The Obama Adminstration: Blaming Israel for the U.S. Fiasco in Afghanistan

How many times have we been told by both the extreme left and the extreme right that the United States waged both Gulf Wars against Iraq on Israel's behalf? Those who disseminate this perverse view would have us forget Saddam's invasion of Kuwait and Iraqi threats against Saudi Arabia, which, had they gone unchallenged, would have brought American industry to a standstill.

In 2010 this canard has been "enhanced": Israel's refusal to make peace with the Palestinians is jeopardizing American troops in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan.

Let's leave that thought for a moment and examine another eye-opening, up close account from Afghanistan, written by Dexter Filkins and published on March 30 by The New York Times, entitled "Despite Doubt, Karzai Brother Retains Power":

"Ahmed Wali Karzai, the most powerful man in southern Afghanistan, may maintain links with drug dealers and insurgents, as some American officials and Afghans believe. And he might have played a central role in last summer’s fraudulent presidential election, as Western diplomats charged.

But Mr. Karzai is also the brother of the Afghan president, Hamid. And after debating Ahmed Wali’s future for months — and with a huge military operation in the area looming — Afghan and American officials have decided that the president’s brother will be allowed to stay in place.

. . . .

Any decision about Ahmed Wali Karzai is complicated by his relationship with the Central Intelligence Agency, which maintains a large presence in Kandahar. Current and former American officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, say the agency has paid Ahmed Wali Karzai regularly for many years for performing a variety of services.

. . . .

But Western and Afghan officials say the president’s brother is engaged in many activities that buoy the insurgency and undermine the Afghan state. These military and political officials say the evidence, though largely circumstantial, strongly suggests that he enriches himself by helping the illegal trade in poppy and opium.

. . . .

The official said that Ahmed Wali Karzai also laundered ill-gotten money for a host of figures in southern Afghanistan. “For a lot of people, including drug runners,” the Western official said.

Perhaps the most vivid example of Ahmed Wali Karzai’s reach came last August, when his brother sought re-election. According to Western diplomats in Kabul, he cut deals with insurgent groups to refrain from attacking polling stations, and then helped orchestrate a large-scale campaign of forging ballots on his brother’s behalf."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/31/world/asia/31karzai.html?hp

In a nutshell, Karzai's brother, who is allegedly involved in the narcotics trade, money laundering, election fraud and deals with the Taliban, is also allegedly in bed with the CIA. Excuse me, but why is the United States involved with this man? What is America possibly attempting to achieve on the ground in Afghanistan? Moreover, what does any of this primitive tribal confrontation have to do with distant Israel?

Fighting in Iraq subsequent to the Second Gulf War? We have seen a host of warring sects (Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds) and "third parties" (al-Qaeda, Iran, Syria) attempt to exert their influence and direct the outcome of this chaos, but again, what does Israel have to do with it?

The past and current wars involving the various Arab countries and Iran have exacted an exponentially larger number of casualties than all of the combined Arab-Israeli conflicts. The enmity between Sunnis and Shiites (deemed heretics by the Sunnis) is a far greater threat to regional stability than the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. Why then are we now being told that Israel is the primary source of Middle East instability? Answer: Because this is indeed what the Obama administration believes.

Although the U.S. vice president's staff denies he made the comment, it has been reported that Biden alleged that Israel is jeopardizing U.S. troops:

“People who heard what Biden said [to Israeli officials behind closed doors] were stunned,” the centrist Israeli daily newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported. “‘This is starting to get dangerous for us,’ Biden castigated his interlocutors. ‘What you’re doing here undermines the security of our troops who are fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. That endangers us, and it endangers regional peace.’”

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/34300_Page2.html

Several days after the Biden imbroglio, the magazine Foreign Policy ran a story on its website saying that General Petraeus had sent a briefing team to the Pentagon at the beginning of the year “with a stark warning: America’s relationship with Israel is important, but not as important as the lives of America’s soldiers.”

Next, ABC News senior White House correspondent Jake Tapper asked David Axelrod twice whether “Israel’s intransigence on the housing issue put the lives of US troops at risk.” Axelrod said he wouldn’t put it in those terms, but given the opportunity, he refused to deny it.

General Petraeus, however, put the canard to rest. Speaking at St. Anselm College, he stated that the lack of progress in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations makes the situation for moderate Arab states "more challenging", but denied ever saying that the U.S.-Israel relationship places American soldiers at risk (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2010/03/can-israel-survive-obamas-reelection.html).

In short, although Obama and Hillary claim the U.S.-Israel relationship is "rock solid", it's not the case. Axelrod's evasive answer to Jake Tapper would lead anyone to believe that Israel is undermining the American effort in Afghanistan and jeopardizing the lives of U.S. soldiers.

But then what do you expect? Someone will ultimately need to be blamed for Obama's Afghan fiasco. Why not Israel?