{"id":7333,"date":"2010-06-18T18:28:19","date_gmt":"2010-06-19T02:58:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dmzhawaii.org\/?p=7333"},"modified":"2010-06-18T18:28:19","modified_gmt":"2010-06-19T02:58:19","slug":"tom-engelhardt-on-the-american-way-of-war-how-bush%e2%80%99s-wars-became-obama%e2%80%99s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dmzhawaii.org\/?p=7333","title":{"rendered":"Tom Engelhardt on &#8220;The American Way of War: How Bush\u2019s Wars Became Obama\u2019s&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.democracynow.org\/2010\/6\/18\/afghan\">http:\/\/www.democracynow.org\/2010\/6\/18\/afghan<\/a><\/p>\n<h2>Tom Engelhardt on &#8220;The American Way of War: How Bush\u2019s Wars Became Obama\u2019s&#8221;<\/h2>\n<p><script src=\"http:\/\/www.democracynow.org\/embed_show_v2\/300\/2010\/6\/18\/story\/afghan\" type=\"text\/javascript\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>We discuss the latest in the ongoing US war in Afghanistan, the longest-running war in American history, with Tom Engelhardt, creator and editor of the website TomDispatch and author of The American Way of War: How Bush\u2019s Wars Became Obama\u2019s. Engelhardt says the US war in Afghanistan has troubling parallels with the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan of the 1980s.<\/p>\n<p>Guest:<\/p>\n<p>Tom Engelhardt, creator and editor of the website TomDispatch. His latest book is The American Way of War: How Bush\u2019s Wars Became Obama\u2019s.<\/p>\n<p>JUAN GONZALEZ: We go now to Afghanistan, where the Ministry of Mines has announced Thursday it is taking the first steps toward opening the country\u2019s vast mineral resources to international investors. News of Afghans\u2019 mineral reserves made headlines earlier this week when the New York Times detailed findings of the Pentagon and US Geological Survey that Afghanistan has at least $1 trillion in untapped mineral wealth. Afghan officials suggested the reserves could be worth as much as $3 trillion.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, back on Capitol Hill, debate over the US war effort continues. Senior Pentagon and military officials spoke to lawmakers Wednesday to urge patience and support for their operations. The head of US Central Command, General Petraeus, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the war was moving in the right direction, and they were on track to begin withdrawing forces from Afghanistan by next summer.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">GEN. DAVID PETRAEUS: The conduct of a counterinsurgency operation is a roller coaster experience. There are setbacks, as well as areas of progress or successes. It is truly an up and down, when you\u2019re living it, when you\u2019re doing it, even from from afar, frankly. But the trajectory, in my view, has generally been upward, despite the tough losses, despite the setbacks.<\/p>\n<p>AMY GOODMAN: For more on the ongoing US war in Afghanistan, the longest-running war in American history, we\u2019re joined now here in New York by author Tom Engelhardt. He is the creator and editor of the website TomDispatch.com. His latest book is called The American Way of War: How Bush\u2019s Wars Became Obama\u2019s. His latest post on TomDispatch &#8220;Call the Politburo, We\u2019re in Trouble: Entering the Soviet Era in America.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>What do you mean? Welcome to Democracy Now!, Tom.<\/p>\n<p>TOM ENGELHARDT: What I mean is that in the Cold War, which we\u2019ve largely forgotten at this point, the Soviet leaders made a kind of a basic miscalculation. They mistook military power for global power. They poured all their money functionally into their military. They got stuck in Afghanistan, very much like us, for ten years. In the meantime, their budget deficits were going up. They were growing\u2014their indebtedness to other countries was growing. Their infrastructure was beginning to crumble. The very society they had built was beginning to crumble. And when the Red Army came out of Afghanistan\u2014it limped out in 1989, after a decade\u2014it basically returned to a country that didn\u2019t exist, because within two years the Soviet Union collapsed.<\/p>\n<p>In Washington, this caught everybody by surprise. Everybody expected the Cold War to go on and on. When American leaders saw this happen, they declared victory. The world was without an enemy at this point. And they\u2014in one of the more striking decisions, I think, that\u2019s been made in many, many years, they decided then to follow the Soviet path. And they began\u2014and they put the so-called peace dividend in a ditch, and they began to pour money, successive administrations, as we know, up through the Bush administration into today, into the American military, while budget deficits rose, indebtedness rose, infrastructure crumbled, and the society began to\u2014you know, began to weaken. Now, the United States is not the Soviet Union. It was always by far the more powerful country. And it isn\u2019t today the Soviet Union in 1989 or 1991. But it is striking that our leaders, in declaring victory, decided to go down, in essence, the Soviet path, which was the path to implosion.<\/p>\n<p>JUAN GONZALEZ: You spend quite a bit of time on the book in one chapter talking about the language of war and how the American media portrayed Muslim resistance fighters in other wars, initially in the first war in Afghanistan against the Soviets\u2014<\/p>\n<p>TOM ENGELHARDT: Yes, yes, yes.<\/p>\n<p>JUAN GONZALEZ: \u2014and in Chechnya, as well. Could you talk about the language of war?<\/p>\n<p>TOM ENGELHARDT: Well, you know, if you go back, in the 1980s, of course, we were supporting many of the very people we\u2019re now fighting. And at that point, they were not Muslim extremist whatevers. They weren\u2019t Islamic totalitarians. They were\u2014well, the President said it at the time. That was President Reagan. He called them &#8220;freedom fighters.&#8221; And when you look at the language in the press for these very same people doing many of the very same things, they were\u2014it just happened to be against the Soviets\u2014car bombs, camel bombs, bike bombs, suicide attacks, so on and so forth. I mean, and this included Osama bin Laden and so on and so forth. They were portrayed as resistance fighters. You no longer\u2014you would never say the word &#8220;resistance&#8221; fighter with\u2014put with the Taliban, nor, to give you an example in the Iraq war\u2014it was very interesting. The phrase that the military often used for those they were fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan is they referred to them as &#8220;anti-Iraqi forces&#8221; or &#8220;anti-Afghan forces,&#8221; as if they were foreigners. And, of course, nobody would refer to us as anti-Iraqi forces or foreign forces or anything of the sort.<\/p>\n<p>I mean, there\u2019s a whole language that goes with American-style war. To give you just a simple example, and you hear it relatively often, when things start to go badly, American officials\u2014Robert Gate said it relatively recently\u2014say, let\u2019s put an Afghan mask\u2014an Afghan face on the war. And that\u2019s just a commonplace thing. And it means, let\u2019s get an Afghan out front. But if you think about that phrase for a minute, an Afghan face is, of course, a mask over really an American war. And often the words that they use, the images that they use, are very telling, if you just look barely under them, about what they think about who\u2019s actually running what war. I mean, you can really see in our language that we feel this is ours, it should be ours, you know, it\u2019s our war. I mean, this has\u2014the Afghans are ancillary to the war we\u2019re fighting.<\/p>\n<p>AMY GOODMAN: How do you propose pulling out? How do you propose Obama get out?<\/p>\n<p>TOM ENGELHARDT: Well, let me say, as a start, that one of the problems with answering a question like this is, you know, basically, we\u2019ve never tried it. I mean, in other words, it\u2019s like talking about peace. All the money goes into war. So, you know, and in addition, as you try to get out, as was true in Vietnam for years, future fantasies are put forward: you know, there\u2019s going to be a bloodbath, terrible things will happen. We don\u2019t know what actually will happen in Afghanistan, if we were to pull out. We know what\u2019s happening now, and it\u2019s quite terrible, and it\u2019s actually devolving. I mean, I think it\u2019s perfectly reasonable, whether you\u2014I mean, you could simply announce a withdrawal, a reasonable withdrawal schedule, and pull out American troops. You could offer\u2014you could offer money. We really don\u2019t know. I think it\u2019s very unlikely, for instance, that the Taliban would simply take over the country. They didn\u2019t the last time. They might get part of the country, but not all of it. We really don\u2019t know what would happen. We just know that this will otherwise be a trillion-dollar war, which, like the Soviet war, will go on forever and ever. I mean, the Soviets, from about 1986 on, for about the last three or four years, they wanted to get out. The Soviet leadership, you look at their documents, they want to get out, but they can\u2019t muster the will. They keep worrying, will Afghanistan be stable?, etc., etc. It goes on for years. And the problem isn\u2019t how will we get out of Afghanistan, but when Obama decides he wants to, it\u2019s going to be difficult.<\/p>\n<p>JUAN GONZALEZ: And this most recent announcement about the vast mineral wealth\u2014<\/p>\n<p>TOM ENGELHARDT: Yes.<\/p>\n<p>JUAN GONZALEZ: \u2014in Afghanistan, especially coming, the timing of it, as the war is actually not progressing as well as the Obama administration had hoped, is it your sense that this was more sort of rallying the corporate and financial elites of the world to take more renewed interest in supporting the US effort?<\/p>\n<p>TOM ENGELHARDT: I\u2019m want convinced it\u2019s going to have that effect, actually. First of all, as you can see from the Times today\u2014the Times had a piece on it today\u2014and as was true with Iraq, it\u2019s very hard to get Western, these big Western mining companies, to come into a situation where, you know, the lithium that they\u2019re talking about is basically under lands that basically are Taliban-controlled right now. They don\u2019t want to send their people in there. The people who might come in are the Chinese, maybe, who would be willing to take more risks, or various state mining interests that we wouldn\u2019t be interested in. So I\u2019m not sure this is a great benefit in that sense.<\/p>\n<p>Secondly, you know, to get\u2014in a country with almost no infrastructure and no mining infrastructure to get anything out of the ground there, I mean, I\u2019m sure you\u2019re talking a\u2014you\u2019re not talking about now, you\u2019re not talking about something striking that\u2019s going to happen now. I think\u2014yeah, I mean, it was a kind of a good news story at a bad news time, and it is significant that there\u2019s all this stuff under Afghanistan, which was known\u2014<\/p>\n<p>AMY GOODMAN: It\u2019s not as if it wasn\u2019t known.<\/p>\n<p>TOM ENGELHARDT: No.<\/p>\n<p>AMY GOODMAN: And the question is why it\u2019s being raised as a story now, if not to justify the US\u2019s continued presence, that maybe the US can get these natural resources.<\/p>\n<p>TOM ENGELHARDT: Let\u2019s point out that it was known by the Russians. You know, in the Russian war, the Russians knew this. I mean, I\u2019m struck by one small thing. Mikhail Gorbachev, the Russian leader who did finally get them out, his term for Afghanistan was &#8220;the bleeding wound.&#8221; Our Afghan war commander recently referred to his kind of pet offensive in the small southern area of Marjah, where they threw in 15,000 troops in the spring, declared it a victory, and now find out that things are not going well, he\u2019s called it a &#8220;bleeding ulcer.&#8221; There is kind of an eerie parallel there, and it reminds us that both countries will now have been in a war in Afghanistan, a place known as the graveyard of empires, for a decade.<\/p>\n<p>AMY GOODMAN: You talk about, finally, garrisoning of the planet.<\/p>\n<p>TOM ENGELHARDT: Yes. Well, the American way of war, which is the title of my book, is based on something that, in the United States, we have basically no interest in. Unless a base closes in the United States, and then there\u2019s an enormous uproar, a military base, we really don\u2019t think about much our basing policy around the world. And yet\u2014<\/p>\n<p>AMY GOODMAN: Ten seconds, then we go to a web special after.<\/p>\n<p>TOM ENGELHARDT: And yet, we have maybe up to 1,200 bases, depending on what you\u2019re counting, maybe even more, around the world. We basically garrison the planet. Washington is a war capital. We are in a state of war. We don\u2019t know it.<\/p>\n<p>AMY GOODMAN: Tom Engelhardt, congratulations on your new book, The American Way of War: How Bush\u2019s Wars Became Obama\u2019s. We\u2019re going to continue this after the show and put it up at democracynow.org.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>http:\/\/www.democracynow.org\/2010\/6\/18\/afghan Tom Engelhardt on &#8220;The American Way of War: How Bush\u2019s Wars Became Obama\u2019s&#8221; We discuss the latest in the ongoing US war in Afghanistan, the longest-running war in American history, with Tom Engelhardt, creator and editor of the website TomDispatch and author of The American Way of War: How Bush\u2019s Wars Became Obama\u2019s. Engelhardt &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dmzhawaii.org\/?p=7333\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Tom Engelhardt on &#8220;The American Way of War: How Bush\u2019s Wars Became Obama\u2019s&#8221;&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2409],"class_list":["post-7333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-movements-resistance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dmzhawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7333"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dmzhawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dmzhawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dmzhawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dmzhawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7333"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.dmzhawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7333\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7335,"href":"https:\/\/www.dmzhawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7333\/revisions\/7335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dmzhawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dmzhawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dmzhawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}