Obama’s Afghanistan Dilemma

Obama’s Afghanistan Dilemma By Stanley Kutler

"During his presidential campaign, Barack Obama repeatedly called for expanding the war in Afghanistan. Be careful what you wish for."

Be that as it may, my studies tell me that:

1. Winning in Afghanistan is a not even a remote possibility. No matter what else is said about it, it will serve as a magnet for the countless enemies we've made in the Middle East. In the best of cases it will be a long, drawn out drain of our blood and treasure. The worst of cases begins with people actually feeling the pain of war.

Why, then?

2. Afghanistan is being used as giant smoke screen to mask withdrawal from the debacle of the military invasion of Iraq (which was to serve as launching point for other conquests in the region in the larger mission to establish military authority in the Middle East - for the benefit of Big Money and Power in the MI Complex, and Israel's supporters in Washington and the "news", which I think of as a "machine").

So, no matter what happens with Afghanistan, it will take time and loads of attention, thereby achieve the goal of moving attention away from the failure of Iraq. When every semblence of victory in Iraq is crumbled, it will be featured on page 32 because everyone's attention has been diverted. Thus win or lose isn't the way to understand the Afghanistan strategy in the first place.

As it's happening today, a big moment in world history is at hand in the form of Obama's pending decision on escalating our military presence in Afghanistan. The decision is expected, and probably will be made very soon.

There is no middle of the road for him to take: it's either escalate the military approach or leave. The middle of the road is being packed with IED's.

If he obeys the machine and escalates, his worthlessness as a President and a human being will be apparent to all. If he takes a stand on behalf of the American people, the "news" machine will begin the process of eating him alive, probably using the thousand little cuts (negative "news" stories) approach, or maybe they'll try some other way.

I believe that if Obama does take a stand against this machine on behalf of the American people (the American spirit), we must disspell the power and influnce of the "news" machine (which psyched the people to launch the Iraq invasion and is now pumping up escalation in Afghanistan) by turning our heads away from it and to information sources being groomed on the net today, start with commondreams. And when we do turn our heads, we will see that the wind in their sails disappears, causing their mighty weapon to sink into the abyss with other scourages that mankind has had to overcome through history to stay the course as builders.

In the big picture of mankind's existance, the trend of civilization has consistantly favored the builders over the destroyers, i.e. an upward trend of progress. Evidentally we cannot exist without "the opposites" (Yin and Yang, with one playing the role of builder, the other destroyer, it doesn't matter which one) in our nature, but when these entities grown strong and one of the opposites becomes arrogant, belligerent and destructive, a mighty clash occurs with the other. Such a clash is brewing again today in the form of the the crusade for military authority in the Middle East. There was no "exit strategy" because there was no plan to exit.

Ask yourself: are you a builder, or a destroyer? Once again in the grand scheme of mankind's development, as has happened before, we're called again to stand up and choose.

Given the power accumulated by the forces at work, we are in a historical moment, of equal or greater significance then any in history. We must choose now, and we must choose correctly. Looking at mankind's history, I think that we will stand as builders is a no-brainer, but we still have to make it happen - it wouldn't happen by itself. It's really a question of how much pain we'll suffer before acknowledging it's time.

We've allowed ourselves to accept that frame of reference is "right" versus "left", which set us arguing in circles. We need a different and more accurate frame of reference, and that is "builder" versus "destroyer". If you're intrigued by this notion, I invite you to read C. J. Jung's excellent analysis on the subject. Most unfortunately his works are not published on the net, but can be found in your library.


Bill