U.S. Military Objectives Post Bin Laden
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2011-05-12/us-military-objectives-post-bin-laden
In September 2001 Congress authorized military action against the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks, and there was good reason to believe those behind the 9/11 attacks were operating from areas within Afghanistan. In the last 10 years 1500 American lives have been lost there. We’ve spent over a half a trillion dollars. Many say the death of Osama bin Laden is one of a number of factors that should prompt a thorough reassessment of our military objectives in Afghanistan and elsewhere in world in the war. Diane and guests discuss U.S. military objectives against the al-Qaida terrorist threat.
Guests
Peter Feaver
professor of political science,
director,Triangle Institute for Security Studies, Sanford School of Public Policy,
Duke University
Jonathan Landay
senior national security and intelligence correspondent for McClatchy Newspapers.
John Feffer
co-director, Foreign Policy in Focus, Institute for Policy Studies
Related Video
PBS's Frontline explored the U.S. military and NATO's mission in Afghanistan with a focus on its "kill/capture" missions:
Watch the full episode. See more FRONTLINE.
Comments
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1. Kill more arch-villiain cartoon characters to keep patriotic fantasies going.
2. Maintain perpetual war on terrorism, at least in the mainstream media.
3. Prevent real democracies that reflect peoples' interests (in the Middle East and anywhere possible).
4. Secure more oil for oligarch owned corporations.
5. Secure slave and peon labor for oligarch owned corporations.
6. Make the world safe for any crazy scheme fueling the income stream of the super wealthy.
7. Maintain a market for newly outdated weapons among allies and enemies.
8. Demand ever more cruel and devastating WMDs.
9. Demand ever more penetrating and subverting intelligence devices.
10. Demand ever more remote means of murder.
11. Elevate the prestige and outside income of the elite officer corps.
12. Recruit compliant drones hungry for grunt pay and educational benefits, aliens will suffice.
13. Hire highly compensated contractors to do any task possible including war crimes.
14. Examine the possibility of pre-emptive coup in case of domestic civil unrest, economic impasse or false-flag action. (Emperor Petraeus?)
15. On the drug war: The spice must flow (Dune).
16. Laugh off "posse comitatus" Act (1878).
17. Inform financial oligarchs of military indispensability.
18. Thousand year reign.... (works well in Egypt, so far)
One of your guests used "Afghanis" to refer to the Afghan people. "Afghani" is their currency. "Afghan" is a native of Afghanistan. Thank you for using the proper term, Diane.
Bring home all the troops except those who are of the Muslim faith - that should bring down the costs to a realistic level. The reason there is struggle against our troops is due to the fact that the people feel violated by all the non-muslim troops.
A war on terror that costs $150 million per day is the root cause of our financial problems here at home.
Sadly it was our own CIA that gave the Taliban credibility and position.
Just as every one of these placements by our CIA there is no control left so now they are enemies.
We are financially breaking our government just as did USSR in years past.
We need not win a war that is not on our soil, not our war.
When will there ever be an adequate resolution of the issues in Afghanistan that will satisfy the think tank apologists for perpetual war for the share holders of defense contracting firms, never. What better far off place to transfer the wealth from taxpayers to shareholders, than Afghanistan. Where is that on the map anyway?
Why are we alone responsible for keeping Afghanistan from reverting to its pre-2001 state? Why are we responsible for keeping Pakistan and India from supporting different factions in Afghanistan? Don't China, Pakistan and India have more to lose than we do? I think we need to re-think what our responsibilities are and let others with more to lose step in and be responsible. The only thing I regret about us pulling out of Afghanistan is what will happen to the women and girls.
Goodness sakes, the speaker described the reason there is need to stay in Afghanistan as being because there are no jobs, high unemployment, major structural problems.
Sounds familiar?
Yes, let's keep payng out billions and trillions to another country to solve the same problems there as we are not willing to invest money here to solve.
By all means, the people over there need out money much more for jobs for them than we need money here to solve our unemployment problems.
Here's an idea - lower their taxes - we have been duped into believeing lowering taxes create jobs here - in spite of the lowering of taxes creating unemployment.
The only international position we have is to grab their oil
Distrust of mainstream media took a nosedive when Walter Cronkite retired! Its nosedive only continued when respected newspapers printed stories by "reporters" that were either made up or plagiarized. Add on top of that cable news networks and other news media jumping on stories before they have been vetted (e.g., the black woman that worked for the US Dept. of Agriculture & the video purporting to show her having racist thoughts toward whites while determining whom to assist & whom to turn down) and turn out to be something different that first reported, and one ends up with a great distrust of mainstream media instead of just adopting a healthy dose of skepticism.
If the murder of Osama Bin Laden in a sovereign nation sets the precedent for war criminals then what keeps officials in Iraq from coming for those who lied the US into Iraq which resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths?
Can your guest discuss all of the US activities in Afghanistan having to do with training their police, miitary etc. And also the developments in agricultural shifts by growing poppies for legal use. And during the eradication programs are former poppy growners in Afghanistan subsidized while trying to move them towards legal crops?
Do your guest know if heroin use amongst American soldiers in Afghanistan is a problem?
Jonathon you are so full of it. Saying that the American people have many places to go to dig through government officials claims. Before the invasion of Iraq if the American public did not listen to Democracy Now,the Diane Rehm show Talk of the Nation and a few internet sites at that point an individual could turn on the MSM MSNBC, CNN, etc etc and hear the same WMD's in Iraq conspiracy theory over and over and over again. You had to be a media junkie to get to bottom of the false WMD intelligence being stovepiped through most of the MSM. Most Americans do not have the time or desire to dig for accurate information based on substantiated claims.
The Bush administration's WMD conspiracy theories promoted by the majority of the MSM is the reason for the growth of "conspiracy theorist" and "conspiracy theories"
When government officials promote conspiracy theories, when the MSM promotes those same government conspiracy theories what the hell do you expect?
The "conspiracy theory" about a nuclear weapons program in Iran has been repeated by the very same WMD's in Iraq conspiracy theorist. There is no hard evidence to back up the conspiracy theory being promoted by our MSM that Iran has a nuclear weapons program. Go to the IAEA's website
How long do they expect that trove of information to be good for? I’m sure by now Al Qaeda is aware of the fact that the US has made off with a great deal of information on whatever plans they had. I’m sure at this point they would have abandoned any plots, hiding places, etc.
If Bin Laden were already dead before invading, would we still invade? I doubt it. There are plenty of other regions with extremists which we do not invade either. It is obvious that we need to use that treasure trove of information gathered from Bin Laden's hard drive, but the US needs to re-evaluate the number of troops.
While I too wish there was no war anywhere on Earth, nothing better illustrates what's wrong with the "pull out now" mentality than that comment towards the end about how the battle in Libya is a failure. For pete's sake, the fight has barely started there! By that "logic" if cancer isn't cured with the first treatment the patient should just kill themselves! By that "logic", because we didn't win World War II within a month after Pearl Harbor we should have just surrendered! This is the same mentality that blames Obama for not miraculously solving all our economic problems in his first year (or even his second, or third).
Problems take time to develop, whether it's war, disease, or economic collapse. It takes at least as long to solve them (and usually longer).
No, this isn't an argument for staying in Afghanistan forever, but as the guests observed an immediate pull out is a guarantee of disaster. And for those who argue we've been there long enough, again the guests pointed out that for most of the past 10 years Afghanistan was treated as a side-show. Our troops, resources, and attention were diverted to a country (Iraq) that had nothing to do with 9/11. I've always said that was among the biggest mistakes of Bush the Second, and every year since has only proved how right I was!
kathleen, post#1: heroin addiction.
I have treated recovering heroin addicts in a volunteer capacity.
Heroin is a cheap and convenient substance for self-medication in hopeless circumstance. An American enlistee might be unlikely to inject heroin (detectable, paraphenalia) in heated suspension but would find refined powder readily available for snorting, and maybe shoot up stateside if Tri-Care proved inadequate. The astounding increase of heroin addiction within Afghanistan, and among woman and children, should be the major concern. It is increasing geometrically according to my sources. A violent and uncertain environment is responsible.
The "if I don't do it smugglers and terrorists will" attitude in the military and intelligence agencies means that individuals within, and government sponsored organizations themselves are profiting from heroin importation to Europe and the Americas. We don't have over 700 bases for nothing! An audit of State and Defense senior officials' (and contractors') finances would uncover clandestine accounts swollen with drug money. They don't call them Smackganistan and Cokelumbia without cause.
Etaoin opposes exiting Af/Pak cold turkey. Would that affect your portfolio? Perpetual war is the greatest addiction humanity has known. Withdrawal is sure to be Hell. Maybe Libya is kind of a methadone approach, so Unkie Sam don't get deeply sick and vomit up the financial class.
John Feffer was unusually lucid compared to the outrageous things he writes in Foreign Policy in Focus - that guy's grip on reality is never all that tight, but he appears to have taken his meds today. His comment that we need to increase funding for soft power - State/AID development aid and diplomacy is really unarguable. My question is whether he really things that the US can dispense with military power to secure the PRTs and other such efforts. My daughter has been talking about going out on one of those and I want her coming home safe if she does so. The comment about the threat of nuclear confrontation between India and Pakistan and maybe Iran over a postware Afghanistan was spot-on. This was a better show than I expected it to be, and Diane handled the different callers' opinions pretty well to keep the discussion fair and flowing.
As analyst Michael Scheuer has said, Bin Laden was clear about why he attacked the US: Because of 50 years of US interventions in the muslim world. Extremists like him ,and perhaps moderates too, view that as an attack on the muslim religion. However, on Capitol Hill, everybody except Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich still subscribes to interventionism as a means to solve international problems. The founders of our country (e.g. Jefferson) clearly did not want the US to play such a role, and I think our politicians should heed their advice.