http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=12089
Within days of taking power, the Obama administration has made
clear that it will escalate the war to subjugate the Afghan people,
intensify US military strikes on targets inside Pakistan and
continue the occupation of Iraq indefinitely. What is being
prepared is a brutal escalation of US military violence in
Afghanistan and a widening of the conflagration in the
region.
Obama left a two-hour meeting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff
yesterday pledging to ensure that the military received the
"resources and the support" to wage the wars being conducted by the
United States. He told journalists he would soon be announcing
"some difficult decisions that we're going to have to make
surrounding Iraq and Afghanistan."
The essence of those decisions was indicated on Tuesday in the
testimony of Defense Secretary Robert Gates before the Senate and
House armed services committees. Obama's appointment of Gates
marked the new president's unambiguous repudiation of the campaign
rhetoric that appealed to broad antiwar sentiment among the
American people. Gates served the Bush administration in the same
post for the past two years and directed the escalation of the Iraq
war from early 2007 to early 2008.
Gates told the senators: "There is little doubt that our greatest
military challenge right now is Afghanistan. As you know, the
United States has focused more on Central Asia in recent months.
President Obama has made it clear that the Afghanistan theatre
should be our top overseas military priority." The war in
Afghanistan, he added, would be "long and difficult." The
short-term time frame he placed on the conflict was "five years"?at
least until 2014. He said an increase in US casualties was "likely"
as operations are stepped-up against the anti-occupation insurgency
being waged by loyalists of the former Taliban regime and other
Afghan Islamist movements.
Gates stressed that as the new administration escalates
military action in Central Asia, it has no intention of withdrawing
from Iraq. Warning that resistance could erupt again against US
forces in Iraq, he said "there may be hard days ahead for our
troops." Even if units designated as "combat" are pulled out
roughly according to the 16-month schedule promised by Obama during
the election, Gates emphasized that a sizeable force would remain
and "we should still expect to be involved in Iraq on some level
for many years to come."
He told the Senate committee that Obama will send 30,000 additional
American troops to Afghanistan as soon as possible. The first of
the four combat brigades requested last year by General David
McKiernan, the commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, has
already taken up positions in areas to the east of the Afghan
capital, Kabul. The 3,500 troops, from the 10th Mountain Division,
have begun operations in the provinces of Wardak and Logar.
Analysts are predicting that Obama will order the 2nd Marine
Expeditionary Brigade to deploy to Afghanistan by mid-spring.
Another Marine brigade will follow by mid-summer. The final
additional brigade will arrive before the end of the year.
The intensified fighting will not be confined to Afghanistan. The
predominantly ethnic Pashtun Afghan insurgents have safe havens and
derive support among the Pashtun population of Pakistan's Federally
Administrated Tribal Areas (FATA). As a result, the US and NATO
forces have been unable to prevent the Afghan resistance from
launching daily attacks across entire swathes of southern
Afghanistan and replenishing both its ranks and weapons.
Large-scale US military strikes on the FATA and even more deeply
into Pakistan are the logical outcome of Obama's determination to
place Afghanistan under US control. It was "impossible," Gates
declared, "to disaggregate Afghanistan and Pakistan, given the
porous border between them." He left no doubt that the US military
would continue to conduct air strikes inside Pakistan, regardless
of the opposition of the Pakistani government and Pakistani people,
on the pretext that the targets were linked to Al Qaeda.
The primary motive for the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan was
not to fight terrorism, but to create a base for the assertion of
US influence over the resource-rich former Soviet republics in
Central Asia. During last year's presidential election, Obama
served as the mouthpiece for factions of the American establishment
that had concluded the preoccupation with Iraq had resulted in
Central Asia coming too much under the political and economic sway
of Russia and China.
The re-emphasis on Afghanistan is intended to reverse this trend.
Under the guise of securing supply routes for the increased US
military force, intense diplomacy is taking place to establish
access rights and military bases in Central Asian states such as
Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Currently, the bulk of US and NATO
supplies to Afghanistan move through border passes in the FATA,
where they are coming under increasing attack by insurgents.
Following a NATO summit on Monday, the Russian government announced
that it is prepared to allow its territory and air space to be used
to transport US and NATO supplies into Afghanistan.
Gates's testimony also indicated a shift in the relations between
the US and the puppet government it has installed in Kabul under
President Hamid Karzai. Along with fighting "terrorism," the Bush
administration justified the occupation of Afghanistan with
constant references to bringing "democracy," "development" and
"human rights" to the Afghan people.
Gates dismissed such claims on Obama's behalf, telling senators:
"If we set ourselves the objective of establishing some sort of a
Central Asia Valhalla over there, we will lose... because nobody in
the world has that much time, patience or money, to be
honest...."
A brutal real politik will define the Obama administration's policy
in Afghanistan. Karzai's government is frequently derided in US
foreign policy circles for its endemic corruption and its lack of
popular support among the Afghan people. A more important reason
for flagging US enthusiasm for its puppet Karzai is the latter's
public criticisms of US air strikes that target and kill Afghan
civilians. The Obama administration has every intention of
escalating the bloodshed and will brook no interference from its
client regime.
The New York Times reported on Wednesday that Obama may support a
campaign to remove Karzai in the presidential election scheduled to
be held in the country later this year. The alternative to attempts
to create a strong central government is the Iraq "surge" model.
The commander of US forces in Iraq, General David Petraeus?who now
heads the US Central Command?authorized his officers in particular
parts of Iraq to bribe insurgent leaders to change sides, in
exchange for both money and a degree of local power.
In a similar fashion, sources close to the Obama administration
told the Times that it "would work with provincial leaders as an
alternative to the central government, and that it would leave
economic development and nation-building to European allies, so
that American forces could concentrate on the fight against
insurgents."
The result of this policy could be greater tensions between the US
and the European powers. During his testimony, Gates demanded that
NATO member-states "step up to the plate" and provide more forces
and resources for the war in Afghanistan.
Even with 30,000 extra American troops, the occupation force will
still be severely under-manned. In the midst of the ongoing
occupation of Iraq and an economic meltdown, however, Gates told
the Senate that he was "skeptical" the US military could contribute
"additional American force levels beyond what General McKiernan has
already asked for."
Under Bush, NATO states, particularly Germany, France, Italy and
Turkey, repeatedly rejected US requests that they dramatically
increase their involvement in the Afghan conflict. They must now
decide how to respond to the Obama White House.
A British Broadcasting Corporation correspondent commented on
Tuesday: "If NATO allies falter now, the long-term implications in
terms of separating the United States from Europe could be
severe... The issue is emerging as a potential troubling one at the
60th anniversary summit [of NATO] to be held in early April."
Millions of Americans were channelled into voting for Obama
and the Democratic Party by the illusion that they would implement
a decisive shift away from the militarism and neo-colonial
interventions that marked the Bush years. Instead, they face an
administration that is just as determined as Bush's to use brute
military force to secure the economic and strategic interests of
American imperialism. Countless thousands of Afghan and
Pakistani lives, and those of hundreds if not thousands more
American troops, are to be sacrificed in the process.
This reality underscores not only the debased character of
"democracy" in the United States, but the necessity for a break
with the two parties of US imperialism and a fundamental political
reorientation of the working class toward a socialist and
internationalist program.
