The AA

One A stands for America, one for Afghanistan. Laboured, hackneyed, and a bit shit as a title. Much like this rant.




Well, what with the World Cup providing further reasons to laugh at French people until they cry, India and Pakistan eyeballing each other across Kashmir, and Big Brother ruling the airwaves, I've found my attention has been very successfully drawn away from that most epically boring yet unpleasantly important of issue's; the War Against Terror. In truth, it's been rather relaxing not watching the news and having at least one "Oh no, what has he done NOW?" moment whenever the US President hoves into view. But as John Gotti might have said (well...actually he probably said "Arrrggh...." and then choked slowly to death on his throat cancer, and good bloody riddance to him) "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer". So whilst it's a bit melodramatic (not to mention egotistical) to imply that Dubya is my enemy, he's certainly someone who causes me a lot of concern and so I like to keep up to date with what he's up to. If only so that my imagination doesn't run away with me trying to guess what amount of fuckwittage he's inflicting on the rest of the world...

But enough of my own little neuroses; what's been happening recently? Particularly in America (where the first terrorist atrocities of the war were committed) and Afghanistan (where the first shots of the war were fired).

The USA is of course the main prosecutor of the war against terror. Since 11th September there have been numerous developments (the most pathetic of which concerns those British people who wrote to complain about how the date was being expressed as 9/11 in the American fashion rather than 11/9 in the British; isn't it nice to know that in the wake of the worst loss of civilian life for year, people can still be as petty and xenophobic as ever. Almost makes one proud to live in the UK...), although you would be forgiven for missing them because apparently the media aren't interested in stories that don't involve big explosions or pitched battles. As I'm going to spend a bit of time criticising the US government for it's current stance, I suppose I should make one thing clear to silence the inevitable bleating of those right wingers who believe that any questioning of government policy concerning the War is tantamount to shopping for Semtex and changing one's name to Usama. I continue to believe that the US was fully justified in starting this war. Their country had been shat upon from a very great height and to expect them to sit back and do nothing whilst various debates concerning the morality of war raged on was unrealistic. Any claims that the US is acting like a bully toward Afghanistan are equally as disingenuous. Yes, the US is far and away superior to the Taliban in military terms. But I'm inclined to think that it's not America's fault that the nation responsible for it's woes is as developed as medieval Europe. What should they have done? Only sent in low-tech equipment to make it a fair fight? Most critics would say black if a US spokesman said white, and I wish they'd be honest about their own motivation for trying to discredit any and every American statement and action.

That said I'm now going to be unpleasant about American statements and actions. My personal bias comes from the fact that I believe the upper echelons of the Republican Party to be venal, corrupt, stupid old men. And as venal, corrupt and stupid goes George W. Bush is pretty much the pinnacle of achievement. There are numerous things that one could pick out to exemplify this, so let's start with the semi-regular terrorist alerts that are becoming a feature of American life.

Basically, it would seem that the many and varied intelligence agencies of America are somewhat embarrassed at having missed the fact that a major terrorist attack was brewing in early September. Because of this, they are now ready to warn the US public of imminent terrorist attacks on the basis of such evidence as "Well, the Golden Gate Bridge is pretty big and if I were a terrorist, that's where I would attack". However, it is interesting to note that these warnings only seem to occur when the government finds itself facing criticism. So are we seeing the FBI, CIA, NSA, and however many other alphabet agencies there are being over cautious? Or are we seeing a government who cheated their way to victory doing their level best to cheat further still?

Take, for example, the May arrest of Abdullah al-Muhajir. This American gentleman, formerly known as Chicago gang member Jose Padilla (incidentally, I did hear of someone who honestly believed that the airlines could once again be made safe by running double checks on anyone who looks like a Moslem, or who has an Islamic name; what a fucking boy genius he is! The fact that Al-Quaida has a huge amount of support in, for example, the Philippines or Indonesia where such names as Edilberto Adan are commonplace doesn't seem to have troubled him...) has been detained by the US on the grounds that he was part of an Al-Quaida plot to detonate a nuclear bomb in America. The evidence for this is...well, we don't actually know what the evidence is as he hasn't been before a court as yet, nor is he likely to. Instead, he's been handed over to the military where he will be held indefinitely.

Now again, I should make it clear that I would be a fool to disapprove of heightened security in America these days. And if this man was indeed planning something of this magnitude then the US is certainly doing the right thing in apprehending him. But even leaving aside the fact that the atrocity he is accused of planning is identical to that of the upcoming film 'The Sum of All Fears', holding a man in indefinite military custody when absolutely no evidence that he was involved in any such plot has been presented...well, isn't that just a little bit totalitarian? Why is the government so afraid of giving us a few little tidbits to satisfy the public that there was indeed such a threat? If nothing else, it would piss on the chips of people like me who enjoy nothing more than being given an excuse to criticise a blundering and stupid government led by a blundering and stupid man. There have been so many false alarms and exercises in misdirection by Dubya's government that there is more than a touch of the boy who cried wolf about this.

As we finish looking at America, it is also worth looking at Dubya's favourite soundbite, the Axis of Evil. He recently extended this group to include Cuba. For some reason, he chose to announce this in Florida, co-incidentally the state where his brother is running for re-election and where there are huge numbers of anti-Castro Cuban expatriates registered as voters. It's also the state that won the presidency for Dubya. When members of his own party are criticising Dubya for his cack-handed attempt to further demonise a country where, if you believe some Americans, is holiday home to all that is evil and satanic, it leads me to believe that perhaps Dubya isn't interested in pursuing the war against terror in order to safeguard the people who elected him. He's doing it to safeguard his re-election prospects. Not that that should be a surprise to anybody, but it's nice to have some tangible proof of this.

Meanwhile, in Afghanistan nothing very much happened. Well...that's not true of course, it's just that India and Pakistan held the potential for far greater fireworks, and so Afghanistan was ignored. But there has been much activity over there. Coalition soldiers have scoured the country and found approximately no Taliban or Al-Quaida troops (they're all in Pakistan, or perhaps even Kashmir by now...). So they've had to be content with blowing up the cave networks and ammunition dumps that were left behind. It might not be very exciting, but taking away the mountain hideaways is a fairly substantial step towards lasting stability in the region. After all, it's difficult to be a successful guerilla fighter if you can't run and hide after taking a few potshots at the army that vastly outnumbers you.In the meantime, the interim government has been busy trying to create a permanent and lasting democratic and transparent government. Naturally, for a country whose idea of human rights was, until recently, giving the condemned man a blindfold, there have been problems doing this. A tribal power struggle is going on behind the scenes as various clan leaders and warlords jockey for position in the new government. The former king has even had to go on record to say that he does not intend to reclaim the throne (and give a veneer of legitimacy to some very unsavoury people who would use him as a figurehead for their government).

Many commentators have used this power struggle as an excuse to look down their noses at the Afghanistani's, citing it as proof that they are nothing better than savages and should be left to their own devices. Hm, well yes I can see how it is unreasonable of them not to have developed the same level of transparency and efficiency in government in a few months when it took us in the west centuries to get from feudalism to democracy. How typically barbaric of them! And, as we have seen, the current American government isn't exactly something that should be aspired to. Who knows, maybe Afghanistan will create a government that really is democratic. And then America and the West can learn from them.