{"id":563,"date":"2008-05-07T05:14:00","date_gmt":"2008-05-07T13:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/?p=563"},"modified":"2008-05-07T05:14:00","modified_gmt":"2008-05-07T13:14:00","slug":"tariq-ali-on-afghanistan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/tariq-ali-on-afghanistan\/","title":{"rendered":"Tariq Ali on Afghanistan"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Below, the opening paragraphs of Tariq Ali’s editorial on Afghanistan from the current New Left Review<\/a>. You can read the full article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/span><\/h1>\n
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AFGHANISTAN: MIRAGE OF THE GOOD WAR<\/span><\/h1>\n
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Rarely has there been such an enthusiastic display of international unity as that which greeted the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. Support for the war was universal in the chanceries of the West, even before its aims and parameters had been declared. nato<\/span> governments rushed to assert themselves \u2018all for one\u2019. Blair jetted round the world, proselytizing the \u2018doctrine of the international community\u2019 and the opportunities for peace-keeping and nation-building in the Hindu Kush. Putin welcomed the extension of American bases along Russia\u2019s southern borders. Every mainstream Western party endorsed the war; every media network\u2014with bbc<\/span> World and cnn<\/span> in the lead\u2014became its megaphone. For the German Greens, as for Laura Bush and Cherie Blair, it was a war for the liberation of the women of Afghanistan. <\/a> For the White House, a fight for civilization. For Iran, the impending defeat of the Wahhabi enemy.<\/p>\n

Three years later, as the chaos in Iraq deepened, Afghanistan became the \u2018good war\u2019 by comparison. It had been legitimized by the un<\/span>\u2014even if the resolution was not passed until after the bombs had finished falling\u2014and backed by nato<\/span>. If tactical differences had sharpened over Iraq, they could be resolved in Afghanistan. First Zapatero, then Prodi, then Rudd, compensated for pulling troops out of Iraq by dispatching them to Kabul.<\/a> France and Germany could extol their peace-keeping or civilizing roles there. As suicide bombings increased in Baghdad, Afghanistan was now\u2014for American Democrats keen to prove their \u2018security\u2019 credentials\u2014the \u2018real front\u2019 of the war on terror, supported by every us<\/span> presidential candidate in the run-up to the 2008 elections, with Senator Obama pressuring the White House to violate Pakistani sovereignty whenever necessary. With varying degrees of firmness, the occupation of Afghanistan was also supported by China, Iran and Russia; though in the case of the latter, there was always a strong element of Schadenfreude. <\/i>Soviet veterans of the Afghan war were amazed to see their mistakes now being repeated by the United States in a war even more inhumane than its predecessor.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the number of Afghan civilians killed has exceeded many tens of times over the 2,746 who died in Manhattan. Unemployment is around 60 per cent and maternal, infant and child mortality levels are now among the highest in the world. Opium harvests have soared, and the \u2018Neo-Taliban\u2019 is growing stronger year by year. By common consent, Karzai\u2019s government does not even control its own capital, let alone provide an example of \u2018good governance\u2019. Reconstruction funds vanish into cronies\u2019 pockets or go to pay short-contract Western consultants. Police are predators rather than protectors. The social crisis is deepening. Increasingly, Western commentators have evoked the spectre of failure\u2014usually in order to spur encore un effort<\/i>. A Guardian <\/i>leader summarizes: \u2018Defeat looks possible, with all the terrible consequences that will bring.\u2019
<\/a><\/p>\n

Two principal arguments, often overlapping, are put forward as to \u2018what went wrong\u2019 in Afghanistan. For liberal imperialists, the answer can be summarized in two words: \u2018not enough\u2019. The invasion organized by Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld was done on the cheap. The \u2018light footprint\u2019 demanded by the Pentagon meant that there were too few troops on the ground in 2001\u201302. Financial commitment to \u2018state-building\u2019 was insufficient. Though it may now be too late, the answer is to pour in more troops, more money\u2014\u2018multiple billions\u2019 over \u2018multiple years\u2019, according to the us<\/span> Ambassador in Kabul.<\/a> The second answer\u2014advanced by Karzai and the White House, but propagated by the Western media generally\u2014can be summed up in one word: Pakistan. Neither of these arguments holds water.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Below, the opening paragraphs of Tariq Ali’s editorial on Afghanistan from the current New Left Review. You can read the full article here. AFGHANISTAN: MIRAGE OF THE GOOD WAR Rarely has there been such...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-afghanistan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=563"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}