Re: what a waste


"The Stig Baasvik Project" <g.j.bailey@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
??????:mmis85hlrb0soev0o0hkr3haain83bfl23@xxxxxxxxxx
On Thu, 20 Aug 2009 12:26:20 -0700 (PDT), Paul Carr
<worldpaulcarr@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I condemn all violence, Gavin, from all sources.

Jolly good for you. I prefer not to inhabit a fantastical illusiary
middle-ground between murderous theocratic fascists and their victims.

And you're saying I do? I'll be honest with you, I'm not clear what this
actually means. You're saying that I'm saying that I want to mediate
between a murderer and the corpse of his/her victim. That doesn't make any
sense. If I were a hero, I would try to talk the murderer out of killing
any more people (or killing me) and to turn himself/herself over to the
authorities.

Yes. If you want to comment further, learn about the projects
involved before letting your prejudices and suspicions dictate your
response. That's precisely the kind of reflexive thinking I've been
criticising and you've been denying.

Wait a minute. You snipped out my question. "So you're saying there
was no quid pro quo at all?".

I meant exactly what I said. And again, I suggest you learn something
about the subject before allowing your responses to be dictated by
prejudice based upon ignorance.

You appear to be upset, Gavin. You wrote in relation to the US providing
Afghanistan irrigation water in the 1950s and electricity in the 1970s
that:

"Neither were tied to arms deals or oil exploration, and both benefitted the
local people".

I replied with:

"Really?!! So you're saying there was no quid pro quo at all? Now those US
governments had hearts of gold!!".

I think my use of the word "Really?!!" upset you. You thought that I was
questioning the veracity of what you wrote. Not so. My use of the word,
"Really?!!" was as a figure of speech. I didn't use it in order to question
the veracity of what you wrote. I'm sorry I didn't make that clearer to you
at the time. Indeed, in your follow-up post, you're closer to the mark when
you acknowledged that I used the expression "Really?!!" as a means of
expressing surprise not disbelief.

I clarified what I meant in my next post. I wrote:

"I'm not saying I disbelieve you when you write that "Neither were tied to
arms deals or oil exploration, and both benefitted the local people." But,
there's more to quid pro quo than just 1) arms deals and 2) oil
exploration."

As far as I'm aware, you haven't answered my question. "So you're saying
there was no quid pro quo at all?". It's a simple yes/no question, Gavin.
"Yes, there was quid pro quo" or "No, there wasn't quid pro quo". I'd be
surprised that there wasn't some "I rub your back if you rub mine" going on.
And, by the way, I'm not singling out the USA here. Self-interest dictates
the policies of most national governments I think. There were no arms deals
or oil exploration but maybe there were other deals, formal or informal?
Maybe some repatriated profits for US private companies perhaps?

[Bush on AIDS]

This is another area where US republican ideology conflicts with the
optimum strategy for delivering help to the people who really need it.
I'll accept the good intentions of even Bush in this area, but I agree
with the criticism made of his approach. Meanwhile, the ideological
problems American republicans confront when dealing with
contraception, abortion and AIDS in the developing world are further
examples of what happens when prejudices dicate reflexive responses.

Well, the contraception and abortion angle (such as US Republican opposition
to needle exchange programs but support for abstinence-until marriage
programs (and diverting money towards that (a waste of money in my opinion))
as well as US Republican support for the idiotic, ostrich-in-the-sand
anti-prostitution pledge that all beneficiaries of aid from Bush's program
had to sign up to) was/is a problem too but that's not what I was writing
about. I was writing about the fact that Bush's initiative, as far as I'm
aware, was independent of the UN initiative and so that would lead to
wasteful duplication of effort and resources.

I think having a group of terrorists hosted by the Taliban mudering
several thousand innocent civilians on US territory as a matter of
deliberate choice counts as something worth defending against.

By intruding on the sovereignty of another sovereign state? Did the
UN Security Council give explicit approval for military intervention
in Afghanistan?

They didn't need one. If the Taliban wanted to avoid a US invasion,
Paul, they could have resorted to the following policies -

1. Not hosting and protecting al Queda.

2. Handing over Bin Laden and his groupies for justice.

Otherwise they can be legitimately treated like any other country
hosting terrorist organisations which protect them from legal,
non-military responses.

From:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Afghanistan_%282001%E2%80%93present%29

"On October 7, 2001, before the onset of military hostilities, the Taliban
did offer to try bin Laden in Afghanistan in an Islamic court. This offer
was rejected by the U.S., and the bombing of targets within Afghanistan by
U.S. and British forces commenced the same day."

"October 14, 2001, seven days into the U.S./British bombing campaign, the
Taliban offered to surrender Osama bin Laden to a third country for trial,
if the bombing halted and they were shown evidence of his involvement in the
September 11 terrorist attacks. This offer was also rejected by U.S.
President Bush, who declared "There's no need to discuss innocence or guilt.
We know he's guilty."

So, if the bombing halted and if evidence of Bin Laden's involvement in the
September 11th terrorist attacks were shown to the Afghan authorities, Bin
Laden would have been handed over to a third country for trial. At least,
that was their word and wouldn't that have been a positive thing if it
happened? The Taliban regime had its back against the wall at this stage.

From the same wiki page, "On September 22, 2001, the United Arab Emirates,
and on the following day, Saudi Arabia withdrew their recognition of the
Taliban as the legal government of Afghanistan, leaving neighboring Pakistan
as the only remaining country with diplomatic ties."

In my opinion, George W. Bush had an inability to say Stop not just in
relation to the Iraq war but also in relation to the Afghan war.

Osama Bin Laden has not been caught. He may well still be alive and in
hiding along the Pakistan/Afghanistan border. I note also from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Afghanistan_%282001%E2%80%93present%29
the triple purpose of the war from the British/US standpoint.

1. to neutralise and to destroy Al-Qaeda, and Osama bin Laden himself,
2. to destroy the opium industry in Afghanistan, which supports and
finances all Al-Qaeda operations,
3. to stop opium traffic from Afghanistan to the US and UK.

Well, I think they failed on number 1. And, they've failed on numbers 2 and
3 too.

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_production_in_Afghanistan

"Afghanistan is, as of March, 2008, the greatest illicit (in Western World
standards) opium producer in the world, before Burma (Myanmar), part of the
so-called "Golden Crescent". Opium production in Afghanistan has been a
significant problem (or a significant business) for Afghanistan, especially
since the downfall of the Taliban in 2001. ***Based on UNODC data, there has
been more opium poppy cultivation in each of the past four growing seasons
(2004-2007), than in any one year during Taliban rule.*** Also, more land is
now used for opium in Afghanistan, than for coca cultivation in Latin
America. In 2007, 93% of the opiates on the world market originated in
Afghanistan. This amounts to an export value of about $4 billion, with a
quarter being earned by opium farmers and the rest going to district
officials, insurgents, warlords and drug traffickers. In the seven years
(1994-2000) prior to a Taliban opium ban, the Afghan farmers' share of gross
income from opium was divided among 200,000 families."

Also, in relation to Opium production, it ought to be noted that in 2000 the
Taliban leader, Mullah Omar banned opium production.

From the above webpage:

"During the Taliban rule, Afghanistan saw a bumper opium crop of 4,600
metric tons in 1999. In July 2000, Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar
declared that growing poppies was un-Islamic, resulting in one of the
world's most successful anti-drug campaigns. As a result of this ban, opium
poppy cultivation was reduced by 91% from the previous year's estimate of
82,172 hectares. The ban was so effective that Helmand Province, which had
accounted for more than half of this area, recorded no poppy cultivation
during the 2001 season"

Here's a graph showing just how successful Mullah Omar's ban was and how
this success was abruptly reversed by the US assisted overthrow of the
Taliban regime.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Afghanistan_opium_poppy_cultivation_1994-2007b.PNG

And the Taliban insurgency continues apace.

From:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Afghanistan_%282001%E2%80%93present%29

"The initial attack removed the Taliban from power, but Taliban forces have
since regained some strength. The war has been less successful in achieving
the goal of restricting al-Qaeda's movement than anticipated. Since 2006,
Afghanistan has seen threats to its stability from increased Taliban-led
insurgent activity, record-high levels of illegal drug production, and a
fragile government with limited control outside of Kabul."

Coalition military fatalities are already almost as high in 2009 as they
were in 2008 which was then the worst year on record for military
fatalities. 289 so far this year as opposed to 294 last year.

http://icasualties.org/oef/

And the Afghan civilian fatalities?

From:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Afghanistan_%282001%E2%80%93present%29

"There is no single official figure for the overall number of civilians
killed by the war since 2001".......

"The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) reported that 2,118 Afghan
civilians were killed by armed conflict in 2008, the highest number since
the end of the initial 2001 invasion. This represented an increase of about
40% over UNAMA's figure of 1,523 Afghan civilians killed in 2007."

Afghanistan is a graveyard for US-led coalition troops, Gavin. It's an
unwinnable war.

Okay, so you accept some insurgent groups in Afghanistan were funded
by the CIA in the 1980s.

I know they were, and I've never disputed it. The point is what
evidence you have which convinces you that the CIA funded Bin Laden in
particular.

I never wrote that!! Stop inventing arguments that don't exist, Gavin. I
never wrote that CIA funded Bin Laden *in particular*. That came straight
out of your imagination.

At this point it seems you've never seen any, but you're
happy enough to accept other people's allegations about what the CIA
did without exerting your own critical judgement. Would you be as
fast to believe somebody ranting about the CIA's involvement in the
Roswell mystery, I wonder?

Meanwhile, I note that you've ignored my point that everybody,
including the Irish, British and Soviet governments has 'been funded
by the US' at some stage, and yet somehow the magical extension of
culpability that this creates in the Middle East doesn't apply.

I also note that you've ignored my point that for a decade the US and
the west left Afghanistan alone, so it becomes increasingly hard to
sustain the myth that what the Taliban did in that time was at the
behest of the demonic US government.

Wouldn't the anti-Soviet groups in Afghanistan in the 1980s have been
supplied with arms either directly or indirectly by the US? Wouldn't these
same arms be used again later, for example, during the Afghan Civil War
between 1992 and 1996 when the Taliban succeeded in overthrowing the Afghan
government? Now, that the Taliban had successfully defied one atheist
superpower, it would soon be time to defy another.

Then there's my point about the historical injustice of Norwegian
foreign policy in Kashmir which explains why Norwegian tourists can
get their heads cut off by islamic terrorists....

So you're saying these Islamic terrorists cannot be negotiated with. I
think I picked up and understood what you were writing already. As you say,
there is no "middle-ground between murderous theocratic fascists and their
victims."

You snipped out an important part.

Because it's not relevant.

I think it's relevant because I think you're saying that George W. Bush
invaded Afghanistan in self-defense as covered by Article 51 of the UN
Charter.

From:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Afghanistan_%282001%E2%80%93present%29

"The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) did not authorize the U.S.-led
military campaign in Afghanistan (Operation Enduring Freedom). There is some
debate as to whether UNSC authorization was required, centered around the
question of whether the invasion was an act of collective self-defense
provided for under Article 51 of the UN Charter, or an act of aggression."

So, there was no United Nations Security Council authorization. Same with
Iraq..

And, regarding US domestic law, the US Congress didn't declare war in
Afghanistan as I believe is required by the US constitution.

"The U.S. Administration did not declare war, and labeled Taliban troops and
supporters terrorists rather than soldiers, denying them the protections of
the Geneva Convention and due process of law. This position has been
successfully challenged in the U.S. Supreme Court and questioned even by
military lawyers responsible for prosecuting affected prisoners."

Again, same with Iraq.

Where does this line between "terrorist" and "enemy soldier" lie? What a US
President imagines it to be perhaps?

I don't believe Saddam gave a realistic
prospect of the kind of direct attack on the US that al Queda and
their Taliban hosts did. I prefer to discriminate according to my own
critical judgement rather than accept whatever Rumsfeld's cronies got
Bush to say about self-defence relative to Iraq in 2003. Again, your
mileage may differ.

I'm not even sure what your arguments are.

Then I'll repeat the crux of them here.

You assume that islamic terrorism can be explained by US foreign
policy in the Middle East.

I think it's one reason, yes. But, I didn't write it was the only reason.
The US and Britain have been interfering in the Middle East and beyond for
many decades. Democratic governments have been overthrown as an outcome of
British and US interference. For example, Prime Minister Mohammed
Mosadegh's democratically elected government in Iran was overthrown in 1953
with the help of British Intelligence and the CIA. Soon thereafter, the
Shah's dreaded secret police was introduced into Iranian society. Mohammd
Mosadegh wanted to nationalize Iranian oil, quite a reasonable assertion,
which upset the British government and its oil interests in Iran. He had to
be got rid of.

For example, Your belief is incorrect. The islamic
terrorists have their own agenda,

Everyone has their own agenda.

and blaming the Americans for it all

Which I never did.

is as delusional as assuming that the Jews in Weimar Germany really
had done something to deserve the Nazi 'response' to them.

Which I never wrote.

In any case, Gavin, you're not my Sergeant Major and I'm not your
Private.

No, but you are an adult human being who needs to start critically
examining the claims of other people and stop applying that critical
examination selectively; e.g. good on you for not accepting Bush's
arguments in relation to Iraq, now apply that same critical approach
to the next person claiming that islamic terrorism is a rational and
explicable reaction to US foreign policy.

I never wrote that Islamic terrorism is rational.

I suggest you critically exam the Afghan war, Gavin.

Well, I think many in official circles of the US government are
commenting on the appalling conditions suffered by Afghani women in
Afghanistan. Oh, I see. So, that's the reason why you guys went in
there, to save the Afghan women, from the theocratically inspired
misogynistic Afghan men. GIVE ME A BREAK!

They didn't go there to save the Afghan women. So what? While they
are there, they are doing more to help Afghan women than you seem to
find acceptable.

Please stop trying to put words in my mouth.

It's the absence of such words I'm concerned about. Criticising the
western imperialists in Afghanistan for being concerned with women's
rights is particularly contradictory for a decent person like you,
Paul - which is why I'm bringing attention to it.

Attempting to defend the irrational world-view of murderous theocratic
fascists leads to such contradictions.

Look, I'm just making a small point. (&) My concern is that there may be
some US politicians (and other politicans) who are saying that *a* reason
why US troops and other troops went into Afghanistan *in the first place*
and continue to stay there was to promote the rights of women. Okay, as a
conciliatory measure to you, I've changed "there are" to "there may be".
(&&)

But, really, Gavin, you appear to view the world in terms of black and
white. I tend to view the world in terms of shades of grey. (&&&)

Of course, I'm all for
equality for the genders. But, it's dishonest for US politicians and
other politicians to infer that the plight of women was a factor why
the sovereignty of Afghanistan was intruded on in the first place.

It would be. But it is an excellent explanation of who's interests
are served by fighting the Taliban there in the meantime. Unless you
seriously believe Afghan women are the puppet-mistresses behind the
western oil cartels...

I've read this paragraph through a few times and I don't even understand the
paragraph never mind the constituent sentences.

How do we support the troops in Afghanistan, Gavin? We support them by
bringing them home. Who are the beneficaries of the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan? Defence contractors, the military-industrial complex and so
on, Gavin. Since the US (with less than 5% of the world's population)
accounts for 50% of the world's total military expenditure, it's no stretch
of the imagination to suggest that the largest piece by far of this
military-industrial complex is to be found in the USA. And, this military
industrial complex, I fear, is subject to too little scrutiny and
accountability from democratic governments in the West.

<snip>

Paul Carr

(&) Which probably will turn out to be an important point.

(&&) But, I remain convinced it is "There are". Damn, there's my
anti-US/anti-US-politician prejudice speaking!!!

(&&&) Basically, it appears you believe that the US and Britain and others
must display their military might in order to cow those Islamists into
submission. Those Islamists don't understand talk. They only understand
their own alleged language of brutality. It was the same reason Nixon
bombed and killed tens of thousands of civilians in Cambodia. We've got to
show those damn Vietnamese Commies that we're mad dogs, just like them!!.
Then they respect us.

It is time for mankind to substitute the language of war for the language
of peace. For a start, it's a more honest language.


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