by Butler Shaffer

For might makes right,
And till they’ve seen the light,
They’ve got to be protected,
All their rights respected,
Till somebody we like can be elected.

~ Tom Lehrer
(Lyrics from his “Send the Marines“)

“Democracy” is a central part of the mantra by which the modern political establishment continues to exercise the same monopoly on the use of violence that was enjoyed by earlier monarchs and warlords. The rationale for the political domination of the more numerous by the few has morphed from “divine right of kings” to “democracy,” each serving, during its time, to convince people of the propriety of their subservience to power. There have been many definitions of “democracy” – none more to the point than those offered by the likes of H.L. Mencken and Ambrose Bierce. My own definition is that “democracy is the illusion that my wife and I, combined, have twice the political influence of David Rockefeller.”

This concept has been used to camouflage the violation of the values and principles upon which democratic societies are allegedly based: the protection of life, liberty, and property; respect for human rights; and the belief that the state should represent and be controlled by the general population rather than by privileged elites. From at least the time of Woodrow Wilson’s warmongering to “make the world safe for democracy,” to current efforts to “make the world safe for democracy,” most Americans have accepted this state of perpetual war as one whose totality of costs could be measured solely in dollars and the lives of American soldiers. It was not until 9/11 that American civil society was on the receiving end of what Lord Byron called “the feast of vultures, and the waste of life”; an experience that most thought was supposed to be confined to other people in other lands.

As growing numbers of thoughtful Americans begin to question the war system – and the thinking that makes it possible – it is timely to consider how the imposition of “democracy” through “shock-and-awe” bombing raids, the massive destruction of homes, and the slaughter of members of the electorate is having on its “let’s pretend” beneficiaries. Whatever one’s opinions about the virtues of democratic systems, or of the self-contradictory efforts to prescribe them through warfare and conquest, reason demands that careful attention be paid to the views of those being made subject thereto. To this end, a “Statement of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (Taliban): Regarding the Runoff Elections” in that country has been obtained and made public by the NEFA Foundation. The statement was issued on October 25, 2009, and its translation is reproduced here in its entirety.

“For the past eight years, the sole invaders of the world have embarked on an ambitious road aimed at slapping an illegitimate rule on the Afghan people and mobilizing views of the public of the world in their own favor. They are trying to trouble the water and then fish in it. Time and again, they resort to staging parodies under the name of Loya Jirga and elections in order to distract the attention of the people from their unlawful invasion and confound the mind of the public. But still, these wicked maneuverings have not availed them [of the] capability to achieve their evil goals, nor they have been able to divert the attention of the people from their invasion. Contrarily, their conspiracies and collusion have been exposed and lost their credibility in the sight of the masses.”

“Some time ago, the invaders conducted presidential and provincial council elections concurrently in order to legitimize their handpicked regime. But the elections revealed flagrant fraud in addition to bring to [the] open the fact that the invaders’ conspiracies have lost their flagrance. The invaders realized that our people not only boycott the elections and avoided going to the polling stations but also took part shoulder to shoulder with Mujahideen to neutralize the fraudulent plots of the enemy. It was because of their efforts, that the enemy achieved nothing from staging the elections drama.”

“At…[the international] level, every one knows the elections were no more than an eyewash. The elections substantiated the well-known quotes of our leader who had said one year ago that the real decision was taken in Washington. It is never taken on the basis of the votes of the Afghans. The enemy is trying to prolong the drama which is now…in full swing. Therefore, they have decided to conduct the election once again and keep the attention of our countrymen and the public of the world diverted in order to hide their defeat…[on] the…[battle] field.”

“The Afghans know why the elections are being held and what for? And what will be its certain outcome. The Afghans also know that the format of the current elections will not be different from the past elections. Furthermore, the Afghan nation has been witnessing the shameful posturing and political collusions. The clandestine motives behind the announcement for the runoff could be understood from the suffocated voice and the pale countenance of the besieged miserable president! The people witnessed…how powerless and incapable was the Independent Commission of Elections and how far the ICE is under the influence of the Complaint Commission whose majority members are foreign nationals. Even the Independent Election Commission is not authorized to make any announcement or issue any statement without prior permission of the Complaint Commission. The people also know that the election drama, which is now being played with a new episode as a soap opera, in fact, panders to the invaders’ ambitions and goals. What could be expected of this election for the benefit of the country and our miserable people?”

“The public of the world like the Afghans have reached the conclusion that the miserable people of Afghanistan are hostage in the hands of the global terrorists under the leadership of America whereas the Kabul surrogate Administration is entangled in the claws of the invaders. Through coercion and manipulation, they want to impose on the Afghans a regime, which is only palatable to the invaders. But our brave nation will never stoop to this.”

“The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan deems it necessary to announce the following points to the pious people and the believing Mujahideen regarding the second round of the devious conspiracy of the invaders.”

“1. The Islamic Emirate announces to all countrymen to avoid participating in the deceitful and foreign-made electoral process. On the command of your belief and the Afghan conscience, you should completely boycott the elections on the basis of the rule of Sharia.”

“2. All Mujahideen should make efforts to foil this wicked process; should carry out operations against their centers; prevent people from participating in the elections and block all roads and paths for all public and government vehicles one day before the day of the polling and inform people about this. Similarly, with the help of religious scholars, clerics and elders, educate people about the clandestine motives behind the elections. Create awareness among people regarding the conspiracies of the enemy.”

“3. The Mujahideen of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan have worked out programs to foil and prevent this process. They closely monitor all workers, officials and voters including other related programs hammered out in this regard. Every one is responsible for the harm he sustains as a result of his participation in the elections. The Mujahideen have repeatedly warned the people and announced their program of action.”

“4. All Mujahideen and their local chief are instructed to execute their plans against the enemy. They should put to use new experiences and the action program now at the disposal of the provincial leaders. This is in addition to the previous tactics, which were utilized in the past. Similarly, they should foil the last conspiracy of the enemies of the country and Islam.”

“5. We know the enemy is not able to make the elections successful. So they will try to make exaggerations about this empty and failed process of the elections by using the mass media through coercion and bribes. They will falsely show that the election was successful. Therefore, we call on all impartial and independent media outlets to abide by the timeless rule of journalism and do not tarnish your reputation by partial reporting but rather fulfill the rightful mission in the best way it can be done.”

Environmental Graffiti

War in Afghanistan and Pakistan –

The United States wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have proven to be beyond stupid and cruel. The motives behind each war have been clear for some time. Iraq may possess the largest oil reserves on the planet after Saudi Arabia. Afghanistan must be a key player in a long planned, complex Central Asian pipeline network for oil and natural gas as well. The massive oil corporations fully intend to extend the Age of Oil as long as possible, regardless of the consequences to the planet’s economy and ecology. Talk aside, we see nothing but cooperation and collaboration from the major sovereign states of the world for whom the question is not ‘If’ but ‘How’.

X-47B UCAS in flight
Artist - Northrup Grumman

Is there any success to report after eight years into the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?If you believe that the Age of Oil must be continued at any cost, then stability in northern Iraq where Kurds control vast oil reserves is important. The Kurds view the United States as an ally and sympathetic to their cause of a semi-autonomous province within Iraq. The Kurdish independent movement believes in a greater Kurdistan nation that draws upon territory in Iraq, Turkey and elsewhere.

USA oil companies have been in the northern Kurdistan provinces of Iraq for some time, attempting to lock down major oil deals. The new Iraqi government is now soliciting bids for the development of several major oil fields, and the United States is not given a preferred position. The chaos in Afghanistan has prevented potential energy resources from being adequately mapped and described. Although rarely mentioned in the press, American interest in Iran may stem from that country’s possession of at least 10% of the world’s proven oil reserves, and huge proven gas reserves that are the second largest on the planet next to those in Russia – see Source #11.

Pipelineistan –

Kazakhstan / Russia / North Caspian Oil and Gas
Map - Department of Energy / United States government

The strategic value of Afghanistan to the United States and NATO remains its central position within Pipelineistan, a gigantic, complex oil and gas pipeline project that would traverse Central Asia. Pipelineistan requires the participation of Kazakhstan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, India, Turkey, Turkmenistan, China, Russia, and Armenia. Located on the other side of the world, the United States is nonetheless determined to be sitting at the table. China, Russia and Iran envisage a new Silk Road that transports oil and gas extending from the Caspian Sea to Xinjiang Province in China’s far west.

Kazakhstan to China / Proposed Oil Pipelines
Map - Department of Energy / United States government

The United States counters with the Albanian Macedonian Bulgarian Oil Corporation and the Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline. At the end of the day, it has to come down to which routes are chosen to bring Kazakhstan’s enormous oil reserves to market after production starts in 2013. Whoever controls Pipelineistan may well control the world’s strategic energy supplies for the remainder of this century. See the important analysis of Central Asian pipelines and oil wars by award winning international journalist Pepe Escobar in Source #12. Yes, Virginia, Black Gold still rules and this is why the “Bull in the China Shop ( re United States) cannot afford to leave Afghanistan, nor give up control over Pakistan’s military policy.

B-1 Lancer bomber over Afghanistan
Photo - Master Sergeant Andrew Dunaway / USAF

“Full Spectrum Dominance” Falls on Its Face –

Attempts to redefine reality to suit USA objectives have met with little success because the fundamentals are well known and not overly complicated. The Taliban is not Al Qaeda, has not fused with AQ and has a very different and locally focused agenda – takeover over the Afghanistan government. The Taliban are not a global terrorist organization, and have no plans to become one. To the extent that Taliban controlled territories are made available to Al Qaeda for base of operations, the United States has only itself to blame.

Are Drone attacks justified? This is an interview in the United States at Fora TV with Hamid Mir, a prominent Pakistani journalist who was the only journalist able to interview Osama bin Laden after 9/11. Drone missions are far less costly than military aviation sorties that require a human pilot and crew.

Military operations brought to Afghanistan, and forced upon Pakistan amidst the AfPAK War, have created a new huge refugee problem in the northwest provinces of Pakistan. These refugees hate the United States because of the civilian casualties caused by the drone missions. To continue to talk about “winning hearts and minds” in Afghan and Pakistan villages is ludicrous. The score card of terrorist leaders killed is beside the point because there is an endless supply of good candidates ready to fill vacant leadership positions as the past eight years has demonstrated.

MQ-9 Reaper drone in flight
Photo - Lt. Colonel Leslie Pratt / USAF

Propaganda about the birth of ‘fledging democracies’ would be laughable, if the human costs were not so severe. Sectarian Sunni-Shi’ite warfare in several disguises continues in Iraq. There are political analysts who believe that Iraq is the most politically corrupt state of all. Afghanistan remains as it has always been, a tribal federation where alliances shift and move in complex patterns yet to be understood in the West, and it remains the premier narco state on the planet. The United States is now deeply enmeshed in a plot to remove Hamid Karzai from office as the President of Afghanistan. His opponent in the recently held corrupt elections is believed to be more easily manipulated by American interests. So much for genuine ‘fledgling democracy’; the energy stakes are much too high for that.

The human cost in civilian casualties and social/cultural destruction in Afghanistan, and now Pakistan, is well known, thoroughly documented and apparently of little concern to those obsessed with ‘full spectrum dominance’. Tons of verbiage attempting to convince the world otherwise have accomplished little except to lower America’s integrity and trust index to near zero After eight years of these two wars, USA prestige and influence in the world has reached a new low point.

Trillion Dollar Bill
Graphic Art - methodshop

The National Priorities Project / Cost of War Counters Trade-Off –

As always, the Bottom Line is Money. There are a number of cost of war counters on the web, but a new web site has developed an exceptional presentation. TheNational Priorities Project mission is to analyze “complex federal spending data and translate it into easy-to-understand information about how [United States] federal tax dollars are spent.”

The National Priorities web site is an education for the world, not just American voters. The expected running tally, cost-of-war counter is present. In addition, there are separate Cost of War in Afghanistan and Cost of War in Iraq counters. The visitor can choose a specific defense program and home state, and the counter will calculate what non defense programs could have been funded in that state if the chosen defense program were not funded. These counters are the bottom line look at an oft discussed topic, ‘what would we get if this or that defense program was not funded?’

Military Cost to Secure_Energy FY2009 / HI
Chart - National Priority Project

For those with blogs or web sites, National Priority makes available free code snippets so you can place these calculators on your page. This is a great site with superb calculators. Spend some time at National Priority Project and think again about where America is taking the world.

Disclaimer: The author of this post has no professional relationship with the National Priorities Project.

Sources -

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. 11, 12

by Karen Kwiatkowski

Eight years ago, the public objective was to displace the Taliban and create a non-al-Qaeda supporting “democracy” in Afghanistan.

For a moment, leave aside Washington’s more fundamental objectives in the military invasion of Afghanistan and the subsequent base-building – security for the trans-Afghanistan pipeline project, restoring the opium exports that had finally subsided under Taliban enforcement by early 2001, and improved military positions vis-à-vis Iran, Pakistan and Russia. The fossil fuel manipulations, drug money and maintaining a justification for our outsized military-industrial complex are not the topics here.

The Taliban, while initially displaced from Kabul, are regaining some political influence. We may claim “mission accomplished” because they are competing for influence in an Afghanistan that has other comparable politicized ethnicities – and the Taliban no longer receive significant support from al Qaeda or Osama bin Laden.

Osama who?

Yes, that’s what we are saying.

Afghans were infuriated, not just at this past summer’s flawed and corrupted election, but also at the previous elections that confirmed US satrap Hamid Karzai. Afghans have international support for their case against the US-manipulated election – and we should take the anger of Afghans as confirmation of our success in creating a democratic mindset there.

Afghans also understand some of the basics that our own founders and early Presidents grasped, and not just the successful use of insurgency tactics against a far better equipped and funded occupying army that wants to economically exploit and civilize them.

In a recent report on the morale troubles of our Marines in the agricultural Helmand region, reporters “…talked to the grey-bearded men in the village… Asked if they wanted a school or more doctors, all said such questions were a matter for those who own the fields.”

A matter for those who owned the fields. In a nutshell, it is clear that these Afghans get it. Government, and collectively provided services and polices, should be by the people, of the people and for the people.

Of course, a few sentences later villagers in Helmand were surprised to hear of a new round of planned elections to be held. A villager is quoted “We never even heard of elections. If we had, I suppose we might have voted.”

While some may have missed the recent election, we may still consider our public mission accomplished. Not only do Afghans understand how democracies should work, they appear to be ready and willing to participate in that iconic process of ballot-casting.

What more could we ask? The deed is done. Afghanistan is a success by our own standards, and while our public claims of a righteous invasion still sustainable.

Obama is right to wait until after popular resolution of Kabul’s leadership before adding even more troops, as is NATO. Had Afghanistan’s summer presidential election been fair, our satrap Karzai would not be in charge, and the Kabul government would already be purged (perhaps viciously) of US-linked politicos and appointees. The run-off, if conducted fairly, will contribute to the continued and irreversible reduction of US credibility. President Obama should assess this much as he would a Chicago election – and get out of Afghanistan while we can still claim a positive influence.

There is a reason the generals are not in charge of our country – by design, anyway. The Gates’ and McCrystals of the world are the real barbarians, personally and professionally locked on a treadmill that demands ever more blood and more glory, at any cost. With the publicly accepted mission in Afghanistan accomplished, Americans cannot afford to entertain the vain fantasies of flag officers who fear nothing but their own oblivion, and will sacrifice any number of lives and all measures of treasure in pursuit of personal relevance.

Thinking people everywhere see our Afghanistan experience as a crash of 20th-century American empire on the 21st-century rocks of reality. The contraction of our empire – happening today in monetary as well as military terms – is at least a full generation overdue. The false sustenance of a financial bubble corresponds with the failing sustenance of military empire. Our children are the first generation who are not citizens, but Caesar’s slaves, bound to a life of fear and labor, made bearable only by their inchoate dreams of freedom. The military-industrial complex, a benign tumor in the days of Eisenhower, has metastasized to the extent that generals run Washington and the fourth estate exists solely to serve the imperial machine.

Obama has a small window of opportunity to declare victory and take a step towards retroactively earning his Nobel peace prize. Afghanistan no longer threatens us, and they’d like their country back.

by Fred, Son of Tzu

In Afghanistan, why, you might ask, is the world’s hugest, expensivest, most begadgeted military unable to defeat a few thousand angry tribesmen armed with AKs and RPGs?

Easy: Character. The men running the war are mentally the wrong ones to do it.

Think about this for a moment. Suppose that your boss at the lab or law firm or newsroom demanded that, when he entered the room, you leapt spasmodically to your feet, stood rigidly erect with your feet at a forty-five degree angle like a congenitally deformed duck, and stared straight ahead until he gave you permission to relax. You would think, correctly, that he was crazy as a bedbug. If he then required reporters to stand in a square so he could inspect their belt buckles, you would either figure he was a gay blade or call for a struggle buggy and some big orderlies. This weird posturing is not normal, nor are those it appeals to.

Suppose you showed up for freshman orientation at Princeton and your professors bellowed at the tops of their voices, three inches from your face, “Your shoes ain’t shined good, puke. Get down and give me fifty.” (Pushups, that is, which in the military doesn’t mean the better sort of bra.) You would decide that the loon had lost whatever mind he had ever had, and call Domino’s for a cheese pizza, double Haldol.

Should you be so unwary as to suggest the foregoing in print, the response will usually be that militaries need discipline. True, and so do newspapers. However, there is a distinction between discipline and ritualized lunacy. At every publication for which I have worked, the editor was clearly and absolutely in charge. Yet I, seldom senior, could say, “Yeah, Wes, but if we do that, won’t thus-and-so bad thing happen?” His decision was law, but he was happy to hear from subordinates, who might know something he didn’t. Editors do not require vaguely sadomasochistic submissiveness.

This hoopla is not of use in combat. The Taliban seem to be doing rather well. Do you suppose their commanders check their beds to be sure that a quarter will bounce from their blankets?

Now, what kind of kid wants to go for robot training at West Point or boat school at Annapolis? Statistically these kids are bright, gregarious, “motivated” (a favorite military word), athletic, perhaps Eagle Scouts. Psychologically they want (need?) to live under a regime of rigid conformity and obedience that would appear as absurd as it is if we were not accustomed seeing it among soldiers. That is, they are autoselected not to think for themselves or question decisions from above. They are exactly what universities exist not to produce.

The service academies reinforce these unfortunate characteristics. Their schooling consists of four years of learning what to think, not how to think. There are hours of running in formation (“If I die on the Russian front….”), close-order drill, manual of arms (“Hen-spection…harms!”). Why? There is no military value in being able to shift your rifle from shoulder to shoulder crisply. Like the endless inspections of everything, all of this participation in the hive inculcates groupishness and a curious sense of safety in conformity.

The effects are remarkable and, from a standpoint of civilization, undesirable. Large authoritarian organizations make easier the compartmentalization of morality. A colonel typically will be a good neighbor, civic-minded, responsible, unlikely to steal your silverware or kick your dog. If the Pentagon tells him to bomb a city he has never heard of and has no reason to bomb, killing people who pose no threat to him, he will. He feels no individual responsibility for atrocious behavior ordered from above. “I vas only followink orders,” the Nuremberg defense, is the bedrock of military ethics, if any.

Men trained in conformist obedience can work marvels. They just don’t care whether the marvel is good or evil. If you need to handle some vast natural disaster, call on the military. They have the manpower, the aircraft, the medics, the co-operation to get things done now. They will stay on their feet for forty-eight hours without sleep. They take the “mission” (another favorite military word) seriously.

What they do not do particularly well is wage war. Why? Because they have in their minds a view of war that is partly that of offensive linemen—you close with the enemy and destroy him—and partly martial romanticism. They speak of duty, honor, country, bravery, fallen comrades, proving oneself. Military history is rife with silly pageantry, nobility of spirit, glorious charges, and impracticality. Having been trained to think rigidly, they do.

Before Agincourt, there were things the French might profitably have learned about long bows, but didn’t bother because chivalry didn’t concern itself with peasants. It was the glory of the thing, not whether they were committing suicide. English generals killed 20,000 young Brits in one day at the Somme; they hadn’t compared the ideas in their heads with then-current military reality (such as that infantry charges over long distances against massed machine guns, artillery, and barbed wire are not especially productive, unless you manufacture embalming fluid.) Authoritarian group-think, love of ritual, romanticism, inattention: not a happy brew.

Further, military service encourages an often-catastrophic sense of masculine potency. Running in formation with fifty other men (“lef-rye-lef-rye-lef-rye-layeff….”) or watching a fighter cat-shot from a carrier deck—the thrill is gonadal, appealing to something deep in the male psyche, a challenge flung at life. It is wonderful, but not a sound basis for judgement.

A consequence is a tendency for militaries of the First World to gravely overestimate themselves, and thus underestimate their enemies. This is why they usually expect wars to be far shorter and cheaper than they turn out to be. As recent examples, the French did not expect those slanty-eyed little zipperheads (les jaunes) to win in Viet Nam, nor did the Pentagon have any idea they the US could possibly lose 60,000 dead and the war in that country, Iraq would be a cakewalk, and those louse-infested towel-heads in Afghanistan had no hope against American swoosh-kerpows. The US military in particular has a compulsory can-do attitude, with slogans like “The difficult we can do today, the impossible takes a bit longer.” This substitution of morale for comprehension is regularly disastrous.

Having no idea what they are getting into is almost doctrine among professional officers. A major does not become a colonel by saying, “General, the French didn’t do all that well at Dien Bien Phu. Maybe we ought to, you know, do something else. We could invade Vanuatu.”

America’s problem is not that its generals prepare for the last war, but that they don’t prepare for it, and then fight it again the same way.

by Michael Gaddy

We can all look back at the wonderful decision that was made to send more troops to Korea. If we had not, we could have been bogged down in a quagmire there that would have required 50 plus years of American lives, involvement and money. What a wonderful decision it was to send more troops to Vietnam. If we had not, we could have lost over 58,000 soldier’s lives; killed millions of Vietnamese soldiers and civilians and been forced to flee the country with our tails between our legs, deserting our allies to the horrors of communist retribution. Good thing our wonderful leaders had the wisdom and courage to send “more troops.” Now we are forced with the same dilemma; send more troops or face military defeat.

The question is: why are we in Afghanistan in the first place? Now that time has erased the emotions of retaliation for the events of 9/11 and our country elected a new leader who campaigned on the principle of bringing an end to our involvement in these costly wars, why the call for more troops? Could it be we are again simply following the dictates of the power cabal as Major General Smedley Darlington Butler so eloquently outlined in his outstanding work, War is a Racket?

Anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of our quest for empire over the past six decades realizes that Obama’s contemplation of whether to send additional troops to Afghanistan is simply those who control him providing Obama with the opportunity to look “presidential.” The decision to send additional troops was reached prior to the situational comedy of General McChrystal’s leaked “confidential report” to the Washington Post and Obama’s National Security Advisor’s public admonishment of McChrystal’s failure to follow the chain of command. All of this is nothing but a well-rehearsed, though poorly camouflaged hoax. Additional troops will be sent to Afghanistan within a very short period of time and Obama really has no say in the matter. The question is: why?

Could it be the US-installed puppet government in Afghanistan has new suitors who represent a very real threat to the United State’s control of Afghanistan and her abundant natural resources? Is the entry of Russia and Chinese influence into Afghanistan the real reason for the need for more troops? Russia reportedly made its entry back in 2007 with the reopening of its embassy in Kabul. The Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Ivanov, met privately with President Karzai and offered military assistance through the Collective Security Treaty Organization. (CSTO) The CSTO is made up of Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Russia is the driving force in this organization, as one might understand, due to the economic and military weakness of the other members. There were meetings with CSTO delegation in Kabul and neither the US nor the UK were invited. Were the US/UK coalition (NATO) allowed to solidify its position in Afghanistan, it would create a territorial split between Russia, China and Iran. Russia will do whatever is necessary to prevent this growth of power and influence in the region, I believe.

Moscow is certainly concerned with the Pentagon’s plan to deploy Special Operations forces into the Central Asian States to conduct “foreign internal defense missions.” This translates into increasing military activity, which is better known as the “spreading of democracy,” by military force.

NATO, following the CFR-introduced agenda, is campaigning for increased cooperation with Moscow in the region to “facilitate the fading of Russia’s lingering imperial ambitions.” These are the words of Zbigniew Brzezinski, author of the NATO report. Surely, Putin will see through this smokescreen.

Russia has also cancelled all of Afghanistan’s Soviet-era debts and is moving to help Kabul rebuild the Afghan infrastructure. The increase of trade between Afghanistan and Russia, which was at the $190 million mark in 2008, is also a move to create a vision of Russia as an ally to the people of Afghanistan with the US and NATO appearing as the foreign invader.

What has prompted the governments in Moscow and Beijing to converge with the forces of NATO in Afghanistan? Is it purely a protectionist strategy or are those governments there for the same reason we initiated the war in 2001: an abundance of natural resources?

China has made its moves to secure as many of the natural resources located in Afghanistan as it can. Almost one year ago, in November of 2008, China, acting through the China Metallurgical Group Corporation and the Jiangxi Copper Company, secured the Aynak Copper Mine in Logar Province. This copper mine is reported to be the largest in the world and has been basically inoperative since the Soviet Invasion in 1979. China has agreed to a 2.9-billion dollar investment in the infrastructure of the area including a power plant and possible railroad into Pakistan. If I were an Afghan citizen, whom would I support in my country, a nation that is actually contributing to a better life or one that is indiscriminately bombing my fellow citizens?

Now, when it appears our puppet Karzai may have been influenced by a better offer from Russia, China, or both, the Obama administration, strongly supported by the neocons, is seeking to perhaps replace Karzai with a new election, suddenly proclaiming the election the US just supervised to have been corrupt. Members of both political/criminal parties now openly support the war in Afghanistan as being necessary to our national defense, with the question being, not, do we send more troops to Afghanistan to bleed and die for oil and minerals, but how many? I’m sure our influence in NATO will bring about the necessary conclusions in order to facilitate our attempt to replace our own political puppet. Karzai has obviously jumped the traces of US control by participating in meetings outside of the US political purview with China, Russia and even in this agreement, which included Iran and Pakistan. The construction of this pipeline was due to start last month. Russia and China see this new pipeline as crucial to their retention of power in the region and will make the necessary military movements to insure their investments.

Financially crippled due to our continued wars for empire and the printing of billions of new dollars to repay political cronies in the financial world has left us in a precarious position in Afghanistan. We will try to counter the financial prowess of China, to whom we owe billions and their military ties to Russia with the blood and lives of tens of thousands of new US military forces. When China calls in our financial markers, and they will if challenged, what will become of our country? We are about to escalate a war we cannot win. How long will it be before Americans care more for the lives of their children than they do for the state and refuse to participate in the madness?