Four Myths About Afghanistan

[robdogbucky]

Amitai EtzioniGWU Professor
Posted: July 19, 2010 12:31 PM

Here follows a list of widely held myths about Afghanistan

1. The number of troops
According to the figures often cited in the media, the number of NATO troops in Afghanistan, most of which are American, is near 100,000. Actually, the number is twice as large, as there are more than 104,000 private contractors in that country who carry out many of the missions the military used to carry out itself.

2. We must cut benefits.
One of the clichés of the day, repeated even by several liberal economists, is that we must cut benefits (such as Medicare and Social Security) in order to reduce the deficit, because that is where the big bucks are. Well, is a trillion dollars big enough? We have already spent some $229 billion in Afghanistan and our commitment to stay the course there is estimated to be at least $1 trillion for the next decade.

3. Our money helps build a new Afghanistan.
For counterinsurgency to succeed, we are told we cannot win militarily; we must win over the hearts and minds of the population. To succeed we need to get them jobs and a decent income, eradicate illiteracy and otherwise build a civil society. Several reports show that corrupt Afghans ferret out so much money that ends up in overseas bank accounts (especially in Dubai) that this outflow exceeds whatever we have given them. (The difference is made up by income from the trade in poppy).

4. We seek to help Afghanistan build a democracy.
Yeah, but only as long as they do what they are told by our emissaries. We played a key role in drafting their constitution. We insisted that the government be a Kabul-centered one, which appoints governors and mayors and allows next to no autonomy in a country in which local bonds are strong and the distrust of the national government runs deep. We regularly seek to manipulate the decisions made by the Afghan government and undermine the peace deal Karzai is trying to work out with the Taliban. No wonder they have no real sense of what democracy is all about.

"You cannot fool all of the people..."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/amitai-etzioni/four-myths-about-afghanis_b_651311.html



Discuss



rdb

[Warpy]

1. Number 3 might be true long term, long after we've left

as the people there remember the one empire that built things instead of just knocking it all down before leaving.

It's a long shot, though.

[Winterblues]

2. "You cannot fool all of the people..."

In America you can indeed fool all the people..

[Blue Owl]

3. A Fifth Myth

Our spending $1+ billion per week there somehow makes us "safe."

When in reality, our chances of being struck by lightning are 25x higher than being killed by an Afghan terrorist.

Talk about a shitload of hokum.

[PDJane]

4. I would also point out that, before the Americans

came in to 'help', the main agricultural exports from Afghanistan were things like wool and pomegranates and olives....not poppy. The poppy came in, as it usually does, with the CIA. I'm also going to point out that the CIA got there, stirring up what is now the Taliban, in order to tempt Russia to invade, in order to engage them in a useless war that would deplete the treasury, NOT after the Russians invaded, as is the current myth.

[bvar22]

5. K&R for the solid truth

Meet Hamid Karzai
or as President Obama calls him, "The Government of Afghanistan".

He was appointed by Bush the Lesser to run Afghanistan.
He is one of the most despicable criminals in The World,
But NOW we like him so much
that our children fighting and dying in the deserts of Afghanistan to keep him in power.

[obxhead]

7. For now anyway.

At one time Saddam was one of our best friends.

So we fight to keep him, then at some future point we'll fight to remove him.

:hurts:

[spanone]

6. #5. there is something to win

[SunnySong]

8. #6 the pain of leaving will be less if we wait, nt

[L0oniX]

9. We are NOT there to build a democracy. That is shear 100% bull shit.

We want a country that we can control. WTF you actually think we care about democracy in other countries? Put down the crack pipe!

[robdogbucky]

10. L0onix, to whom do you direct your comment?

Just checkin'.

Who do you think is smoking crack?

I posted this, an article by a professor, to stimulate discussion. Is your comment directed at his point #4? Prof. Etzioni is hardly sympathetic to our efforts in that regard. I think if you read what he wrote there, he cites that we are not really there to build a democracy. You did read it didn't you? He is being sarcastic with that paragraph's header and that is another of the myths. I think his point is that we really don't care about democracy in other countries. IOW, you and he agree.


Put down that pipe indeed.




rdb

[L0oniX]

11. The one's who think we are spreading freedom and democracy ...on crack.

...and I agree with Prof. Etzioni, Noam Chomsky and others.