Can Karzai Save Us?
by Ron Paul
After a year of talks over the
post-2014 US military presence in Afghanistan, the US administration
announced last week that a new agreement had finally been reached. Under
the deal worked out with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, the US would
keep thousands of troops on nine military bases for at least the next
ten years.
It is clear that the Obama Administration badly wants
this deal. Karzai, sensing this, even demanded that the US president
send a personal letter promising that the US would respect the dignity
of the Afghan people if it were allowed to remain in the country. It was
strange to see the US president go to such lengths for a deal that
would mean billions more US dollars to Karzai and his cronies, and a US
military that would continue to prop up the regime in Kabul.
Just
as the deal was announced by Secretary of State John Kerry and ready to
sign, however, Karzai did an abrupt about-face. No signed deal until
after the next presidential elections in the spring, he announced to a
gathering of tribal elders, much to the further embarrassment and dismay
of the US side. The US administration had demanded a signed deal by
December. What may happen next is anybody's guess. The US threatens to
pull out completely if the deal is not signed by the end of this year.
Karzai
should be wary of his actions. It may become unhealthy for him. The US
has a bad reputation for not looking kindly on puppet dictators who
demand independence from us.
Yet Karzai's behavior may have the
unintended benefit of saving the US government from its own worst
interventionist instincts. The US desire to continue its military
presence in Afghanistan -- with up to 10,000 troops -- is largely about
keeping up the false impression that the Afghan war, the longest in US
history, has not been a total, catastrophic failure. Maintaining a heavy
US presence delays that realization, and with it the inevitable
conclusion that so many lives have been lost and wasted in vain. It is a
bitter pill that this president, who called Afghanistan "the good war,"
would rather not have to swallow.
The administration has argued
that US troops must remain in Afghanistan to continue the fight against
al-Qaeda. But al-Qaeda has virtually disappeared from Afghanistan. What
remains is the Taliban and the various tribes that have been involved
in a power struggle ever since the Soviets left almost a quarter of a
century ago. In other words, twelve years later we are back to the
starting point in Afghanistan.
Where has al-Qaeda gone if not in
Afghanistan? They have branched out to other areas where opportunity
has been provided by US intervention. Iraq had no al-Qaeda presence
before the 2003 US invasion. Now al-Qaeda and its affiliates have turned
Iraq into a bloodbath, where thousands are killed and wounded every
month. The latest fertile ground for al-Qaeda and its allies is Syria,
where they have found that US support, weapons, and intelligence is
going to their side in the ongoing war to overthrow the Syrian
government.
In fact, much of the US government's desire for an
ongoing military presence in Afghanistan has to do with keeping money
flowing to the military industrial complex. Maintaining nine US military
bases in Afghanistan and providing military aid and training to Afghan
forces will consume billions of dollars over the next decade. The
military contractors are all too willing to continue to enrich
themselves at the expense of the productive sectors of the US economy.
Addressing
Afghan tribal elders last week, Karzai is reported to have expressed
disappointment with US assistance thus far: "I demand tanks from them,
and they give us pickup trucks, which I can get myself from Japan... I
don't trust the U.S., and the U.S. doesn't trust me."
Let
us hope that Karzai sticks to his game with Washington. Let the Obama
administration have no choice but to walk away from this twelve-year
nightmare. Then we can finally just march out.
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