More Whitewash Over Afghanistan

This Commentary was published in Gulf Times on 19/12/2010

Truth is always war’s first victim.  After nine years of war in Afghanistan, costing over $100bn in taxpayer money, Americans still don’t know the full truth about this murky conflict. Three reports about Afghanistan emerged last week in Washington.  First, a political whitewash issued by the Obama White House claiming the war was going well and some US troops might be withdrawn next year. Second, the Red Cross issued a grim report showing that Afghans were suffering widespread malnutrition and serious health problems under Western occupation. So much for US-led nation-building. Third, there were leaks about a new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), the combined findings of all 16 US intelligence agencies. This key intelligence report is explosive and may not be fully revealed. The NIE reportedly asserts that the $13bn a month Afghan War is at best stalemated; at worse, Western occupation forces are on the defensive and their vulnerable supply lines increasingly threatened. Taliban is expanding its control.  Claims by US generals that “progress” is being made in the war are false. Afghan president Hamid Karzai put it bluntly last year, saying the US-led war was “ineffective apart from causing civilian casualties.” The new NIE may also restate a 2007 report that  found Iran had no nuclear weapons programme. Frustrated American generals, facing a failing war and ruined careers, are blaming Pakistan for the war they cannot win. There is no concern in Washington for Pakistan’s national interests or explosive problems in its tribal areas. Washington wants Pakistan to follow orders, pure and simple. That’s why the US is paying Islamabad $2bn per annum. Sepoys of the Raj are supposed to follow orders. Last week came news that US air, land, and mercenary forces would penetrate ever deeper into Pakistan. WikiLeaks show that Pakistan’s feeble government is quietly backing deeper US military involvement and targeted killings of Pakistanis. The Pentagon is gripped by the misconception that “safe havens” in Pakistan are fuelling resistance to Western occupation. During the Vietnam War, the Pentagon was similarly convinced that eradicating communist safe havens in Cambodia and Laos were the key to victory.  By now, 50% of Americans oppose the Afghan War. President Barack Obama is under growing pressure from his Democratic Party to wind down the war. Republicans and right wingers, by contrast, want it continued – and further expanded into Pakistan. Most Americans know less than nothing about Afghanistan or South Asia and have absolutely no comprehension of its complexities, size, or politics. The few that do, like experts in the State Department and CIA, are not listened to. CIA, whose role is to supply the president with unbiased information, has become deeply politicised and biased.  Thank President Ronald Reagan for this. The yes-men he installed at CIA told him and subsequent presidents what they wanted to hear. This process culminated during the Bush administration when then CIA Director George Tenet validated all the lies about Iraq to please the president and vice president.  Today, CIA has become a participant in the Afghan War, with its own little army of mercenaries and renegades, and an air force of Predator and Reaper drones.  As a result, CIA’s reporting on the war has become seriously tainted by institutional bias and career concerns.  Wars are wonderful for career advancement. But you can’t fight a war and remain objective. As a result, Obama is getting a lot of bad information from people with axes to grind. President Obama declared last week that the US would continue fighting Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. He is not telling Americans the truth. CIA director Leon Panetta recently said there were no more than 50 Al Qaeda members in Afghanistan. What, then, are 150,000 US and Nato troops doing there?  The war’s brutality and destruction are growing. US forces around Kandahar are now blowing up or bulldozing houses, assassinating suspected Taliban sympathisers and using mass reprisals against the civilian population.  It’s all a repeat of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, even to giant security walls chopping up the landscape. Meanwhile, the Pentagon is in something of a panic. How can a bunch of lightly-armed mountain tribesmen fighting only part-time battle the world’s most powerful armed forces to a standstill?