A brutal war and killing spree just resurged in Afghanistan—a sudden and rapid escalation of violence. The ostensibly objective and liberal New York Times announced: “Thousands of American, Afghan and British troops attacked the watery Taliban fortress of Marjah early Saturday...to destroy the insurgency’s largest haven and begin a campaign to reassert the dominance of the Afghan government across a large arc of southern Afghanistan.” Gallant, indeed.
The huge surge of military assault, as well as the NYT’s reporting, were eerie reminders of what we experienced when, in 2003, George Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld began the “shock and awe” offensive in Iraq. We remember how Judith Miller of the NYT had at that time written non-stop columns on how Saddam Hussein had stockpiled weapons of mass destruction—stories supported by a single, dubious Iraqi insider source named Ahmed Chalabi—stories that had later proved to be fake. Politically conscious Indians laughed.
Seven years went by. A new Obama administration took office, after winning a historic, landslide election on a much-touted peace platform. In fact, the singular factor that separated Barack Obama from his formidable rival for presidency, Hillary Clinton, was his anti-war position. How times have changed! Even people like us, who worked like crazy for an Obama victory, are stunned by the way his administration is mirroring the war years of Bush and Clinton. But why this sudden escalation in Afghanistan? And, how huge is it?
The National Public Radio, also considered objective and liberal, echoed the NYT: “The long-awaited assault on Marjah is the biggest offensive since the 2001 US-led invasion of Afghanistan and is a major test of a new NATO strategy focused on protecting civilians.”
Protecting civilians? The last time we checked, even long after the initial blanket-bombing of Kabul and Kandahar that killed thousands of innocents—of which pictures were self-censored by the US media—missiles from drones killed hundreds of Afghans at wedding celebrations and family gatherings. A new NATO strategy? Since when?
What’s the guarantee that this so-called new strategy would work now, and civilians would not be slaughtered? There are reports that innocent Afghans have been massacred on Valentine’s Day, of which an NYT report said, “a rocket went astray during operations..., killing 12 civilians”. Valentine’s love gods did not particularly have a field day in Marjah; the new bloodshed in Pune rejected them too.
We’re very disturbed. We did not work for another four years of Bush genocide under a different name.
But that’s only one half of the problem. The other half is: Why now, and where’s the urgency?
Here’s why. The Obama government’s credibility is in serious jeopardy. With the catastrophic economic crisis of historic proportions, the American public is raging. Labour unions and the far-right Sarah Palin Tea Party gang are bringing on unprecedented mass resistance to Washington. Obama’s bad-choice insiders are getting exposed daily.
The 2010 congressional elections are not far away. These people at the elite centre of power need a serious diversion, and a desperate “victory”—maybe, a “big prize” —to stay on top. The anti-Iran rhetoric didn’t go very far; after all, even the geography-inadequate American main street now knows the similarity between Iraq and Iran, and the US politics around them. No, the election thing didn’t go very far in Iran, sadly.
The new Afghan drumbeat, blown up by media mouthpieces, is a last-straw effort by war industry profiteers and Wall Street puppeteers alike to divert attention from the simple facts—that Obama’s healthcare reform efforts are now all but dead; that, in most states, unemployment is at a Great Depression-level high; big banks and their bigger CEOs are still getting themselves millions of dollars in bonuses; and overall, the American people are not in a Valentine’s Day mood. Therefore, the new escalation in, on and around poor Afghanistan. Therefore, the new jingo bells.
Ironically, the NYT story got some not-so-rave reviews from its own readers. Here’s one: “You invade one of the poorest, most battle-scarred corners of the planet and spin it as some sort of lofty stand against the greatest threat to the security of mankind since the Third Reich.” Another reader quoted from George Orwell’s 1984: “The war isn’t meant to be won; it’s meant to be continuous.”
A continuous treachery against humankind, that is. That’s the real name of the game.
(The writer is a rights activist based in New York.)
