Monday, December 04, 2006

Some Good Analysis of Afghanistan

Sorry about the relative lack of original writing on this site over the last couple of weeks. I'll see what I can do about that. In the meantime, here is a post at Lenin's Tomb with some good background that is highly critical of the brutal U.S./NATO occupation of Afghanistan...doesn't mention the Canadian role specifically, but it does show what kind of process Canadian troops are over there supporting.

The author concludes:

Becuase the [U.S. and NATO] occupiers rely on this network of patronage and bribery to suppress the population, but also to prevent the central government from becoming too independent, they embed localised wars in the social fabric.... Given the bolstered power and prestige of the warlords; given the ongoing exploitation of Afgan people by this class of comprador gangsters; given the mass starvation that has resulted; given the daily violence of the [U.S. and NATO] occupiers and their brutal clients; and given the failure of the state to be genuinely representative - given all that, an insurgency has developed and grown, and (as I have pointed out elsewhere) is not delimited to the Taliban and its supporters. NATO forces can only keep the country by becoming even more brutal, killing ever more people, destroying more houses and utilising more of the repressive techniques of the warlords whom they employ. US Special Forces in alliance with mercenary outfits like the Afghan Militia Force have already done their best to turn residents of Afghanistan into insurgents. According to the Senlis Council, the "conflict in the Southern provinces of Afghanistan has shifted from a traditional military opposition to people warfare." That is, it elaborates, an increasing "guerilla war" with deepening roots in local communities. Up to ten thousand Afghanis died in the first few months of war alone, according to a study by Aldo Benini and Lawrence Molton for the Journal of Peace Research. We have no indications at the moment how many excess deaths have resulted from this particular occupation, five years on. Nevertheless, as the people's war widens widens, the military response will widen, and the calls from liberal warmongers for the annihilation of the insurgents will amplify proportionately.


Canada out of Afghanistan now!

[Edited for political clarity 12:30 pm Dec 4/06.]

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wait,...we need to condense all that down to "women can now go to school".

Like Mr Galloway says, how do you know they are Taliban? Do they carry membership cards? During the Vietnam war, the US claimed killing hundreds of Vietcongs daily. Only we know now the vast majority of those killed were civilians.

Killing begets more killing. The only positive influence we can have there is economic aid, development and providing security like we were doing in the north.

Scott Neigh said...

Hey anonymous...it sounds like you may have misunderstood the post I linked to, which is very much anti-occupation, or the excerpt of it that I posted.

Let me edit the post a bit to make it clearer...

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Scott Neigh said...

The above comment was removed because it was spam.