The Case for Withdrawal from Afghanistan

by Turse, Nick; Ali, Tariq; Bacevich, Andrew J.; Bari, Dominique; Braithwaite, Rodric

• ISBN13: 9781844674510
• ISBN10: 1844674517
• Edition: 00
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-09-20
• Publisher: VERSO

Summary

Known as the graveyard of empires, Afghanistan has now been singled out as Obama's 'œjust war,' the destination for an additional thirty thousand US troops in an effort to shore up an increasingly desperate occupation. Nick Turse brings together a range of leading commentators, politicians, and military strategists to analyze America's real motives and likely prospects. Through on-the-spot reporting, clear-headed analysis and historical comparisons with Afghanistan's previous occupiers'”Britain and the Soviet Union, who also argued that they were fighting a just and winnable war'” The Case for Withdrawal From Afghanistan carefully examines the current US strategy and offers sobering conclusions. This timely and focused collection aims at the heart of Obama's foreign policy and shows why it is so unlikely to succeed.

Author Biography

Nick Turse is an award-winning journalist, historian, essayist, and the associate editor of the Nation Institute's TomDispatch.com. He is the author of The Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives and has written for the Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Nation, Le Monde Diplomatique, In These Times and the Village Voice.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. ix
The Wars for Afghanistan	p. 1
Armageddon at the Top of the World...Not!: A Century of Frenzy Over the North-West Frontier	p. 3
The Familiar Road to Failure	p. 13
Afghanistan, Gorky, and an Open Letter to Leonid Brezhnev, 1980	p. 17
We Were Waging War Against a People	p. 23
Abolish the CIA!	p. 31
Mirage of the Good War	p. 45
Chaos Central	p. 63
Incompetence, Corruption, and the War on Women	p. 71
Meet the Afghan Army: Is It a Figment of Washington's Imagination?	p. 73
Paying Off the Warlords: Anatomy of a Culture of Corruption	p. 81
How the US Funds the Taliban	p. 87
Remember the Women?	p. 97
The US Government Has Never Supported Democratic Organizations	p. 107
Facts on the Ground	p. 113
Going for Broke: Six Ways the Af-Pak War Is Expanding	p. 115
The Shadow War: Making Sense of the New CIA Battlefield	p. 127
The 700 Military Bases of Afghanistan: Black Sites in the Empire of Bases	p. 135
How Hearts and Minds Were Lost: A Personal Experience Working With the International Military	p. 141
The Case for Withdrawal	p. 145
All Foreign Troops Must Withdraw	p. 147
No Nation Can Liberate Another	p. 151
What Obama Could Learn from Gorbachev	p. 157
Obama's Policies Make the Situation Worse	p. 161
The War We Can't Win: The Limits of American Power	p. 165
How to Get Out	p. 173
A Note on Sources	p. 177
Acknowledgments	p. 179
About the Authors	p. 183
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.