Bill Moyers: What is up with Obama continuing drone bombing in Pakistan?

[Helga Scow Stern]

As happy as we are with our new commander-in-chief, we must be vigilant and raise hell if something stupid, destructive, inhumane, and wrong is being done.

Here are some crude notes taken as I listened to the program:

Guests are Marilyn B. Young, professor of history, NYU, author of Bombing Civilians: A 20th Century History, ; and Pierre Sprey, former Pentagon official, contributor to America's Defense Meltdown: Pentagon Reform for President Obama and the New Congress.

The fact that the bombing is being carried out by unmanned, robotic aircraft, drones, brings extra problems. All the issues of bombing are multiplied with drones. Bombing is always politically popular because none of our own lives are lost as we decimate others. Using drones guarantees even less protest and scrutiny on the homefront. Nobody sees the devastation on the ground, except those hit, and they "turn rigidly hostile to our cause". We are dealing with a society based on honor. The Pashtun, 40 million strong, are an ancient people, spread across Afghanistan and Pakistan, they don't even recognize that border. They have a rigid, admirable code of honor, much stronger than their adherence to Islam. It is a matter of honor to resist being invaded, bombed, occupied, and killed. They are willing to die in unbelievable numbers to do that.

It's clear that the airstrikes are contributing to the destabilization in the region. It's clear that before the bombings, such an organization as the Pakistan Taliban didn't exist.

It doesn't work to first "fix" security, and then establish the government. Never works, and will work even less with the Pashtun.

Banner in Pakistan after Obama's election, Obama's First Gift to Pakistan, a few days after a drone bombing. People in America don't have any sense of how dangerous this is, bombing in these traditional Pashtun areas. We are forcing them to break the pact made that the Pashtuns would be left alone to govern themselves. This is incredibly dangerous, because it is putting Pakistan on the horns of a dilemma. As their crumbling government falls apart, the fact that they are a nuclear-armed country, could bring catastrophe, a nuclear war with India, for instance.

What is Obama doing, talking about respect on Arab TV, and condoning this bombing? Pentagon must have come to him, saying how essential it is to continue the bombing. It's not necessary for Obama to walk into the same trap as LBJ and Vietnam. In the main, the American public intelligent enough to respond, evaluate what is going on.

They'd applaud any senator or congressman who had the guts to say this. Can't deny "war on terror" without risking political disaster.

Their hearts sunk when they heard Obama talking this way in inaugural address.

60 thousand troops in Afghanistan, what Obama has promised, is a recipe for defeat. The Russians, more brutal than we, had 150,000, and they did not succeed. So what the hell is Obama thinking?

They show recording from McNamara, with faulty thinking of bombing Vietnam into submission. The moral dimension of bombing that destroys more civillians than military targets: stupid thinking, that you can destroy enemy morale, and that the bombers would always get through.

Has been proven thumpingly wrong in history, resoundingly to be a faulty military strategy.

Does it seem that Obama believes he can escape the outcome in Afghanistan, that GW Bush did not escape in Iraq?, Moyers asks.

Yes, he does think he can make it happen better, otherwise why has he signed off on drone attacks? No new thinking going on. Surrounded by people who tell him, we just need more troops. People beyond Karzai are much worse.

NYT said Afghanistan could quickly define the Obama presidency. They hope it's not true. Sprey's more pessimistic. He's already committed. Must find incredible political will to reverse course.

Jeez! It reminds me of a dream a friend had before the November election, a stunning dream, where Obama's main message was, We are at war with Afghanistan. And how betraying this felt.

Let's hope this very intelligent man can listen to reason beyond the old broken, dangerous strategies relied upon in this region.

[truebrit71]

1. So what is your solution? Close our eyes and pretend NOT to see the Taliban taking Afghanistan over

..again? Pretend that Al-Q and the Pakistani Taliban in the Tribal Areas are not making serious inroads into Pakistan-proper including multiple terrorist attacks there designed to topple the already weak govt in place there?

Do we just leave and say fuck it, condemning tens of thousands of women and girls to lives of terror and subservience?

None of those are realistic.

We need to increase our physical presence, ramp up the intel gathering and fix the mess we helped create...

[Bigmack]

2. Did you hear Pierre Sprey at all?...

The guys creds are all there, and he says the military solution won't work. The Soviets had 150K troops there and a 40K Afghan army, and they couldn't stop the 'ban.

Dunno what might work, but the guys with all the smarts in the O administration better come up with something better, or, once again, the choppers will be flying our people out of the capitol after the fall.

Oh... and our Intel? It sucks. We have very few people who speak the language, and few who understand the Pashtoon culture.

We have two choices. Lose now or lose bigger later.

[truebrit71]

4. So we just up sticks and leave?

Not an option.

[Bigmack]

11. Then we just prolong the inevitable...

and make the loss even bigger.

It's good you have all the answers. And your answers sound like "more troops" to me.

Leaving is "not an option". What the hell is that about? ... Leaving is always an option.

Notice I did not say just simply leave in my earlier post. All I said was that the military option is a loser.

As non-creative as I am, I can come up with a few possible solutions. None of them are military. How about buying up all the opium they can grow at good prices... make the US the biggest war/drug lord? How about food and clothing bombing runs? How about a clever propaganda campaign aimed at undermining the most dangerous of the opposition leaders (I realize "clever" simply isn't in the playbook for most of the US counterinsurgency establishment, but maybe....)

We simply lack the ruthlessness need to maintain an Empire in a place like that. The Soviets were plenty ruthless, and even they couldn't hold it.

Hell, how about we infect them with the same weird shit that undermines our society.... airdrop DVD players pre-loaded with TV sitcoms and Dukes of Hazzard, and soft-core porn. Get they little minds off Tribal Honor and all that, and get them thinking about nookie... blond nookie, at that! I'm not making light of the problem, just trying to point out that creativity just might work, whereas force definitely won't.

Your opinion, and the opinions of some of the other posters, implies that we have some kind of 21st Century "White Man's Burden".... a duty to free women and bring the dark people into the light of our wonderful Western Civilization.

The idea that the position of women in that culture is lower than that of dogs bothers me terribly, but ultimately we do not have the power to change those 14th century beliefs overnight by bombing the shit out of civilians to clip a few bad guys.

Oh... another reason for ending the present doomed-to-fail clusterfuck over there... The US can no longer afford to spend half our budget on military adventures.

[Orwellian_Ghost]

16. Who's "we?"

Barack Obama is on record as advocating a military escalation in Afghanistan. Before sinking any deeper into that quagmire, we might do well to learn something about recent Afghan history and the role played by the United States.

<snip>

The Holy Crusade for Oil and Gas

While claiming to be fighting terrorism, US leaders have found other compelling but less advertised reasons for plunging deeper into Afghanistan. The Central Asian region is rich in oil and gas reserves. A decade before 9/11, Time magazine (18 March 1991) reported that US policy elites were contemplating a military presence in Central Asia. The discovery of vast oil and gas reserves in Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan provided the lure, while the dissolution of the USSR removed the one major barrier against pursuing an aggressive interventionist policy in that part of the world.

US oil companies acquired the rights to some 75 percent of these new reserves. A major problem was how to transport the oil and gas from the landlocked region. US officials opposed using the Russian pipeline or the most direct route across Iran to the Persian Gulf. Instead, they and the corporate oil contractors explored a number of alternative pipeline routes, across Azerbaijan and Turkey to the Mediterranean or across China to the Pacific.

<snip>

The war against Afghanistan, a battered impoverished country, continues to be portrayed in US official circles as a gallant crusade against terrorism. If it ever was that, it also has been a means to other things: destroying a leftist revolutionary social order, gaining profitable control of one of the last vast untapped reserves of the earth’s dwindling fossil fuel supply, and planting US bases and US military power into still another region of the world.

In the face of all this Obama’s call for “change” rings hollow.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0812/S00106.htm

[bvar22]

22. Why not?

"up sticks and leave" sounds good to me.

There is no specific military objective in Afghanistan.
There is not a clearly defined exit strategy.

Did we learn NOTHING from Vietnam? :shrug:

Did we learn NOTHING from Iraq? :shrug:

Have we learned NOTHING from the long history of this region: :shrug:

Without a specific Military objective, and a clearly defined exit strategy, I cannot support the presence of the US Military in Afghanistan.

If something needs to be done in this area, it is a job for International Law Enforcement, NOT the US Military.

Obama & The Democrats are perilously close to OWNING this War Crime.

[Why Syzygy]

13. I agree.

I don't believe we can *win* against the Taliban. I've read too many insider reports on how they operate. Conventional warfare is futile. What are we even fighting to gain? What do we *win*?

Where is the transparency on this issue? Is it at the .gov site? Where does Obama explain this strategy?

[alohaspirit]

15. Afghanistan is not a country

What everyone is calling "tribes" are nations in the eyes of most of the people who live there-- Afghanistan is an arbitrary collective of ethnic groups pulled together unwillingly under a nation-state. Taliban is simply a word that refers to they who study the Koran devotedly and literally, but it has become an empowered force to reckon with, thanks to our sloppy and deliberate covert activities based on greed, imperial desire, and meddling in others' business. The idea that bombardment from the air somehow extinguishes a people's passion is not only absurd but proven wrong. And the idea that one could ever fight a war on something as vague as "terror" is even more twisted than trying to fight a war on "drugs." Both are poorly-defined concepts, when, in the case of the former GWB was referring actually to resistance fighters who resorted to criminal means like attacking the WTC; or, in the case of Ronald Reagan, when he was actually not referring to drugs themselves but to their channels of distribution and those who abused them.

I am hopeful that Obama has taken a hard line in this regard throughout his campaign in order to convince his critics that he was willing to take a tough Bushlike stance on certain foreign policy initiatives and create a sense of contiguity in the Middle East. But now it's time for him to tack and change course. If the US really does care about the future security of our world, and about the welfare of all human beings--be they "women and girls" or anyone who deserves to live life with dignity and human rights--then what we should be doing instead of dropping bombs is listening to ALL sides, and that means taking a better inventory of who all these sides really are and what they are wanting. I'm sure each side is wanting something very legitimate, very reasonable. Before "death to all Americans" was mouthed, I am sure a US bomb fell somewhere and someone was hurt or killed-- and before that there was probably something much more understandable-- much deeper pain and suffering that was decades, centuries, even millennia old. We are blind to this-- completely ignorant of it in fact. I am disappointed that Obama, with all his education and wisdom, is not more appreciative of this complexity.

We could begin our listening process and our facilitation of peace by helping to convene (but not dominating, or even presiding over!!) a major international peace conference in Central Asia, aimed at letting the different peoples of different nations (and by this I mean the actual ethnic groups throughout and across the false boundaries imposed by various regimes, including our own) voice their own desires and their own hopes for the future. It would only be through this kind of constructive process that we can actually remediate the incredible damage that the Bush administration has done and provide a solid foundation by which we attract less terrorism and anti-US sentiment. What is the point of seeking out bin Laden anyway? He is indeed a criminal mastermind, but what will capturing him do when terrorism is a phenomenon unto itself? To do that would be like trying to capture and quarantine the first person who spawned the HIV virus, as if that would stop the disease from spreading further than it already has. The only way to reverse this process is by fighting fire with water, not fire... disempower this anti-American movement by changing what "America" IS abroad-- show that America is growing up, willing to listen, willing to facilitate dialogue, willing to support human dignity and the lives of civilians who are committed to peace-- not some contrived idea of "liberty" for the few and "democracy" only for those who play by our rules.

[Why Syzygy]

18. Welcome to DU, alohaspirit!

:hi:

That is very important information. We don't get that level of depth to the usual news analysis. I'm sure most of us don't understand that.

If the so-called 'tribes' are "ethnic" groups, does that then mean then that they would prefer to have their own boundaries, with each in a separate area? That is, if you have an opinion or speculation. This is harder for USA citizens to comprehend. We are all different ethnically, spiritually, racially, politically. Even defined by 50 state borders. We hedge together in spite of all the differences. Sometimes much better than at others. I can live in any state without losing my Texan heritage. I know that is an over simplification. The ME has a much more ancient population.

I would be very interested to see what could come out of a discourse such as you describe. Would Iran be part of that? Is your knowledge first hand from the area, or did you come about this knowledge by your study?

Personally, I don't believe the bombings and wars are due to any nebulous "war on terror". That's an faulty construct, agreed. I'm not so sure it's about oil, though it's one aspect.

It wasn't just the Bush administration that contributed to the chaos of the region. As far back as Reagan, at least, American power brokers were handing out weapons and deals at their discretion in the area, building up some nations and denying others. I believe that was very wrong. I wonder now, even, if all the corrupt influence of the Reagan, Bushes, et al, have left the region. Just because he departed the White House, doesn't mean they have ceased their "overseas" operations. It would really complicate matters if our current administration has to deal with power structures that are in place due to prior administrations. Know what I mean? I mean the ones the public never sees.

This is all very fascinating. I hope you continue to contribute on this topic when you can. Your post actually gives me hope because there's an explanation to actions that have not been explained by anyone else. If we spread this information, Obama will know. Enough people will know who will demand a new approach. The Collective Consciousness is very strong at this time in history.
If the old false construct is removed, the old cover lies will no longer hide.

[readmoreoften]

19. Welcome! Please keep posting!

:hi:

[SergeyDovlatov]

3. Hmmm... Are those not standard right wing talking points? n/t

[truebrit71]

5. You haven't forgotten that Pakistan has nukes right? The Taliban is gaining strength and ground...

...in Pakistan as well as Afghanistan...put two and two together...Religious nutters with access to nukes...then EVERYONE gets to have a really bad day...

[SergeyDovlatov]

8. Unless you plan to spread the war to Pakistan

Bombing them only makes Pakistan regime weaker and opposition forces stronger.

What would you think of pres.Obama if he allowed Russia to bomb New England or Texas because some exiled oligarchs were hiding there?

Would you think that repubs would go bonkers and agitate the masses to get rid of the weak president who allowed foreign powers bomb our homeland with impunity.

[defendandprotect]

9. WE armed the religious nutters --- it's a long tradition/pattern . . .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Invasion_of_Afghanistan

under "Soviet Deployment"

-------------------------

WE created the Taliban thru ISI-Pakistan with money passing via CIA to ISI ---

WE went into Afghanistan 6 months before the Russians came in . . .

in order to BAIT the Russians into Afghanistan . . . "in hopes of giving them a

Vietnam type experience." That's according to the Carter Administration as told by

Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carter's National Security Advisor.

QUOTE --

The CIA's Intervention in Afghanistan
Interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski,
President Jimmy Carter's National Security Adviser

Le Nouvel Observateur, Paris, 15-21 January 1998

Question: The former director of the CIA, Robert Gates, stated in his memoirs <"From the Shadows">, that American intelligence services began to aid the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan 6 months before the Soviet intervention. In this period you were the national security adviser to President Carter. You therefore played a role in this affair. Is that correct?

Brzezinski: Yes. According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.

Q: Despite this risk, you were an advocate of this covert action. But perhaps you yourself desired this Soviet entry into war and looked to provoke it?

B: It isn't quite that. We didn't push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.

Q: When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting that they intended to fight against a secret involvement of the United States in Afghanistan, people didn't believe them. However, there was a basis of truth. You don't regret anything today?

Q: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter. We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.

Q: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic fundamentalism, having given arms and advice to future terrorists?

Q: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?

http://www.takeoverworld.info/brzezinski_interview_shor...

[defendandprotect]

7. WE created the Taliban/Al Qaeda -- there is no war on terrorism . . .

there is the desire for OIL and Heroin to sell ---

Women and girls are living more in terror now in Afghanistan and Iraq than ever before!

Yes -- we need to leave both Afghanistan and Iraq ---

The British lost to Afghanistanis, the Russians lost to Afghanistanis ---

and we need to go home.

We also lost to Vietnamese . . . and we survived!!!

[snake in the grass]

12. To your questions.

"So what is your solution? Close our eyes and pretend NOT to see the Taliban taking Afghanistan over again? Pretend that Al-Q and the Pakistani Taliban in the Tribal Areas are not making serious inroads into Pakistan-proper including multiple terrorist attacks there designed to topple the already weak govt in place there?

Do we just leave and say fuck it, condemning tens of thousands of women and girls to lives of terror and subservience?"



As much as it saddens me and as painful as it is to accept, we must do exactly that. From Alexander the Great and Genghis Kahn to the British, the Soviets, and now the U.S. no one could conquer Afghanistan. Their tribal way of thinking goes way back to before this country even existed and is totally alien to us, as is our way of thinking to them. Any attempt to go in there and change them will only stoke their hatred at perceived colonialism. We are not the World Police and it is not our place to interfere. We have done enough damage as it is, albeit with good intentions for the most part. Iran was on the verge of making a giant leap towards opening their society until Dim Son decided to label them part of the axis of evil. That gave the fanatics their opening. Do we want the same in Afghanistan? Pakistan?

We either leave now or leave later; the difference being we will have lost more lives and gained more shame if we wait. I'd like to see a type of underground railroad formed to smuggle out the women. In the end, when there is nothing but men there they will recognize that they have a problem. Or perhaps not, and they will be swept away into the dustbin of history as a non-viable societal form. In any case, you and I will not be around when that area is finally pacified, except, of course, if we commit outright genocide, but that is indeed not realistic.

[eridani]

20. We've condemned thousands of women and girls in Saudi Arabia to terror and subservience

But the Bush family and oil companies have deals with them, so that's just fine. Not to mention which, none of the 9-11 hijackers were from Afganistan; 19 were Saudi. Before our elite rulers decided to use religious fundy whackjobs in Afghanistan as cat's paws against the Soviets, the Islam practiced in Afghanistan was heavily influenced by Sufism. The Sufi saint and great poet Rumi was from Afghanistan, among many others.

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I will meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about
language, ideas, even the phrase "each other"
doesn't make any sense.

That doesn't sound very fundy to me at all.

The vicious Wahabism of the Taliban is a Saudi import, paid for by Saudis, the Pakistani ISI and the US. An American university was commissioned to write pro jihadi textbooks for the cause. We created the mess there by imperially dominating them, and will not undo it by more of the same. The Taliban were only driven out of population centers by US support of the Northern Alliance, a grouping of warlords (formerly allied with the pro-Soviet government) only slightly less puritanical and a lot more corrupt than the Taliban.

Spare us this nonsense about saving women--the imperial power has only switched sides for its own interests, not for those of its victims. And remember that Oceania has never been at war with Eurasia; it has always been at war with Eastasia. Eurasia is the noble ally.

[defendandprotect]

6. It took Ike and JFK both some time to figure out they were being betrayed. . ..

Obama might know some history on that ---

the MIC is getting overweight and it might be easier to topple it ==??

Let's hope they can't push him around . . . ????

[Name removed]

10. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Why Syzygy]

14. Afghan allies? Are you serious?

Not a chance! There are one or two Bush puppet types. Nothing more than that. How do you think they would survive?

btw, it's not very net friendly to post information that you had to look for openly without permission. If not outright against DU rules.

[ProgressIn2008]

17. You know, if "something stupid, destructive, inhumane, and wrong is being done"

I will not be happy.

Thank you for reporting on this story.

[ConsAreLiars]

21. There are a lot of insightful (not knee-jerk) comments on this thread.

On the Moyers program Pierre Sprey stated a bit about what almost everyone knows and a bit about what very few understand:

“What happens on the ground is for every one of those impacts you get five or ten times as many recruits for the Taliban as you've eliminated. The people that we’re trying to convince to become adherents to our cause have become rigidly hostile to our cause in part because of bombing and in part because of other killing of civilians from ground forces. We’re dealing with a society that’s based on honor... They have to resist being invaded, occupied, bombed and killed. It’s a matter of honor, and they’re willing to die in unbelievable numbers to do that.”

The honor part is something few of us in a mercantile society get, but understanding it would have made getting bin Laden handed over 7 years ago doable (if that had been the goal), and is the only basis for achieving any agreement and an an "honorable" (for us) withdrawal (if that is the goal), and lessening the brutality and suffering caused by the actions of the invaders.

(And a shout out to alohaspirit. Welcome!)

Edit to add the link: http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/blog/2009/01/is_a_military_strategy_the_bes.html