[R-G] (Afghanistan) How many more will die in vain before we withdraw?

[Suzanne de Kuyper]

There was that wonderful rock song about "how many lives does it take
?"years and years ago.  Depends on whether the dying, maiming is on your
home t v set .......I quess

Suzanne                          suzannedk at gmail.com



On Thu, Jul 16, 2009 at 7:50 PM, Sid Shniad <shniad at sfu.ca> wrote:

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> http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jul/15/afghanistan-propaganda-soldiers-deaths-bbc
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> The Guardian 15 July 2009
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> How many more will die in vain before we withdraw?
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> The attempt to exploit soldiers' deaths to win support for the shameful war
> in Afghanistan thankfully isn't working
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> Seumas Milne
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> All week politicians, media and the military have strained every nerve to
> turn public sympathy over the deaths of British squaddies into support for
> the US-led occupation of Afghanistan. After a year of parades, a new Armed
> Forces Day and a stream of censored reports of derring-do from the
> frontline, the killing of 15 soldiers in 10 days has triggered a barrage of
> war propaganda. Having all but ignored the same number who died in Helmand
> province last month, every tabloid and Whitehall stop has been pulled out to
> capitalise on the emotions unleashed by the continuing sacrifice of British
> teenagers in an endless war.
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> From the Ministry of Defence-orchestrated processions of coffins through
> the Wiltshire village of Wootton Bassett to the black ties worn by Sky TV
> presenters as they address generals as "sir", the message is clear: this war
> is a "patriotic duty", in the prime minister's words. The only argument in
> parliament yesterday was whether the government had provided enough
> helicopters and boots on the ground to do the job.
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> Meanwhile, the BBC seems to have largely abandoned any attempt at neutral
> reporting, as its newsreaders warn "Britain's resolve is being put to the
> test" and presenters speculate anxiously about what might happen if public
> "support" for the war "were to weaken". We can't pull out now, the war's
> cheerleaders warn, or our boys will have died in vain.
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> But the campaign isn't working. As in other Nato states, most people in
> Britain haven't supported the Afghan war for several years. A Guardian/BBC
> Newsnight poll this week found that 56% want troops to pull out by the end
> of the year; an ITN poll showed 59% backing withdrawal. Significantly, both
> surveys found opposition to the war highest in the working class communities
> from which most of those doing the fighting are drawn.
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> Heightened awareness of British casualties may rally support for an army
> anxious to overcome its humiliation in Iraq. But after eight years of
> fighting, during which a kaleidoscope of justifications has been offered for
> the continuing Nato occupation, public scepticism has clearly bitten deep.
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> This was a war, after all, launched by George Bush and Tony Blair with the
> stated aim of killing or capturing Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban leader
> Mullah Omar – and destroying al-Qaida. Eight years later, not one of those
> objectives has been accomplished. Bin Laden and Omar are still at large,
> while al-Qaida has spread into Pakistan, Iraq and dozens of other countries
> around the world.
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> Nor have any of the other fast-changing war aims – from bringing democracy,
> development and good governance, to ending the oppression of women and
> cracking down on opium production – fared much better. British and other
> Nato troops are now defending one of the world's most corrupt governments, a
> cabal of narco-trafficking warlords rubber-stamped by a fraudulent election
> in which political parties weren't even allowed to stand; Afghanistan has
> become the heroin capital of the world; and the position of many women, as
> women's leaders such as the suspended Afghan MP Malalai Joya argue, is now
> worse than it was under Taliban rule.
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> Most absurd of all is the government's claim that the Afghan war is
> preventing terrorism on the streets of Britain. The exact opposite is the
> case. There were no al-Qaida-style terror attacks in the UK before 2001. And
> Britain's role in the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, along
> with its support for Israel's occupation of Palestinian land – cited both by
> the bombers themselves and a string of intelligence reports – has been a
> central factor in motivating would-be jihadists, who have in any case been
> mostly home-grown and can train in Leeds as well as Lashkar Gah if they want
> to carry out atrocities.
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> On the ground in Helmand, the British occupation has been a disaster. In
> 2006, there were around 150 US troops in the whole province and violence was
> minimal. Now there are 9,000 British and 10,000 American troops, who have
> proved a magnet for the Taliban and local resistance. Helmand is now the
> most violent part of the country and one in 10 schools and clinics have been
> closed because, as Oxfam's Ashley Jackson in Kabul puts it: "Anything with a
> link to the government is a target."
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> The thousands of civilians killed in the fighting, doubling every two
> years, far outnumber Nato casualties, but barely register in the western
> media. Set against the 140 villagers, mostly children, slaughtered in one US
> aerial attack in Farah province in May, last Friday's eight British dead
> pale by comparison. No wonder that polling of Afghans – even under military
> occupation, which would be expected to skew the results towards the occupier
> – show that a majority oppose Barack Obama's current surge, want
> negotiations with the Taliban, and all foreign troops out within two years.
> In the south and east, most want them out now.
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> The US escalation, already engulfing north-west Pakistan, cannot
> conceivably pacify the country with what will still be less than 100,000
> Nato troops. As Graham Fuller , the CIA's former station chief in Kabul,
> argues, the presence of US and Nato troops in Afghanistan is "now more the
> problem than the solution" – just as the reason British soldiers are dying
> in Afghanistan isn't because they haven't got enough helicopters, but
> because they're an occupying force in another Muslim country where they're
> not wanted.
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> The pressing alternative is presented by the war's supporters as
> "abandoning" Afghanistan to a "bloodbath". That is to stand reality on its
> head. The only way to end the war is the withdrawal of foreign troops as
> part of a wider political settlement negotiated with all significant Afghan
> forces on the ground, including the Taliban – and guaranteed by regional
> powers and neighbouring states: Pakistan, Iran, China and India.
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> Such a process is bound to take place eventually – whether or not the
> British government has the guts to follow the example of Canada and The
> Netherlands and announce plans to pull out earlier or not. But the
> assumption must be that a strategic US decision to accept the inevitable,
> turn its back on the wreckage of the war on terror and withdraw from
> Afghanistan is going to be a slow and painful process. In the meantime, many
> more people – mostly Afghans – will shamefully die in vain.
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