Operation Enduring Freedom, the name of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan is looking more like Operation Enduring Disaster. "The New York Times" reported, "General McChrystal's plan is a blueprint for an extensive American commitment to build a modern state in Afghanistan, where one has never existed, and to bring order to a place famous for the empires it has exhausted. This effort would most likely last many more years, cost hundreds of billions of dollars and entail the deaths of many more troops." Notice the "Times" does not mention Afghan deaths and costs to Afghan society. And that is typical in U.S.-centric formulations. Afghans are mere extras on the set, moving in the shadows, called out by the director from time to time to utter a few lines, have chimerical elections and then disappear again. Imperialism is a serious movie.

Norman Solomon
Norman Solomon, co-chair of the national Healthcare Not Warfare campaign, is an independent political commentator and media critic. The National Council of Teachers of English honored him with the George Orwell Award for Distinguished Contribution to Honesty and Clarity in Public Language. He is director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, a consortium of policy researchers and analysts. He is the author of many books including "Target Iraq," "War Made Easy, and "Made Love, Got War."