No Turning Back – Now Afghanistan

When the high priest of the neocon Sanhedrian, Richard Perle, announced after the US invasion of Iraq that there was no turning back, he was as usual, dead wrong. Now a similar phenomena is unfolding as the Obama is enticed into making Afghanistan into a US protectorate. The pro Israel neocons, we want war Republicans and soon You Betcha Palin are gleefully jumping on the Obama war wagon. His left wing support is dismayed to find any justification in his decision. If President Obama is a real progressive, he must have twisted himself into a mental knot to believe war is human progress.

I am uncertain why Jewish American neocons, both Democratic and Republican, are so eager to plunge America and NATO into an extended Asian land war in Afghanistan. Is there some long term fear that an Islamic nuc from Pakistan will some way or some how find a target in Israel? If that is the case, turmoil caused by more US military presence in the Hindu Kush will increase the probability.

Whether there is victory or defeat of US/NATO forces, such a threat will be enhanced to Israel – if there is victory, a fixation for revenge will be intensified by the Jihadists – if the Jihadists succeed, they will have greater power to pursue the Pakistan bomb for their own purposes. By the way, the Taliban have never attacked Israel or the US. They were allies of al Qaeda until it was chased out of Afghanistan to Pakistan where it is now a greater threat to regional stability. The Taliban, like the old Vietcong, are not a threat to the US unless it is within borders, strolling through their villages with guns.

Israel also finds strategic comfort in the fact that it is not the only non-Islamic nation that is killing Arabs as long as the US and some NATO countries join them in the onslaught.

For whatever reason, the main stream media has fallen in line with Obama's expanded war policy. As of this writing the polls appear to support the war expansion by a small margin.

A few days after Obama's enhancement of the war was declared, NATO announced on cue that it would commit 7,000 more troops to the war effort. Except for UK, Canadian, Australian and Polish contributions, these troops do not provide much to the war effort; their rules of engagement preclude offensive combat operations where killing is involved. At the same time, these units absorb scare logistic/supply resources and compound command control. As it is developing, the US has 70% of the troops; that is if NATO fulfills its newest troop promises which is unlikely.

To kick off the new policy, General McChrystal has launched a thousand-man marine attack with 150 Afghan soldiers in Helmand province. He was lucky to find 150 Afghan soldiers or, were they swarthy contractors dressed as such. McChrystal is a special operations officer with a record of duplicity, so you never know what is real. One thing for certain is that the forces are not meeting much resistance as the insurgents hibernate and breed during the winter – they just want to remain warm. This while US forces burn gas at 400USD a gallon and freeze their asses off chasing rainbows.

When the winter snows clear the mountain passes, the Taliban will return for their favorite sport - Mayhem, Murder and Jihad. General McChrystal will have all the engagements he can absorb while new refugees clog his attack routes.

All week, since Obama gave his speech to expand the war, Americans have been trying to deduce its meaning. Did he drop a exit date or not? His administration’s effort to make all happy with ambiguous language has backfired. No one has explained how you defeat al Qaeda in Afghanistan when it is elsewhere, namely, in Pakistan and other countries in large packets. The president still needs congressional approval to budget his essentially new war.

Afghanistan is a logistics nightmare. If Obama wants to surge how can he do it? No way you can get 40,000 troops to surge even if he had them; it will be an incremental reinforcement that saps the impact. In Vietnam this dribbling in of forces was known as defeat in detail and undermined the buildups as the enemy had plenty of time to react and redeploy.

The GW Bush regime never figured that the US would depart Iraq: a massive chain of nearly 300 bases and airfields were built to control Iraq through occupation. A US embassy costing over 800 million USD was built on prime real estate in Baghdad that covers an area larger than the Vatican. All this construction was believed to anchor US presence in the Middle East. It did not. Now many of these installations are under caretaker status guarded by US contractors as the US redeploys. As they are turned over to to the Iraqis, they are systemically looted. SAVEUS PETRAEUS!

Obama's new commitment seeks to establish a permanent US presence in Afghanistan; another no turning back scenario that will not work out long term. The President advertised himself as a big government, welfare state, power to the people guy. Instead his new developing slogan appears to be GOD, NATIONALISM and the MILITARY. By the way, this was the credo of the 20thc fascist leader in Portugal, Salazar, who loved and lost his colonies. Colonel Robert E Bartos USA Ret.