Debunking the Myth of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan

What do you call an enemy who doesn't attack you, doesn't even threaten you, and that you invented as pretext to invading and occupying yet another country for its natural resources? The myth of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, just now being debunked after ten years of losing thousands of American soldiers and Afghan civilians, as well as over a half-trillion dollars during an economic depression. And for who knows how much longer, unless we do something about it.

The U.S. and its NATO allies have been fighting an imaginary enemy, comparable to a fire-breathing dragon in that it doesn't exist, and which a recent analysis makes clear was and is just as deceptive as the Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) argument was in justifying an invasion of Iraq. But, like the Iraqi WMDs, the U.S.-government manufactured fictions of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan had the same real-world effect of acting as a justification for invading and occupying a natural resource-rich country, oil in the case Iraq and minerals in the case of Afghanistan.

After analyzing the 90,000-plus documents detailing military operations in Afghanistan recently released by WikiLeaks, which has raised serious whistleblowing ethics issues, the Washington Post reports that references to Al Qaeda in them are not in the thousands, not in the hundreds, nor even in the dozens. In fact, you and a friend or two could count them on your fingers, making clear that the case for invading and occupying Afghanistan was and is as unscrupulously deceptive as was that of the Iraq war. The Bush Administration can once again be blamed for the original deception, but so can the Obama Administration for propagating it.

As late as 2008, seven years into the Afghan war, CIA Director Leon Panetta estimated that, "at most," only 50 to 100 Al Qaeda operatives were present in Afghanistan (more in Pakistan), which another high-ranking U.S. official confirms in the documents. That's when candidate Obama endorsed the war. National security adviser James L. Jones said the U.S. government's "maximum estimate" was that Al Qaeda had fewer than 100 members in Afghanistan, with no bases and "no ability to launch attacks on either us or our allies." So not only were the American people duped, but so were U.S. allies in NATO, an organization called a "corpse decomposing" by a former leader.

This is among the first, and surely not the last, of the major consequences of the WikiLeaks documents relating to the Afghanistan war. However, they and the lives they put at risk will mean absolutely nothing if they don't galvanize support for responsibly withdrawing from Afghanistan. Again as with Iraq, U.S. leaders up to and including President Obama are postponing, and postponing and postponing the "tentative" date when our withdrawal can begin, and with it the reconstruction of the country from the devastated state we have created with the myth of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan as a pseudo-motive.

You can show your support for American soldiers, Afghan civilians and the cause of peace by asking President Obama and the U.S. Congress to pass effective legislation this session, and by asking everyone who now has the myth of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan debunked for them to do the same.

Photo Credit: walkadog