Largest Military Operation in Afghan War Begins - Civilian Casualties 'Inevitable' Part 2

With remind's and this page's blog title in mind...

RAWA wrote:

UN: 346 Afghan children killed in 2009, more than half by NATO. More than 2,400 civilians were killed last year, the deadliest for Afghan civilians since the fall of the Taliban regime in late 2001, according the UN.

http://www.rawa.org/temp/runews/2010/02/24/un-346-afghan-children-killed...

I hate the word "Taliban". They are not Taliban. They are Pastun. The ethnic majority.  Why don't we refer to every American as gangster? Because although it is an apt description of the state, to do so would be to dehumanize Americans for purpose of making it easier to hate and possibly kill them. And that's why the Pasthun are called "Taliban". To dehumanize them for the purpose of killing them.

New US Findings: Two Thirds of Taliban Not Extremists

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=117287&sectionid=35102061

script changes to accommodate new realities

End the occupation

Try the war criminals

Marjah: "This is not Fallujah"

http://www.turkishweekly.net/news/98336/-opinion-marjah-quot-this-is-not...

"Marjah is really just a microcosm for what the US is doing at this very moment around the globe--waging a veritable war on the world, in Iraq, Pakistan, expanding into Yemen, Somalia, Iran, supplanting bombs and soldiers with militarised sea lanes, forward military and missile bases on every continent, encircling 'enemies' Russia and China.

The process is merely accelerating as the US loses its traditional edge in the world economy, outpaced by China. It is the logical next step for a deeply illogical economic system. It can't be repeated too often: the US is frantically trying to consolidate its sole superpower status militarily before it loses the economic war.

Marjah also represents the US project of replacing the UN with NATO as the world's peacekeeper. The coalition of almost 60 nations is pursuing an illegal war launched by the US, with the UN--the only legitimate forum for world peackeeping--now in tow solely as window dressing. Though not quite.

Deputy special representative of the Secretary General Robert Watkins said the UN will not be involved in NATO's reconstruction plans for Marjah 'because we would not want to have the humanitarian activities we deliver to be linked with military activity.."

Here's something interesting:

Juan Cole wrote:

Pajhwok News Agency reports that on Tuesday, the Afghanistan senate deplored the foreign airstrikes that killed 21 innocent civilians in the province of Daikundi on Sunday, and demanded that NATO avoid any repetition of this sort of error.

But some senators went farther, demanding that NATO or US military men responsible for the deaths be executed. Senator Hamidullah Tokhi of [sic] Uuzgan complained to Pajhwok that the foreign forces had killed civilians in such incidents time and again, and kept apologizing but then repeated the fatal mistake: "Anyone killing an ordinary Afghan should be executed in public."

... Note that those speaking this way are not Taliban, but rather elected members of the Afghanistan National Parliament, whose government is supposedly a close US ally.

http://www.juancole.com/2010/02/afghan-senators-demand-execution-of.html

Click on the link to read that and other interesting recent developments in Afghanistan you won't read about in other mainstream media.

Unionist wrote:

Skdadl, with respect, we have dozens of threads and likely hundreds of posts reprinting RAWA statements, praising RAWA stands, quoting RAWA spokespersons - as remind said. But let me make a small point here, for the 10,000th time no doubt. We have to get the hell out. If RAWA sent us an ambassador today to ask us to stay to help fight the Taliban (which I can't believe they would ever do), [b]we would still have to get the hell out[/b] - and I would question where RAWA's support really is.

Most people here grasp the irony of progressive people finding the "right" reason to intervene, which happens coincidentally to be exactly the same reason Harper and Obama and NATO are there - to defeat the Taliban. I'm not interested in returning to square one to explain anti-imperialist politics. In any event, the insurgency will prevail, and I'd rather Canadians weren't there when it happened. Call me selfish.

 

Obviously, I have to get out of this discussion as quickly as possible, but I can't help replying to several drastic misreadings of me that you have done on this thread and the previous one.

 

As I said to remind above, I'm always ready to believe that I wrote my thoughts out badly. But since I don't believe that RAWA would ever ask NATO (for which read the U.S.) to stay, and I quoted them to that effect, and you don't believe it, as you say above, then why do you come up with that fantasy as if it were mine?

 

You seem to be reading me as arguing for a "right reason to 'intervene'." Show me where I have ever done that? I have never talking about "intervening," couldn't have, because I don't think in those terms, am absolutely opposed to "intervening." In the previous thread, you wrote:

 

Quote:

This discussion, unfortunately, replicates the imperial pretexts for aggression.

 

I take it that it's my posts (and maybe Sean's, which I didn't write -- I can't speak for him) that you're referring to, particularly since you return to the charge in this thread, in a post addressed to me. More head-patting, too: you're not interested in returning to square one to explain anti-imperialist politics ... to whom? If it's me you're thinking about, trust me: you needn't bother your pretty little head about that, Charlie Brown. (And now remind is going to think that I'm condescending to you. A woman snarks back at being patronized, and it's her fault. Perfect storm, eh?)

 

I must write very badly. You and Frmrsldr seem convinced, no matter what I say, that I think we should "intervene" militarily in Afghanistan. How can I make this any clearer? I DO NOT THINK WE SHOULD "INTERVENE"!!! I want the troops out yesterday. I want the troops out in 2001. What more can I say?

 

I was attempting to talk about the ways in which Western progressives can offer genuine SUPPORT -- emphasis on both genuine and SUPPORT, which means following, not leading -- to progressive groups in places where we are responsible for the distortion of culture in the first place. (Hint: there's an anti-imperialist analysis behind what I just wrote.) I don't just believe, I know that there are progressive leaders in all those places, as there are in communities in Canada, who know a lot more about how their own cultures work than we do, but who often indeed need our SUPPORT. You find out what support is by asking them. If they need money, you give money. If they need you to stuff envelopes, you stuff envelopes. To me, that is support, and it is also the most serious kind of politics there is.

 

I raised that issue because I felt I was running into an oversimplified and romanticized vision of what happens when imperialists break a culture and then leave the victims to pick up the pieces. The people of Afghanistan haven't had a forking chance to know what their own culture is for about two centuries now. There are predictable victims of imperial distortion of cultures, whether our troops are there or not, and women and girls are always first in line. Maybe that doesn't weigh on your conscience, but it does on mine.

 

Anyway, as I said above, I'm outta here. It's not that I can't take care of myself when the ego competition starts. It's more that, like a lot of women, I said to self many years ago, "Why bother?"

 

 

 

skdadl wrote:

 

I take it that it's my posts (and maybe Sean's, which I didn't write -- I can't speak for him) that you're referring to, particularly since you return to the charge in this thread, in a post addressed to me. More head-patting, too: you're not interested in returning to square one to explain anti-imperialist politics ... to whom?

Skdadl, if you say something and I wish to respond or criticize it, I will generally identify what I'm critiquing. My posts were unclear. Let me make it clear:

1. All my posts rejecting intervention were addressed to [b]Sean in Ottawa[/b], who wrote lengthy reflective posts justifying intervention - he just hasn't made up his mind yet under what banner (some part of the UN, I think) that should happen.

2. You said this:

skdadl wrote:

But I agree with P4 that there is something in isolationism that bothers the conscience. To me, the solution is for progressives here to be in touch with progressives there and to ask them how we can help, if at all.

That's what set me off. That's what I disagree with - very strongly - if it is taken in an absolute way. That's why I said, "Even if RAWA asked us to help them defeat the jehadis with troops, we must say no."

I never said, nor ever meant to say, that you are soft on armed intervention. I wanted to respond to Sean, and in the course of that, also counsel caution about how we deal with some organization that we decide is somehow representative of the will of the Afghan people. That's why I wondered aloud, by the way, as to RAWA's attitude to the multifaceted insurgency - because I don't know the answer to that.

My bad for not citing your words and responding in a mixed-up fashion, combining my reaction to you and to Sean. I apologize.

Unionist wrote:

That's why I wondered aloud, by the way, as to RAWA's attitude to the multifaceted insurgency - because I don't know the answer to that.

RAWA wrote:

The US "War on terrorism" removed the Taliban regime in October 2001, but it has not removed religious fundamentalism which is the main cause of all our miseries. In fact, by reinstalling the warlords in power in Afghanistan, the US administration is replacing one fundamentalist regime with another. The US government and Mr. Karzai mostly rely on Northern Alliance criminal leaders who are as brutal and misogynist as the Taliban.

RAWA believes that freedom and democracy can't be donated; it is the duty of the people of a country to fight and achieve these values. Under the US-supported government, the sworn enemies of human rights, democracy and secularism have gripped their claws over our country and attempt to restore their religious fascism on our people.

Whenever fundamentalists exist as a military and political force in our injured land, the problem of Afghanistan will not be solved. Today RAWA's mission for women's rights is far from over and we have to work hard for establishment of an independent, free, democratic and secular Afghanistan...

This is from "About RAWA..." http://www.rawa.org/rawa.html

Those people and insurgents RAWA might currently or in future support are those who work for/fight for/support/defend human rights, democracy and secularism.

"Rawa believes that freedom and democracy can't be donated; it's the duty of the people of a country to fight and achieve these values." This is synonymous with an argument Malalai Joya has made many times.

 

Frustrated Mess wrote:

I hate the word "Taliban". They are not Taliban. They are Pastun. The ethnic majority.  Why don't we refer to every American as gangster? Because although it is an apt description of the state, to do so would be to dehumanize Americans for purpose of making it easier to hate and possibly kill them. And that's why the Pasthun are called "Taliban". To dehumanize them for the purpose of killing them.

FM just because you hate the word Talibal doesn't mean you can just decide it was used wrong. Well you could decide that but based from what?

The Afghans called the Taliban, Taliban. The Taliban call themselves the Taliban.

While some are Pasthun they are also Iranian, Pakistani, Chechynian [I think I spelt that wrong]. Taliban are by no means Pasthun only.

 

 

Frmsldr, where do you find your faith in the UN as peace keepers?

First off if the UN sent in peace keppers and Nato left all that would happen is that the Nato soldiers would take off their Desert helmet covers and replace them with blue helmet covers. They would paint their vehicles white. If Canada sent peacekeepers under the UN flag it's going to be the same soldiers who were there fighting and killing days before.

Second you would see much stricter rules of engagement. This will without a doubt save local Afghan lives. With stricter rules of engagement soldiers will no longer have robust rules on when they can shoot. You will see a drastic increase in UN peacekeeper deaths.  I'm sure you remember the stories out of Bosnia where UN peacekeepers came under fire and had to call New York to get permission to return fire and protect themselves?  Or how about UN observation posts having to listen to and watch women being gang raped in the village next to them and not being allowed to do a thing about it. The UN vets who served in the early 90s whom I've spoken with got really fucked up in the head not because of what they did but because of what they had to sit by and watch and what they couldn't do.

Third it doesn't take much to google the tons of attrocities that UN peacekeepers have commited the world over. The UN hardly has a sterling record.  I won't  post this picture.

 

The first hit I got was of two UN soldiers holding [Roasting the caption says] a kid over a fire.  A few links down is a story about UN peacekeepers raping children.

I'm not defending NATO, they have done some very fucked up things! But the UN is hardly the answer if you ask me. I would argue just as bad if not at times worse.

That's not directly quoting him Unionist.  In the first thread Frmsldr's posts seem to really support the UN and it sounded like he had a lot of faith in them.

 

Frmrsldr wrote:

The U.N. sends peacekeeping soldiers to a country, only if asked first by that country. The U.N. keeps warring factions apart and encourages and assists them in negotiating peaceful settlements. [b]The U.N. (unlike the U.S.A. and NATO) abides by international laws, treaties, protocols, etc.,[/b] like the Nuremberg Trials, Nuremberg Principles, Geneva Conventions and the U.N. Charter that stipulate wars of aggression (and regime change) are illegal.

I found there are some glaring violations of international laws by some of it's members. Raping children  raping women. Trading food and supplies for sex. Murder.  If your going to pull NATO out of Afghanistan fine but the UN come with a whole different bag of problems.

 

*Sorry cross posted

The point I was addressing was Sean in Ottawa's. He felt that sometimes humanitarian military intervention is necessary and desirable. He drew up a dichotomy between the U.N. and NATO.

My reply was that the U.N. is the preferable of the two and I gave my reasons why.

Having said that, let me make it perfectly clear I am opposed to the militarization of human rights which is an argument that is used to justify the Afghan war, for example.

My position is Troops out Now (of Afghanistan)! I have never argued that the U.N. should replace U.S./NATO/ISAF troops in Afghanistan.

There is a small contingent of U.N. troops in Afghanistan who engage in reconstruction, redevelopment, monitoring and humanitarian aid. They have disassociated from U.S./NATO/ISAF troops because of the war of aggression they are waging there.

Yes, U.N. soldiers have committed human rights atrocities and possibly war crimes (in the DRC and the Sudan, that I'm aware of). War is a crime because it consists of all other crimes. War is a state of savagery. It is a vortex that sucks its participants into a state of crime and savagery.

Because of these atrocities, the U.N. is considering/will cut its mission short in the DRC.

Given the nature of the world in which we live, is the U.N. the answer?

Well, it's definitely better than no U.N. and Uncle Sam and NATO running the show, or a state of international anarchy, which is to say the same thing.

Unionist wrote:

I agree. And it's no coincidence that the U.S. views the U.N. with hostility for the past several decades. Irrespective of the antiquated power structure of the Security Council, the principles the U.N. espouses at least in words (the Nuremburg principles, opposition to aggressive war, human rights, respect for sovereignty, etc.), combined with the "uncontrollable" voices in the General Assembly and various U.N. committees, is all anathema to the U.S. and its allies, like Israel and neo-con Canada.

One ignores international laws, treaties, protocols, agreements, etc., at one's peril.

Witness the spectacle of Harper desperately trying to dodge the Torturegate bullet.

margot66 wrote:

For all the press buildup and now the raising of the flag, reports of 12 civilians killed by rockets on Feb 14, I can't believe there hasn't been much more bloodshed in the Marjah area. 

Actually there is, and more casualties will be discovered/reported when the fighting dies down.

http://wire.antiwar.com/2010/02/24/afghan-body-counts-28-civilian-deaths...

Touche Remind I can see how that is contradictory.  With just a few minutes let me try and explain what I mean.

The UN has a much wider pool of countries that it draws it's members from.  Yes if the UN needed soldiers from Canada Britian US etc.. we would as I said take off one helmet and put on another. 

The UN also draws on soldiers from non-Nato countiries.  I won't be the one to point out who.. If you want, google the countries in which UN soldiers belonged to that commited the attrocities mentioned above. UN CAN be worse depending on who has the uniform on.

All in all Canada would slide from being Nato to UN but at the same time some other countries which supply soldiers to the UN have in my opnion very poor reputation for professionalisim. Don't take my word for it. Do a search for yourself and see who the culprits are when it comes to UN raping women men children extortion murder etc..Which countries stand out.

 

 

Quote:

Interesting that you seem to see no difference between colonial occupation and peace keeping humanitarian efforts. Perhaps there isn't and the military persons all are just a bunch psychotic whacks, over there getting jollies because doing it here will land them in jail when caught, just like Williams.

Peacekeeping efforts are carried out by the same soldiers who perform colonial occupation remind. "Peacekeeping" isn't an entity to itself, peacekeeping is just one of the jobs soldiers get tasked with performing. That's a big miscommunitation in Canada. "Were not soldiers we're peacekeepers". Peacekeeprs are soldiers trained and brainwahsed to kill regardless what you want to call them. Maybe you're right Remind. Maybe all military persons are as you say psychotic whacks getting jollies killing people over there because doing it here gets them caught. Good call.

Quote:

perhaps if more men thought a bit

Thinking men? never

Dyer usually makes sense.

 

Gwynne Dyer: Afghanistan guerrilla war wiill have a predictable result

"The ability to run away is the essence of the guerrilla," as Mao put it-and that is why the much-ballyhooed "battle" for Marjah and Nad Ali, two small towns in Afghanistan's Helmand province, is irrelevant to the outcome of the war.

Breathless reports of the "battle" by embedded journalists have filled the American and European media for the past two weeks, as if winning it might make a difference. The truth is that some of the local Taliban fighters have been left to sell their lives as dearly as possible, while most have been pulled back or sent home to await recall. "The enemy advances; we retreat."

Mao didn't invent guerrilla warfare; he was merely a very successful practitioner who tried to codify the rules. Afghans don't really need instruction in it, since that has been the hill-tribes' style of warfare since time immemorial.

The only new element in the equation, since the 1940s, is that these wars have almost all ended in victory for the guerrillas.

The Jewish war against British occupation in Palestine in the 1940s; the war against the French in Algeria in the 1950s; the Vietnam war in the 1960s; the Rhodesian war in the 1970s; the victory of the Afghan "mujahedeen" against the Soviet army in the 1980s: in these and several dozen other wars, western armies with all their massive firepower eventually lost to the lightly armed nationalists.

By contrast, the number of times when they won can be counted on the fingers of one badly mutilated hand. By the 1970s, western armies had figured out why they always lost, and began to avoid such struggles-but now, they seem to have forgotten again.

The guerrillas always won, in that era, because the western armies were fighting to retain direct control of Third World countries or impose some puppet regime on them, at a time when the people of those countries had already awakened to nationalism. All the guerrillas had to do was observe the 16-character formula and stay in business.

They could accept a loss ratio of dozens or hundreds dead for each foreign soldier killed, because they had an endless supply of local 18-year-olds eager to join the fight.

Whereas the western armies could not take many casualties or go on fighting for many years, because popular support at home was always fragile.

In the end, the western army could always quit and go home without suffering any especially terrible consequences. The locals did not have that option, since they were already home, so they always had more staying power.

Eventually, pressure at home forced the foreigners to give up and leave-and the Taliban's leaders know that. They watched the Russians leave only 30 years ago.

The current generation of western officers are in denial, as if the past half-century didn't happen. They parrot some of the slogans of the era of guerrilla wars, like the need to win the "hearts and minds" of the population, but it's just empty words. The phrase dates from the Vietnam War, but the tactic didn't work there and it isn't working in Afghanistan.

The plan, in this "offensive" in Helmand province, is to capture the towns ("clear and hold"), and then saturate the area with Afghan troops and police and win the locals' hearts and minds by providing better security and public services. It might work if all the people involved on both sides were bland, interchangeable characters from The Sims, but they are not.

The people of Helmand province are Pashtuns, and the Taliban are almost exclusively a Pashtun organization. The people that the western armies are fighting are local men: few Taliban fighters die more than a day's walk from home. Whereas almost none of the "Afghan" troops and police who are supposed to win local minds and hearts are Pashtuns.

They are mostly Tajiks from the north who speak Dari, not Pashto. (Very few Pashtuns join the Kabul regime's army and police.) Even if these particular Afghan police are better trained and less prone to steal money, do drugs, and rape young men at checkpoints than their colleagues elsewhere, they are unwelcome outsiders in Helmand.

This is just another post-imperial guerrilla war, and it will almost certainly end in the same way as all the others. Thirty years ago, any western military officer could have told you that, but large organizations often forget their own history.

 

http://www.straight.com/article-294905/vancouver/gwynne-dyer-afghanistan...

Afghans To Be Told of Key Offensive

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Afghans+told+offensive/2618524/story.html

"NATO's Canadian-led brigade in Kandahar will soon launch a public information blitz so that civilians will know well in advance about what may be the key offensive of the eight year war..the general predicted there would be a lot of fighting in the coming months.."

get those flags and boxes ready for more cannon fodder

US casualties in OEF have reached 1000.  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/7300536/US-toll-in-Afghanistan-war-reaches-1000.html

Now, back to my musing on frmr's apt description of "Taliban", and eyes to the horizon for how many "Taliban" have died so far in the flag-raising dance etc. in Marjah.

So back to my question.  We heard various degrees of agonizing over civilian deaths, but how many "Taliban" have been killed in the Marjah area.

Maybe it will take months to shake out, as after Op Medusa.  1000-1500 in 2 wk, Sept 06.  After which Route Summit was built.  After which many Canadians have been blown up in one small area right there.  The CBC interactive map of Canadian fatalities, showing earlier part of this, has not been kept up to date, names and pins end July 08.

 http://www.cbc.ca/news/interactives/gmaps/afghanistan/

Military Resistance 8B17-270210

http://williambowles.info/wordpress/2010/02/28/military-resistance-8b17-...

Defectors from Taliban betrayed and abandoned...return to Taliban

Here is a question about the RAWA.

Given the all too probable chance that the Taliban will move in and take power in Afghanistan once NATO leaves, and given the Taliban  history of violence towards women and views on women as human beings- what do you think will happen to the RAWA when the taliban come back?

Will there be violence against them and if so will the private security companies be able to keep the RAWA safe?

Or Will they turn over a new leaf and accept the message the RAWA is spreading and coexist peacefully with them.

remind wrote:

...hmmm funny...you really are sloppy.....so are you snert or p-sto?

As you, as P4, were not in the thread where I mentioned that.

I'm a mixture of them both.  Just the good parts! No I thought you saying that to me remind, sorry for assuming. 

You responded to one of my posts, then I responded to yours then when you responded right after me I assumed I was the person you were speaking to. Little bit of egg on my face eh?

Quote:

Then why are you participating in and upholding a system  that gives every chance of such a thing perhaps happening to your daughter, and which is allowing it to happen to other people's daughters?

What am I participating in?

Quote:

but really all that is pointless, as I should not even bothered to engage you further,  once you indicated your sock puppetry.

PraetorianFour wrote:

FM just because you hate the word Talibal doesn't mean you can just decide it was used wrong. Well you could decide that but based from what?

The Afghans called the Taliban, Taliban. The Taliban call themselves the Taliban.

While some are Pasthun they are also Iranian, Pakistani, Chechynian [I think I spelt that wrong]. Taliban are by no means Pasthun only.

 

There is the Hesb-e-Islami Gulbuddin (Hekmatyar) HIG network.

There is the Haqqani Network.

There is the Afghan farmer who went to the nearest insurgent commander (whatever stripe he may be) and grabbed a Tula Tokarev TT-33, an AK-47 Kalashnikov and an RPG because he is pissed off over the fact that some U.S./NATO/ISAF troops just destroyed his house and killed members of his family. He has no idea what country they came from, so he calls them foreigners. We have no idea what insurgent group he belongs to, so for the sake of simplicity and propaganda, our government and military calls him a "Taliban" or a "terrorist".

The Pashtun are by no means Taliban only either.

Frmr's link above to the g&m led me to a comment with a link to the latest MK Bhadrakumar on pipelines.  Alas, I'd missed it back in January.  Astounding void elsewhere on this.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/LA08Ag01.html