Ryan Crocker has spoken.
The “career diplomat” and fmr. Ambassador to Iraq and current Ambassador to Afghanistan, meaning de facto “provincial governor,” told Reuters that the U.S. will need to stay in Afghanistan to prevent another 9/11.
Bin Laden is dead? So what?
Al-Qaeda is basically dead? So what?
Afghanistan is a centuries-old graveyard for imperial lust? So what?
We’ve got the mother of all rationales, and a nice, neat numerical demarcation point to hang it on.
Yes, the 9/11-10th Anniversary Media Feeding Frenzy is upon us, and Fear, Inc. is about to reacquaint us with those tried and true justifications for a vast and costly empire.
Oddly, Obama came in on the vague promise of turning away from Iraq and finishing the job in Afghanistan. But we all know, or we should know, that we are never really leaving. Ever.
We could drone bomb every single “suspected, linked, associated or distantly related” terrorist du jour, and still we will not leave.
We could depopulate the entire region. And still…we will not leave.
Why?
The oil and gas reserves of the Caspian Sea and the close proximity of Russia and China to those long-fabled reserves. Simply put, Obama’s policy reflects the long-standing imperative to control Eurasia and secure unfettered access to those reserves.
In fact, President “Hope-Change” relied on Zbig Brzezinski as his primary foreign policy guru prior to his election. It stands to reason that Zbig’s influence would stretch well into his presidency.
You probably know that, though. Right?
Zbig was the guy who started President Carter on Afghanistan and the U.S. on the hard-line approach to Eurasia.
He’s long wanted to check Russia and China in the region and use U.S. hegemonic power to dominate the Caspian’s oil and gas reserves. Control over Afghanistan has long been seen as the key to that domination.
And he wrote the book on it.
Literally.
It’s titled “The Grand Chessboard.” As it turns out, our hope for change was merely a pawn in that great game.
Take a look at the highlights. It is very much like a blueprint for the Neo-Con agenda of the Bush Administration.
So, when you listen to Obama stumping this issue over the next year and touting his better, saner war policies…just keep this connection in mind. And think about Ryan Crocker’s dire, suitable for mass-consumption warning.
Whether it’s Iraq or Afghanistan…it is all about holding on to a permanent military presence in the region. Period.
Why? Oil, gas and the brimming trough of taxpayer dollars filled annually by the Defense Department. There is a lot of money in protecting corporate access to resources.
Why are we still there?
It’s the money, honey.
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'Obama’s Afghanistan Policy? It’s a Crock(er).' have 3 comments
September 6, 2011 @ 2:49 pm leslie griffith
Joe,
this is right on…and so it goes. can’t pay my house taxes and can’t sell the house.
our schools suck…the rich stomp on the poor, unions are all but gone…and still Obama is our best hope…yikes…lord help us.
September 6, 2011 @ 6:11 pm Tom O'Neill
This is sooo true, J.P.
1) The Democrats have got to stop saying: “Look what the evil Republicans have made Obama do now!” It’s like Dan White’s lawyer’s defense of Dan for murdering Harvey Milk and Mayor Moscone: “The Twinkies made him do it!” Truth to tell, the way to tell if Obama is lying is if his lips are moving. We’ve got to wake up and dump Obama as fast as we can.
2) The fact so many Americans have fallen for the perfect security” agenda does not speak well for them. There’s no such thing in this world as perfect security, and those who pursue it are foolish in the extreme. Hobbes, who was a very fearful person by his own account, says if you play the quest for perfect security to its limit, life on earth will prove “nasty, brutish, and short.” He’s right, of course. If I shoot (drones yet!) every time I think someone MIGHT be my enemy, and all others act in accord with my example, it won’t take long to end the game in universal death. This is so far from being an idle dream, that the thought of it haunted Einstein from Hiroshima to the day of his own death. The thought of “perfect-security-for-me” is the ultimate death-delivering narcissism.
3) And I haven’t even gotten to how right you are about the oil. Our handlers’ dreams are not dreams about our security at all–they are wet dreams, all about oil.
September 9, 2011 @ 6:31 am Gerard
We humans have such a short memory… The truth about why ruling psychopaths amongst us have eternally used wars to acquire by force what didn’t belong to them is as simple as 1-2-3. Problem is, by the time we get to “3” in our search for “understanding”, we’ve already forgotten “1” and we need to relearn from scratch in a perpetual cycle of stupendous naivety. This is so disheartening !