Nothing angers me more than when a hard-working journalist in a foreign war zone, his life at constant risk, files a story only for a lazy sub-editor on a news desk back home to kill its real importance and for its meaning to be lost so that it is not picked up by others in the media. This may have been the cause of astonishing revelations in the Los Angeles Times two days ago going unnoticed.
Before I explain this story, let me provide as background a quote from George W. Bush in 2001:
To all the men and women in our military, every sailor, every soldier, every airman, every Coast Guardsman, every Marine, I say this: Your mission is defined. The objectives are clear. Your goal is just. You have my full confidence, and you will have every tool you need to carry out your duty.
I recently received a touching letter that says a lot about the state of America in these difficult times, a letter from a fourth grade girl with a father in the military.
"As much as I don't want my dad to fight," she wrote, "I'm willing to give him to you."
The extract from George Bush's speech came from a statement given after the start of the US and British military strikes on targets in Afghanistan on Sunday, 7th October 2001.
Please remember the words of this young girl, that were repeated from the mouth of Commander-in-Chief George Bush to impress his nation at the start of his wars:
"As much as I don't want my dad to fight," she wrote, "I'm willing to give him to you."
What was the mission defined for all the men and women of the military and for which this child gave her father in trust to George Bush?
The reason for war has changed each and every time the latest is shown to be inadequate. One, however, has remained constant: "To spread freedom and democracy".
As Iraq has reached unbelievable depths of insanity and mayhem, the White House has searched desperately for justification of their actions. To keep the rapidly declining thirty per cent of Americans loyal to their cause, they continue to cite Afghanistan as evidence of their achievement.
Quoted in the New Yorker way back in 2004 we have the following:
"They have elected a government. . . . The Taliban are gone. The Al Qaeda are gone..." Rumsfeld said.
In the same year, CNN recorded Bush saying:
President Bush on Tuesday claimed victory in the war on terrorism in Afghanistan
CNN, Tuesday, June 15, 2004
Bush praised the visiting head of Afghanistan's interim government, Hamid Karzai, as a man of "honor, courage and skill helping to build a new and democratic Afghanistan."
"That journey to democracy and peace deserves the support and respect of every nation," he said at a Rose Garden news conference after a meeting with Karzai, "because free nations do not breed the ideology of terror."
Fast forward two years and hear Bush's latest declaration on his way to India, as reported by the BBC: last month:
US President George W Bush has praised the progress of Afghan democracy on his first visit to the country, where the US helped eject the Taleban in 2001.
On a surprise first stop of his maiden trip to South Asia, Mr Bush told Afghan President Hamid Karzai his country was "inspiring others".
We all know now that the Taleban are not "gone" as Rumsfeld claimed. Nor has Al Qaeda "gone" as he also claimed.
We know that in addition to all the European nations that have now contributed troops to Afghanistan, twenty thousand United States families are still required to be willing to give their fathers, mothers, sons and daughters to Mr Bush to try and combat the now ever worsening situation in that country.
Yet this diary is not about the deterioration in Afghanistan that we have seen occur since Rumsfeld boasted of victory two years ago and, in total disregard of which, Bush took his quick photo op in the last four weeks. Instead, I am writing about the freedom and democracy that were the mission and objectives in that country for which that girl gave her father to the President. I am writing about the freedom and democracy that Bush claims exists and which he says is so "inspiring to others"
It is here that I get angry with what I presume is a sub-editor on the Los Angeles Times newspaper. For I am having to quote a story from yesterday that was given the following headline:
U.S. MILITARY SECRETS FOR SALE IN AFGHAN BAZAAR
This is how the newspaper leads off with the story that is given two full pages on-line:
BAGRAM, Afghanistan -- No more than 200 yards from the main gate of the sprawling U.S. base here, stolen computer drives containing classified military assessments of enemy targets, names of corrupt Afghan officials and descriptions of American defenses are on sale in the local bazaar.
Shop owners at the bazaar say Afghan cleaners, garbage collectors and other workers from the base arrive each day offering purloined goods, including knives, watches, refrigerators, packets of Viagra and flash memory drives taken from military laptops. The drives, smaller than a pack of chewing gum, are sold as used equipment.
For the hurried commuters, the businesspeople rushing to their meetings, the harassed mums who have to deliver their kids to the school bus, and all those who have only time to glance at their newspaper, this is the story: some computer flash drives were stolen from a U.S. military base. Quickly they move on to other headlines of "White Girl Missing For Three Hours From Home" and to "Last Night's Ballgame Rained Off".
Yet the real story is all contained deep in the article. It is the story that is the reason that the journalist is out there talking in the bazaars with market traders and not hiding behind secure walls. The real headline is:
THEFT FROM MILITARY REVEALS SHAM DEMOCRACY IN AFGHANISTAN
Laugh or be angry if you must about the incredible lack of security that allows flash drives to be stolen and sold within a few yards of where they were supposed to be safeguarded. Be astonished that a street market in Afghanistan is selling "deployment rosters and other documents that identified nearly 700 U.S. service members and their Social Security numbers, information that identity thieves could use to open credit card accounts in soldiers' names."
Despair, if you like, that it is a journalist and not military intelligence that is collecting flash drives that contain classified briefings "about the capabilities and limitations of a `man portable counter-mortar radar' used to find the source of guerrilla mortar rounds" and maps that pinpoint "the U.S. camps and bases in Iraq where the sophisticated radar was deployed in March 2004."
The real story, however, is in the content of the Flash memory that the reporter found, not the actual theft of the drives. This is content that contains information that makes a lie of what Bush said during his stop-over to India. That lie turns into mockery the Presidential speech at the start of the war concerning that young girl giving her father to George Bush.
This is the truth of how the military see the freedom and democracy working in Afghanistan:
One of the computer drives stolen from Bagram contained a series of slides prepared for a January 2005 briefing of American military officials that identified several Afghan governors and police chiefs as "problem makers" involved in kidnappings, the opium trade and attacks on allied troops with improvised bombs.
The chart showed the U.S. military's preferred methods of dealing with the men: "remove from office; if unable marginalize."
This is the fruit of those much lauded elections. Bush's democracy, the model to inspire the other nations to which he is now turning his attention, is based on "removing" and "marginalizing" by an American occupier of the very people that were voted into office, rightly or wrongly, by the people of that country.
The article goes on to say:
A chart dated Jan. 2, 2005, listed five Afghans as "Tier One Warlords." It identified Afghanistan's former defense minister Mohammed Qassim Fahim, current military chief of staff Abdul Rashid Dostum and counter-narcotics chief Gen. Mohammed Daoud as being involved in the narcotics trade. All three have denied committing crimes.
Another slide presentation identified 12 governors, police chiefs and lower-ranking officials that the U.S. military wanted removed from office. The men were involved in activities including drug trafficking, recruiting of Taliban fighters and active support for Taliban commanders, according to the presentation, which also named the military's preferred replacements.
These are the elected ones of whom the country's leader has recently said:
Karzai also defended his talks with regional leaders referred to as warlords.
"First of all, we don't call them warlords. Some of those people are respected leaders of the Afghan resistance," he said. "It's my job to keep stability and peace in Afghanistan. And I will talk to anybody that comes to talk to me about stability and peace and about movement toward democracy."
How, in Bush's democracy, are Karzai's "respected leaders" to be removed and marginalized?
The briefing said that efforts against Afghan officials were coordinated with U.S. special operations teams and must be approved by top commanders as well as military lawyers who apply unspecified criteria set by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.
Karzai himself is simply a bystander in this farce that is called a democracy, a farce because Bush told us that "free nations do not breed the ideology of terror."
:
The military also weighs any ties that any official has to President Hamid Karzai and members of his Cabinet or warlords, as well as the risk of destabilization when deciding which officials should be removed, the presentation said.
"DEMOCRACY IN AFGHANISTAN REVEALED AS SHAM", the headlines should shout. "U.S. Flash Drives Sold In Local Market" whispers the sub-editor.
The length of this commentary will not allow me to deal in depth with the other major story found by that reporter and contained, or buried, in the article. It should have its own major headline that reads: U.S. ALLY BETRAYS OUR MILITARY MEN AND WOMEN
Though U.S. officials continue to praise Pakistan as a loyal ally in the war on terrorism, several documents on the flash drives show the military has struggled to break militant command and supply lines traced to Pakistan. Some of the documents also accused Pakistan's security forces of helping militants launch cross-border attacks on U.S. and allied forces.
Militant attacks on U.S. and allied forces have escalated sharply over the last half year, and once-rare suicide bombings are now frequent, especially in southern Afghan provinces close to infiltration routes from Pakistan.
A document dated Oct. 11, 2004, said at least two of the Taliban's top five leaders were believed to be in Pakistan. That country's government and military repeatedly have denied that leaders of militants fighting U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan operate from bases in Pakistan....
.... Another document said the Taliban and an allied militant group were working with Arab Al Qaeda members in Pakistan to plan and launch attacks in Afghanistan. A map presented at a "targeting meeting" for U.S. military commanders here on Jan. 27, 2005, identified the Pakistani cities of Peshawar and Quetta as planning and staging areas for terrorists heading to Afghanistan.....
...... Other documents on the computer drives listed senior Taliban commanders and "facilitators" living in Pakistan. The Pakistani government strenuously denies allegations by the Afghan government that it is harboring Taliban and other guerrilla fighters....
.....An August 2004 computer slide presentation marked "Secret" outlined "obstacles to success" along the border and accused Pakistan of making "false and inaccurate reports of border incidents." It also complained of political and military inertia in Pakistan....
.....A special operations task force map highlighting militants' infiltration routes from Pakistan in early 2005 included this comment from a U.S. military commander: "Pakistani border forces [should] cease assisting cross border insurgent activities."
This is not the vision of the ally that George Bush gave the world when he stood in Karachi and said "it's an honor to be here" . He used another daughter to promote his statesmanship and his ability to build coalitions of loyal allies:
We do have a good friendship. It was displayed last night when I got off Air Force One and your daughter was there to greet us. And that was a really kind gesture, and I thank you very much for that. I particularly thank your daughter for coming out.
So I am angry at what I presume is a sub-editor sitting at his desk in Los Angeles a day or so ago and failing to realise what he had in his hands. Failed to see what it says to the American people, if only they were presented the information in a form that they could readily assimilate in their busy lives.
In a diary yesterday on the front-page of DKos, georgia10 tells us "According to the poll, the closer someone follows the scandal, the more likely they are to believe the President acted illegally, not just unethically." If a newsdesk does not also have sensitive enough antenna to identify what is really important in a story spread out in front of it, how can the American people ever come to know the truth?
It is not just that the victory in Afghanistan is no victory at all. It is that the word "democracy" is applied by George Bush to a nation, as it is applied to Iraq, that is controlled and dominated by an occupying country. That is not democracy; it is the tyranny of power by a greater force.
To say it is otherwise is a lie to the American people, it is a lie to the men and women in its military and it is a lie to that young girl who so willingly out of love for her own country gave her father to George Bush. She gave her father for a mission that he claimed was defined and for objectives that were supposed to be clear, but which are now both seen in reality to be no more than the sands of the desert blown in the wind.
This is the story that the Los Angeles Times should have highlighted and which is buried deep in the copy provided by a reporter and sent back to the States. This is the story of just a few hours ago that much of the media has ignored.
(Cross-posted from ePluribus Media)