It may not be the popular or politically correct thing to say, or an especially 'patriotic' sentiment, but I can't shake the realization of how successful bin Laden's plane crash plan was for his stated aims. If we allow ourselves to measure the Afghan conflict in terms of victory or defeat (as escalation and occupation supporters have), we have to judge the mass-murdering megalomaniac's efforts a win.
In challenging that judgment, it doesn't matter how many more Afghans or Pakistanis our military forces manage to kill, maim, or capture. It doesn't even matter in that judgment, how we regard our military's nation-building defense and enabling of the Afghan regime intended to keep their Taliban from regaining power and influence.
All that we need to make that negative judgment of our military campaign and al-Qaeda's progress is to take account of our very military presence and offensive activity which has resulted in a stalemated conflict between the U.S.-led military forces and each and every Afghan or Pakistani who dares to resist our military's opportunistic advance across their homeland.
There has been no measurable intimidation factor of the growing insurgency for the U.S. to trumpet behind the assaults and land-grabs exercised by our escalated forces in Afghanistan. There has been no measurable progress toward anything resembling 'democracy' in Afghanistan behind the sacrifices of those fighting and dying in defense of the long-past elections there. There has been no rush of Afghan civilians to assume our opportunistic, nation-building effort in our place. The escalated occupation doesn't even appear to have created any optimism from those charged with maintaining our national security that we've lessened the danger of some future attack on the nation from individual(s) aligning themselves with our fugitive al-Qaeda nemesis.
It's amazing, therefore, to hear the President and the administration talk of 'progress' and 'successes' in Afghanistan as if our national government's reaction to the 9-11 plane crashes was any more decisive than the years of quagmire and death that our military posture has fostered and encouraged in the country and the region. In fact, the stated aim of the U.S. military effort in Afghanistan has been described by military leaders and the White House as an attempt to
'breaking the momentum' of the Taliban insurgency and
'turning' the terrorist-associated organization, instead of the more direct talk at the inception of the escalation of force in December 2009 about 'defeating' al-Qaeda and capturing bin Laden and associates.
What's missing from the assessments of 'progress' and 'success' from occupation supporters is the acknowledgment that our nation's military posture in Afghanistan and the region has actually widened the initial conflict between the U.S. and the original band of 9-11 perpetrators into a proxy war in which Afghans and Pakistanis are bearing the brunt of resentment and resistance to our imposed alliance with the dubious regimes clinging to power. Every move that the U.S. makes to enable or defend those country's regimes deepens the initial, blundering acquiescence to bin Laden's plot to draw the U.S. into a conflict where Muslims and others in the region became targets and casualties of our nations military forces.
Seemingly unaware or indifferent to that initial acquiescence of the U.S. to the aim of the 9-11 perpetrators, this new president has doubled-down on that fateful appeasement and has decided to try and temper the fires that our military forces have sparked with their dubious defense against the ghosts, remnants, and outgrowth of our own misguided military activity in the region since 9-11.
I get it. The new administration's attitude is that past mistakes don't obviate the need and efficacy (in their view) of pressing forward with the military campaign in a manner which isn't half-hearted or under-resourced. They're optimistic that our military forces can achieve enough of a push-back against resisting Afghans, and a crippling of anyone operating behind the moniker of al-Qaeda or the Taliban, to allow and encourage Afghans to assume a fight against that insurgence which would compliment our own national security interests in defending against 'al-Qaeda' and against further attacks on our nation.
The obvious problem with that equation is in the self-perpetuated, counterproductive effect the U.S. military presence and activity has on achieving those unifying goals. The present escalation of force is unfolding too slowly to achieve any decisive military intimidation of the vast and organic number of individuals compelled to violent expressions of self-determination and independence which our occupying and offensive forces regard as mere obstacles to their opportunistic advance and their nation-building ambitions.
The resistant violence hasn't abated; it's intensified as our forces are building. This past July in Afghanistan was determined by observers to be the 'deadliest month yet' in the entirety of our occupation. It's almost impossible to imagine that more NATO forces will reverse that trend. Even the military commanders have recently predicted that violence and
deaths will likely increase in the near future. I'm at a loss to imagine how that prospect will enhance or relationship with Afghans or others in the region and encourage them to adopt and carry our nation's banner of war against their resisting country-folk. But, that's the plan . . .
Commenting on the Wikileak documents concerning Afghanistan last week, President Obama insisted that he had a new strategy unfolding in Afghanistan and that he was committed to 'see that strategy through'.
"For seven years, we failed to implement a strategy adequate to the challenge in this region," President Obama said. "That's why we have substantially increased our commitment there, insisted upon greater accountability from Afghanistan and Pakistan, (and) developed a new strategy that can work," he said.
Congress gave the President a $37 billion vote of confidence for his Afghanistan strategy this week (in addition to about $130 billion they've already approved for Afghanistan and Iraq this year.) So our military will continue to skirmish, raid, and capture territory until someone in authority decides we've gotten enough of an upper hand on the resistance to bow out of the conflict we've escalated and aggravated.
Forget about defeating al-Qaeda. The consensus seems to be that we've moved on to accepting our national fidelity to bin Laden's master plan to compel our forces to self-perpetuating violence in his neighborhood. Our leaders have sworn to uphold the calculated conflict the terrorist leader fostered and encouraged with his initial, deadly plot, and they've bid our beleaguered forces to enact and resolve their dubious power-play. The advantage has gone to bin Laden since Bush first postured against him and directed our nation's military to vengeance against any and all individuals in the way of our military forces obliging advance on the region. You can't undo that fateful acquiescence, no matter how many more resisting Taliban in Afghanistan our troops manage to kill, maim, or capture.
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