Is Major General Cantwell deluded?
In an interesting display typical of a military man hypnotised by the propaganda of his own organisation, Cantwell uttered this gem:
"...foreign military forces trying to bring security to Afghanistan..."
Full story here >>>
He has clearly failed to cognite to the fact that before 9/11, the Afghans only had one mob killing them in the name of 'security' - the Taliban. Now they have three mobs falling all over each other to 'save' the country by killing it, suspect by suspect, till the paranoia runs out of bodies:
[1] The Taliban.
[2] The occupation forces.
[3] The corrupt and self-serving warlords who are the backbone of the U.S. puppet government's "Afghan Army", and whose troops we are training to do a "better job" (for the warlords.)
Cantwell, sounding more and more like a modern day Colonel Blimp, seems to have learned nothing from the debacle that was the Vietnam war. He clearly fails to understand that the "mission" in Afghanistan has failed, and that after the inevitable disengagement by the invaders (us), the country will purge itself of those who aligned themselves with the invaders and whatever regime finally evolves from the mess the invasion created will be one which the people feel is free from foreign manipulation.
Another thing of which Cantwell seems to be completely oblivious is that he was nothing more than a useful petty stooge in America's game of empire. Or was he actively working for the Yanks? Was he a traitor to Australia's independence?
Addendum: 23 Sept 2012: I've just finished watching an interview with Major General Cantwell (retired). He talks about his PTSD, his pain, his anguish.
I can empathise with him on those issues.
But when he talks about how the Afghanistan war is not worth the Australian lives lost, we part company because, in typical "patriot" fashion, he talks within a context that clearly deems only our soldiers' lives as precious. And he still spins the propaganda about how our mission there was noble, good, and just. Utter bollocks!
He has clearly not yet cottoned on to the whole scam that is the Afghanistan war. And I distrust his "I blame myself for the deaths of our diggers" gambit. I suspect he's fishing for "No, you're not to blame, poor diddums, you were just doing your job." I see it as a perverse way of seeking validation, ... or covering his arse lest the future sees the war as the atrocity it surely was.
And again it's all about how our diggers' deaths are a big tragedy but nothing is said about the tragedy of the tens of thousands of Afghanis killed, and a country utterly trashed.
He seems to not care that we've empowered the corrupt and the warlords. He says nothing about how we're training and arming people who will, after our departure, revert to settling old scores, and now new ones, i.e the getting even with those who aided the invaders (us).
Oh no, Mr Cantwell, its just not good enough. Come clean and denounce the war for what it was: The collective punishment of the Afghan people because their Taliban masters had the temerity to demand evidence of Osama bin Laden's guilt before agreeing to hand him over to the Americans. It was purely a revenge attack to assuage America's rage over the 9/11 attacks. It was purely America's business. We should have played no part in it whatsoever. And here's the irony: Since when is revenge and retribution a Christian thing? Isn't America supposed to be the epitome of a nation with solid Christian values?
For your penance, Mr Cantwell, go read Jesus's Sermon On The Mount and meditate at length about what Jesus was teaching. Don't you dare call yourself a Christian until you can see the evil in wars. Especially the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
And another thing (oh yeah, I'm pretty ropable right now), we are in Afghanistan because George W. Bush's erstwhile lap dog, Prime Minister John HoWARd, committed our troops to that lunatic's war. The same George W. Bush who, when justifying his Iraq war a short while later, said that God told him to do it.
Mr Cantwell, admit you happily served madmen! Go on! Admit it! The truth can set you free!
Addendum: 28 Oct 2012: I'm currently reading his autobiography, and I've so far only read up to the where he's serving with the British in the 1990 Gulf War. It seems he's still using the convenient "history" of those who sold him that war. Seems he has done no deeper research since.
He is apparently unaware that during the Iraq-Iran War, the US covertly supported Saddam Hussein.
He fails to mention that at the diplomatic level, the US virtually gave a green light to Saddam Hussein to invade Kuwait. He fails to mention that Iraq, seriously weakened and exhausted after eight years of heavy war with Iran, would not have gone ahead with an invasion of Kuwait, had Ambassador Glaspie been much more direct and honest about the US's position on the planned invasion. Not even Saddam Hussein would have been silly enough to take on the military might of the US (and its major UN allies) with his seriously weakened military. Clearly the US lulled Saddam into going ahead with his invasion of Kuwait and Cantwell does not mention any of this. Seems he prefers the sanitised version of history.
I might do a review of the entire book if his war justifying crap gets me angry enough. Grrrrr...
"...foreign military forces trying to bring security to Afghanistan..."
Full story here >>>
He has clearly failed to cognite to the fact that before 9/11, the Afghans only had one mob killing them in the name of 'security' - the Taliban. Now they have three mobs falling all over each other to 'save' the country by killing it, suspect by suspect, till the paranoia runs out of bodies:
[1] The Taliban.
[2] The occupation forces.
[3] The corrupt and self-serving warlords who are the backbone of the U.S. puppet government's "Afghan Army", and whose troops we are training to do a "better job" (for the warlords.)
Cantwell, sounding more and more like a modern day Colonel Blimp, seems to have learned nothing from the debacle that was the Vietnam war. He clearly fails to understand that the "mission" in Afghanistan has failed, and that after the inevitable disengagement by the invaders (us), the country will purge itself of those who aligned themselves with the invaders and whatever regime finally evolves from the mess the invasion created will be one which the people feel is free from foreign manipulation.
Another thing of which Cantwell seems to be completely oblivious is that he was nothing more than a useful petty stooge in America's game of empire. Or was he actively working for the Yanks? Was he a traitor to Australia's independence?
Addendum: 23 Sept 2012: I've just finished watching an interview with Major General Cantwell (retired). He talks about his PTSD, his pain, his anguish.
I can empathise with him on those issues.
But when he talks about how the Afghanistan war is not worth the Australian lives lost, we part company because, in typical "patriot" fashion, he talks within a context that clearly deems only our soldiers' lives as precious. And he still spins the propaganda about how our mission there was noble, good, and just. Utter bollocks!
He has clearly not yet cottoned on to the whole scam that is the Afghanistan war. And I distrust his "I blame myself for the deaths of our diggers" gambit. I suspect he's fishing for "No, you're not to blame, poor diddums, you were just doing your job." I see it as a perverse way of seeking validation, ... or covering his arse lest the future sees the war as the atrocity it surely was.
And again it's all about how our diggers' deaths are a big tragedy but nothing is said about the tragedy of the tens of thousands of Afghanis killed, and a country utterly trashed.
He seems to not care that we've empowered the corrupt and the warlords. He says nothing about how we're training and arming people who will, after our departure, revert to settling old scores, and now new ones, i.e the getting even with those who aided the invaders (us).
Oh no, Mr Cantwell, its just not good enough. Come clean and denounce the war for what it was: The collective punishment of the Afghan people because their Taliban masters had the temerity to demand evidence of Osama bin Laden's guilt before agreeing to hand him over to the Americans. It was purely a revenge attack to assuage America's rage over the 9/11 attacks. It was purely America's business. We should have played no part in it whatsoever. And here's the irony: Since when is revenge and retribution a Christian thing? Isn't America supposed to be the epitome of a nation with solid Christian values?
For your penance, Mr Cantwell, go read Jesus's Sermon On The Mount and meditate at length about what Jesus was teaching. Don't you dare call yourself a Christian until you can see the evil in wars. Especially the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
And another thing (oh yeah, I'm pretty ropable right now), we are in Afghanistan because George W. Bush's erstwhile lap dog, Prime Minister John HoWARd, committed our troops to that lunatic's war. The same George W. Bush who, when justifying his Iraq war a short while later, said that God told him to do it.
Mr Cantwell, admit you happily served madmen! Go on! Admit it! The truth can set you free!
Addendum: 28 Oct 2012: I'm currently reading his autobiography, and I've so far only read up to the where he's serving with the British in the 1990 Gulf War. It seems he's still using the convenient "history" of those who sold him that war. Seems he has done no deeper research since.
He is apparently unaware that during the Iraq-Iran War, the US covertly supported Saddam Hussein.
He fails to mention that at the diplomatic level, the US virtually gave a green light to Saddam Hussein to invade Kuwait. He fails to mention that Iraq, seriously weakened and exhausted after eight years of heavy war with Iran, would not have gone ahead with an invasion of Kuwait, had Ambassador Glaspie been much more direct and honest about the US's position on the planned invasion. Not even Saddam Hussein would have been silly enough to take on the military might of the US (and its major UN allies) with his seriously weakened military. Clearly the US lulled Saddam into going ahead with his invasion of Kuwait and Cantwell does not mention any of this. Seems he prefers the sanitised version of history.
I might do a review of the entire book if his war justifying crap gets me angry enough. Grrrrr...
posted by The Editor at
9:16 AM
6 Comments:
Minor correction which doesn't detract from your main point: prior to 9/11 the Afghans had two mobs killing them: the Taliban and the Northern Alliance, and while the Taliban had the upper hand in the south, the north was in the hands of the Northern Alliance.
OK, point taken. And the Northern Alliance were just as much into butchery as the Taliban. To boot, the NA was also the protector and beneficiary of the opium industry.
Under the Taliban regime (who banned opium growing in the areas they controlled) the output was much less than it is now. We now have the NA butchers, warlords and drug lords actually entrenched in the US's puppet regime. Laos and Vietnam all over again.
Seems wherever the CIA goes, there blossoms drug trade, death squads, rape, pillage, graft corruption, gun running, and right wing oppression. they call it "liberation, democracy, and free trade."
I call it the mafia.
Gerry, in a one word answer to the first question (and having read, and re-read Cantwell from your supplied link) is ;
No.
Gerry, I'm with Davoh on this, the article you linked does not support your comments on Cantwell. However, you may want to read this as well:
Maj Gen Alan Stretton
I agree with Stretton 100%; I wonder how many serving personnel feel the same way, but can't speak out.
@AndrewM: Agreeing with Davo can be a fraught thing to be doing. :-)
My post was dealing with just one thing Cantwell said, namely:
"...foreign military forces trying to bring security to Afghanistan..."
This whole idea that we went there for that purpose is a lie.
It is the lie peddled to cover up the shabby _real_ reasons behind the US's war in Afghanistan.
Q1: Whose definition of what "security" should mean to the Afghan people applies in Cantwell's statement?
Q2 Was the war (specifically, in the way it was executed) the way to go?
Q3 Is war EVER a sane solution to political, religious, economic, humanitarian problems? (Only in very few exceptions, I would argue, and none of those applied in the Afghanistan war.)
And correct me if I'm wrong, but Cantwell seems to have started to hedge his bets in subsequent articles. Could it be because of the flack he attracted with the original article?
Nah... Cantwell's still a mouthpiece for The Machine. I won't have a bar of him.
Now Stretton, he's a man of integrity.
"...foreign military forces trying to bring security to Afghanistan..." (my emphasis).
How do you read that as a 'lie'?
It seemed to me that Major General Cantwell (Retired) - in the linked article - was being reasonably reasonable (and self could see no real reason, or indication, for him to be characterised as a "Colonel Blimp" (yep. i did look it up on Wikipedia).
It seemed to me that what he said was what anyone with a sense of history would have said. Please remember that "the military" do not (at least as far as i am aware) make unilateral "decisions" as to where they are required to be deployed. That is always a decision made by politicians. Methinks you should direct your anger toward them .... no, wait, the politicians who made the original decision to deploy to Afghanistan are safely "retired"; on a not small, taxpayer funded pension, and are no longer "accountable".
Which leaves the current crop of politicians in an awkward position.
Have a sneaking suspicion that the "Commanders on the ground" would have been more than happy to pack up and come home several years ago.
Complicated situation, i guess.
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