Escalation Scam: Troops in Afghanistan
The president has set a limit on the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan. For now.
That's how escalation works. Ceilings become floors. Gradually.
A few times since last fall, the Obama team has floated rising numbers for how many additional U.S. soldiers will be sent to Afghanistan. Now, deployment of 21,000 more is a done deal, with a new total cap of 68,000 U.S. troops in that country.
But "escalation" isn't mere jargon. And it doesn't just refer to what's happening outside the United States.
"Escalation" is a word for a methodical process of acclimating people at home to the idea of more military intervention abroad -- nothing too sudden, just a step-by-step process of turning even more war into media wallpaper -- nothing too abrupt or jarring, while thousands more soldiers and billions more dollars funnel into what Martin Luther King Jr. called a "demonic suction tube," complete with massive violence, mayhem, terror and killing on a grander scale than ever.
As war policies unfold, the news accounts and dominant media discourse rarely disrupt the trajectory of events. From high places, the authorized extent of candor is a matter of timing.
Lots of recent spin from Washington has promoted the assumption that President Obama wants to stick with the current limit on deployments to Afghanistan. Soon after pushing supplemental war funds through Congress, he's hardly eager to proclaim that 68,000 American troops in Afghanistan may not be enough after all.
But no amount of spin can change the fact that the U.S. military situation in Afghanistan continues to deteriorate. It would be astonishing if plans for add-on deployments weren't already far along at the Pentagon.
Meanwhile, the White House is reenacting a macabre ritual -- a repetition compulsion of the warfare state -- carefully timing and titrating each dose of public information to ease the process of escalation. The basic technique is far from new.
In the spring and early summer of 1965, President Lyndon Johnson decided to send 100,000 additional U.S. troops to Vietnam, more than doubling the number there. But at a July 28 news conference, he announced that he'd decided to send an additional 50,000 soldiers.
Why did President Johnson say 50,000 instead of 100,000? Because he was heeding the advice from something called a "Special National Security Estimate" -- a secret document, issued days earlier about the already-approved new deployment, urging that "in order to mitigate somewhat the crisis atmosphere that would result from this major U.S. action . . . announcements about it be made piecemeal with no more high-level emphasis than necessary."
Forty-four years later, something similar is underway with deployments of U.S. troops to Afghanistan.
Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Tuesday that no limit has been set. Speaking to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, he sounded an open-ended note: "There is not a ceiling on troop levels in Afghanistan."
Mullen's comment was scarcely reported in U.S. media outlets. It has become old news without ever being news in the first place.
The war planners in Washington are bound to proceed carefully on the home front. News of further escalation will come "piecemeal" -- "with no more high-level emphasis than necessary."
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The real issue is that the US is wasting money and accomplishing nothing. Why not just stack up pallets of $100 bills and burn them instead of giving it to the Pentagon?
money is being made hand over fist ... warmongering is the number one US industry - that's the real issue.
Since Obama's inauguration, there have been 175 military deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan.
If this rate is sustained, the Obama Presidency over 8 years will rack up 2,998 deaths ... for Operation Sustaining Freedom and other commitments.
Bad thing under Bush .... Good thing or Ignored thing under Obama.
With the exception of NoneIn2008 in these postings, Huffington commentators are silent about this deadly toll?
When the toll reaches 1,000 will there be a wave of media stories?
I’ll give you odds that there will be continued silience.
Setting a limit may be Obama's attempt to keep every body as happy as possible. A trait he should abandon.
His intention to increase troops in Afghanistan has been clear for a long time and as someone noted is at least one reason many voted for him.
If the very roots of these extremists are to be removed then it has to happen in Afghanistan.
I am no supporter of war, but this one is necessary if terrorism is to be brought under control.
I recommend that you read "Three Cups of Tea" by Greg Mortenson for a less expensive and more effective way to combat terrorism. His approach is a better way to "win hearts and minds". Of course, it does starve the MIC beast.
Do you know what these guys do to people who don't even remotely agree with them? They dip them slowly in drum barrels of acid. Not even Nazis did that. What Greg fails to mention is that this applies to groups with a grievance issue not ideological like Al Qaeda or the Taliban.
i'm wonderin': maybe it's too late for Bin Laden?
Mr Solomon, if you really, really want to bring down the collection of lies surrounding the Afghanistan travesty of a war, you may want to look into the involvement of the CIA in drug trafficking (Gary Webb's Dark Alliance. Alfred McCoy's Politics of Heroin in SE Asia).
Then again, if you really wanted to end this folly, you'd go after the lynchpin, 911. But you know that by now, right?
Brings to mind the 1960's chant on LBJ
Hey hey BHO, how many kids have you killed today.
But, libs mindlessly follow Obama over the cliff. The neocons are willing participants of going over the cliff. Maybe the people will wake up and break from both, soon.
None: Spot on - Mindless drones walking to the beat.
Seems that a majority of the human race descended from lemmings, rather than monkeys.
Ok, the comments on this story are ridiculous for the following reasons:
1. 911 - Just about all intelligence agencies place AQ and 0BL in Afghanistan and Pakistan
2. Obama has held this position on Afghanistan since he got the nomination (at least). This is not "military overlords", or the boogeyman making this decision. They make the decisions on the logistics of execution (at most), but O is calling the shots overall.
3. Pakistan has been having trouble standing up to the Taliban on their own. The big fear is that they get the nukes, which will be an even bigger problem. If you don't think they will use them... All I can say is that nobody thought they would fly planes into buildings either...
4. Our fight has always been in Afghanistan. Shrub and his cronies just diverted it all to Iraq. Now, we are having to fix things. If they had actually kept attention on Afghanistan, we would be finished by now...
Just be glad we haven't reached the point of needing a draft. That is the big difference here, as our soliders are serving voluntarily.
The Taliban didn't attack the United States.
They provided sanctuary and material support to those that did.
Our real fight is with the country that provided the majority of the 911 hijackers, the leadership of Al Qaeda, and a substantial portion of the oil we use, that hotbed of wahibbism - Saudi Arabia.
I agree, but what you don't consider is the sheer amount of our economy is owned by them as well. Moore pointed that out in Farenheit.
We are truly in a tough situation thanks to the right since Nixon...
Your knowledge of the canned news cycle is spot on, as for the real issues at work and history of the conflict I'm not so sure.
""Escalation" is a word for a methodical process of acclimating people at home to the idea of more military intervention abroad. . ." Yes, exactly. And weren't we all led to believe that Obama would end these stupid wars? I'm sickened and disgusted by this.
You are right on Obama ending at least one war: Iraq.
He has been consistent on his focus on Afghanistan, so this is nothing new. We won't stop until we have OBL, and we are working with Pakistan to get him.
So, you are actually only half right.
You bought the media script that Obama has ended the war in Iraq? Not a person came home, but they were "withdrawn". No more troops but advisers. Advisers will be there for 25+ years.
We lost the war in Iraq. We did not defeat any enemy in Iraq. We destroyed a country. The enemy strikes at will. The military could never even define who the enemy was because the enemy was the people they were "saving". The enemy are the opponents to being occupied by the US military. The war against the US will end when the US troops leave.
Norman Solomon
I am sorry to say that you are making wrong anologies by comparing Afghanistan to Vietnam. They are apples and oranges. Here is why.
Vietnam was driven by cold-war between East and West about who controls the world based on capitalism or communism. Soviet Uninon and China were behind the war in Vietnam against US.
In Afghanistan, it is a different ball game. US and Allies are not there to control and occupy the country. They are there to help create a semblance of national government that does not habor religious fanatics that use that country for engaging assymetrical warfare against the West. The religious fanatics fighting US and Allies in Afghanistan are financed through the production and sales of illegal drugs. Hence, the increase in US troops in Afghanistan is to provide logistics necessary to cut off production of illegal drugs and help facilitate the environment for creating national government.
And we are still trying to get OBL.
It will be sooo sweet getting him when the repubs couldn't..
Rather uninformed as to the realities of our Afghanistan involvement aren't you? We're there to secure a pipeline and the poppy crop to fund the CIA.
Bingo!
You're serious about your little analysis of Afghanistan? We're really just trying to 'help' the people of Afganistan? Yikes. I'd sure be curious to know where you're getting your 'facts'. Henry Kissinger? Colin Powell? Who snowed you with that little bit of not even ready for prime time propaganda? Change you can believe in is easy when you're talking to people that'll believe anything.
""Escalation" is a word for a methodical process of acclimating people at home to the idea of more military intervention abroad..."
Huh? Escalation* in this context is a term for incremental or stepwise increases in conflict for any reason, not solely for homefront PR. Most often its because each side matches a move by the other, and then 'raises' the commitment level, prompting the other side to do the same.
From French; escallier = staircase.
It seems that since the Iraq war died down that the people protesting the war are looking for a new lightening rod. It seems that opponents of any military involvement are afraid of another conflict resolution success all in the name of partisan politics. Solomon is arguing against a resolution to a completely justifiable war and dares draw a parallel to the Vietnam War. Has he forgotten who we're dealing with? There is no other alternative to fighting Al Qaeda and the Taliban. These are the last people who should ever be taken seriously at a negotiating table. There is no one who has reneged on promises of peace more consistently than these guys. They make negotiating and diplomacy look like a ridiculous idea, which is why it is so absurd that anyone would try to use the war in Afghanistan as an example of something wrong. Thank god people like this were never given a platform during WWII.
Same thing happened with Vietnam. What's Obama trying to prove, that he's as good a war monger as the republicans? Some change.
He has consistently stated his position on Afghanistan since the campaign. You aparently weren't paying attention though, as evidenced by your "warmonger" comment.
We still have O.B.L. to get, and all intelligence puts him in Afghanista
Also, would you like the Taliban to get Pakistan's nukes? There is a real threat of that.
Stop getting your p@nties in a bunch...
The change was in the thesaurus, change them from troops to advisers. Change is on the way.
There has been no change in Obama's position in regards to Afghanistan. Try actually paying attention.
Perhaps Solomon can express an alternative to taking measures to insure the defeat of the Taliban. By the time the US moved in on Afghanistan in 2001 the Taliban nearly conquered all of Afghanistan. This was an organization invading another country not to mention that it hosted other organizations such as Al Qaeda which participates in transnational terrorism. It's a shock the UN was never involved in trying to end the conflict.
Not to mention the Budhist (spelling?) statues that were destroyed by them in '99 (right around there). I remember seeing that on CNN and thinking that they needed to be taken out.
yes, CNN has all the answers, and all of your thinking should be based on their reports. Good sheeple.
Escalation? The Taliban is throwing everything they have at Afghanistan. The War in Afghanistan is taking so long because of a lack of commitment of troops and failing to heed the advice of our military leaders. Back in 2001 most of our military leaders new that we couldn't beat terrorist organizations simply by air power which is what was believed to be the appropriate form of warfare by people like Wesley Clark and Rumsfeld (see where it got us...). While the entire time people like Powell and Patraeus were trying to convince our politicians that when it comes to dealing with these people we simply cannot wing it.
The reason the Taliban have any stronghold in Afghanistan at all is because there is a lack of troops. They move into villages, kill people and take hostages just to intimidate and take control. The Taliban functions very similar to a vicious street gang. To leave troops at current levels is like equipping NYPD with only a handful of police officers because NATO soldiers need to remain in villages so the Taliban don't move in and takeover.
Not to mention is that the Taliban are on the verge of defeat, and failing to crush them thoroughly will certainly allow this war to be prolonged even further.
As I have posted this on HP before, i had two close family members on the ground in Afghanistan for the last seven years involved in running the U.S. share of the international medical relief effort over 16 out of 32 provinces. They both speak self taught fluent Farsi from Peace Corps service there 40 years ago. They know the country and the culture like the back of their hand. So did the other Americans they were with. These are the most valuable people in the entire U.S. right now regarding what to do in Afghanistan. There can be no military solution. Yet NONE of these people have been sought out by the Obama Administration to draw on their tip of the spear ON THE GROUND HANDS ON experience every day for SEVEN YEARS. Family and friends have written to their Congressman and Senators and to Obama's web site to advise them to immediately seek out these people who were there that long. We get no response. Nothing. I fear that it all just a money system now for the military contractors and corporate insiders again. No different than Bush.
A pure military solution of any kind is completely and totally impossible. 40 years after Vietnam our governmental and military systems are still COMPLETELY CLUELESS in an insurgency situation. Talk with the people that have hands on experience that also speak the language
They won't.
They don't want to win, they just want permanent war. Victory is just another shipment of arms delivered.
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