Barack Obama faced his first foreign policy setback today since being sworn in as US president as European allies seem likely to resist pressure to increase troop deployments in Afghanistan. At a press conference with French President Nicholas Sarkozy just prior to the opening of the NATO summit in Strasbourg to mark the 60th anniversary of the military alliance, Obama told reporters that al-Qaeda was more likely to hit Europe than the US.
He went on to emphasise that the ongoing war in Afghanistan was an international mission, not merely an American one. At this stage, most commentators doubt that even increased civilian support from NATO allies will be forthcoming, let alone substantial military aid that will match America's own vaunted "surge" of an additional 17,000 combat troops.
The NATO summit will also mark the historic military re-integration of France into the alliance after de Gaulle withdrew French forces in 1966, as well as the admission of Albania and Croatia. This latter move will increase NATO's total membership from 26 to 28 countries.
The toD verdict: The call for NATO members to increase troop numbers in Afghanistan is not new. The International Council on Security and Development, in a report on the increasingly dire security environment in Afghanistan published in 2007, called for NATO members to increase troop commitments in line with their respective GDPs to effectively double total NATO-ISAF forces in the country. The report also called for the easing of the highly contentious caveats that separate national rules of engagement.
However, the NATO summit will represent the first time that Obama invests personal political capital in attempting to convince his NATO allies to act. It is unlikely that this attempt will be successful; one senior German official has said that the German people doubt their security is being protected "in the Hindu Kush". Even officials from Britain, traditionally the US' closest ally, are downplaying expectations of an increase from 8,000 to 10,000 troops.
Bolstering troop numbers in an attempt to recreate the apparent success of the Iraqi surge is a highly controversial move, with many commentators saying that this will simply increase levels of violence in the country. In a report entitled "Caught in the Conflict", eleven aid agencies including OXFAM, ActionAid and CARE have warned that any increase in military deployments that fails to make the protection of civilians its main priority will result in an increased number of civilian deaths and injuries and thus erode support for the international presence. In making Afghanistan the centre-piece of his foreign policy agenda, it is clear that Obama will continue to face increasingly difficult choices in balancing the civilian and military components of any comprehensive strategy.
In other news, officials in the Pakistan city of Peshawar have disclosed that militants destroyed nine NATO vehicles today. The militants, who are suspected Taliban insurgents, used petrol bombs and rockets in a bloodless attack against the Port World logistic terminal on the outskirts of the city. This attack is the latest in a series of strikes against NATO supply routes. Over 75 percent of NATO supplies are shipped to Afghanistan overland through northern Pakistan where the security situation has steadily declined since the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.
North Korea missile launch "almost certain"
South Korean President Lee Myung-bak said on Friday that a North Korean missile launch was "almost certain", possibly as early as Saturday. His comments came on the same day that US President Barack Obama warned North Korea against such a launch, saying that the United States, together with other members of the International community, would take steps to show Pyongyang that it cannot act "to threaten the safety...of other countries with impunity."
Pyongyang has stated that the aim of the missile test is to place a communications satellite in space. The United States, South Korea and Japan fear that the launch will represent a major leap forward in the DPRK's ballistic missile technology, which could be used in future to deploy nuclear warheads.
Renewed clashes on Thai-Cambodian border
A brief exchange of gunfire occurred between Thai and Cambodian troops early in the morning on Friday. This was followed by a second, more serious clash between the two sides in the afternoon after talks between the respective commanding officers failed to calm tensions. This second exchange involved heavy weapons including machine guns and RPGs; at least one Thai soldier has been killed with seven others wounded.
These clashes took place on contested territory near the temple of Preah Vihear mere days before the Cambodia-Thailand Joint Border Committee is scheduled to hold fresh talks aimed at finally resolving the dispute. The incident, which is being described by the Thai authorities as a simple "misunderstanding" while the Cambodians are referring to it as an "intended, aggressive invasion by the Thai military", is only the latest in a series of clashes that date back many years. The last serious encounter, which occurred last October, resulted in the deaths of two Cambodian soldiers.
Credibility of Malaysia's new prime minister "far from acceptable"
Najib Abdul Razak, who was sworn in by Malaysia's king today, has found himself immediately embattled, challenged on grounds of integrity and credibility. Even before his first day in the job, the three members of the opposition alliance had sent a letter to the country's constitutional monarch, Tuanku Mizan Zainal Abidin, asking him to postpone the swearing in ceremony because of Razak's alleged links to corruption and a murder scandal. The corruption charges relate to the purchase of French submarines when he was defense minister, while the latter scandal concerns the murder of the Mongolian mistress of an associate.
Although Razak has dismissed these charges as vicious lies, the opposition parties maintain that, despite a lack of proof, these alleged crimes have eroded the public's confidence in him to the point where his position as the country's head of government is untenable. Opposition MP Karpal Singh said that Razak lacked the confidence of his own party, saying that his credibility was "far from acceptable."
"No preconditions for talks", Pakistan tells India
In a diplomatic rebuke to India, Pakistan announced today that it will not accept any preconditions for talks with its nuclear rival. Responding to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's insistence that a "minimum precondition" for the resumption of talks would be guarantees that Pakistan's soil would not be used as a base for terrorist attacks against India, Pakistan presidential spokesman Farhatullah Barbar said "by putting conditions, we would be going backwards." In his comments at the G20 summit, Singh also appeared to cast doubt on Pakistan's sincerity in pursuing the perpetrators of the terrorist attack on Mumbai that took place on 26 November 2008, saying that Pakistan must do everything in its power to bring the culprits to justice and that "the ball is in the court of Pakistan." Barbar insisted that Pakistan was co-operating fully with Indian authorities.
Comments
http://www.ww4report.com/node/6943
A rather interesting analysis above raises the issue of the Bush Administration's role in Central Asia. It was really a Bush Administration imperial crime on top of an imperial grab by the Clinton Administration. President Obama inherits a most shameful post Cold War Great Grab for oil and gas rich Central Asia. Our nation now is attempting to hold Afghanistan which is nothing but a cork to the Islamic spread throughout the South and Central Asian regions. Therein lays a severely sticky and high traction momentum for which Clinton and Bush must hold personal responsibility. The feebleness of Russia under Yeltsin permitted Western avarice to become paroxysmal. In particular, the American right-wing "wrecking crew" so well described in recent literature accelerated libertine expression of this corporate avarice to a point of utter recklessness.
Defensive reactions were inevitable. Firstly, alQaeda entered the negotiating realm with an Islamo-ideologic argument based on the role of Islamic religion to Soviet anti-ecclesiastic campaign. It can be factually argued that, not President Reagan, but the Muslims of the USSR defeated the Soviet Union. The CIA's role was as a limitless supplier of arms and cash only. alQaeda had argued that the Islamic Revolution of Afghanistan must be advanced "Westward" as well as Southeastward into India. The Taliban bought into the transnational argument of binLaden. But we were fraudulently presented with the "westward" argument as defining attacking Europe and the US when in fact the target was Central and South Asia. At first, Saudi Arabia and Iran fully supported the anti-Soviet Afghan War. China-- which has long been fighting the Uygur Muslim nationalists in Sinkiang Province, nevertheless, supported Muslim Pakistan as the bridgehead to dismembering of India, its main Asian enemy.
Since the 1980s we have witnessed a Sunni-Shia unity directed from Teheran that undermined the Egyptian and Saudi governments. These in turn supported Saddam Hussein as a transition to Islamism. Perceiving the Iranian Iean-to-Iraq collaboration to destroy the Western economic hold in the Middle East, the US worked a wedge war between Baghdad and Teheran. This drained American power out of South Asia (Afghanistan). The EU was well aware that the "western" target of the Muslims was limited to the ex-Soviet Republics of Central Asia and insisted on maintaining emphasis on diplomatic efforts in the Middle East on the promise of an Iraq-Iran switch from the perto$ to the Euro would enrich its European members. The Bush Administration, without any logical reason expected that as US troops are withdrawn from Afghanistan the European would be forced to fill the void. But just as they favored on-intervention in Iraq they felt no need to invade Afghanistan. Such expectation from NATO only exposes the utter illusion of dominion that the Bush Administration felt it had over Europe.
Bush Administration reckless bully diplomacy forced a Russo-Chinese collaboration, the Shanghai Accord, which on the surface pretends to be only a trade accord but is in fact a security pact created by Moscow in response to the Chinese panic over pre-9/11 US policy to surround China. Over the post 9/11 years, the Bush Administration was skillfully maneuvered, dissipating the credibility of its bully threats, so that now the Shanghai Accord extends to Central and Mainland Asia, including India, Pakistan, Iran and all the Central Asian states. Admittedly this construction is still amorphous and a work in progress suffering much internal contradictions. But it is a means to an end that is united on one point only: the US cannot be allowed to dominate Afghanistan. Despite their opposition to each other, the Shanghai Accord members have a common goal of keeping Afghanistan as a means of exasanguinating US power while never allowing a resolution by the US and US withdrawal. A sort of "1984" Russo-Asian Bloc is standing against the even weaker western US-EU Bloc that seeks domination of Afghanistan to cut off Asian influence over Central Asia, leaving a weak Russia alone as an easy Western barrier to Western corporate domination of Central Asia. Alas, the Shanghai Accord surrounds Afghanistan, the EU sees no reason to lose more wealth and lives there and the US is exasanguinating hopelessly alone because it cannot afford to invest the massive effort required to dominate that vast mountainous nation. The crux of the matter is that America is finding itself abandoned by NATO and alone in Central-South Asia and can only stay there if manipulated to Shanghai Accord interests because the American economy is dependent on its Shanghai Accord bankers. The range of options permitted the US because of the internal contradictions of the Shanghai Accord does not range to include any prospect of successful elimination of the Taliban.
It has been propagandized by right-wing Republicans that if the US withdraws it will betray the women of Afghanistan. Videos of a 13 y/o girl whipped for taking to a boy is used to make the case. But if one were to consider the violation of women's rights in India, Pakistan and China--America's illusory allies and bankers-- the entire case seems utterly hypocritical. It seems utterly irresponsible for the United States-- much like the late Roman Empire-- to waste its volunteer army under incompetent command in areas where victory is beyond their abilities and the investment of resources required far beyond what the American people are willing to invest. It is true that, in the absence of conscription, most Americans care so little for the lives of the heroic soldiers in the field that staying in the fight will be supported when contraposed with defeat-- a position would never have been accepted had we drawn the troops through universal draft. But the material costs will soon sour the US public to this incredibly poorly fought war, almost as bad as the Soviet effort. By then, this grossly mishandled "Bush's War" will have become "Obama's War," leaving him to bear responsibility for the withdrawal in defeat that is inevitable. It will be like blaming an operation botched by a lead surgeon on the one who sutures the wound because the patient died while the latter was closing.
Nevertheless, Americans traditionally avoid learning from the past. Too many defeats have been wiped from analytic memory in shame and a desire to maintain the illusion of military omnipotence. Like the Israeli army, the American military pretends that the incompetence of its command is not the issue and that the growing competence of its opponents can never match its own.
So what would happen if the US withdrew from Afghanistan?
First and foremost, let us recall that the real concern of Americans is that the Islamic struggle would then pour out of Afghanistan to flood Pakistan. In retort, let us recall that a) Pakistan's original involvement with the Taliban is because of the latter's strategic importance in its endless war with India. India is attempting an end-run around Pakistan by exploiting economic relations with non-Taliban Afghan tribes. That forces Pakistan to stand with the Taliban at cost of the Taliban having created a Pakistani Islamist Taliban to overthrow the secular Pakistani government and establish the first nuclear Sharia. India's hope is that in this way it convinces the US/EU alliance to dismember Pakistan and return it to Indian rule, as it had been under British colonialism. Seeking depth, Pakistan cannot afford to succumb to Western demands that it be engulfed by India while Pakistan serves as the staging base for a Western defeat of Afghanistan’s Pashtuns. This Indian scheme, however, would never be allowed by China because Pakistan is the most critical ally of China in Asia and the sole barrier between Western China-- where Muslim resistance is a problem-- and India. Pakistan is also China's Southern port outlet and inlet for its Mideast oil. And, Pakistan is the best means China has of putting pressure on India in the economic-strategic competition between the two states. b) The bonds of the Shanghai Accord constitute a complex balance between all its members. That is why there is little formal organizational rigidity in it except for economic processes; that is why it is misread as an economic accord. That strategic flexible balance becomes far more stressed and at the same time far more necessary to all its members if the US withdraws from Central Asia so that no one wins and no one loses. And, as the region ceases to be a war zone resisting Western imperialism, these internal contradictions become increasingly prominent, causing these nations to resort to complex diplomacy rather than combat. Also, many of these contradictions can only be ameliorated by economic ties to the West as none of the members can really dominate nor satisfy the needs of each member.
American presence in the area will only polarize the locals as more and more non-combatant "collateral damage" results from defensive American/NATO action. NATO can destroy itself, overcome by its inadequacy in Afghanistan, as opposed to its orderly operation as a European Defense Structure only. The Shanghai Accord needs only operate as an opportunity to Central/South Asian states seeking a bypass of American power, as the above article seems to imply.
Obama has very little time to bite the bullet. As the Iraq War ends muddled and unresolved, his presidency cannot afford Afghanistan also ending as HIS failure. His only hope is to transfer the whole problem to the Shanghai Accord where it will forever be entangled in the Accord's fluidity where no one loses, no one wins. It has been mendaciously put forward by VP Cheney, Rumsfeld (though now he dares no longer speak as recklessly as before), Rove and several FOXNEWS Republican propagandists that if we withdraw from Afghanistan we will again face a repeat of 9/11. What they fail to truthfully admit is that post-9/11 Bush mendaciously covered for the airline companies that had violated laws established during the 1970s when the US faced multiple skyjackings. It was decreed at the time that all airlines would be provided a locked impenetrable pilot's cabin and two sky marshals would be put on every plane. But because of cheap fares competition all the airlines violated this law. As a result, Jihadi shahids looking for a way to try again to destroy the World Trade Center and to do damage to Wash DC government buildings, while riding First Class cross country, discovered that the pilot's cabin is never locked. Thus, on 9/11, four aircrafts were completely taken over within ten minutes each. Unless we repeat this gross negligence, such conversion of airlines into missiles will never again occur. To say, therefore, that 9/11 happened, because Afghanistan was a "rogue" state controlled by the Taliban, we suffered 9/11 is a gross lie. It happened because security LAWS WERE DISOBEYED. I can only conclude that utterly irresponsible political opportunists are making the current Republican case. For had Afghanistan been so important, Bush would have held to his refusal to cannibalize the Afghan War in order to present Congress with a fait accompli in Iraq, as proposed by Rumsfeld, wherein US troops in battle could not be refused funding.
Americans as a people cannot pretend that the past does not exist and that they, therefore, do not have to face its consequences. The US had its chance to deal with the Islamic Jihad and totally failed. This fact cannot be erased with mechanized killing of Muslims using remote controlled drones guided by platoons on the ground. This nation is exsanguinating its young men and resources, manipulated by nations that have no match in force but are endowed far greater ability in diplomacy and "stratergerizing." Obama cannot be a repeat of corrupt Bush II. He must courageously face the amputation required to avoid the systemic infection that the Soviet Union faced after its defeated veterans returned from Afghanistan. Those returned PTSD victims, the maimed and the families of the dead are Bush's victims. Soon they will be Obama's. His only hope is to dare to do the right thing now and not wait for some miraculous "Dayton Accord" illusion.
Daniel E. Teodoru
Post new comment