Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Politics "Rice Off The Rails"?
Posted by Eli Sanders on Tue, Sep 22, 2009 at 11:18 AM
That's the headline splashed across The Huffington Post right now, after former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said:
The last time we left Afghanistan, and we abandoned Pakistan, that territory became the very territory on which Al Qaeda trained and attacked us on September 11th. So our national security interests are very much tied up in not letting Afghanistan fail again and become a safe haven for terrorists...It's that simple. If you want another terrorist attack in the U.S., abandon Afghanistan.
Really? Off the rails?
I mean, I'm not huge fan of old Bush administration hands and their scary pronouncements, but this one actually makes quite a bit of sense to me. I don't see how it's in the U.S. interest to completely pull out of Afghanistan, and I know it's been building for a while but I guess I've somehow missed the emergence, on the left, of a huge "withdraw from Afghanistan" sentiment.
This was the war that lefties always held up as the good, appropriate intervention—as opposed to that nonsense in Iraq.
Now it's a mistake?
Snap poll, Sloggers, just to see where you are on this:
Should the U.S. withdraw from Afghanistan?
Share via
3
I want a third choice that says "We" obviously should not have invaded in the first place. Now that it's too late for that, I honestly have no idea what should be done at this point.
5
We should stay for the winter, but there's a lot of water under the bridge there. The populace hates all westerners by now, we haven't gotten jack accomplished in terms of infrastructure or employment. OTOH, we finally seem to have gotten the Pakis to do something about their Taliban, and abandoning Afghanistan's women cedes the country to medieval patriarchal theocratic misogynists.
Iraq really screwed the Afghan hound. Way to go, Bush.
Iraq really screwed the Afghan hound. Way to go, Bush.
6
# 2 nails it! WHAT A CROCK OF LIES. America MADE the Taliban to fight against the Soviets! America MADE S. Hussein to fight against Iran. And now Doctor Franken-America is scared shitless because the Monster has got lose and gone wild. Well Boo Dam Hoo.
And the lie that 9-11 happened in a vacuum, as if Al-Queda woke up one fine spring day and said, "Hey kids lets fly planes into the WTC just for kicks. Huh what do ya say?"
Nothing happens in a vacuum.
And the lie that 9-11 happened in a vacuum, as if Al-Queda woke up one fine spring day and said, "Hey kids lets fly planes into the WTC just for kicks. Huh what do ya say?"
Nothing happens in a vacuum.
7
Eli,
Your view on the matter lacks the subtlety of the facts on the ground.
One of the things lefties are going to have to digest is that the war that we can win is the one that was initiated by lies and fabricated intelligence and the "just war" is the one that is quite utterly hopeless. Believe me: took me some time to get my head around that too. But short of turning Afghanistan into a permanent U.S. protectorate, one in which we permanently prop up a corrupt Karzai regime, we are not going to make life livable in Afghanistan.
It's time to get out.
Your view on the matter lacks the subtlety of the facts on the ground.
One of the things lefties are going to have to digest is that the war that we can win is the one that was initiated by lies and fabricated intelligence and the "just war" is the one that is quite utterly hopeless. Believe me: took me some time to get my head around that too. But short of turning Afghanistan into a permanent U.S. protectorate, one in which we permanently prop up a corrupt Karzai regime, we are not going to make life livable in Afghanistan.
It's time to get out.
9
No, they shouldn't just leave Afghanistan, but the US presence there should be more police-like, more small, highly trained specialist soldiers and less Big Tanks, Big Bombers, Huge Armies.
Our mission in Afghanistan requires the surgical scalpel, not the battle-axe.
Our mission in Afghanistan requires the surgical scalpel, not the battle-axe.
10
BTW, you can bitch about the assholes who committed ourselves there but guess what: WE ARE THERE!! And there seems to be no one serious about getting our asses out of there.
And remember what happened to Alexander the Great, the British, the Soviets....
And remember what happened to Alexander the Great, the British, the Soviets....
11
Wait, wait, wait - if what Rice is saying is true, then shouldn't Pakistan (have been/be) our priority, instead of those other two countries we fucked around with?
Ugh, I suppose this headache that just sprung up is what I get for trying to figure out someone from the last administration...
Ugh, I suppose this headache that just sprung up is what I get for trying to figure out someone from the last administration...
12
OH MY GOD THIS JUST OCCURRED TO ME, let's make Heroin legal around the world and make Afghanistan our 51 state! YES. We'll be flush with cash in 12 months! Everyone will get a big fur coat, a Cadillac, and a roll of $100 big enough to choke a horse.
You in?
You in?
13
@12 - A teabagger told me that's Obama's plan, except only Muslim Africans get fur coats and the white folks get sold into slavery. Or something like that.
14
It's no accident that Afghanistan is called the graveyard of empires. This thing smells a lot more like Vietnam than Iraq ever did. We're propping up our hand-picked corrupt government, we're fighting an nationalist insurgency, our enemy has safe haven across a porous border (at least this time, Pakistan is an "ally"). It is probably only a matter of time before we have no choice but to hold our noses and negotiate with the Taliban.
16
We do not have the financial resources to fund an overseas empire, nor can we continue to operate under the reactionary Neo-Con doctrine that we can simply blast our fears away. Other nations live under the threat of terrorism without betraying their principles, creating massively inefficient Departments of Homeland Security, and bowing to foolish zealots playing games of toy soldiers and ill-conceived crusades. It's long past time to recognize the futility of believing that you can eliminate terrorism through warfare and kill off anyone and everyone who threatens you.
17
So, let's just do the numbers.
We've been fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq longer than we were in WW II.
For what?
News flash - al-Qaeda was never in Iraq, and they left Afghanistan YEARS ago.
But they're still funded primarily (95+ percent) by Saudi Arabia and get volunteers from Saudi Arabia and Yemen.
Who are we fighting?
Why?
Bring em all home and invest that money in US-based, operated, owned, and maintained alternative energy - wind, solar, tidal, geothermal, even hydro - and cut off their supply lines while creating US jobs for American citizens.
Capiche?
We've been fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq longer than we were in WW II.
For what?
News flash - al-Qaeda was never in Iraq, and they left Afghanistan YEARS ago.
But they're still funded primarily (95+ percent) by Saudi Arabia and get volunteers from Saudi Arabia and Yemen.
Who are we fighting?
Why?
Bring em all home and invest that money in US-based, operated, owned, and maintained alternative energy - wind, solar, tidal, geothermal, even hydro - and cut off their supply lines while creating US jobs for American citizens.
Capiche?
18
Does Rice really think "they" can't find another shithole to practice in? The logical conclusion to her argument is that we'd need soldiers deployed everywhere on earth where there's a cave, in case bad guys decide to hide in it.
I still don't even know what "winning" in Afgh. would look like. Obama keeps talking about updating the strategy and tactics, but never mentions what the goal is. As far as I can tell, the goal is to kill everyone there who doesn't like us, and keep doing it forever. There's no end game, so no chance of "winning". Just stop, put up a Mission Accomplished sign, and call it a day.
I still don't even know what "winning" in Afgh. would look like. Obama keeps talking about updating the strategy and tactics, but never mentions what the goal is. As far as I can tell, the goal is to kill everyone there who doesn't like us, and keep doing it forever. There's no end game, so no chance of "winning". Just stop, put up a Mission Accomplished sign, and call it a day.
19
as to what we could do now, we could only send road-building, school-building, and MP units there. The solutions in corrupt Afghanistan have more to do with infrastructure, education, and police than they do with combat.
@14 for the historically accurate win.
@14 for the historically accurate win.
20
It's a nice idea to stay in Afghanistan and finally turn that godforsaken hellhole around, but it's just not possible for us to do alone. We need to come up with some kind of international containment strategy, do more to involve the Russians and the Chinese, coax the Europeans into getting off their asses. It's too simplistic to just leave and never come back, as appealing as that sounds sometimes. But if we learned anything in Iraq it's that entrenched cultural values don't change through force. We lack the money, the patience, and the legitimacy (even with Obama as president) to really make that country what it needs to be.
What's the least we can do there to continue busting up terrorist orgs? 'Cause that's probably the most we can hope for.
What's the least we can do there to continue busting up terrorist orgs? 'Cause that's probably the most we can hope for.
22
We need to create and facilitate schools and other community builders. If we run the schools then we decide what the children think about America. It's what we should have done when we helped them kick Russia out of the country. If we had helped rebuild the communities back then there wouldn't have been a gaping hole where the Taliban stepped up in to.
23
I wish the comments reflected the polling numbers,
I struggle to find anyone I actually know that supports the war(s)
I struggle to find anyone I actually know that supports the war(s)
24
Sh*t guys, we CAN'T leave, we're not nearly done protecting Unocal while they build their precious, US-backed OIL PIPELINE that will handily cut out Russia AND Iran from the local oil fields. Can't very well hand them that li'l ol' cash cow, now can we?
(Wait, I can't tell if I'm being sarcastic, or direct... uh oh.)
I'm surprised no one else mentioned the pipeline thus far. It's the primary reason we're in Afghanistan.
(Wait, I can't tell if I'm being sarcastic, or direct... uh oh.)
I'm surprised no one else mentioned the pipeline thus far. It's the primary reason we're in Afghanistan.
25
There was an alliance fighting the Taliban before 9/11. They supposedly now run Afghanistan. Did they want to control their country so they could rob it with corruption? Are they not joining the fight? It seems to me the forces of NATO and the alliance should outnumber the men and weapons and money of the Taliban. We must pay the farmers more for their poppy crops than the Taliban can.
It just does not make sense that rag tag foot soldiers should cause a real threat unless they are getting weapons and cash from somewhere and we can't stop them. How can that be?
It just does not make sense that rag tag foot soldiers should cause a real threat unless they are getting weapons and cash from somewhere and we can't stop them. How can that be?
26
24 is right.
Alan Greenspan finally admitted what we all knew, this was about oil. We could have wiped them out from 30,000 ft, carpet bombing the whole damn country, then dared them to try it again, but NO. Installing a puppet regime requires boots on the ground. The problem lies with the puppet; it does not respond the way the puppeteer supposed it would.
Alan Greenspan finally admitted what we all knew, this was about oil. We could have wiped them out from 30,000 ft, carpet bombing the whole damn country, then dared them to try it again, but NO. Installing a puppet regime requires boots on the ground. The problem lies with the puppet; it does not respond the way the puppeteer supposed it would.
27
We need to get out. A conservative friend of mine asked me way back in 2001 what I thought about Afghanistan and I said that it was hard to imagine not doing something given that we were attacked on 9/11 by people holing up there. But on the other hand if we were to do something it would have to be all-in: hundreds of billions of dollars in economic redevelopment, building a stable government with support across the country, and a massive army to protect security while we did it. Anything less would be a failure, and a waste of time, money, and lives.
Here we are 8 years later, and arguing whether we should go big or get out, because the middle option failed just as it was bound to fail all along. But now it's too late to go big, because anti-US resentment has poisoned the situation and we're tied to a corrupt, do-nothing local government that has lost all legitimacy. So we need to get out.
Of course, "get out" is a simplification. We still need to do police and intelligence work, including the messy stuff with the drones. But we can do that without significant numbers of ground troops and a dysfunctional relationship with Karzai.
It is worth realizing that for all that al-Qaeda operated out of Afghanistan, they were only able to find success with cells closer to their targets. Our security has very little to do with what fanatics are doing in mountain caves over there, and much more to do with fanatics plotting in Germany, or the UK, or Spain, or Bali, or the US. And the way you stop that is not with wars and torture and gutting the Bill of Rights, but plain old fashioned police and intelligence work.
Here we are 8 years later, and arguing whether we should go big or get out, because the middle option failed just as it was bound to fail all along. But now it's too late to go big, because anti-US resentment has poisoned the situation and we're tied to a corrupt, do-nothing local government that has lost all legitimacy. So we need to get out.
Of course, "get out" is a simplification. We still need to do police and intelligence work, including the messy stuff with the drones. But we can do that without significant numbers of ground troops and a dysfunctional relationship with Karzai.
It is worth realizing that for all that al-Qaeda operated out of Afghanistan, they were only able to find success with cells closer to their targets. Our security has very little to do with what fanatics are doing in mountain caves over there, and much more to do with fanatics plotting in Germany, or the UK, or Spain, or Bali, or the US. And the way you stop that is not with wars and torture and gutting the Bill of Rights, but plain old fashioned police and intelligence work.
28
So we've been at war there for what, 8 years? And we have a record of 100% failure so far, and most people think we shouldn't withdraw, but instead spend more even more money and send even more people to their deaths.
FSM help us, our nation is too stupid to survive.
FSM help us, our nation is too stupid to survive.
29
Have you not seen the John Oliver piece on The Daily Show about this? (It should be shown in every history class in this country.)
Genghis Khan? Got every bit of territory around Afghanistan but not Afghanistan. Alexander the Great? Strike 2. Brits. Oh please. And our commie friends, the Soviets? Charlie Wilson's War, anyone?
We will not win because there is nothing to win. We should have (woulda, coulda, shoulda) gone to the Afghan/Pakistan border right after 9/11 and fought it there. But we didn't.
There is nothing left for us to do militarily. The government in Afghanistan has got to be more receptive to what the people want and we should help in that arena. But, for God's sake, quit thinking we can "win" anything. (I already lived through Vietnam. Enough.)
Genghis Khan? Got every bit of territory around Afghanistan but not Afghanistan. Alexander the Great? Strike 2. Brits. Oh please. And our commie friends, the Soviets? Charlie Wilson's War, anyone?
We will not win because there is nothing to win. We should have (woulda, coulda, shoulda) gone to the Afghan/Pakistan border right after 9/11 and fought it there. But we didn't.
There is nothing left for us to do militarily. The government in Afghanistan has got to be more receptive to what the people want and we should help in that arena. But, for God's sake, quit thinking we can "win" anything. (I already lived through Vietnam. Enough.)
30
I loved that too, @29.
Who are we fighting? If we're fighting al-Qaeda we only need to drop four neutron bombs on Saudi Arabia and they cease to exist.
Who are we fighting? If we're fighting al-Qaeda we only need to drop four neutron bombs on Saudi Arabia and they cease to exist.
31
http://socialistworker.org/2009/09/21/wh…
ANALYSIS: DAHR JAMAIL
Where empires go to die
Independent journalist Dahr Jamail, author of The Will to Resist: Soldiers Who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan [1], looks at continuing U.S. war crimes Afghanistan.
September 21, 2009
ON SEPTEMBER 7, the Swedish aid agency Swedish Committee for Afghanistan reported [2] that the previous week, U.S. soldiers raided one of its hospitals. According to the director of the aid agency, Anders Fange, troops stormed through both the men's and women's wards, where they frantically searched for wounded Taliban fighters.
Soldiers demanded that hospital administrators inform the military of any incoming patients who might be insurgents, after which the military would then decide if said patients would be admitted or not. Fange called the incident "not only a clear violation of globally recognized humanitarian principles about the sanctity of health facilities and staff in areas of conflict, but also a clear breach of the civil-military agreement" between non-governmental organizations and international forces.
Fange said that U.S. troops broke down doors and tied up visitors and hospital staff.
Impeding operations at medical facilities in Afghanistan directly violate the Fourth Geneva Convention, which strictly forbids attacks on emergency vehicles and the obstruction of medical operations during wartime.
Lt. Cmdr. Christine Sidenstricker, a public affairs officer for the U.S. Navy, confirmed the raid, and told the Associated Press, "Complaints like this are rare."
Despite Sidenstricker's claim that "complaints like this" are rare in Afghanistan, they are, in fact, common. Just as they are in Iraq, the other occupation. A desperate conventional military, when losing a guerilla war, tends to toss international law out the window. Yet even more so when the entire occupation itself is a violation of international law.
Marjorie Cohn, president of the National Lawyers Guild and also a Truthout.org contributor, is very clear about the overall illegality of the invasion and ongoing occupation of Afghanistan by the United States.
"The UN Charter is a treaty ratified by the United States, and thus part of U.S. law," Cohn, who is also a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and recently co-authored the book Rules of Disengagement: The Politics and Honor of Military Dissent, said. She added:
Under the charter, a country can use armed force against another country only in self-defense or when the Security Council approves. Neither of those conditions was met before the United States invaded Afghanistan. The Taliban did not attack us on 9/11. Nineteen men--15 from Saudi Arabia--did, and there was no imminent threat that Afghanistan would attack the U.S. or another UN member country. The council did not authorize the United States or any other country to use military force against Afghanistan. The U.S. war in Afghanistan is illegal.
Thus, the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, along with the ongoing slaughter of Afghan civilians and raiding hospitals, are in violation of international law as well as the U.S. Constitution.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
AND OF course the same applies for Iraq.
Let us recall November 8, 2004, when the U.S. military launched its siege of Falluja. The first thing done by the U.S. military was to invade and occupy Falluja General Hospital. Then, too, like this recent incident in Afghanistan, doctors, patients and visitors alike had their hands tied, and they were laid on the ground, oftentimes face down, and held at gunpoint. [3]
During my first four trips to Iraq, I commonly encountered hospital staff who reported U.S. military raids on their facilities. U.S. soldiers regularly entered hospitals to search for wounded resistance fighters.
Doctors from Falluja General Hospital, as well as others who worked in clinics throughout the city during both U.S. sieges of Falluja in 2004, reported that U.S. Marines obstructed their services and that U.S. snipers intentionally targeted their clinics and ambulances.
"The Marines have said they didn't close the hospital, but essentially they did," Dr. Abdulla, an orthopedic surgeon at Falluja General Hospital who spoke on condition of using a different name, told Truthout.org in May 2004 of his experiences in the hospital. "They closed the bridge which connects us to the city [and] closed our road...the area in front of our hospital was full of their soldiers and vehicles."
He added that this prevented countless patients who desperately needed medical care from receiving medical care. "Who knows how many of them died that we could have saved," said Dr. Abdulla. He also blamed the military for shooting at civilian ambulances, as well as shooting near the clinic at which he worked. "Some days we couldn't leave, or even go near the door because of the snipers," he said, "They were shooting at the front door of the clinic!"
Dr. Abdulla also said that U.S. snipers shot and killed one of the ambulance drivers of the clinic where he worked during the fighting.
Dr. Ahmed, who also asked that only his first name be used because he feared U.S. military reprisals, said, "The Americans shot out the lights in the front of our hospital. They prevented doctors from reaching the emergency unit at the hospital, and we quickly began to run out of supplies and much-needed medications." He also stated that several times Marines kept the physicians in the residence building, thereby intentionally prohibiting them from entering the hospital to treat patients.
"All the time they came in, searched rooms and wandered around," said Dr. Ahmed, while explaining how U.S. troops often entered the hospital in order to search for resistance fighters. Both he and Dr. Abdulla said the U.S. troops never offered any medicine or supplies to assist the hospital when they carried out their incursions. Describing a situation that has occurred in other hospitals, he added, "Most of our patients left the hospital because they were afraid."
Dr. Abdulla said that one of their ambulance drivers was shot and killed by U.S. snipers while he was attempting to collect the wounded near another clinic inside the city.
"The major problem we found were the American snipers," said Dr. Rashid, who worked at another clinic in the Jumaria Quarter of Falluja. "We saw them on top of the buildings near the mayor's office."
Dr. Rashid told of another incident in which a U.S. sniper shot an ambulance driver in the leg. The ambulance driver survived, but a man who came to his rescue was shot by a U.S. sniper and died on the operating table after Dr. Rashid and others had worked to save him. "He was a volunteer working on the ambulance to help collect the wounded," Dr. Rashid said sadly.
During Truthout's visit to the hospital in May 2004, two ambulances in the parking lot sat with bullet holes in their windshields, while others had bullet holes in their back doors and sides.
"I remember once we sent an ambulance to evacuate a family that was bombed by an aircraft," said Dr. Abdulla while continuing to speak about the U.S. snipers, "The ambulance was sniped--one of the family died, and three were injured by the firing."
Neither Dr. Abdulla nor Dr. Rashid said they knew of any medical aid being provided to their hospital or clinics by the U.S. military. On this topic, Dr. Rashid said flatly, "They send only bombs, not medicine."
Chuwader General Hospital in Sadr City also reported similar findings to Truthout, as did other hospitals throughout Baghdad.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
DR. ABDUL Ali, the ex-chief surgeon at Al-Noman Hospital, admitted that U.S. soldiers had come to the hospital asking for information about resistance fighters. To this he said, "My policy is not to give my patients to the Americans. I deny information for the sake of the patient."
During an interview in April 2004, he admitted this intrusion occurred fairly regularly and interfered with patients receiving medical treatment. He noted, "Ten days ago this happened--this occurred after people began to come in from Falluja, even though most of them were children, women and elderly."
A doctor at Al-Kerkh Hospital, speaking on condition of anonymity, shared a similar experience of the problem that appears to be rampant throughout much of the country: "We hear of Americans removing wounded Iraqis from hospitals. They are always coming here and asking us if we have injured fighters."
Speaking about the U.S. military raid of the hospital in Afghanistan, UN spokesman Aleem Siddique said he was not aware of the details of the particular incident, but that international law requires the military to avoid operations in medical facilities.
"The rules are that medical facilities are not combat areas. It's unacceptable for a medical facility to become an area of active combat operations," he said [4]. "The only exception to that under the Geneva Conventions is if a risk is being posed to people."
"There is the Hippocratic oath," Fange added, "If anyone is wounded, sick or in need of treatment...if they are a human being, then they are received and treated as they should be by international law."
These are all indications of a U.S. empire in decline. Another recent sign of U.S. desperation in Afghanistan was the bombing of two fuel tanker trucks that the Taliban had captured from NATO. U.S. warplanes bombed the vehicles, from which impoverished local villagers were taking free gas, incinerating as many as 150 civilians, according to reports from villagers [5].
The United States empire is following a long line of empires and conquerors that have met their end in Afghanistan. The Median and Persian Empires, Alexander the Great, the Seleucids, the Indo-Greeks, Turks, Mongols, British and Soviets all met the end of their ambitions in Afghanistan.
And today, the U.S. Empire is on the fast track of its demise. A recent article by Tom Englehardt [6] provides us more key indicators of this:
-- In 2002 there were 5,200 U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan. By December of this year, there will be 68,000.
-- Compared to the same period in 2008, Taliban attacks on coalition forces using Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) has risen 114 percent.
-- Compared to the same period in 2008, coalition deaths from IED attacks have increased sixfold.
-- Overall Taliban attacks on coalition forces in the first five months of 2009, compared to the same period last year, have increased 59 percent.
Genghis Khan could not hold onto Afghanistan.
Neither will the United States, particularly when in its desperation to continue its illegal occupation, it tosses aside international law, along with its own Constitution.
First published at Truthout.org [7].
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
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[1] http://www.haymarketbooks.org/product_in…
[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/08/world/…
[3] http://www.underthesamesun.org/images/fa…
[4] http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090906/wl_n…
[5] http://www.aliveinafghanistan.org/aiablo…
[6] http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175111/m…
[7] http://www.truthout.org/091709R
[8] http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-n…
More...
ANALYSIS: DAHR JAMAIL
Where empires go to die
Independent journalist Dahr Jamail, author of The Will to Resist: Soldiers Who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan [1], looks at continuing U.S. war crimes Afghanistan.
September 21, 2009
ON SEPTEMBER 7, the Swedish aid agency Swedish Committee for Afghanistan reported [2] that the previous week, U.S. soldiers raided one of its hospitals. According to the director of the aid agency, Anders Fange, troops stormed through both the men's and women's wards, where they frantically searched for wounded Taliban fighters.
Soldiers demanded that hospital administrators inform the military of any incoming patients who might be insurgents, after which the military would then decide if said patients would be admitted or not. Fange called the incident "not only a clear violation of globally recognized humanitarian principles about the sanctity of health facilities and staff in areas of conflict, but also a clear breach of the civil-military agreement" between non-governmental organizations and international forces.
Fange said that U.S. troops broke down doors and tied up visitors and hospital staff.
Impeding operations at medical facilities in Afghanistan directly violate the Fourth Geneva Convention, which strictly forbids attacks on emergency vehicles and the obstruction of medical operations during wartime.
Lt. Cmdr. Christine Sidenstricker, a public affairs officer for the U.S. Navy, confirmed the raid, and told the Associated Press, "Complaints like this are rare."
Despite Sidenstricker's claim that "complaints like this" are rare in Afghanistan, they are, in fact, common. Just as they are in Iraq, the other occupation. A desperate conventional military, when losing a guerilla war, tends to toss international law out the window. Yet even more so when the entire occupation itself is a violation of international law.
Marjorie Cohn, president of the National Lawyers Guild and also a Truthout.org contributor, is very clear about the overall illegality of the invasion and ongoing occupation of Afghanistan by the United States.
"The UN Charter is a treaty ratified by the United States, and thus part of U.S. law," Cohn, who is also a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and recently co-authored the book Rules of Disengagement: The Politics and Honor of Military Dissent, said. She added:
Under the charter, a country can use armed force against another country only in self-defense or when the Security Council approves. Neither of those conditions was met before the United States invaded Afghanistan. The Taliban did not attack us on 9/11. Nineteen men--15 from Saudi Arabia--did, and there was no imminent threat that Afghanistan would attack the U.S. or another UN member country. The council did not authorize the United States or any other country to use military force against Afghanistan. The U.S. war in Afghanistan is illegal.
Thus, the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, along with the ongoing slaughter of Afghan civilians and raiding hospitals, are in violation of international law as well as the U.S. Constitution.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
AND OF course the same applies for Iraq.
Let us recall November 8, 2004, when the U.S. military launched its siege of Falluja. The first thing done by the U.S. military was to invade and occupy Falluja General Hospital. Then, too, like this recent incident in Afghanistan, doctors, patients and visitors alike had their hands tied, and they were laid on the ground, oftentimes face down, and held at gunpoint. [3]
During my first four trips to Iraq, I commonly encountered hospital staff who reported U.S. military raids on their facilities. U.S. soldiers regularly entered hospitals to search for wounded resistance fighters.
Doctors from Falluja General Hospital, as well as others who worked in clinics throughout the city during both U.S. sieges of Falluja in 2004, reported that U.S. Marines obstructed their services and that U.S. snipers intentionally targeted their clinics and ambulances.
"The Marines have said they didn't close the hospital, but essentially they did," Dr. Abdulla, an orthopedic surgeon at Falluja General Hospital who spoke on condition of using a different name, told Truthout.org in May 2004 of his experiences in the hospital. "They closed the bridge which connects us to the city [and] closed our road...the area in front of our hospital was full of their soldiers and vehicles."
He added that this prevented countless patients who desperately needed medical care from receiving medical care. "Who knows how many of them died that we could have saved," said Dr. Abdulla. He also blamed the military for shooting at civilian ambulances, as well as shooting near the clinic at which he worked. "Some days we couldn't leave, or even go near the door because of the snipers," he said, "They were shooting at the front door of the clinic!"
Dr. Abdulla also said that U.S. snipers shot and killed one of the ambulance drivers of the clinic where he worked during the fighting.
Dr. Ahmed, who also asked that only his first name be used because he feared U.S. military reprisals, said, "The Americans shot out the lights in the front of our hospital. They prevented doctors from reaching the emergency unit at the hospital, and we quickly began to run out of supplies and much-needed medications." He also stated that several times Marines kept the physicians in the residence building, thereby intentionally prohibiting them from entering the hospital to treat patients.
"All the time they came in, searched rooms and wandered around," said Dr. Ahmed, while explaining how U.S. troops often entered the hospital in order to search for resistance fighters. Both he and Dr. Abdulla said the U.S. troops never offered any medicine or supplies to assist the hospital when they carried out their incursions. Describing a situation that has occurred in other hospitals, he added, "Most of our patients left the hospital because they were afraid."
Dr. Abdulla said that one of their ambulance drivers was shot and killed by U.S. snipers while he was attempting to collect the wounded near another clinic inside the city.
"The major problem we found were the American snipers," said Dr. Rashid, who worked at another clinic in the Jumaria Quarter of Falluja. "We saw them on top of the buildings near the mayor's office."
Dr. Rashid told of another incident in which a U.S. sniper shot an ambulance driver in the leg. The ambulance driver survived, but a man who came to his rescue was shot by a U.S. sniper and died on the operating table after Dr. Rashid and others had worked to save him. "He was a volunteer working on the ambulance to help collect the wounded," Dr. Rashid said sadly.
During Truthout's visit to the hospital in May 2004, two ambulances in the parking lot sat with bullet holes in their windshields, while others had bullet holes in their back doors and sides.
"I remember once we sent an ambulance to evacuate a family that was bombed by an aircraft," said Dr. Abdulla while continuing to speak about the U.S. snipers, "The ambulance was sniped--one of the family died, and three were injured by the firing."
Neither Dr. Abdulla nor Dr. Rashid said they knew of any medical aid being provided to their hospital or clinics by the U.S. military. On this topic, Dr. Rashid said flatly, "They send only bombs, not medicine."
Chuwader General Hospital in Sadr City also reported similar findings to Truthout, as did other hospitals throughout Baghdad.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
DR. ABDUL Ali, the ex-chief surgeon at Al-Noman Hospital, admitted that U.S. soldiers had come to the hospital asking for information about resistance fighters. To this he said, "My policy is not to give my patients to the Americans. I deny information for the sake of the patient."
During an interview in April 2004, he admitted this intrusion occurred fairly regularly and interfered with patients receiving medical treatment. He noted, "Ten days ago this happened--this occurred after people began to come in from Falluja, even though most of them were children, women and elderly."
A doctor at Al-Kerkh Hospital, speaking on condition of anonymity, shared a similar experience of the problem that appears to be rampant throughout much of the country: "We hear of Americans removing wounded Iraqis from hospitals. They are always coming here and asking us if we have injured fighters."
Speaking about the U.S. military raid of the hospital in Afghanistan, UN spokesman Aleem Siddique said he was not aware of the details of the particular incident, but that international law requires the military to avoid operations in medical facilities.
"The rules are that medical facilities are not combat areas. It's unacceptable for a medical facility to become an area of active combat operations," he said [4]. "The only exception to that under the Geneva Conventions is if a risk is being posed to people."
"There is the Hippocratic oath," Fange added, "If anyone is wounded, sick or in need of treatment...if they are a human being, then they are received and treated as they should be by international law."
These are all indications of a U.S. empire in decline. Another recent sign of U.S. desperation in Afghanistan was the bombing of two fuel tanker trucks that the Taliban had captured from NATO. U.S. warplanes bombed the vehicles, from which impoverished local villagers were taking free gas, incinerating as many as 150 civilians, according to reports from villagers [5].
The United States empire is following a long line of empires and conquerors that have met their end in Afghanistan. The Median and Persian Empires, Alexander the Great, the Seleucids, the Indo-Greeks, Turks, Mongols, British and Soviets all met the end of their ambitions in Afghanistan.
And today, the U.S. Empire is on the fast track of its demise. A recent article by Tom Englehardt [6] provides us more key indicators of this:
-- In 2002 there were 5,200 U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan. By December of this year, there will be 68,000.
-- Compared to the same period in 2008, Taliban attacks on coalition forces using Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) has risen 114 percent.
-- Compared to the same period in 2008, coalition deaths from IED attacks have increased sixfold.
-- Overall Taliban attacks on coalition forces in the first five months of 2009, compared to the same period last year, have increased 59 percent.
Genghis Khan could not hold onto Afghanistan.
Neither will the United States, particularly when in its desperation to continue its illegal occupation, it tosses aside international law, along with its own Constitution.
First published at Truthout.org [7].
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Material on this Web site is licensed by SocialistWorker.org, under a Creative Commons (by-nc-nd 3.0) [8] license, except for articles that are republished with permission. Readers are welcome to share and use material belonging to this site for non-commercial purposes, as long as they are attributed to the author and SocialistWorker.org.
[1] http://www.haymarketbooks.org/product_in…
[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/08/world/…
[3] http://www.underthesamesun.org/images/fa…
[4] http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090906/wl_n…
[5] http://www.aliveinafghanistan.org/aiablo…
[6] http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175111/m…
[7] http://www.truthout.org/091709R
[8] http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-n…
32
The problem is if we left now, the Taliban comes back and slaughters every single Afghani they assume to have aided and abetted the US.
33
We're not fighting a nationalist insurgency. There's not so much nationalism there! It's more of a "get the fuck out of my valley" insurgency. These folks are the ultimate hillbillies.
BTW, please don't confuse "Democrat", "left", and "liberal", they're not always the same thing. If you remember the Cold War, there were plenty of miltiarist, interventionist, conservative Dems who were up for such projects. Let's just say they didn't go away with the end of the Cold War and they were all for this. I won't deny that actual leftists (say, left of Dem party) weren't fully suspicious of this thing.
Could we at least once attack Tora Bora, surround it, clean it out? Just once? Like we should have done in Sept. '01? Alas, that would take ... casualties... and it's not just American leftists (all 392 of 'em) that prevent a White House from going that far.
Whatever you think about Afgh., get used to it, because we'll be chasing Al Q. - and folks just like them who do the next big attack, inspired by AQ & our own shenanigans -- to Yemen, Indonesia, Somalia...
This will go on for the rest of our lives, whether we like it or not. We're dealing with folks who believe in grudges and revenge, not that we don't, but they don't get distracted by American Idol, they'll wait a decade or two.
BTW, Osama was hoping to lure us into Agh. with his 9/11 attack. We didn't jump in with two feet. Let's hope that our current prez isn't so eager to prove he's not a faggy wimpy liberal Dem, that he...
BTW, please don't confuse "Democrat", "left", and "liberal", they're not always the same thing. If you remember the Cold War, there were plenty of miltiarist, interventionist, conservative Dems who were up for such projects. Let's just say they didn't go away with the end of the Cold War and they were all for this. I won't deny that actual leftists (say, left of Dem party) weren't fully suspicious of this thing.
Could we at least once attack Tora Bora, surround it, clean it out? Just once? Like we should have done in Sept. '01? Alas, that would take ... casualties... and it's not just American leftists (all 392 of 'em) that prevent a White House from going that far.
Whatever you think about Afgh., get used to it, because we'll be chasing Al Q. - and folks just like them who do the next big attack, inspired by AQ & our own shenanigans -- to Yemen, Indonesia, Somalia...
This will go on for the rest of our lives, whether we like it or not. We're dealing with folks who believe in grudges and revenge, not that we don't, but they don't get distracted by American Idol, they'll wait a decade or two.
BTW, Osama was hoping to lure us into Agh. with his 9/11 attack. We didn't jump in with two feet. Let's hope that our current prez isn't so eager to prove he's not a faggy wimpy liberal Dem, that he...
34
It is totally ridiculous for anyone to suggest that if we leave afghanistan, we're more likely to get hit in a terrorist attack. the whole "we fight them over there so we don't have to fight them over here" argument. We aren't that stupid are we? I haven't met these terrorists before, but I will guess that they can multitask. They are all over the world, underground, largely undetectable. they are not all neatly secured in Afghanistan, each and every one shooting back at our troops. It's incredible that we have not been attacked since 9/11, considering the bee's nests that we've been whacking away at
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