[R-G] Heeding the lessons of another war

[Suzanne de Kuyper]

Ah! the experts, filled with intgrety and purpose, state truths and give
advise of profound wisdom that the Military Industrial. Military
Intelligence worlds of the United States do not even bother to acknowledge.
 Heeding lessons, any lesson other than imperial might and longeveity of
power, are of absolutely no interest...  If the experts, weighty , wise and
of indubitable correctness would address their adversaries with the same
serious commitment they show to historical realities, a war of reality
versus propaganda would ensue shifting the possibilities of future to more
real results.
Do read "Spies for Hire" by Tim Shorrock!  The commitment to absolute world
power by the US military is total....as well as totally secret.  In time the
State Department or the Pentagon or the Intelligence Sevices, now completely
commercial, will rewrite the book for translation so it says little real.
 Until then, it is explosive, unbeleivable.

Suzanne de Kuyper
Amsterdam

On Fri, Oct 3, 2008 at 10:19 PM, Sid Shniad <shniad at sfu.ca> wrote:

>
>   International Herald
>   Tribune                                             October 1, 2008
>
>
>   Heeding the lessons of another war
>
>
>
>   By Maleeha Lodhi and Anatol Lieven
>
>
>   Forty years ago, the United States began to mount raids into Cambodia
>   and to undermine the government of King Sihanouk in order to cut
>   Vietcong supply lines.
>
>
>   As a result, America's war with Vietnamese Communism spread into
>   Cambodia, leading to the triumph of the Khmer Rouge and the Cambodian
>   genocide. But these horrors occurred after the U.S. itself had quit
>   Vietnam and after the U.S.-backed regime in South Vietnam had
>   collapsed. Washington's widening of the war benefited neither America
>   nor its local allies.
>
>
>   The U.S. is now making the same mistake in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
>   If continued, ground incursions by U.S. troops across the border into
>   Pakistan in search of the Taliban and Al Qaeda risk drastically
>   undermining the Pakistani state, society and army.
>
>
>   Many Pakistanis are berating their new civilian government and the
>   military for being too supine in their response to the American
>   actions. There have also been public calls for NATO supply lines
>   through Pakistan to be cut, which could cripple the Western military
>   effort in Afghanistan. The latest dreadful terrorist attack in
>   Islamabad illustrates the danger of a wider conflagration and the
>   price Pakistan is paying for its role as a U.S. ally.
>
>
>   The dangers involved in Pakistan are greater even than in Cambodia,
>   where the disasters were contained in one country. The current war has
>   already been driven into the Pakistani heartland. If turmoil increases
>   in Pakistan then the forces of extremism will be strengthened, in the
>   region and the world. Thus the long term implications of "losing"
>   Afghanistan pale into insignificance when set against the risk of
>   "losing" Pakistan.
>
>
>   Nor would undermining Pakistan, whether intentionally or not, in any
>   way help the U.S. and NATO mission in Afghanistan. Pakistan has six
>   times Afghanistan's population and is a nuclear state. The Pashtun
>   population of Pakistan is greater than that of Afghanistan, and
>   provides a large number of Pakistani soldiers. Far from saving
>   Afghanistan, present U.S. strategy toward Pakistan will only risk
>   sinking Afghanistan itself in a whirlpool of regional anarchy.
>
>
>   Instead of this approach, the U.S. and NATO should adopt a radically
>   new strategy for Afghanistan that relies more on soft power. The
>   approach should be based on the recognition that Afghanistan cannot be
>   transformed along Western lines and that the U.S. cannot maintain an
>   open-ended presence in that country without destabilizing the entire
>   region.
>
>
>   Afghanistan must sooner or later be left to the Afghans themselves to
>   run. Local actors should take the lead in carrying out
>   counter-insurgency, as Western forces and an overwhelming reliance on
>   military force are liable only to multiply enemies.
>
>
>   The terrible effects of bombardment on the civilian population have
>   become a potent factor behind the will of many Afghans to resist what
>   they see as an alien military occupation.
>
>
>   The next U.S. administration therefore should announce a return to
>   America's original objective, that of hunting international terrorist
>   networks and preventing them from creating safe havens in Afghanistan.
>   This should in fact be America's only core objective. The attempt of
>   the West to "transform" Afghanistan is already meeting the same fate
>   as the Soviet attempt to do so. It is strengthening the insurgency, by
>   creating the impression of a threat to the Islamic way of life and
>   local tradition.
>
>
>   Instead of continuing with what is in effect a purely Western
>   approach, Washington should initiate serious regional talks on
>   Afghanistan's future.
>
>
>   The United States and the West need to remember that however long
>   their forces stay in Afghanistan, sooner or later they will leave,
>   while Afghanistan's neighbors will always remain. Tragically, their
>   policies have in the past generally been directed against each other,
>   with disastrous results for the people of Afghanistan.
>
>
>   The United States should instead seek to shape a regional concert that
>   will stand some chance of at least containing Afghanistan's problems
>   in the long term. None of this will be easy; but a continuation of
>   present U.S. strategy promises only widening turmoil in the region, or
>   at best war without end.
>
>
>   Maleeha Lodhi is a fellow at Harvard and former Pakistani ambassador
>   to Washington and London. Anatol Lieven is a professor at King's
>   College London and a senior fellow of the New America Foundation.
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