[lbo-talk] peaceniks silent as Obama assembles team of hawks

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Sat Nov 29 11:26:41 PST 2008


So I started wondering how the Obama fans would justify an escalation in Afghanistan when Karzai's been saying he wants us out. E.g.:

<http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/27/world/asia/27afghan.html>.


> President Hamid Karzai bluntly rebuked NATO on Wednesday for its
> faltering campaign against the Taliban and Al Qaeda and demanded a
> timetable for the seven-year war here to end.
>
> ...
>
> In recent months he has adopted, at least in public, an increasingly
> adversarial posture toward NATO and American forces deployed here,
> denouncing what he has called heavy-handed bombings and house raids
> that have caused civilian casualties, offended cultural
> sensitivities and undermined popular support for the war that routed
> the Taliban in late 2001.
>
> He has also criticized the detention of hundreds of suspects for
> years without trial at Bagram air base and at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
>
> While many in the foreign diplomatic community attribute the
> president’s criticisms to the 2009 elections, he has struck a
> supportive chord with many Afghans who have lost patience with the
> NATO-led effort, especially because of the civilian casualties.
>
> On Wednesday, Mr. Karzai said that if he could, he would ground
> American warplanes before they could inflict civilian casualties and
> destroy villages.
>
> “We have no other choice, we have no power to stop the planes,” he
> said. “I wish I could intercept the planes that are going to bomb
> Afghan villages, but that’s not in my hands.

So, this being Thanksgiving weekend, I got to ask an aunt-in-law, a prototypical Volvo-driving, Harvard-teaching liberal Democrat, how to handle this. Her answer: "He's just saying it for the election." (Um, wasn't this supposed to be about "democracy" promotion?) When the election is over, he can drop the rhetoric. I can't wait to hear more of this.

Doug



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