Obama Goes to War;
Are 60,000 of 80,000 Afghan Troops Potheads?
Part I of President Barack Obama's major policy speech on Afghanistan, Pakistan and al-Qaeda on Friday, 3/27:
And Part II:
Full text of prepared remarks available here.
A Guardian Television report suggests that 75% of the 80,000 Afghan army troops are regular marijuana users. Many are alleged to be village juvenile delinquents who were kicked out. Discipline and tactical know-how is limited. They are facing old-time guerrillas like the Hizb-i Islami of Gulbadin Hikmatyar.
Will 4,000 additional US trainers, promised by President Obama on Friday, be enough?
For background, see Chapter Six of
Engaging the Muslim World
End/ (Not Continued)
posted by Juan Cole @ 3/27/2009 04:17:00 PM
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It seems that president Obama thinks Afghanistan is the only failed state which can be safe heaven for anti-US terrorist activities.
President Obama: "I want the American people to understand that we have a clear and focused goal: to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qaida in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to prevent their return to either country in the future"
Bad idea to set a goal that is virtually impossible to achieve. Is it realistic to think that we can totally eliminate al-Qaida from these countries? I doubt it.
It's not just the Afghan army who are getting stoned. Back in September '08 a report by Norwegian police, who are training Afghan cops, was obtained by Aftenposten newspaper revealing that -
"Drug tests performed on Afghan police undergoing training showed that 95 percent of them tested positive for cannabis and amphetamines." (1)
Which perhaps sheds some light on the U.S. GAO assessment that -
"Since 2002, the United States has provided about $6.2 billion to train and equip the Afghan National Police (ANP). However, as of April 2008, no police unit was assessed as fully capable of performing its mission." (2)
(1) http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article2681857.ece
(2) http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d08883t.pdf
Dr. Juan Cole
This is what I just posted on my blog on this subject. I hope the followers of your blog find it of interest.
U. S. Policy is Flawed in Afghanistan
President Obama's new policy on Afghanistan and Pakistan is seriously flawed and sending more American and Nato troops is fraught with danger.
The question is, who is the U.S. fighting in Afghanistan, the Afghan people? How can a foreign force fight the locals and on what basis - they are fundamentalist fanatics? But aren't there fundamentalist fanatics around the world including the U.S.? If the U.S. is fighting Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, didn't the U.S. have ample opportunity to eliminate them in the past. According to some of the members of CIA's advanced team of operatives (well documented on CNN) they had Osama bin Ladin within sights at Tora Bora even before the Afghan invasion started but Donald Rumsfeld refused to order air raids! Perhaps OBL was needed alive to provide a reason for Iraq invasion.
There is no doubt that Taliban are extremist religious fanatics who wish to impose their archaic view of Islam over Afghanistan. There is also no doubt that this extreme view of religion is rejected by a vast majority of 1.3 billion Muslims around the world. But Taliban have never attacked the U.S. forces until they invaded Afghanistan, so why is the U.S. fighting them and to what end? If the purpose is to bring Taliban into mainstream fold so they moderate their views and become a useful member of the society, bombing and killing them is not going to accomplish the objective.
It is important to understand the ethnic mix of Afghans which is comprised of Tajiks, Hazaras, Uzbeks, Shias and the majority Pashtuns. All of the Taliban come from majority Pashtun tribes. Pashtuns straddle across the Pakistan border in Baluchistan and North West Frontier province. The ties between Pashtun tribes go back thousands of years and artificial borders are meaningless to them. In its invasion of Afghanistan, the U.S. was misled by the Northern Alliance (comprising minority non-Pashtun groups) that Taliban is the enemy. Though Hamid Karzai is a Pashtun, but minority non-Pashtuns have held sway over the Afghan Government ever since the U.S. invasion. This has caused a massive backlash amongst Pashtuns who feel they are being deprived of their fair right by the U.S. and its allies. As a result they support and finance the Taliban because they feel they are fighting their battle.
Some brilliant minds in Rumsfeld's Pentagon and the CIA also exacerbated the problem by allowing Afghans to re cultivate poppy, which was completely eradicated by previous Taliban Government. The thinking perhaps was that if Afghans are happy with their cash crop, they will not attack U.S. and Nato forces. But guess what, the cash from poppy crops is flowing into the hands of Taliban with which they are buying weapons to kill U.S. and Nato soldiers.
The solution of Afghanistan does not lie in war, drone attacks or in killing Taliban. Didn't the Soviet Union try this already with a much larger and a more equipped force and failed miserable at it? If the U.S. continues to follow this course, the outcome will be no different. In addition, U.S. drone attacks on Pakistan border areas are radicalizing the Pashtun belt to such an extent that they are becoming a menace to the Pakistan Government to the extent of destabilizing Pakistan. Many in Pakistan believe that sooner or later U.S. will walk away from Afghanistan and leave this enormous problem in their lap, just as it did after the withdrawal of Soviet forces leaving a destabilized Afghanistan in Pakistan's lap.
What Afghanistan needs is peace and security and that will be achieved by dialogue. Pashtuns need a fair share of power and Taliban need to be brought to the negotiating table. A Government of national unity needs to be formed in Afghanistan and foreign troops need to leave soon thereafter. Foreign troops are the main cause of fighting, Pashtuns & Taliban look at them as foreign invaders just as they did the Soviet troops. Only the United Nations troops should be stationed in Afghanistan to ensure stability and peace between various tribes.
Afghanistan has been at war since 1979 and it is time to stop. Both Afghanistan and Pakistan need peace. The drone attacks on Pakistan have accomplished absolutely nothing (regardless of Pentagon's convoluted claims) except for killing poor villagers in the border areas.
What is needed is a massive development effort. A 'Marshall' type plan to pull out Afghanistan and Pakistan's frontier region from the 15th century to the present can bring enormous benefits and change the mindset of the people in that region. Continuation of present policy of more troops and more war will only turn Afghanistan into another Vietnam for President Obama. One hopes he has the foresight not to fall into that trap.
Dear Profesor Cole
The most revealing comment is made by the Marine advisor at the end of the film clip.
All of us recognise the fustration that occurs when the Western sense of urgency meets the IBM timecale.
Insh Allah, Bukara (similar to the Spanish concept of manana but without the same sense of urgency) and Malesh (tough -- similar to waiting for Godot).
The raw recruits shown in the film clip are by no means ready for combat patrol.
According to New York Times Vice President Biden has argued against deeper involvement in a quagmire. I think he must remember the ARVN.
"A Guardian Television report suggests that 75% of the 80,000 Afghan army troops are regular marijuana users. Many are alleged to be village juvenile delinquents"
I just want to state two things here.
A> 'Juvenile Delinquency" is RELATIVE to what's EXPECTED from children in the dominant culture.
The dominating (at gunpoint) culture right now is WESTERN.
Which leads to ..
B> Smoking Pot. Personally, I think it is a darn sight better for their minds and their (rather limited-by-war at this point...) futures than, I suppose, what the new improved (illegitimate) Westernized government might want their children drugged with... prozac, zoloft, Seroquel... (Rummy's people are all pharma-complex... It appears THEY'VE 'won'). The list is extensive, and almost all children in the West who are force fed this crap are being done so due to lax restrictions on 'off-labelling', In other words, use in manners for which they were not intended leading to child suicides and permanently damaged central nervous system/emotional functions.
Recently, I had an Epiphany.
I remember when growing up in New York in the early 60s (I'm 55 now) there was a cartoon show on TV, probably on nitrate film, as I haven seen hide-nor-hair of these cartoons since and they probably disintegrated (Like 'Terrytoons' and others left to decompose).
The unique thing about this cartoon was interactivity... in a time before anyone knew it was not good to sit up close and personal with the RF radiation emanating from it.
It worked like this... A young boy was on adventures, and at some point he'd get to a place where he needed a ladder or a boat or a bridge to help him overcome an obstacle.
Parents were supposed to have acquired a clear piece of clear plastic clingy vinyl, much thicker than 'saran wrap', and apply it to the screen where the child watching the show would draw with crayons a ladder, or boat, or bridge to help the cartoon character on his way.
The show didn't last long, perhaps due to the realization that sitting a child that close to an RF radiator wasn't particularly smart, but I always suspected it was because the parents weren't up that early in the morning to apply the clear film and too many TV screens were getting directly crayon-ed (ooops!).
Anyway, my point... There IS a point...
Marijuana IS that vinyl and crayons where one can draw alternate realities, different world views... and then, at one's leisure, remove the film and compare.
In Western Industrial OCD/Narcissism plagued societies, some folks have a problem because they lock into that other 'reality'... and then they can't 'peel the film off that screen'.
But in indigenous cultures using locally available psychologically active materials, that would generally not be the case, and I think the youth of Afghanistan need other MUCH MORE IMPORTANT things, such as the 'luxury' of living without fear of death due to foreign invaders who think any male under the age of 90 is a threat.
Summation... I think this pot story is another diversionary piece of and panders to genocidal cultural assimilation.
...and speaking of genocidal cultural assimilation, has anyone been following Native American Studies Professor Ward Churchill's wrongful termination trial?
The Boulder (Colorado) Daily Camera is liveblogging it into it's 4th week, and it appears that his lawyer David Lane, IS winning the case.
The case being that Colorado University wrongfully terminated him for academic misconduct over eight allegedly suspect cites out of thousands.
Churchill's argument is they would have never done so, nor would it happen to any professor anywhere, if he hadn't made the 'Little Eichmann' comment a few years back.
Friday's liveblog is here.
A 'search archive for other dates' is here.
I want to addend to my previous comment:
>But in indigenous cultures using locally available psychologically active materials, that would generally not be the case, and I think the youth of Afghanistan need other MUCH MORE IMPORTANT things, such as the 'luxury' of living without fear of death due to foreign invaders who think any male under the age of 90 is a threat....<
Addend: ...and Western culturally affiliated 'dunning' regarding this issue, and even perhaps punishments such as incarceration, are not appropriate. It is truly a non-issue in an un-tampered Afghani culture. [end]
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