U.S. MILITARY MAKES SAME MISTAKES AS RUSSIANS IN AFGHANISTAN

The New York Times has an article today by John Burns on the lessons that Americans seemed to have missed from the ten-year Russian occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980's.

Burns interviews Zamir N. Kabulov, the Russian Ambassador to Afghanistan and former KGB Afghan section head.

"Mr. Kabulov, 54, is no ordinary ambassador, having served as a K.G.B. agent in Kabul — and eventually as the K.G.B. resident, Moscow’s top spy — in the 1980s and 1990s, during and after the nine-year Soviet military occupation. He also worked as an adviser to the United Nations’ peacekeeping envoy during the turbulent period in the mid-1990s that led to the Taliban’s seizing power."

Kabulov, according to Burns, talks about the Americans today in Afghanistan:

"In fact, it is precisely because of a belief that the Soviet past may hold lessons for the American future that a talk with Mr. Kabulov is valued by many Western diplomats here. That is a perception that has drawn at least one NATO general to the Russian Embassy in Mr. Kabulov’s years as ambassador, though the officer involved, not an American, showed no sign of having been influenced by what he heard, Mr. Kabulov said.

"“They listen, but they do not hear,” he said with another wry smile.

"“Their attitude is, ‘The past is the past,’ and that they know more than I do.” Perhaps, too, he said, “they think what I have to say is just part of a philosophy of revenge,” a diplomatic turning of the tables by a government in Moscow that is embittered by the Soviet failure here and eager for the United States to suffer a similar fate."

The underlying theme of Kabulov's advice is that Afghanis detest foreign invaders, whoever they may be. The more numerous the occupiers, the greater the level of Afghan insurgent violence against them, whether they be Persians under Alexander the Great several thousand years ago or Americans under Gen. David McKiernan today.

Writes Burns of Kabulov:

"The solution, he said, is to shift the fighting as quickly as possible to Afghan troops. This is something the United States and its partners have already embarked on, with a decision this summer to double the size of the Afghan Army. But even that, Mr. Kabulov said, will accomplish little unless the Americans turn the army into a genuine national force, with a sense among the troops that they are fighting for their country, not as “clients” of the Americans, as Mr. Kabulov believes they see themselves now."

ARE ALL INSURGENTS IN IRAQ TIED TO AL QAEDA?

Even the renowned and admired John Burns of The New York Times refers today to the surge campaign of U.S. forces in and around Baghdad as being against "Al Qaeda." Wait! There must be over 50 different insurgent groups in Iraq fighting the U.S. occupation and the present Al Maliki government. Yet Burns accepts the spin of the U.S. military that they are going after "Qaeda." Here's John Burns in his opening lead:

"The operational commander of troops battling to drive fighters with Al Qaeda from Baquba said Friday that 80 percent of the top Qaeda leaders in the city fled before the American-led offensive began earlier this week. He compared their flight with the escape of Qaeda leaders from Falluja ahead of an American offensive that recaptured that city in 2004."

Contrast the sloppy approach of John Burns and The New York Times with Thomas Ricks in The Washington Post today. Instead of describing the target of U.S. operations as "Qaeda," Ricks is careful to say "insurgents." Writes Ricks:

""The major U.S. offensive launched last weekend against insurgents in and around Baghdad has significantly expanded the military's battleground in Iraq -- "a surge of operations," and no longer just of troops, as the second-ranking U.S. commander there said yesterday -- but it has renewed concerns about whether even the bigger U.S. troop presence there is large enough.""

Why is this difference between The NY Times and Washington Post important? Because Burns implicitly backs up the web of lies spun by Bush and Cheney that the War in Iraq is merely an extension of the "War on Terror" against the people who flew the airplanes into the World Trade Center. If Al Qaeda staged and executed 9/11, and if it is Qaeda whom the U.S. is fighting in Iraq, then the War in Iraq not only makes sense but is morally justifiable and even required.

However, we all know that Iraq had nothing to do with the attack on 9/11, no matter how much Bush and Cheney say the opposite. Burns eats up the spin of the military briefers, Ricks avoids regurgitating the propaganda.

Therefore, for John Burns to describe all insurgency in Iraq as Qaeda or Qaeda-inspired is to wrongly conflate all insurgent groups down to one. Bush and Cheney may want to do so, but the result would be to give readers the wrong information about the War in Iraq.