Yesterday Charlie Rose had on Brian Glyn Williams, an associate professor of Islamic history at UMass. Williams was talking about the necessity of putting more troops into Afghanistan, because the Taliban is now a globalized movement. He said that we know what withdrawal from Afghanistan would look like: The Israelis withdrew from Gaza, and look what happened, Hamas rained rockets on them. Rose merely nodded.
And so once again the Israeli experience of expelling Palestinians and occupying their land (which has continued with the blockade of Gaza) is used to rationalize American occupation of the Muslim world. Let’s straighten this out: Israel and the Palestinians are engaged in a long conflict over territory/occupation. Israel has developed an expansionist/militarist strategy to deal with the conflict that is only making things worse. This is no role model. Even Gen. Stanley McChrystal has said that he doesn’t want to be an occupier. How unfortunate that someone like Williams is given a platform. His comments had the opposite effect on me to what he intended: the sooner we get out of Afghanistan (a war I supported), the better.
I had a similar reaction recently thinking about the war in Afghanistan.
There is a shell game played with equating Al Quaida and Taliban. That is not an advocacy of the Taliban. Far from it.
I think of the war with Al Quaida as similar to Barbary pirates. Its a war of chase, not a war of occupation.
There is a strong element of need for retained vigilance in fighting global terror, which is VERY active recently, and a great deal of it conducted through suicide-bombing. But, most of the attacks are inter-factional. Its therefore as relevant to describe that as “Islamic terror” as to describe it as “human terror”.
What about ‘Jewish’ terror? Or Judeofascism?
Of course not. That would be anti$emetic!
The Global War on Terror is a farce. There is terrorism sure. But the context of the terminology you’re using is PR. It’s never meant to be terrorism in a FAIR sense of the word. It’s terrorism because they attack us. When we undermine democracy in the ME and prop up corrupt family dictatorships and use indiscriminate force – people will be upset. That doesn’t excuse terrorism but it mitigates this cartoon imagery of the ‘Global war on terror’.
People like you Witty are so fake. You’d have been a German Fascist in another era. It’s only now that you’re – as a Jew – part of the Establishment, that you can turn around and regurgitate this bullshit. Imperialism packaged up nicely as vigilance.
I tend to think we should just get out of Afghanistan too. The more troops we put in, the more we occupy. Alternative drone scenarios reap hatred of Americans by civilians; gain
sympathy for the Taliban. I read we all ready have more troops over there than the USSR did at its peak–and they weren’t occupiers? What else is an increasing network of outposts? OTH, if we left, would the resultant civil war affecting both Afghanistan and Pakistan in turn bring in Indian and Pakistan warring proxies? And, both have nukes.
I saw an interesting Afghanistan debate on Bloomberg last night. Col. Ralph Peters, Fox’s military analyst, has turned against the escalation. I hope he starts speaking out on some other aspects of the neocon agenda.
Yesterday, Antiwar.com ran an article from the Independent by Ben Lynfield that quoted Israeli officials as warning the British (as they have U.S. officials, elsewhere) that if the Goldstone report holds and officials/soldiers are brought up for war crimes in Gaza then the British could be brought up for the same in Iraq/Afghanistan:
“Mr. Sawers took issue with the prevalent Israeli idea that the commission headed by South African judge Richard Goldstone had reached its conclusions in advance of its research. “This investigation was led by a serious figure, Richard Goldstone, a South African Jew with long experience in justice. It’s not as if he was in any way biased,” he said.
Israeli officials warned in response that any British support for the report would boomerang. If a precedent is set of Israelis being prosecuted for acts during the Gaza war, Britons could also be placed in the dock for actions in Iraq and Afghanistan, they said. “London, which is also in the midst of a war against terror, could find itself in handcuffs if it supports the document,” they said. ” (From the Independent, Ben Lynfield, Israeli Officials Warn Against Support for U.N. Report)
It strikes me that there is a strong Israeli strategy evidenced both in these Israeli Goldstone warning kinds of statements and in now the trying to equate what happened in Gaza (from the Israeli official perspective) and what might happen in Afghanistan to the U.S., that there is a strategy to link what Israel is doing and has done to the U.S. especially. If I had been a neocon in the mid 1990′s looking to how more closely I could tie the U.S. and Israel, I don’t know if I could have suggested anything stronger than to ignite an invasion and then offer up the kinds of things that were getting “the Israeli terror experts” in trouble and encourage/advise those kinds of things to occur in the invasion. This connecting of Israel and the U.S./Britain at the war crime level and the occupation level is disturbing to me…..leverage to prevent consequences for crimes.
You are very much on point. Both England and the USA are also guilty of crimes
against humanity, though not nearly as much as Israel. But enough to prevent
any real trial of the Israel regime. Goering’s dead body knows.
I would say the US is the more guilty, just comparing Fallujah to Gaza, as someone pointed out here yesterday.
Evil sticks to you and corrupts every step you take.
Yeah, I don’t know as much about U.S. actions in Iraq, but I do remember that we dropped cluster bombs all over populated areas just like the Israelis in Lebanon.
The Israeli spokesmen may be right about Goldstone establishing a principle that could indict our own people. But even so, because of our power there is no threat that U.S. or British people would actually be prosecuted. Not saying this is fair at all, but hopefully our leaders can see through this argument against holding Israel accountable.
not surprising that Brian Glyn Williams would advocate such a thing. the history of orientalism is a history of colonial facilitation.
Re: Orientalism
Ditto. You beat me to it.
never put anything past israel’s threshold … when most reasonable people and nations would pause or stop, israel sees as a green light to go forward and then blame the victim … ever since Netanyahu uttered the statement, “these attacks [9/11] are very good for israel,” during live news coverage while the buildings were still smoldering in heaps and then tried to tie that day’s victimhood of Americans (and others) with israel’s situation any observant person could see how the spin was going to go … and then we got to witness years of israeli tactics and techniques employed by the Bush admin (curtailing rights, security checkpoints, monitoring people, Orwellian language and continued use of fear to gain political advantage, targeted killings, pre-emptive war, and on it goes)
israel has been the worst influence upon America in all its history
This is true. Americans have been ethically turned into Israelis and don’t even know it. The double standard is now the official standard. Christians especially don’t see it.
I think they know it. I think the US military definitely knows it – they were modeling their tactics in Iraq on Israel’s.
Williams is actually onto something here.
Bear with me.
If the Gaza “withdrawal” is a model to be followed, then I suppose we can expect McChrystal to withdraw all NATO and US troops out of Afghanistan to the periphery and then commence by enforcing an air, land and sea siege over the country.
Then, when the Afghans unite with the Taliban and al-Qaeda in launching rockets and carrying out attacks at US troops along the border and at neighboring states that support them, Williams can get on TV and campaign for carpet bombing Afghanistan. He could even market it by asking “What would YOU do, if your family and neighbors were attacked and killed EVERY day?”
An incompetent, bigoted cynic might think that would be a good solution.
I, however, am not. So I don’t.
I don’t disagree. I do think that McChrystal wouldn’t know what you are talking about.
The problem with Glyn Williams’ analysis is that so much of it comes from being holed up with Americans in Afghani bunkers. He doesn’t believe that there is any “daylight” between Al Qaeda and the Taliban, but Williams (ever the Dostum expert) doesn’t acknowledge that the Taliban is a government on the run which has now adapted classic hit and run tactics. Nor does he acknowledge that ideologically the two are separate: Al Qaeda has a pan-Islamic/Saudi perspective, while the Taliban represents a simpler set of goals — Shariah in Afghanistan.
On the other hand, on Sunday news shoes the concensus among the generals was concern over the effect on Pakistan. That the US had promised that they would keep up the heat on the Taliban, and that Pakistan would have the weight of the US to contend with rather than being forced politically to accept the Taliban style of Islamic rule.