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Imperial Arrogance
Allies Feel Strain of Afghan War
By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 15, 2008; A01
The above piece about NATO’s lost war is filled with reporting of disdain against troops other than the U.S.:
British officials note that the eastern region, where most U.S. forces are based, is far quieter than the Taliban-saturated
center of British operations in Helmand, the country’s top
opium-producing province. The American rejoinder, spoken only in
private with references to British operations in both Iraq and
Afghanistan, is that superior U.S. skills have made it so.
…
In Iraq, British commanders touted their successful "hearts and minds" efforts in Northern Ireland,
tried to replicate them in southern Iraq, and criticized more
heavy-handed U.S. operations in the north. Their U.S. counterparts say
they are tired of hearing about Northern Ireland and point out that
British troops largely did not quell sectarian violence in the south. The
same tensions have emerged in Afghanistan, where U.S. officials
criticized what one called a "colonial" attitude that kept the British
from retaining control over areas wrested from the Taliban.
Pot – kettle – black ….
But this imperial arrogance is not limited to the U.S. military establishment. The reporter is just as ignorant:
When German Chancellor Angela Merkel visited Bush at his Texas ranch in November, U.S. and German officials said, she told him that while Bonn would step up its contribution in quiet northern Afghanistan, any change in Germany’s noncombat role would spell political disaster for her conservative government.
The Potomac Prawda doesn’t even get the capital city of the second biggest NATO country right. This on its frontpage – no less …
Trivial? Maybe – but these things add up pretty quick. The fall of the U.S. empire will be, to a great part, the result of such attitude.
It’s deja vu all over again
Yogi Berra knew what’s what in that intuitive no bullshit way that is always missing from the bands of diplomats, bureaucrats and senior soldiers who earn their living analysing then reporting on the centres of misery they or their predeccesors dragged into despair when they colonised them.
Afghanistan is a classic example of this. The people have always had the wherewithal to resist the career misery makers, but unfortunately not the misery and the end result of that has been ever more desperate attempts to subdue the fuzzy wuzzy with cold steel, or hot lead. The plans have new titles but always the same old strategy – send more guns.
The Independant carries an article on the same dispute B highlighted between the amerikan and english groups in USuk:
US attacks UK plan to arm Afghan militias
The US general in charge of training the Afghan police has criticised British-backed plans to arm local militias in an attempt to defeat the Taliban. The remarks by Maj-Gen Robert Cone, the second most senior US soldier in Afghanistan, are likely to deepen the row between London and Washington over how to counter the insurgency.
General Cone, who is in charge of rebuilding the Afghan police force, is the second US commander to condemn the initiative. He said: “Anything that detracts from a professional, well-trained, well-led police force is not the answer.”
Last month, Gordon Brown said Britain would increase its support for “community defence initiatives, where local volunteers are recruited to defend homes and families modelled on traditional Afghan arbakai”. The arbakai system involves arming untrained Afghani men, who agree to come running at the beating of a drum if their village elders feel threatened.
The amerikans whose ears are already stinging from the accusations that they armed OBL and most of the Taliban militias starting from back in the day when Russia was lured across the border into Afghanistan, now believe the notion of arming Afghanis to be an absolute anathema.
The British who believe their cannon fodder has been bearing the brunt of the armed ‘insurrection’ since amerika redployed out of Afghanistan into the Itaq surge, are only too happy to arm the locals and let them fight it out. But of course even for the limited abilities of the institutionalised thinkers that populate both ‘teams’ the issue is larger than that.
The amerikan prez aspirants are advocating change at the moment. It is the never-ending catchcry of change that is used to justify this continual, unceasing rhythmn of institutional onanism. Careers are built upon the ability to detect the exact moment to withdraw from a centralist course of action and promote decentralisation. And of course vice versa.
Out in the weird phoney world of GWOT, it seems that the amerikan forces are still caught up in the Rumsfield centralisation which started in the Pentagon which has now made it out into the field.
Whereas the Bliars attempts to decentralise his bureaucracy through limited regional self government in Wales and Scotland, is still with the english, and has become a tenet of every english government employee’s thinking.
Is it really that simple? That the problem with Afghanistan is that USuk haven’t fallen into the right tempo to fuck? One is going out while the other goes in and then goes in while the other moves out? We’ve all had that interesting moment with a new partner when we have to move into a shared movement, a common rhythmn, perhaps the english and amerikans will find the time and Afghanistan, then the world will dissolve into an earth shatteringly delicious orgasmic experience!
Yeah right stop that picture and instead picture this: George W Bush of amerika and George Brown of england down the local rave picking it up? No no no – the image is just too ugly.
Well here’s a dance tune simple enough for them and one we would all like to see them perform.
But aside from the slim chance of all the USuk warmongers getting locked up and getting down with the pillow biting and shirt lifting that most secretly lust for, why the hell can’t they agree to do it right?
It goes back to organisational dysfunction. They are always going to be at odds with each other because they know deep down that the only solution that is ever on offer, guns and violence cannot bring stability to a region where getting a roof over yer head and enough for your family to eat is a real struggle that most of us sitting at our puta screens couldn’t begin to comprehend.
As long as the USuk model is driven by people trained, equipped and encouraged to regard guns and violence as the ultimate fallback position when things get hard, and Afghanistan is a tough country where nothing comes easy, the best they are ever going to come up with is the centralised amerikan position of arming the centre (Kabul) and shooting everybody outwards or the current english one of going out to the edges, arming those on the fringes and hoping the war will work inwards.
It’s the old story give a bloke a hammer and all he’ll see will be nails or give him a gun and it won’t take long to find people to shoot.
The eventual hope of course is that the Afghanis will tire of all the killing, cry ‘uncle’ and the job’s done. Afghanis aren’t famous for backing down from a blue so it will be a long and bloody wait for that to happen.
While the waiting continues it doesn’t hurt to indulge in a little finger pointing to distract the citizens whose taxes and children are being offered up to this insanity.
One would have to imagine that amerika is probably fully engaged in Iraq, and much as they would like to go back to Afghanistan and put real capacity into the Pakistani border country they probably won’t be able to. Firstly because there is too great a risk of Iraq imploding if they pull troops out;
Then the Nato structure in Afghanistan, which they daren’t give the flick lest the european troops shoot thru as well, means that the solution which has worked well in Iraq and Kabul thus far probably won’t work in rural Afghanistan.
The controls and bureaucracy that the amerikans have put in place to buy off the insurrection is a nightmare in triplicate.
All that cash floating round, and since Joe Auditor probably isn’t up to visiting rural Iraq and checking to make sure all the monies have been properly acquitted, it would be surprising if any more than 50% of the bucks are getting to Iraqis, the remainder paying for amerikan military children’s college funds.
That system couldn’t work across the spectrum of the “coalition of the willing to kill peasants”, even if amerika were prepared to pay to keep foreign troops from getting shot.
All those different armies with all their different cultures may be able to fight together, may be, there hasn’t been huge evidence of this, but trying to make them conform to the same arcane pentagon invented system for disbursing funds to the former insurrectionists wouldn’t be a big chance of working.
The Germans and English certainly won’t pay their own cash out like that. There is a huge risk of blowback, just from the story leaking out to the media, much less if a payee kills someone, which would almost certainly happen.
That has probably happened in Iraq a number of times the only reason no one knows is because of the controls that were forced down through their command structure. Of course it will leak out fairly soon, hopefully during the election campaigning.
There is nothing in it for european countries to want to pay for. No one is having an election that could be embarrassed by troops getting killed, and the aid money has none of the usual potential for looking after ‘corporate friends’ of the governments.
So they will stick with giving everyone guns and then hiding in their forts.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Jan 16 2008 12:11 utc | 16
If the US/ USuk/ Nato/ EU, do not manage, long term, to control the remaining oil fields, at least in part, with whatever crap they can dream up, such as…
PSAs (profit sharing agreements – benchmarks!), democracy (vote and starve, and soon look to your local overlords to shoot), economic development (aid for the stooges, soon plonked in offshore accounts), arms sales (getting back cash for useless crap, as internal or national domination does not depend on that kind of force), Royal Puppet Religious Leaders, Faithful despots, up for anything to keep their dominant position, kill or imprison or marginalize their people; other crazed ploys, all over the board, anything goes,
> end of long sentence, > they (we) will be up shit creek.
It will be a fight to the end, bartered, negotiated, underground (sic), the media playing their flunky role, their bread coming from pandering to power, with the real bullet points unmentioned, every red herring trail, nice an’ stinky, put to the public, a high five triumph. (Quiet or manic grins over margaritas. Coke in the bathroom.)
More grand-standing, threats, more occupations, more wars, more angst, more muslim hate, more terrorist blame, more raw countries with unspeakable violent gunmen (eg. Nigeria), more bombing, more military, more monumental walls, fences, borders, more compounds, more security, more camps, more citizen control, more deaths in the millions, more and more…
Till one fine day the whole show collapses. Completely. In one poof, like a dried out poisonous mushroom, idly punctured, botanic interest mildly disgusted by the small whoof of deadly stuff.
A glass or two and… well…
Posted by: Tangerine | Jan 18 2008 18:58 utc | 23
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