Facing up to world reality, Opinion March 2

Re:

Fareeh Zakaria’s analysis of Afghanistan is clouded by his slavish devotion to the U.S. mainstream media’s “conventional wisdom.” Similar to Canada’s, this twisted worldview refers to America’s brutal, 10-year occupation of Afghanistan as “nation-building.”

Euphemisms such as this allow the American people to believe the fiction that they are doing something good for the inhabitants of the region. It allows Zakaria to get away with platitudes like, “Iraq is much, much better off than under Saddam,” without challenge, although I doubt the victims of America’s war-machine agree.

The moral basis for this invasion is never questioned: America was attacked and it responded. It is rarely remembered that the Taliban offered to produce Osama bin Laden if the Americans provided some evidence of his guilt. This proof was never offered and the colonization of Afghanistan began, followed quickly by that of Iraq. Later Libya was bombed and Iran probably will too, shortly after the 2012 U.S. election.

Now Zakaria frets that on its current course America must engage in nation-building in Pakistan as well. He argues they would have to alter “Pakistan’s character.” But America is not at war with Pakistan despite its occasional incursions and drone-strikes. How then does Zakaria feel America can alter its character? His language reveals their true, imperial approach.

The Americans will impose their will on the region until it no longer suits their interest, then they will leave Afghanistan swinging in the wind as Pakistan tries to make it a proxy-state under their Taliban allies. It’s okay because by then Zakaria will have more trite bromides with which to paper over those injustices.

Mike Sampat, Toronto

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