Anand Gopal: How to Create an Afghan Blackwater

Tom Englehardt posts an extract from Anand Gopal's book, No Good Men Among the Living: America, the Taliban, and the War Through Afghan Eyes, in which Gopal relates How to Create an Afghan Blackwater.

Of course, even in the new Afghanistan there was no such thing as a free lunch. In return for privileged access to American dollars, Sherzai delivered the one thing U.S. forces felt they needed most: intelligence. His men became the Americans’ eyes and ears in their drive to eradicate the Taliban and al-Qaeda from Kandahar.

Yet here lay the contradiction. Following the Taliban’s collapse, al-Qaeda had fled the country, resettling in the tribal regions of Pakistan and in Iran. By April 2002, the group could no longer be found in Kandahar — or anywhere else in Afghanistan. The Taliban, meanwhile, had ceased to exist, its members having retired to their homes and surrendered their weapons. Save for a few lone wolf attacks, U.S. forces in Kandahar in 2002 faced no resistance at all. The terrorists had all decamped or abandoned the cause, yet U.S. special forces were on Afghan soil with a clear political mandate: defeat terrorism.

How do you fight a war without an adversary? Enter Gul Agha Sherzai — and men like him around the country. Eager to survive and prosper, he and his commanders followed the logic of the American presence to its obvious conclusion. They would create enemies where there were none, exploiting the perverse incentive mechanism that the Americans — without even realizing it — had put in place.

Sherzai’s enemies became America’s enemies, his battles its battles. His personal feuds and jealousies were repackaged as “counterterrorism,” his business interests as Washington’s. And where rivalries did not do the trick, the prospect of further profits did. (One American leaflet dropped by plane in the area read: “Get Wealth and Power Beyond Your Dreams. Help Anti-Taliban Forces Rid Afghanistan of Murderers and Terrorists.”)

Emphasis Mine

The Americans snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. They had defeated the Taliban and expelled Al-Qaeda from Afghanistan in 2001.

Yet, the economic logic of Capitalism requires an on-going war against somebody. Whether it is the feudal monarchs of Europe, the native peoples of the Americas, Africa, Asia, or the islands of the Pacific. Capitalism must always expand or face collapse.

Through the good offices of people, like Gul Agha Sherzai, the Americans now have their endless war. US and Afghan companies can suck the US Treasury dry for their own benefit. This is not immoral under Capitalism. Companies exist to make profits in legal ways.

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Watching the Same Movie About American War for 75 Year

Peter Van Buren writes that we have been Watching the Same Movie About American War for 75 Years.

In propaganda terms, think of this as controlling the narrative. One version of events dominates all others and creates a reality others can only scramble to refute. The exceptions do, however, reveal much about what we don’t normally see of the true nature of American war. They are uncomfortable for any of us to watch, as well as for military recruiters, parents sending a child off to war, and politicians trolling for public support for the next crusade.

War is not a two-hour-and-12-minute hard-on. War is what happens when the rules break down and, as fear displaces reason, nothing too terrible is a surprise. The real secret of war for those who experience it isn't the visceral knowledge that people can be filthy and horrible, but that you, too, can be filthy and horrible. You don't see much of that on the big screen.

The Long Con

Of course, there are elements of “nothing new” here. The Romans undoubtedly had their version of war porn that involved mocking the Gauls as sub-humans. Yet in twenty-first-century America, where wars are undeclared and Washington dependent on volunteers for its new foreign legion, the need to keep the public engaged and filled with fear over our enemies is perhaps more acute than ever.

So here’s a question: if the core propaganda messages the U.S. government promoted during World War II are nearly identical to those pushed out today about the Islamic State, and if Hollywood’s war films, themselves a particularly high-class form of propaganda, have promoted the same false images of Americans in conflict from 1941 to the present day, what does that tell us? Is it that our varied enemies across nearly three-quarters of a century of conflict are always unbelievably alike, or is it that when America needs a villain, it always goes to the same script?

Emphasis Mine

The propaganda for racism follows a similar script. No matter who is being persecuted: Jews, Arabs, Irish, Poles, Africans, Aborigines, etc.

Power needs an enemy—either within the state or without. The ruling class does not want the anger of the oppressed directed against them. This is why the rulers always deflect the anger elsewhere.

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Walking Back the American Twenty-First Century?

Tom Engelhardt wonders if the USA is Walking Back the American Twenty-First Century?.

Since 2013, the Pentagon has transferred for free more than 600 mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles, or MRAPs, worth at least half a million dollars each and previously used in U.S. war zones, to various “qualified law enforcement agencies.” Police departments in rural areas like Walsh County, North Dakota (pop. 11,000) now have their own MRAPs, as does the campus police department at Ohio State University.  It hardly matters that these monster vehicles have few uses in a country where neither ambushes nor roadside bombs are a part of everyday life.

Post-Ferguson, a few scattered departments have actually moved to turn these useless vehicles back in.  It's clear, however, that police forces “kitted out with Marine-issue camouflage and military-grade body armor, toting short-barreled assault rifles, and rolling around in armored vehicles” — that is, almost indistinguishable from soldiers — are now the future of American policing and there’s no walking that back.  Since Ferguson, President Obama has essentially refused to do so and Congress certainly won’t.  Despite a small uproar over the pile of military equipment being transferred to the police, there is no indication that the flow will be stanched.

When it comes to all this militarized equipment, as the president has emphasized (and the task force he appointed to look into these matters will undoubtedly reemphasize), “reform” is mainly going to be focused on “better training” in how to use it.  In other words, reform will prove to be a code word for further militarization.  And don’t count on anyone returning those 94,000 machine guns either in a country that seems to be in some kind of domesticarms race and in which toddlers now regularly find their parents’ loaded guns and wound or kill them.

Emphasis Mine

Back in 2005, I made an observation in 4GW and Police Work, that:

I have come to the conclusion that Fourth Generation Warfare (4GW) is simply police work. Third Generation Warfare (3GW) aimed to convince people who owned assets to obey your orders. 4GW aims to do the same with people who have no assets. In other words, normal everyday police work.

Maybe the police are worried about what nearly happened on Palm Island back in November 2005.

So Lex was organising a protest against the inadequate Coroner's report. There was anger at the blatant lies and cover-up of violence against Aborigines.

As the protest got out of control with the Police station and Sergeant's residence being burnt down, the police were barricaded inside their barracks, the green zone of Palm Island. They thought they were about to be massacred by the islanders. At point, a truce is negotiated (p.68):

But Lex Wotton, who had been trying to jemmy open the gate's padlock, now ordered the crowd to stop throwing rocks. They did so. 'You've won! You've won! [Senior Sergeant Roger] Whyte called. He negotiated for sixty minutes' grace, sixty minutes to get off the island. The Torres Strait Islander cop, Bert Tabaui, heard Wotton yell, 'We'll give you an hour to get off the island, then we'll kill you!'

The police managed to retreat to the hospital (p.69)

Lex faced the police. He was still angry, but the anger was now controlled. 'Time's up! he called to the cops. 'All I wanted was for you to get off the island!'

Emphasis Mine

However, the women objected to this demand. They wanted police protection against the men. (p.69) The police said they could not leave because [t]hey had no transportation Lex arranged for two cars to made available for their escape, but the police were fearful of an ambush on the way to the airport. (p.70)

The confrontation ends with the timely arrival of the airborne (p.71):

The thunder of helicopters filled the smoke-clouded sky. Extra police had now arrived and still more were coming. Inspector Richardson came outside and told Lex. 'We are not leaving this island. We are the police. You are the ones causing the problem...we are not going anywhere! No way in Australia!'

Lex Wotton froze. He turned around and faced the crowd. The revolution had failed. His idea that the police would leave the island had been biblical in ambition and naivete, a declaration of war that he had no chance of winning. His actions would draw national attention to Cameron Doomadgee's death, but at that moment he knew he would soon be the one inside a jail cell.

'The party's over,' he called, 'we'll all go home!' Then he turned around to the police. 'You can come around later and pick me up.'

Emphasis Mine

The occupier is not easily dislodged from his conquests. No dissent is allowed.

However, in case, the resolve of the occupier is weakened by the crackdown and the relative leniency of Lex's sentence. Future oppression is assured but it could be one foot on the throat too many.

Chloe Hooper: The Tall Man (3)
Page references are to The Tall Man by Chloe Hooper

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Keystone XL, Cold War 2.0, and the GOP Vision for 2016

Michael T. Klare examines the connection between Keystone XL, Cold War 2.0, and the GOP Vision for 2016.

By accelerating the exploitation of fossil fuels across the continent, reducing governmental oversight of drilling operations in all three countries, and building more cross-border pipelines like the Keystone XL, Christie explained, all three countries would be guaranteed dramatic economic growth.  “In North America, we have resources waiting to be tapped,” he assured business leaders in Mexico City.  “What is required is the vision to maximize our growth, the political will to unlock our potential, and the understanding that working together on strategic priorities… is the path to a better life.”

At first glance, Christie’s blueprint for his North American energy renaissance seems to be a familiar enough amalgam of common Republican tropes: support for that Keystone XL pipeline slated to bring Canadian tar sands to the U.S. Gulf Coast, along with unbridled energy production everywhere; opposition to excessive governmental regulation; free trade… well, you know the mantra.  But don’t be fooled.  Something far grander — and more sinister — is being proposed.  It’s nothing less than a plan to convert Canada and Mexico into energy colonies of the United States, while creating a North American power bloc capable of aggressively taking on Russia, China, and other foreign challengers.

This outlook — call it North Americanism — is hardly unique to Christie.  It pervades the thinking of top Republican leaders and puts their otherwise almost inexplicably ardent support of Keystone XL in a new light.  As most analysts now concede, that pipeline will do little to generate long-term jobs or promote U.S. energy independence. (Much of the tar sands oil it’s designed to carry will be refined in the U.S., but exported elsewhere).  In fact, with oil prices plunging globally, it looks ever more like a white elephant of a project, yet it remains the Republican majority’s top legislative priority.  The reason: it is the concrete manifestation of Christie-style North American energy integration, and for that reason is considered sacred by Republican proponents of North Americanism.  “This is not about sending ‘your oil’ across ‘our land,’” Christie insisted in Calgary.  “It’s about maximizing the benefits of North America’s natural resources for everybody.”

While North American energy integration may, in part, appeal to Republicans for the way it would enrich major U.S. oil companies, pipeline firms, and some energy-industry workers — the “everybody” in Christie’s remarks — its real allure lies in the way they believe it will buttress the more hawkish and militarized foreign policy that so many in the GOP now favor.  By boosting fossil fuel production in North America, Keystone’s backers claim, the U.S. will be less dependent on imports from the Middle East and so in a stronger position to combat Russia, Iran, ISIS, and other foreign challengers.

Authorization for Keystone XL and related energy infrastructure is important “not just for economic development, not just for jobs and growth,” Senator Ted Cruz of Texas declared in January, “but also for the enormous geopolitical advantages that it will present to the United States [by strengthening] our hands against those who would be enemies of America.”

Brace yourself. This combination of fossil fuel optimization and North American solidarity against a potentially hostile world is destined to become the core of the Republican economic and national security platforms in the 2016 presidential election.  It will similarly govern action in Congress over the next two years.  So, if you want to understand the dynamics of contemporary American politics, it’s crucial to grasp the new Republican vision of an energy-saturated North America.

Emphasis Mine

So, while human life is threatened with extinction through run-away climate chaneg, the Capitalist system can think only of retaining its world-wide dominance through the control of oil, coal, and natural gas. All of these contribute to the growing climate catastrophe.

The ruling class would rather destroy humanity than reliquinsh power. Every day, the situation becomes direr.

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War to the Horizon

Tom Engelhardt writes about how there is War to the Horizon.

To summarize: 13 years later, the War Party is ascendant. It controls Congress. The president is visibly, if with his usual reluctance, placing his bets on war. The military is riding high. The end of all calls for serious Pentagon budget cuts is clearly in sight. And more of the same is undoubtedly in the works, no matter who wins the 2016 election.

That’s the “new” Washington. Peacetime? A fantasy creation of lefties, libertarians, and noodle heads. Peace? A dirty word that no self-respecting politician would be caught using.

Meanwhile, the war hawks are crying out for more. At the moment, all the pressure in Washington is focused on the ramping up of its various wars and crises. Iraq War 3.0 and Syria War 1.0 are to expand. Afghanistan seems again to be a war on the rise. The pressure is increasing to make Cold War 2.0 ever hotter and to ensure that negotiations with Iran over a nuclear deal will prove less than fruitful. Drone wars are ongoing. Special forces ops are raiding away. Thirteen years later, we are yet again floating on what seems to be a rising, not ebbing, tide of war and the one qualification for a new secretary of defense is that he or she be a hot, not a cold, warrior.

Emphasis Mine

Engelhardt considers war to be an option under Capitalism. Instead, it is a neccessity to protect and take-over markets. The invisible hand is really that of the drone pilot or the bommer pilot.

However, the intensity of war is an indication of the troubles Capitalism is currently going through. But it is troubled enough to risk open war with either Russia or China yet.

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