MANY Americans still support what President Barack Obama called the “good” war in Afghanistan. They continue to believe the 9/11 attacks came directly from the Afghanistan-based Al-Qaeda and Taliban movements.

Politicians and generals keep telling the public, “We’ve got to fight terrorists over there so we don’t have to fight them here at home.”

This untruth simply ignores the fact that the 9/11 attacks were planned in Germany and Spain, and conducted mainly by Saudis operating from the United States whose aim was to punish America for supporting Israel’s repression of the Palestinians.

Taliban, a militant religious, anti-Communist movement  of Pashtun tribesmen, was surprised by 9/11 and knew nothing about it. Taliban actually received US aid until May, 2001. The CIA was planning to use Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda to stir up Muslim Uighurs against Chinese rule. Washington maintained good relations with Taliban in hopes of opening the way for oil and gas pipelines from Central Asia.

In 2001, Al-Qaeda only numbered 300 members. Today, most have been killed or are hiding in Pakistan. Only a few remain in Afghanistan. Yet Obama insists 68,000 or more US troops must stay in Afghanistan to fight Al-Qaeda and prevent extremists from re-acquiring “terrorist training camps”.

This claim, like Saddam’s non-existent weapons of mass destruction, is a handy slogan to market war to the public.  Today, half of Afghanistan is under Taliban control. Anti-American militants don’t need remote Afghanistan. They have ample obscure places from which to operate in Africa and Asia. The 9/11 attacks were planned in apartments, not camps.

Which brings us to Obama’s decision to expand the US-led war in Afghanistan. Ironically, Obama and his cabinet have been wrestling with this crucial decision just as the president was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace.

Obama must decide between guns and butter. The US deficit for this year will be US$1.2 trillion (RM4 trillion). Unemployment continues to rise and the US dollar’s dramatic decline threatens to destabilise world financial markets.

After eight years of military operations costing US$236 billion (RM800 billion), Gen Stanley McChrystal, the US commander in Afghanistan, warns of “failure”, meaning defeat. He openly called for 40,000 more troops, directly challenging Obama’s authority. There is already talk in Washington of McChrystal running for president against Obama.

Obama is under intense pressure from flag-waving Republicans to expand the war. The US media and hawkish US national security establishment are beating the war drums. Official Washington worries that the US cannot be seen to lose yet another war, and this time to a bunch of mountain tribesmen.

Israel’s influential supporters, including many Congressional Democrats, are demanding Obama send more US troops to Afghanistan. Israel wants to see the US seize Pakistan’s nuclear arms, and threaten Iran from Afghanistan. Israel’s hard line foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, recently called Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq the three principal threats to Israel, setting off alarm bells among pro-Israel groups.

As the US sinks ever deeper into the South Asian morass, Washington is redoubling efforts to arm-twist Pakistan into being more obedient, and to widen the war against its own independent-minded Pashtun tribes – wrongly called “Taliban”.

Now, Washington is making a ham-handed effort to use US$7.5 billion (RM25 billion) in new aid to bribe Pakistan’s feeble, corrupt government, to take control of military promotions, and get a grip on Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. Pakistan’s soldiers are on the verge of revolt.

US mercenaries and aircraft are operating freely in Pakistan. Washington is working on a new fortified embassy in Islamabad for 1,000 personnel that many Pakistanis believe will house their nation’s real government.

Obama should admit Taliban is not and never was a threat to the west; that the wildly exaggerated Al-Qaeda has been mostly eradicated; and that the US-led war in Afghanistan is causing more damage to US interests in the Muslim world – now 25% of all humanity – than Osama and his few rag-tag allies.  

The bombing in Madrid and London, and conspiracy in Toronto, were all horribly wrongheaded protests by young Muslims against the Afghan War – not plots hatched by Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.

Nobel Peace Prize winner Barack Obama should just declare victory in Afghanistan, withdraw western forces, and hand over security to a multinational stabilisation force from Muslim nations. Good presidents, like good generals, know when to retreat.

Eric S. Margolis is a contributing editor to the Toronto Sun chain of newspapers, writing mainly about the Middle East and South Asia. Comments: letters@thesundaily.com