Which group of Islamic terrorists is responsible for yesterday's massive suicide car bombing in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan? The body count so far is 90 dead, at least 400 wounded. That's more than four times the number of casualties in last week's ISIS-related Manchester massacre, but you won't be seeing much handwringing and crocodile tears from Western politicians or in the lamestream media, because hey, these are just towel-headed Muslims. Who cares? And that answers the question in today's headline.
It's worth noting, though, that this was one of the worst attacks Kabul had seen since the Prez (Obama -- how quickly we forget) declared victory in Afghanistan and started the drawdown of foreign forces from the country at the end of 2014. The bombing, which took place in what was supposed to be Kabul's safest neighbourhood, raises serious questions about the Afghan government's ability to secure the war-battered nation.
If the Afghans' democratically elected government (LOL) can't control their own country, must we go back in to pacify the Taliban and/or ISIS for them? There was talk of "re-engaging" even before yesterday's blast. Indeed, more than 8000 of US troops and "advisors" are still there, along with personnel from other NATO countries -- excluding Canada, of course -- but they are steadily losing ground. In fact, the Kabul government's writ runs only to the perimeter of the city, if that.
Last month, the Afghan Taliban announced the beginning of their spring offensive, promising to build their political base in the country while focusing military assaults on the international coalition and Afghan security forces. American and Afghan forces have been battling the Taliban insurgency for more than 15 years... and counting. If anyone has a persuasive argument as to why we should continue, please write it on the back of a postage stamp and send it to Walt at the usual address.
FURTHER READING, added 1/6/17: Don Murray, a formerly a CBC reporter and now a freelancer, thinks WE are responsible for the latest Taliban (or ISIS) attacks in Afghanistan, in the sense that, if "we" weren't there, the fanatical Islamists wouldn't be blowing things up. Read "Afghan civilians bear brunt of US-led war". The secondary title is "Few American, NATO troops now die in the conflict but their presence ensures ever more Afghans will get killed". Hmm. Could be.
Showing posts with label American forces. Show all posts
Showing posts with label American forces. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 31, 2017
Monday, April 25, 2016
Escalating the war in Syria: Has Obama learned nothing?
CNN politics reports today that President 0 is going to send another 250 American special ops forces to Syria in the coming weeks, in an effort to stem the influence and spread of ISIS. "Stem the influence and spread"? What happened to "degrade and destroy"? Even that got downgraded pretty quickly to "degrade and defeat". Now it's just "stem the influence and spread".
Here, according to CNN politics, are POTUS's actual words. "Just as I approved additional support for Iraqi forces against ISIL, I've decided to increase U.S. support for local forces fighting ISIL in Syria, a small number of special operations forces are already on the ground in Syria and their expertise has been critical as local forces have driven ISIL out of key areas. So given their success I've approved the deployment of up to 250 additional U.S. personnel in Syria including special forces to keep up this momentum."
"Given their success..." Pardon me while I fall down laughing. Whatever success the anti-ISIS forces have had lately has come largely through the efforts of Kurdish fighters and those of our once-but-no-longer enemy Basher Assad, ably assisted by the Russian Air Force. But don't worry. The Paranoid States of America is going to step up the fight against the murderous Muslims. Really. Obama means it, this time.
Yes indeed. If more American boots on the ground don't do the trick, the USAF will win the war from the air. At the end of February, Air Force Gen. Herbert Carlisle, head of Air Combat Command, announced at the Air Force Association’s annual Air Warfare Symposium that they're going to send in the B52s! And Lt.-Gen. Charles Brown, in charge of the flying branch’s top headquarters for the Middle East, said he would help "bring B-52s to town", according to Air Force Magazine, quoted on The National Interest blogsite.
Send in the B52s to bomb whatever rubble is left. What an amazing idea. But hang on! Haven't we seen this movie before? Back in the early 70s? Didn't USAF B52s engage in carpet-bombing of not just Vietnam but Laos and Cambodia? How did that work out? [That was in a movie -- The Killing Fields. It didn't really happen! Ed.]
Sorry, Ed., but it did happen! It was part of the Johnson-Nixon grand strategy to end the war! Remember? Anyway, here's a quote from Rick Perlstein's Nixonland (Scribner 2008), recommended here a few days ago. "On April 16 [1972], five behemoth B-52s pounded Hanoi and North Vietnam's lifeline port, Haiphong Harbor....
"Then, the night of April 26, [Nixon] went on TV to make his latest Vietnam pitch: "...we have offered the most generous peace terms.... The South Vietnamese are fighting courageously and well in their self-defense.
'...I say to you tonight, let us bring our men home from Vietnam; let us end the war in Vietnam. But let us end it in such a way that the younger brothers and the sons of the brave men who have fought in Vietnam will not have to fight again in some other Vietnam at some time in the future....
'My fellow Americans, let us therefore unite as a nation in a firm and wise policy of real peace -- not the peace of surrender, but peace with honor, not just peace in our time, but peace for generations to come.'"
And how did that work out? Walt asks... again... how it can be that the leaders of the USA have learned nothing, nothing from the American experience in Vietnam, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Libya, and (so far) in Syria? How can it be?!
Footnote regarding Nixonland: A reader has confessed to some puzzlement over Walt's recommendation of Nixonland. Isn't that book [he asks] nothing more than a hatchet job on RMN, published to discredit the Republicans ahead of the 2008 presidential election? Well, yes. Mr. Perlstein paints a picture of President Nixon as a scurrilous bounder and then some. But that the picture is unflattering doesn't make it unreal. And Mr. Perlstein shows no love for the Democrats or President Johnson either. About the only pols who come off at all well in the book are Messrs McCarthy and McGovern.
But that's beside the point. The main point of Nixonland, as far as I'm concerned, is that the liberal consensus of the 60s evaporated or was destroyed in 1968, and that the polarization of politics of the Nixon years is even more acute today. To paraphrase Mr. Perlstein, the majority of Americans are embittered, cynical, and resentful of the Establishment. They are ready to vote for anyone who can credibly pledge to tear down the Washington power structure. And that, dear readers, explains the popularity of Messrs Sanders, Cruz, and... of course... Trump.
Further reading:
Can America ever be united again?, WWW 12/4/16.
"Donald Trump taps into anger about U.S. misadventures in the world", CBC News 28/4/16
Here, according to CNN politics, are POTUS's actual words. "Just as I approved additional support for Iraqi forces against ISIL, I've decided to increase U.S. support for local forces fighting ISIL in Syria, a small number of special operations forces are already on the ground in Syria and their expertise has been critical as local forces have driven ISIL out of key areas. So given their success I've approved the deployment of up to 250 additional U.S. personnel in Syria including special forces to keep up this momentum."
"Given their success..." Pardon me while I fall down laughing. Whatever success the anti-ISIS forces have had lately has come largely through the efforts of Kurdish fighters and those of our once-but-no-longer enemy Basher Assad, ably assisted by the Russian Air Force. But don't worry. The Paranoid States of America is going to step up the fight against the murderous Muslims. Really. Obama means it, this time.
Yes indeed. If more American boots on the ground don't do the trick, the USAF will win the war from the air. At the end of February, Air Force Gen. Herbert Carlisle, head of Air Combat Command, announced at the Air Force Association’s annual Air Warfare Symposium that they're going to send in the B52s! And Lt.-Gen. Charles Brown, in charge of the flying branch’s top headquarters for the Middle East, said he would help "bring B-52s to town", according to Air Force Magazine, quoted on The National Interest blogsite.
Send in the B52s to bomb whatever rubble is left. What an amazing idea. But hang on! Haven't we seen this movie before? Back in the early 70s? Didn't USAF B52s engage in carpet-bombing of not just Vietnam but Laos and Cambodia? How did that work out? [That was in a movie -- The Killing Fields. It didn't really happen! Ed.]
Sorry, Ed., but it did happen! It was part of the Johnson-Nixon grand strategy to end the war! Remember? Anyway, here's a quote from Rick Perlstein's Nixonland (Scribner 2008), recommended here a few days ago. "On April 16 [1972], five behemoth B-52s pounded Hanoi and North Vietnam's lifeline port, Haiphong Harbor....
"Then, the night of April 26, [Nixon] went on TV to make his latest Vietnam pitch: "...we have offered the most generous peace terms.... The South Vietnamese are fighting courageously and well in their self-defense.
'...I say to you tonight, let us bring our men home from Vietnam; let us end the war in Vietnam. But let us end it in such a way that the younger brothers and the sons of the brave men who have fought in Vietnam will not have to fight again in some other Vietnam at some time in the future....
'My fellow Americans, let us therefore unite as a nation in a firm and wise policy of real peace -- not the peace of surrender, but peace with honor, not just peace in our time, but peace for generations to come.'"
And how did that work out? Walt asks... again... how it can be that the leaders of the USA have learned nothing, nothing from the American experience in Vietnam, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Libya, and (so far) in Syria? How can it be?!
Footnote regarding Nixonland: A reader has confessed to some puzzlement over Walt's recommendation of Nixonland. Isn't that book [he asks] nothing more than a hatchet job on RMN, published to discredit the Republicans ahead of the 2008 presidential election? Well, yes. Mr. Perlstein paints a picture of President Nixon as a scurrilous bounder and then some. But that the picture is unflattering doesn't make it unreal. And Mr. Perlstein shows no love for the Democrats or President Johnson either. About the only pols who come off at all well in the book are Messrs McCarthy and McGovern.
But that's beside the point. The main point of Nixonland, as far as I'm concerned, is that the liberal consensus of the 60s evaporated or was destroyed in 1968, and that the polarization of politics of the Nixon years is even more acute today. To paraphrase Mr. Perlstein, the majority of Americans are embittered, cynical, and resentful of the Establishment. They are ready to vote for anyone who can credibly pledge to tear down the Washington power structure. And that, dear readers, explains the popularity of Messrs Sanders, Cruz, and... of course... Trump.
Further reading:
Can America ever be united again?, WWW 12/4/16.
"Donald Trump taps into anger about U.S. misadventures in the world", CBC News 28/4/16
Tuesday, November 11, 2014
Some wars would be better forgotten
Today is Remembrance Day or Armistice Day, the day on which we honour the brave men and women who died, often far from their homelands, fighting for freedom and/or democracy and/or civilization. Many of us will wear poppies, reminiscent of those that blew in Flanders fields. And we will be doing so -- as we will be reminded, over and over -- that we do all this "lest we forget".
Walt means no disrespect to those who made the ultimate sacrifice. Most of them went into battle bravely, if not willingly, because they had to. Willingly or not, they answered their countries' call, and did what they were told to do, without questioning the right or wrong of the wars in which they fought.
Some of those wars, in Walt's opinion, were fought in vain, for the wrong causes. By all means, remember and honour the fallen, and pray for their souls, but forget what I'll call "bad wars". Four examples come to mind.
In Canada, today, the names and dates of two semi-forgotten wars were added to the "National" War Memorial*. They were the Boer War -- more properly the Anglo-Boer War -- and the Afghan War -- more properly the Third or Fourth Afghan War, depending on who's counting.
The Anglo-Boer war was perhaps the first modern war, and a nasty affair it was, won by the British only by sheer force of numbers, and by tactics such as imprisoning the Boers' women and children in concentration camps. You can look it up.
It was an imperial war, fought by then-Great Britain and its colonial subjects (that's how Canadians got involved) against the Afrikaaner citizens of a couple of tiny republics who wanted nothing more than to be left alone. Did Britain subjugate them in the name of freedom or (as is now pretended) racial equality? Hardly. The war had more to do with the fact that the Boers were sitting on top of a mountain of gold.
The Boer War ended on 31 May 2002. Fast forward a century to find Canadian troops fighting alongside another imperial power against another people who wanted only to be left alone. The imperial power would be the US of A, and the people who wanted to be left to alone were the Afghans.
We pretend now that this fourth attempt to conquer a barbarian and unconquerable people -- the British had already tried twice, the Russians once -- was for the purpose of bringing them the benefits of Western civilization. In reality, history will see the Afghan wars as part and parcel of the larger War of the Middle East or -- my prediction -- the Oil Wars.
Dear readers, let's not kid ourselves about the real reason for Armerican "intervention" in Iraq, Afghanistan and other sandpits. No matter what Presidents Bush and Obama told us, there is considerable doubt, in my mind at least, that the Taliban/Al-Qaeda/ISIS pose any real threat to the USA, Britain, Canada, Australia, the Netherlands, or any other country which has joined the Armerican "coalition of the willing".
Let's be honest. The American government has sent tens of thousands of men and women to their deaths in some of the must useless land on earth because under that land are billions of gallons of oil. The USA wants to control the entire Middle East to guarantee an uninterrupted supply of cheap(ish) oil, and that's a fact.
Canada and the other members of the "coalition" have gone along with the Americans because, having sat out Vietnam and/or Iraq and/or Libya and/or the last-but-one Afghan war, they couldn't be seen to shirk any longer. Why? Because if it ever came to an actual threat against Britain and/or Canada and/or Australia and/or the Netherlands, they'd be screwed without the protection of the USA, and they know it!
I promised you four examples. As well as the Anglo-Boer War and the Oil Wars, I had in mind the Spanish-American war (which coincided neatly with the Boer War) and, of course, the Vietnam War. But I think the point has been made that there's no point in remembering the bad wars unless we do so with a resolve not to make the same mistakes again. Sadly, that resolve seems to be totally lacking in Washington and the other bastions of democracy and freedom.
* Footnote from Ed.: I put "national" in quote marks because Poor Len assures me that in Canada the word has two different meanings, depending on whether you're saying it in English or French. Advice taken!
Walt means no disrespect to those who made the ultimate sacrifice. Most of them went into battle bravely, if not willingly, because they had to. Willingly or not, they answered their countries' call, and did what they were told to do, without questioning the right or wrong of the wars in which they fought.
Some of those wars, in Walt's opinion, were fought in vain, for the wrong causes. By all means, remember and honour the fallen, and pray for their souls, but forget what I'll call "bad wars". Four examples come to mind.
In Canada, today, the names and dates of two semi-forgotten wars were added to the "National" War Memorial*. They were the Boer War -- more properly the Anglo-Boer War -- and the Afghan War -- more properly the Third or Fourth Afghan War, depending on who's counting.
The Anglo-Boer war was perhaps the first modern war, and a nasty affair it was, won by the British only by sheer force of numbers, and by tactics such as imprisoning the Boers' women and children in concentration camps. You can look it up.
It was an imperial war, fought by then-Great Britain and its colonial subjects (that's how Canadians got involved) against the Afrikaaner citizens of a couple of tiny republics who wanted nothing more than to be left alone. Did Britain subjugate them in the name of freedom or (as is now pretended) racial equality? Hardly. The war had more to do with the fact that the Boers were sitting on top of a mountain of gold.
The Boer War ended on 31 May 2002. Fast forward a century to find Canadian troops fighting alongside another imperial power against another people who wanted only to be left alone. The imperial power would be the US of A, and the people who wanted to be left to alone were the Afghans.
We pretend now that this fourth attempt to conquer a barbarian and unconquerable people -- the British had already tried twice, the Russians once -- was for the purpose of bringing them the benefits of Western civilization. In reality, history will see the Afghan wars as part and parcel of the larger War of the Middle East or -- my prediction -- the Oil Wars.
Dear readers, let's not kid ourselves about the real reason for Armerican "intervention" in Iraq, Afghanistan and other sandpits. No matter what Presidents Bush and Obama told us, there is considerable doubt, in my mind at least, that the Taliban/Al-Qaeda/ISIS pose any real threat to the USA, Britain, Canada, Australia, the Netherlands, or any other country which has joined the Armerican "coalition of the willing".
Let's be honest. The American government has sent tens of thousands of men and women to their deaths in some of the must useless land on earth because under that land are billions of gallons of oil. The USA wants to control the entire Middle East to guarantee an uninterrupted supply of cheap(ish) oil, and that's a fact.
Canada and the other members of the "coalition" have gone along with the Americans because, having sat out Vietnam and/or Iraq and/or Libya and/or the last-but-one Afghan war, they couldn't be seen to shirk any longer. Why? Because if it ever came to an actual threat against Britain and/or Canada and/or Australia and/or the Netherlands, they'd be screwed without the protection of the USA, and they know it!
I promised you four examples. As well as the Anglo-Boer War and the Oil Wars, I had in mind the Spanish-American war (which coincided neatly with the Boer War) and, of course, the Vietnam War. But I think the point has been made that there's no point in remembering the bad wars unless we do so with a resolve not to make the same mistakes again. Sadly, that resolve seems to be totally lacking in Washington and the other bastions of democracy and freedom.
* Footnote from Ed.: I put "national" in quote marks because Poor Len assures me that in Canada the word has two different meanings, depending on whether you're saying it in English or French. Advice taken!
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
How training missions work
The Canadian Prime Minister, "Call me Steve" Harper, has gone back on his word -- surprise! surprise! -- by deciding to extend the Canadian mission in Afghanistan until 2014. This came after a solemn promise that all Canadian troops would be out of the mid-east cesspit by July 2011.
But it's OK, quoth he, because the 1000 or so who get to stay will be on a "training mission". That's not the same as a "combat mission". So that's all right then.
Let Walt explain how training missions work.
What you do -- in the finest British military tradition -- is assemble a motley crew of natives and arm them with weapons. (Not the best weapons of course; maybe just some wooden dummies for practice.) Then you drill them, drill them some more, and drill them again. "One... twothree! One... twothree!"
When they have been completely drilled (as opposed to punched or bored) you lead them out into the field to test what they've learned. "A firing line, you idiots! Not a circle!"
While leading your pupils, you stand a pretty good chance of getting shot at. Six American soldiers learned this the hard way on Monday when an Afghan border police officer opened fire on them during a training mission in the east of the armpit ["country", surely. Ed.]
The shooting -- the highest toll for NATO forces since nine Americans died in a helicopter crash in September -- was the latest in a series of shootouts in which Afghan security forces have quite inexplicably turned on their NATO partners.
Walt wonders what makes Steve think the fate of Canadian trainers would be at all dissimilar. Should they pin on big "trainer" badges? Should they paint big red maple leaves on their backs so the Afghans will know they're not Americans? Would it make any difference?
But it's OK, quoth he, because the 1000 or so who get to stay will be on a "training mission". That's not the same as a "combat mission". So that's all right then.
Let Walt explain how training missions work.
What you do -- in the finest British military tradition -- is assemble a motley crew of natives and arm them with weapons. (Not the best weapons of course; maybe just some wooden dummies for practice.) Then you drill them, drill them some more, and drill them again. "One... twothree! One... twothree!"
When they have been completely drilled (as opposed to punched or bored) you lead them out into the field to test what they've learned. "A firing line, you idiots! Not a circle!"
While leading your pupils, you stand a pretty good chance of getting shot at. Six American soldiers learned this the hard way on Monday when an Afghan border police officer opened fire on them during a training mission in the east of the armpit ["country", surely. Ed.]
The shooting -- the highest toll for NATO forces since nine Americans died in a helicopter crash in September -- was the latest in a series of shootouts in which Afghan security forces have quite inexplicably turned on their NATO partners.
Walt wonders what makes Steve think the fate of Canadian trainers would be at all dissimilar. Should they pin on big "trainer" badges? Should they paint big red maple leaves on their backs so the Afghans will know they're not Americans? Would it make any difference?
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