Category Archives: Middle East

From Bagram In Bondage

Barack Obama, Foreign Aid, Middle East, Military, Neoconservatism, War, Welfare

Windy and insubstantial is the kindest thing an honest newsman might say about the gimmick that is the Strategic Partnership Agreement, signed today by Barack Obama in Afghanistan. The president snuck into that US satrapy in secret. Had his intended “benevolence” toward the poor Pashtuns of Afghanistan been made public—the same people would have tried to blow Air Force One out of the sky.

“Afghanistan has a friend and a partner in the United States,” Obama said before he and Afghan President Hamid Karzai signed the Strategic Partnership Agreement outlining cooperation between their countries once the U.S.-led international force withdraws in 2014. … “There will be difficult days ahead, but as we move forward in our transition, I’m confident that Afghan forces will grow stronger; the Afghan people will take control of their future,” Obama said.

(CNN)

Blah, blah, blah.

Stripped of the baffle-gab, the agreement from Bagram amounts to this: Even when U.S. forces in Afghanistan are reduced considerably, they will still maintain the necessary meaty presence.

Oops, I meant to say the “enduring partnership,” which would, ostensibly, “prevent the Taliban from waiting until the U.S. withdrawal to try to regain power.”

Essentially we’re paying to keep in power the authoritarian protectorate we’ve helped establish, headed by the puppet we appoint, all of whom are hated by the Pashtun majority.

Afghanistan was the war Obama could call his own. He increased America’s presence there from 30,000 troops to 90,000, and thus earned his commander-in-chief credentials. Electability in fin de siècle America hinges on projecting strength around the world—an American leader has to aspire to protect borders and people not his own. Obama needed a war he could call his own. Afghanistan served his purposes.

And he intends on keeping Afghanistan on America’s welfare rolls. Afghanistan’s GDP approximates the foreign aid it receives annually, and you know who supplies the lion’s share of that “GDP”? Counterfeiter-in Chief, Ben Bernanke and the US printing press.

At the expense of the American taxpayer.

It goes without saying that Republicans like Senators John McCain, Joseph Lieberman and Lindsey Graham, the three blind neoconservative mice, are elated about the signing of the “Strategic Partnership Agreement (SPA) with President Karzai,” as it “will allow the United States military to operate in Afghanistan, though without permanent bases.”

(BAB’s moderated Comments Section will be closed until next week. Please comment on the Facebook Wall and beyond.)

Body-Parts Porn Again

Foreign Policy, Just War, Middle East, Military, War

OOPS, GI JOE’S BEEN BAD, AGAIN. Corpse desecration and other crimes against the occupied were said to be the purview of a “few bad apples” in an otherwise stellar American military. For a rarity, the body-parts pornography appears to be quite common. Naturally, every rational individual knows (NOT!) that blame lies with … the L.A. Times for exposing the latest incident of beastly behavior. All the better to deflect from the perps and the King’s comitatus that keeps them in blighted and benighted Afghanistan.

So what exactly are we talking about? Over to the LA Times:

The paratroopers had their assignment: Check out reports that Afghan police had recovered the mangled remains of an insurgent suicide bomber. Try to get iris scans and fingerprints for identification.
The 82nd Airborne Division soldiers arrived at the police station in Afghanistan’s Zabol province in February 2010. They inspected the body parts. Then the mission turned macabre: The paratroopers posed for photos next to Afghan police, grinning while some held — and others squatted beside — the corpse’s severed legs. …

As was remarked upon in “To Pee Or Not To Pee is Not the Question,” “…the truth about the people we are pissing on and pissing off in Afghanistan is quite simple. America’s indisputably brave soldiers have been ordered to, at once, woo and war against a primitive Pashtun population. These Pashtuns disdain the central government we desperately want them to obey. So it goes: We help local groups believed to be patriotic, but, at the same time, end up establishing an authoritarian protectorate they despise.”

Murder as Respected Policy

Democrats, Foreign Policy, Gender, Middle East, Russia, War

Today, on the MSNBC show of Andrea Mitchell (wife to former chief counterfeiter Alan Greenspan), an ideological member of Hillary Clinton’s posse, Jane Harman, the “Democrat who represented California’s 36th District in the U.S. House, and is president and chief executive of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars,” said the following, and I paraphrase:

Assad should leave Syria [his home]. Maybe his Russian pals can save his family members of whom he seems fond.

The gorgon also recommended that, “Newly ‘elected’ President Vladimir Putin could use the crisis in Syria to ‘reset’ world perceptions of his country. Negotiating Assad’s exit would go a long way toward restoring Russia’s image as a responsible and crucial global player.”

This is what passes for scholarship at the fittingly named Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and on MSM.

UPDATED: Nothing Like A Peace Proposal to Out Warmakers (Like The Wicked Witch Of The East)

Feminism, Foreign Policy, Gender, Hillary Clinton, Middle East, War

In Libya, our murderous efforts brought the National Transitional Council to power, under whose rule massacres are a daily occurrence. (147 people dead today. “Inter-tribal clashes” is how the West is finessing the carnage.)

The West’s Libyan learning curve is about to crest in Syria, as the Us and its conniving (far smarter) Saudi pals are considering assistance to the rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA).

As RT reported, “Damascus has accepted Kofi Annan’s six-point plan to stop bloodshed in the country, a spokesman for the UN envoy to Syria announced… the Syrian government was willing to cooperate with Koffi Annan’s peace plan to ‘remove all excuses’ for possible international intervention.”

On the other hand, “the Syrian opposition refuse to accept any resolution that does not stipulate Assad’s removal, claiming that his acceptance of Annan’s 6-point proposal is merely an attempt to draw out the conflict.”

Meantime, at the “Friends of Syria” summit, which should be more honestly tagged “Friends of Syrian Rebels Summit (Allah bless their bonny heads),” The Hildebeest and her Saudi handlers debated the ultimatums to be presented to the Assad regime before overthrowal.

UPDATE (April 3): “THE WICKED WITCH OF THE EAST,” writes says Michael S. Rozeff, at LRC.COM, “has signaled the policy shift of the U.S. to bring down the current Syrian government by saying ‘We believe Assad must go…’ What is she brewing up to bring this about? This is a now familiar pattern. It was after Obama said the same thing about Gaddafi that the Empire went into high gear to remove him.”

The complete CBS quote of the Hildebeest’s words:

“We believe Assad must go, that the killing must stop. The sooner we get into a process that ends up there, the better.”

Clinton seems to have a major obsession about bringing the sufferers of the world under her “healing” ministrations. Another “War of the Womb.”

Jacqueline Kennedy was so smart; she said women should not be in politics. They are too emotional. (Later on she was forced to retract, as revealed in the audio recordings of Mrs. Kennedy’s historic 1964 conversations with historian Arthur Schlesinger, on life with John F. Kennedy. I am currently listening to the tapes—and to her mesmerizing voice—in the car.)