Why the US Occupation of Afghanistan?
Two strands of argument are most commonly deployed in official US pronouncements. The most common one is that “we were attacked on 9/11.” The follow-up argument is that the US is in Afghanistan in order to build up a stable regime that can subdue the Taliban. The Taliban is targeted principally for its supposed complicity with the 9/11 attacks (“harboring” Osama bin Laden) and secondarily, or so it is claimed, on the grounds of its (undisputed) extreme subjugation of women.
Forcible US intervention into Afghan affairs began not in October 2001, but in July 1979, when the US enlisted radical Islamists under bin Laden (a Saudi national) to overthrow a recently installed secularist regime (supported by the Soviet Union) which had offended the Islamists by outlawing child-marriage and bride-purchase and by requiring that public education be extended to women (see William Blum, Killing Hope, 338-52).
The ensuing turmoil, in the context of US-Islamist destabilization of the Afghan government, led the Soviet Union, in December 1979, to intervene militarily in support of that government. The resulting foreign (Soviet) occupation sparked a wider Afghan resistance (with joint US-Saudi support). The effort to subdue that resistance was disastrous for the Soviet forces and was a major factor in the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union. US National Security Director Zbigniew Brzezinski, who triggered the Islamists’ campaign, later took credit for this outcome in a 1995 interview (available athttp://www.counterpunch.org/brzezinski.html/), saying, “That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it?”
The Taliban came to power in 1996. Its blatant misogyny was well known from the beginning but was not a “concern” for the US government (as it continues not to be vis-à-vis Saudi Arabia) until after the 9/11 attacks. What was constant before and after those attacks was US efforts to secure an increased economic foothold in Afghanistan (especially for purposes of a UNOCAL pipeline); what changed was that the US no longer viewed the Taliban as a partner (see Chalmers Johnson, The Sorrows of Empire, 176-82).
The stated objectives of the current US occupation are all about reinforcing a stable “friendly” government. So far as the 9/11 attacks are concerned, the US government from the beginning sought to block any serious investigation of how they were carried out. It removed crucial evidence from the scene of the crime, it resisted the formation of an investigative commission, and when such a commission was finally appointed, it lacked independence. Its executive director, Philip Zelikow, was a Republican who had served in the National Security Council (together with Condoleezza Rice) during the Bush I administration. (For documentation on unexplored aspects of the 9/11 events, see Paul Zarembka, ed. The Hidden History of 9-11).
With regard to Afghanistan, several points are clear: 1) even by the official account of the 9/11 attacks, no Afghans were involved in the hijackings; 2) even by official accounts, the planning for the attacks did not take place solely in Afghanistan; 3) whatever importance bin Laden may have had as an inspiration to Islamists, his having lived in Afghanistan does not make the Afghan people responsible for the 9/11 attacks.
More generally, insofar as Islamists have indeed set their sights on US targets, it is as a consequence of military actions on the part of the US and its allies. Osama bin Laden’s own trajectory confirms this. He turned against the US when the US sent troops into Saudi Arabia (1990) following Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. Beyond bin Laden, the US occupation of Iraq as well as Afghanistan and its support of the Israeli government despite the latter’s subjugation of the Palestinians are matters of broad and intense revulsion throughout the Arab and Islamic worlds.
The occupation of Afghanistan, like the occupation of Iraq before it, does not protect Americans from terrorism. If anything, it has the opposite effect. But “war against terror” has never been more than a pretext to justify policies decided upon for other reasons.
Victor Wallis is a Somerville resident and managing editor of the journal Socialism and Democracy (http://www.sdonline.org).
