WikiLeaks Makes Clear Obama's Bush-Era Scorched Earth Policy
"Barak
Obama's war in Afghanistan is as dirty as that of his predecessor George W.
Bush. Mercenary groups, mass killings of innocent civilians, human rights
violations every day, every hour and in every location … It's as if the Geneva
Convention didn't exist for the armies of the most civilized countries on
earth."
Jalaluddin Haqqani, some time in the 1990s: A Pastun and a fierce leader of the resistance to Soviet occupation, he now leads a pro-Taliban group of fighters that Pakistan would rather talk to than fight.
Spain's troops in Afghanistan
kill fewer bearded and turbaned civilians than our U.S. allies, but on
occasion, when they see two civilian-friends on a motorcycle waiting for a NATO
convoy to pass, even Spain's troops fire first because experience indicates that
the two could be mujahedeen preparing to drop a bomb under the last vehicle - and
it's better to be safe than sorry. It later turns out they were peaceful farmers,
so the detachment's head of civilian relations manages to get in touch with the
families and hands them a fistful of dollars ($12.000 per head) to prevent them
from kicking up a fuss.
The commands of the Spanish
mission in Afghanistan - from the colonel of the legion, Martin Bernardi, up to
his successor in Kala-i-Naw, Luis Martinez Trascasa of the Paratrooper Brigade -
have the financial resources and administrative autonomy to resolve the errors
of soldiers without public disclosure. But they know that the goal of gaining
civilian trust is undermined by the fears and errors of themselves and others, as
is any cooperation or construction of schools, hospitals and infrastructure like
the Lithium
route, a road that links Qala i Naw and Bala Murghab and is essential for
commerce in Badghis Province.
The 91,000 pages of classified
U.S. military material on what's happening in Afghanistan, posted by Wikileaks, emphasize that
Barak Obama's war in Afghanistan is as dirty as that of his predecessor George
W. Bush. Mercenary groups, mass killings of innocent civilians, human rights violations
every day, every hour and in every location … It's as if the Geneva Convention
didn't exist for the armies of the most civilized countries on earth. And that
impacts, discredits and adds risk to the Spanish soldiers who try to be
irreproachable but don't always succeed.
The prime minister, Jose Luis
Rodriguez Zapatero, has yet to fulfill the commitment he made last February
with [opposition leader] Mariano
Rajoy to appear before the full Congress [the Cortes Generales] to
explain the new policy of “Afghanization” advocated by Obama. He was the first
to support and respond positively to General McCrystal's request for a troop surge
in the fall of 2009. Following McCrystal's criticism of Obama in June, the general
was replaced by David Petraues.
In January, to justify the doubling
of Spain's contingent (from 800 to 1,600 troops) it was said that for the past
eight years, Western governments had been “eating soup with a fork,” and that
the Bush strategy had been a disaster, “wasted time,” according to Defense Minister
Carmen Chacon. History was recalled: the military operation to oust the Taliban
from power, eliminate the bases of al-Qaeda, capture Osama bin Laden and Mullah
Omar and build a modern state through a covenant among tribal chiefs became a war
riddled by cruelty: “Guantanamos,” secret prisons inside and outside the
country, bombings and civilian deaths.
Posted
by WORLDMEETS.US
One need only read the
documents posted by Wikileaks to understand that the scorched earth strategy
promoted by Bush has continued under Obama. And what's worse: after the chase, the
Taliban guerrillas have gathered strength in Pakistan and with the support of
other insurgent leaders like the Pashtun, Jalaluddin Haqqani,
and members of the Shura in
Quetta, capital of Baluchistan Province.
The excesses of occupation
troops, the ineptness of incompetent militaries, the incapacity to understand
the mosaic of Afghanistan and the brotherhood among Taliban, Pashtun and other
tribes, as well as the expansionist double game of Pakistan, have highlighted
the failure of Western leaders to resolve the conflict. The documents released
by Wikileaks also reveal that the policy of carrot and stick, to which Spain has
contributed $10 million to reintegrate Taliban, is bearing no fruit. Furthermore,
the training of the troops and police of Hamid Karzai as an essential part of
what's been called the “Afghanization” of Afghanistan has proven
counterproductive without a firm commitment to Pakistan and the Taliban mujahedeen
on the withdrawal of NATO.
And that is Karzai's intention:
He has already begun negotiating with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar,
leader of the Taliban mujahedeen of Hezb-e-Islami, one of the
most important groups of anti-Soviet fighters in the eighties, which the United
States put on its terrorist watch list along with al-Qaeda in 2003. But we
still need to know if Obama supports a negotiation that includes a timetable
for withdrawal, which would diminish his popularity, or if he prefers to
continue a bloody low-intensity conflict that, with the exploitation of
Afghanistan's mineral reserves, could be financially profitable.
Posted
by WORLDMEETS.US
While awaiting Zapatero's
explanation of Spain's position, we can only know that our troops, who were
sent to Afghanistan by Aznar with the support of the Spanish Socialist Workers
Party to fulfill a mission of peace and cooperation, have paid a terrible price:
89 military deaths in accidents and attacks at a cost of over 1.5 billion euros.
But their presence has benefited the poor people of Badghis Province and the
region of Herat.
That is the only defense put
forth by those who supported the occupation and the only relief to those, like
the United Left-Initiative for Catalonia Greens and the Galician Nationalist
Block, which have opposed the mission from the start and have demanded a
timetable for withdrawal, believing as they do that war solves nothing.
