"Several top Senate Democrats say the Taliban have not lived up to their commitments, and that a hasty U.S. withdrawal would be a mistake." Deirde Shesgreen, USA Today, March 17, 2021.
(Remember how Vietnam undermined the Great Society programs in the 1960s. The constructive stimulus program of 2021 may be undermined by United States foreign policy: troops and bases around the world, exorbitant military spending, a new Cold War against China and Russia, covert wars against Venezuela, Cuba, and Iran and more.) HT
Harry Targ
March 3, 2021
The Afghanistan Study Group, an advisory panel established by Congress in December 2019 to prepare policy recommendations about a peace settlement in that country, issued its recommendations on February 2, 2021. These are designed to give guidance to President Biden as he makes critical decisions about the US role in Afghanistan, particularly concerning the 2,500 US troops still in country.
While paying homage to agreements reached between the Taliban and the United States, including a promised US withdrawal of troops by May 1, 2021, the Study Group recommended that President Biden not adhere to an “inflexible timeline” for withdrawing US troops. In other words, in the guise of supporting a peace process, the Study Group recommended that Biden not withdraw troops at this time “to give the peace process sufficient time to produce an acceptable result.” And the report indicated that “the purpose of the US troop presence should also be clear: not to pursue an endless war but to support a peace process that will allow American troops to return home under conditions that guarantee our national interests.” And, as Phyllis Bennis has suggested, even the idea of a “complete withdrawal” does not include bombings and drone strikes. https://www.usip.org/publications/2021/02/afghanistan-study-group-final-report-pathway-peace-afghanistan
An interesting sidebar to the current Afghanistan story is its relative invisibility in the US media. Given the history of thousands of US troops positioned overseas, the 2,500 troops seems more like a modest police action. However, a Congressional Research Service report issued on February 22, 2021 indicated that during the fourth quarter of 2020 there were some 43,809 defense contractors working in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan; 27,388 of whom were in Afghanistan. And from fiscal years 2011 to 2019 Defense Department contracts for services performed in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan cost about $187 billion. “Contractors” are civilians working for the military. And as the report suggests, over the last 30 years “DOD has relied on contractors to support a wide range of military operations.” https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R44116
In short, while the presence of military personnel has seemed to lessen in the Middle East and East Asia in recent years, in fact their numbers remain large and unaccountable to the US public. And The Afghanistan Study Group, made up of legislative representatives, military officers, and defense intellectuals, recommends the continuation of their stationing in Afghanistan.
It is important to revisit the history of what may be called (as the Korean War has been called) “our forgotten war” or our more recent “endless war.” The latest phase of the US war on Afghanistan war began in October, 2001, allegedly in response to the 9/11 attacks on the US. But the US role as suggested in links below, has its roots in the initiation of CIA funding of rebels who were fighting against a pro-Soviet government in Kabul in the summer, 1979. In fact CIA support for rebels fighting against the government of Afghanistan in the 1980s included support for Osama Bin Laden.
Since 2001 over 100,000 Afghans have died, killed by multiple actors, and millions have been displaced. The cost in US dollars has reached $1.5 trillion and since 2001 775,000 US troops were deployed there. Kathy Kelly, co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence, argues that peace can only come from the allocation of financial resources, not for war but for economic development. Billions of dollars, she maintains, were “spent to prolong the war, enabling vast profits for military contractors, various warlords, and mafiosa-style groups that often gained control of foreign funds.” https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/02/03/secure-lasting-peace-afghanistan-task-force-proposes-prolonging-longest-us-war
Also long forgotten has been the Washington Post publication in December, 2019, of the “Afghanistan Papers,” a compellation of documents illustrating the years of government lies about the US presence in Afghanistan. It consists of 2,000 pages of interviews from some 400 military and diplomatic personnel involved in the Afghanistan policy. A retired general reported that the US government did not know how dysfunctional the operation was, including needless deaths of US troops and the Afghan people, runaway corruption, the inability to help build an effective and representative government and police force, or the inability to stem the opium trade. As indicated in the Washington Post story, the documents indicated the falsity of “a long chorus of public statements from US presidents, military commanders and diplomats who assured Americans year after year that they were making progress in Afghanistan and the war was worth fighting.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/afghanistan-papers/afghanistan-war-confidential-documents/
The context for the war in Afghanistan and recommendations for its continuation were recently provided by a report issued by Brown University’s Cost of War Project. This report presents data to indicate that the United States has engaged in “counter-terrorism” operations in 85 countries since 2018 including training programs. US troops have carried out ground attacks or bombing campaigns in at least ten countries and engaged in training exercises in 41 countries. The report suggests that the violence against people around the world, the casualties suffered by US citizens, and the wastefulness of war have led more and more Americans to call for an end to “endless wars.”
In response to the recommendation of the Afghanistan Study Group to extend the deadline for withdrawal of US troops, Stephen Miles, Executive director of Win Without War, said, “The word for spending another minute trying to ‘win’ on the battlefield after last two decades isn’t “logic”-it’s absurdity.”
The US has a moral obligation to help the Afghan people (and those around the world who have suffered from US militarism) rebuild what was largely destroyed by the endless U.S.-led war. But the context for rebuilding begins with an immediate withdrawal of troops and defense contractors.
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Links to older posts:
October, 2, 2009 The endless war
against Afghanistan continues. Diary of a
Heartland Radical: END THE WAR IN AFGHANISTAN NOW
MAY 6, 2012 The War on Afghanistan is Our Biggest Fantasy, https://heartlandradical.blogspot.com/2012/05/blog-post_06.html
