The U.S. public has been shielded from real answers to the questions regarding the U.S. commitments to Iraq and Afghanistan. The U.S. Government and Media have shifted focus from real issues to those more acceptable to the U.S. public - military force and a WIN v. LOSE scenario. U.S. commitments to Iraq and Afghanistan will cost the U.S. taxpayer over $$$ TEN TRILLION U.S. Dollars by 2015. Ten Trillion borrowed funds, Ten Trillion that will not be spent on U.S. domestic infrastructure and social needs, Ten Trillion spent by a bankrupt nation that refuses to recognize reality and attend to it's domestic needs.
Afghanistan and Iraq are fictional creations of Western Europe and the U.S. government. Western governments, for their respective convenience, ignored indigenous populations, and arbitrarily drew lines on the geography, and assigned designations to areas within such lines as Countries: Afghanistan & Iraq. The indigenous people within these designations never had, and to this day have no NATIONAL IDENTITY. What the U.S. and Western European nations regard as Iraq, is in reality , three ( 3 ) separate populations each with their own religious identity. What the U.S. regards as Afghanistan, is in reality, twenty ( 20 ) separate populations with different tribal and religious loyalties.
Regardless of Washington rhetoric, the objective in Iraq was "regime" change, and securing continued access to approximately 15% of known oil reserves. The U.S. spent and will spend 4-5 Trillion ( 2001-2015 ) in order to provide the U.S. and Allies with oil. No cost accounting is being done on the cost in loss of life and disability of the 100's of thousands of U.S. military veterans adversely affected by their deployment to Iraq. One of the dark sides of "regime change"in Iraq, has been the establishment of an Islamic regime. Saddam Hessian tolerated and protected secular religious beliefs including "Christianity". The new , U.S. supported, Iraqi government has limited religious tolerance except for Islam, which is the de facto official religion of Iraq. Prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, there were upwards of 1,000,000 openly practicing "Christians"; today it is estimated that there are fewer then 5,000 "Christians" now in hiding. THE BENEFICIARIES of the U.S invasion of Iraq have been the Major Oil Companies and U.S. subcontractors the likes of Halliburton.
Afghanistan is another problem: with twenty ( 20 ) separate populations with different tribal loyalties; "Central Government", has never been nor will it be a sustainable reality. The Karzai government was and is totally financed, created and empowered by the U.S. supported by U.S and NATO troops . Once the U.S. stops financially supporting Karzai, the fictional entity , branded by the U.S. and allies as a "Central Government" will vanish. "Central Government" and National Identity, as far as Afghanistan is concerned, is a pipe dream of the U.S., costing U.S. taxpayers 4-5 Trillion 2001-2015. U.S. and NATO military involvement, regardless of the number of troops, supporting an Afghan "Central Government", will fail. WIN v LOSE has nothing to do with it; as long as the U.S. taxpayer continues to embrace the fiction of Afghan "Central Government", the U.S. taxpayer will pay and be in Afghanistan for the next 100 years. NO U.S. financial support, NO "Central Government" in Afghanistan.
Karzai "Central Government" means taxes, taxes on people who are among the poorest in the world. The way things are now working is the U.S. is "training", supplying and paying the salaries of a private Karzai army and police, who in-turn, go into tribal regions with the backing of the U.S. and NATO troops, and demand taxes from valley populations. It's improbable that demanding "taxes" from tribal and valley populations will win the "hearts and minds" of poverty populations. We Westerners' have the answer to everything, and as long as the U.S. is willing to pay, in dollars, and military lives, for the fiction of an Afghan "Central Government", the U.S. will remain mired in Afghanistan.
What is the "Taliban". In the West and U.S. , there are various "brands" of Christianity and Judaism. The same is true of Islam, what we refer to as Taliban is an ultra fundamentalist, Sunni "brand" of Islam. Washington and the media have thrown all Islam followers into the category "Taliban" meaning bad, evil, terrorists who are out to get the U.S. and Allies. The U.S. invasion of Afghanistan has contributed to the growth of the Taliban movement in Afghanistan, Pakistan and surrounds. One must remember that U.S. based Christian community has ultra fundamentalist sects who kill abortion providers who do not adhere to "their brand" of Christianity. Promoting the "Taliban" as the enemy, is essentially saying that the U.S. and NATO are at war with Islam; essentially, 21st Century Crusades. When the U.S. and NATO trample Islam, it drives moderate believers underground, and enhances support for radical "brands" of Islam to percolate to positions of authority.
The U.S. created and recognized Kosovo, a land area around the size of Manhattan Island, as an independent Nation. In order to satisfy the U.S. insistence for victory and success in Afghanistan, the immediate area surrounding Kabul, should be recognized as a separate Nation; and, the U.S. and NATO should abandoned Nation building in the remainder of the Afghan geography. Routing out “terrorists” is another matter entirely, one that requires accurate intelligence, surgical strikes and an invisible military presence.
Under the U.S. form of Federal Government, there is no provision like " initiative referendum" for the U.S. public to directly participate in how U.S. taxpayer dollars and troops will be used to pursue vainglory ambitions of those in power in Washington, D.C.. 30 years down the road when the U.S. population will be living at "third world" standards, the folly and arrogance of the U.S. Government and NATO allies will remain a burden on citizens who will only faintly remember Afghanistan and Iraq and why they have been committed to support these foreign lands.
