Holland Has Had Enough: Killing of Innocent Civilians Goes
On Apace in Afghanistan
24 February 2010By Dave Lindorff
The civilian death toll in the US media-hyped and much
government-touted Battle of Marjah is now up to 21,
about a third of them children. But that’s only part
of this ugly story.
While the slaughter goes on in this pointless display
of Marine power, civilians have been dying at a
prodigious rate at American hands elsewhere in
Afghanistan. On Thursday a US airstrike allegedly
targeting “insurgents” ended up hitting and killing
seven Afghani policemen. And yesterday, another
airstrike, this time on a “convoy” of three vehicles,
killed an astonishing 27-33 civilians and injured at
least 12 more--and given the vicious nature of
American weaponry, it’s a fair bet that many of those
who were injured will end up dying of their wounds,
too, or wishing they had.
Nice work Gen. Stanley McChrystal! Your newly
professed “concern” about protecting civilians is
working out nicely.
True to form, Gen. McChrystal’s response to these
murderous outrages has not been to call for
investigations and courts martial of those responsible
for the deaths, but rather to express his concern that
“inadvertently killing or injuring civilians
undermines their [the Afghan people’s] trust and
confidence in our mission.”
Ah yes, the “mission.”
Oh yeah, this general who earned his street cred
running a mafia-like death-squad operation in Iraq,
says he’s also “extremely saddened by the tragic loss
of innocent lives.” (Sure he is. I wonder how
"saddened" he was at the inevitable mistakes his hit
men made in their extra-judicial killing spree in
Iraq.) What he didn’t say though, was that he is
extremely angry that American forces are continuing to
shoot first and ask questions later, or that he plans
to call some people on the carpet and strip some
badges off them to ensure compliance with his orders
to protect civilians.
Why would this be?
Because the professed “concern” about protecting
civilians in this war is all talk and showmanship.
It’s not about actually caring about and protecting
civilians.
America is not in Afghanistan because of any real
concern about the welfare of the people of
Afghanistan. It is in Afghanistan because America
wants to control Afghanistan. This is a war about
geopolitics, not about liberation.
If America really cared about the ordinary people of
Afghanistan, who have endured decades of war, it would
forswear the use of antipersonnel weapons, which the
UN has been trying to ban--over the opposition of the
US and other benighted powers like China and
Israel--weapons that leave unexploded bomblets
littering the landscape to maim and kill innocent
people, disproportionately small children (as they are
still doing in Laos!). It would sign and obey the land
mine banning treaty. It would cease using pilotless
drones, which have been killing far more innocent
people than actual enemy fighters. And it would stop
using airstrikes on “suspected” enemy targets when
those targets are likely to have civilians in them,
including children and babies.
In fact, if the US really cared about the people of
Afghanistan, it wouldn’t be fighting there at all. It
would be organizing a regional peace conference, under
the auspices of the United Nations and involving all
the surrounding nations--Iran, China, Pakistan,
Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan--and reaching
an agreement among all the forces within the country,
including the Taliban, to establish a government of
national reconciliation. The US would be relying not
on war but on the carrot of aid to get such a
government to actually work for the peaceful
reconstruction of the country. And it would withdraw
all of its forces promptly.
But there is no talk of such an approach. Rather, in
Washington all we hear is talk of “winning” and
“completing the mission,” though nobody seems able to
say just what “winning” or the “mission” in
Afghanistan might be. That’s understandable since the
government of Afghanistan is a corrupt
narco-rkleptocracy led by a family of gangsters, thugs
and profiteers, and the military and police are a
hopeless combination of inept and corrupt. According
to a first-hand, on-the-scene report in the New York
Times, which has been an editorial cheerleader of this
war, Afghan forces have played almost no role in the
Marjah battle, which is supposed to be a test run of
the new Obama war strategy. That might explain why
only one Afghan soldier has died in the battle,
compared to 12 US and other NATO soldiers and
counting.
Happily, there is a light at the end of this
blood-drenched tunnel. That light is the people of the
Netherlands, who have so soured on their nation’s
support for this stupid, criminal war, that they have
brought down their government. Technically what
happened is that the Dutch Labor Party, which opposes
Dutch military involvement in the Afghan War, has
finally denounced the war and, this week, pulled out
of the governing coalition, leaving the coalition with
just 47 of 150 seats in the country’s parliament. It
is likely that the 1600 Dutch troops serving in
Afghanistan will soon be pulled out.
The war, never popular in Europe, Canada or Australia,
has become increasingly less popular everywhere but in
America. Now, like the famed appocrophal story of the
little boy who saved Holland by putting his finger in
a leaking dike, only in reverse, this pulling out of a
Dutch finger could lead to a flood of European nations
ending their commitment of troops to the NATO
participation in the War in Afghanistan, leaving just
US and British forces alone there.
The challenge now is for the somnolent and co-opted
peace movement in the US to throw off its narcophilic
embrace of the Democratic Party and of President Obama,
to take heart from the Dutch people, and to demand
that the US too end its war making, not just in
Afghanistan, but around the globe.
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