Afghanistan: Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace?

by irish lessons - Counterpunch Thu Dec 03, 2009 09:32

Human Terrain Systems, Anthropologists and the War in Afghanistan
By DAVID PRICE

“Agricola first laid waste the land. Then he displayed to the natives his moderation.”

-- Tacitus

A core feature of the Obama administration’s plans for victories in Iraq and Afghanistan has been an increased reliance on counterinsurgency, as Americans try to win the hearts and minds of peoples whose countries they’ve invaded. Some critics highlight similarities between Kennedy’s and Obama’s interest in counterinsurgency as a tool to conquer peoples who have historically been difficult, if not impossible, for outside colonial powers to dominate. President Obama’s reliance on old Harvard hands to socially engineer conquest justifies many of these comparisons.

Even counterinsurgency’s lustiest cheerleaders, such as the political scientist David Kilcullen, admit that historical instances of successfully using counterinsurgency for military victories have been extremely rare in the past half-century. But Washington’s counterinsurgency believers share a certain hubris, or vanity, that they are clever enough to overcome this daunting record of historical failure.

While political science was the academic discipline which the wars of the twentieth century drew upon, the asymmetrical wars of the twenty-first century now look toward anthropology with hopes of finding models of culture, or data on specific cultures to be conquered or to be used in counterinsurgency operations. But anthropology is not political science, and anthropologists have different commitments to those who share their lives and vulnerabilities with them.

The counterinsurgency program generating the greatest friction among anthropologists today is Human Terrain Systems (HTS) – a program with over 400 employees, originally operating through private contractors and now in the process of being taken over by the U.S. Army. Human Terrain embeds anthropologists with military units to ease the occupation and conquest of Iraqis and Afghanis – with plans to extend these operations in Africa through expanding units with AFRICOM. Some HTS social scientists are armed, others choose not to. In the last two years, three HTS social scientists have been killed in the course of their work, and HTS member Don Ayala recently pled guilty in U.S. District Court to killing an Afghan (whom Ayala shot in the head-execution style while the victim was detained with his hands cuffed behind him) who had attacked HTS social scientist Paula Loyd.

The anthropologist Montgomery McFate has become the public spokesperson for Human Terrain, and while she has increasingly pulled back from public discussions of the workings and implications of Human Terrain, in reading her early writings on British counterinsurgency operations against the IRA, we find a model of how she (and, it appears, her military sponsors) view anthropology working as a tool for military conquest. Supporters of HTS claim the program uses embedded social scientists to help reduce “kinetic engagements,” or unnecessary violent contacts with the populations they encounter. The idea is to use these social scientists to interact with members of the community, creating relationships to reduce misunderstandings that can lead to unnecessarily violent interactions.

Full article continued..........

http://www.counterpunch.org/price12012009.html

by Michael Gallagher Fri Dec 04, 2009 00:26

If you read the contents of this link Eamonn, you may agree that it's not so simple as dropping a bomb or two.

http://www.upiasia.com/Blogosphere/captainJohann/200902...rade/

Guardians of the Heroin?

by Jim M - PANA Tue Dec 08, 2009 17:27

Press Release 7/12/09 Peace & Neutrality Alliance

For further information contact Roger Cole, Chair of the Peace & Neutrality Alliance Tel:087-2611597

SAVE OVER A QUARTER MILLION € by WITHDRAWING IRISH TROOPS FROM AFGHANISTAN

In response to a question by SF Dail Deputy Caoimhghin O Caolain, the Minister for Defence Mr. Willie O'Dea TD admitted that the annual cost to the Irish people to have 7 Irish soldiers taking part in the war and occupation of Afghanistan was €270,000.

Roger Cole, Chair of PANA said:

"Irishmen first served in the ranks of the Battle Groups of the British Union when it invaded, conquered and sought to occupy Afghanistan in the 1830's, and nearly 2 centuries later the British are still trying to conquer it. The British political elite is as committed to imperial wars just as it was 200 years ago, despite the fact that over 70% of their own people are against it. Not to be outdone the Irish political elite are continuing the tradition of the Irish Imperialism of the 1830's. At a time when they are imposing massive cuts in wages and social welfare provisions in order to help bail out their banker and speculator allies, they could at least save over a quarter of a million euro by immediately withdrawing Irish troops from Afghanistan. There is little we can do to stop President Obama from bankrupting his own country by sending 30,000 ever troops (it cost the US $1 million per soldier per year to send a US sold! ier to Afghanistan) at a time when millions of US citizens are being driven into poverty by the Bush-Obama Wars except terminate the use by US troops of Shannon Airport. If we did it would be the best Christmas present the American people ever got from the Irish, by maybe-just maybe, force President Obama to focus on the living standards of the vast majority of his own people rather than that of the US bankers and the military industrial complex."

by Iraq Vets Wed Dec 09, 2009 09:30

Vid (1,28)-Iraq veterans Against the War take it to the streets in Seattle

http://www.ivaw.org/

by An Afghan woman's voice.... Wed Dec 16, 2009 05:21

Afghanistan is Fed Up with Occupation
Malalai Joya Among Warlords
By MIKE WHITNEY

"Afghans live under the shadow of the gun with the most corrupt government in the world."
-- Malalai Joya

It's too bad Barack Obama didn't consult with Malalai Joya before giving his Nobel acceptance speech on Thursday. The ex-Afghan Parliamentarian could have helped the president to see that the ongoing US occupation is damaging to both American and Afghan interests. Afghanistan is not the "Just War" that Obama defends so passionately in his speech. It's part of a larger US geopolitical strategy which Joya outlines in her new book "A Woman Among the Warlords: The extraordinary story of an Afghan who dared to raise her voice". US policymakers have decided to establish a beachhead in Central Asia to monitor the growth of China, surround Russia, control vital resources from the Caspian Basin, and provide security for US mega-corporations who see Asia as the "market of the future." It's the Great Game all over again. "Victory" in Afghanistan means that a handful of weapons manufacturers, oil magnates, and military contractors will get very rich. It has nothing to do with al-Qaida, "democracy promotion" or US national security. That's all just public relations pablum.

"A Woman Among the Warlords" is an explosive narrative that takes a scalpel to many of the illusions surrounding the US invasion of Afghanistan. For example, most Americans have never heard about the "Warlord Strategy", a term that is commonplace among Afghans. That's because it doesn't mesh with the media's story about Afghan "liberation". The truth is, US war-planners, led by Sec Def Donald Rumsfeld, settled on a plan to hand over entire regions of Afghanistan to the warlords even before the first shot was fired. The whole "liberation"-meme was just a ruse to elicit support for the war.

Here's how Joya sums it up in her own words:
"The people of Afghanistan are fed up with the occupation of their country and with the corrupt, Mafia-state of Hamid Karzai and the warlords and drug lords backed by NATO.... It is clear now that the real motive of the U.S. and its allies, hidden behind the so-called “war on terror,” was to convert Afghanistan into a military base in Central Asia and the capital of the world’s opium drug trade. Ordinary Afghan people are being used in this chess game, and western taxpayers’ money and the blood of soldiers is being wasted on this agenda that will only further destabilize the region....Afghan and American lives are being needlessly lost."
Article contiued on the following site........................

http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney12152009.html