Breaking News:4 Canadian Soldiers Killed in Afghanistan

[darkbeaver]

There are two perspectives here:

The Humanitarian perspective. Over 2 million refugees have returned to Afghanistan. The crisis for almost 1 million refugees in camps in western Afghanistan has been averted. Many Afghans were able to vote for first time and this includes women who had long been excluded from the public sphere. One only has to imagine how empowering casting this vote must have been for Afghans.

Canadian Soldiers have been an important part of the reconstruction and their effort should be recognized in this vein. Those who died should be recognized for the service they performed in the interests of humanity. This would be my position and I highly value the contribution the soldiers have made.

The political perspective. The critique here on the site is largely drawn from structural Marxism, a paradigm that leaves little room for human agency. There is no importance or significance for the votes cast by Afghans because they only served to elect a puppet regime. There is also no interest in the lives saved through the international intervention because the mission is only seen as part of a structural plot to reinforce existing global relationships. As structures are dominant there is also no interest in historical specificity and so the same general argument can be paraded around the world without contextual modification.

One can go through all the various problems in applying this form of structural analysis to Afghanistan, beginning with the rather obvious fact that the model has no relation to the type of society one finds in Afghanistan. The Soviets tried to introduce reforms and they and their occupation failed because they did not understand Afghanistan. What they thought was feudalism was in reality a variant Marx and Engels identified as an Asiatic mode. The Asiatic mode revolves around the redistribution of resources which need to be managed by an overlord because of their scarcity. If one ignores this history it is easy to see the mechanism of redistribution as corruption which is the rather ethnocentric critique offered here.

I don't think the structural view offered here on global politics is intellectually credible. It's basically a very diluted form of vulgar Marxism. The Canadian troops deserve better in the way of analysis.

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A: Capitalism,capital consumption and labour nothing else matters.
B: Voteing for a criminal dosn't count as democracy.
c: The lives taken by the international intervention (cluster bombing and civil war and invasion) far outnumber the saved, and thier really doomed to continued military occupation, freed democratized and saved meaning (military occupation) in American newspeak.
d: It is feudalism variant or not.
e: The mechanism of redistribution is corrpuption, by the democratic standards (freedom & democracy) supposidly being installed by a corrupt puppet regiem. How's that going to turn out?
f: A reinforced global relationship by reinforceing dominant structures is being parraded arround the world by air supriority, marine superiority and superiority of nuclear proliferation those are the only contextual considerations necessary, one size fits all.

I don't think the structural view you've just offered here on global
politics is intellectually honest or credible. IT's basically a very diluted form of capitalism. The Canadian troops deserve the truth.

 

[Lineman]

Sanch, enjoyed your post. A few questions for you if you don't mind. Afghanistan as you point out has no history of a democracy and have elected some "criminals" in their first attempt. Will this democracy mature over time if we continue to assist? If it does what is your estimate on how long before political parties, organizations and the like become rooted enough so "acceptable" candidates are elected?

 

[Curiosity]

Lineman

Agree - Sanch's post was excellent as was your question.

The people who have elected their leaders may be so used to oppression it may take them a few elections to understand they have the power with their vote.

No doubt there will be some corrupt officials who take advantage of their elected position - but hopefully the people will have an opportunity for correcting that problem as the years go on.

It's still taking "old democracies" a long time to elect honest people

 

[sanch]

Lineman while Afghans have never had a democracy as we know it they had a system that worked in that environment. Basically before the Soviet invasion—which incidentally occurred after the Soviets installed a couple of puppet regimes—the social structure of Afghanistan was based on tribal affiliations. The overall configuration was referred to as an Asiatic mode because of the need for a stratified system to manage and ensure access to crucial resources which in Afghanistan was primarily water.

The Soviets were totally insensitive and ignorant of this ecological reality. As DB pointed out the redistributive system that provided access was seen as corrupt and in need of reform. The Soviets were big on centralized planning and had no respect for indigenous input and so leadership needed to be imposed. Again all of this is reflected in the “theoretical” model that DB outlined above. Using this same type of model for a development guide, the Soviets proceeded to enact reforms that the local population fiercely resisted. The Soviets destroyed Afghanistan.

The model that the Soviets were using could not accommodate any variation. Among structural Marxists the trajectory is from feudalism to capitalism to socialism and then to communism. These are essential steps. In the seventies there was debate centered on whether African countries for example could skip capitalism and move directly to socialism. The structuralists rejected this idea maintaining that exploitation under capitalism was a necessary precondition to the transition to socialism.

This is why it so necessary for DB to invent feudalism and capitalism in Afghanistan. No suffering under these systems. No entitlement to utopia.

I am much more optimistic about democracy in Afghanistan than DB is. Yes some of the warlords might keep a little too much for themselves. But one has to remember that the majority of foreign aid is dispensed by NGOs and they are living very high off the hog in Kabul. So the amount of aid available to the Afghan government is very limited. But most of the NGOs are leftists and so what they abscond with is seldom mentioned by critics. It is easier to blame the warlords than to attack one’s ideological soulmates. The big step—and this is the foundation that democracies are built on—is that Afghans have voted for the first time.


But back to the Canadian troops. I agree that the Canadian troops in Afghanistan need to know the truth. They need to be aware of the growing pains that accompany the building of democracies as Wednesday's Child stated and that the process takes time. They also need to know that many of those criticizing their mission in Canada are using a theoretical model that has been largely discredited.

 

[darkbeaver]

RE: Breaking News:4 Canad

Afghans have voted for the first time, big deal, Americans have voted for centuries, it has not prevented corruption, war, poverty or thier present state of pending precipitous decline. A vote is worthless without democratic infrastructure the cart does not come before the horse, ever. Exploitation under capitalism is an accepted avenue to socialism, quess who will move toward socialism, quess where civil war will occur before two decades have passed. The old American democracy has for all intents and purposes ceased to function many years ago, the majority of American elected officials are corrput thieves and liars. The power that controls the U.S today is popularly and correctly thought of as a Corporatocracy.
I do not use theoretical models to criticize or debate, a participatory democracy evolves from within it never comes from without, more than enough actual cases of imposed fake democracys exist to support my claim that this afghan exercise is futile for the stated purposes.
If the Taliban and Al-queda had been exterminated to a man in Afghanistan,democracy would still not have ensued, the Afghani people can vote till thier blue in the face thier slate of candidates will never change while external control prevails.

 

[Sassylassie]

Sanch, I enjoyed reading your posts and I concur with your opinion of the situation in Afghanistan.

 

[Lineman]

Thanks Sanch! very enlightening. (There was some static there a couple of posts back but yours was well understood).

WC wrote
It's still taking "old democracies" a long time to elect honest people

I wonder do they start out that way or is there a training program once you get in? :?