We’ve heard a lot of rhetoric from the Bush Administration about “staying the course” in Iraq. About how it is America’s responsibility to stay as long as it takes to ensure that Iraq becomes a stable democracy. Those who’ve opposed this position—whether they have advocated an immediate withdrawal, a staged departure, or simply the preparation of a transition plan—have been branded as dolts, as advocates of a “cut and run” philosophy. What’s gotten little notice is that in Afghanistan the Administration is pursuing the very same cut and run policies that the accuse others of espousing in Iraq.
If you haven’t been paying attention to Afghanistan, you’re not alone. It hasn’t been in the news. For good reason, as things aren’t going well there. The Taliban has regained control of much of the territory they lost once the US forces arrived in 2001, particularly in the South and East. The Taliban has been conducting a guerilla campaign of “civil terror” and it’s succeeding.
On March 1st President Bush made a four-hour visit to Afghanistan. For Dubya everything was “coming up roses;” he spoke glowingly of the progress there, described it as “inspiring.” Nonetheless, the US is withdrawing 4000 troops (20 percent of the total), and drastically reducing support for infrastructure improvement. Bush tells the world that we will stay the course, but Afghans feel that we are bailing out.
What went wrong? The simple answer is everything that the President has tried. As has glaringly proven to be the case in Iraq, the Bush Administration never had a plan for Afghanistan and, therefore, never dealt with the systemic problems.
The most obvious problem has been that the US lost its focus on Al Qaeda. We didn’t apprehend Osama bin Laden and the other leaders, and we didn’t eradicate the remnants of Al Qaeda and their Taliban supporters. Now the Taliban, supported by Al Qaeda, is staging a dramatic comeback. In 2005 they killed around 1600 people, with a dramatic rise in the deaths of US troops, 91.
Lurking behind this decline is a more vexing problem. Our relationship with Pakistan is deteriorating, as is the position of their president, Pervez Musharraf. Radical elements are gaining strength in Pakistan and many observers feel that the Taliban is on the rise because it has gained new support from Pakistan.
As was the case in Iraq, we didn’t cultivate good relationships with Afghanistan’s neighbors. As a result, the borders are porous and insurgents are coming across in droves.
Another similarity is that we don’t recognize that there is an Afghani insurgency and therefore we don’t officially engage in ”counterinsurgency.” Several recent articles argued that where the United States actually engages in counterinsurgency within Iraq, it is successful. (The operating definition of counterinsurgency action is “20 percent military, and 80 percent political.”) While effective, this has not been a widespread U.S. initiative. Indeed, wherever counterinsurgency occurred, it was done “despite an absence of guidance” from the Bush Administration. This is exactly what has happened in Afghanistan. Bush and Rumsfeld have been unwilling to change the role of the military from that of exclusively conducting combat missions to one of conflict resolution, overseeing the pacification of large sections of the country.
The Administration made a grievous error in Iraq by assuming that the production of oil would pay for the occupation. They made an equally grievous error in Afghanistan by assuming that it would be easy to replace the cultivation of opium poppies, which is a 3 billion dollar a year business (and last year accounted for one-third of Afghanistan’s GDP). The country used to be noted for their agricultural goods (fruit and nuts), as well as cotton, rugs and textiles. Years of war dramatically affected these goods. Afghanis need a cash crop and the US hasn’t provided an alternative to opium.
The United States invested several billion dollars in rebuilding the Afghani infrastructure. Once again, the pattern was the same as that in Iraq. Most of the money went to multinationals headquartered in the US and a huge percentage of the cost was for security. Roughly one-third of the total was spent on the construction of one new highway from Kabul to Kandahar, at the expense of $1 million per mile. This left precious little money for reconstruction of the devastated Afghani infrastructure: clean water, electricity, telephone service, health clinics, and schools. Of the 7000 buildings that were used as schools before the reign of the Taliban, slightly more than half were usable in 2002. The largest school construction, $665 million, went to the American company, the Louis Berger Group; their contract called for only 98 new schools at an average of $174,000 per. Now the reconstruction money is drying up.
This grim summary ignores several other facts about Afghanistan. We haven’t installed a democratic government and haven’t protected the rights of women. Indeed, it’s hard to find good news about Afghanistan. Maybe that’s why the Bush administration has decided to cut and run.
Bob Burnett is a Berkeley writer and Quaker actvist. He is particularly interested in progressive morality and writes frequently on the ethical aspects of political and social issues.
I would like to comment on the following parts of your article:
"The most obvious problem has been that the US lost its focus on Al Qaeda. We didn’t apprehend Osama bin Laden and the other leaders, and we didn’t eradicate the remnants of Al Qaeda and their Taliban supporters. Now the Taliban, supported by Al Qaeda, is staging a dramatic comeback. In 2005 they killed around 1600 people, with a dramatic rise in the deaths of US troops, 91.
Lurking behind this decline is a more vexing problem. Our relationship with Pakistan is deteriorating, as is the position of their president, Pervez Musharraf. Radical elements are gaining strength in Pakistan and many observers feel that the Taliban is on the rise because it has gained new support from Pakistan.
As was the case in Iraq, we didn’t cultivate good relationships with Afghanistan’s neighbors. As a result, the borders are porous and insurgents are coming across in droves."
You are listing the right "buzz words" but your analysis of the same is not correct;
Focus on Osama Bin Laden and Al Quaida:
The problem is the fact that from 1996 onward the US had a very short-sighted and - as often - misdirected narrow policiy focus: the order of the day was finding Bin Laden in the assumption that by capturing him the issue would be helped.
The problem, however, was and is not him, neither is it Al Quaida. The problem is more far reaching than that. The problem is with the dis-enfranchised Pashtun areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan who have been supporting their enemies' enemy in supporting Al Quaida. This problem has been existing since the British Raj trying to controll this part of the world and has been ignored by subsequent rulers of this country, which has become Afghanistan.
As such the focus on Al Quaide, which you have diagnosed as being lost, should not have been established in the first place. Losing it is a much better solution as long as it is replaced with solving the Pashtunistan issue, solving the grievences of that region.
Deteriorating relationship with Pakistan?
If it only deteriorated! The US is now dealing with a problem they created themselves: by not analysis the post-Soviet political situation in Afghanistan correctly, they chose to support the most radical of the Mudjahedin forces in Afghanistan via their proxy Pakistan and the latter's free-wheeling (until today) inteligence agency. The Mudjahedin party was the Hizb-e-Islami, headed by someone who would start the "civil war" in 1994 by backing out of the Islamabad accords and by resuming military fighting against his opponents: Gulbudin Hekmatyar is now a wanted war criminal, now supporting the Taliban in Afghanistan, like he has from the beginning. Had the US-government taken their time to support the right forces in the country who battled the Taliban, the military action they took in 2001 would not have been necessary as the conflict could have been solved by the internal contenders.
The partnership with Pakistan is anything but deteriorating. They have been called repeatedly a "valuable ally in the war on terror" and just yesterday the US government has announced billions in support for energy supply infrastructure to be directed to Pakistan.
Criticism for not doing enough in breaking up the Taliban infrastructure are on the surface, are superficial, a PR stunt.
As such "maintaining good relationships with Afghanstan's neighbours" does not go hand in hand with exercising the right pressure on Islamabad which would be appropriate so as to break up the Taliban infrastructure, not to mention address the underlying Pashtunistan and other tribal border issues.
Also, it is in the US's interest that relationships with South Asia must not be allowed to deteriorate, simply because they need India's and Pakistans support in their penetration attempts of Central Asia. The US is at risk of being excluded from the Central Asian power game and the related energy supply issues. SCO, is just one acronym I might mention.
The US need Pakistan as a partner in the region to off-set such tendencies. Having lured India away successfully from traditional allies such as Russia and Iran, Pakistan is next on their list. A harder nut to crack, but with the right economic bribes that should be achievable. The country which is going to suffer yet again is of course Afghanistan: the US can't handle yet another conflict they have started, so it's again the poorest of the poor who will get dropped half way because the US is unable - this way or the other to satisfactorily solve this problem of raising insurgence in Afghanistan because of their interests in the region for which they decided to engage with Afghanistan in the first place. Not for helping Afghanistan, not for democracy and freedom, let's be clear. If they had had that in mind and at heart they would have supported the Afghan resistance against the Taliban after the government was displaced in late 1996. But those who shared the US's perpetrated values of human rights, democray etc were left dangling, unsupported for years, while a Pakistan supported Taliban swept the country destroying those values - and the US did nothing. Why? Because the Taliban government did not contravene their economic interests - although it seemed.
The US has lost all dignity in this part of the world, all right to be respected. The only reason why we should demand for them not to "cut and run" is because they did not help the situation when they could, they got involved with a strike of force, rather than in a sesnible way - so now they should face the music, not the Afghans!
by
Simran Kaur Lohnes (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1 comments)
on Thursday, May 25, 2006 at 9:16:49 PM
Mr. Simran, in your insightful response on the Taliban you mentioned the acronym SCO, but I could not find its meaning in the text.
Would you clarify.
Thank-you.
R. Chapman
by
Robert Chapman (28 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 556 comments)
on Saturday, May 27, 2006 at 7:06:44 PM
They are not cut and running one bit. It has been the plan, because Bush and Osama are working together. The plan with Kenny Boy was to get the pipline deal through Afghanistan, thereby giving Enron convincing support in the stock market.
The Taliban were supporting Osama and his construction company to gain the contracts, but the US got greedy, thinking Afghans owed them for supporting them against the Russian invasion. The Taliban and Osama wanted to agree with Enron and Bush but it was going to cost them some big bucks.
So Enron started cooking the books to get the cash, and to also get Bush in the Whitehouse to make sure the deal would fly. Well Enron was not able to get the money and they blamed some of the big wigs in NYC. Namely at the WTC. So Bush thought of a better plan. He was going to get Osama to support him and let him get the deal in Afghanistan. He wanted Osama to find some guys to hijack airliners and crash them into America's pillars of strength. Bush was going to get even with those punks in NYC who stopped his Kenny Boy. And he was going to get rich along the way.
What better target than the WTC. They would make sure it would come down. Bush would pay them alot of money earned from all the Call and Put options traded that day, and Osama's father and relatives would suitcase the cash out of the USA. That is why Bin Ladins were the only people allowed to fly the airs that day.
Osama agreed. Bush promised that he would not go after Bin Ladin if Bin Ladin worked his CIA talents, by cutting a video here and a message there. This would keep the War on Terror alive. Bush would bomb Afghanistan, and later divert..(not cut and run) to better targets which his pal D. Rumfelds wanted in Iraq.
Bush has said Osama is not his concern anymore, that Iraq is his concern. Iraq has more Oil than Afghanistan, and it is near Kuwait where his father owns many wells.
911 was sucessful and the deal for making war was on. The Democrats caved into the Republican demands in increasing military expenditures, giving his fathers company the Carlyle Group huge opportunities and profits to wage the campaign. Bin Ladins owned stock in the Carlyle Group, so they made even more cash in the deal. Also Halliburton and Cheney emerged as leading price gougers in the the gas price game in Iraq.
So Afghanistan is but a scapegoat, and a rug covering up the real crime of the century. As drunk Cheney shoots his hunting partner and they laugh, and Bush puts on skits with his double to laugh..............we know the real story. We know the thousands of innocent people killed, the thousands of Enron employees screwed over, the people who lost their lives in the WTC, and the missile that hit the pentagon destroying telcommunication records holding proof of the plot they hatched. As Enron Lay and Skillings are held to the flame with convictions, the Bush people made sure the real story is not told. Enron is portrayed as a Corporate Scandal. Nothing in the trial brought forth Enrons involvment in Afghanistan. They own land there. What a coincidence Kenny Boy! This wrapped Judicial Package is neatly tucked into other excuses than the real story, to again divert attention away from Bush and Afghanistan.
No Bush isn't cutting and running, he is having one hell of a laugh.
by
Dom Jermano (20 articles, 0 quicklinks, 40 diaries, 930 comments)
on Saturday, May 27, 2006 at 8:19:53 AM
As is well known GWOT is the Bush-preferred acronym for the Global War on Terror.
The author of this article and the writer of the first comment in this strand are providing a leftist critique of Bush's ineffectiveness as a war-time leader.
At the beginning of the GWOT, Bush frequently commented that this a different kind of war.
He was correct in that statement, but subsequent action showed that he really didn't grasp the difference.
The Global War on Terror is first and foremost a political action. The other peoples of the world saw America in a moment of vulnerability and they extended their sympathies to us. To win the GWOT we needed to transfer their sympathy to active support. Bush's arrogant demands in the early stages of GWOT prevented that.
Secondly, the military has a different role in the GWOT than Bush has employed it for. Immediately after the 9/11/01 attacks, US, or US supported, forces should have stormed the al Qaada camps, killed their cadres, and impounded their computers, their documents, their manuals and their identification pass and counterpasswords. These items are the weapons that they are effectively employing in the asymetrical conflict against us.
Instead the GOP politicians of the Bush Administration ordered the military to do what it does in 29 palms, camp lejeune and all its other peace bases. The result is at best a stalemate, but more likely a lengthy losing struggle.
The GWOT has financial dimensions. We need to cut off al Qaada's funding and have failed to do so. They are able to generously compensate hordes of mujahadeen and supply them weaponry that keeps out best military units at bay.
We are bleeding out financially with the costs of the needless and irrelevant Iraq war and the domestic security stemming from al Qaada's unchallenged threat.
Bush has lost the moral authority to fight terror. The daisy cutter bombings, the air strikes that kill more civilians than mujahadeen, the support of corrupt police and security forces, the inept infrastructure restoration efforts in Afghanistan as well as Iraq have severely damaged US moral authority in the GWOT.
The abu Gharib scandal, and the cascading accounts of brutality and atrocities by US forces against civilians will destroy it.
Bush's worst failures as war time President has been his ineffectiveness in understanding and prosecuting the GWOT.
Robert Chapman
Lansing, New York
by
Robert Chapman (28 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 556 comments)
on Saturday, May 27, 2006 at 7:00:05 PM
4 comments
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