ITīS TIME TO TAKE ANOTHER APPROACH IN AFGHANISTAN & PAKISTAN
Gary Ater
November 06, 2009
The Washington Post and Meet the Press pundit, George F. Will
The well known and respected conservative op-ed columnist, George Will, surprised many of us when he wrote the following in an early September Washington Post column;
"Forces [in Afghanistan] should be substantially reduced to serve a comprehensively revised policy: America should do only what can be done from offshore, using intelligence, drones, cruise missiles, airstrikes and small, potent Special Forces units, concentrating on the porous 1,500-mile border with Pakistan, a nation that actually matters.
Genius, said de Gaulle, recalling Bismarck's decision to halt German forces short of Paris in 1870, sometimes consists of knowing when to stop. Genius is not required to recognize that in Afghanistan, before more American valor, [such as more US troops] are squandered."
I do not envy the position that President Obama is in today for having to make the serious decisions of whether or not to send more troops to support US efforts in Afghanistan. I had written some months ago that perhaps the US should look more to building more infrastructure in Afghanistan instead of military facilities. I also supported more training of the Afghan Army and their local police force for eventually supporting themselves against the Taliban. As of today, and due to recent happenings, I am now more inclined to consider Mr. Willīs ideas of pulling out of Afghanistan and doing whatever we do via a remote location for going after al Qaeda.
So why would I now change and consider agreeing with such a staunch conservative?
This week, five British soldiers died at the hands of an Afghan policeman with whom they were working. The attack occurred at midday in the Helmand Province as the soldiers were relaxing in the autumn sun on the roof of a checkpoint overlooking a British-Afghan compound. The soldiers were so much at ease that they had shed their body armor and helmets, never thinking that they would be attacked by one of the men they had lived and worked with every day. The attacker then fled setting off a major manhunt.
This event has rightfully unleashed an outcry in Great Britain and it highlights the vulnerability of all Western troops as they attempt to carry out the counterinsurgency strategy for training more members of the Afghan Army and the police.
This attack came as public support for the war in many NATO countries, including critical US allies like Britain and Germany, has grown increasingly shakey. For Britain, it was one of the most deadly single attacks since the invasion of Afghanistan eight years ago. It now brings to 92 the number of British troops killed so far just this year. A total of almost 800 US troops have now been killed in Afghanistan and over 2000 have been seriously injured.
The Afghan Helmand officials warned that whether the policeman was real or a rogue actor, the episode could and probably would be repeated. "This is not the first incident and will not be the last one; it will continue in the future as well," said Haji Muhammed Anwar Khan, a local elder and a representative of the Helmand Province in the Afghan Parliament.
The US strategy for protecting the population today is highly troop-intensive. Most Americans are impatient about the "deteriorating situation", which was also admitted by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen. The war is already nearly 50 percent longer than the combined US involvement in two World Wars and NATO assistance is continuing to be reluctant.
It has already been announced by each country that the NATO troops from Australia, Netherlands, Germany and Canada will be leaving by no later than 2011. The current situation with the local disarray and the rising number of British casualties among allied soldiers has taken a toll on British public support. Great Britain currently has about 9,000 troops in Afghanistan, (second only to the United States), but recent opinion polls show that less than half those surveyed supported the British role, and half of those urged an early withdrawal.
Per Mr. Will: "The [current] U.S. strategy is īclear, hold and build.ī Clear? Taliban forces can evaporate and then return, confident that U.S. forces will forever be too few to hold gains. Hence nation-building would be impossible even if we knew how, and even if Afghanistan were not the second-worst place to try: The Brookings Institution ranks Somalia as the only nation with a weaker state.
Military historian Max Hastings says Kabul controls only about a third of the country -- "control" is an elastic concept -- and " 'our' Afghans may prove no more viable than were 'our' Vietnamese, in the Saigon regime." Just 4,000 Marines are contesting control of Helmand province, which is the size of West Virginia. The New York Times reports a Helmand official saying he has only "police officers who steal and a small group of Afghan soldiers who say they are here for 'vacation.' "
Based on this information, it does appear that to send our nation's "Treasure" of young men and women to help a nation that apparently would prefer that we "just go away", I now have to ask why should we try ?
We were supported by the world after 9/11 when we went into Afghanistan after Osama bin Laden and the al Qaeda. At that time, we were also successful against the Taliban extremists. But when Bush and company tried to do it "on the cheap", Osama and his al Qaeda got away. Then he turned the CIA and the US military away from Afghanistan and into an unnecessary war in Iraq and the US lost all that it had previously gained against the Taliban in Afghanistan.
We had our one chance, so perhaps it is now time to step back and reassess how we should deal with the once small, extreme Muslim organization that, since we blew it after 9/11, they have become a world-wide extremist organization. Much of what we had attempted to do in Afghanistan has now changed. The circumstances around the al Qaeda and Osama have also now become an old story. .
From this point on, to leave Afghanistan is not a US loss, even though the Republican "war mongers" would say it was. But it also not a win. It is however, time to look at the longer view for what we want to achieve in going forward. We allowed the small, extremist Muslim organization to grow larger. We gave it world-wide recruitment incentives for all Muslims such as using torture for the first time as a nation and by building the Guantanamo Bay Prison. What we are dealing with today that has now moved into Pakistan is a totally different story from when we first invaded Afghanistan.
The reality is, we donīt need another version of South Vietnam.
Copyright: G.Ater 2009
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