Thanks to WikiLeaker, Afghan War Will End Soon - by Ted Rall

[kpete]

Published on Tuesday, August 3, 2010 by CommonDreams.org
Thanks to WikiLeaker, Afghan War Will End Soon

by Ted Rall
.................

It has been pointed out that the WikiLeaks documents don't reveal much that is new. We already knew that Pakistan was our frenemy. We knew that drone planes kill more wedding guests than terrorists. We didn't want to admit it, but we already kind of knew we were losing. The starred headline involves the likelihood that the Taliban have surface-to-air missiles.

But the Wikileaks leaks are nevertheless a game-changer. They confirm what those few of us who opposed this war from the start have been saying all along. They prove that the military sees things the same way we do. So that's the end of the debate. The war is an atrocity and a mistake. Everyone agrees.

Public support for the war was already waning. Just 43 percent of the public still backs "the good war." The leaks mark the beginning of the end of one of a stupid country's countless stupid misadventures. I don't see what else might have accomplished the same thing so quickly.

Thanks to the leaker, thousands of lives will be saved in Afghanistan. Hundreds of U.S. soldiers will live out normal lives. Billions of dollars will stop pouring into the pockets of the Pakistanis. If that's irresponsible, well, call me a fan of irresponsibility.

more:
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/08/03-6

[gratuitous]

1. Rall is more sanguine than I

My feeling is that we will pass seamlessly from the "No, Afghanistan is not an unwinnable quagmire" to "Of course Afghanistan is an unwinnable quagmire, everybody knows that!" After another spirited round of hippie punching during which the people who have been right about this all along will be publicly ridiculed, the Very Serious People of the establishment will conclude that the occupation of Afghanistan must continue or the United States risks looking foolish. After which they will all parade naked down Pennsylvania Avenue in solidarity, commenting on their sartorial finery. And before you get too prurient about that image, remember that I'm talking about the likes of David Broder and Dick Cheney.

[kenny blankenship]

5. We cannot at this juncture discount the very real possibility that Mr. Rall is being droll.

The apparent & literal meaning that the leaks show that the military sees the same unwinnable quagmire that we antiwar folks do, and so we are all agreed that the war must stop - Hallelujah! is unlikely to obtain in this case. He knows that. The military sees the same atrocity filled quagmire that we do, and, instead, it will go on and on because our military does not lose wars.

By presuming an inevitable action will follow as a logical, swift, decent and sane consequence from the evidence of the horror and futility of this war, and also from the news that even the military is institutionally aware of the same evidence, Rall is trying to heighten the contrast between what we all know Obama and the Generals ought to do now, and what they are instead likely to do. He is trying to hold the line against weaseling and degenerate lying attempts to save face and continue with an indefensible policy. It's a rhetorical mechanism of giving your opponent the benefit of the doubt as to his motives, or pretending to for a brief while, then should he persist in his unjustifiable course, setting loose an attack on his moral character. The attack is not set off on a later command but is already waiting for the opponent like a trap. Only an immoral asshole would continue to pour lives and treasure into lost war which involves so much ruin to innocent civilians in the land we're trying to subdue. I don't think my leaders are immoral assholes, therefore I'm SURE they will do only the right thing remaining and withdraw... I'm sure he knows they are assholes and have no thought of relenting. On a personal level, he is also most likely trying to hold onto his notions of decency and sanity. It's a defense mechanism.

[barbtries]

2. this is definitely worth the whole read.

for one thing Ted Rall has clearly browsed through more of the leaked documents than i have managed to date. some more:
Anyway, the ISI hires the Haqqanis to carry out interesting projects. For example, Pakistan used your money to hire Haqqani assassins to kill Indian road engineers and workers in Nimruz province, in western Afghanistan. Going rate: $15,000 to $30,000 each.

Hey, the Haqqanis still have their houses. No doubt with Gunnite pools.

The coolest and weirdest ISI-Haqqani business deal concerns 1,000 motorcycles. The ISI shipped the bikes to the Haqqanis for use in suicide bomb attacks in Khost and Logar provinces. Let's hope they at least had the decency to buy cool, American-made Harleys so that some of our dough makes its way back here. Besides, who wants to spend the afterlife tooling around on a moped?

i too am a fan of Wikileaks' action. i hope Rall is right and it will lead to an end to this wrong war.

[JohnyCanuck]

3. Maybe just in time for the war against Iran to ramp up

WikiLeaks documents-- disinformation or not-- are being used for anti-Iran propaganda

snip

So far, there's no evidence yet to prove that the White House or the Pentagon conspired with WikiLeaks to stage the documents' release-- just speculation. One might wonder why the U.S. government would want to do such a thing when the information in the documents paint a grim picture of the war in Afghanistan as a hopeless, bloody waste of money and human life. But when you peel away the hype of the WikiLeaks story the truth is that this realization is not a new one for many Americans who have turned their backs to the mainstream media and are getting their news from the Internet and other sources. Even people who don't follow the news closely know that the Afghan War is in its ninth year with no end in sight and that soldiers are continuing to die in it. Every week local newspapers around America feature stories of young men and women from their areas who were killed in action.

It could be that the White House is looking for a quick resolution to the fighting and to cut a deal with the Taliban, allowing them to slowly conquer the country again during a U.S. draw-down, "forced" by public outrage over the leak and the continuing bloodshed, while still allowing the U.S. to exploit the treasure trove of natural resources there. Indeed, the U.S. already pays off the Taliban through private contractors not to attack trucking convoys. Reducing troops while maintaining a grip on Afghanistan's untouched wealth would allow the U.S. to keep the spoils of war while at the same focusing its military resources on the next target-- Iran.

Already Fox News has exploited the WikiLeaks documents to further vilify Iran, pointing out that the documents indicate the U.S. belief that Iran is arming the Taliban insurgency. This adds another layer to Fox's steady stream of propaganda that has flowed over the years advocating for an attack on the country, and stands as the second reason why some believe the leak was staged.

President Ahmadinejad of Iran has denied the charges that his government supports Taliban insurgents.

Prior to Ahmadinejad's coming to power, while the U.S. planned the invasion of Afghanistan, Iran helped organize the Northern Alliance against the Taliban. Though the U.S. has downplayed Iran's role in the early days of the war, U.S.soldiers and officials have conceded that Iranian forces were present with the Afghan rebels in 2001.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/WikiLeaks-documents--disi-by-Andrew-Steele-100728-499.html

[Myrina]

4. so instead of executing the soldier involved (as one GOP asshat suggested) ...

... he should be rewarded for saving his fellow soldiers (and civilian) lives.

Only thing that irks me about all this is that this conflict languished for 8 years and now is "Obama's Viet Nam". I'm a pretty tough critic of POTUS these days, but that's just not a fair assessment that the MSM is tossing around. And yet it will most likely stick.

:shrug:

[MilesColtrane]

6. If the objective of the war was to capture or kill OBL and the command of Al Qaeda...

the war was lost very early on by Bush's incompetence and Pakistan's complicity.

Now with no definable goal as to what constitutes success, or a goal that is impossible to achieve (turning Afghanistan into a peaceful, stable Islamic democracy), there is no justification to continue the killing.