"Evil Empire" invades Afghanistan. Remember?

[mnaz]

Remember when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan? Remember how the US loudly protested this invasion and occupation as immoral aggression?

Well, I've got news for Iraq war supporters. The longer the US occupation of Iraq drags on, with its objectionable construction of more permanent military bases, and in spite of a growing consensus that the occupation itself is causing most, if not all of the violent resistance, the more apparent it seems that the US seeks a degree of military/imperial control of the country, not dissimilar to how the Soviets sought to control Afghanistan.

And when I read of US counter-insurgency tactics approaching closer to a "kill-many-of-them-and-let-God-sort-it-out" mentality (see Zlatko's W.P. articles), I'm forced to conclude that the ongoing US policy on Iraq, despite what may have been a good intention or two at the start (to be highly charitable), approaches closer to outright hypocrisy with each pasing day, each week of a costly, troubled, violent policy which shows no signs of turning around.

The US, in Iraq, is following a similar path to the "Evil Empire" in Afghanistan in the 1980's; an aggression which the US denounced loudly and with moral indignance at the time. But there are more similarities than differences in the two campaigns. In 1979, Brezhnev declared that the Soviets needed to control and "stabilize" Afghanistan for "security" reasons, to buffer vulnerable USSR territories bordering the Islamic Revolution taking place in Iran and throughout the Middle East. Sound familiar?

Most other comparisons of the US invasion vs. the Soviet invasion differ only as a matter of degree, or "semantics", it seems. Sure the US might offer a more palatable political future for Iraq than the Soviets could offer Afghanistan, at least on the level of surface rhetoric. But many observers have rightly pegged the US-led political process in Iraq as seriously flawed and rushed. This, combined with persistent signs of long-term military/imperial intent, speaks of more dubious primary US motives, other than the advertised "Iraqi freedom".

While it's true that the Red Army took a more brutal approach in its counter-insurgency than the US military has so far, it's the trend in Iraq which I find disturbing. The gap seems to be closing.

Whatever the reasons given for remaining at full troop strength in Iraq, and whatever the evils assigned to the insurgency by the square-jaw pundits, the time has come for the US to act in good faith, to materially demonstrate to the Iraqi people that it does not desire to maintain an unwanted presence, or to steal or dominate either Iraqi resources or sovereignty. The time has come to start a troop withdrawal. If the US chooses to stay on its current course for much longer, the signs of its self-righteous hypocrisy will only continue to become more apparent.