As the Obama administration debates whether to send tens of thousands of extra troops to Afghanistan, an already overstretched military is increasingly struggling to meet its deployment numbers. Surprisingly, one place it seems to be targeting is military personnel who go absent without leave (AWOL) and then are caught or turn themselves in.

Hidden behind the gates of military bases across the U.S., troops facing AWOL and desertion charges regularly find themselves in the hands of a military that metes out informal, open-ended punishments by forcing them to wait months – sometimes more than a year – to face military justice. In the meantime, some of these soldiers are offered a free pass out of this legal limbo as long as they agree to deploy to Afghanistan or Iraq – even if they have been diagnosed with severe post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

In August 2008 at TomDispatch.com, we reported on the deplorable conditions at the 82nd Replacement Barracks at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. There, more than 50 members of Echo Platoon of the 82nd Airborne Division’s 82nd Replacement Detachment were being held while awaiting AWOL and desertion charges. Investigations launched since then – in part in response to our article – have revealed that the plight of members of Echo Platoon is not an isolated one. It is, in fact, disturbingly commonplace on other bases throughout the United States. And it is from these “holdover units,” filled with disgruntled soldiers who have gone AWOL, many of whom are struggling with PTSD from previous deployments in war zones, that the military is hoping to help meet its manpower needs for Afghanistan.

Nightmare in Echo Platoon

On Aug. 16, determined to put an end to unbearable mental and psychological pain, Pvt. Timothy Rich, while on 24-hour suicide watch, attempted to jump to his death from the roof of Echo Platoon’s barracks (where he had been held since being arrested for going AWOL). Prior to his suicide attempt, Rich had been offered amnesty by the military in exchange for agreeing to deploy to Afghanistan or Iraq.

He had already been through a hellish year awaiting a discharge and treatment for mental health problems. “I want to leave here very bad,” he explained. “For four months they have been telling me that I’ll get out next week. I didn’t see an end to it, so I figured I’d try and end it myself.”

He fell three stories, bouncing off a tree, before hitting the ground and cracking his spine. The military gave him a back brace, psychotropic drugs, and put him on a renewed, 24-hour suicide watch.

While he has recently been discharged from the military, Rich was not atypical of the soldiers of Echo Platoon, some forced to wait a year or more in legal limbo – in dilapidated buildings under the authority of abusive commanders – for legal proceedings to begin, and many struggling with mental illness or PTSD from previous deployments. As Spc. Dustin Stevens told us last August: “[It's] horrible here. We are treated like animals. Some of us are going crazy, some are sick. There are people here who should be in mental hospitals. And the way I see it, I did nothing wrong.”

Shortly after our story was published, Stevens told us that at least half a dozen soldiers in the platoon, including him, were suddenly given trial dates. Although he was likely to be found guilty and face punishment, Stevens claimed to be “relieved” to have an end in sight. Soon after, according to Echo Platoon informants, their barracks were condemned as a result of a military investigation of the site and, on Oct. 19, the platoon itself was disbanded.

Recently, due possibly to the attention his story drew to the mistreatment and indefinite detention soldiers were facing in Echo Platoon, Stevens was informed by the military he would be “chaptered out” – in other words, given an administrative discharge from the Army – and will not be forced to serve formal prison time.

James Branum, Stevens’ civilian lawyer, as well as the legal adviser to the G.I. Rights Hotline of Oklahoma and co-chair of the Military Law Task Force (MLTF), summed developments up this way: “After repeated complaints and congressional inquiry, Echo Platoon was shut down. The whole place was shut down. Everyone was scattered to other units. If your old unit still exists, they are sending you to your old unit. We know that at least one of the NCOs [non-commissioned officers] in charge of Echo Platoon was fired. I think this is a positive thing.”

Echoes of Echo

The troubling state of affairs in Echo Platoon may only have been the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Army holdover units. Evidence suggests that soldiers being held on other bases in the United States for AWOL and desertion face similar apathy or intentional neglect – and that they, too, are often left with the choice between living in legal limbo or agreeing to be sent to a war zone.

Scott Wildman, a former Army specialist, went AWOL in 2007 when he was unable to receive adequate help for severe PTSD sustained after a 15-month deployment to Iraq. In February 2009, he finally turned himself in at Fort Lewis in Washington state, only to find himself lost in a labyrinthine bureaucracy. For the first four months, he was not allowed to leave a confined area and was forbidden even to walk around by himself.

Here’s how he describes his experience: “I was flipping out. My wife had left me while I was over there. I hadn’t seen my kids in a couple years. I came home and tried to get help. At Fort Lewis, they do not care about you. I had been diagnosed by civilian and military doctors with severe depression, PTSD, and severe anxiety. When you are at the unit, they make fun of you. They crack PTSD jokes. They all have it too, but they’re too cool.”

During the eight months he has been held at Fort Lewis, Wildman claims he has suffered verbal abuse and substandard mental healthcare. “The command treated me like dirt. My commander ignored me for the first couple months until my roommate jumped me. They’ll make sure you’re in the room and call you a ‘bunch of PTSD pussies.’”

Four weeks ago, Wildman was informed that he would be court-martialed, but he was not given a trial date. Feeling he had no other choice, he went AWOL again and remains so today. “I’d been going to see some military counselors, but we weren’t making progress on the real problem…. They give us classes on calm and peacefulness, but they are right near the shooting ranges. There’s gunfire and explosions all around, people being screamed at all the time because it’s infantry. It’s not a good place for someone with [mental health] issues.”

At one point, despite a confidentiality protocol that should have prevented it, Wildman’s commanders went through his medical evaluations and found out that he had been involved in the accidental killing of two little girls in Iraq. They proceeded to needle him by threatening to write him up for war crimes.

Explaining why he once again went AWOL, Wildman says, “I didn’t know what was going to happen next. I had to remove myself from that situation.”

“Examples of how the military is treating soldiers, like the case of Wildman, are common,” comments Kathleen Gilberd, co-chair of the MLTF. She also points out that the Army, stretched thin by years of multiple deployments to two war zones, has taken to downplaying potentially severe medical conditions to keep soldiers eligible for service overseas. It is commonplace, she reports, for formerly AWOL soldiers to be “bribed” with offers of having all charges, or potential charges, dropped, as long as they accept deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan.

“A lot of folks who are under-diagnosed or misdiagnosed are being deployed second and third times,” she adds. “Barrier mechanisms that should prevent this from happening are being routinely ignored. … If someone is on psychotropic medication or is diagnosed with a fresh psychiatric condition, there should be a 90-day observation period and delay, under DOD [Department of Defense] policy.”

Remarkably, that sometimes-ignored 90-day hold period for military personnel on psychotropic medications does not always apply to soldiers who are diagnosed with traumatic brain injury (TBI) of a sort commonly caused by roadside bombs. According to an Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center analysis, reported in theDenver Post in August 2008, more than “43,000 service members – two-thirds of them in the Army or Army Reserve – were classified as nondeployable for medical reasons three months before they deployed” to Iraq. The process, if anything, only seems to be accelerating when it comes to Afghanistan.

Deploying the Undeployables

Not all soldiers go AWOL in order to save their minds and bodies. Some are trying to save their families. One soldier held in Bravo Platoon, a holdover unit of the 3rd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division at Fort Carson in Colorado Springs (who did not want his name made public) disclosed that, having returned from service in Iraq, he was told he would soon be redeployed there. Because his mother was ill, he refused and was threatened with a court martial.

“When I turned myself in, I submitted a binder with letters from my mom’s doctors and state officials that made clear that I needed to be home to take care of my mother. At that time, they had me on restriction and lockdown 24/7 to keep me from leaving again. Later they punished me. I was assigned extra duty and received a rank reduction from E3 to a private. I was treated like crap.”

He and the other soldiers in his holdover platoon were subjected to verbal abuse and made to do menial jobs. He claimed that he was threatened daily with being sent to the United States Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, the military’s maximum security correctional facility – and then was urged to agree to go back to Iraq instead. It made no difference that he had “no-go” orders from doctors at Fort Carson exempting him from overseas deployment.

His commander promised him a clean slate if he would redeploy to Iraq, insisting that the only alternative was a court-martial. Despite a regimen of humiliation, he stood his ground and was finally discharged for family hardship in September 2008. There were at least 11 other soldiers then in Bravo Platoon. Like their counterparts in Echo, most were told that their records would be wiped clean once they agreed to redeploy. The alternative was a non-judicial punishment, followed by a court-martial some months down the line.

As he tells it, Sgt. Heath Carter, originally based at Fort Polk, La., found himself torn between pressing family needs and an indifferent military command. On returning from the invasion of Iraq, he discovered his daughter living in what he believed to be an unsafe environment. Heath and his new wife started consulting attorneys in order to secure custody of the child. Precisely during this time, the military began changing Carter’s duty station. He was moved from Fort Polk to Fort Huachuca, Ariz., then on to Fort Stewart, Ga., reducing his chances of gaining custody.

Convinced that this was a crucial matter for his daughter, he requested compassionate reassignment to Fort Leavenworth, Mo., about two hours away from her. His appeals to the military command, to his chaplain, even to his congressman failed. In May 2007, having run out of options, he went AWOL from Fort Stewart, heading home to fight for custody, which he won.

This Jan. 25, however, he was arrested at his home by military police, who flew him back to Fort Stewart, where he has been awaiting charges for the past eight months. Being a sergeant, he is in a regular unit, not a holdover one. Initially, his commander assured him he would be sent home within a month and a half. Several months later, the same commander decided to court-martial him.

Carter feels frustrated. “If they had done that in the beginning, I would have been home by now. It’s taken this long for them to decide. Now I have to wait for the court-martial. If we had known it would take this long, my family could have moved down here. Every time I ask when I’ll have a trial, they say it’s only going to be another two weeks. I get the feeling they’re lying. They’ve messed with my pay. They’re trying to push me to do something wrong.”

His ordeal has forced Carter to reflect on America’s wars. Once, he admits, he was proud of his mission in Iraq. Now, he sees things differently. “I don’t think there is any reason for us to be there except for oil.”

His wife, who witnessed her husband’s callous treatment, says, “He’s been there [Iraq], done that, and seen horrible, terrible things, so of course he doesn’t want to go back.”

While the Obama administration decides how many thousands of troops to send to Afghanistan, service men and women are already facing repeated deployments, oftentimes while having already been diagnosed with medical conditions that should render them unfit for deployment.

Nothing has changed for these beleaguered troops, except the venue of their maltreatment and the desperation with which the military is now struggling to make the necessary deployment numbers as it continues to fight two endless wars.

Dahr Jamail, an independent journalist, is the author of The Will to Resist: Soldiers Who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan (Haymarket Books, 2009) and Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches From an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq(Haymarket Books, 2007). Jamail reported from occupied Iraq for nine months, as well as from Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Turkey over the last five years.

Sarah Lazare is the project coordinator for Courage to Resist, an organization that supports troops who refuse to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan. She is also a freelance writer.

Bhaswati Sengupta contributed to this report.

Copyright 2009 Dahr Jamail and Sarah Lazare

Eric Margolis is contributing foreign editor for Sun National Media Canada. He is the author of War at the Top of the World and the new book, American Raj: Liberation or Domination?: Resolving the Conflict Between the West and the Muslim World. See his website.

Copyright © 2009 Eric Margolis

Voltaire made that observation after he had been exiled to a penal colony Island by the King of France who didn’t take more harsh action because Voltaire was loved by the public who agreed with his writings that the King was a despot.

When we consider our Government, it follows that we need an accurate explanation of what is meant by “ when the Government is wrong”. And that explanation might be best described by using illustrations or examples.

Of course the most disruptive and harmful conflict is one of immoral or unnecessary conflicts of choice – armies conducting invasions, killing and destroying – for profits to war Industries or for Empire building. However there are many kinds of war – war between nations, religious wars, class wars, wars against drugs, wars against terrorism, even wars between political Parties. And certainly we shouldn’t forget Husband/Wife or Parent/Child conflicts.

But the sobering realization should be that all wars could be avoided. And as you raise your voice to condemn such an absurd statement, all I ask is that you hear me out since it has been proven that the human brain does not work well when it is inundated with facts that it does not want to hear. So lets see if we can agree on something:

War must have something to initiate it. And that thing must emanate from one or both of the potential combatants. Are you with me so far? When conflict arises there is always the opportunity for one or both sides to seek common ground. If either side fails to seek that common ground, physical conflict is likely to arise. The only scenario where armed aggression arises, when one side is seeking peace, is when the other side doesn’t want peace.

The question then becomes, does one side or either side really want peace? If one side doesn’t want peace, then there will be none. But even with this scenario, there doesn’t have to be war – it starts simply because one side chooses to start one. The other side then is forced to defend itself.

Has our Government sought peace in any one of the more than fifty incursions that we have been involved in since World War II? Or were we that side that refused a chance at peace simply because we had the might to assert our will? If you think we started wars only for peace, could you give a good reason why we didn’t invade Russia in the last half of the last century? Why didn’t we invade China? Why did we invade Iraq? Why does our Government want to invade Iran? Could it be that our Government has become a warrior Nation bent on building Empire? Can an honest American claim that all these fifty plus conflicts we have entered into since WWII have been “Wars for Peace”?

Would our Government be wrong if it is correct, that we have not sought peace? Would it be dangerous to oppose such a Government? Even for the citizen of the Government? How badly things can go wrong in a war is best illustrated by the Iraqi War. Remember, the Iraqis were predicted to greet us with flowers as our invading army marched in.

Our Government un-leased a war on Iraq for no reason other than to provide a profit stream for the War Industry and to provide fertile grounds for immoral Corporations to rape the Iraqi resources. While achieving this they used Depleted Uranium (DU) tipped munitions, a volatile radioactive weapon that is spread by wind currents and causes cancers, leukemia, and grotesque birth defects, and will continue to do so for up to 4.5 Billion years. Iraq today is staggered by the high rate of simply hideous birth defects that is causing Iraqi potential mothers to have to make a choice about chance.

Historians could very likely judge this atrocity to be the most heinous crime ever committed against human beings in the history of mankind. Dave Lindorff just recently wrote about this tragedy done to mankind. I hope you read it. What are we going to do about the criminals who are even today enjoying their Blood Profits? Smart money says we will never even scold them.

And to think, this war was wanted by no one except the War Industry, the Neo-Cons of the Republican Party, and the Energy Corporations. Could this historic massacre have been avoided? Absolutely! Should we let it go unpunished? Absolutely not! If we do, what does it say about us as a people? For thousands of years after History no longer remembers George Bush and Dick Cheney, the people of a land that was once Iraq, the cradle of civilization, will still be dying and grotesque births will still be occurring because of what we allowed to transpire in Iraq in the early twenty-First Century. And it may even spread far and wide, even to the United States, a once Great Nation, now just dust in History’s past, once hailed as the Ideal of moral and ethical people, who could even then lie in still radioactive graves, the detritus of an un-necessary war.

In the past year there was serious consideration given to enacting legislation that would approve the prosecution of “Thought Crimes”, with penalties including every thing from torture to imprisonment without trial and all the atrocities done in the name of this War on Terror, but this time the legislation was for prosecution of American Citizens as well as “Terrorists” – can you think “ For Thought Crimes against the State”?

And in spite of all the evidence of the evils of DU, the United States military still uses DU all over the World, and even in the United States.

Think long and hard before you answer those questions I have posed.

The answer to that question is up to us.

We were attacked on 9/11. We reacted. Eight years later, with over a million dead, many more millions displaced, infrastructures destroyed, Billionaires made, our economy shattered, Torture accepted, Mercenary Corporate Armies empowered, a World aroused against us, and a Future threatening wars and more wars, who do we blame – those who attacked us, or should we blame ourselves for the reaction ( The War on Terror) and the carnage that has followed?

Although millions of foreign innocents have suffered, we have suffered mightily also – so who are the victims? Are we the victims, or is it those others that have suffered so much?

Did those foreign innocents do something to us to bring this carnage on themselves or are we to blame for allowing those that would profit from war to seize on an opportunity to instigate a war for profit?

Was there an avoidable event that happened prior to 9/11 that brought on that tragic morning in September and the consequences that followed? If there was such an avoidable incident what could it have been? If it could have been avoided, and we didn’t make any effort to avoid it, why did we allow it to happen? If that were true would that make us victims or perpetrators?

Wouldn’t it be beneficial to review the past and see if there was or were events that we should have paid heed to, and if we could identify those points, shouldn’t we make sure we remember what they were and examine how we addressed those impending problems in order that we might head off another 9/11?

What were the warning signs in those years before that morning, that we should have noticed, and when noticed, what should have been done? Well for one, Osama Bin Laden, a Saudi citizen, at the advent of Desert Storm, promised a declaration of war if the United States placed a Military base on Saudi soil. But at the time Bin Laden was a friend of the United States and was a freedom fighter in Afghanistan working with the United States to expel the Soviet invaders, and his transition from friend to foe could have been avoided. Unfortunately the Military wing of our Government wanted a base in Saudi Arabia and using Desert Storm, a conflict between Iraq and Kuwait, as its basis, pressured the Saudi Government into allowing a United States Military base to be placed on Saudi soil. Ben Laden then declared war on the United States.

Another warning sign was Desert Storm itself. For those who have forgotten, that war was to be between Iraq and Kuwait because of oil piracy committed by Kuwait against Iraq. But before Saddam invaded Kuwait, he asked the United States if they would intervene for Kuwait after he gave Kuwait an ultimatum to stop the piracy. The well-documented reply by the United States delivered to Saddam by U S Envoy April Glaspie was “The United States considers the argument between Iraq and Kuwait a local issue between the two and the United States would remain out of the conflict”. Saddam gave the ultimatum, Kuwait ignored it, Iraq invaded, and the United States went ballistic. And as they say, the rest is history. We should never forget that history plays itself out over many years and this episode most likely isn’t over yet, which brings me to some more happenings we shouldn’t forget – if we want to learn from history.

The Project For a New American Century outlined its proposal to promote the United States to Sole World Power in the early 90’s. One of the items of interest should be the word “Sole”. That word would indicate Empire building – The Worlds Policeman and the Worlds subjugation. Little countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, and the rest of the Middle East shouldn’t be a problem, we can run over any one of them easily or any two or three, but there are some other strong Military powers on this earth, and embarking on subjugating them might be quite risky. One thing for sure is that “There will be blood” when the attempt starts. And blood is the fertilizer for the War Industry Profit garden.

Our Foreign Policy of conquest and domination of the Worlds resources can take us to the goal of Empire, but it can also take us to defeat and our own eventual demise. It is risky business for you and me, but is it risky for those who would initiate wars of conquest? The most dominant of the World’s organizations is the Financial sector. Wars don’t start without their funding and like several of the Nazi Financial and Industrial Corporations, they survived WWII and their Upper Management just moved into the winning Country, the United States, absorbed by U S Companies who were in partners with those Nazi Corporations before and during the War.

Every time you buy medicine or aspirins just remember Bayer is a name now identifying the German Industrial War Giant I. G. Farben, who’s business management were allowed to skip Nuremberg and go directly to work in the U. S. That’s what happened to the elite.
For regular people like you and me, somewhat over a hundred million died. But some U S Companies like say Ford, continued to supply German war needs, even after the war was ongoing. We didn’t do anything to them and they found that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, or should I say the World’s financial and War Industry Corporations came out of it better than they went in. That’s called profit.

So whether we know it or not, what we do, or don’t do, will affect the future and the future inhabitants of the world.

What we can do, and what we must do, is always punish criminals even if they are our leaders. Today’s Political Parties work our populace into a frenzy opposing the other Party. They keep us divided so that we are easy prey for their criminal activities.

Any party that advocates fear of the future instead of a mutual solution to problems is not worthy of our votes. How we use those votes will determine the shape of the future.

LIES USED TO JUSTIFY THIS INCLUDE:

Afghanistan is a “good war” against the “real terrorists” who attacked Americans

Barack Obama referred to the war as the “the central front in our battle against terrorism.” According to our the new president, “I think one of the biggest mistakes we’ve made strategically after 9/11 was to fail to finish the job. …We got distracted by Iraq.”

The war in Afghanistan had nothing to do with responding to the 9/11 attacks. It was launched to defeat reactionary Islamic fundamentalist trends and groups that have posed obstacles to U.S power and to restructure the Middle East and Central Asian regions in order to deepen U.S. domination.

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Afghanistan is one front in this global war because of its strategic location. It was a U.S. target before 9/11. A Pakistani diplomat told the BBC that he was informed of the U.S. intent to attack Afghanistan in mid-July of 2001 (see U.S. ‘planned attack on Taleban’, September 18, 2001.)

When various Islamic fundamentalist forces were fighting the Soviet Union in Afghanistan they were funded and armed by the U.S. President Reagan called them “freedom fighters.” Today they are an impediment to U.S. goals and are now called “terrorists.” We are supposed to accept that this requires the people of the U.S. to support U.S. aggressive wars in order to protect “our safety,” regardless of how many lives are sacrificed in other nations.

The U.S. has freed the people of Afghanistan, particularly women, from oppressive rule

The Bush regime used concern for the women to justify slaughter of civilians, creating a situation where women were even more vulnerable to the Taliban, religious reactionary fundamentalists who oppress women, progressives, and the people of Afghanistan in general. Life under the Taliban was and is a living hell of reactionary religious strictures and suffocating social relations.

But during the years of Soviet occupation, the U.S. supported the Taliban in the hope that they could unite the various and fractious forces within the country, better enabling the U.S. to achieve its goals in the country.

 Even now, after the U.S. overthrow of the Taliban, both Obama and Biden have recently talked of negotiating with some “moderate” factions of the Taliban to get them to support the current Afghan government and U.S. goals. Since the U.S. invasion, the people of Afghanistan continue to be under the domination of reactionaries who are now in the service of the U.S.

The Karzai regime is a puppet government of the same hated landlords, militia heads, and feudal and tribal chieftains that have tormented the people of Afghanistan for decades. Corruption within the government is endemic. Opium production and trade makes up one-third of the country’s gross domestic product.

Women are still deeply and cruelly oppressed in Afghanistan. An Afghan woman dies during childbirth every 30 minutes; 87 percent of Afghan women are illiterate; only 30 percent of girls have access to education in Afghanistan; one-third of women experience physical, psychological, or sexual violence, including honor killings; and 70 to 80 percent of women, including many children, face forced marriages in Afghanistan.

“We broke it, now we must rebuild it”

The argument is that even though the initial invasion was wrong, the U.S. now owes it to the Afghan people to rebuild the country. Obama has promised increased economic aid.

But what little aid is delivered to the country evaporates into a cauldron of corruption and is used to support the reactionary rulers of the country. A recent poll conducted by the Afghan Center for Socio-Economic and Opinion Research indicates that the vast majority of the Afghan population views public corruption as a major problem, and wanted the United States military to leave.

Apologists for the U.S. occupation would argue that at least the U.S. is making people in Afghanistan more secure. But in the above poll, only 42% had confidence that the U.S. coalition forces could provide security in Their areas. One in six of those polled reported nearby bombing or shelling by U.S. forces in their area. One in five reported civilians being killed by U.S. coalition forces in the last year in the areas where they lived.

People continue to suffer. According to the United Nations Human Development Index, Afghanistan is the 174^th poorest nation. Afghanistan’s Independent Human Rights

Commission (AIHRC) in December 2008 reported that 37 percent or about ten million people in Afghanistan suffer from severe poverty, with millions earning less than $1 per day.

The U.S. State Department in 2008 stated the infant mortality rate is 154.67 deaths per 1,000 live births. The U.S. State Department admits that at least 3 million Afghans are refugees in other countries. Less than 1/4^th of the adult population is literate, with the U.S. State Department estimating that only 12 percent of females are literate. Life expectancy is only 43.1 years and the unemployment rate in 2008 was 40%.

More U.S. troops will only increase the death and destruction. The longer the U.S. and its allies remain, the longer the suffering will continue for the Afghan people.

If the U.S. and it allies leave, the Taliban will return to power and it will be even worse than before the invasion

Neither Taliban nor U.S. rule, through its puppet allies, is in the interests of the Afghan population. Two historically obsolete and reactionary forces are contending in the country: the Islamic fundamentalist forces led by the Taliban and the outmoded ruling strata of the imperialist system, led by the U.S. These two reactionary forces reinforce each other, even while opposing each other. But supporting the U.S. imperialists to defeat the Taliban will not advance the interests of the Afghan people. Our choices are not limited to supporting the Taliban or supporting the U.S. imperialists in the war.

We Demand U.S. Withdrawal of All Troops Now!

When Obama announced his escalation of the Afghanwar on February 17th he said, “I do it today mindful that the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan demands urgent attention and swift action.”

He is right that the situation is urgent and demands swift action, but not in the way he meant. We must demand the removal of all U.S. forces, including allied forces immediately. We must oppose the war and occupation and expose the crimes of the U.S. imperialists there. To do less will forsake the people of Afghanistan and enable the U.S. to continue its crimes in that country.

Truth is war’s first casualty. The Afghan war’s biggest untruth is, “we’ve got to fight terrorists over there so we don’t have to fight them at home.”

Many North Americans still buy this lie because they believe the 9/11 attacks came directly from the Afghanistan-based al-Qaida and Taliban movements.

False. The 9/11 attacks were planned in Germany and Spain, and conducted mainly by U.S.-based Saudis to punish America for supporting Israel.

Taliban, a militant religious, anti-Communist movement of Pashtun tribesmen, was totally surprised by 9/11. Taliban received U.S. aid until May, 2001. The CIA was planning to use Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida to stir up Muslim Uighurs against Chinese rule, and Taliban against Russia’s Central Asian allies.

Al-Qaida only numbered 300 members. Most have been killed. A handful escaped to Pakistan. Only a few remain in Afghanistan. Yet President Barack Obama insists 68,000 or more U.S. troops must stay in Afghanistan to fight al-Qaida and prevent extremists from re-acquiring “terrorist training camps.”

This claim, like Saddam Hussein’s non-existent weapons of mass destruction, is a handy slogan to market war to the public. Today, half of Afghanistan is under Taliban control. Anti-American militants could more easily use Somalia, Indonesia, Bangladesh, North and West Africa, or Sudan. They don’t need remote Afghanistan. The 9/11 attacks were planned in apartments, not camps.

The United States should not be waging war on Taliban. However backwards and oafish its Pashtun tribesmen, they have no desire or interest in attacking America. Even less, Canada.

Taliban are the sons of the U.S.-backed mujahidin who defeated the Soviets in the 1980s. As I have been saying since 9/11, Taliban never was America’s enemy. Instead of invading Afghanistan in 2001, the U.S. should have paid Taliban to uproot al-Qaida.

The Pashtun tribes want to end foreign occupation and drive out the Afghan Communists, who now dominate the U.S.-installed Kabul regime. But the U.S. has blundered into a full-scale war not just with Taliban, but with most of Afghanistan’s fierce Pashtun tribes, who comprise over half the population.

Obama is wrestling with widening the war. After eight years of military operations costing $236 billion US, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan just warned of the threat of “failure,” a.k.a. defeat. Canada has so far wasted $16 billion Cdn. on the war. Western occupation forces will be doomed if the Afghan resistance ever gets modern anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles.

The U.S. is sinking ever deeper into the South Asian morass. Washington is trying to arm-twist Pakistan into being more obedient and widening the war against its own independent-minded Pashtun tribes — wrongly called “Taliban.”

Washington’s incredibly ham-handed efforts to use $7.5 billion US to bribe Pakistan’s feeble, corrupt government and army, take control of military promotions, and get a grip on Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, have Pakistan’s soldiers on the verge of revolt.

Obama has been under intense pressure from flag-waving Republicans, much of the media, and the hawkish national security establishment to expand the war. Israel’s supporters, including many Congressional Democrats, want to see the U.S. seize Pakistan’s nuclear arms and expand the Afghan war into Iran.

Obama should admit Taliban is not and never was a threat to the West; that the wildly exaggerated al-Qaida has been mostly eradicated; and that the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan is causing more damage to U.S. interests in the Muslim world — now 25% of all humanity — than Bin Laden and his few rag-tag allies. The bombing in Madrid and London, and conspiracy in Toronto, were all horribly wrongheaded protests by young Muslims against the Afghan war.

We are not going to change the way Afghans treat their women by waging war on them, or bring democracy through rigged elections.

I wish Obama would just declare victory in Afghanistan, withdraw western forces, and hand over security to a multi-national stabilization force from Muslim nations. Good presidents, like good generals, know when to retreat.

Eric Margolis is a columnist for the Toronto Sun. His web site is foreigncorrespondent.com.

——————————————

Stephen –

This morning, Michelle and I awoke to some surprising and humbling news. At 6 a.m., we received word that I’d been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009.

To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who’ve been honored by this prize — men and women who’ve inspired me and inspired the entire world through their courageous pursuit of peace.

But I also know that throughout history the Nobel Peace Prize has not just been used to honor specific achievement; it’s also been used as a means to give momentum to a set of causes.

That is why I’ve said that I will accept this award as a call to action, a call for all nations and all peoples to confront the common challenges of the 21st century. These challenges won’t all be met during my presidency, or even my lifetime. But I know these challenges can be met so long as it’s recognized that they will not be met by one person or one nation alone.

This award — and the call to action that comes with it — does not belong simply to me or my administration; it belongs to all people around the world who have fought for justice and for peace. And most of all, it belongs to you, the men and women of America, who have dared to hope and have worked so hard to make our world a little better.

So today we humbly recommit to the important work that we’ve begun together. I’m grateful that you’ve stood with me thus far, and I’m honored to continue our vital work in the years to come.

Thank you,

President Barack Obama
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Mr. Obama, you have not been working with me, or millions of other Americans, nor have you promoted anything more than the peace of the grave for uncounted Afghan and Pakistani peasants. You call anybody who has fought for “justice and for peace” terrorists or insurgents. Anybody who objects to hegemony by the United States is either co-opted, killed or subverted.

On the home front, you and your bought and paid for lackeys in Congress pass ever more draconian laws to subvert our Constitution and destroy our privacy, our right to protest, our basic freedoms under the Bill of Rights. No law that is supposed to provide some sort of relief to We the People is passed until the lobbyists have gone over it with a fine tooth comb and made sure that the profits of the wealthy and the cartels are not touched.

This Winter, there may be a hundred million Americans living under cardboard in the streets, begging for food for their families. We are rapidly returning to the “Gilded Age” of the 1890’s where the wealthy rode their carriages from party to party, grinning at the hordes of people clutching their rags together, their hands out for a coin or two to buy some food for their families. This is what the people running this nation still consider the “natural order of things.”

More and wider wars, war crimes and crimes against humanity, billions more for the war machine and its profiteers, while the people suffer and starve, their jobs outsourced to places where people will work an eighteen hour day for a handful of rice. Health care is rapidly going down the tubes, mortgages are being foreclosed, and in some areas, banks and other financial institutions, who cannot sell the foreclosed homes are having them torn down, to prevent anybody from living in them.

Now, you are embarked on a program to spend still more money on new, advanced, nuclear weapons when we can destroy the planet twenty or thirty times over with the horrors already sitting in their silos on hair trigger alert. New weapons of pain and distress, to be used to disperse protestors of government policies are being developed and distributed to law enforcement. NorthCom is training combat brigades in “suppressing civil unrest.” So starving, homeless, sick people here in the United States will be dealt with, should they protest their plight under the American Oligarchy, of which you are apparently the poster boy.

When the war criminal Henry Kissinger got his Nobel Peace Prize, the whole thing became nothing but a public relations farce. The farce continues and will, apparently, as thousands or tens of thousands, here and abroad, die for the profits of the Oligarchy.

You said, “To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who’ve been honored by this prize — men and women who’ve inspired me and inspired the entire world through their courageous pursuit of peace.”

That was the only accurate statement in your letter to me. I would say, “For shame, Sir,” but you have none, so why bother.

With disgust and sadness,
Steve and Adrienne Osborn

What if tomorrow morning you woke up to headlines that yet another Chinese drone bombing on US soil killed several dozen ranchers in a rural community while they were sleeping? That a drone aircraft had come across the Canadian border in the middle of the night and carried out the latest of many attacks?

What if it was claimed that many of the victims harbored anti-Chinese sentiments, but most of the dead were innocent women and children? And what if the Chinese administration, in an effort to improve its public image in the US, had approved an aid package to send funds to help with American roads and schools and promote Chinese values here?

Most Americans would not stand for it. Yet the above hypothetical events are similar to what our government is doing in Pakistan. Last week, Congress did approve an aid package for Pakistan for the stated purposes of improving our image and promoting democracy.

I again made the point on the floor of the House that still no one seems to hear: What if this happened on US soil? What if innocent Americans were being killed in repeated drone attacks carried out by some foreign force who was trying to fix our problems for us? Would sending money help their image? If another nation committed this type of violence and destruction on our homeland, would we be at all interested in adopting their values?

Sadly, one thing that has entirely escaped modern American foreign policy is empathy. Without much humility or regard for human life, our foreign policy has been reduced to alternately bribing and bombing other nations, all with the stated goal of “promoting democracy”.

But if a country democratically elects a leader who is not sufficiently pro-American, our government will refuse to recognize them, will impose sanctions on them, and will possibly even support covert efforts to remove them. Democracy is obviously not what we are interested in. It is more likely that our government is interested in imposing its will on other governments.

This policy of endless intervention in the affairs of others is very damaging to American liberty and security.

If we were really interested in democracy, peace, prosperity and safety, we would pursue more free trade with other countries. Free and abundant trade is much more conducive to peace because it is generally bad business to kill your customers. When one’s livelihood is on the line, and the business agreements are mutually beneficial, it is in everyone’s best interests to maintain cooperative and friendly relations and not kill each other. But instead, to force other countries to bend to our will, we impose trade barriers and sanctions.

If our government really wanted to promote freedom, Americans would be free to travel and trade with whoever they wished. And, if we would simply look at our own policies around the world through the eyes of others, we would understand how these actions make us more targeted and therefore less safe from terrorism.

The only answer is get back to free trade with all and entangling alliances with none. It is our bombs and sanctions and condescending aid packages that isolate us.

Faced with the uncomfortable and politically unacceptable reality that there exists no evidence that Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapon, confirmed by his own intelligence community, President Obama has taken a page from the book of his predecessors FDR, LBJ, GWB, and so on: he simply made something really scary-sounding up to justify his push toward war.

This time it is the artificially manufactured hype around an Iranian uranium enrichment facility that is under construction. Keep in mind that as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Iran, under Article IV of said treaty, has every right to enrich uranium to its heart’s content. The treaty clearly states: “Nothing in this Treaty shall be interpreted as affecting the inalienable right of all the Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination and in conformity with Articles I and II of this Treaty.”

Iran has, dutifully and ahead of required schedule, notified the International Atomic Energy Agency, tasked with monitoring adherence to the NPT, of its intent to bring this enrichment facility online in approximately 18 months. But where there is no smoking gun, lighter fluid must be ignited: to undercut the Five Plus One talks with Iran scheduled to begin on October first, the Obama administration has invented indignation over discovery of this plant while at the same time holding to the story that the US Intelligence Community has known about this facility, which Obama says is “inconsistent with a peaceful (nuclear) program,” since 2006. As one administration official stated regarding the upcoming talks in light of his “discovery”: “Everybody’s been asking, ‘Where’s our leverage?’ Well, now we just got that leverage.” And right in the nick of time!

But hang on a minute: the US Intelligence Community has known since 2006 that Iran is building a facility to manufacture nuclear weapons but still in 2007 allowed a National Intelligence Estimate on Iran to conclude with “high confidence” that Iran was not pursuing a nuclear weapons program? Considering the discrepancy, one could be forgiven for concluding that either deception or incompetence is the order of the day in our enormously expensive Intelligence Community.

It is 2002 all over again, but worse: this time a good chunk of the antiwar movement will have been sidelined over its fatally wrong-headed decision to sign on with the pied pipers of the war party over the Iranian elections in June. By “going Green” (going pro-opposition instead of remaining neutral) much of the antiwar movement has been effectively silenced, its side-taking giving voice to one of the war party’s most critical claims: “any government that will cheat as horrifically as it did on these elections will certainly cheat on its IAEA reporting obligations.” No further proof needed. It is a refrain we have heard time and time again since June: “you mean you are going to believe them about their nuclear program? A regime that would cheat like that in its elections?” Antiwar movement: largely silenced. Credible proof of outcome-changing fraud: none. Coming cost in death and destruction: priceless.