"Dangerously Unreliable" in Afghanistan

Suddenly everybody is noticing the violence in Afghanistan.

It's about time.

In the wake of the Koran-burning incident, Americans have been shocked -- SHOCKED -- to discover that tensions are running high in Kabul.

"Where's my home?"
After a U.S. Predator Hellfire missile attack in Afghanistan
( Photo from Out of Central Asia Now website ) 

This statement in the New York Times coverage of the latest incident in Afghanistan caught my eye:

Despite an American-led training effort that has spanned years and cost tens of billions of dollars, the Afghan security forces are still widely seen as riddled with dangerously unreliable soldiers and police officers. The distrust has only deepened as a pattern of attacks by Afghan security forces on American and NATO service members, beginning years ago, has drastically worsened over the past few days.

Wait a minute: so the problem is that it is the Afghans who are "dangerous"? And "unreliable"? What has the US and NATO submitted Afghanistan to for the last DECADE?

This reminds me of the article I previously critiqued, which suggests that it is everybody ELSE's nuclear weapons that are threatening, while the U.S. is treated as a benign presence (!) .

Let's face it: the U.S. and NATO are running for the exits in Afghanistan. I won't even belabor the point here about how DANGEROUS and DESTABILIZING the combat presence in Afghanistan has been. So let's just focus on the additional work -- beyond just removing combat troops -- that the U.S. and NATO need to do. Stop for a moment to consider the full range of actions that must be taken in order to DEMILITARIZE Afghanistan ... and to remove the DANGER and INSTABILITY that has been introduced by the U.S. and NATO!


Related posts

Is the School of the Americas (SOA) model now being transferred to Afghanistan? The SOA model is to use U.S. money and ideas to enable power holders in another country to persecute and kill ideological enemies, while denying that the U.S. is engaging in violence in that country, much less exposing U.S. combat troops to violence in that country, and making every effort to disavow the consequences of U.S. guidance of the violence (and crimes) being carried out in that country.

(See Is the SOA Coming to Afghanistan?)


You don't need to be in Chicago to protest NATO. I'm asking everybody -- and especially everyone who has ever participated in #AfghanistanTuesday -- to help protest NATO from wherever they are. We want to build a crescendo of opposition that culminates in a clear message to NATO on May 20/21 when they meet in Chicago: #DEMILITARIZEafghanistan!

(See #DEMILITARIZEafghanistan )


With the New York Times publishing "analysis" like this, is it any wonder that Americans can say things like . . . "It won't be a war. We're just going to drop a few well placed bombs on them" . . . "the object of fighting a war is to 'cause devastation'" . . . "my finger is on the button. Run back to your mud hut or I am going to press it!" . . . "when war is devastating, then people will do everything possible not to get into it!" . . . as some of my high school classmates wrote on Facebook today?

(See The Bankruptcy of U.S. Nuclear Doctrine )