As liberal publications begin to refer to the Afghan War as ‘Obama’s War,’ it is clearly

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Slowed by political defeat. The story line was well established by Newsweek’s “Oral History of the Taliban,” which showed that after the Taliban was initially routed by U.S. firepower, it was rebuilt and resumed the offensive on the basis of popular anger against the occupiers and the slaughter of innocent people in ruthless and often misdirected air strikes and shootings. “‘People are fed up with these night raids and willful operations,’ said Mohammed Sharif, a teacher in Pul-iAlam, the provincial capital, which is near the villages raided by the joint forces.

“‘They are raiding houses during the night, killing innocent people,” he said. “Sometimes they kill opposition people as well, but usually they are harming ordinary and innocent people.’” Belatedly, the U.S. command has proclaimed its intentions to limit civilian casualties. But the atrocities have not stopped.

The New York Times reported April 12: “American troops raked a large passenger bus with gunfire near the southern city of Kandahar on Monday morning, killing as many as five civilians and wounding 18, Afghan authorities said.” A survivor said that there was a U.S. military convoy in front of the bus and the bus was pulling over to let a convoy behind pass when U.S. soldiers opened fire. Of the 18 wounded some were in critical condition.

This atrocity also sparked a popular protest: “Hundreds of demonstrators gathered around a bus station on the western outskirts of Kandahar, shouting anti-American chants and blocking the road for an hour, according to people in the area.”

On April 21, AP reported: “NATO backed away from its claim Wednesday that two ‘known insurgents’ were among four people killed this week when a military convoy opened fire on their vehicle in eastern Afghanistan. The shooting Monday night in Khost province sparked an outcry from the victims’ family, who insisted that all four were civilians driving home from a volleyball game. The youngest boy was just 13, said Rahmatullah Mansour, whose two sons and two nephews were killed in the shooting.”

It is clear now that the recent Marja offensive, which was supposed to be the trial of the “surge,” failed to achieve its objective. The NATO forces pushed back the Taliban fighters all right. But they did not destroy the Taliban’s effective control of the area.

The New York Times reported April 3: “The Marines took Marja, but the Taliban remain there. The approach helped turn the tide of insurgency in Iraq. But in Marja, where the Taliban seem to know everything—and most of the time it is impossible to even tell who they are—they have already found ways to thwart the strategy in many places, including killing or beating some who take the Marines’ money, or pocketing it themselves.”

The second stage of “the surge” is supposed to be the battle for Kandahar, the historic center of the Taliban and an area many times larger than Marja. The prospects there for the occupation forces look correspondingly dimmer. An article in the April 19 Huffington Post reported: “The Taliban commander [in Kandahar], who uses the pseudonym Mubeen, told the Associated Press that if military pressure on the insurgents becomes too great ‘we will just leave and come back after the foreign forces leave.’

“Despite nightly raids by NATO and Afghan troops, Mubeen said his movements have not been restricted. He was interviewed last week in the center of Kandahar, seated with his legs crossed on a cushion in a room. His only concession to security was to lock the door. He made no attempt to hide his face and said he felt comfortable because of widespread support among Kandahar’s 500,000 residents, who like the Taliban are mostly Pashtuns, Afghanistan’s biggest ethnic community.

“’Because of the American attitude to the people, they are sympathetic to us,’ Mubeen said. “Every day we are getting more support. We are not strangers. We are not foreigners. We are from the people.’”

The Pentagon itself is now openly expressing pessimism. On April 28, the McClatchy news service reported: “The Pentagon Wednesday issued a downbeat assessment of the situation in Afghanistan, saying that only one in four Afghans in strategically important areas currently back President Hamid Karzai’s government even as the Taliban expand their insurgency and install shadow local governments.”

The Pentagon’s assessment of Karzai’s support casts a light on his recent threat to join the Taliban. He knows he has little support in the country and is trying to make a deal with the Taliban before it is too late. Undoubtedly, he remembers the fate of the head of the former Soviet-backed government who was taken from an embassy and executed by the victorious Islamic resistance.

Karzai also claimed that the U.S. embassy was trying to oust him. It is probably true that the U.S. authorities would like to find a better replacement. The Afghan ruler is substantially discredited, and that weakens their whole vast operation to establish an authoritative government of their liking in the country. During the Vietnam war, the U.S. solved a similar problem by assassinating a ruler they considered incompetent.

On the other hand, the mercenary corporations the U.S. has been relying on to secure its occupation and the establishment of an effective client government are showing themselves to be no more competent and no less corrupt than Karzai. The DynCorp corporation has pocketed $6 billion for six years of training the Afghan National Police and they have not even been capable of teaching them to shoot straight, much less steer clear of corruption.

In the 30 years of reaction since Ronald Reagan was elected president in 1980, the ruling neoliberals have

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12 Socialist Action may 2010 casting a shadow over his administration.