The flu has struck (oink!) and I have a load of marking to do, so I have been watching the early morning BBC coverage of the "election" in Afghanistan. The fraud has been falrly clearly exposed but the exposure was of course muted. Nor was there any explanation of Karzai's problem - his base is among the Pashtun and they did not turn out to vote. The figures the BBC gave were derisory. But a non-Pashtun President is unthinkable, given the overriding need for the Imperialists to keep a base among the Pashtun, in both Afghanistan (and Pakistan).
So where to now? There does not appear to be much opposition to the war here in Australia. Surprise! Britain though would appear to be a different proposition. Likewise the article Lou posted on whether Afghanistan would turn out to be Obama's Vietnam shows that doubts have emerged there among the ruling elite. Obama has I suspect crossed his own particular Rubicon. Of course he is clearly anxious what Afghanistan will do to him and his Presidency. He is by the same token not at all anxious about what he is doing to Afghanistan. He is now the Lord of the Drones and his rhetoric is beginning to sound more and more like the warmed up left overs of Bush's speech writers. He desperately needs a win on health, but from here that appears to be unlikely. Such is the arrogance of America's ruling class, that they feel no need to carry out a major retreat. And Obama does not have a surge of working class militancy to trade unlike both FDR and LBJ. Yet the tide of working class resistance will rise. It simply has to. The working class has no choice here. As long as they do have a choice they will continue to exercise it on the side of caution either by abstaining or hunkering down. But that cannot last. They will have to turn and fight or go into absolute immiseration. When they turn, if Obama is still around he might be able to cash in and save his presidency. regards Gary ________________________________________________ YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
