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Posted by Bee K
on 11/1/2009, 1:13 pm, in reply to "Afghanistan? WTF?"
Ghost Wars is a well-researched book on Afghanistan and the CIA's involvement. If you want to start with a book that will inform you and has respectably thorough amount of sources in the back, this is the one:
http://www.amazon.com/Ghost-Wars-Afghanistan-Invasion-September/dp/0143034669/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1257098300&sr=8-1
Afghanistan doesn't seem to be much of a country at this point, which is part of the problem. It almost seems like a free-zone where terrorist organizations can flourish.
Lee Kuan Yew was on Charlie Rose the other week and you can read the transcript online.
Here are some relevant excerpts:
******
CHARLIE ROSE: Where are we, do you think, in terms of a world order?
We have gone through in ‘89 and ‘ 90 the collapse of the Soviet Union, the
collapse of the Berlin Wall. Then we had the United States engaged in the
Middle East in a long war that continues. Then we had the global economic
crisis.
So many people say what is going to come out of this?
LEE KUAN YEW: I see in Iraq and Afghanistan as distractions. That is
not going to change the world whatever happens in Iran or Afghanistan,
because the major changes that are taking place is the recovery of China,
and to a lesser extent of India, places occupied three centuries ago before
western colonization blanketed them.
********
CHARLIE ROSE: When you look at the U.S. and its relationship and its
concern about oil and its politics in the Middle East, do you think it’s a
distraction? You think that...
LEE KUAN YEW: No, I’m not saying the Middle East is a distraction. I
think trying to make a country out of Afghanistan is a distraction. There
was no country for the last 30, 40 years. There’s just been fighting each
other since the last king was chased out.
CHARLIE ROSE: Right.
LEE KUAN YEW: How on earth are you going to put these little bits
together? It’s not possible.
CHARLIE ROSE: So therefore you do what?
LEE KUAN YEW: I’m not in expert, but in my simple mind it strikes me
that you won in Iraq, you won in Afghanistan not because you fought the
Taliban, but because you got the Northern Alliance to fight them, and you
provided the Northern Alliance with intelligence and the capabilities to
bomb them and target them. And they captured the south.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yes, but they have governance problems other there,
too.
LEE KUAN YEW: That’s all right. But that’s their problem. Why do
you want to make your problem?
CHARLIE ROSE: So what do you do? Would you pull all the troops out
and let whatever happens to Afghanistan, happens to Afghanistan? It’s not
that threatening to the United States, is that the argument?
LEE KUAN YEW: I don’t know about that, because I think it cannot be
more difficult for the United States to have their troops stuck there. The
Russians are a brutal, ruthless lot of army people, and 120,000 of them
were there, but they had to leave.
CHARLIE ROSE: And we helped that because we supported the Mujahideen.
The Mujahideen had a lot of support from around the world who wanted to see
the Soviet Union take it.
LEE KUAN YEW: But whether or not the Soviets helped to get the
Americans out, I think the Americans and the NATO troops -- the NATO
members are very skeptical of the outcome.
CHARLIE ROSE: Even to the point of not wanting to send their troops
to certain kinds of combat areas.
LEE KUAN YEW: Quite right. Yes, of course, because then you get shot
for nothing.
CHARLIE ROSE: But those who argue if Afghanistan is abandoned --
first of all, the world will say or people will say, look, you left
Afghanistan once before after the Soviets left, and now you’re leaving
again. The United States has to stand for something and it has to show
it’s prepared to stay.
You don’t buy that at all?
LEE KUAN YEW: No.
CHARLIE ROSE: You must have a wonderful conversation with your friend
Henry Kissinger then?
LEE KUAN YEW: No, no.
CHARLIE ROSE: Where do you and Henry Kissinger different on the look
or view of the U.S. role in the world?
LEE KUAN YEW: I don’t think we have any difference.
CHARLIE ROSE: Is that right? How would you define it then?
LEE KUAN YEW: I think the U.S. could be a benign stabilizer of the of
the world order.
CHARLIE ROSE: A benign stabilizer.
LEE KUAN YEW: Yes. Without the U.S., east Asia would have never have
grown. They brought peace and technology and trade and investments, and
east Asia flourished.
LEE KUAN YEW: That’s clear is it happened in east Asia. You’re
talking about Singapore and North -- and South Korea.
LEE KUAN YEW: Absolutely.
CHARLIE ROSE: How do we do that in the Middle East? How do we do
that when you have the kind of conflict that’s taking place?
LEE KUAN YEW: You can’t solve all the problems in the world.
CHARLIE ROSE: Ah.
LEE KUAN YEW: Some problems just have to be resolved by...
CHARLIE ROSE: And so what are your priorities?
LEE KUAN YEW: For Singapore?
CHARLIE ROSE: No, for the United States. What should be the
priorities?
LEE KUAN YEW: I’m not an American. I do not calculate in American
terms. I calculate what Americans are likely to do in relation to what
will happen to me.
CHARLIE ROSE: Well, that’s why they listen to you. That’s why you’re
going to see Mr. Bernanke tomorrow and that’s why you’re going to see Larry
Summers and that why you’re going to see all these American officials.
They want to know how you assess the way the world is working today.
And your central message is you got to engage, you got to make the
Chinese feel like they are a worthy part of the world community, and you
have you to help them join WTO and all the things they want to do.
LEE KUAN YEW: No, they have already joined.
CHARLIE ROSE: I know they have joined, but you have to make sure
they’re treated fairly.
LEE KUAN YEW: You have to make sure that they understand membership
requires certainly obligations, and the obligations start with
responsibility.
CHARLIE ROSE: But you also say with the United States, it has to
realize most problems need an American participation in order to be solved.
LEE KUAN YEW: Yes, absolutely. Absolutely.
******
"Power doesn't corrupt people, people corrupt power." - William Gaddis
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