KCRW's Left Right & Center Show 7.18.08

On IRAQ - The Documentary "No End In Sight" tells the story pretty accurately as to 'where we are at' and the challenges to planned chaos theory in Iraq, but Anthony Lake's - "6 Nightmares" lays the foundation for the current response that starts with George W. Bush's assassination attempt by Iraqis coming into Kuwait (p.16) and the essential response that lessened terrorist attacks from 666 in 1987 to 273 in 1988.

On Afghanistan - Why doesn't ANYONE on this show link the production of 90% of the WORLD's Heroin (poppy) and 30% of the WORLD'S Marijuana and the security risk that causes the region and the U.S. by funding the 7,000 guns produced per day [for the last 7 years] on the Pakistan border towns that produce hand made guns to fuel the armory in the region. The $4 BILLION worth of drug money creates a hostile environment for U.S. and regional interests. Didn't ANYONE ever consider what the HELL Russia or anyone else would want with such a depleted, impoverished and ancient civilization that has virtually no infrastructure or economy outside of the drug trade? If Saudi Arabia had not found oil in the 1900's they would still be in tents in the middle of a sand dune, contrast the history lesson and huge development and infrastructure shown in the first 5 minutes of the movie "The Kingdom" and the $3.5 TRILLION the U.S. owes the OPEC Nations - hence the dollar devaluation pushing up oil prices at home (needing twice as many dollars to buy the same amount of oil (Next is $1 Trillion to China, $1 trillion to Japan and on the list goes to virtually every major country in the world adding up to $9 trillion in U.S. Debt (Mobs, Messiah's & Markets - Bonner-Rajiva)

Al Gore - Energy & Markets - Chevron's willyoujoinus.com/energyville gives users a 'SIMS' like environment to try your hand at managing a cities power resources with all the available energy resources available today and some that will be developed in the near future and project out to 2030-2050 the impact of those choices from economic, environment, security standpoint. Try playing and competing with others who try to solve the city's (World's) energy challenges. It only takes 30 minutes from start to finish to understand the rules and play with a drag-and-drop interface to understand the energy issue better. Designed by the Economist Group.

Nuclear Power plants are still challenged to determine what to do with the nuclear waste. No country as well as France and their recent breach has figured out what do with the masses of nuclear waste that was being dumped in the Arctic by Japan& Russia until the 1970's (Search www.ft.com - "nuclear waste") not to mention the long term effects of problems associated with security issues related to having enriched uranium and plutonium going to these sites and being manufactured as well as potential melt downs and lasting exposure if they fail.

Until we decide what the objectives are in Iran, Iraq or Afghanistan, the troop surges are a 'police action' and not a war (youtube.com "The Pentagon’s New Map) and that security detail needs to be paid for by the states we are aiding or a NATO led coalition needs to share the cost burden to ensure all of the Western civilizations Energy Security.

Robert Scheer argues that war in Afghanistan will prove as or more unmanageable as war in Iraq. Most Americans believe that the invasion of Afghanistan was justified after 9/11 because the Taliban were sheltering al Qaeda and this had to stop. In hindsight many Americans understand that starting a second simultaneous war in Iraq was a mistake. Whether this invasion was motivated to impose post 9/11 discipline on the uppity Saddam, or for oil, Bush family issues, a neoconservative vision that the American military could impose order on the Middle East, or whether this was just the action of violent men to show that the US, although wounded by 9/11, was still the most violent power in the world, we are now seeing that Iraqis do not want the US occupying their country. This war as he have known us must therefor soon end. In the meantime the war in Afghanistan has been underfunded and ignored.

However Afghanistan raises many of the same issues in a place that has been much less friendly to the West. We know that it is a tribal and warlord ridden state that survives by selling narcotics to the West, and whose fierce people resisted the British and Soviet Empires before us. Its culture, battered by decades of war, is alien to us. The Taliban's resurgance in popularity confounds us. Its ethnic links with Pakistan, another unfamiliar country that really does have nuclear weapons, also confound us. We can't invade and occupy Iraq, and Afghanistan, and Iran, and Pakistan. We are bankrupting the country with the wars we have.

So suppose we had ignored Saddam and concentrated on Afghanistan, and even invested all the resources in rebuilding Afghanistan that we said we would. What would we have done better? As in Iraq, wouldn’t the local warlords have manipulated us more than we could manipulate or intimidate them? If we just chased away the Taliban and then left, what would have happened then? A recent Nicholas Kristoff article suggests that building schools works better there than war. But how would we build there, as occupiers? And who would manage the rebuilding, which has failed so dismally in Iraq?

American voters may believe there are good wars, even if Iraq does not appear to be one of them. And world diplomacy can’t even do anything about Darfur or Mugabe. So if neither unilateral military invasion and occupation, nor diplomacy can make the world unsafe for al Qaeda, what will? Some world wide effort at reconstruction without the onus of foreign military occupation may offer the most promise, and may have been possible post 9/11 before the Iraq war alienated so much of the world. A new administration may be able to win this opportunity again, or it may just make the same mistakes.