Of Sin, the Left & Islamic Fascism Part of an article by Christipher Hitchins http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20011008&s=hitchens20010924 But straight away, we meet people who complain at once that this enemy is us, really. Did we not aid the grisly Taliban to achieve and hold power? Yes indeed "we" did. Well, does this not double or triple our responsibility to remove them from power? A sudden sheep-like silence, broken by a bleat. Would that not be "over-reaction"? All I want to say for now is that the under-reaction to the Taliban by three successive United States administrations is one of the great resounding disgraces of our time. There is good reason to think that a Taliban defeat would fill the streets of Kabul with joy. But for the moment, the Bush Administration seems a hostage to the Pakistani and Saudi clients who are the sponsors and "harborers" the President claims publicly to be looking for! Yet the mainstream left, ever shuffling its feet, fears only the discomfort that might result from repudiating such an indefensible and humiliating posture. Very well then, comrades. Do not pretend that you wish to make up for America's past crimes in the region. Here is one such crime that can be admitted and undone--the sponsorship of the Taliban could be redeemed by the demolition of its regime and the liberation of its victims. But I detect no stomach for any such project. Better, then--more decent and reticent--not to affect such concern for "our" past offenses. This is not an article about grand strategy, but it seems to me to go without saying that a sincere commitment to the secular or reformist elements in the Muslim world would automatically shift the balance of America's up-to-now very questionable engagement. Every day, the wretched Arafat is told by Washington, as a favor to the Israelis, that he must police and repress the forces of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. When did Washington last demand that Saudi Arabia cease its heavy financing of these primitive and unscrupulous organisations? We let the Algerians fight the Islamic-fascist wave without saying a word or lending a hand. And this is an effort in which civic and social organizations can become involved without official permission. We should be building such internationalism whether it serves the short-term needs of the current Administration or not: I signed an anti-Taliban statement several months ago and was appalled by the eerie silence with which the initiative was greeted in Washington. (It ought to go without saying that the demand for Palestinian self-determination is, as before, a good cause in its own right. Not now more than ever, but now as ever. There are millions of Palestinians who do not want the future that the pious of all three monotheisms have in store for them.) Ultimately, this is another but uniquely toxic version of an old story, whereby former clients like Noriega and Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milosevic and the Taliban cease to be our monsters and become monstrous in their own right. At such a point, a moral and political crisis occurs. Do "our" past crimes and sins make it impossible to expiate the offense by determined action? Those of us who were not consulted about, and are not bound by, the previous covert compromises have a special responsibility to say a decisive "no" to this. The figure of six and a half thousand murders in New York is almost the exact equivalent to the total uncovered in the death-pits of Srebrenica. (Even at Srebrenica, the demented General Ratko Mladic agreed to release all the women, all the children, all the old people and all the males above and below military age before ordering his squads to fall to work.) On that occasion, US satellites flew serenely overhead recording the scene, and Milosevic earned himself an invitation to Dayton, Ohio. But in the end, after appalling false starts and delays, it was found that Mr Milosevic was too much. He wasn't just too nasty. He was also too irrational and dangerous. He didn't even save himself by lyingly claiming, as he several times did, that Osama bin Laden was hiding in Bosnia. It must be said that by this, and by other lies and numberless other atrocities, Milosevic distinguished himself as an enemy of Islam. His national-socialist regime took the line on the towelheads that the Bush Administration is only accused, by fools and knaves, of taking. Yet when a stand was eventually mounted against Milosevic, it was Noam Chomsky and Sam Husseini, among many others, who described the whole business as a bullying persecution of--the Serbs! I have no hesitation in describing this mentality, carefully and without heat, as soft on crime and soft on fascism. No political coalition is possible with such people and, I'm thankful to say, no political coalition with them is now necessary. It no longer matters what they think.
Recently the last sentence of this piece was thrown out to ward of a left wing poster. I’ve noticed that good old Chris (I’ve meet him, I know it was just to say hello, but I think that allows me the familiarity), is being used by some people as a stick to hit lefties. So lets look at this piece. He is basically saying that if bad people are bad then they should be relieved of power. As he points out that ‘US agent’ Saddam was once the west’s monster only when he struck out on his own did we turn on him. He seems to argue that we and especially the US shouldn’t support such people. Great by me. I was supporting campaigns against Saddam when he was as Hitch’ says a ‘client’ of the US. But what Chris doesn’t address is way should these people be got rid of, to serve American interests or to help the people that are under their rule? To me US interests was often one of the reasons why many were there in the first place. Should not the main concern of any action be the people who have lived or are living under these bad regimes? Good old Chris in this piece calls for the those Islamic fascist of the taliban to be replaced, great but the problem was what was to replace them well with a lot of money and effort the US could have improved the situation. But the neo-cons wanted to move on to Iraq so they let the warlords back in. The very people that had made the taliban look good. And right enough NGO’s and Afghan women’s groups say that things are worse in Afghanistan than they were under the taliban. I somehow don’t think that that is what good old Chris wanted. Oh and the warlords are still a bunch of Islamic fascists. ** He is passionate about how nefarious 9/11 was and I would agree but not as bad but still to me nasty is the use some politicians made of those 3000 deaths to push an unrelated agenda of there own.
This is utter nonsense. Things are far from perfect, but they have undoubtedly improved, especially in the cities. The completion of the new highway should also start improving conditions in the countryside as well.
Believing what you wish to be true rather than facing the hard truth it seems Huck. Only in Kabul does your corporate media spin have any credence, throughout the rest of the country the conditions of the average Afghani have NOT improved, save perhaps for that of the poppy farmers who have been restored to full production capacity.
To anyone who wants to know what is REALLY going on in Afghanistan, especially with women, why not ask the largest, most respected, longest in existence women's group in Afghanistan? www.rawa.org (articles from news groups around the world) A British parliamentary committee has warned that Afghanistan is likely to "implode, with terrible consequences" unless more troops and resources are sent to calm the country. http://www.rawa.org/implode.htm Prague, 29 July 2004 -- Doctors Without Borders (MSF) announced yesterday that the organization will leave Afghanistan after 24 years. Officials from the international aid group said the decision is a response to the killing in June of five staff members, the danger of further attacks, and its frustration with both the U.S.-led coalition and the Afghan government. http://www.rawa.org/msfpull.htm Afghanistan's coming elections are in jeopardy, and not just because of a revived Taliban. The warlord armies that Washington used to oust the Taliban in 2001 now pose an even greater danger, as Afghanistan's president, Hamid Karzai, made plain this week to Carlotta Gall and David Rohde of The Times. President Bush is largely responsible for this situation, having first decided to fight the war against the Taliban on the cheap and then leaving the job of nation-building undone while he diverted American forces to Iraq. http://www.rawa.org/na-nyt.htm Afghanistan remains second to last in the world in the human development rankings of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Warlords continue to siphon off customs revenues that should go to the national government, and nearly half of Afghanistan's $4.5 billion economy comes from opium cultivation and trafficking. There still are more than 2 million Afghan refugees in neighbouring countries and some 300,000 internally displaced persons within Afghanistan. http://www.rawa.org/icg.htm Afghan children prey for human organ trade http://www.rawa.org/organs2.htm War Returns With a Vengeance As Allies Fail the Afghan People http://www.rawa.org/figures.htm JALALABAD, Afghanistan, April 17 (Reuters) - An Afghan province has banned women from performing on television and radio, declaring female entertainers un-Islamic, a provincial official said on Saturday. http://www.rawa.org/ban-singer.htm GENEVA - Thousands of people are being evicted from their homes by warlords, politicians and land speculators, according to a report prepared for the United Nations. http://www.rawa.org/land-un.htm Women are stopped from working, girls are prevented from being with men they are not closely related to and men working in government offices must wear a beard and never a neck-tie -- these are some of the restrictions in place in the western Afghan city of Herat. One of the wealthiest and best educated provinces in Afghanistan, under the governorship of warlord Ismael Khan, Herat has also reverted to some of the more regressive elements previously enforced under the Taliban, according to rights activists. http://www.rawa.org/herat3.htm When the US began bombing Afghanistan on October 7, 2001, the oppression of Afghan women was used as a justification for overthrowing the Taliban regime. Five weeks later America's first lady, Laura Bush, stated triumphantly: "Because of our recent military gains in much of Afghanistan, women are no longer imprisoned in their homes. The fight against terrorism is also a fight for the rights and dignity of women." However, Amnesty International paints a rather different picture: "Two years after the ending of the Taliban regime, the international community and the Afghan transitional administration, led by President Hamid Karzai, have proved unable to protect women. The risk of rape and sexual violence by members of armed factions and former combatants is still high. Forced marriage, particularly of girl children, and violence against women in the family are widespread in many areas of the country." In truth, the situation of women in Afghanistan remains appalling. Though girls and women in Kabul, and some other cities, are free to go to school and have jobs, this is not the case in most parts of the country. In the western province of Herat, the warlord Ismail Khan imposes Taliban-like decrees. Many women have no access to education and are banned from working in foreign NGOs or UN offices, and there are hardly any women in government offices. Women cannot take a taxi or walk unless accompanied by a close male relative. If seen with men who are not close relatives, women can be arrested by the "special police" and forced to undergo a hospital examination to see if they have recently had sexual intercourse. Because of this continued oppression, every month a large number of girls commit suicide - many more than under the Taliban. Women's rights fare no better in northern and southern Afghanistan, which are under the control of the Northern Alliance. One international NGO worker told Amnesty International: "During the Taliban era, if a woman went to market and showed an inch of flesh she would have been flogged; now she's raped." Even in Kabul, where thousands of foreign troops are present, Afghan women do not feel safe, and many continue to wear the burka for protection. In some areas where girls' education does exist, parents are afraid to allow their daughters to take advantage of it following the burning down of several girls' schools. Girls have been abducted on the way to school and sexual assaults on children of both sexes are now commonplace, according to Human Rights Watch. http://www.rawa.org/rawi.htm Afghan Women After "Liberation" http://www.rawa.org/nanji.htm
My point here is not that the Taliban should NOT have been removed - in fact, RAWA had been BEGGING the international community for years to do something about the horrific situation in Afghanistan - many of their members were tortured and murdered in their quest for liberty. The problem is not whether we should help remove oppressive dictators. Of course we should. The PROBLEM comes when we remove those dictators only to replace them with our own "America-friendly" regimes - which are often no better than the ones they replace - when we fail to actually follow through on our promises to help the nations decimated by our wars - and when we wage wars under the premise of liberation but actually wage them to acquire the natural resources of the third world. Further, support for despots and tyrants is not some "mistake of the past" that we are now getting around to correcting. The United States is CURRENTLY the world's largest supporter of military dictators, despots, and human rights violators on the planet. Our foreign policies are hypocritical at BEST. As we impoverish Cuba with sanctions, we name China (a far worse human rights violator) our "most favored nation" and support its economy and its government with hundreds of billions in trade. As we attack Iran as "uncivilized" and a "rogue state" for its refusal to support our middle east policies, we support Egypt and Saudi Arabia (again, MASSIVE human rights violators) with hundreds of billions in military support and financial "aid," and we hand Israel, which has violated nearly every international law of war and human rights IN EXISTENCE, more money than ANY OTHER NATION ON THE PLANET, though it is a relatively wealthy, industrialized nation. We do nothing as they build a THIRTY FOOT WALL to cage the Palestinians like rats. Well, that's not exactly true - we don't do nothing - we send them more money. If the United States were truly about leading the world toward human rights, liberty, democracy, freedom, and righteous abundance for all, I am certain that many who rejected war on Afghanistan and Iraq would support these types of actions. I know I probably would. If we were truly liberating nations from tyrants, using our wealth to improve the health, welfare, education, standard of living, water quality, infastructure, etc. of these nations, I'd support it. If we were not torturing Iraqis ourselves, I might buy that we were liberating them. If we were not installing "america friendly regimes" that also happen to be UNFRIENDLY to the people they are actually RULING, I might buy that we actually want to help. If we were digging some wells for the millions of Africans who can't even get a glass of water without parasitical WORMS in it, I might buy it. Instead, we remain the largest supplier of weapons to the worst regimes on earth - we support the worst regimes on earth - and we have installed some of the WORST REGIMES ON EARTH. As it is, America has a PATHETIC history of "liberating" people. If it wants us to buy its "liberation" schemes, give us a reason to trust. I've seen nothing. Not in my lifetime. And I'm sick of it. Yes, the enemy is US. Who else would it be? Christ.
Actually what went wrong with Afghanistan is that we flew in like a bunch of cowboys, chased away the Taliban and then left to go to Iraq. We didnt leave enough support there to help keep things under control and keep the riffraff from returning. It was half-assed and the people are now suffering for it. The life that those women and others were living was not even that old..they lost their beautiful thriving country in 1995. It is a known fact that prior to 1995, Afghanistan would have become a successful country. The people living there currently remember what life was like before Taliban control...they could have made an easier transition back into their former state IF the US had actually stayed and concentrated on totally rebuilding Afghanistan. But noooo. stupid ass stick-boy had to go get Saddam.Bastard. I should go find pictures of Kabul from 1994 and compare them to the pictures in 1997..just 3 short years...the aesthetic difference alone is horrifying.
Exactly, otter. And this is the problem - we can go bomb the hell out of whomever we like, but if we just replace the dictators with the same or worse - or just leave (like we did in Iraq in 91, and like we just did in Afghanistan), it becomes clear to the world that we have no real interest in "liberating" anyone. We made all these ridiculous promises about building Afghanistan, protecting the people there, spending millions to fix the damage, blah blah blah... The government of that country is still begging for the humanitarian aid we promised, and the aid workers who are there are now leaving because they're being killed by warlords. And Iraq is looking to be more of the same - I read a few weeks ago that the development fund the US had set up had been "looted" - the money had "disappeared." Apparently less than 10% of the money the US promised is actually being used to help Iraq. Pathetic.
I don't deny that we still have much to do in Afghanistan. I've merely disputed the exaggerated claim that things were better under the Taliban. As your quote here confirms, things are improving, albeit slowly. See also the Oxfam survey I cited above. We waged war on Afghanistan for one simple reason: they harbored the Al Quaeda butchers who attacked us. Let's assume that you've presented a flawless critique of US foreign policy. What does any of this have to do with our decision to oust the Taliban, which was first and foremost an act of self-defense? One could reasonably argue that we should do more of this in Afganistan and Iraq, but it ludicrous to assert that we are doing nothing there. These abuses have lead to court martials. How about directing some of your outrage at the grisly beheadings carried out by Al-Zarqawi and friends? If you can't acknowledge that the current governments in Afghanistan and Iraq represent improvements (however modest) over the Taliban and Saddam Hussein, then all your righteous indignation rings hollow. Again, we could certainly do more, but you can't seriously contend that we are doing none of this. Are you aware of another developed nation's foreign aid program that we should emulate? It's hard to even respond to such hyperbole. As has been noted elsewhere, most of Saddam Hussein's weaponry came from Europe and Russia. Who's been arming North Korea? Maybe we should disengage completely from the Korean peninsula and let South Korea, Japan, China, and Russia deal with the North Korean lunatics. How old are you? Have you ever heard of something called the Iron Curtain? Try talking to some Eastern Europeans who remember what life was like under the Soviet boot.
Dear Point Maybe if you didn’t spend so much time sniping at others post with one liners you might have time to actually refute criticisms of your views that you say you have no time to reply to? Just an idea from a friend. Balbus.
If we waited for people like you to point out the ridiculous logic contortions in Willow's hate filled posts, we'd be waiting forever. Maybe one day you'll care do speak up, but I doubt it.
Oh dear Huck I want what’s best for the Afghanis in fact I believe that if the US had been more involved in helping Afghanistan back in the 1980’s and 90’s rather than just being concerned with hurting the Soviets, things might have been very different. I mean rather than just financing the resistance and giving them weapons they could have done things like education, instead of leaving it up to Saudi Arabian Wahabists and other Islamic fundamentalists (I mean taliban means ‘student’). It should have done something to rein in the power of the warlords rather than leaving it up to those same Pakistani backed taliban. Oh there were many ways in which the US could have helped Afghanistan. It was not like the situation the country was in wasn’t known. But as I’ve mentioned US foreign policy is more often than not about its own interests and not about the best interests of the people in foreign countries. So once the US objective of hurting the Soviets and their withdrawal from the country the US’s interest in the area declined leaving the warlords, Pakistanis and Saudis a free hand to do basically as they wished. But eventually blowback meant that the US had to take action in ‘self-defence’ as you put it. But it is quite obvious that while the Afghan campaign was even started a faction of the leadership of the Bush admin was planning the Iraq invasion. Afghanistan in other words was on the back boiler before it was even settled. Forces that could have been used to bring the warlords into line were needed elsewhere, money may be offered but the place is just not a priority, especially since Iraq didn’t go according to plan. Well I hope that Afghanistan gets a better future but if not I’m sure that when the blowback comes again the US can handle it. ** As to the Iron Curtain and Eastern Europe well there was this idea of ‘Spheres of influence’. Between the Soviets and the US the Americans got in first with this idea with the Monroe doctrine that was broached even before the Russian Revolution happened. You can get an idea of what it meant from this from Undersecretary of State Robert Olds in 1926 - "There is no room for any outside influence other than ours in this region. We could not tolerate such a thing without incurring grave risks... Until now Central America has always understood that governments which we recognize and support stay in power, while those which we do not recognize and support fall" --Undersecretary of State Robert Olds U.S. Interventions in Latin America http://www.zompist.com/latam.html I think any Russian minister of the time of the Iron Curtain in relation to the Soviet satellite states couldn’t have put it better. This was two systems and two methods but both caused rather a lot of misery. **
Balbus, I won't deny our past mistakes in Afghanistan, nor have I denied that we have a lot more "nation building" to do there. I've simply disputed the claim that we've made things worse there than they were under the Taliban. Also, I'm well aware of the misery we've inflicted on Latin America. However, you can't deny that our "sphere of influence" in Europe was much more humane than that of the Soviets. We never had to build walls to keep people from fleeing.
Point Oh so that means I’ll still have to wait until you have time then. Please mate don’t forget your way back to those post will you. As to Willow I find her post entertaining and often informative. We have also crossed swords on a few occasions I believe she even called me a rude word once, (oh what fond memories).
