Shane! I agree with you. Someone must have slipped something into my G&T...
-Chip
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From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org on behalf of Shane Mage Sent: Sun 12/13/2009 9:16 PM To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Obama: killing for 2012
On Dec 13, 2009, at 6:41 PM, dredmond at efn.org wrote:
>
> The war on Afghanistan isn't being lost, it is *already* lost. The
> Afghans
> will not accept foreign rule, and that's that.
There's no such thing as a "war on Afghanistan," not least because "Afghanistan" is a cartographical fiction, not a reality. The war is "on" Pashtunistan, which does not exist on maps but does in reality. Obama calls it "epicenter." He talks about "stabilizing Afghanistan" when what he means is stabilizing *Pakistan*. The circle he is trying to square is that the Pashtun will never accept foreign rule but half of Pashtunistan is ruled--hitherto nominally--by a foreign country, Pakistan. Since that status quo has now become militarily untenable for the US forces, the Paks have been forced into trying to actually control their half ("tribal areas") of Pashtunistan--and that is very destabilizing.
The solution is obvious and presently impossible even to mention publicly: territorial reorganization of the area into three states--a rump Central-Asian Afghanistan, tribal Pashtunistan without the presence of a single foreign soldier, and a rump Pakistan. The Pashtun tribal elders, responsible for maintaining the livelihood of their people, would have no use for young jihadist fanatics anxious to provoke foreigners across the borders into massacring Pashtuns again. The Taliban would just collapse as all the adults it has under arms return home.
It may be that Obama recognizes this, and hopes that his 100,000+ armada will be able to exert enough pressure on Pakistan that a solution becomes thinkable by his two-year "deadline." I suspect that might be the case because he is surely not stupid enough to think that his catch phrase "epicenter of global terrorism" makes any sense unless it is translated back into Pashtun. If so, I don't think his gambit will work because the Paks will not give up their "strategic space" without a firm political settlement with India and the Indians have no intention whatsoever of making any concession to Kashmiri self-determination, without which no political settlement with Pakistan is conceivable.
No wonder Obama has aged ten years in ten months!
Shane Mage
> This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it
> always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire,
> kindling in measures and going out in measures."
>
> Herakleitos of Ephesos
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