers. Also this month, Polish troops trained at an
Illinois Army National Guard base an hour's drive from
Chicago, and a Polish officer involved in the training
stated: "We train together because we fight together.
If we train together we fight and work better in
Afghanistan. It is good idea to train together before
we deploy. We are good soldiers and our brigade was
deployed in Iraq two times and in Afghanistan so we
work at a high level. We are ready." [15] The connection between nations supplying troops for
the war in Afghanistan and the U.S. committing to
intervene on their behalf in conflicts with
neighboring states was recently affirmed by Philip H.
Gordon, Assistant Secretary of State for European and
Eurasian Affairs. At a strategy meeting in Poland late last month he
said: "I think there is broad support among allies for
the balance between NATO's traditional missions of
Article 5, which is collective defence, and also the
need for the Alliance to deal with new security
challenges around the world, and we are very
comfortable with that balance." [16] The Swedish parliament has extended the deployment
of troops to Afghanistan, where Sweden is engaged in
combat operations and has lost troops for the first
time in two centuries, months after the government
abolished the last vestige of conscription to meet
NATO "professionalization" demands and announced a
mandatory foreign deployment obligation for all
troops. Last week German Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu
Guttenberg visited Mongolia, which also borders China
and Russia, and met "with soldiers of the first
Mongolian mission contingent, which had been deployed
to the German defense area in Afghanistan." [17] Against the backdrop of President Obama's visit to
Mumbai and New Delhi, reports have surfaced that India
could be enlisted to provide troops for NATO's
International Security Assistance Force in
Afghanistan. Indian defense analyst Bharat Singh
recently asserted that "The almost 9,000 Indian troops
deployed on UN peacekeeping missions could easily be
re-deployed in Afghanistan." [18] In Bulgaria, where the Pentagon has acquired four
new military bases – including two air bases – since
2006, Defense Minister Anyu Angelov recently stated
that 7 percent of his nation's defense – if it can be
called that – budget is allotted for the war in
Afghanistan, where troop strength will rise from 536
to over 600. He also said that Bulgaria "will be
setting no deadline for withdrawal of its troops from
Afghanistan." [19] Nevertheless, James Warlick, U.S. ambassador to the
country, spoke at a conference entitled Europe for
Afghanistan: from Understanding to Support held at the
Military Club in the Bulgarian capital, saying
"Bulgaria could up its efforts in Afghanistan and do
more." [20] The consolidation of a far-reaching military nexus
for and dependent on the Afghan war is not limited to
Europe's east. Last month "A small corner of Cornwall
[became] Afghanistan." At the Royal Air Force St
Mawgan facility 1,000 troops from NATO's Allied Rapid
Reaction Corps (ARRC) participated in "a major NATO
training exercise, the first of its kind in the UK"
[21] in preparation for deployment to Afghanistan in
January. "The ARRC servicemen were in the county preparing
for their final training before being deployed for
operational service in Afghanistan next year. "Exercise ARRCade Spear II aims to offer recruits
training ahead of their work as part of NATO's
International Security Assistance Force." [22] Shortly afterward, "328 soldiers, including 45
teams from the full-time British Army, UK Territorial
Army teams and entrants from foreign armies" took part
in Exercise Cambrian Patrol in Wales, "as one of the
most prestigious patrolling tests within NATO." [23] From Cornwall to Mongolia, Kazakhstan to Illinois,
Sweden to Wales, Poland to Georgia, Lithuania to India
and beyond, NATO and the Pentagon are strengthening
military partnerships and networks around the Afghan
war. Neither Washington nor Brussels is in a hurry to
abandon a conflict that has allowed both to globalize
their military roles. 1) Nancy A. Youssef, Obama officials moving away
from 2011 Afghan http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/../103468/obama-administration-moving-away.html#ixzz150vQO3tq 2) U.S. And NATO To Wage War 15-Year War In
Afghanistan And http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/../afghanistan-and-pakistan-u-s-and-nato-to-wage-war-15-year-war 3) The Link, November 2, 2010 http://thelinknewspaper.ca/article/598 4) Xinhua News Agency, November 8, 2010 http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2010/11/number-of-afghan-air-strikes-highest-ever.html 8) Daily Times, November 4, 2010 http://www.frontline.in/stories/20101119272305500.htm 10) Stephen M. Walt, Foreign Policy: Bait And
Switch In Afghanistan http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=131241642 11) North Atlantic Treaty Organization, October
26, 2010 http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/../kazakhstan-u-s-nato-seek-military-outpost-between-russia-and-china 12) Central Asia Online, October 27, 2010 http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/../mongolia-pentagon-trojan-horse-wedged-between-china-and-russia 18) Daily Times, November 7, 2010 |
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