I have always said amreeka understands the lingo of swinging chappal as the author explains below with historical examples. The question now is what spin will amreeka use to save face in Eyraq?
Welcome to ground realities.
hallelujah
http://www.dawn.com/weekly/ayaz/ayaz.htm
The language America understands
By Ayaz Amir
“You may be sure that the Americans will commit all the stupidities they can think of, plus some that are beyond imagination.”
— President Charles de Gaulle
PARTS of the poodle American media are describing it as a major policy shift. In reality it is an embarrassing climb-down. The United States has declared its willingness to join talks with Iran on the nuclear question provided Iran freezes uranium enrichment and stops nuclear reprocessing.
Why this shift or climb-down? Because (1) the US has not been able to have its way; (2) Iran has refused to succumb to threats and blackmail; and (3) most important of all, the US is stretched to breaking point in Iraq and, as growing signs suggest, no longer has the stomach to open another theatre of war in Iran.
A nervous-looking President Bush (while meeting President Paul Kagame of Rwanda in the Oval Office) said America by signalling this shift was taking a “leadership position”. Why has this leadership position been so long in coming? Until yesterday the US was hurling threats at Iran. Now this leadership position. The age of miracles is not over.
But since Iraq and American weakness stemming from Iraq, and now increasingly also Afghanistan where the anti-American guerrilla war is intensifying, have dictated this shift, what makes the Bush empire think that Iran will accept American preconditions of freezing its nuclear programme?
Even China, through its UN permanent representative, while welcoming the American shift has said preconditions should not be attached. The world can see that it is a chastened US, almost a humbled Bush administration, which has gone into policy-shift mode. Has Iran come thus far only to accept humiliation at American hands?
Appearing with Tony Blair at a joint press appearance in Washington a few days ago, Bush was uncharacteristically apologetic: “Saying ‘Bring ‘em on’, kind of tough talk, you know, that sent the wrong signal to people… I learned some lessons about expressing myself maybe in a little more sophisticated manner — you know, ‘wanted, dead or alive,’ that kind of talk. I think in certain parts of the world it was misinterpreted.”
And now, to prove that when it rains it pours, there is the Haditha massacre in Iraq, eerily reminiscent of My Lai in Vietnam. The one difference is in the number of people massacred. On the morning of March 16, 1968, soldiers of Charlie Company moved into the village of My Lai. “Men, women and children, including babies, were killed in the carnage that followed. Praying children were shot in the back of the head, elderly men were hacked to death with bayonets. People were shot on their knees, in the back, with their hands in the air. More than 500 people were killed in just hours. Some of the corpses were mutilated. Some women who weren’t killed were gang-raped. Other villagers were beaten and tortured.” (This from a Google search.)
In Haditha the number of people massacred by a Marine patrol on the morning of Nov 19, 2005, was 24. Not quite on the My Lai scale but the methodology and madness reveal chilling similarities.
After a Humvee in a Marine convoy was hit by a roadside bomb, Marines, set on vengeance, moved into three houses and shot their occupants. Among the dead: 76-year old Abdul Hamid Hassan Ali, his 66-year old wife, Khamisa Tuma Ali, 4 year old Abdullah, eight year old Iman, five year old Abdul Rehman and two months old — yes, two months — Asia.
In line with America’s great tradition of humanitarianism, the Marines later handed out compensation — ranging from $1,500-2,000 for 15 men, women and children but refusing to pay for nine other men, insisting they were insurgents. The total amount paid in compensation was $38,000. Words fail.
In My Lai two tragedies occurred: first the massacre, then a cover-up unravelled much later through journalistic persistence, including a piece by Seymour Hersh. In Haditha we see much the same pattern. The massacre took place last November. It took the mainstream American media four months to uncover the story and six months for the military to confirm it. Even now we are being told the investigation is continuing.
The man commanding Charlie Company in My Lai, Lt William Calley, was sentenced to life imprisonment by a court martial. He was pardoned by that human rights activist, Richard Nixon. Let’s see how the wheels of justice roll in the Haditha massacre.
Wednesday evening I heard a rather attractive CNN anchor while referring to Haditha say “…in what some people are describing as a massacre.” Well, well, ‘some people’ are still not sure it was a massacre. How many more babies and elderly people should the Marines have killed for it to be known, indubitably, as a massacre?
The American military in Iraq is stretched out. It’s also stressed out, as comes out clearly in this account by Baghdad-based Knight Ridder correspondent, Tom Lassetter:
“The inability of US forces to hold ground in Anbar province in western Iraq, and the cat-and-mouse chase that ensues, has put the Marines and soldiers there under intense physical and psychological pressure. The sun raises temperatures to 115 degrees most days, insurgents stage ambushes daily then melt into the civilian population and American troops in Anbar find themselves in a house of mirrors in which they don’t speak the language and can’t tell friend from foe. Most Marines and soldiers in Anbar live behind massive concrete barriers, bales of concertina wire and perimeters guarded by sniper towers and tanks.”
This was reported last August. If anything, conditions now are worse. Haditha, incidentally, is in Anbar province.
Question is: how long before the Americans call it a day and pull out of Iraq? They eventually pulled out of Vietnam but not before Nixon and Kissinger, in a bid to save American face, tried to break North Vietnamese will by unleashing a massive bombing campaign on Hanoi and Haiphong.
Vietnamese will was not broken but much needless carnage was caused. How much more carnage must we see before America can say it has saved face in Iraq?
As if Iraq wasn’t enough, Afghanistan is heating up too, the Taliban who were supposed to have been crushed forever on the march again and the government of the ‘Mayor of Kabul’, Hamid Karzai, more beleaguered and helpless than ever.
If foreigners don’t care to remember the lessons of Afghan history, the Afghans are not to blame. They taught the British a bitter lesson during the First Afghan War (1842). We know what they did to the Soviets in the 1980s. Now it is America’s turn to taste the same medicine.
Britishbattles.com (a site I visited) has this to say about the First Afghan War: “(It) provided a clear lesson to the British authorities that while it may be relatively straightforward to invade Afghanistan, it is wholly impracticable to occupy the country or attempt to impose a government not welcomed by the inhabitants. The only result will be failure and great expense in treasure and lives.”
Santayana’s much-quoted remark about history bears repeating in the context of Afghanistan: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
A lesson that Pakistan might imbibe is: don’t get caught in Afghan troubles. We have paid dearly for becoming an American instrument during the anti-Soviet resistance. Again allowing ourselves to become an American instrument we find our military fighting our own tribesmen in North and South Waziristan.
We should have been aware of the cost involved. The Waziris are doing to the Pakistan army what the Ghilzai tribesmen did to the Anglo-British expedition during the First Afghan War. The tribesmen of the North West Frontier used to be Pakistan’s first line of defence, obviating the need for stationing regular troops along the Afghan frontier. Now our deployment is huge: nearly 70,000 troops. What’s more, our soldiers dare not move out of their outposts for fear of being shot or bombed.
Alienating the tribesmen is one of the rashest things that the army under its present leadership could have done. There is still time to mend matters but only if we stop taking American dictation.
The Americans don’t have a clue about Iraq. They don’t have a clue about Afghanistan. For a paltry amount of silver we have tied ourselves to their coattails. It is hard to think of anything more foolish than this.
