Any decision by President Obama to remain offensively engaged in Afghanistan will irrevocably commit the U.S. to an end-game which has eluded invaders of Afghanistan throughout history who have sought to transform the country with their military.
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One of the concerns I've had about the president's upcoming decision on
his commanders' recommendation to further escalate the Afghanistan
occupation is that if we expect him to offer a different course than
his hawks proscribe, where (in his administration) will he get that
contrary advice and support? The president has willingly surrounded
himself with a majority of Bush holdovers in his military leadership
who are predictably advocating following their orchestrated conflict in
Afghanistan all the way through to some 'win' or success. The future
they envision for the U.S. military in Afghanistan is a decades-long
commitment with an indefinite end. It doesn't appear that any
dissenting voices have made their way to the top of the debate in the
White House and the Pentagon which would counsel a reverse in course
and a hasty exit from the eight-year-plus occupation. Where is the
support in the administration for the exit that progressives in his
party argue for? This is a time where I deeply wish the president had
given as much consideration to having a progressive representative in a
visible, elevated role in his military leadership as he apparently did
in choosing to retain a majority of conservatives from the last
administration.
My most important concern, however, is with the
president's own reflexive tendency to compromise. The early reports
(believable, if not conclusive) are that he intends to split the
difference between his own inclination to pursue 'al-Qaeda' in Pakistan
and his commanders' advice to garrison the Afghan enclaves (ala Bush's
last stand in Baghdad) while provoking the Taliban resistance in the
south with the rest of the increased forces.
That course is
intended to satisfy both ambitions, but my fear is that the sole
decision to remain offensively engaged in Afghanistan will irrevocably
commit the U.S. to an end-game which has eluded invaders of Afghanistan
throughout history who have sought to transform the country with their
military. The entire NATO enterprise is balanced on bribes and
dubiously conquered territory with a widely disliked and disregarded
government we've enabled into power - Karzai's corrupt regime expected
to lead the country away from the objectionable influences of al-Qaeda
and the Taliban. This is the state of affairs which the military is
busy assuring the president is 'necessary' to achieve his stated goals
to 'dismantle and defeat' al-Qaeda in the country and the region.
It's
no wonder why the militarized resistance in Afghanistan has been
reported to be gaining power and influence, despite the efforts of the
NATO forces. It won't matter to the rest of the country what form the
central government we're feathering in Afghanistan takes on if it's
influence is restricted to 'green-zoned' enclaves behind the protection
of our military.
Gareth Porter
reports
today that the foreign troops' presence and activity in Afghanistan is
dependent on exorbitant payments to warlords to facilitate their 'safe'
movement around the country. When it's said that our forces are there
defending the central government, it shouldn't be forgotten that
American and NATO forces have played it fast and loose with
opportunistic alliances with individuals and groups who almost
certainly harbor elements which actively threaten that central
authority.
Civilian officer Matthew Hoh, in his
resignation letter,
complained that our forces were defending a corrupt government against
a Pashtun insurgency. That's much different from the description of the
state of conflict the administration has defined as al-Qaeda-loving
Taliban threatening the government we've enabled into power. It's no
wonder the population is ambivalent about throwing their full support
behind Karzai. With all of the money thrown around to these warlords
and other regional leaders in Afghanistan, there's going to be an undue
amount of influence they'll be able to wield in the provinces, quite
independent and immune from any of the expectations we may demand from
the central government.
It's a sure bet that our troops will
eventually be fighting and dying at the hands of these insurgent groups
that we're opportunistically giving aid and comfort to. Right now, the
plan seems to be to create some sort of Potemkin state of 'stability'
in Afghanistan with these payments (more included in the Defense bill
the president just signed) to the warlords. The endurance of that
purchased stability will depend on how long we can keep up the bribes
and what happens when the payments stop.
It's just not credible
to expect that our military forces can maintain and expand their
operations in Afghanistan to some ideal end where our national security
can't be defined as at-risk in some form by someone bent on winning
something or other there. We could just as easily make up a definition
of victory right now and proceed to leave. If not, any decision by the
president to continue on in Afghanistan, in any form, will be an
indefinite commitment which will certainly escalate the violence and
instability before anyone will be able to manage to tamp all of that
down.
Eugene Robinson argues in his column today that President Obama can't just split the difference in Afghanistan. He writes:
". . . Afghanistan doesn't present the kind of "false choices" that
Obama, by nature, habitually rejects. The choices are real and awful,
and no amount of reframing and rephrasing will make them go away . . .
His
basic method has been to avoid drawing bright lines between mutually
exclusive positions. He looks for ways to reframe issues so that what
once was an either-or proposition can be transformed into a both-and
scenario. On health care, for example, he set out to provide both
universal coverage and long-term cost control. The legislation that now
seems likely to emerge doesn't quite do either, but does some of each â??
and Obama, by splitting the difference, has managed to bring us closer
to meaningful, though imperfect, health care reform than we've ever
been.
But the decisions presented by Afghanistan truly are
either-or. Obama can decide to pursue a counterinsurgency strategy or a
counterterrorism strategy. He can do one or the other â?? not both. If he
chooses counterinsurgency, he has to send enough troops to make that
strategy work. If he doesn't want to send all those troops, he needs to
pursue counterterrorism or do something else . . .
Right now,
Obama is at the key juncture: in or out. If he ratifies the
counterinsurgency strategy and approves a troop increase, he'll be
committing the United States to see the project through to its end.
Advisers say the president's goals for "fixing" Afghanistan are
realistic, even modest. To me, however, the whole enterprise looks
unrealistic and immodest.
More
to the point, I believe the president's intention is to string the
Afghanistan occupation out to a point where he can find political
consensus in Congress to withdraw, much like Bush and Iraq. It's
instructive to observe how the president willingly embraced Bush's
opportunistic agreement with the Iraqi government to leave the country
(not until he was safely tucked away in Crawford). By accepting the
premise and substance of Bush's autocratic agreement with the Iraqis,
the president committed our troops another danger-filled wait for
another round of meaningless Iraqi elections which were supposed to
transform the enabled regime into a popular and influential item. To
his credit, the president appears ready to declare victory for Bush's
war of choice and eventually withdraw, but if you believe the U.S. has
done anything more there than barely pull up it's pants to leave after
it's brutal assault you haven't been paying attention.
If the
president opts for that kind of eventual end to our grudging invasion
of Afghanistan, he'll find that our military forces won't be regarded
there as anything more than the self-interested occupiers that Iraq has
been anxious to part with. As Mr. Robinson says, "It's time to raise or
fold." In or out.
Authors Bio:Ron Fullwood, is an activist from Columbia, Md. and the author of the book 'Power of Mischief' : Military Industry Executives are Making Bush Policy and the Country is Paying the Price