Source: GRITtv According to the news, Afghanistan is “suddenly” worth one trillion dollars of mineral wealth and there is a hunt for the founder of WikiLeaks. Is this news though? Or is this a slow, carefully timed archaeological dig of the politics that shape the news? On one hand, there are documents from decades ago indicating [...]

La Organización de las Naciones Unidas (ONU) llamará esta semana a Estados Unidos a detener los ataques con aviones no tripulados de la Agencia Central de Inteligencia (CIA) contra personas sospechosas de pertenecer a la red radical Al Qaeda. Loa exhortación será hecha este jueves por el reportero especial del foro mundial sobre ejecuciones extrajudiciales, sumarias y arbitrarias, Philip Alston. El funcionario presentará un informe ante el Consejo de Derechos Humanos de la ONU, con sede en Ginebra, señalando que "el poder de vida y muerte" de los aviones no tripulados debe estar bajo la órbita de las Fuerzas Armadas, y no de la CIA.

Obama's propensity to retreat at the first sign of resistance shows that he lacks both guts and the strong convictions that are essential elements distinguishing statesmen from politicians. By pursuing a rudderless course in his foreign policy, by flip-flopping in his approach to other leaders, he is also inadvertently furnishing hard evidence to those who argue that American power is on the decline -- and that the downward slide of the globe's former "sole superpower" is irreversible. Those who have refused to buckle under Obama's initial threats and hardball tactics (and so the impact of American power) include not just the presidents of China, a first-tier mega-nation, and Brazil, a rising major power, but also the leaders of Israel, a regional power heavily dependent on Washington for its sustenance, and Afghanistan, a client state -- not to mention the military junta of Honduras, a minor entity, which stood up to the Obama administration as if it were the Politburo of former Soviet Union.

Typical media analyses have for months misrepresented the apparent chasm between Afghanistan and the US under Obama’s administration. Even if this administration was genuinely discontented with Karzai’s policies, at least until very recently, the resentment had little to do with the reasons offered by media ‘experts’. It was not because Karzai was failing to deliver on governance, end corruption and so on. Let’s face it, the US war in Afghanistan was never morally grounded, and it never could be either. Not unless the militant mindset that governs US foreign policy somehow acquires a complete overhaul. The US and Karzai (as a supposed representative of the ‘Afghani people’) must come across as united in the face of the extremist minority. Karzai’s visit to the US was the political padding prior to the likely military storm. It was meant to assure the public that the chaos which will follow is in fact part of a counterinsurgency effort; well-planned, calculated, executed and, as always, passionately articulated.

To all appearances, when it comes to the administration's two South Asian wars, one open, one more hidden, Obama and his top officials are flailing around. They are evidently trying whatever comes to mind in much the manner of the oil company BP as it repeatedly fails to cap a demolished oil well 5,000 feet under the waves in the Gulf of Mexico. In a sense, when it comes to Washington’s ability to control the situation, Pakistan and Afghanistan might as well be 5,000 feet underwater. Like BP, Obama’s officials, military and civilian, seem to be operating in the dark, using unmanned robotic vehicles. And as in the Gulf, after each new failure, the destruction only spreads. For all the policy reviews and shuttling officials, the surging troops, extra private contractors, and new bases, Obama’s wars are worsening.

No se trata de que Irán esté controlando la política iraquí. Lejos está de eso, pero tras una prolongada ocupación estadunidense resulta ser que Irán tiene más influencia en Irak que Estados Unidos. Irán está especialmente agradecido con Estados Unidos por haber eliminado al enemigo más temible que tenía en Irak: Saddam Hussein.

The U.S. military can, however, count on one crucial factor in its repetitive war-making: kill some pregnant mothers, kill some schoolboys, gun down a good Samaritan with two children in his car trying to transport Iraqis wounded in an Apache helicopter attack to a hospital, loose a whirlwind that results in hundreds of thousands of deaths -- and still Americans at home largely don’t care. After all, for all intents and purposes, it’s as if some other country were doing this on another planet entirely, and “for our safety” at that.

We got our troops there remarkably quickly. We're quite capable of removing them at a similar pace. We could, that is, leave. There are, undoubtedly, better and worse ways of doing this, ways that would further penalize the societies we've invaded, and ways that might be of some use to them, but either way we could go.

Article published in Amauta with permission from the author Amid increasing civilian deaths and resurgent warlordism, Afghan women’s leader Malalai Joya writes that Hamid Karzai and the U.S. are losing credibility in Afghanistan day by day. by Malalai Joya Almost every day, the NATO occupation of our country continues to kill innocent people. Each time, it [...]

Traducción en español abajo Article published in Amauta with permission from TomDispatch Source: TomDispatch by Alfred W. McCoy The crisis has come suddenly, almost without warning. At the far edge of American power in Asia, things are going from bad to much worse than anyone could have imagined. The insurgents are spreading fast across the countryside. Corruption is rampant. [...]