AFGHANISTAN: THE UN-HOLY WAR...

THE MILIBAND MYTH:
“Civilian or at least non-military interventions are
at the heart of sustainable progress - hence the emphasis in Anglo-French
discussions of the need for a political surge in Afghanistan, led by the Afghan
government at national and local levels.”

THE FACTS OF THE MATTER:
“Sixty children were among 90 civilians killed in an American airstrike in
northwest Afghanistan according to a United Nations investigation. More than 700
civilians have died this year!”

The Spanish Civil War was the most conspicuous, perhaps, of its kind to witness the launching of the great Communist lie that the republicanos were fighting for democracy. Idealists from
all over the world joined the International Brigades, led and organised by the
Republicans, and made up of young believers whose common goal lay in fighting
Fascism. They included Ernest Hemingway, George Orwell, Andre Malraux, Arthur
Koestler and many others, while the Nationalists received the support of the
major European powers, such as Italy and Nazi Germany. Of course, the Taliban
don’t even pretend they are fighting for either freedom or democracy. Albeit
that news of British recruits among the Taliban strongly suggests that the war
in Afghanistan, like that in pre-fascist Spain, has become a magnet for
International Brigades determined to fight the infidel. For as an amalgam of
veterans and press-ganged extremists trapped in ideological circumstances, they
too, from their own particular perspective appear to be fighting for freedom.

Yet, while Bush’s suspension of habeas corpus tainted liberal
democracy in America, even today in Western liberal circles the view that NATO
entered the fray in Afghanistan to defend democratic ideals remains pretty much
the unchallenged consensus. But can it really be upheld, that refractory
individuals, let alone entire tribal cultures, that do not accept these premises
are not worthy of equal protection in a liberal democratic world?

Ostensively, Anglo-America's policy is committed to the idea of
freedom, often aggressively so. But in reality, the civilisations of the
European enlightenment, of which Anglo-Saxon liberal democracy claims to be the
heir, can never own such cultural prerogative since Islamic societies, too,
exist in their own moral universe. Enclosed in a separate ethical biosphere,
Islam has its own hereditary values regarding the worth and dignity of
individuals. It is all a matter of perspective. And just how honestly can anyone
claim that the world promised by America is the best of all possible worlds. On
the one hand there is the promise of temporal freedom with its doctrine of
ever-present pleasure, on the other there is the essentially religious character
of all Islamic institutions. And as for that freedom America does propagate so
much, we have counted its blessings alone...

It is no doubt the case that by surrendering habeas corpus for enemy
combatants the US has lost the moral high ground and replaced it with a complete
disregard of legal process, a highly repressive system of state security, and
the idea of revenge uppermost on their minds. At the same time, on the critical
matter of individual liberty, President Hamid Karzei's cabinet has long since
approved the proposal to re-establish the notorious Department for the Promotion
of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, which was first set up by the Taliban, so that
all that remains now is to make war on an entire Islamic culture in which
everyone is a Taliban at heart!

It’s madness!

Indeed, I have the most hideous premonition that the only possible
solution to the great American conspiracy to democratise Islam — and I’m looking
at five decades into the future here — is extraordinary rendition, deep
interrogation, indefinite detention, targeted killings and all-out warfare
between Mecca and Rome.

Dreamy