Andrew Bacevich offers an approach to Afghanistan that makes a lot of sense to me . . . more in line with available resources, both Afghanistan's and ours, than the present course.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/171254
Even though President-elect Obama has often spoken of increasing the number of troops in Afghanistan, he has provided remarkably few details. For example, what are the objectives of a surge in troops and of the mission in Afghanistan altogether? What is the desired timeline, the expected costs and the exit strategy? If these were fair questions for President Bush, they are fair for President-elect Obama, as well.
When you read the following article which speculates about the need for 100,000 more troops, you can see the need for more clarity up front. The American people should know what kind of commitment we are making with our scarce tax dollars.
http://www.pdamerica.org/articles/news/2008-11-27-10-18-05-news.php
To some, the only path is the current path: military force. Recently, there have been calls for a different path -- negotiation with the Taliban and countries in the region. The following article argues for a third path -- just leave and let the Afghanis govern themselves.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/11/22-5
An article in a recent issue of the Washington Post begins: "As U.S. and European officials ponder what to do about the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, they are coming to a perhaps surprising conclusion: The simplest way to stabilize the country may be to negotiate a truce with the Taliban fundamentalists who were driven from power by the United States in 2001."
See the entire article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/24/AR2008102402804.html
Barack Obama often borrows from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. when he speaks of "the fierce urgency of now". In the following article the author looks at another of Dr. King's inspirational passages. Based on Dr. King's guidance, the author makes a case for U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/11/10-3
President-elect Obama is cautioned against escalating the fight in Afghanistan, whose nickname is "the graveyard of empires". The country did not get its nickname for nothing.
http://www.counterpunch.org/velvel11072008.html
The following quote from the article below is interesting. It refers to British opinions that are pessimistic about the prospects for success in Afghanistan, as most people might picture it.
The British views are particularly important. Having already shed the blood of its soldiers in the Afghan wars of the 19th century, the reluctance to persevere on the current course is understandable.
Click here to view the entire article:
http://www.counterpunch.org/kampmark10242008.html
The author of the article below asserts that Afghanistan was never "the good war".
The author further asserts: "The Bush administration initially continued to maintain ties with the Taliban—approving over $40 million in financial aid in May 2001."
This second assertion makes one question just how big an enemy the Taliban is and how hard it would be to negotiate with them.
I don't know the accuracy of these assertions and would welcome input from anyone who does.
http://www.counterpunch.org/everest10172008.html
The war in Afghanistan ignores one important fact -- al Qaeda, our original enemy is not in Afghanistan and hasn't been there for quite a while. Most everyone assumes that al Qaeda is in Pakistan.
While the Taliban were our "enemy", they were only so because they gave sanctuary to al Qaeda. The question is "can there be a diplomatic agreement with the Taliban that gives us what we want, an assurance that al Qaeda will not be given sanctuary in Afghanistan?
The author of the following article notes that the Saudis are hosting negotiations between the Karzai government and the Taliban. The author sees real hope in these negotiations. Hope that the United States would have an opportunity to exit from Afghanistan and leave behind as stable a situation as we could reasonably expect.
http://www.counterpunch.org/lind10202008.html
An article by Jeremy Hammond entitled "US Allies, Defense Secretary Suggest Political Solution to Afghan War" appeared on the DissidentVoice.org web site on October 8. It discusses political solutions to Afghanistan as preferable to military solutions. Here is a key excerpt.
Both U.S. presidential candidates have vowed to increase the military presence in Afghanistan. “It is the American presidential candidates,” the envoy (Sherard Cowper-Coles) said, “who must be dissuaded from getting further bogged down in Afghanistan.”
Here is a link to the entire article:
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2008/10/us-allies-defense-secretary-suggest-political-solution-to-afghan-war/
An article in CBC News reports: An absolute military victory in Afghanistan is impossible, Brig.-Gen. Mark Carleton-Smith, a senior British commander, told England's Sunday Times newspaper.
He says that negotiations with the Taliban should be considered as a strategic option.
Here's the entire article:
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2008/10/04/afghan-war.html
Ann Marlowe wrote an article that appeared in the July 22, 2008 edition of the Wall Street Journal. The article was entitled: Afghanistan doesn't need a 'Surge".
She wrote: Barack Obama said: "We need more troops, more helicopters, better intelligence-gathering and more nonmilitary assistance to accomplish the mission there." Mr. Obama should have supported the surge in Iraq, but that doesn't mean that advocating one in Afghanistan makes sense.
She continued:
So how do we bring security to Nuristan? Is bringing in thousands of American troops the answer?
"No!" the official said. "It's using Special Forces to get the bad guys who are infiltrating from Pakistan. Our enemy only attacks when they expect to win. If we have to go after them, we need the capacity to hunt them with stealth over trackless mountainsides for which our infantry, cavalry and airborne soldiers are not trained or equipped to operate." Defeating the enemy is best accomplished by highly trained fighters who travel light.
If Senator Obama wants a surge, he should make a stronger case for it. It is not enough to say that Afghanistan has become more violent. One also has to make the case that the surge is better than alternative strategies. He has not done so. Further, he needs to make clear what the specific goal is, so we can evaluate the strategy alternatives in that light.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121668659664272147.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries
The following article which appeared on DemocracyNow on October 2nd should give us pause about sending more U.S. troops into Afghanistan. In other words, a surge in Afghanistan may have unintended effects.
Britain’s ambassador to Afghanistan has admitted privately he believes the NATO occupation is a failure. According to a French diplomat, Ambassador Sherard Cowper-Coles told a meeting in Kabul earlier this month, “The American strategy is destined to fail. The coalition presence, particularly the military presence, is part of the problem, not the solution.” Cowper-Coles went on to say sending more NATO troops would have “a perverse effect. It would identify us even more clearly as an occupying force and multiply the number of targets [by insurgents].” He also said the US-backed government of Hamid Karzai has such low public standing that Afghanistan would be better off in five to ten years under what he called “an acceptable dictator.”
The following article by Marc Herold explains why the military approach Senator Obama is recommending in Afghanistan is misguided and why it will fail. The article is particularly helpful in distinguishing between the Taliban and Al Qaeda, as well as in identifying the constraints which make a military adventure a no-win proposition.
We need to re-think our approach in Afghanistan, putting an emphasis on diplomacy and aid.
http://www.counterpunch.org/herold08062008.html
Senator Obama has called for a surge in Afghanistan. He hasn't said how long it would last. He hasn't clearly defined the goal of that surge. He said that it had to do with the Taliban and Osama bin Laden. In my opinion, we need entirely different responses to each. We need a primarily diplomatic approach with the Taliban, who did not attack us. We need a international police response to bin Laden and Al Qaeda. Notice that neither is a military approach.
And in the meantime everyone should remember how hard it is to avoid civilian casualties in any military effort in Afghanistan. Further, refugees are another unintended and rarely discussed aspect of this conflict . . . much like in Iraq. See the article below for more information on this aspect.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/08/03/10774/
Our military has now been in Afghanistan seven years. Seems like we need an alternative to the unending vague approach of "The War on Terror". Our resources are not infinite. One really has to question whether our resources are not better used for other missions such as alternative energy and energy independence at home. For further background on the unending drift in Afghanistan, see:
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/93455/should_americans_really_consider_afghanistan_the_%22right%22_war/#more
The interviewee in the following article argues for an end to the US occupation in Afghanistan as the first step to improving the situation there. That's a useful counterpoint to Senator Obama's call to fight "the good war" in Afghanistan.
http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney07312008.html
The following paragraphs from the hyperlinked article call into question whether the occupation of Afghanistan is really "the good war".
By any measure, a military “victory” in Afghanistan is simply not possible. The only viable alternative is to begin direct negotiations with the Taliban, and to draw in regional powers with a stake in the outcome: Iran, Pakistan, Russia, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, China, and India.
But to do so will require abandoning our “story” about the Afghan conflict as a “good war.” In this new millennium, there are no good wars.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/07/31/10726/
The following article by Eric Margolis paints an entirely different view of the Taliban from what we typically read in the newspaper. It causes one to question Senator Obama's position of increasing our military commitment in Afghanistan.
NEWS YOU WON'T FIND ON CNNLet's Speak the Truth About AfghanistanBy Eric Margolis30/07/08 "Huffington Post" -- - NEW YORK -- During his triumphant European tour, Senator Barack Obama again urged NATO's members to send more troops to Afghanistan and called the conflict there, "the central front in the war on terror." Europe's response ranged from polite evasion to downright frosty.It is unfortunate that Obama has adopted President George Bush's misleading terminology, "war on terror," to describe the conflict between the United States and anti-American groups in the Muslim world. Like many Americans, he and his foreign policy advisors are sorely misinformed about the reality of Afghanistan.One understands Obama's need to respond with martial élan to rival John McCain's chest-thumping about "I know how to win wars." Polls put McCain far ahead of Obama when it comes to being a war leader. But Obama's recent proposal to send at least 7,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan, and his threats to attack Pakistan's territory, and warnings about Islamabad's nuclear forces, show poor judgment and lack of knowledge.The United States is no longer "fighting terrorism" in Afghanistan, as Bush, Obama and McCain insist. The 2001 U.S. invasion was a legitimate operation against al-Qaeda, a group that properly fit the role of a "terrorist organization." But, contrary to the White House's wildly inflated claims that Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda was a worldwide conspiracy, it never numbered more than 300 hard core members. Bin Laden and his jihadis long ago scattered into all corners of Pakistan and elsewhere. Only a handful remain in Afghanistan.Today, 80,000 U.S. and NATO troops are waging war against the Taliban. Having accompanied the mujahidin fighting the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan during the 1980's, witnessed the birth of Taliban, and penned a book about the Afghan struggle, "War at the Top of the World," I can attest that Taliban is not a terrorist organization as the U.S. and its allies wrongly claim.Taliban was created in the early 1990's during the chaos and civil war that engulfed Afghanistan after the Soviet invaders were driven out. Drawn from Pashtun tribes of southern Afghanistan, who make up half that nation's population, Taliban was a religious movement that took up arms to battle the Afghan Communists, stop the wide-scale rape of Afghan women, and halt banditry and the drug trade. Both Pakistan and the U.S. secretly aided Taliban.The ranks of Taliban were filled with young religious students -- "talibs" -- and veteran mujahidin fighters whom the U.S. had armed and hailed as "freedom fighters." By 1996, Taliban took Kabul, driving out the Northern Alliance, the old rump of the Afghan Communist Party and its Russian-backed Tajik and Uzbek tribal supporters. Taliban, most of whom were mountaineers, imposed a draconian medievalist culture that followed traditional Pashtun tribal customs and Islamic law.The U.S. quietly backed Taliban for possible use in Central Asia, against China in the event of war, and against Iran, a bitter foe of the Sunni Taliban. U.S. energy giants Chevron and Unocal negotiated gas and oil pipeline deals with Taliban. In 2001, Washington gave $40 million in aid to Taliban until four months before 9/11. The U.S. only turned against Taliban when, at Osama bin Laden's advice, it gave a major pipeline deal to an Argentine consortium rather than an American one.Everything that happens in Afghanistan is based on tribal politics. Taliban came from the heart of the Pashtun tribal grouping, the world's largest tribe which also accounts for up to 20% of Pakistan's population. Tribal and clan loyalties trump all political alliances.The Taliban leadership had nothing to do with 9/11, a plot that, according to European prosecutors, was hatched in Germany and Spain, not Afghanistan. Nor did it have anything to do with subsequent attacks ascribed to al-Qaeda. After 9/11, Secretary of State Colin Powell vowed to published a White paper demonstrating Osama bin Laden's culpability in the attacks. Curiously, the promised paper was never issued.Osama bin Laden was a national hero of the anti-Soviet struggle, wounded six times in battle. Taliban's collective leadership, in keeping with the Pashtun code of hospitality and honor, refused U.S. demands to hand over bin Laden until Washington issued a proper extradition request with evidence of bin Laden's guilt and promised him a fair trial. Washington refused to go through legal channels and, instead, invaded Afghanistan.Fast forward to 2008. Today, U.S. and NATO forces are not fighting "terrorists" in Afghanistan but a loose alliance of Pashtun warrior tribes whose resistance to foreign occupation is legendary. They are descendants of the same Pashtun mountain warriors who battled Alexander the Great, the Mongols, the British Empire and the Soviet Union. All these invaders were eventually defeated.Former U.S.-backed mujahidin "freedom-fighters," like the legendary Jallal Haqqani and Gulbadin Hekmatyar, have also joined Taliban in resisting foreign occupation.The war now being waged in Afghanistan by the U.S. and NATO closely resembles 19th century colonial "pacifications" in which a puppet ruler is installed, a native mercenary army ("sepoys") hired to fight, and western troops sent to crush rebellious tribesmen who refuse to follow the diktat of the imperial power.Equally important, the real objective of the ongoing U.S. occupation of Afghanistan became recently evident. The U.S.-installed Karzai regime in Kabul finally singed a long-discussed pipeline deal that will bring energy south from the new gas and oil Klondike of the Caspian Basin through Afghanistan to Pakistan's coast and India.As the perceptive writer Kevin Phillips notes, U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan -- and Iraq -- have become "pipeline protection troops."Barack Obama and John McCain had better look carefully before plunging deeper into the Afghan morass. In Afghanistan, we are not fighting "terrorists" but a medieval tribal people who just want to be left alone. This is an ugly little war about oil and gas, not freedom, democracy, or woman's rights. Every village we bomb, every wedding party our air powers massacres, brings new recruits to Taliban and its allies.Even the secretary general of NATO, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, said last April that there could be no military solution to the war in Afghanistan, only a political one. That means negotiating with Taliban and political inclusion for the Pashtun people. But President Bush and candidates McCain and Obama are not listening.
Senator Obama has called for an increase in the number of troops stationed in Afghanistan. That seems like doubling down on President Bush's strategy. Before I support any action based on George Bush's strategy, I'd have to ask a lot of questions.
You might want to read the following article by Marjorie Cohn, president of the National Lawyers Guild and a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law. She questions our legal basis for attacking Afghanistan in the first place.
http://www.counterpunch.org/cohn07292008.html
