Quote: “Pakistan continues to look after its own national interests, as it has always defined them. This means that the separate radical religious and tribal movements that make up the Taliban continue to be considered an asset to Pakistan in its long-term struggle with India, in defense of Pakistan’s own security, and in order to recover Muslim-populated Kashmir, which India controls.”

This appears to be the case, and while it seems apparent “resources” play their own role, this article by Jeremy Scahill follows Mr. Pfaff’s position:

“Feingold said he is increasingly disturbed by the war in Afghanistan, where troop levels are escalating by the month, US casualties are mounting and the insurgency is expanding. “It appears that no one even asked the president about [Afghanistan] at his [July 22] press conference after apparently thirty or thirty-one Americans were killed in Afghanistan last month. How is that possible?” Feingold asks. “People have to wake up to what’s going on in Afghanistan, and my vote is a request that people wake up to what’s happening, which is we are getting deeper and deeper into this situation in a way that I don’t think necessarily makes sense at all and may actually be counterproductive…..

“This is something I’ve been trying to hammer away at,” Feingold tells The Nation. “They admitted that it’s a problem, but where’s the follow-up?”
http://pdamerica.org/articles/news/2009-07-25-12-05-17-news.php

You are using the offical economic stats, pgg, which are fabrications, like the unemployment, growth and inflation stats.  China’s industrial production is currently 50% to 100% bigger than the US’s, and grew at 21% annually this decade.  The US industrial production, when I last looked, was down to the 1998 level. China’s exports this year will be the largest in the world ~1.5 trillion.

some observers insist that the Shiite- and Kurdish-dominated government must do more to reconcile the former ruling Sunni minority if sectarian conflict is not to break out again.

This is exactly what the American military and intelligence agencies want to happen.  They want to stay in Iraq in definitely.  For that they need increased violence and plenty of it.  You can bet your life they are planning to increase the violence so the SOFA can be torn up and thrown away.  When a car bomb explodes you’ll know it’s the Americans who are behind it.

What Plan? Whose Plan? Any one aware of what THE REAL PLAN(S)? Would anyone admit to having a plan?

  The ONLY PLAN for wars in the Middle East that has been published is: A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm, commonly referred to as the “Clean Break” report, was prepared in 1996 by a study group led by Richard Perle for Benjamin Netanyahu, the then-Prime Minister of Israel. The report explained a new approach to solving Israel’s security problems in the Middle East with an emphasis on “Western values”. It has since been criticized for advocating an aggressive new policy.

  According to the report’s preamble.it was written by the Study Group on a New Israeli Strategy Toward 2000, which was a part of the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies. Former United States Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle was the “Study Group Leader”, but the final report included ideas from James Colbert, Charles Fairbanks, Jr., Douglas Feith, Robert Loewenberg, David Wurmser, and Meyrav Wurmser.

  THE FOUNTAIN-HEAD for the above is Bernard Lewis’s socalled “protocol: for continuing the break up of as many countries in Asia/Arab worlds into “small” entities subject to Bristih/American/Zionist interest.

  Just follow the trend…Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Sudan, etc,. the question to be asked is whose winning?

I think the USA’s economic power is declining too, but I would not call China a superpower yet.  It was only at the beginning of this year that China passed Germany to become the third biggest economy in the world behind Japan.  The European Union, the USA and Japan are still much bigger than China economically.  But there is no doubt China is growing faster than anyone else and experts say they will pass the USA eventually.

The USA is still competitive in certain area’s.  The USA leads the world in Information Technology (both hardware and software:  chipmakers like Intel or software designers like Microsoft are still number one in their field), and in science where the USA led the human genome project.  The USA still has many of the worlds leading scientists.  But the bright spots are few and far between. 
The USA’s auto industry is a fraction of its former size and its financial services industry is much smaller too after several big bankruptcies. 

The other key factor that I believe is a problem for the USA is the wide gap between the rich and poor.  In western Europe you don’t have nearly as many poor and the rich are not as rich as the richest Americans.  I think thats part of the reason why its so hard to pass things like the healthcare bill in Washington.  The rich don’t want to to be told to fork up the money to fund others healthcare.  The other reason is this belief that private industry does everything better than the government, despite the fact that the privately run American healthcare industry is the most inefficient in the world compared to other industrialized countries. 

At the beginning of the last century the leading powers of the world were France, Great Britain, Germany, Russia, the USA and other European empires.  No Asian country was among that group.  The world was very surprised when Japan defeated Russia in a naval war in 1905.  Today, listing countries by GDP (bigger to smaller) the list goes:  USA, Japan, China then Germany.

There is no doubt that two world wars stripped Europe of their world leadership economically, scientifically and militarily.  Prior to WW II they led in all three areas.  European countries were the superpowers and they decided among themselves how the world would be run.  After WWII the USA and the badly damaged USSR emerged as the worlds superpowers and they decided how the world would be run.

The USA was founded by Europeans and thirty years ago it was still mostly a caucasian country that identified itself most closely with Europe.  When people travelled, they mostly travelled to Europe.  If they were going to work abroad or learn a knew language, it would probably be somewhere in Europe (possibly Japan).  Today many Americans travel to Asia and go to places like India for work.  While this is good, I think its strange what I perceive as an attempt to distance itself from Europe.  I say this, because I hear things like a certain radio announcer saying things like why learn French when you can learn Chinese, they are the future leaders of the world.  This was during the French and German bashing a few years ago when they didn’t support the USA’s attack against Iraq.

But when you look at how Asia is overtaking the world,  Americans and Europeans may have to come closer together to compete.  I only wonder if its too late.

...“it seems that the American people are behind the ideological curve.”

I’d say that, as a people, we always are, Folktruther.

The endless wars under the endless War on Torrorism were kicked off because the US could no longer compete economically in the world arena, its neoliberal eoonomy being obsolete. 

The Chinese party captitalism was increasing its industrical production astoishingly 5 to 10 times faster than the US, and helping to industrialize Asia and the underdeeloped countries, where most of the world’s people live. 

These cou;ntries were throwing off Western imperialism which the US could only maintain by violence, despotism, barbarism, and deceit.  The US refers to this as Freedom&Democracy;.

As China takes the US place as the world’s leading power, the US polity will continue to decay at an astonishly fast rate historically.  By spending half its budget on current military expenses, it forego the development that will allow it large future military expenditures.  this is the way emperialism usually expires historially, the only difference being how fast it is occuring now.

When the war on communism of the 20th century segued into the War on Terrorism of the 21st, the US gave up hope for the future.  This was detailed by Chalmers Johnson in his triology that maintained that the US would probably go bankrupt because of its military expenditures.  This seems to be happening as Obama is continuing and expanding Bush’s wars, deceitfully, and the US goes contually into debt.

These quagmires occur because American and Western imperialism had their day and the world’s people will no longer put up with it.  But it seems that the American people are behind the ideological curve.

Americans voted to end the war in 2006 and again in 2008. But voting is not enough. The American public is wedged between two political parties who support the war, and the ballot box offers no alternative. The war will not end until more of us organize and take direct action to stop it. Join every anti-war organization you know of, donate money and get out in the streets and protest. Democracy means taking ownership of your country and taking action.

Better dump that SUV if you haven’t already: perpetual war is not going to lower the price at the pump (it was never supposed to do that—just ensure a continuing limited supply so the pimps of BIg Oil can continue to screw the public).

It makes no difference if Iraq and Afpakistan falls; the oil will make its way to the Corporation in any case. Actually a defeat in Iraq would be great for Obama & the economy: more jobs (soldiers), higher prices, new electric cars. Oddly, Orwell never said “Defeat is Victory” but that’s what we’ve got, nevertheless.

” his world is favors and agreements, and he looks the other way when the barbarians will not play by his rules.”-rollzone

That is so simplistic but it is ACCURATE. He does a very good job at creating a facade that fools many. Combined with the niave view by blacks that he is the man and we have been set up again.

First the fraud of The Man From Hope and now the fraud of The Audacity Of Hope.

I here Hope and I run. We don’t need Hope we need Action. Action to serve the People who cry out for a change of direction and some restoration of the New Deal that made America the land envied and used as a blue print for the creation of most of the modern 1st World and aspiring Second World.

Obama, unless he changes direction in substantive ways, will face a stiff challenge in the primary.

bogi666, that is a useful nugget of info about TDY; I had no idea.

Clark, excellent comments, thanks

The plans are to keep the money churning for the Military/Industrial/Political complex, and don’t bring military personnel or private contractors home to a country that has no jobs for them.

The official number of troops in Iraq is 130,000 reputedly. It’s the unofficial number that’s important. The Military has what it refers to as Temporary Duty, TDY. A troop[s] can be assigned to TDY for 90 days or less and will not be counted where physically located but at what is officially the permanent duty station. For instance in the 1960’s the Pentagon admitted to having 15,000 official advisers in Vietnam and simultaneously there were another 50,000 + or - there on TDY, or unofficially. They were counted as being else where, their permanent base. So the official numbers are for public consumption only. PR

One wonders if there ever WAS a “plan” (by either the former or the current administration) other than “stay the course and keep one’s fingers crossed that the other guy breaks before we do” ...

US OUT OF BOTH IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN!!!

@William Pfaff:

Interesting article, but I’m hazy on a particular point here: isn’t it the case that swathes of Pakistan have been grabbed by the Taliban, and that the government is struggling to keep them at bay? 

Although Pakistan’s long-term strategy against India may make use of the Taliban’s presence in the border regions, if the current government’s very existence is threatened by them I don’t see them happily becoming martyrs at the hands of their own pit-bull. 

Is it the case that so long as key areas remain under government control, the Pakistan government consider the Taliban to be a tolerable and occasionally useful fact of life, like, um, bees?

This article seems thick with wrongful implications and assumptions.

Mr. Pfaff seems to assume that any or all of these wars, which were initiated by the United States, while being mismanaged to varying degrees, were justified and necessary at the outset. This is total BS.

Each of these horrendous, Iron-fisted assaults was the result of scheming and often using misleading information as a means of furthering global domination. Each is laced with a vile racist indifference to the suffering of the less powerful in each of the Attacked nations.

“The american ‘intervention’... a clearly identified enemy.” Deadly drivel.

hello. obama’s folley. do not disrupt the military industrial complex. they are one third of his economy. he is depending on them for economic recovery. he is absent on the global stage. he has no exit plan for Afghanistan. he is struggling to continue the war in Iraq. he is so unprepared for world diplomacy that i do not think he even played ‘Battleship’ as a child in Kenya. his world is favors and agreements, and he looks the other way when the barbarians will not play by his rules. i pray someone gets into office soon, whom will bring home our troops from where they do not belong, and crush the criminals where they do.

“For all America’s trouble, Iraq has turned out to be a sectarian, authoritarian ally of Iran with no interest in working with the U.S”. 

The people that hatched the plan to destroy Iraq were the neo-cons.  There are two things that the majority of neo-cons share.  First, they are all dedicated zionists.  Second, while many jews are not neo-cons, the majority of neo-cons are jewish.

When they started the war, their intention was to destroy Iraq.  Since the first Gulf war the US media has portrayed Iraq as an aggressor nation guilty of the worst crime you can be accused of - being anti-Israel.  They condemned Saddam Hussein for giving money to Palestinian families whose son or daughter sacrificed their life fighting the Israeli’s and for launching missiles at Israel in the first Gulf War.  When you look at who was primarily responsible for starting the second Gulf War, its obvious Iraq was correct in their assessment of who was responsible for the first Gulf War.  The US has been anti-Arab (always siding with Israel) since the 1960’s.

The people that started the war were aware of the ethnic and religious tensions in Iraq.  They knew Iraqi Kurds were opposed to Iraq in the first Gulf War and were subsequently attacked by Iraqi forces.  They knew of religious tensions between Sunnis and Shiites.  While maybe the average westerner only became aware of these differences in the last decade, these people knew of these age old tensions.  They knew a civil war might erupt and they considered that a good thing.  You can never be sure how a war is going to develop (take Vietnam for example) so you want every advantage on your side.  The possibility of ethnic infighting was considered a good thing. 

They would like it to stop now, but this is secondary.  The primary goal has been achieved - Iraq has been destroyed.  But they only want it to stop now.  But they don’t want fighting to stop among those peoples and countries.  As the above quotation indicates, the writer of this article and US policy does not want peace in that area.  Now they want Iran and Iraq to be enemies.  When the Muslims fight each other, its good for Israel.

Iran is up next for an attack.  The media reporting on Iran is absolutely disgusting.  The west keeps pushing Russia to become an anti-Iran belligerent like the rest of the west.  Iran is about 100 miles from the Russian border (they used to border the Soviet Union).  But the Russians believe Iran has a right to peaceful nuclear energy.  They actually are helping them right now.  They don’t feel threatened by Iran.  Most Europeans also don’t feel threatened.  The majority of Poles and Czechs are opposed to the missile defense system the US is building in their countries supposedly to defend against Iran.  They know its a sham and a lie.  Iran does not have a nuclear bomb, says it does not want to develop a nuclear bomb and does not even have a missile that can reach Europe.  So when the Russians say the system is aimed at them, they have a good case.

If their was any justice in this world, the neo-cons and much of the western media would get what the 1 million dead Iraqis got .