Wednesday 4 November 2009


AFGHANISTAN AS A BAILOUT STATE

Tom Engelhardt

Asia Times, November 4, 2009

In the worst of times, my father always used to say, "A good gambler cuts his losses." It's a formulation imprinted on my brain forever. That no-nonsense piece of advice still seems reasonable to me, but it doesn't apply to American war policy. Our leaders evidently never saw a war to which the word "more" didn't apply. Hence the Afghan war, where impending disaster is just an invitation to fuel the flames of an already roaring fire.

Here's a partial rundown of news from that devolving conflict: In the past week or so, Nuristan, a province on the Pakistani border, essentially fell to the Taliban after the US withdrew its forces from four key bases. (See Taliban take over Afghan province Asia Times Online, October 29.)

Similarly in Khost, another eastern province bordering Pakistan where United States forces once registered much-publicized gains (and which Richard Holbrooke, now President Barack Obama's special envoy to the region, termed "an American success story"), the Taliban are largely in control. It is, according to Yochi Dreazen and Anand Gopal of the Wall Street Journal, now "one of the most dangerous provinces" in the country.

Similarly, the Taliban insurgency, once largely restricted to the Pashtun south, has recently spread fiercely to the west and north. At the same time, neighboring Pakistan is an increasingly destabilized country amid war in its tribal borderlands, a terror campaign spreading throughout the country, escalating American drone attacks, and increasingly testy relations between American officials and the Pakistani government and military.

(...) [artículo aquí]

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