In Baltimore , the
nation's mayors debated and passed a War Dollars Home Resolution at their annual
meeting, the first time they have taken a stand on war since they passed a
similar resolution in 1971, during the Vietnam war. The anti-war resolution even
made the TV news, which has downplayed the fact that the majority of Americans
have wanted an end to their illegal wars for years.
It is a moment
flooded with nostalgia for those who cut their political teeth 40 years ago
during the Vietnam war, though it is hard to even recognise the State of the
Union 40 years on. The "War on Poverty" of LBJ has been replaced by a "war on
terror". Today's America has a black president, yet is mired in recession, and
promises only falling living standards, collapsing infrastructure, and more and
more violations of civil rights.
Though Jewish Americans are still an
essential part of today's much less flamboyant and less powerful anti-war
movement, the pro-war movement is now loudly pro-Israel, unlike the earlier
pro-warriors. This reflects the new times, where Israel is no longer just a
naughty, temporary occupier of Palestinian land, but America's most devoted
ally, a respected (or rather feared) imperialist in its own right, and a key
player in orchestrating the US wars in the Middle East .
At the same time
as the mayors called for an end to the endless wars, Congress censured Obama
over his new undeclared war against Libya , now in its third month, though
stopping short of denying him funds. Neither the mayoral nor congressional
resolutions have any teeth. But, with his generals breathing down his neck, the
astute Obama was able to use these two protests to protect his rear as he
announced his plans to withdraw 33,000 troops from Afghanistan by September
2012, including 10,000 by the end of this year: "America, it is time to focus on
nation-building here at home."
Just as the majority of Americans by the late 1960s had turned against the war in southeast Asia even at the risk of "losing" Vietnam to the Communists, so 56 per cent of Americans today want an immediate pull-out from Afghanistan, though 56 per cent also predict there will be no stable government there and that the Taliban could well return to power. But, like 40 years ago, Americans have lost interest.
The parallel is not exact. Obama would have pulled out of Afghanistan in 2009 if the generals had let him. "Obama had to do this 18-month surge just to demonstrate, in effect, that it couldn't be done," Bob Woodward quotes an aide in Obama's Wars. As expected, the surge was a spectacular failure, more like a surge of sitting ducks. Chief warrior Stanley McChrystal was fired in disgrace last year and his equally gung-ho replacement David Petraeus has been shunted off to the CIA, where he has already been told to continue the war by covert means. The remaining generals are furious but are putting on a brave face, with Hillary taking about "reaching out" to the Taliban, no doubt counting on winning their "hearts and minds".
Obama, while disappointing those who expected him to slay the dragon, drive the moneychangers out of the temple, and bring peace on earth, is nonetheless a wily politician worthy of his predecessor Nixon. Like Nixon, he knows perfectly well that it's time to move on and he's playing to the crowd: "We are starting this drawdown from a position of strength," he told Americans solemnly. This pretense and the assassination of Bin Laden will almost certainly give him a second term.
The drawdown is none too soon, as defections from the ranks of the coalition started last year with the Netherlands and are continuing, with Canada , German and Italy having deadlines (which, it's true, shift depending on electoral strategies and US arm-twisting). Britain is already reducing its contingent and a delighted French President Nicolas Sarkozy immediately declared French troops would be home by next summer.
"The war is lost. Reaching out to the Taliban is in no way a demonstration of a "position of strength', but a clear sign of America's weakness," writes commentator Boris Volkhonsky, though he admits Obama has handled a difficult problem well, calling his speech "an astute recognition of the fact". Indeed, the only public criticism of Obama is coming from crackpots such as Senator John McCain who said that Obama is denying military commanders in Afghanistan the ability to finally defeat "a battered and broken enemy". President Hamid Karzai described the announcement that American troops would depart as "a moment of happiness for Afghanistan".
A major difference between Vietnam and Afghanistan is the plan to maintain bases in Afghanistan after pulling out. Afghanistan's neighbours Russia (almost-neighbour), China , Iran , Pakistan -- even the puppet government in Kabul -- vow that this will not happen. As if on cue, Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad invited Karzai and Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari to Tehran this week to a conference on terrorism and for one-on-one talks. Apart from US plans for Afghanistan, Zardari's talks dealt with completing the Iran-Pakistan gas "Peace Pipeline" project, which is strongly opposed by the US. But the US should hardly be surprised at this budding friendship: the downside of the surge and assassination Bin Laden is that Pakistan can finally extricate itself from its deadly American embrace without any apologies.
As for Karzai, he sees the writing on the wall, and is eager to survive a few more years, which means courting his neighbours to take the place of the hated Americans. All of them have indicated they will support him. His trip to Tehran should also come as no surprise. The US will almost certainly have to abandon its freshly paved military bases in the north of Afghanistan, prepared as part of the Bush-era "Blackwill plan" to split Afghanistan in two. This neocon fantasy would cede the south to the Taliban with the understanding that they can play at creating a "greater Pashtunistan" if they let the US keep the predominantly Tajik north. Neither Karzai nor Zardari will go along with this. Neither will China, Russia nor Iran. It is very unlikely the Taliban will either.
Iranian Defense Minister Ahmed Vahidi visited Kabul just last week and told Afghanistan's Vice President Mohammed Fahim, "The great and brave nation of Afghanistan is capable of establishing its security in the best possible form without the interference of the trans-regional forces." Signing a bilateral security cooperation agreement with his Iranian counterpart, Afghanistan's Defence Minister Abdulrahim Wardak gushed, "We believe that joint defence and security cooperation between Iran and Afghanistan is very important for establishing peace and security in the region."
The most important -- and very disturbing -- parallel between these American wars is in the perception and the reality of who "won". The popular perception is that the US lost Vietnam and that it has lost in Afghanistan. But this is misleading, as the US achieved "victory in defeat" in both cases.
In the case of Vietnam, it destroyed any possibility of successful developing a strong socialist country as a catalyst in the non-imperial transformation of southeast Asia. Like Cuba's Fidel, Ho Chi Minh was well-educated and highly respected by his people and -- just as important -- by both the Soviet and Chinese leaders. Without the US invasion of Vietnam, all of southeast Asia would most likely today be communist (in more than just name). The world would look very, very different.
Similarly, in the Middle East , the US, following Britain's imperial lead in the Middle East, cultivated the passive and inward-looking Wahhabis and the anti-communist Saudi monarchy, who let the imperialists run roughshod over the region for over a century, all the time providing the West with precious oil. Together with Saudi Arabia , the empire undermined its secular challengers in Iran, Egypt , Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya (still a work-in-progress), and the Islamist challengers in Algeria and post-revolutionary Iran, ensuring that they do not become models for the region -- and threats to the empire.
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