Obama in Europe
Orwellian on Pakghanistan
Memo to files re President Obama’s thunderous yet fruitless talk about Pakghanistan this week.
The aim of the American escalation, the leaders of Europe were instructed, is to “disrupt, dismantle, and defeat Al-Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan.”
What’s interesting is not that he repeated the casus belli he’d been singing (often with McCain) for more than a year, but that he excluded — for the first time to my eye — mention of the Taliban.
Echoes of 1984: We are at war with Eurasia and we have always been at war with Eurasia!
But then, four weeks later: We are at war with East Asia and we have always been at war with East Asia!
Perhaps the message has gotten thru that (not only Osama but also) the Taliban doesn’t quite exist as something a Pentagon can disassemble.
He spent the week first at a G20 summit in London then, for the NATO bash, in Strasbourg, where today (Saturday) a hotel, a border police station and a grocery were torched by people protesting NATO’s participation in Afghanistan and the CIA bombing campaign in Pakistan.
Their leaders largely followed suit:
Britain pledged Gates-Mullen “up to a thousand” pairs of new boots. Poland, Croatia and sister creatures of the Great Liberator — some hundreds each. And France and Germany, pretty much nada. Niente. Nicht.
The US President, in short, was given the bird in Strasbourg, although the press as yet, esp the Brits, seem loathe to say so.
Even as the town was burning about his ears today the Prez made a last pitch. From the NY Times:
“We want to do everything we can to encourage and promote rule of law, human rights, the education of women and girls in Afghanistan, economic development, infrastructure development. But I also want people to understand that the first reason we are there is to root out Al Qaeda, so that they cannot attack members of the alliance.”
Answering a … question about whether the … escalation would be contingent on whether the Afghan government rescinded a proposed family law that the UN has likened to legalizing rape within marriage, Mr. Obama replied that the law should not deter the United States from its military goal.
“I think this law is abhorrent. Certainly the views of this administration have been and will be communicated to the Karzai government,” he said. But he added, repeating for emphasis: “I want everybody to understand that our focus is to defeat Al Qaeda.”
We are at war with East Asia and we have always been …
Most revealing of the administration’s mind on this is a transcript of two shadow-advisors trying to explain the President’s policy to the White House press corps after the formal speech. The two murderous clowns who escort Joseph K to his death upon the dissolution of his Trial come to mind, and Brazil, and Robert Edwards’ recent Land of the Blind, rather than Nineteen Eighty-Four pure and simple.
Late in the script Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke pops in, terribly enthusiastic about the escalation. (Happy to have a job, perhaps. Used to be a banker.)
I’ve watched him over the years, have spoken with him a few times about Yugoslavia. He did not seem silly. (Maybe Bernie Madoff bit him.)
But now there he is, bubbling over at length about using the Pentagon to wipe out “corruption” in Afghanistan. Â
?!? Corruption?!? In Afghanistan?!?
To become its FBI? Its local police? It’s judiciary?
Sniffs of Petraeus’s Community Policing in Iraq. But surely no one thinks the hard lands, many nations and turbulent tribes encompassed by Afghanistan’s borders are susceptible to such treatment? Let alone by Yanks & Brits? Surely…?
Sideshow:Â A question in the transcript about Osama bin Laden gets a SOP robotic response (Can’t discuss intelligence) that doesn’t bother to even imply that Osama is alive.
Here are some peeps in Cleveland unhappy with the Obama speech.
And Mr Stewart in New York re the Obamarama’s new term of art for the War on Terror which even the OMB director (doesn’t he have enuf trouble?) is out there insistently singing:Â “Contingency Operations Overseas.”
Finally, the day after the big speech, Viceroy Petraeus informed the Senate he would like another 10,000 pairs of boots — beyond the 21,000 Obama has already put on boats — by Christmas.
But awaits the President’s decision on this in the fall …
ed says:
The contrast of the bird given Obama re troops for the escalation in Pakghanistan to the cultural side of the week’s tour is striking.
The Times has OpEds by a brit, french and german, all effusing joy for having touched Obama’s palm and reporting the envy of both Nations and politicians.
EG, the Brit, after reporting in detail on Obama’s charming handshake with the Bobby cop outside the PM’s:
QUOTE
Mr. Obama is the only popular politician left in the world. He would win an election in any one of the G-20 countries, and his fellow world leaders will do anything to take home a touch of that reflected popularity.
We may be in the rare position of having an American president who has a deeper mandate among people who could never vote for him than with those who did. For the time being, he has only to offer his hand, and ask politely.
END QUOTE
It IS very much the Gorbachev phenomenon.
And yet … the facts of Strasbourg speak for themselves. Thousands of violent protesters. At least three toasted buildings (including one inhabited by police).
And no boots to speak of for Gates-Mullen to push about in the cruel borderlands of Pakghanistan.
April 5th, 2009 at 4:45 pm
ed says:
And to cap off the big week, on Sunday in Prague he surprises people by calling for a world without nuclear weapons. His lips to dog’s ear.
Wonder what the supervisors in the Pentagon think.
April 5th, 2009 at 9:55 pm
ed says:
Juan Cole on Turning Afghanistan into Iraq.
April 11th, 2009 at 1:43 pm
ed says:
From Al Jazeera:
The US military has admitted that its troops killed four civilians in Afghanistan, including a child, not fighters as was earlier reported.
The US has also offered an apology for the deaths on Wednesday night and indicated that the family will receive support.
A 13-year-old boy who survived the night-time raid on his home told Al Jazeera that his mother, brother, uncle and another female family member were killed.
A woman who was nine months’ pregnant was wounded and lost her baby.
“There has been enormous pressure from citizens on the Afghan government to end these kinds of civilian casualties, end these kind of raids on houses.”
Colonel Graig Julian, a US officer, told Al Jazeera: “When it appears that we have accidentally killed innocent civilians, we are very sorry about that. That is not why we came here. We came here to provide security for the Afghan citizens.
Brigadier-General Michael Ryan said in a statement late on Thursday: “We deeply regret the tragic loss of life in this precious family.”
End quote. Fuck you.
The painting.
April 11th, 2009 at 8:05 pm
ed says:
Fast Forward, to July 20. Pakistan tells the Pentagon to buzz off.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/22/world/asia/22pstan.html?hp
July 22nd, 2009 at 12:06 am
ed says:
Eight months since Strausbourg and the Prez gives his big All Things Considered speech: Full Speed Ahead.
And hectors Europe for failing to live up to its commitments — as if Europe had ever said yes to this dumb, criminal war.
Well, again, the reaction is clear. Europe again tells Uncle Sam to get lost:
http://rawstory.com/2009/12/france-germany-refuse-commitment-troops-afghanistan/
December 3rd, 2009 at 12:20 pm
Matt Janovic says:
Good observations all around.
December 3rd, 2009 at 1:35 pm