Bipartisan backing for US escalation in Afghanistan

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Senate approves Petraeus nomination by 99-0
Bipartisan backing for US escalation in Afghanistan
By Patrick Martin
2 July 2010

The US Senate voted by 99-0 to approve the nomination of Gen. David Petraeus as
the top US-NATO commander in Afghanistan. The vote Wednesday demonstrates the
complicity of both big business political parties in the war crimes being
perpetrated in this imperialist war.

The swift confirmation of Petraeus demonstrates the priorities of the
politicians of both the Democratic and Republican parties. The US Senate has
failed to act for an entire month on the extension of unemployment benefits for
the long-term unemployed. Extensions have been repeatedly blocked, sometimes by
a single senator’s objection.

But an appointment which signals a new and even more bloody escalation of the
violence in Afghanistan, where tens of thousands of innocent civilians and more
than a thousand American soldiers have been slaughtered, speeds through the
Senate in barely 24 hours. Petraeus appeared before a Senate committee Tuesday
morning, his nomination was rubber-stamped on Wednesday, and he was on a plane
out of Washington before nightfall.

Not a single senator, Democrat or Republican, opposed the appointment, and every
senator made sure that his or her vote was cast in favor of the general.
Apparently, there was only one valid excuse for failing to endorse the
selection—Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia could not record a vote for
Petraeus because he died early Monday.

The White House issued a statement hailing the unanimous vote and declaring that
President Obama had “full confidence” in Petraeus. “General Petraeus is a
pivotal part of our effort to succeed in Afghanistan and in our broader effort
to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat Al Qaida,” the statement said, adding that the
general’s “unrivaled experience will ensure we do not miss a beat in our
strategy to break the Taliban’s momentum and build Afghan capacity.”

This language demonstrates the political cynicism of Obama and the Democrats.
The “unrivaled experience” refers to the role Petraeus played in commanding the
US military “surge” in Iraq in 2007-2008 under the Bush administration. At the
time, Senate Democrats like Obama, Joseph Biden and Hillary Clinton were harshly
critical of the surge and of Petraeus, as they appealed to antiwar sentiment in
the run-up to the 2008 presidential election.

Once in power, however, President Obama, Vice President Biden and Secretary of
State Clinton enthusiastically backed an Iraq-style escalation of the war in
Afghanistan, and Obama has now installed as commander the same general selected
for that role in Iraq by George W. Bush.

Republicans normally critical of Obama were fulsome in their praise of the
appointment. Senator John McCain, Obama’s Republican opponent in the 2008
presidential election, said, “For those who doubt the president’s desire and
commitment to succeed in Afghanistan, his nomination of Gen. Petraeus to run
this war should cause them to think twice.”

The Petraeus appointment has been hailed by the entire corporate-controlled US
media, with liberal and conservative pundits alike depicting it as a political
masterstroke. Obama selected Petraeus to replace Gen. Stanley McChrystal, using
the pretext of an article in Rolling Stone magazine in which McChrystal and top
aides made unflattering comments about US civilian officials, including the
president himself and Vice President Biden.

The real significance of the firing of McChrystal was that he was losing the
war. US-NATO casualty rates have shot up—hitting a record 102 deaths in the
month of June, including 60 US soldiers. The initial offensive of the Afghan
“surge,” in the Marjah region of Helmand province, has proved a dismal failure,
with Taliban guerrillas melting away and then returning in force, preventing any
stabilization of the region. What was to have been the major summer offensive,
around Kandahar, Afghanistan’s second city and a Taliban stronghold, has been
postponed at least until the fall.

While the official claim is that there were no policy differences involved in
the firing, Petraeus’s testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee
Tuesday hinted otherwise. He said he would be reviewing the rules of engagement
for US troops in Afghanistan, which have been criticized within the military and
in Congress for setting limits on the use of US firepower, particularly air
strikes and artillery, which have caused widespread civilian casualties.

Petraeus returned to this subject before a different audience Thursday morning,
when he arrived in Brussels for a round of visits with NATO officials. According
to press accounts, he reiterated the need to revisit the rules of engagement,
claiming that he had “a moral imperative to bring all force to bear when our
troops are in a tough position.”

One British newspaper headlined its account of the visit as a pledge by Petraeus
to end “red tape” that was hampering the use of air power in Afghanistan. He was
quoted telling reporters, “there are concerns among the ranks of some of our
troopers on the ground that some of the processes are becoming a bit too
bureaucratic.”

But in a sop to mounting opposition to the war in Europe, he tried to balance
this call for greater use of force with a profession of concern for the Afghan
population. “In counterinsurgency, the human terrain is the decisive terrain,
and you must do everything possible to reduce civilian casualties,” he said.

There is considerable tension within NATO over the deteriorating military
position in Afghanistan and the deteriorating political position of pro-war
governments in Europe. Norway, for example, suffered its largest one-day
battlefield toll since the country was invaded by the Nazis in 1940, when four
Norwegian soldiers were killed June 27 by a roadside bomb as they patrolled a
previously quiet region in northern Afghanistan.

There are also inter-imperialist tensions. Petraeus will give orders to both the
US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, and there is reported resentment in European
capitals that the Obama administration changed commanders without consulting
them, when they have contributed a third of the troops and suffered 40 percent
of the casualties.

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen expressed support for McChrystal
after the Rolling Stone article appeared, only to find himself—along with Afghan
President Hamid Karzai—among McChrystal’s last-ditch defenders.

Besides the rules of engagement, one other issue dominated the Senate
confirmation hearing for Petraeus—Obama’s supposed pledge to begin the drawdown
of US troops in Afghanistan in July 2011, one year from now. Republican senators
like McCain repeatedly pressed Petraeus on this point, and he emphasized the
conditional nature of the so-called deadline, which was included in Obama’s
escalation plan only to deceive antiwar public opinion in the United States.

“July 2011 is the point at which we will begin a transition phase,” the general
said. “July 2011 is not a date when we will be rapidly withdrawing our forces
and switching off the lights and closing the door behind us.”

Leslie Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, a major US
foreign policy think tank, cited this comment and observed, “Make no mistake,
the thrust of the general’s remarks in these confirmation hearings was to
further lock Mr. Obama into the Afghan war and to protect his right flank
against Republicans and conservatives who have begun charging that the president
is about to cut and run from the war.”

The upshot of the McChrystal affair is that the Obama administration and the
Democratic Party are more committed than ever to a policy of endless
intervention in Afghanistan, with all the consequences that must ensue, not only
for the people of that war-ravaged country, but for the American people, who
will see their living standards and social benefits attacked to feed the Pentagon.

Only hours after the confirmation of Petraeus, the Republican leader in the
House of Representatives, John Boehner, was giving an interview to a friendly
right-wing newspaper, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, in which he argued for
increased funding for the war in Afghanistan and for cutting Social Security
benefits for the elderly by raising the retirement age to 70.

http://wsws.org/articles/2010/jul2010/afgh-j02.shtml

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