Afghanistan in context

This story, Afghanistan: Chaos Central by Chris Sands is a must read.

What's really going on with the "war on terror", anyway? Here's my take:

When the Neocon gambit to seize Iraq as an anchor for establishing authority in the Middle East became a clear failure, a change in tactics became necessary, but I suspect the ranks were split, some wanting a diversion away from the Iraq debacle, others wanting to stay the course, but shroud it behind the illusion that we're withdrawing (leaving 30,000 to 50,000 troops is not withdrawing). The other argument was to give up and divert attention to another crisis sufficiently removed from the real plan and it's association with the gang's motives. Afghanistan solved this problem because it's far enough removed from the original plan as to muddy the waters and obfuscate the situation. With the emphasis and attention on Afghanistan, Iraq and the original plan can be forgotten, because now we have a different and potentially more serious (Pakistan) problem to deal with - leaving Iraq to "that was yesterday, and we don't about that anymore"

So the new move, which is blatantly stupid, achieves it's goal of blurring the connection between the Neocons and the invasion. That is, they found a rock to hide behind while they plan the next step.

Next step? Of course. You don't think for a minute they will *ever* abandon their goal of establishing military authority in the Middle East, do you? Get it out of your mind. Their mission isn't a minor or fleeting undertaking, it's a long term, strategic crusade to establish Israel's security, no matter the cost to Americans.

Israel's position is that they can't trust the Arabs to be in charge of anything. The unstated part of the argument is that if the Arabs aren't going to be in charge, who is? Israel, of course. With American money and arms, of course.

Where does that leave us? With a two-front war, in Iraq and Afghanistan, neither of which we can possibly win. With very smart diplomacy, we might be able to call it a draw and get out, but that's the best we can hope for.

But that's not happening. As we know or should know, Obama has made his pledges, so unless he does a complete turnaround - and turns Israel's fate over the UN like he should do - we're going to be at war until the bitter end. You do understand that Israel's enemies will never give up either, right? Indeed, there are many more on their side now, after the slaughter we administered in Iraq.

The obvious progression of events in Iraq is that civil war will explode when the American military becomes too small to forcefully keep order. With Iran backing the Shias, and Saudi Arabia backing the Sunnis, the situation in Iraq can quickly spin out of control. But we have troops on the ground. What will they do? Enter air power and naval guns - that is, more indiscriminate slaughter of civilians then anything to date.

It's been said, something along the lines of "the bigger part of story of the invasion of Iraq has yet to be written".

The crucial ingredients to this story are (a) AIPAC and the Neocons still have enough power in Washington to keep the crusade for Israel's authority alive, and (b) Afghanistan is an attention magnet. If it weren't Afghanistan it would be someplace else, like Korea, the Philippines, even South America. There's always a war at the ready out there if you're looking for one.

Because this gang has infiltrated and seized (example) (remember Neocon commander Cheney?) our information supply is playing right along.


Bill