Veterans Today, February 7, 2010

Dirty Little Secrets, Duplicity in Afghanistan

WHAT OUR MILITARY LEADERS ONLY SAY BEHIND CLOSED DOORS

By Gordon Duff, STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor

Open today’s newspaper and get a map of the battle zones in Afghanistan and Pakistan. You say they aren’t there? Open today’s newspaper and find out how many troops our enemies have, who their leaders are. Can’t find that either? Look in the paper to find out why we are fighting at all. Not there too? This isn’t half of it, we aren’t just being kept in the dark. It goes much further. Lets look at some things that just don’t add up.

BLAMING PAKISTAN

America loves blaming Pakistan. Their side of the border has all the bad people and they do nothing about it. Do you know why Pakistan can’t catch their Taliban terrorists? Simple. They aren’t in Pakistan, they were moved to Afghanistan and are being kept safe and warm. Who would do this? Who would protect these terrorists who are killing so many Pakistanis and Americans?

They were moved by American military contractors, contractors who are helping guard them inside Afghanistan.

Why doesn’t Pakistan take their huge army and go after the Taliban? Well, the Taliban would simply cross the border like they have been doing for hundreds of years. Nobody on the other side can stop them. The entire border area is in chaos, nobody is in control at all. We love calling our enemies “Taliban” but they are little more than gangsters and for some reason the United States is actually helping its own enemies?

WHY WOULD THEY DO THAT?

Pakistan may be our military ally, but our real allies are Israel and India. We could care less if Pakistan burned to the ground. Israel and India are going to rule Asia, hold off China and help American business make billions in gas and oil profits.

OK, it gets better: Afghanistan and India are allies. India has bases in Afghanistan arming Taliban to attack Pakistan (and American troops too). The CIA helps them do this, Israel helps organize it and billions in drug money finance all of it.

Our private mercenary armies inside Afghanistan and Pakistan act as “enforcers” to keep it all going, accountable to no government, only there to keep the drugs flowing, the weapons moving to the Taliban and the war going as long as possible. Why keep the war going, you ask? Simple. If the war stops, the drug money stops. We are talking tens of billions here.

OK, WHAT ARE WE SUPPOSED TO DO?

Much of Afghanistan and Pakistan are tribal areas controlled by the same people who live on either side of a line drawn by Britain in 1893, the Durand Line. People used to travel back and forth, moving herds, some grew crops, wheat, not opium, and families lived on both sides of the border, a border that barely existed.

Then came the Russian occupation. Russians dismembered the tribal structure and put land mines everywhere. Nothing could move. A war went on for years run out of Pakistan by the CIA who put the nastiest and crookedest people possible in power in Afghanistan and simply turned away, leaving a total wreck.

Then came the Taliban who ran flight schools in the US to train airline pilots to crash into buildings. OK, this doesn’t make sense, but there was a Taliban and maybe some terrorists but we will never know for sure. Too much lying has gone on. I thought they were all in Iraq building WMDs but that didn’t work out either. Is it possible almost everything we are told is a bit, well, imaginary? Think about it. We are going to touch on this in a bit.

THEN CAME 9/11

The US came in, overthrew the Taliban with the help of war lords in the north who are not very popular with most of the people of the country and we began rebuilding Afghanistan.

You like this story? It should have had a happy ending except George W. Bush was president and the companies hired to rebuild Afghanistan stole all the money and did nothing. Instead of stabilizing Afghanistan and rebuilding their VERY VERY SMALL economy, we attack Iraq and waited for Afghanistan to turn around and bite us.

Then, Afghanistan turned around and bit us, Pakistan too. They are still biting us and don’t plan on stopping anytime soon. We are planning a “surge” to take care of the problem. We can ask our British friends how this is going to work out. They “surged” for 2 hundred years and eventually left.

How did America respond? Abandoned by our own government, up to our neck in corruption, Washingtin and Kabul, we did the best we could with almost no troops, fighting an enemy that was never our enemy when, instead, we could have honestly done what we had promised years before: rebuild the Afghan economy.

SO, HOW DID WE GET THIS MESS, WITH AMERICANS ON BOTH SIDES, INDIA AND ISRAEL INVOLVED, PAKISTAN AND NO HOPE IN SIGHT?

Pakistan is in over their heads. Their yearly military budget is less than the Pentagon spends on golf courses alone, literally. (the Pentagon runs 168 golf courses worldwide)

India and Pakistan have hated each other for 63 years. This war has allowed India with the help of Israel, to literally take Pakistan apart. India can arm terrorists in Pakistan, in Afghanistan and work with American mercenaries against Pakistan. Many inside Pakistan are extremely corrupt and have made it almost impossible to govern the country. The president of Pakistan is accused of stealing millions and many members of government face prosecution.

India and Israel both have huge intelligence agencies, the RAW and Mossad, that specialize in planning terrorist attacks and blaming others. Some we catch, like the Christmas bombing (Crotch Bomber) in Detroit. Others are blamed on Islamic extremists. Since Israel controls most of the worlds newspapers and TV networks, only one side gets out.

Long ago, a free press was important as a way of protecting our democracy. Am I clear?

DRUGS

50 billion dollars in drugs and nobody sees anything. 50 billion dollars in drugs and more poppy fields are planted every day, especially in US controlled areas.

This kind of money buys intelligence agencies, military leaders, high ranking elected members of the US government and more influence in Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Israel than anyone will ever admit.

No matter what anyone does, the drug business will work to keep the war going and has the money and power to do exactly that. Ask yourself why you see photographs of troops in poppy fields? These drugs are destroying the lives of millions worldwide, corrupting governments and destroying economies. It is the duty of every police, military and international agency to stop this drug business first but nobody is doing anything.

Everyone is involved.

MOVING FORWARD

We have some simple solutions to enact. We can stop fighting, at least with responsible tribal leaders in Pakistan and Afghanistan and help them rebuild their country. We can negotiate an end to the presence of any foreign terrorists and guarantee the rights of all, especially the women who suffered so much under the old Taliban. We have reason to believe that the majority of tribal leaders in Afghanistan are ready for a government that respects individual freedoms and will, with help, be able to maintain law and order instead of chaos, the real breeding ground for terrorism.

We can identify the criminals and go after them, criminals only, not the entire nation as we are now. First we talk and earn trust. Then we build and work together, then we fight.

It doesn’t work the other way around. Right now, we look like invaders.

Yes, there are bad people. People are going to have to die to save Pakistan and Afghanistan. Others are going to have to learn to trust, do business, trade, talk, listen and work together.

REGIONAL SOLUTION

This problem involves Iran. It also involves Israel. China is involved as is Russia. Nobody can be ignored. Afghanistan and Pakistan need to be stabilized. This is a humanitarian effort. Too many are dying.

Regionally, India, Pakistan, Iran and Israel have to come to an understanding. Behind the scenes, much has been done already, more than any American knows. However, fear and hatred runs deep. There are people of good will in each of these countries, more like this than anyone imagines. War and terrorism, war and threat of war, war and arms buildups have taken over from business, trade and common sense.

This is not survivable for anyone. It will only head one direction, nuclear war, maybe not this year but five years from now, maybe less. It is inevitable. It is also unacceptable and unnecessary.

AMERICA AND REALITY

Whether it is our phony corporate news, spineless politicans or gutless military leaders, its time we stopped misrepresenting the facts. Every day what I hear sounds more and more like General Westmoreland in Vietnam telling me about the “light at the end of the tunnel.” We found that light, a fast moving freight that ran us over. All the “drones” in the world and hundreds of thousands of troops aren’t going to have any lasting effect on the lives of tribesmen living as they did a thousand years ago.

Billions of dollars, cluster bombs and American advisors talking capitalism and Evangelical Christianity under threat of torture and imprisonment hasn’t worked out so well. Our repackaged “more of the same” solution will leave us 80 billion more in debt, hundreds of Americans dead, another 20,000 PTSD disability claims to deny and another decade of war.

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