TED KENNEDY OPPOSED BUSH'S WAR IN IRAQ, WHY DOES OBAMA PUSH WAR IN AFGHANISTAN?

Sen. Ted Kennedy was one of the Democratic voices in the Senate totally opposed to the stupid War in Iraq. Thanks to his speaking out, and thanks to the others, especially Sen. Robert Byrd and VP Al Gore. But where were the others? Why did they go along with the hated Bush/Cheney war machine?

Sen. Barack Obama came out early in 2002 against the War. Yet he remained somewhat muted about it probably due to campaign pressures. But why does Obama now president push and prosecute the War in Afghanistan and even enlarge it?

Afghanistan is worse than Iraq for education, social services, hospitals, schools, roads, infrastructure. Nothing will be solved there by dropping cluster bombs and firing phosphorous or spent nuclear shells. To think that an Afghan farmer, with no primary schooling, with no television, with no radio, is going to be changed by American soldiers, renounce conservative Islam, or become a political progressive calls for a psychological examination. It will never happen.

So why does Obama persist in keeping U.S. troops there? Obama should be smarter than what his foolish military policy indicates. And all the while, U.S. troops fall as casualties in a needless and purposeless war.

STOP U.S. AIR ATTACKS IN AFGHANISTAN

Taimoor Shah and Carlotta Gall report in today's The New York Times that U.S. bombing has killed up to 100 villagers in western Afghanistan, many of them women and children. Apparently Afghan forces attacked a suspected Taliban house and then called in U.S. war planes. The result is all too predictable.

Write Shah and Gall:

"Dozens of civilians, including women and children, have been killed during bombing raids by United States forces in western Afghanistan as Afghan troops battled Taliban fighters in heavy fighting, the Red Cross said Wednesday, confirming earlier accounts by Afghan officials.

"Enraged villagers brought between 20 and 25 bodies from their district to the capital of Farah Province to show them to officials, the officials said Tuesday. Villagers’ accounts put the death toll at 70 to 100, they said."

I have been long arguing for a complete cessation of U.S. air attacks. There is no way that such attacks are not going to inflict unacceptable civilian casualties. Perhaps the U.S. government still permits these attacks, misunderstanding who the "enemy" is. Members of the Taliban are just ordinary Afghanis, undereducated, simple farmers living with their families in agrarian villages. The Taliban thus represent a true insurgency against U.S. occupying and invading military. If the U.S. and Obama are going to "defeat" the Taliban, it cannot be by force of guns or war planes dropping bombs.

Consider the following from the Shah and Gall report:

"Villagers told Afghan officials that they had put children, women, and elderly men in several housing compounds away from the fighting to keep them safe. But the villagers said fighter aircraft later attacked those compounds in the village of Gerani, killing a majority of those inside, The A.P. reported.

"Mohammad Nieem Qadderdan, the former top official in the district of Bala Baluk, said he had seen dozens of bodies when he visited the village of Gerani.

"“These houses that were full of children and women and elders were bombed by planes. It is very difficult to say how many were killed because nobody can count the number, it is too early,” Mr. Qadderdan, who no longer holds a government position, told The A.P. by telephone. “People are digging through rubble with shovels and hands.”"

TALIBAN PUBLICLY EXECUTE YOUNG COUPLE ACCUSED OF SEX WITHOUT BEING MARRIED

There is a horrible cruel report from Afghanistan that the Taliban have executed a young couple 21 and 19 for having sex without being married. The couple apparently was planning an elopement to Iran, but their parents learned of their plans, reported them to the Taliban, and now they are dead.

The BBC reports:

"Correspondents say that the killings took place in a remote and dangerous region, where the government has no access.

"The Taleban ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001 and during that time implemented its austere interpretation of Islamic Sharia law, carrying out public killings and floggings.

"Unmarried men and women were forbidden from talking or meeting in public and women were not allowed out of their homes without a male relative. Girls were discouraged from going to school.

"Extrajudicial "honour killings" have been widely carried out in Afghanistan since then by conservative families angered by a relative who has brought them shame - usually by refusing to marry a chosen partner."

The Taliban show that they are living in medieval times. Forget about human rights or the right to choose whom to marry or to love. Religious fervor dominates society, and the irrational precepts of religion come into domination. The Taliban's is a dark world of religion, unforgiving, anti-female, irrationally obsessed with sex.

STOP AMERICAN BUILD UP OF TROOPS IN AFGHANISTAN

I don't understand Barack Obama's thinking in sending 10,000+ more American soldiers to Afghanistan. Obama surely knows that killing people who you think are "enemies" cannot achieve the objectives you want, no matter how lofty they are. True, killing your enemies used to be the only solution, but that was before the Enlightenment, before we had due process and the rule of law.

Obama says his main goal is to stop Al Qaeda. Well then, Obama should try personal diplomacy, given his stardom and popularity in the world. Why resort to bombing and shooting members of Al Qaeda? Obama has the answer, not in airplanes or tanks, but in his self.

If Al Qaeda represents radical and fundamental Islam, then military force and compulsion will do nothing except exacerbate the hatred and distrust of Al Qaeda members for Americans and secular Western customs.

I have good advice for Pres. Obama - stop the buildup of American forces in Afghanistan. Stop the militaristic approach to solving a problem that can never be solved with drones and bullets.

WHAT IS OBAMA THINKING BY KEEPING GATES AND NAMING HILLARY CLINTON?

Politico reports today that Robert Gates will remain as Defense Secretary under Barack Obama.

Writes Mike Allen for Politco:

"Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has agreed to stay on under President-elect Obama, according to officials in both parties. Obama plans to announce a national-security team early next week that includes Gates at the Pentagon and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) as secretary of State, officials said."

Some may think Gates is acceptable but I don't. First. Gates supports increasing U.S. forces in Afghanistan. As I written here on several occasions, Afghanistan is the black hole for foreign forces. Not since Alexander the Great has a foreign army successfully invaded and occupied and conquered the Afghan people. Since then Afghanistan has chewed up and spit out foreign invaders. The same thing lies ahead for the Americans.

Second. Gates as DefSec believes military power is effective in pursuing U.S. interests. I disagree totally with the premise. Shooting and killing foreigners does nothing to advance U.S. interests anywhere in the world.

As for Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, Obama seems to have forgotten what Clinton said about the Iranians, how she would "obliterate" them in the event of a war with Israel. If you were Iranian, I am sure you would judge Clinton to be another crazed militaristic American intent on conquering the world through bombs and missiles and tanks. Someone who even considers obliterating another people or another nation is not suited to be the chief diplomat of the United States.

AFGHAN JOURNALISM STUDENT SENTENCED TO LIFE AFTER QUESTIONING LACK OF WOMEN'S RIGHTS IN ISLAM

The BBC reports that an Afghan court reduced a death sentence to life imprisonment for a journalism student who questioned the lack of women's rights in Islam.

Alastair Leithead writes for the BBC from Kabul:

"Sayed Pervez Kambaksh, 24, was sent to prison in October 2007 after reportedly downloading material from the internet on women's rights in Islam.

"A court is his home city of Mazar-e-Sharif condemned him to death. An appeals court in Kabul reduced the sentence, but Mr Kambaksh's family say they will fight for his full release."

Where is President Karzai in this ridiculously unjust case? And where is the intellectual elite of Kabul? Why has no one stood up to defend the accused and call his sentence a travesty of justice?

Reports Leithead:

"Mr Ibrahimi [the accused's brother] criticised Afghan President Hamid Karzai for not using his power to intervene and to pardon his brother.

"He said despite professing that Afghanistan was now a democratic country, Mr Karzai had not taken steps to protect freedom of speech.

"Mr Kambaksh's case has highlighted the tension between the voices of conservative Islam in Afghanistan and the liberal international backers of President Karzai."

Leithead quotes Kambaksh on his trial:

"In an interview from prison last month, Mr Kambaksh told the BBC that he had not been allowed to defend himself at his original trial, which lasted less than five minutes. "

BUSH MAKES BIG MISTAKE, SENDS MORE TROOPS TO AFGHANISTAN

President George W. Bush's decision to redeploy more troops into Afghanistan is another strategic blunder in his "war on terror." The people who are fighting U.S. troops there are not terrorists but tribesmen like Pastuns who resent the presence in their country of foreign troops, especially when those foreigners drop bombs onto houses in their villages, causing the deaths of countless women and children and civilians.

Nor do Afghanis like it when American forces storm their homes in the middle of the night, search and frisk their women and wives, and otherwise turn their bedrooms into shambles.

The U.S. should not be fighting in Afghanistan. The War in Iraq was a mistake. The war in Afghanistan is just as wrong. The hunt for Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar should be done as a police action, not as a battle involving the U.S. Army or the U.S. Air Force.

The move of Bush to put more American soldiers will just have the effect of increasing American casualties. As history shows, many times in the past foreign armies have invaded and tried to subdue the tribesmen in Afghanistan. Not one foreign army has ever succeeded.

TEN FRENCH SOLDIERS DIE IN AFGHANISTAN IN USELESS HOPELESS WAR

Ten French soldiers lost their lives in Afghanistan yesterday. Yet the French Foreign Minister Bernard Kourchner says today that France is committed to send and keep its troops to fight there.

There must be a better way. After all, what is the purpose of having NATO troops in Afghanistan?

• to capture Osama bin Laden? Not very likely. Bin Laden is probably safely ensconced in the tribal territories in northwest Pakistan.
• to defeat and kill the Taliban? Again, not much chance of this. The Taliban consists of local and mostly uneducated Afghanis who believe in fundamentalist Islam and who also resent the presence of foreign soldiers in their county. No foreign army will ever defeat the movement.
• to protect the rights of women? Laudable, but it will never happen in Afghanistan, an Islamic country that does not believe in rights except for men.
• to prop up Karzai? If Karzai has not by this time secured the loyalty of Afghanis, nothing will protect him, not George Bush himself with thousands of Army Rangers.

So what should be done vis-a-vis Afghanistan?

• withdraw all foreign troops.
• start negotiations with leaders of the Taliban and allow them representation in the Afghani government.
• make the search for bin Laden and other members of Al Qaeda a police operation. Dropping bombs on villagers and sending in the army with tanks has never convinced the locals that they are wrong and the army is right.

PULL U.S. TROOPS OUT OF AFGHANISTAN

Before committing more troops to Afghanistan, Barack Obama should take a step back and re-think the whole role for the United States in Afghanistan.

First, from a historical point of view, has there ever been an occupying force that invaded Afghanistan and defeated the local inhabitants? If there has, they are very few. Afghanistan chews up invaders, mauls them, bloodies their armies, then spits them out.

Second. If the people of Afghanistan wants to adopt an Islamic fundamentalist government, that is their business, and the U.S. has no right to interfere.

Some will say that Bin Laden's attacks on 9/11 show that the U.S. must of necessity defeat the Taliban. But this is not true. Bin Laden and the rest of the Islamic fundamentalists attacked to right what they saw as an unjust occupation by the Americans of Islamic lands like Saudi Arabia where the U.S. insisted on maintaining bases and non-Islamic troops. Were it not for the presence of Americans in Islamic countries, there would have been no 9/11. If you don't agree with this, ask yourself why bin Laden did not attack Japan or Norway. The answer is because those countries did not and don't try to establish air bases in Egypt or Qatar.

Yes, the U.S. under Obama will pull out of Iraq. But Obama should also call for an end to the Afghanistan campaign. The U.S. must withdraw all American forces from Afghanistan sooner rather than later. Otherwise, the Afghanis will add the U.S. to the list of those foreign "invaders" and "occupiers" who found out when all was said and done that they made a big mistake in lives and money by trying to control that fierce land.

AFGHAN HISTORY: FOREIGN INVADERS ALWAYS DEFEATED

Today in The New York Times Carlotta Gall and Eric Schmitt describe the recent attack by Taliban insurgents on a U.S. outpost in Afghanistan.

"The Taliban insurgents who attacked a remote American-run outpost near the Pakistan border on Sunday numbered nearly 200 fighters, almost three times the size of the allied force, and some breached the NATO compound in a coordinated assault that took the defenders by surprise, Western officials said Monday.
"The attackers were driven back in a pitched four-hour battle, and they appeared to suffer scores of dead and wounded of their own, but the toll they inflicted was sobering. The base and a nearby observation post were held by just 45 American troops and 25 Afghan soldiers, two senior allied officials said, asking for anonymity while an investigation was under way.
"With nine Americans dead and at least 15 injured, that means that one in five of the American defenders was killed and nearly half the remainder were wounded. Four Afghan soldiers were also wounded."

In the multi-thousand year history of Afghanistan and its tribes, has there been any successful invasion and occupation? The answer is a resounding NO! The Afghanis have defeated one occupier after another. No one survives as a foreign invading force in Afghanistan.

Look what happened to the Russians when they invaded Afghanistan initially in 1978. Ten years later the Russians were pulling out as fast as they could. The Mujahadeen killed Russians by the hundreds, shot down Russian choppers, inflicted cruel punishment for any Soviet soldier unfortunate enough to be captured alive.

So how does the United States think that Americans will win in Afghanistan? And what is wrong with Barack Obama for saying that the U.S. should send two more brigades? Surely Obama cannot believe that the military force of an invading nation, even the powerful U.S. military machine, can possibly succeed where so many other invaders have failed.

Leave Afghanistan to its people and tribes. Withdraw all U.S. and other NATO forces. Stop the indiscriminate bombing of Afghan civilians.

Afghanistan is a black hole where foreigners are destined to lose.

END OCCUPATION OF AFGHANISTAN

The BBC reports that nine U.S. soldiers have been killed by the Taliban in Afghanistan. This follows a week in which U.S. war planes killed 42 Afghan civilians mistaking them for insurgent fighters.

All this loss of life means that the United States should not be in Afghanistan. Americans should stop the killing of Afghanis and stop, at the same time, the loss of life of American soldiers.

The way to solve seemingly intractable problems and conflicts is not through tanks and bombs but through talk and negotiation. The Bush doctrine of pre-emptive war has been shown ineffective and life destructive.

Pull all U.S. troops out of Afghanistan. Let Afghanis determine their own government and their own society.

GET U.S. TROOPS OUT OF AFGHANISTAN

Some are against the War in Iraq although in favor of the War in Afghanistan. I oppose both.

Look at what happened several days ago when U.S. warplanes bombed Afghani "insurgents," who, it turned out, were really innocent civilians travelling to a wedding. The death toll exceeded 20.

How many times has this mistake been made by the U.S. military? The trouble with choppers and war planes is that their pilots really cannot know whom they are shooting and killing. It's merely their best guess that the "targets" are "insurgents." In other words, the U.S.A.F. fires at people knowingly aware of the risk that they could be innocent civilians and many could be children.

What is the solution? It isn't to passively accept these atrocities, with some bromide that things like this happen in every war. The answer is to ground all U.S. war planes and helicopters. The U.S. should not even have an air force. Airplanes should be instruments of civilization, not mechanisms of death.

Stop the killing in Afghanistan. Pull all troops out of Afghanistan. Ground all U.S. war aircraft.

U.S. FIRES MISSILE INTO PAKISTAN, KILLS 11 PAKISTANI SOLDIERS

The BBC reports today that it was an American missile shot from across the border in Afghanistan that killed 11 Pakistani soldiers.

"Pakistan's military has condemned an air strike by Afghanistan-based US forces that killed 11 of its troops as a "cowardly attack".

"The incident happened inside Pakistan, near the border with Afghanistan, as US-led forces tackled pro-Taleban militants.

"The US military confirmed it had used artillery and air strikes after coming under fire from "anti-Afghan" forces."

On what basis is the United States allowed or permitted under international law to fire a missile into another sovereign country like Pakistan? The answer is such military cross-border attacks are illegal, and the U.S. is playing the role of the aggressor-bully in interfering in the internal affairs of another sovereign country.

The situation is very much like the attack by Colombia on March 1st against members of the FARC inside of neighboring Ecuador. There is no justification for mounting an attack against people in other countries. Colombia was not justified, and neither is the United States under George Bush.

Pakistan has every right to strongly complain against the illegal operations of U.S. forces. George Bush is constantly singing odes to democracy, yet here we see the U.S. indirectly attacking the democratically elected government of Pakistan because it has given signals that it will not cooperate with or tolerate U.S. raids against Pakistani tribesmen suspected of harboring the Taliban inside Pakistan.

NATO PLANES KILL 14 AFHGAN CIVILIANS IN RECKLESS BOMBING RAID

Here's another case of NATO (read U.S.) war planes dropping bombs on innocent Afghan civilians. Abdul Waheed Wafa writes in today's The New York Times that 14 Afghan workers were killed on Monday by a NATO air strike.

Waheed Wafa writes:

"The strike occurred late Monday night in the Norgram district of Nuristan when the Afghan workers of Amerifa Road Construction Company were sleeping in tents after a day’s work.

"“Fourteen of our mechanics and laborers were killed as they were asleep in their tents,” said Nurullah Jalali, the executive director of the construction company. “We just collected pieces of flesh from our tired workers and put them in 14 coffins.”

"The governor of Nuristan, Tamim Nuristani, said he could confirm that 13 workers had been “mistakenly” killed when NATO forces bombed the area based on what he said was an intelligence report that insurgents were infiltrating the area.

"“All these victims are civilians, and they were from nearby provinces,” Mr. Nuristani said.
A NATO spokesman said its forces had struck the area in an attack on what it believed were Taliban insurgents but could not confirm that the road workers had been killed."

I have commented many times before on the destruction to innocent life from NATO and U.S. war planes in Afghanistan. When the U.S. drops a bomb, the chances are that there will always be civilian casualties including women and children.

This is sufficient reason to end all air strikes. The airplane should not be used for dropping bombs or inflicting death. The U.S. Air Force and other military services should stop all combat flights over Afghanistan and Iraq. The killing of civilians is a certain result of a U.S. pilot dropping bombs on houses, villages, towns and cities. Because it is a foreseeable effect, the laws of war should be upgraded to ban such flights. No country, including the U.S., should be allowed to intentionally kill civilians even if insurgents or enemy soldiers are present.

AFGHANISTAN EXECUTES 15 BY SHOOTING THEM

Afghanistan has resumed imposing the death penalty. The BBC reports that Hamid Karzai's government executed 15 people on last Sunday evening.

"Fifteen people in Afghanistan have been put to death for crimes including murder, government officials say.

"They say that the firing squad deaths are the second confirmed executions since the fall of the Taleban in 2001.

"Officials say the 15 were shot at Afghanistan's largest prison Pul-e-Charkhi. The last such executions were in April 2004. "

And I heard the BBC Radio report within the past several hours that Karzai has defended these executions by saying that other nations too have and impose the death penalty, obviously referring to the practice in many states in the U.S.

Here we see the cruelty of Karzai. Just because other states impose the cruel and inhumane penalty is no excuse for Karzai and Afghanistan to take a person's life. Just as I oppose Iraq as well as any other state, including the United States, executing prisoners, no matter how heinous their crime, so I vehemently oppose Karzai in this barbaric act.

U.S. DROPS BOMB ON BRITISH SOLDIERS IN AFGHANISTAN

Here's another example of the awful destruction of human life caused by war planes dropping bombs. Reuters reports that three British soldiers were killed by a U.S. war plane dropping bombs, supposedly on Taliban fighters, in Afghanistan.

Human civilization needs to get rid of war planes and the whole notion that dropping bombs on your enemy is moral or even reasonable. The practice is a barbaric act of trying to incinerate a human being on the ground. I call upon the U.S. Air Force and all civilized countries to put a stop to this barbaric and immoral bombing.

KARZAI MEETS WITH AHMADINEJAD IN KABUL

Today there was a meeting between President Karzai of Afghanistan and President Ahmadinejad of Iran. Bush's saying he needs to have a heart to heart with Karzai about Iran's intentions has thankfully been dismissed.

Genuine thanks to Karzai for rejecting Bush/Cheney's hard line towards the Iranians. After so much bluster from Bush on the evil regime in Teheran and how the Iranian people should overthrow their government, Karzai's meeting with Ahmadinejad goes a long way to defuse the drums of war incessantly generated by Washington.


Robert Tait in The Guardian from London describes the meeting:

"Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, audaciously signalled his determination to counter US global power today by meeting his Afghan counterpart, Hamid Karzai, in open defiance of Washington's wishes.


"Mr Ahmadinejad led a high-ranking Iranian delegation to Kabul in a demonstration of growing Iranian influence in Afghanistan, where the US, Britain and other western powers are engaged in a bitter struggle with the Taliban.


"The visit - Mr Ahmadinejad's first to Afghanistan - was tailor-made to provoke alarm within the Bush administration, which accuses Tehran of destabilising its efforts while claiming that the Taliban is being armed with Iranian weapons. Iran, which is mainly Shia, denies helping the Taliban, whose puritanical Sunni ideology it has condemned."

The last sentence is illuminating. The U.S. claim made by Bush/Cheney is that Iran is arming all of the "enemies" of the United States, including the Taliban in Afghanistan. This claim is most ridiculous and ludicrous on its very face. Iran is mostly Shia muslim. The Taliban are fanatical Sunnis. Are we to believe that Iran is sending arms and aid to a group that tries to kill Shias as a matter of religious doctrine?

Writes Tait:

"Addressing a joint White House press conference last week, Mr Bush said: "I would be very cautious about whether or not the Iranian influence in Afghanistan is a positive force." Mr Karzai flatly contradicted him by describing Iran as "a helper and a solution."

"Departing from Tehran's Mehrabad airport, Mr Ahmadinejad paved the way to further deepen the disagreement by saying today's talks would cover arrangements for establishing Afghanistan's security and independence.


"Describing Iran and Afghanistan as "two brother nations with common interests, cultures and histories", he told reporters: "The present condition of the region demands more exchange and negotiations between Tehran and Kabul. In this trip economic cooperation, especially over Iran's participation in Afghan development plans, will be discussed.""

COUNTERINSURGENCY IN THE EYES OF FORMER MARINE CAPTAIN

The most important article in today's The Washington Post is not the story on Karl Rove's resignation but the opinion piece by former Marine captain Nathaniel Fick. Fick wrote the best seller, "One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer."

Fick writes on the paradoxical world of counterinsurgency warfare where winning is accomplished not by killing or bombing but by assisting the local population in returning to normalcy.

Writes Fick:

"The objective in fighting insurgents isn't to kill every enemy fighter -- you simply can't -- but to persuade the population to abandon the insurgents' cause. The laws of these campaigns seem topsy-turvy by conventional military standards: Money is more decisive than bullets; protecting our own forces undermines the U.S. mission; heavy firepower is counterproductive; and winning battles guarantees nothing."

Fick was in Kabul recently as a consultant to the U.S. Army in providing workshops on the goals of counterinsurgency to American, Afghan and NATO officers as well as Afghan policemen. Fick serves up four basic tenets of "winning" in Afghanistan or in Iraq:

"The first tenet is that the best weapons don't shoot. Counterinsurgents must excel at finding creative, nonmilitary solutions to military problems."

Second, "The more you protect your forces, the less safe you may be. To be effective, troops, diplomats and civilian aid workers need to get out among the people. But nearly every American I saw in Kabul was hidden behind high walls or racing through the streets in armored convoys."

Third, "[t]he third paradox . . . is that the more force you use, the less effective you may be. Civilian casualties in Afghanistan are notoriously difficult to tally, but 300-500 noncombatants have probably been killed already this year, mostly in U.S. and coalition air strikes. Killing civilians, even in error, is not only a serious moral transgression but also a lethal strategic misstep. Wayward U.S. strikes have seriously undermined the very legitimacy of the Karzai government and made all too many Afghans resent coalition forces. If Afghans lose patience with the coalition presence, those forces will be run out of the country, in the footsteps of the British and the Soviets before them."

And lastly, "[t]he academy's final lesson is that tactical success in a vacuum guarantees nothing. Just as it did in Vietnam, the U.S. military could win every battle and still lose the war. That's largely because our primary enemies in Afghanistan still have a sanctuary in neighboring Pakistan . . . Chasing terrorists and the Taliban around Afghanistan leads to little lasting progress as long as they can slip across the border to rest and regroup. . . . The Durand Line, which separates Afghanistan from Pakistan, is a mapmaker's fantasy. Without political reform, economic development and military operations on both sides of the border, we can do little more than put a finger in the dike that's keeping radicalism and instability in Pakistan from spilling back into Afghanistan."

These are words of wisdom from someone who fought in both Afghanistan and Iraq. How come Bush has not heard these words? He still counts "progress" as so many insurgents killed. He still equates insurgency with terrorism instead of understanding the fear and rage of local populations when they are bombed or shot at.

EXCELLENT ANALYSIS OF BUSH/KARZAI NEWS CONFERENCE

Juan Cole in Informed Comment has an insightful analysis of the news conference yesterday (see my post today on the same subject) of Bush and Karzai. Cole examines Bush's statements on Iran and indicates what muddled policy lies behind the Bush "policy" toward Iran.

Writes Cole:

"First of all, true to form, he [Bush] begins with an outright misstatement (more accurately, a lie). The statement, “after all, this is a government that has proclaimed its desire to build a nuclear weapon,” is an obvious untruth that like so many other untruths will probably not be challenged by the mainstream media, but through which George Bush hopes to etch in the American mind (or his own mind?!) the proven or “proclaimed” aspirations of the Iranian leadership for acquiring the bomb."

Yes, the media in attendance at the news conference let George Bush lie with immunity in saying that the government of Iran has proclaimed its desire to build a nuclear weapon. Of course, Bush cites no chapter or verse. Iran for Bush is the bogeyman, the very incarnation of evil.

Cole, however, is optimistic that the Bush dream-like dark constructions of Iran as the monster will fall to the realities on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan. Writes Cole:

"Realities on the ground in Afghanistan and Iraq, however, are slowly revealing the incoherence (or impracticality) of Bush’s policies. Karzai talks about Iran’s helpful role in Afghanistan and acts accordingly while al-Maliki’s government in Iraq pleas for the continuation of US-Iran security talks before al-Maliki himself (along with his foreign minister Hoshyar Zebari) takes off for Iran in a few days for the government of Iraq’s own security talks with Iran."

KARZAI SAYS IRAN HELPS AFGHANISTAN, BUSH SAYS IRAN IS THE ENEMY

Bush and Karzai held a joint news conference yesterday. Karzai had told CNN that the Iranians were helpful to his Afghan government. Bush said they were not forces for good. Who should we believe?

Karzai, of course. Iran is Afghanistan's western neighbor. Many Afghans have relatives in Iran and frequently cross back and forth for business and family. Furthermore, many Afghans speak Farsi.

Consider that the Iranians helped defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan after the U.S. invasion in 2002. Taliban are not favorites of Iran and the Persians. Taliban are Sunni Muslims, the Iranians are mostly Shiites. Iran is not looking to have a hotbed of Sunni Taliban radicals on its eastern frontier.

Bush says Iran is a enemy. Karzai says Iran is a friend. Imagine the destabilization of Afghanistan if Bush attacked Iran.

We know Bush is a myopic bully, but would he really be that reckless?