It would make a whole lot of sense to ask if the President intends to keep his promise to draw down US troops in Afghanistan in July 2011 if you thought he actually meant to do so when he originally announced his plan in December 2009. However, if you realize that in December 2009 when he ordered a massive surge in US troops and escalation of the US war in Afghanistan, he had already estimated that American support would not extend past 2011, the fiction of dates becomes obvious public relations to sustain American support for what in actuality is ongoing war from Iraq to Afghanistan to…. ??? Iran???.
How would our ant-war strategies change if we recognized from the start that the President offers us dates for withdrawal to quell protest and silence dissent?
While dates slip by and become supplanted by other deadlines destined to vanish, so does the reason for the war. Obama authorized escalation of this war at a point when Al Qaeda had moved out of Afghanistan, but Al Qaeda had to be the justification for the war’s escalation because that was the force that attacked the United States and threatened to do so again. The Taliban did not and does not plan to attack the United States. So why is the US waging war against them? Because they would give support to Al Qaeda if they were to regain power?
In other words, the US is daily killing Afghan people under the pretext of routing out the Taliban which at some future date may get into power and welcome Al Qaeda back and that may be a threat to US security. The US war against Afghanistan is build on “maybe” and “if”. It is a “preventive war” as I describe it in Unmaking War, Remaking Men. Preventive war violates Article 2 of the United Nations Charter and is a war crime for only imminent threat of immediate invasion justifies a defensive strike against another country.
Looking back to the moveable feast of withdrawal dates to placate Americans it is obvious that these are strategies of war criminals from the President who authorizes them to the Generals who demand escalation of war.
