The Fanonite

Will Pakistan fight a US war?

Aijaz Ahmad: US bombing has disrupted negotiations between Pakistan gov and tribal leaders. More here

Does the Afghan war matter to the US?

Ahmad: Permanent bases and strategy towards China long term US objectives in Afghanistan. More here.

Obama and Afghanistan

What should Obama’s policy be for Afghanistan?

Aijaz Ahmad: There is no military solution to the war in Afghanistan

Kandahar braces for Taliban offensive

Taliban and NATO forces both assert that they are in control. More here.

‘The west’s ‘good war’ in Afghanistan has turned bad,’ writes Tariq Ali. ‘A local solution, rather than a neocolonial one, is what’s needed’.

In the latest clashes on the Pakistan-Afghan border, Nato troops have killed 11 Pakistani soldiers and injured many more, creating a serious crisis in the country and angering the Pakistan military high command, already split on the question.

US failure in Afghanistan is now evident and Nato desperation only too visible. Spreading the war to Pakistan would be a disaster for all sides. The Bush-Cheney era is drawing to a close, but it is unlikely that their replacements, despite the debacle in Iraq, will settle the American giant back to a digestive sleep.

The temporary cleavage that opened up between some EU states and Washington on Iraq was resolved after the occupation. They could all unite in Afghanistan and fight the good fight. This view has been strongly supported by every US presidential candidate in the run up to the 2008 elections, with Senator Barack Obama pressuring the White House to violate Pakistani sovereignty whenever necessary. He must be pleased.

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First there was the RAND report on US soldiers nearly one-third of who return from Afghanistan and Iraq suffering brain injuries or stress disorders or both. Only 43 percent of them ever get to see a doctor. Now comes this exclusive in the Independent: ‘Soldiers need loans to eat, report reveals‘. Following is the Independent investigation followed by Alexander Cockburn’s analysis of the RAND report.

Senior figures react angrily to damning indictment of life inside the Army. Jonathan Owen and Brian Brady investigate

A highly sensitive internal report into the state of the British Army has revealed that many soldiers are living in poverty. Some are so poor that they are unable to eat and are forced to rely on emergency food voucher schemes set up by the Ministry of Defence (MoD).

Some of Britain’s most senior military figures reacted angrily yesterday to the revelations in the report, criticising the Government’s treatment of its fighting forces.

The disturbing findings outlined in the briefing team report written for Sir Richard Dannatt, the Chief of the General Staff, include an admission that many junior officers are being forced to leave the Army because they simply cannot afford to stay on.

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End of the empire is nigh. Prior to the invasion of Iraq, US planners were hoping to find an Iraqi Karzai. Things have turned out so poorly, that even the prototype is hinting defection. ‘Afghan Leader Criticizes U.S. on Conduct of War‘, Carlotta Gall of the New York Times reports. (thanks Jairo)

KABUL, Afghanistan — President Hamid Karzai strongly criticized the British and American conduct of the war here on Friday, insisting in an interview that his government be given the lead in policy decisions.

Mr. Karzai said that he wanted American forces to stop arresting suspected Taliban and their sympathizers, and that the continued threat of arrest and past mistreatment were discouraging Taliban from coming forward to lay down their arms.

He criticized the American-led coalition as prosecuting the war on terrorism in Afghan villages, saying the real terrorist threat lay in sanctuaries of the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Pakistan.

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‘He has consistently and loudly opposed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,’ writes Tariq Ali. ‘For that reason, Ken has my vote’.

Given the way that politics has gone to the dogs in so many parts of the democratic world, its hardly surprising that celebrity status and wealth have taken centre stage. Whether political atomisation is a transient phase remains to be seen. Meanwhile it is worth remembering that this country is involved in two wars and occupations.

The leaders of both the mainstream parties in Britain continue to support involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. And apart from the valiant but small group of antiwar campaigners, the country seems to have forgotten that a million Iraqis have died since the occupation of their country, three million have become refugees and millions in the country face the most horrendous conditions in their everyday lives. If a country considered hostile to the west had behaved in this fashion, the outcry would have been deafening.

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Taxi to the Dark Side is an excellent documentary charting the recent history of the US Governments use of torture. I hadn’t realised that a high level legal adviser to the President, John Yoo, went as far as publicly arguing that “there is no law that could prevent the President from ordering the torture of a child of a suspect in custody – including by crushing that child’s testicles.” Rationality gone mad - his name has gone on my list of people whose testicles do need crushing.

As a side note, I enjoyed Stephen Kings recent comments on the debate as to whether waterboarding is torture or not “if the Bush administration didn’t think it was torture, they ought to do some personal investigation. Someone in the Bush family should actually be waterboarded so they could report on it to George. I said, I didn’t think he would do it, but I suggested Jenna be waterboarded and then she could talk about whether or not she thought it was torture.”

“This is dedicated to two people who are no longer with us, Dilawar, the young Afghan taxi driver, and my father, a navy interrogator who urged me to make this film because of his fury about what was being done to the rule of law. Let’s hope we can turn this country around, move away from the dark side and back to the light.” Alex Gibney, Director, Academy Award acceptance speech.

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I thought this James song was relevant considering the 4,000 dead soldiers toll circulating in the press. I can’t say I like the video given that it suggests soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan are somehow ‘heroes’ rather than criminals. I should point out that this isn’t the official video but another good example of remix culture.

Indie veterans James have unveiled the controversial artwork to their new album ‘Hey Ma’ which features an image of a baby about to pick up a handgun.

The hard-hitting image has apparently seen advertising execs give the album a wide berth, meaning that it is very unlikely to feature on major PR campaigns.

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The following report is on the Winter Soldier event in the USA by, friend of The Fanonite, Dahr Jamail.

Jason Moon suffers from persistent insomnia as he wrestles with memories of his time in Iraq. “While on our initial convoy into Iraq in early June 2003, we were given a direct order that if any children or civilians got in front of the vehicles in our convoy, we were not to stop, we were not to slow down, we were to keep driving,” says the former National Guard and Army Reserve member. “In the event an insurgent attacked us from behind human shields, we were supposed to count. If there were thirty or less civilians we were allowed to fire into the area. If there were over thirty, we were supposed to take fire and send it up the chain of command. These were the rules of engagement. I don’t know about you, but if you are getting shot at from a crowd of people, how fast are you going to count, and how accurately?”
Moon is taking part in Winter Soldier. This is public testimony organized by the Iraq Veterans Against the War about the human consequences of failed U.S. policy in the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. Read the rest of this entry »

‘US veterans gathered in Maryland this past weekend to testify at Winter Soldier, an eyewitness indictment of atrocities committed by US troops during the ongoing occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Soldiers spoke of free-fire zones, the shootings and beatings of innocent civilians, racism at the highest levels of the military, sexual harassment and assault within the military, and the torturing of prisoners.’ While the corporate media ignored the story, Democracy Now, the Real News Network and several other independent media institutions covered it in depth (see Jeff Cohen’s excellent piece ‘Iraq Winter Soldier Hearings: Victory for Independent Media‘). You can watch Democracy Now’s coverage here, and below you will find videos from Real News. (This page will be updated as more testimonies become available).

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Here is by far the best analysis on CentCom chief Fox Fallon’s resignation and its implications from the top US investigative journalist, Jim Lobe.  My impression from reading the Esquire article is that Fallon may have seen it coming and chose to preempt the administration by leaving with a bang.

As much as I would like to agree with Steve Clemons and Chris Nelson, I think Adm. Fallon’s resignation is very bad news, less because it signals war with Iran, as a few analysts have argued (although it certainly makes war more possible), than it suggests rather strongly that the “realists,” have lost ground in their never-ending war with the hawks in and outside the administration over control of the “global war on terror.” It seems very clear to me, among other things from the comments of Sec. Gates, who leads the realist faction, that the resignation resulted from White House pressure, and that Gates and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Adm. Mike Mullen, among others, really did not want Fallon to go. For much of the past year, Fallon had acted as their “point man” (in the military sense) in trying to promote a saner strategic policy toward the entire region covered by the Central Command and not one that was so obsessed with achieving “victory” in Iraq (and unmitigated hostility toward Iran). His departure will clearly weaken the realists’ hand in the ongoing battles against the neo-conservatives (who, as I noted most recently in late January, had mounted a mostly under-the-radar campaign to get Fallon relieved of his responsibilities at the earliest possible moment) and other hawks, particularly those most closely associated with Cheney.

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