Addressing West Point’s graduating class, President Obama embeds Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ latest strategy to win the war in Afghanistan with this comment “We have supported the election of a sovereign government - now we must strengthen its capacities.”
Gates who once warned of “creeping militarization aspects of United States foreign policy,” now insists it is our military’s duty to directly influence on a long term basis Afghanistan’s “military, the police, the justice system, and other governance and oversight mechanisms.” Gates calls this strategy “building partner capacity.”
Because President Obama used our troops’ presence in Afghanistan to enforce the rigged presidential election of Hamid Karzai, President Karzai and his half-brother Ahmed Wali now have the power to cash in on the military contracts that are primarily funded by the United States and persecute Afghanis who compete or interfere with their country’s lucrative war economy.
Afghanis increasingly seek out the Taliban to protect them from Karzai and Wali.
Obama and Gates play a semantic shell game when they hide our military occupation of Afghanistan under the benevolent catchphrase “building partner capacity.”
234 years ago, Americans rebelled against the “building partner capacity” of Britain’s King George III to institute a new government that would truly represent and protect Americans’ interests and freedom.
Helen Logan
Fullerton, California USA
