Obama’s War. Afghanistan Another Failure Of Capitalist Incorporation. Haider On Hunger Strike
Obama called for a 30,000 troop increase in Afghanistan and an 18 month time table for the increase there to work before he begins to wind down. But he did not say when he would be out of Afghanistan. He implied he would like to be out in 2011 but that was not a final date. This could take a long time.
The problem as I see it is that he is not saying how Afghanistan is going to build its military and security establishment to replace the NATO forces without a strong economy. Afghanistan needs a jobs program. A serious jobs program and means creating an economy there. We need to set up industries, educate masses of people and bring them in from the hills into the cities. The military needs to protect those cities while they are creating the jobs and that will be the solution for Afghanistan if we are going to be there at all. Otherwise we should simply get out or do the easy thing and support the largest business there, exporting opium.
But that assumes the idea is to fix the mess we made of Afghanistan. He did not even mention the fact that we created the fundamentalist groups with the help of Saudi Arabian money, Pakistani military intelligence and Egyptian radical islamist theory. He was talking like a politician but it was not true. He was doing what every political leader does, clothe a dirty business in fine rhetoric. I nearly gagged when he said that America does not try to impose its will on the world. That is patently and blatantly a lie. If we really wanted to simply stop Al Qaeda all we would have to do is stop supporting Israel, pull our military out of the Persian Gulf and let the Muslim world sort out its own affairs.
Obama didn’t mention Spain because Spain pulled out after the Madrid attacks and Al Qaeda has left Spain alone since then.
Pakistan is another problem all together. It is a former part of India and like Afghanistan a failed state. It has decided to arm itself with nukes instead of taking care of its people and now that the populace is getting pissed off, the Taliban there has taken advantage of that frustraition but will we do what is needed, give hope to those people? I have to say that Pakistan would be better off as part of India but because of manipulation of powerful politicians in both Britain and the then British India, a deal was made to give Muslims their own country. It was something that before the 1930’s was not even in the picture.
But how is the president going to make Afghanistan work? Simply by taking some territory on the ground is not going to make the difference. Not in a country were there is no front line. This is a victory for the war mongers and the military industrial complex.
The US had to either deliver jobs and hope for a future in a western style capitalist environment for the people of those countries which I don’t see as possible or even desirable. Or the US lets them determine themselves what they want and lend an economic hand as requested and get the military out of there. The problem again is that the pretext is false. The USA is in there as part of international capital’s need and desire to exploit resources and develop markets. There is no part of the world that they will leave alone and there is no excuse they won’t use to get into more and more areas of the world to break down resistance to capitalist exploitation. The military is simply the preferred tool, the battering ram to force our will and economic system upon the rest of the world. The US was not happy until the Soviet Union was destroyed, China was turned and the Muslim world was incorporated. All resistance is considered to be futile and an affront like 9-11 was an irreparable sin, an attempt to prove to the world that another way was possible. That is more than anything what is not allowed. You are allowed to fail but you are not allowed to oppose capitalist domination.
The world needs an oppositional force to capital. Communism failed perhaps a restored Caliphate will succeed. The problem is that if they simply accept capitalism with an Islamic face then they will not be able to offer solutions that will solve the problems of their people and all they will do is provide another face for failure.
In another land, there is a woman who is putting her life on the line for the sake of the freedom of her country. This is from Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now.
“In Third Week of Hunger Strike, Ailing Western Saharan Human Rights Activist Aminatou Haidar Demands Moroccan Authorities Allow Her Return to Occupied Homeland
A Western Saharan human rights activist is in the third week of a hunger strike after being deported against her will by Moroccan authorities occupying her homeland. Aminatou Haidar, known as the “Sahrawi Gandhi,” is at the airport on the Canary Islands and is demanding that she be allowed to return to home. Morocco has occupied most of Western Sahara since 1975. We go to the Lanzarote airport to speak with Spanish actor Guillermo “Willie” Toledo, who is at Haider’s side, we also speak with Mouloud Said, the Washington DC representative of the Sahrawi independence movement, the Polisario Front, and with University of San Francisco Professor Stephen Zunes, co-author of the forthcoming book “Western Sahara: Nationalism, Conflict, and International Accountability.”
Obama speaking of human rights and dignity around the world might have mentioned Aminatou Haider who is fasting to the death for the right to return to her home in Western Sahara, occupied since 1975 by Morocco. She was refused entry by the Moroccan authorities when she refused to say she was a Moroccan. She was coming back from receiving an award from overseas.
Obama is getting the Nobel Peace Prize just as he is increasing military commitment in Afghanistan. The award seems to be more about style than substance.