The support for President Obama in the 2008 election clearly reflected mass opposition to the Bush administration and its wars of aggression. President Obama knew this when he spoke to the world at West Point on Dec. 2 and again in Oslo on Dec. 10, as he tried to perform a balancing act between the interests of imperialism, on one hand, and the growing opposition around the world against imperialism on the other.
 The ANSWER Coalition organized thousands to march on the very first day of the invasion of Afghanistan. Above is the ANSWER demonstration in San Francisco on October 7, 2001. |
Those expanding wars have caused the deaths of thousands of soldiers and more than a million civilians, at the cost of trillions of dollars. Obama’s speeches made one point crystal clear: Bush may be gone, but, as the old saying goes, “the generals stay put.”
For the generals, both in uniform and in three-piece suits, and for our esteemed “elected officials,” leaving Afghanistan is not an option. There are too many investors to please, defense contracts to sign, pipelines to install, and U.S. military bases to build. For them, the struggle for independence in Afghanistan—a popular national liberation movement comprised of over 140 different armed resistance groups that control over 90 percent of the country—is simply a hindrance to their plans to dominate the region economically and militarily.
“National security,” the safety of U.S. troops and the lives and desires of the Afghan people are not factors in their strategic calculations. If the war existed in a social vacuum, they would simply throw the entire weight of the U.S. war machine behind the effort in Afghanistan, no matter the financial cost, the human toll, or how many years U.S. troops would have to kill and be killed while occupying Afghanistan.
But broad sectors of the U.S. public do care about these things. They care about thousands of soldiers coming home in coffins and in wheelchairs. They care about wedding parties and impoverished families being torn apart by missiles launched from Apache helicopters and drones. And they care about over $500 million a day being spent on this violence for an indefinite, perhaps permanent, occupation.
The manifestations of this developing consciousness have been the numerous, massive anti-war demonstrations organized since the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, including some of the largest anti-war protests in U.S. history.
When President Obama and his team of generals and civilian advisors (most of whom led the war effort under Bush) were locked in the war rooms of the White House and the Pentagon deciding which strategy to adopt in Afghanistan, the sentiments of the people in the United States had to be factored in to prevent the emergence of a mass uprising against the increasingly unpopular war.
Tens of millions of people would be watching who are or were Obama supporters, many of whom had organized and protested against the wars while openly rejecting Bush’s policies. The generals and politicians knew it would be a hard sell; on a national and international stage, Obama would announce that he was vastly increasing troop levels, drone attacks and “defense” spending for an already long and disastrous war with no clearly articulated justification.
So he pulled an ace out of his sleeve: July 2011. In fact, the announcement of the scheduled start-of-withdrawal date was political slight-of-hand designed to obscure Obama’s announcement of what is, in reality, a major expansion of U.S. wars of aggression, dwarfing that of the Bush administration in size, scope and spending.
Out come the generals
The promise of a 2011 “exit strategy” inserted into Obama’s West Point address was recognition by the administration that most people in our “great democracy” want the war in Afghanistan to end, and end soon. But if that’s what most people in the United States want, why won’t it happen? Who is deciding what course the war will take in Afghanistan?
President Obama, whose job is to manage the affairs of the ruling class, is required to take the advice of his elite military commanders and advisors. So when Gates made his rounds to the various media outlets repeating the mantra “there isn’t a deadline,” it was later echoed by commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan General Stanley McChrystal, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen, commander of U.S. Central Command General David Petraeus, national security advisor General James Jones, and the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, retired General Karl Eikenberry, who has the diplomatic experience of once commanding combat operations there. All held command posts under the Bush administration.
Robert Gates is at the top of this crew of military brass. Gates’ highly regarded foreign policy experience includes sitting on many corporate boards, including Parker Drilling Company, which is currently drilling for oil in the region, and Science Applications International Corporation, a Fortune 500 defense contractor that has scored billions in profits since the beginning of the Iraq war in 2003, raising it to the ninth largest defense contractor in the United States.
National security advisor Jones also served on a myriad of corporate boards after his retirement from the military, including of two companies whose profits have soared since the start of the wars—Boeing, the builder of bombs and fighter jets, and the oil giant Chevron.
The generals who have yet to retire with six-figure pensions from the U.S. military are preparing for a typical post-military career for top military brass—trading in their uniforms and donning three-piece suits to serve on the boards, as top management or as lobbyists of private defense companies.
Last year, the Government Accountability Office reported that as of 2006, defense contractors employed 2,435 retired generals and admirals—many of whom are simultaneously hired by the Pentagon as “senior mentors.” These “senior mentors” help command the U.S. war machine and sit in Obama’s inner circle deciding the way forward in Afghanistan.
The role of top military commanders has not changed since the days of General Smedly Butler, who was quoted in the socialist publication Common Sense in 1935 as saying: “I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.”
More death, more money
In addition to being in agreement about 2011 absolutely not being a deadline for getting out of Afghanistan, there was another fact that is universally agreed on among the military commanders—that the soldiers they command will have to die at a much higher rate to implement their strategy.
“I am sure we will sustain an increase in the level of casualties,” said Admiral Mullen, who has never had to serve in combat himself. “This is the most dangerous time I’ve seen growing up the last four decades in uniform.”
Gates said, “[T]he tragedy is that the casualties will probably continue to grow.”
In November, the defense secretary toured the Oshkosh Corporation. This company is a defense contractor churning out 50 armored vehicles a day from its assembly lines, at over $500,000 each, to be sent to Afghanistan. Inside those same armored vehicles is where most U.S. soldiers meet their deaths or sustain life-changing injuries. Roadside bombs are the number one killer of troops in Afghanistan. Even the most advanced armored technology, including the vehicles produced by Oshkosh, cannot defend against the cheap, rudimentary roadside bombs used by the resistance forces.
During his visit, Gates found it necessary to autograph one of the armored vehicles as it came off the assembly line. The vehicle that now bears his signature will be sent to Afghanistan, and likely end up as a burning heap of twisted metal with young men and women inside. All the while, the war profiteers grow richer.
Washington works for Wall Street. Most of our “elected” politicians either come from corporate boardrooms themselves, or can only ascend to office with multi-million-dollar support from big business. Every decision they make in office reflects their true constituency, the rich. Every arm of the state—the courts, police, all branches of government, and the military—is used to further the domination of the exploiters over the exploited.
The generals are the commanders of a military that exists to further these same corporate interests. Just as politicians cater their domestic and foreign policy positions to the needs of banks and corporations, the generals cater their military strategies to the same interests. If the politicians and generals did not do this, they would no longer be allowed to hold their positions.
The strategy we are witnessing unfold is dictated by how the generals interpret the “conditions on the ground.” In Afghanistan, they are trying to make those conditions favorable for U.S. companies and the U.S. military to dominate the region. They provide their “expert” advice—both as military commanders and as hired consultants also collecting a paycheck from defense contractors—and the loyal politicians clear the administrative path for their war plans. Based on Obama’s speeches at West Point and then in Copenhagen, and on the posturing of the team of generals around him, the war in Afghanistan will rage on for bloody years to come.
The 2011 myth of withdrawal was authored for public consumption to give the generals the breathing room they need to test their new war plans on the bodies of U.S. troops and innocent Afghans. But the super-rich, through their accomplices in the military and in the government, should not decide the fate of thousands of U.S. troops and Afghans and trillions of our tax dollars. It is our task to build the movement that we know the generals and politicians fear—a movement that will disrupt and ultimately crush their plans to continue the catastrophe that is the war in Afghanistan.
