U.S. Government's Inadequate Design Templates for New Foreign Governments of Iraq and Afghanistan

I wanted to write on the topic of the U.S. Federal policy of destroying foreign governments in two instances in order to build new governments, and how that policy may have select illogical elements within it. I will not provide arguments for or against the validity or legal right to destroy the former governments of Iraq and Afghanistan--I tend to feel the actions were proximally justifiable, instead I wish to concentrate upon the inadequate paradigms or templates for post destruction reconstruction of new governments that were notoriously costly in dollars and casualties multi-nationally.

My feeling is that the global corporate ownership class behind the phenomenal of corporatism expropriating the democratic pragmatism and functional health of the economy of the United States exists analogously on the upper floors of political-economic skyscrapers crossing from one building term to another over sky-bridges, thus never touching the ground floors of mass political interest. The media supported wealthy elites are the goal class that many politicians seek to join, and to pass on that class to their heirs. Unfortunately with the inter-owning class of concentrated wealth investing in all global corporations it is a self-perpetuating and ecologically detached class. That being said, I will return to the issue of the badly constructed Iraq and Afghan reconstruction plans.

The Bushes and oil interests may have sought to gain oil contracts in Iraq--and they now have. Yet the pan-Arabic imperial goals of Saddam Hussein were a long range problem for the entire middle east though Hussein was appositely named to bring Shi’a and Sunni together from Iran to Saudi Arabia, the antipathy of Iran and other people of the region was a flaming hate understandably. When the Bushes opted to depose the Ba’thist regime of Iraq they were following the only politically practical and acceptable course (ending sanctions and letting the chips fall where they may being the other). What the Bushes conveniently failed at was in saying that instead of a $40 billion dollar reconstruction cost for Iraq the bill would be about 2 trillion dollars. For Afghanistan the bill is still growing.

The differences between Iraq and Afghanistan in terms of history and civilization are vast. Iraq has had a civilization along the rivers in from the deserts for more than 5000 years while Afghanistan is an ancient land of travelers and rural tribesmen. It was the ancient homeland of the Aryans (Iran) and a place that has been difficult for many in the high plains and mountains to find prosperity in. Perhaps the prosperity of Afghanistan is simply in being there to discover the sky and the beauty of a land austere and inspirational of thoughts of God.

The Bush II administration may have felt that war reconstruction costs would not matter because military contracting expenses would benefit all the right military industrial Bush friends in the corporate world. If the people of Iraq had been given ownership in private stock shares themselves of Iraq oil fields right after the war instead of never, peace would have been supported with far more vigor by the people of Iraq both Sunni and Shi’a, Kurd and Christian. The conflict of interest on oil field contract for the Bush administration is obvious--they could not support a democratic reconstruction for Iraq except nominally at the higher political levels, while the people would be groveled about as usual finding larger-ups associated with the payouts from the U.S.A.

In Afghanistan the reasons for war were to remove a Taliban that had sheltered AL Qa’eda, and of course to remove or capture Al Qa’eda in order to prevent future attack organization upon the United States. Obviously no military venture abroad was necessary to defend the avenues of ingress the 9-11 box cutting hi-jack and crash team had used--the only thing required for that was better airport screening, security in aircraft cockpit access and effective intelligence agency work in government regarding how to actually, physically defend the United States.

The United States of course choose to attack Afghanistan when the Taliban Government would not give up the Al Qa’eda members they allowed to live and organize in Iraq. A BBC report on the Taliban in Afghanistan said that the more than 100 year old loosely organized political tradition has a history of providing refuge to political exiles or political fugitives such as the United States has for Cuban ex-patriots or perhaps Soviet or Iranian dissidents. The United States chose to war upon Afghanistan to remove the Taliban without a good idea of how to reconstruct a government or what the cost would be.

Such is the current exploration of method in Afghanistan that is scheduled to send another 30,000 soldiers at the cost of 30 billion dollars. The Marja offensive to displace the Taliban from a stronghold near the Pakistan border is a showpiece to support the U.S. administration decision to accelerate troop deployments and investments in the Afghan war effort. It is expected to show positive results in time for the 2012 re-election season. Democrats are thought to be ready to re-elect the President if the war in Afghanistan is going well--meaning the pacification of the nation with few suicide bombers or I.E.D.’s going off killing American soldiers. In some way a reduction in U.S. bombing of Afghan civilians used as shields for traveling Taliban would also be considered a positive development.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marja'_(islamic_law)-MEANS 'SOURCE TO IMITATE-RELIGIOUS REFERENCE

The decision to impose a central government upon Afghanistan seems destined to fail…the timing is the question--how long will it take?

Afghanistan is a large, poor rural nation, a sort of Wyoming without the oil fit best for wild tribesmen and women surviving modestly in ancient dwellings. These are not people that normally would support a large central government or large standing army with modern weapons. It will be interesting if Afghan pilots are trained in the United States to fly a five jet squadron of F-16’s. I think really they should just for old time’s sake; The Hmong of the Vietnam war era produced some great U.S. trained pilots that won medals for valorous flying. If there are few valid targets in Afghanistan or Air Force to oppose so what--they would make any down hillers think twice about sending anything up their way agin them.

Afghanistan would normally have a more rural nation with a modest government. They have the problem of corruption from drug producers and traffickers and of course payments from political and terrorist fugitives from abroad they choose to shelter for both Muslim brotherhood and financial reasons. We might have properly bribed the Taliban to give up Al Qaeda and shelter U.S. special forces to hunt Al Qaeda and saved the U.S. taxpayers a lot of billions of dollars even if the special forces needed to be trained Muslims to be acceptable to the Taliban. Since we went to war to depose a tradition, it is necessary to think about the chances for long range stability in the area.

Not living on the upper floors of the skyscrapers of the wealthy, rather drifting in the dank alleys and swamps of society, my regard for the choices the elite political class chose to invest in for Afghanistan is not high. I would prefer an American prosperity and federal spending on ecological economic full employment with zero growth goals for non-renewable material through-put as a way to achieve national prosperity. I think the concept of creating a sustainable ,western-friendly Afghan central government is not going to be successful in practice; once the money supply/fuel is cut off the central government/standing army/police machine will grind to a halt and the members disperse to the traditional and economically rational way of rural life with a modest government. I doubt that Afghans will like the idea of paying taxes to support a central government any more than Alaskans (who have no state income tax) or Republicans in the U.S. Congress support tax increases on the wealthy, on corporations, or inheritance taxes.

If the U.S.A. continues to fund the Afghan Government after out troops are withdrawn, the rural Afghans will consider them foreign lackeys and attack them as evil minions of Satan foisting perversity and photos of naked breasts upon the faithful, along of course with the plying of liquor. It is only while the free money flows and fuels the cooperation of those seeking employment that our Afghan allies are loyal. They are not supporters of the Democratic policies of the administration or Congress for ideological reasons I would think.

Governments form for sociological reasons anchored in history and geography. Iraq logically has civilization while Afghanistan reasonably has a discrete, variegated and disperse constellation of villages with some larger town and cities. Within that political economy various political alliances and formations evolve in dynamic balance to conserve various economic and social interests as well as for security.

The United States Government has no reason for a lugubrious outlook on the prospects for structuring a stable and discrete, decentralized Afghan government that could function reasonably well in the absence of U.S. expenses, it is possible. Following the prior Afghan war of defense against the Soviet Union the United States failed to provide any sort of support that would enable the United States to offset the influence of Al Qaeda. Further U.S. overly-large ambitions of a bi-polar sort in Afghanistan such that it must become a kind of High Asian versions of a Beltway Republic seems to be in progress. It is even reported that the Obama administrations plans for a withdrawal in ah hurry after ‘Vietnamizing’ the ‘war’. For a war of understanding it seems to be, allow I have a too remote perspective on the event from the alleys outside the cities with the skyscrapers on the hills of Boston and in the lofty pyramids of power on dollar bills of D.C. passing through congressional control.

A more intelligent and discrete policy designed to recognize Afghan sovereignty and need for its own internal readjustments following the departure of both American military forces and spending would have been a better approach-and it still would, to achieving an Afghanistan that neither requires vast U.S. spending or is a concern about a training area for Para-military terrorist organizations with N.A.T.O. countries as their target locations. That is still a better, more pragmatic political goal than the present undisclosed policy of the Obama administration.

Perhaps we need to fortify a few towns were our friends in Afghanistan live, or plant some crops outside towns like Marja. Maybe a better selection of investments that can exist in a periods of radical realignment following U.S. and N.A.T.O. departure is required. What is very probable is that once the monetary fuel supply for the central government ends it will fade away as quickly as would that of the U.S. Government in Washington D.C. Americans cannot afford to pay for the existence of foreign governments in order to illogically provide security at U.S. airports. At the least a real; Mexican ecological border control barrier zone should be constructed in the United States before Olympic also-ran terrorist conditioned athletes run in high explosives and terrorist supplies at night along g.p.s. courses with night vision goggles to cache in the wastelands of New Mexico and southern Texas.

addition One...

--even hate changes (fades) fast in time such that it waits for no one. I believe Afghanistan will continue to change with the 21st century techno-invasion of communications and data-bases at low cost. How that will affect rural people in central Asia I cannot say.

A religious reason for antipathy towards prosperity is fine and good in some cases and not so in others. India is Hinduia for some, and a billion soul techno-basket of change to others. Conflict is costly and leads in many contexts simply to suffering. I think that the pursuit of prosperity and virtue simultaneously will perhaps be a new direction such as the religious toleration that prevailed in Europe somewhat after the end of the 100 years of religious wars.

Afghanistan absent of the vast expenses of the United States will seek a more normal social level as would the waters behind a dam after a flood. Yet everything from nano-technology to organic solar voltaics will still be increasing in the world. The effort to improve the existence of ordinary people will require a Democratic readjustment of social control of investments from elites and hierarchical powers to the people. Instead of ideologies of conflict led by leaders, more practical, discrete and disperse ecological economic localists synergistically conserving and simultaneously investing in the future will need to be reinforced.

People will try to turn away from mass movements of war and terror if they can, yet that won’t be simple. If those that forget the past are doomed to repeat it, those that cannot forgive or forget the past are doomed to remain in it. Right responses to human evil and conflict is to move away from it and to try to accentuate the positive--it is a challenging yet necessary task. Afghans will want to attempt to modernize and find rapprochement with India and other nations while yet keeping their faith, if they cannot become Christian. Tolerance and respect for individualism should allow people with different background to work together for mutual advantage--if that means dampening the excesses of social, marketplace practices offensive to others then such accommodations need to be made.