Afghanistan graveyard hell and opium money washing Che Guevara´s museum Toto behind the door

Nader on Afghanistan: Must read!

The war in Afghanistan is nearly nine years old-the longest in American
history. After the U.S. quickly toppled the Taliban regime in October 2001,
the Taliban, by all accounts, came back stronger and harsher enough to
control now at least 30 percent of the country. During this time, U.S.
casualties, armaments and expenditures are at record levels.

America's overseas wars have different outcomes when they have no
constitutional authority, no war tax, no draft, no regular on the ground
press coverage, no Congressional oversight, no spending accountability and,
importantly, no affirmative consent of the governed who are, apart from the
military families, hardly noticing.

This is an asymmetrical, multi-matrix war. It is a war defined by complex
intrigue, shifting alliances, mutating motivations, chronic bribery,
remotely-generated civilian deaths, insuperable barriers of language and
ethnic and subtribal conflicts. It is fought by warlords, militias, criminal
gangs, and special forces discretionary death squads. Millions of civilians
are impoverished, terrified and live with violent disruptions. There is no
central government to speak of. The White House uses illusions of strategies
and tactics to bid for time. In Afghanistan, the historic graveyard of
invaders, hope springs infernal.

Neatly dressed Generals-who probably would never have gotten into this mess
if they, not the civilian neocon, draft dodgers in the Bush regime, had made
the call-regularly trudge up to Congress to testify. There they caveat their
status reports, keeping expectations alive, while cowardly politicians
praise their bravery. General David Petraeus could receive the Academy Award
in Hollywood next year, as long as he doesn't say what he really thinks,
obedient soldier that he is. Listen to General Stanley A. McChrystal, not
known for his squeamishness. Speaking of civilian deaths and injured at
military checkpoints, he said: "We have shot an amazing number of people,
but to my knowledge, none have ever proven to be a threat."

On the ground are 100,000 U.S. soldiers with another 100,000 corporate
contractors. The human and economic costs are huge. According to the CIA,
James Jones-Obama's national security adviser-and other officials, there are
only 50 to 100 Al Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan and 300 to 400 members of
the group in Pakistan. The rest have scattered to other nations or just
melded back into the population. Affiliates of Al Qaeda have emerged in the
southern Arabian peninsula, Somalia, North Africa, Indonesia and other
locales. There is something awry about this asymmetry.

The Taliban number no more the 30,000 irregular fighters of decidedly mixed
motivations entirely focused over there, not toward the U.S. mainland.
President Obama describes the Taliban as "a blend of hard-core ideologues,
tribal leaders, kids that basically sign up because it's the best job
available to them. Not all of them are going to be thinking the same way
about the Afghan government, about the future of Afghanistan. And so we're
going to have to sort through how these talks take place."

Helping Obama "sort through" are drones blowing up civilian gatherings-by
mistake of course-to destroy suspected militants often casually chosen by
other natives because grudges or the transfer of money. Helicopter gunships
and fighter planes spread havoc and terror through the populace. "Special
forces" go deeper into Pakistan with their secret missions of mayhem. Local
resentment and anger continues to boomerang against the U.S. occupiers.

U.S. Army truckloads of hundred dollar bills are paying off various
personages of uncertain reliability. At the same time, Obama's
representatives regularly accuse President Karzai of rampant corruption. In
between, civilian Americans and USAID try to dig wells and construct clinics
and schools that might not be there very long in the anarchic, violent,
nightfall world of the Afghan tribal areas.

More military force is expected to clear the way for the assumption of
governmental duties and security in 2014 by a central government that is
neither central, nor governmental. The locals loath the government's attempt
to collect taxes, and continue to survive by growing poppies (opium).

In early 2001, George W. Bush awarded the Taliban $40 million for stamping
out the poppy trade; now Afghanistan is the number one narco grower in the
world. U.S. soldiers walk right past the poppy fields so as not to turn the
locals against them.

U.S. dollars pay warlords and the Taliban in order for them not to blow up
U.S. conveys going through mountain passes, some carrying fuel that costs
taxpayers $400 per delivered gallon. The Taliban receive half the
electricity from a U.S. built power plant and collect the monthly electric
bills in their controlled areas. The more electricity, the more money for
the Taliban to fight the American and British soldiers.

Last year, over three billion dollars in cash moved out of Kabul's airport
unaccounted for, while billions of US dollars flow into Kabul for
undocumented purposes.

Despite fighting against "insurgents" possessing rifles, propelled grenades
and suicide vests, the Obama administration-with an arsenal of massive
super-modern weaponry at hand-keeps saying there is no military solution and
that only a political settlement will end the conflict.

Tell that to the Afghan people, who suffer from brutal sectarian struggles
fueled by American and coalition occupiers and invaders. To them, there's a
disconnect between what Obama does and what he says he wants.

Meanwhile, the war spills ever more into Pakistan and its turbulent politics
generates more hatred against Americans. These people had nothing to do with
9/11 so why, they ask, are the Americans blowing up their neighborhood?

President Obama says the soldiers should start coming home in July 2011,
depending on conditions on the ground. He wants the Taliban commanders, whom
he is destroying one by one, to agree to negotiations with Kabul that
requires their subservience. His formula is peace through more war. But the
Taliban are not known to surrender. They know the terrain where they live
and they believe they can wear Obama down, notwithstanding U.S. special
forces and drones expected to stay there for years.

Congress-an inkblot so far-needs to assert its constitutional authority over
budgets and policy toward the war. Members are regular rubber-stamps of
White House recklessness under Bush and Obama.

Furthermore, nothing will happen without a few million Americans back home stomping, marching and bellowing to end the boomeranging, costly invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and concentrate on America's needs at home.

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