How did this happen? What does it mean? : Sourcing voices
How did this happen? What does it mean? : Sourcing voices
Sourcing voices
Publication date: 2021-08-22
Peace must be built day by day and even if, one day in the future we can say that there will finally be no more wars, then too peace will be built day by day because peace is not an industrial product, it is artisanal: it is built day by day through our mutual love, our closeness.
Pepe Escobar in his 2 hour interview with The Grayzone (see previous article) postulated that the shambolic USA withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Taliban returning to power may be a geopolitical event on par with 9/11. Not quite, but its up there. It has the potential for a lot more meaning.
Many USA citizens will be asking themselves "What happened? How did it come to this?". Unfortunately, neither they nor other English speaking peoples are likely to gain much depth of understanding in most of the FCM (Fawning Corporate Media) who seem to be asking the proponents of the war as to why it failed. However, those questions and many related are being asked all over the English speaking media. In the "independent" media they are not asking generals or former spy agency chiefs, but pro-peace activists, former ambassadors and academics, amongst others.
This new "independent" media is creating the spaces that John Pilger declared used to exist in the FCM but have been squeezed out. This article is an examination of what can be learned and what questions are being asked within those spaces. I reference a Pontiff, numerous independent journalists, a president, a former intelligence analyst, an academic, comedians, a political cartoonist, a former ambassador (there’d be two, if Craig Murray was not in jail), two ex-USA military soldiers, and a musician.
Lets take a small, and fairly irrelevant question as a starter.
Why was the USA withdrawal so shambolic?
Ray McGovern: the US military wanted to give the political branch a black eye so they could say "this is what happens when our advice is not heeded".
Prof. Marandi: this creates maximum chaos which will be troubling for the neighboring powers (Iran, Pakistan, India, China and Russia) which the USA could wield to their advantage.
RJ Eskow: the USA military is not used to not getting its way and thus had not planned for something which they did not expect to occur (see video source with Danny Sjursen)
History is not about "complete" explanations, but better understanding of competing interests and actions taken. While the FCM does a partially good job on "what happened" their analysis of motives is generally pathetic. The above analyses are interesting and I expect there is a little "truth" in all of them for this one small question.
Broader Questions
For the "How did it come to this?" and even the broader question of "What does this mean?" Brian Becker's interview with Mike Prysner is interesting. Prysner dovetails his experience as a soldier in Iraq with that of his counterparts in Afghanistan and the political challenges of the Iraq Veterans for Peace expanding their name to include the USA soldiers deployed to Afghanistan. Of course, he plainly describes the strategic stupidity, meaningless waste of life, and endemic corruption both with the USA military brass and the Afghan puppet government.
Some historically obvious things can be learned, the Military Industrial Complex is a thing, and wields quite some power, as does the Media and Intelligence community (or MICIMATT, as McGovern labels it, including Congress, Academia and Think Tanks). The SIGAR reports and the Washington Post's “modern-day Pentagon Papers”, the Afghanistan Papers, show the degree of deceit run by the military and intelligence bureaus, and the media for that matter.
President Putin declares that imposing your political will on other societies without considering their history, traditions and culture is a failed mission, citing the USSR's own errors in this in Afghanistan itself. This is a damnation of "humanitarian intervention" or the "Right to Protect" doctrine, which could be partially allied with the "rules-based international order". I add that if you want to do "humanitarian assistance" (not intervention) there are very capable international organisations for that like the Red Cross or the Red Crescent, or others like Médecins Sans Frontières.
Comedian and political commentator Jimmy Dore (see sources) has recently suggested that the USA military should invade Los Angeles to provide housing and medical attention to the homeless people there. This may seem flippant, but as Danny Sjursen recently noted, like the Universe the USA's military budget is continuously expanding. That "invasion" at least directs a fraction of the budget towards helping citizens. Joe Lauria points to a little crack in the dam wall in a NYT article. Things are changing, which reinforces Pepe's claim of the significance of the withdrawal event.
On "changes", while the vast majority of USA tax payer dollars went to military contractors, some did flow to Afghanistan and some of its society has changed. The Taliban have conceded some gains to women (education and limited employment). For them to revert to their previous social policies would require quite some repression and the local big players, Russia and China, will be strongly advising against this for geopolitical reasons. So, the boondoggle has actually had a modicum of success on the social policy front, if being a complete disaster politically and militarily (unless you're a contractor or general).
In a wider context of "What does this mean?", what does this mean for global geopolitics, Afghanistan and its neighbours? Here we can turn to a former ambassador to Syria or an Iranian academic (Marandi, linked above). Of course, they are cautious in predicting the future, but have interesting comments to make, usually with some historical reference.
To provide some answers to "What does it mean?" seek a wide net. Ted Rall suggests that we gain some insight by listening to those who advised against this course of stupidity from its inception and along the way. For this "advice" they have received death threats (Barbara Lee), been vilified in the media and generally sidelined. They were not prescient, but compassionate and sensible.
They were correct, still are, and have wisdom to offer.
Sources
Stop the arms industry and profits from war, says Pope, Agenzia Italia, 2015-04-11
Ray McGovern on Exit From Afghanistan: An Intelligence Failure?, Ray McGovern, ANTIWAR, 2021-08-20
Prof. Seyed Mohammad Marandi – the Iranian road map in Afghanistan and Israel’s decline, Vanessa Beeley and Prof. Marandi, The Wall Will Fall, 2021-08-22
Why the Pentagon Lost in Afghanistan, Brian Becker and Mike Prysner (former US soldier), The Socialist Program, 2021-08-13
Maj. Danny Sjursen (ret.): The War Machine Fails. What Have We Learned?, RJ Eskow and Danny Sjursen, The Zero Hour with RJ Eskow (Youtube), 2021-08-21
News conference following Russian-German talks, Kremlin, 2021-08-20
War Mongers Cynically Use "Protecting Women" To Extend War, Jimmy Dore and Ron Placone, Jimmy Dore Show (youtube), 2021-08-17
NYT: Afghanistan a US ‘Neocolonialist’ War, Joe Lauria, Consortium News, 2021-08-21
Peter Ford investigates the US withdrawal from Afghanistan and UK response, Vanessa Beeley and former UK ambassador to Syria Peter Ford, The Wall Will Fall, 2021-08-20
Celebrate the Heroes Who Warned Us That Afghanistan Would be a Disaster, Ted Rall, Unz Review, 2021-08-20
Hedges: The Collective Suicide Machine and the Fall of Kabul, Chris Hedges, SheerPost, 2021-07-26
Roger Waters - The Gunner's Dream, Roger Waters and guest artists, Roger Waters (Youtube), 2021-01-18
To Daniel Hale, and all ex-military pro-peace activists, everywhere and everywhen.