Juan Cole offers a five-point argument for why the "surge" of US and allied troops in Afghanistan is unlikely to work and therefore, implicitly, why an alternative plan of withdrawal would make better sense. But, unfortunately, the US generals and civilians in charge of this occupation want to remain in the country for many years to come. Obama seems to be going along. They tell us that this is a counterinsurgency policy that is aimed at "protecting the Afghan people" and will prove to be a successful approach. But, they add, it will require many years to take back the cities and thousands of villages using this counterinsurgency method.
The policy is currently being employed in the southern Afghan city of Marja, as Cole notes. At some point, they say, the Afghan army will take over the responsibility of bringing some sort of "security" to the country. There is no persuasive evidence yet that this has happened.
Some of you have viewed the DVD, Rethinking Afghanistan, which advances an argument against the US-led occupation. For a broader view of the Afghan situation from an Afghan woman, I recommend a book by Malalai Joya, A Woman Among Warlords. In addition, Joya's appearances on programs like Democracy Now and her speeches to audiences in America and Canada are readily available on the Internet. For now, here is Cole's sophisticated position.
Bob
----------------------------
Monday, February 22, 2010
Juan Cole, Informed CommentFive Questions for the Afghan Surge; Or, Getting Past the Hype Gen. David Petraeus, a straight shooter, admitted on Meet the Press Sunday that the Afghanistan War will take years and incur high casualties.. His implicit defense of President Obama from Dick Cheney on the issues of torture and closing Guantanamo will make bigger headlines, but sooner or later the American public will notice the admission. The country is now evenly divided between those who think the US can and should restore a modicum of stability before getting out, and those who want a quick withdrawal. The Marjah Campaign, the centerpiece of the new counter-insurgency strategy, is over a week old, and some assessment of this new, visible push by the US military in violent Helmand Province is in order.
There was never any doubt that the US and NATO would win militarily, fairly easily occupying Marjah and nearby Nad Ali. Marjah at 85,000 or so is a city smaller than Ann Arbor, Michigan. The campaign is only significant in a larger social and political context. The questions are:
1. Can the stategy of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, of taking, clearing, holding and building be extended deep into the Pashtun regions? Marjah is only a stepping stone to the key southern city of Qandahar, which has a population of a million, more the size of Detroit.
This outcome has yet to be seen. But for rural Pashtuns to come to love foreign occupiers is an unlikely proposition. Even the WSJ admits that in Marjah, the Marines are not exactly feeling the love from the civilians they have supposedly just liberated. Since the Taliban are typically not as corrupt as the warlords, in fact, to any extent that the US and NATO re-install corrupt warlord types in power, they may alienate the locals. And keeping civilian casualties low so as to win hearts and minds is key here. That task will become more difficult as the US inserts itself more deeply into Pashtun territory, since insurgent villages will have to be defeated. The Soviet occupation produced 5 million externally displaced and 2 million internally displaced, along with hundreds of thousands dead. A campaign in Qandahar could easily displace half a million people, and they might mind. Meanwhile, on Monday, the governor of Dai Kundi asserted that a US airstrike killed 27 persons, mostly civilians. There is also the question, raised by Tom Englehardt, of whether the US is capable of good governance in Afghanistan when it is not in Washington, DC.
2. Can the demonstration of vitality and of a sense of progress mollify NATO publics long enough to fight a prolonged war and do intensive training of troops and police over several years?
No. Over the weekend, the center-right government of the Netherlands fell over whether to keep Dutch troops in Afghanistan. The Afghanistan war is universally unpopular in continental Europe, and governments have troops there mostly in the teeth of popular opposition, because NATO invoked article 5 of its charter, 'an attack on one is an attack on all' with regard to the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan after the September 11, 2001, attacks. It may take months after the next elections this spring for the Dutch to form a new government, in part because of the surging popularity of the far-right populist anti-Muslim 'Freedom Party' of Islamophobe Geert Wilders-- a smelly party the others will probably not want in their coalition. Holland's 2000 troops are likely to be withdrawn by late summer. Canada's military is also departing Afghanistan. Are these one-off situations, or are they the beginning of a NATO withdrawal over-all, which will leave Obama in the lurch? Australia is already refusing to take up the Dutch slack, and its government is under public pressure to get out, itself. While it is entirely possible that scandal-plagued rightwing billionaire Silvio Berlusconi will survive the next elections in Italy, it is also possible that he will not, and his successor may well want out of the unpopular Afghanistan quagmire. Moreover, the Pashtun insurgents may smell blood in the water with the Dutch withdrawal from Uruzgan (the home province of Mullah Omar), and target the smaller NATO contingents (the deaths of 6 Italian troops last fall raised public ire against the war).
There are about 45,000 NATO and other allied troops in Afghanistan, and 74,000 American. Obama wanted to increase the European contingent by 10,000, but NATO generally declined that offer, and now the NATO contingent may begin to shrink just when more trainers in particular are desperatedly needed. The Afghanistan National Army is supposedly nearly 100,000 strong, but many critics say the true number is half that, and that even that half is mostly illiterate, poorly trained, and often suffers from uncertain loyalties, drug use, or other debilitating considerations.
3. Can an Afghan army be stood up in short order that has the capacity to patrol independently and keep order after the US and NATO troops withdraw?
Unlikely. The answer to the question about Afghan military preparedness-- after nearly a decade of training and an investment of $1 billion that Afghan troops are not ready for prime time. In the Marjah campaign, they showed no initiative, no ability to fight independently. They are poorly served by their junior field officers, and they are 90% illiterate. (The NYT reporter expected to see them with maps out planning approaches!) The ethnic make-up of the particular Afghanistan National Army units sent into Marjah is also not clear. Almost no ANA troops hail from Helmand Province, and Tajiks (native speakers of Dari Persian, often from towns and cities) are vastly over-represented in the army. There is often bad blood between Tajiks and Pashtuns, the group that predominates in Marjah. The same skill set of the ANA most prized by the US Marines during the assault-- the ability to sniff out which households are Taliban-- may be a liability in the holding and building phase, since it stems from a decade and a half of Tajik Northern Alliance battles against the Taliban.
4. Can the Afghan public, which includes many groups (Tajiks, Hazaras, Uzbeks) deeply harmed by Taliban rule, accept reconciliation, as well?
Unlikely. Former Northern Alliance leader popular among Tajiks, Abdullah Abdullah, warned Karzai against reconciling with the Taliban this weekend. Abdullah dropped out of last fall's presidential contest in protest against alleged ballot fraud in Karzai's favor. There is general hostility toward reconciliation with the Taliban among the parties representing northern, non-Pashtun ethnic groups.
5. Can so much pressure be put on the Taliban that at least their middle and lower ranks will accept reconciliation with the Karzai government? So far, there is no sign that the Taliban leadership still at large is interested in negotiations. A Taliban spokesman replied to Afghan President Hamid Karzai's call for reconciliation with Kabul over the weekend with a resounding 'No!'. Qari Muhammad Yusuf Ahmadi told the Afghan Islamic Press in Pashto that the Taliban would cease fighting when there were not further foreign troops in his country. He said, according to the translation in The News:
"The entire world knows that foreign forces have invaded Afghanistan and occupied this country. They have also started the fighting. Taliban will neither lay down weapons nor will hold talks with Karzai administration even in the presence of a single foreign soldier in Afghanistan. . ."
"The ongoing war in Afghanistan is between Afghans and foreigners. The responsibility of the war lies on the foreigners and their slaves. They continue fighting in the populated areas and have sent 15000 troops to small area like Marja; and are killing civilians and trying to impose infidels on Afghans."
"Karzai himself has no power. The foreigners control everything and the nation is fighting against them."
Commenting on the deaths of 12 civilians in Marjah, Qari Muhammad said: "Karzai should have said who martyred the people. In fact neither Taliban kill the people and nor destroy their houses. These are foreigners who are bombing the houses and killing civilians everywhere as they have brought miseries to the people of Marja."
On the other hand, those members of the Taliban shadow government now in Pakistani custody may be less categorical. A third Taliban commander, Maulvi Kabir (the shadow governor of Nangarhar Province) has been captured by the Pakistani military, allegedly based on information provided by Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar. Baradar, the military chief of staff for the Old Taliban of Mullah Omar, was picked up recently in Karachi in a joint operation of the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence and US intelligence, which picked up signals from Baradar. Serious inroads are being made by these arrests into the Taliban 'shadow government' of officials who plan out roadside bombings and other attacks in specific provinces of Afghanistan while hiding out in Pakistan.
Pakistan's Prime Minister, Riza Yusuf Gilani, and the military chief of state, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, appear to believe that capturing these high Afghan Taliban leaders will give Islamabad leverage in a negotiated settlement of the contest between the Karzai government and the Pashtun religious far right, which is in insurgency. Obama's Afghanistan escalation among the sullen Pashtuns is a desperate policy, as dangerous as attempting to build a series of sand castles on the beach at high tide. Ironically, his bigger success has come in Pakistan, where he appears to have convinced the Pakistani elite to intervene decisively against their own, Pakistani Taliban, and also now to begin arresting the Old Taliban shadow government that is hiding out on Pakistani soil. If he can go further and convince Islamabad that its support of the Afghan Taliban was all a long a key strategic error that has blown back on Pakistan proper, he will thereby come closer to victory than he could by any military measures inside Afghanistan itself. End/ (Not Continued)
Monday, February 22, 2010
Saturday, February 13, 2010
More on Obama's secret prisons in Afghanistan
While much of the commercial and mainstream media focus on the US-led assault on the city of Marja in Afghanistan, or whether upcoming elections can be legitimate, there are troubling developments occurring in many other parts of this occupied country. As an article in an earlier post on this blog emphasized, there are secret prisons strewn across Aghanistan, where prisoners have no legal rights and are sometimes tortured. These atrocies are occuring not under Bush's administration but under Obama's.
When you put it all together - warlords who are US allies, civilian casualties, terrible conditions for the Afghan population as a whole, continued oppression of women, much more of US taxpayer money for weapons than development, payment to Taliban groups to provide security for US supply movements, the lack of trust by Afghans in US promises of security, reports that Taliban influences is spreading, more costs in human and money terms to US taxpayers - it is not that surprising that the US occupiers and their Afghan allies are abducting and imprisoning Afghan civilians, without any concern for their legal or basic human rights.
The revelations this week about how the CIA and British authorities handed over a suspected jihadi to torturers in Pakistan may sound at first glance like a hangover from the Bush years. Barack Obama was elected, in part, to drag us out of this trap - but in practice he is dragging us further in. He is escalating the war in Afghanistan, and has taken the war to another Muslim country. The CIA and hired mercenaries are now operating on Obama's orders inside Pakistan, where they are sending unarmed drones to drop bombs and sending secret agents to snatch suspects. The casualties are overwhelmingly civilians. We may not have noticed, but the Muslim world has: check out Al Jazeera any night.
Obama ran on an inspiring promise to shut down Bush's network of kidnappings and secret prisons. He said bluntly: "I do not want to hear this is a new world and we face a new kind of enemy. I know that... but as a parent I can also imagine the terror I would feel if one of my family members were rounded up in the middle of the night and sent to Guantanamo without even getting one chance to ask why they were being held and being able to prove their innocence." He said it made the US "less safe" because any gain in safety by Gitmo-ing one suspected jihadi - along with dozens of innocents - is wiped out by the huge number of young men tipped over into the vile madness of jihadism by seeing their brothers disappear into a vast military machine where they may never be heard from again. Indeed, following the failed attack in Detroit, Obama pointed out the wannabe-murderer named Guantanamo as the reason he signed up for the jihad.
Yet a string of recent exposes has shown that Obama is in fact maintaining a battery of secret prisons where people are held without charge indefinitely - and he is even expanding them. The Kabul-based journalist Anand Gopal has written a remarkable expose for The Nation magazine. His story begins in the Afghan village of Zaiwalat at 3.15am on the night of November 19th 2009. A platoon of US soldiers blasted their way into a house in search of Habib ur-Rahman, a young computer programmer and government employee who they had been told by someone, somewhere was a secret Talibanist. His two cousins came out to see what the noise was - and they were shot to death. As the children of the house screamed, Habib was bundled into a helicopter and whisked away. He has never been seen since. His family do not know if he is alive or dead.
This is not an unusual event in Afghanistan today. In this small village of 300 people, some 16 men have been "disappeared" by the US and 10 killed in night raids in the past two years. The locals believe people are simply settling old clan feuds by telling the Americans their rivals are jihadists. Habib's cousin Qarar, who works for the Afghan government, says: "I used to go on TV and argue that people should support the government and the foreigners. But I was wrong. Why should anyone do so?"
Where are all these men vanishing to? Obama ordered the closing of the CIA's secret prisons, but not those run by Joint Special Operations. They maintain a Bermuda Triangle of jails with the notorious Bagram Air Base at its centre. One of the few outsiders has been into this ex-Soviet air-hangar is the military prosecutor Stuart Couch. He says: "In my view, having visited Guantanamo several times, the Bagram facility made Guantanamo look like a nice hotel. The men did not appear to be able to move around at will, they mostly sat in rows on the floor. It smelled like the monkey house at the zoo."
We know that at least two innocent young men were tortured to death in Bagram. Der Spiegel has documented how some "inmates were raped with sticks or threatened with anal sex". The accounts of released prisoners suggest the very worst abuses stopped in the last few years of the Bush administration, and Obama is supposed to have forbidden torture, but it's hard to tell. We do know Obama has permitted the use of solitary confinement lasting for years - a process that often drives people insane. The International Red Cross has been allowed to visit some of them, but in highly restricted circumstances, and their reports remain confidential. In this darkness, abuse becomes far more likely.
The Obama administration is appealing against US court rulings insisting the detainees have the right to make a legal case against their arbitrary imprisonment. And the White House is insisting they can forcibly snatch anyone they suspect from anywhere in the world - with no legal process - and take them there. Yes: Obama is fighting for the principles behind Guantanamo Bay. The frenzied debate about whether the actual camp in Cuba is closed is a distraction, since he is proposing to simply relocate it to less sunny climes.
Once you vanish into this system, you have no way to get yourself out. The New York lawyer Tina Foster represents three men who were kidnapped by US forces in Thailand, Pakistan and Dubai and bundled to Bagram, where they have been held without charge for seven years now. She tells me there have been "shockingly few improvements" under Obama. "The Bush administration rubbed our faces in it, while Obama's much smoother. But the reality is still indefinite detention without charge for people who are judged guilty simply by association. It's contrary to everything we stand for as a country... I know there are children [in there] from personal experience. I have interviewed dozens of children who were detained in Bagram, some as young as 10."
Today, Bagram is being given a $60m expansion, allowing it to hold five times as many prisoners as Guantanamo Bay currently does. Gopal reports that the abuse is leaking out to other, more secretive sites across Afghanistan. They are so underground they are known only by the names given to them by released inmates - the Salt Pit, the Prison of Darkness. Obama also asserts his right to hand over the prisoners to countries that commit torture, provided they give a written "assurance" they won't be "abused" - assurances that have proved worthless in the past. The British lawyer Clive Stafford Smith estimates there are 18,000 people trapped in these "legal black holes" by the US.
As Obama warned in the distant days of the election campaign, these policies place us all in greater danger. Matthew Alexander, the senior interrogator in Iraq who tracked down Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, says: "I listened time and time again to captured foreign fighters cite Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo as their main reason for coming to Iraq to fight... We have lost hundreds if not thousands of American lives because of our policy." The increased risk bleeds out onto the London Underground and the nightclubs of Bali. I oppose these policies precisely because I want to be safe, and I loathe jihadism.
President Obama has been tossing aside the calm jihad-draining insights of candidate Obama for a year now. Whenever Obama acts like Bush, listen carefully - you will hear the distant, delighted chuckle of Osama bin Laden, and the needless stomp of fresh recruits heading his way.
© 2010 The Independent
Article printed from www.CommonDreams.org
URL to article: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/02/13-1
When you put it all together - warlords who are US allies, civilian casualties, terrible conditions for the Afghan population as a whole, continued oppression of women, much more of US taxpayer money for weapons than development, payment to Taliban groups to provide security for US supply movements, the lack of trust by Afghans in US promises of security, reports that Taliban influences is spreading, more costs in human and money terms to US taxpayers - it is not that surprising that the US occupiers and their Afghan allies are abducting and imprisoning Afghan civilians, without any concern for their legal or basic human rights.
Bob
---------------------------
Published on Saturday, February 13, 2010 by The Independent/UK
Obama's Secret Prisons in Afghanistan Endanger Us All
He was elected in part to drag us out of this trap. Instead, he's dragging us further in
by Johann Hari
Osama bin Laden's favourite son, Omar, recently abandoned his father's cave in favour of spending his time dancing and drooling in the nightclubs of Damascus. The tang of freedom almost always trumps Islamist fanaticism in the end: three million people abandoned the Puritan hell of Taliban Afghanistan for freer countries, while only a few thousand faith-addled fanatics ever travelled the other way. Osama's vision can't even inspire his own kids. But Omar bin Laden says his father is banking on one thing to shore up his flailing, failing cause - and we are giving it to him.
Obama was elected in part to drag us out of this trap. Instead, he's dragging us further in. Whenever Obama acts like Bush, listen carefully - you will hear the distant, delighted chuckle of Osama bin Laden, and the needless stomp of fresh recruits heading his way. (CHRIS COADY/ NB ILLUSTRATIONS)The day George W Bush was elected, Omar says, "my father was so happy. This is the kind of president he needs - one who will attack and spend money and break [his own] country". Osama wanted the US and Europe to make his story about the world ring true in every mosque and every mountain-top and every souq. He said our countries were bent on looting Muslim countries of their resources, and any talk of civil liberties or democracy was a hypocritical facade. The jihadis I have interviewed - from London to Gaza to Syria - said their ranks swelled with each new whiff of Bushism as more and more were persuaded. It was like trying to extinguish fire with a blowtorch.
The revelations this week about how the CIA and British authorities handed over a suspected jihadi to torturers in Pakistan may sound at first glance like a hangover from the Bush years. Barack Obama was elected, in part, to drag us out of this trap - but in practice he is dragging us further in. He is escalating the war in Afghanistan, and has taken the war to another Muslim country. The CIA and hired mercenaries are now operating on Obama's orders inside Pakistan, where they are sending unarmed drones to drop bombs and sending secret agents to snatch suspects. The casualties are overwhelmingly civilians. We may not have noticed, but the Muslim world has: check out Al Jazeera any night.
Obama ran on an inspiring promise to shut down Bush's network of kidnappings and secret prisons. He said bluntly: "I do not want to hear this is a new world and we face a new kind of enemy. I know that... but as a parent I can also imagine the terror I would feel if one of my family members were rounded up in the middle of the night and sent to Guantanamo without even getting one chance to ask why they were being held and being able to prove their innocence." He said it made the US "less safe" because any gain in safety by Gitmo-ing one suspected jihadi - along with dozens of innocents - is wiped out by the huge number of young men tipped over into the vile madness of jihadism by seeing their brothers disappear into a vast military machine where they may never be heard from again. Indeed, following the failed attack in Detroit, Obama pointed out the wannabe-murderer named Guantanamo as the reason he signed up for the jihad.
Yet a string of recent exposes has shown that Obama is in fact maintaining a battery of secret prisons where people are held without charge indefinitely - and he is even expanding them. The Kabul-based journalist Anand Gopal has written a remarkable expose for The Nation magazine. His story begins in the Afghan village of Zaiwalat at 3.15am on the night of November 19th 2009. A platoon of US soldiers blasted their way into a house in search of Habib ur-Rahman, a young computer programmer and government employee who they had been told by someone, somewhere was a secret Talibanist. His two cousins came out to see what the noise was - and they were shot to death. As the children of the house screamed, Habib was bundled into a helicopter and whisked away. He has never been seen since. His family do not know if he is alive or dead.
This is not an unusual event in Afghanistan today. In this small village of 300 people, some 16 men have been "disappeared" by the US and 10 killed in night raids in the past two years. The locals believe people are simply settling old clan feuds by telling the Americans their rivals are jihadists. Habib's cousin Qarar, who works for the Afghan government, says: "I used to go on TV and argue that people should support the government and the foreigners. But I was wrong. Why should anyone do so?"
Where are all these men vanishing to? Obama ordered the closing of the CIA's secret prisons, but not those run by Joint Special Operations. They maintain a Bermuda Triangle of jails with the notorious Bagram Air Base at its centre. One of the few outsiders has been into this ex-Soviet air-hangar is the military prosecutor Stuart Couch. He says: "In my view, having visited Guantanamo several times, the Bagram facility made Guantanamo look like a nice hotel. The men did not appear to be able to move around at will, they mostly sat in rows on the floor. It smelled like the monkey house at the zoo."
We know that at least two innocent young men were tortured to death in Bagram. Der Spiegel has documented how some "inmates were raped with sticks or threatened with anal sex". The accounts of released prisoners suggest the very worst abuses stopped in the last few years of the Bush administration, and Obama is supposed to have forbidden torture, but it's hard to tell. We do know Obama has permitted the use of solitary confinement lasting for years - a process that often drives people insane. The International Red Cross has been allowed to visit some of them, but in highly restricted circumstances, and their reports remain confidential. In this darkness, abuse becomes far more likely.
The Obama administration is appealing against US court rulings insisting the detainees have the right to make a legal case against their arbitrary imprisonment. And the White House is insisting they can forcibly snatch anyone they suspect from anywhere in the world - with no legal process - and take them there. Yes: Obama is fighting for the principles behind Guantanamo Bay. The frenzied debate about whether the actual camp in Cuba is closed is a distraction, since he is proposing to simply relocate it to less sunny climes.
Once you vanish into this system, you have no way to get yourself out. The New York lawyer Tina Foster represents three men who were kidnapped by US forces in Thailand, Pakistan and Dubai and bundled to Bagram, where they have been held without charge for seven years now. She tells me there have been "shockingly few improvements" under Obama. "The Bush administration rubbed our faces in it, while Obama's much smoother. But the reality is still indefinite detention without charge for people who are judged guilty simply by association. It's contrary to everything we stand for as a country... I know there are children [in there] from personal experience. I have interviewed dozens of children who were detained in Bagram, some as young as 10."
Today, Bagram is being given a $60m expansion, allowing it to hold five times as many prisoners as Guantanamo Bay currently does. Gopal reports that the abuse is leaking out to other, more secretive sites across Afghanistan. They are so underground they are known only by the names given to them by released inmates - the Salt Pit, the Prison of Darkness. Obama also asserts his right to hand over the prisoners to countries that commit torture, provided they give a written "assurance" they won't be "abused" - assurances that have proved worthless in the past. The British lawyer Clive Stafford Smith estimates there are 18,000 people trapped in these "legal black holes" by the US.
As Obama warned in the distant days of the election campaign, these policies place us all in greater danger. Matthew Alexander, the senior interrogator in Iraq who tracked down Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, says: "I listened time and time again to captured foreign fighters cite Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo as their main reason for coming to Iraq to fight... We have lost hundreds if not thousands of American lives because of our policy." The increased risk bleeds out onto the London Underground and the nightclubs of Bali. I oppose these policies precisely because I want to be safe, and I loathe jihadism.
President Obama has been tossing aside the calm jihad-draining insights of candidate Obama for a year now. Whenever Obama acts like Bush, listen carefully - you will hear the distant, delighted chuckle of Osama bin Laden, and the needless stomp of fresh recruits heading his way.
© 2010 The Independent
Article printed from www.CommonDreams.org
URL to article: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/02/13-1
Juan Cole update on US-led assault on Marja
Juan Cole reviews current reports on the US-led attacks on Marja, in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. The most significant fact here is that the Taliban may have vacated the area and thus avoided a major battle. If this turns out to be true, then the destruction, civilian casualties, and injuries and killing of combatants on both sides may have been minimized.
There are other questions. One of the most important is what happens now in Marja? Will the refugees be able to return to Marja without difficulty? There is a reference in the following report that Afghan police will "establish order." Will they have the motivation and resources to do this in a way that is beneficial to the local people? And, importantly, will there be some sort of meaningful reconstruction or development assistance? We'll see.
Bob
-----------------------------------
Juan Cole, Informed Comment
Saturday, February 13, 2010
NATO/ ANA Assault on Marjah; Has the City already Fallen without a Shot?
AFP reports that the joint NATO/ Afghanistan National Army assault force of 15,000 on Friday moved toward the Helmand city of Marjah, at the center of the poppy growing heartland of Helmand Province. The city of some 80,000 has been surrounded for weeks.
On Friday the road east to the capital, Lashkar Gah, was crowded with Afghans fleeing Marjah, where some had been kept against their will by the Taliban or were too poor to be able to afford to leave.
The military forces are spearheaded by the US Marines and Afghanistan National Army troops, in the first major test of the latter, and a British contingent of over 1,000 is being sent in. Radio Azadi reports in Dari Persian that the helicopter gunships were sent in first.Pajwhok news agency reports that there were 'shaping' attacks on Friday: "In one clash, Marines fought off an ambush against one of their convoys with 50-caliber machine guns and grenade launchers. Reporters with the U.S. 5th Stryker Brigade heard a large explosion, which troops said was from a missile attack against a Taliban compound." These actions appeared to have produced no casualties on Friday, though on Thursday the Taliban had killed a British soldier with a roadside bomb.(Hundreds of miles to the east of Marjah, a suicide bomber wearing an Afghan police uniform wounded 5 US troops when he detonated his payload on Friday.)
But it may be that no Taliban stood and fought as the invasion took place. The USG Open Source center translated an item from the Afghan Islamic Press in Pasho early on Saturday, February 13, 2010 that reported,
' Foreign forces have reportedly captured Marja. Mohammad Salem Wardag, a former member of the Helmand provincial council, told Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) this morning, 13 February, that last night the foreign and domestic forces captured the Marja area (district). Wardag added:
"The local residents told me over the satellite phone that when we woke up this morning, we saw Americans walking in Marja, and they have captured the area." Wardag said no clashes had taken place in Marja and that the foreigners had captured the whole area. '
The Afghan government says it has 1900 police ready to go into Marjah and establish long-term order. But if these police prove corrupt, oppressive, or lazy (and many Afghan police are on the take and are regular drug users), then the area could easily fall back under Taliban rule.CBS News has video on preparations for the assault:AP emphasized the way in which the assembled NATO and ANA forces had surrounded Marjah
There are other questions. One of the most important is what happens now in Marja? Will the refugees be able to return to Marja without difficulty? There is a reference in the following report that Afghan police will "establish order." Will they have the motivation and resources to do this in a way that is beneficial to the local people? And, importantly, will there be some sort of meaningful reconstruction or development assistance? We'll see.
Bob
-----------------------------------
Juan Cole, Informed Comment
Saturday, February 13, 2010
NATO/ ANA Assault on Marjah; Has the City already Fallen without a Shot?
AFP reports that the joint NATO/ Afghanistan National Army assault force of 15,000 on Friday moved toward the Helmand city of Marjah, at the center of the poppy growing heartland of Helmand Province. The city of some 80,000 has been surrounded for weeks.
On Friday the road east to the capital, Lashkar Gah, was crowded with Afghans fleeing Marjah, where some had been kept against their will by the Taliban or were too poor to be able to afford to leave.
The military forces are spearheaded by the US Marines and Afghanistan National Army troops, in the first major test of the latter, and a British contingent of over 1,000 is being sent in. Radio Azadi reports in Dari Persian that the helicopter gunships were sent in first.Pajwhok news agency reports that there were 'shaping' attacks on Friday: "In one clash, Marines fought off an ambush against one of their convoys with 50-caliber machine guns and grenade launchers. Reporters with the U.S. 5th Stryker Brigade heard a large explosion, which troops said was from a missile attack against a Taliban compound." These actions appeared to have produced no casualties on Friday, though on Thursday the Taliban had killed a British soldier with a roadside bomb.(Hundreds of miles to the east of Marjah, a suicide bomber wearing an Afghan police uniform wounded 5 US troops when he detonated his payload on Friday.)
But it may be that no Taliban stood and fought as the invasion took place. The USG Open Source center translated an item from the Afghan Islamic Press in Pasho early on Saturday, February 13, 2010 that reported,
' Foreign forces have reportedly captured Marja. Mohammad Salem Wardag, a former member of the Helmand provincial council, told Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) this morning, 13 February, that last night the foreign and domestic forces captured the Marja area (district). Wardag added:
"The local residents told me over the satellite phone that when we woke up this morning, we saw Americans walking in Marja, and they have captured the area." Wardag said no clashes had taken place in Marja and that the foreigners had captured the whole area. '
The Afghan government says it has 1900 police ready to go into Marjah and establish long-term order. But if these police prove corrupt, oppressive, or lazy (and many Afghan police are on the take and are regular drug users), then the area could easily fall back under Taliban rule.CBS News has video on preparations for the assault:AP emphasized the way in which the assembled NATO and ANA forces had surrounded Marjah
Thursday, February 11, 2010
US assault on Marja - liberation or war crime?
In the following report on the looming assault on Marja and vicinity, where 80,000 or more Afghans live, Robert Naiman's main point is that the US-led forces have an obligation to protect Afghan civilians in the anticipated battles. The problem is that, as Naiman points out, there is no satisfactory way to distinguish civilians from the Taliban. Under relevant international law, the US-led assualt may become a war crime. If it should turn out this way, there is nothing new in this, in what US officials have referred to as "collateral damage," as though the lives of children and other civilians are an unfortunate but inevitable consequence of war.
Let's hope that somehow the assault on Marja becomes an exception to what the US had done in Iraq (with over a million "excess" deaths and over 4 million internal and external refugees), and in other parts of Afghanistan. Let's hope that it does not become yet another example of the long bloody history examined by William Blum in his book, Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II, or, in a more general way, by Howard Zinn in his widely read, A People's History of the United States.
Bob
------------------------
Afghan Civilians Imperiled by US/NATO Assault in Marjah
Submitted by robert naiman on 11 February 2010 - 2:07pm
Source: http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/node/480
The United States and NATO are poised to launch a major assault in the Marjah district in southern Afghanistan. Tens of thousands of Afghan civilians are in imminent peril. Will President Obama and Congress act to protect civilians in Marjah, in compliance with the obligations of the United States under the laws of war?
Few civilians have managed to escape the Afghan town of Marjah ahead of a planned US/NATO assault, raising the risk of civilian casualties, McClatchy News reports. "If [NATO forces] don't avoid large scale civilian casualties, given the rhetoric about protecting the population, then no matter how many Taliban are routed, the Marjah mission should be considered a failure," said an analyst with the International Crisis Group.
Under the laws of war, the US and NATO - who have told civilians not to flee - bear an extra responsibility to control their fire and avoid tactics that endanger civilians, Human Rights Watch notes. "I suspect that they believe they have the ability to generally distinguish between combatants and civilians," said Brad Adams of Human Rights Watch. "I would call that into question, given their long history of mistakes, particularly when using air power. Whatever they do, they have an obligation to protect civilians and make adequate provision to alleviate any crisis that arises," he said. "It is very much their responsibility."
Indeed, a report in the Wall Street Journal casts fresh doubt on the ability - and even on the interest - of U.S. forces to distinguish combatants from civilians. "Across southern Afghanistan, including the Marjah district where coalition forces are massing for a large offensive, the line between peaceful villager and enemy fighter is often blurred," the Journal says. The commander of the U.S. unit responsible for Pashmul estimates that about 95% of the locals are Taliban or aid the militants. Among front-line troops, "frustration is boiling over" over more restrictive rules of engagement than in Iraq, the Journal says - a dangerous harbinger of potential war crimes when the U.S. is about to engage in a major assault in an area densely populated with civilians.
If the U.S. assault in Marjah results in large scale civilian casualties, the U.S. will have committed a major war crime. If the United States cannot protect civilians in Marjah, as the U.S. is required to do under the laws of war, the assault should be called off.
Let's hope that somehow the assault on Marja becomes an exception to what the US had done in Iraq (with over a million "excess" deaths and over 4 million internal and external refugees), and in other parts of Afghanistan. Let's hope that it does not become yet another example of the long bloody history examined by William Blum in his book, Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II, or, in a more general way, by Howard Zinn in his widely read, A People's History of the United States.
Bob
------------------------
Afghan Civilians Imperiled by US/NATO Assault in Marjah
Submitted by robert naiman on 11 February 2010 - 2:07pm
Source: http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/node/480
The United States and NATO are poised to launch a major assault in the Marjah district in southern Afghanistan. Tens of thousands of Afghan civilians are in imminent peril. Will President Obama and Congress act to protect civilians in Marjah, in compliance with the obligations of the United States under the laws of war?
Few civilians have managed to escape the Afghan town of Marjah ahead of a planned US/NATO assault, raising the risk of civilian casualties, McClatchy News reports. "If [NATO forces] don't avoid large scale civilian casualties, given the rhetoric about protecting the population, then no matter how many Taliban are routed, the Marjah mission should be considered a failure," said an analyst with the International Crisis Group.
Under the laws of war, the US and NATO - who have told civilians not to flee - bear an extra responsibility to control their fire and avoid tactics that endanger civilians, Human Rights Watch notes. "I suspect that they believe they have the ability to generally distinguish between combatants and civilians," said Brad Adams of Human Rights Watch. "I would call that into question, given their long history of mistakes, particularly when using air power. Whatever they do, they have an obligation to protect civilians and make adequate provision to alleviate any crisis that arises," he said. "It is very much their responsibility."
Indeed, a report in the Wall Street Journal casts fresh doubt on the ability - and even on the interest - of U.S. forces to distinguish combatants from civilians. "Across southern Afghanistan, including the Marjah district where coalition forces are massing for a large offensive, the line between peaceful villager and enemy fighter is often blurred," the Journal says. The commander of the U.S. unit responsible for Pashmul estimates that about 95% of the locals are Taliban or aid the militants. Among front-line troops, "frustration is boiling over" over more restrictive rules of engagement than in Iraq, the Journal says - a dangerous harbinger of potential war crimes when the U.S. is about to engage in a major assault in an area densely populated with civilians.
If the U.S. assault in Marjah results in large scale civilian casualties, the U.S. will have committed a major war crime. If the United States cannot protect civilians in Marjah, as the U.S. is required to do under the laws of war, the assault should be called off.
Afghan opium crop stable
The following UN report on Afghan opium production offers several facts. The Afghan opium crop provide 90 percent of the world's demand for this crop. The report refers to two reasons why opium production remains high. One is that the price of opium is higher than for alternative crops like wheat and maize. The other is that opium production is likely to operate in provinces that are "insecure." The implication of "insecure," or less secure, is that there are pressures on farmers to produce opium. The sources of such pressures would implicitly come from Taliban, warlords (among US allies), corrupt government officials, or criminal forces.
The commentary on the UN report (see below) suggests that the only effective way to reduce poppy cultivation is to make farmers secure. How? Free them from those who now control them. This would take enormous, long-term, military intervention. Subsidize prices for alternative crops and provide farmers with the means to reclaim their land for alternative cultivation. Noble goals. But this conflicts with the neoliberal approach, which favors export-oriented agriculture from large mechanized farms, and increased imports (from, say, US farmers). Interdict opium traffic routes going out of the country. Interdiction has not worked in other places (e.g., Columbia, Mexico). Similarly, eradication is a lethal way to eliminate crops defined as undesirable, and it harms the environment and drives farmers off the land.
We should also bear in mind that opium production is probably not a priority of the US. Rather, it's a distraction from other geopolitical and economic interests.
Bob
--------------------------------
UN predicts 'stable' 2010 Afghan opium cultivation, warns of fewer poppy-free provinces
Feb 10, 2010 00:31 EST
Source: http://wire.antiwar.com/2010/02/09/un-forecasts-stable-afghan-opium-crop
After a major drop over the past two years, Afghanistan's opium cultivation is unlikely to rise or fall dramatically in 2010, a U.N. report said Wednesday.
The report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime said bad weather may lead to a decrease in opium production but warned the country could see fewer poppy-free provinces.
Afghanistan supplies 90 percent of the world's opium, the main ingredient in heroin, and the highly lucrative crop has helped finance insurgents and fueled corruption.
"Overall, the cultivation of opium in Afghanistan is likely to remain stable in 2010 but the number of poppy-free provinces may decrease," from 20 to 17, said the report.
"However, if timely poppy eradication measures are implemented and/or drought conditions prevail, a total of 25 provinces — an increase of five compared to 2009 — could be poppy-free in 2010."
Opium cultivation in Afghanistan peaked in 2007 and then fell for two consecutive years from about 478,000 acres (193,000 hectares) to 304,000 acres (123,000 hectares) in 2009.
In September, the Vienna-based UNODC said Afghanistan was still producing 6,900 tons of opium a year, 1,900 tons more than the world consumes. In 2007, production stood at a staggering 8,200 tons.
The report, which surveyed 536 Afghan villages, found that 35 percent said they had planted opium poppy for the 2010 cultivation season and that higher sales prices compared to other crops was the predominant reason for doing so.
While the price of dry opium has fallen 6 percent compared to a year ago, the price of wheat has decreased by 43 percent, the report showed. The price of maize dropped by 38 percent over the past year.
The survey also found that 79 percent of villages with very poor security conditions grew poppy, while only 7 percent of villages unaffected by violence — or with "very good security" — did so.
"This is further proof of the overlap between high insecurity and high cultivation," UNODC chief Antonio Maria Costa said in a statement. "The message is clear: in order to further reduce the biggest source of the world's deadliest drug, there must be better security, development and governance in Afghanistan."
The commentary on the UN report (see below) suggests that the only effective way to reduce poppy cultivation is to make farmers secure. How? Free them from those who now control them. This would take enormous, long-term, military intervention. Subsidize prices for alternative crops and provide farmers with the means to reclaim their land for alternative cultivation. Noble goals. But this conflicts with the neoliberal approach, which favors export-oriented agriculture from large mechanized farms, and increased imports (from, say, US farmers). Interdict opium traffic routes going out of the country. Interdiction has not worked in other places (e.g., Columbia, Mexico). Similarly, eradication is a lethal way to eliminate crops defined as undesirable, and it harms the environment and drives farmers off the land.
We should also bear in mind that opium production is probably not a priority of the US. Rather, it's a distraction from other geopolitical and economic interests.
Bob
--------------------------------
UN predicts 'stable' 2010 Afghan opium cultivation, warns of fewer poppy-free provinces
Feb 10, 2010 00:31 EST
Source: http://wire.antiwar.com/2010/02/09/un-forecasts-stable-afghan-opium-crop
After a major drop over the past two years, Afghanistan's opium cultivation is unlikely to rise or fall dramatically in 2010, a U.N. report said Wednesday.
The report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime said bad weather may lead to a decrease in opium production but warned the country could see fewer poppy-free provinces.
Afghanistan supplies 90 percent of the world's opium, the main ingredient in heroin, and the highly lucrative crop has helped finance insurgents and fueled corruption.
"Overall, the cultivation of opium in Afghanistan is likely to remain stable in 2010 but the number of poppy-free provinces may decrease," from 20 to 17, said the report.
"However, if timely poppy eradication measures are implemented and/or drought conditions prevail, a total of 25 provinces — an increase of five compared to 2009 — could be poppy-free in 2010."
Opium cultivation in Afghanistan peaked in 2007 and then fell for two consecutive years from about 478,000 acres (193,000 hectares) to 304,000 acres (123,000 hectares) in 2009.
In September, the Vienna-based UNODC said Afghanistan was still producing 6,900 tons of opium a year, 1,900 tons more than the world consumes. In 2007, production stood at a staggering 8,200 tons.
The report, which surveyed 536 Afghan villages, found that 35 percent said they had planted opium poppy for the 2010 cultivation season and that higher sales prices compared to other crops was the predominant reason for doing so.
While the price of dry opium has fallen 6 percent compared to a year ago, the price of wheat has decreased by 43 percent, the report showed. The price of maize dropped by 38 percent over the past year.
The survey also found that 79 percent of villages with very poor security conditions grew poppy, while only 7 percent of villages unaffected by violence — or with "very good security" — did so.
"This is further proof of the overlap between high insecurity and high cultivation," UNODC chief Antonio Maria Costa said in a statement. "The message is clear: in order to further reduce the biggest source of the world's deadliest drug, there must be better security, development and governance in Afghanistan."
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Military bases burgeoning in Afghanistan
I've taken excerpts from an article by Nick Turse documenting the dramatic increase in US, NATO, and other coalition military bases across Afghanistan. (See below.) Based on his sources, Turse is able to count, for the first time from any public report, at least 700 bases, some large and others just outposts. Some of the larger US bases have airfields and basic provisions for the troops. Afghan bases are usually primitive and lacking such things as basic plumbing. His central point, though, is that the construction of the bases for the occupation forces indicate that the military planners are expecting to be in Afghanistan for many years. There is another implication as well, namely, that the US and its allies are spending a lot more on military logistics, accommodations, and warfare than on reconstruction and rebuilding in this long war-torn and devastated country.
Turse also reminds us of the over 700-bases in other countries that are officially acknowledged. The estimate of military bases in Afghanistan that Turse has ascertained, adds significantly to this innumeration. And, as in Afghanistan until now, the estimate of US bases outside of the US does not, by definition, include "black sites."
Bob
-------------------------------
Published on Wednesday, February 10, 2010 by TomDispatch.com
http://www.truthout.org/the-700-military-bases-afghanistan-black-sites-empire-bases56789
The 700 Military Bases of Afghanistan Black Sites in the Empire of Bases
by Nick Turse
....Nearly a decade after the Bush administration launched its invasion of Afghanistan, TomDispatch offers the first actual count of American, NATO, and other coalition bases there, as well as facilities used by the Afghan security forces. Such bases range from relatively small sites like Shinwar to mega-bases that resemble small American towns. Today, according to official sources, approximately 700 bases of every size dot the Afghan countryside, and more, like the one in Shinwar, are under construction or soon will be as part of a base-building boom [1] that began last year.
".... this base-building program is nonetheless staggering in size and scope, and heavily dependent on supplies imported from abroad, which means that it is also extraordinarily expensive. It has added significantly to the already long secret list of Pentagon property overseas and raises questions about just how long, after the planned beginning of a drawdown of American forces in 2011, the U.S. will still be garrisoning Afghanistan.
400 Foreign Bases in Afghanistan
A spokesman for the U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) tells TomDispatch that there are, at present, nearly 400 U.S. and coalition bases in Afghanistan, including camps, forward operating bases, and combat outposts. In addition, there are at least 300 Afghan National Army (ANA) and Afghan National Police (ANP) bases, most of them built, maintained, or supported by the U.S. A small number of the coalition sites are mega-bases like Kandahar Airfield, which boasts one of the busiest runways in the world, and Bagram Air Base, a former Soviet facility that received a makeover, complete with Burger King and Popeyes outlets, and now serves more than 20,000 U.S. troops, in addition to thousands of coalition forces and civilian contractors.
"....Last fall, it was reported that more than $200 million in construction projects -- from barracks to cargo storage facilities -- were planned for or in-progress at Bagram. Substantial construction funds [3] have also been set aside by the U.S. Air Force to upgrade its air power capacity at Kandahar. For example, $65 million has been allocated to build additional apron space (where aircraft can be parked, serviced, and loaded or unloaded) to accommodate more close-air support for soldiers in the field and a greater intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capability. Another $61 million has also been earmarked for the construction of a cargo helicopter apron and a tactical airlift apron there.
"....according a spokesman for ISAF, the military plans to expand several more bases to accommodate the increase of troops as part of Afghan War commander Stanley McChrystal’s surge strategy. In addition, at least 12 more bases are slated to be built to help handle the 30,000 extra American troops and thousands of NATO forces beginning to arrive in the country.
“Currently we have over $3 billion worth of work going on in Afghanistan,” says Colonel Wilson, “and probably by the summer, when the dust settles from all the uplift, we’ll have about $1.3 billion to $1.4 billion worth of that [in the South].” By comparison, between 2002 and 2008, the Army Corps of Engineers spent more than $4.5 billion on construction projects, most of it base-building, in Afghanistan.
....
What Makes a Base?
According to an official site assessment, future construction at the Khost Farang District police headquarters will make use of sand, gravel, and stone, all available on the spot. Additionally, cement, steel, bricks, lime, and gypsum have been located for purchase in Pol-e Khomri City, about 85 miles away.
....
To facilitate U.S. base construction projects, a new “virtual storefront” -- an online shopping portal -- has been launched by the Pentagon’s Defense Logistics Agency (DLA). The Maintenance, Repair and Operations Uzbekistan Virtual Storefront website and a defense contractor-owned and operated brick-and-mortar warehouse facility that supports it aim to provide regionally-produced construction materials to speed surge-accelerated building efforts.
From a facility located in Termez, Uzbekistan, cement, concrete, fencing, roofing, rope, sand, steel, gutters, pipe, and other construction material manufactured in countries like Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan can be rushed to nearby Afghanistan to accelerate base-building efforts. “Having the products closer to the fight will make it easier for warfighters by reducing logistics response and delivery time," says [5] Chet Evanitsky, the DLA’s construction and equipment supply chain division chief.
America’s Shadowy Base World
....After nearly a decade of war, close to 700 U.S., allied, and Afghan military bases dot Afghanistan. Until now, however, they have existed as black sites known to few Americans outside the Pentagon. It remains to be seen, a decade into the future, how many of these sites will still be occupied by U.S. and allied troops and whose flag will be planted on the ever-shifting British-Soviet-U.S./Afghan site at Shinwar.
Copyright 2010 Nick Turse
Nick Turse is the associate editor of TomDispatch.com and the winner of a 2009 Ridenhour Prize for Reportorial Distinction as well as a James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism. His work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the Nation [10], In These Times, and regularly at TomDispatch. Turse is currently a fellow at New York University's Center for the United States and the Cold War. He is the author of The Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives [11] (Metropolitan Books). His website is NickTurse.com [12].
Turse also reminds us of the over 700-bases in other countries that are officially acknowledged. The estimate of military bases in Afghanistan that Turse has ascertained, adds significantly to this innumeration. And, as in Afghanistan until now, the estimate of US bases outside of the US does not, by definition, include "black sites."
Bob
-------------------------------
Published on Wednesday, February 10, 2010 by TomDispatch.com
http://www.truthout.org/the-700-military-bases-afghanistan-black-sites-empire-bases56789
The 700 Military Bases of Afghanistan Black Sites in the Empire of Bases
by Nick Turse
....Nearly a decade after the Bush administration launched its invasion of Afghanistan, TomDispatch offers the first actual count of American, NATO, and other coalition bases there, as well as facilities used by the Afghan security forces. Such bases range from relatively small sites like Shinwar to mega-bases that resemble small American towns. Today, according to official sources, approximately 700 bases of every size dot the Afghan countryside, and more, like the one in Shinwar, are under construction or soon will be as part of a base-building boom [1] that began last year.
".... this base-building program is nonetheless staggering in size and scope, and heavily dependent on supplies imported from abroad, which means that it is also extraordinarily expensive. It has added significantly to the already long secret list of Pentagon property overseas and raises questions about just how long, after the planned beginning of a drawdown of American forces in 2011, the U.S. will still be garrisoning Afghanistan.
400 Foreign Bases in Afghanistan
A spokesman for the U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) tells TomDispatch that there are, at present, nearly 400 U.S. and coalition bases in Afghanistan, including camps, forward operating bases, and combat outposts. In addition, there are at least 300 Afghan National Army (ANA) and Afghan National Police (ANP) bases, most of them built, maintained, or supported by the U.S. A small number of the coalition sites are mega-bases like Kandahar Airfield, which boasts one of the busiest runways in the world, and Bagram Air Base, a former Soviet facility that received a makeover, complete with Burger King and Popeyes outlets, and now serves more than 20,000 U.S. troops, in addition to thousands of coalition forces and civilian contractors.
"....Last fall, it was reported that more than $200 million in construction projects -- from barracks to cargo storage facilities -- were planned for or in-progress at Bagram. Substantial construction funds [3] have also been set aside by the U.S. Air Force to upgrade its air power capacity at Kandahar. For example, $65 million has been allocated to build additional apron space (where aircraft can be parked, serviced, and loaded or unloaded) to accommodate more close-air support for soldiers in the field and a greater intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capability. Another $61 million has also been earmarked for the construction of a cargo helicopter apron and a tactical airlift apron there.
"....according a spokesman for ISAF, the military plans to expand several more bases to accommodate the increase of troops as part of Afghan War commander Stanley McChrystal’s surge strategy. In addition, at least 12 more bases are slated to be built to help handle the 30,000 extra American troops and thousands of NATO forces beginning to arrive in the country.
“Currently we have over $3 billion worth of work going on in Afghanistan,” says Colonel Wilson, “and probably by the summer, when the dust settles from all the uplift, we’ll have about $1.3 billion to $1.4 billion worth of that [in the South].” By comparison, between 2002 and 2008, the Army Corps of Engineers spent more than $4.5 billion on construction projects, most of it base-building, in Afghanistan.
....
What Makes a Base?
According to an official site assessment, future construction at the Khost Farang District police headquarters will make use of sand, gravel, and stone, all available on the spot. Additionally, cement, steel, bricks, lime, and gypsum have been located for purchase in Pol-e Khomri City, about 85 miles away.
....
To facilitate U.S. base construction projects, a new “virtual storefront” -- an online shopping portal -- has been launched by the Pentagon’s Defense Logistics Agency (DLA). The Maintenance, Repair and Operations Uzbekistan Virtual Storefront website and a defense contractor-owned and operated brick-and-mortar warehouse facility that supports it aim to provide regionally-produced construction materials to speed surge-accelerated building efforts.
From a facility located in Termez, Uzbekistan, cement, concrete, fencing, roofing, rope, sand, steel, gutters, pipe, and other construction material manufactured in countries like Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan can be rushed to nearby Afghanistan to accelerate base-building efforts. “Having the products closer to the fight will make it easier for warfighters by reducing logistics response and delivery time," says [5] Chet Evanitsky, the DLA’s construction and equipment supply chain division chief.
America’s Shadowy Base World
....After nearly a decade of war, close to 700 U.S., allied, and Afghan military bases dot Afghanistan. Until now, however, they have existed as black sites known to few Americans outside the Pentagon. It remains to be seen, a decade into the future, how many of these sites will still be occupied by U.S. and allied troops and whose flag will be planted on the ever-shifting British-Soviet-U.S./Afghan site at Shinwar.
Copyright 2010 Nick Turse
Nick Turse is the associate editor of TomDispatch.com and the winner of a 2009 Ridenhour Prize for Reportorial Distinction as well as a James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism. His work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the Nation [10], In These Times, and regularly at TomDispatch. Turse is currently a fellow at New York University's Center for the United States and the Cold War. He is the author of The Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives [11] (Metropolitan Books). His website is NickTurse.com [12].
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
US imperialism and Afghanistan
William Blum, an outstanding scholar of U.S. imperialism, comments in the following essay on the implications of President Obama's foreign policy, principally for Afghanistan. One of his chief points is that there are many indications that negotiations with the Taliban are possible, especially if the US is willing to agree to a timetable for the withdrawal of its troops.
Like his predecessors in the White House, Obama demonizes the Afghan enemy as "extremists" who act from "irrational" motives, as "bad guys" who only understand military force, and as "an implacable and monolithic enemy." While the focus is on this abstractly characterized and evil force, no attention is paid in White House discourse and little in the press as to why Afghanistan is of interest to US policy- and war-makers. Blum refers to the geo-political and oil-related considerations that make Afghanistan such an important target. And, additionally, the interests in justifying an ever-growing military-industrial complex. Forget the rhetoric on democracy and reconstruction and "freedom." They are all distractions from the real interests. Most of us, here and there, are, unfortunately, lost in these grand schemes.
Bob
-----------------------------------------
The Anti-Empire Report
December 9th, 2009by William Blumhttp://www.killinghope.org/
http://killinghope/org/bblum6/aer76.html
Yeswecanistan
All the crying from the left about how Obama "the peace candidate" has now become "a war president" ... Whatever are they talking about? Here's what I wrote in this report in August 2008, during the election campaign:
We find Obama threatening, several times, to attack Iran if they don't do what the United States wants them to do nuclear-wise; threatening more than once to attack Pakistan if their anti-terrorist policies are not tough enough or if there would be a regime change in the nuclear-armed country not to his liking; calling for a large increase in US troops and tougher policies for Afghanistan; wholly and unequivocally embracing Israel as if it were the 51st state.
Why should anyone be surprised at Obama's foreign policy in the White House? He has not even banned torture, contrary to what his supporters would fervently have us believe. If further evidence were needed, we have the November 28 report in the Washington Post: "Two Afghan teenagers held in U.S. detention north of Kabul this year said they were beaten by American guards, photographed naked, deprived of sleep and held in solitary confinement in concrete cells for at least two weeks while undergoing daily interrogation about their alleged links to the Taliban." This is but the latest example of the continuance of torture under the new administration.
But the shortcomings of Barack Obama and the naiveté of his fans is not the important issue. The important issue is the continuation and escalation of the American war in Afghanistan, based on the myth that the individuals we label "Taliban" are indistinguishable from those who attacked the United States on September 11, 2001, whom we usually label "al Qaeda". "I am convinced," the president said in his speech at the United States Military Academy (West Point) on December 1, "that our security is at stake in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This is the epicenter of violent extremism practiced by al Qaeda. It is from here that we were attacked on 9/11, and it is from here that new attacks are being plotted as I speak."
Obama used one form or another of the word "extremist" eleven times in his half-hour talk. Young, impressionable minds must be carefully taught; a future generation of military leaders who will command America's never-ending wars must have no doubts that the bad guys are "extremists", that "extremists" are by definition bad guys, that "extremists" are beyond the pale and do not act from human, rational motivation like we do, that we — quintessential non-extremists, peace-loving moderates — are the good guys, forced into one war after another against our will. Sending robotic death machines flying over Afghanistan and Pakistan to drop powerful bombs on the top of wedding parties, funerals, and homes is of course not extremist behavior for human beings.
And the bad guys attacked the US "from here", Afghanistan. That's why the United States is "there", Afghanistan. But in fact the 9-11 attack was planned in Germany, Spain and the United States as much as in Afghanistan. It could have been planned in a single small room in Panama City, Taiwan, or Bucharest. What is needed to plot to buy airline tickets and take flying lessons in the United States? And the attack was carried out entirely in the United States. But Barack Obama has to maintain the fiction that Afghanistan was, and is, vital and indispensable to any attack on the United States, past or future. That gives him the right to occupy the country and kill the citizens as he sees fit. Robert Baer, former CIA officer with long involvement in that part of the world has noted: "The people that want their country liberated from the West have nothing to do with Al Qaeda. They simply want us gone because we're foreigners, and they're rallying behind the Taliban because the Taliban are experienced, effective fighters." 1
The pretenses extend further. US leaders have fed the public a certain image of the insurgents (all labeled together under the name "Taliban") and of the conflict to cover the true imperialistic motivation behind the war. The predominant image at the headlines/TV news level and beyond is that of the Taliban as an implacable and monolithic "enemy" which must be militarily defeated at all costs for America's security, with a negotiated settlement or compromise not being an option. However, consider the following which have been reported at various times during the past two years about the actual behavior of the United States and its allies in Afghanistan vis-Ã -vis the Taliban, which can raise questions about Obama's latest escalation: 2
The US military in Afghanistan has long been considering paying Taliban fighters who renounce violence against the government in Kabul, as the United States has done with Iraqi insurgents.
President Obama has floated the idea of negotiating with moderate elements of the Taliban. 3
US envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, said last month that the United States would support any role Saudi Arabia chose to pursue in trying to engage Taliban officials. 4
Canadian troops are reaching out to the Taliban in various ways.
A top European Union official and a United Nations staff member were ordered by the Kabul government to leave the country after allegations that they had met Taliban insurgents without the administration's knowledge. And two senior diplomats for the United Nations were expelled from the country, accused by the Afghan government of unauthorized dealings with insurgents. However, the Afghanistan government itself has had a series of secret talks with "moderate Taliban" since 2003 and President Hamid Karzai has called for peace talks with Taliban leader Mohammed Omar.
Organizations like the International Committee of the Red Cross as well as the United Nations have become increasingly open about their contacts with the Taliban leadership and other insurgent groups.
Gestures of openness are common practice among some of Washington's allies in Afghanistan, notably the Dutch, who make negotiating with the Taliban an explicit part of their military policy.
The German government is officially against negotiations, but some members of the governing coalition have suggested Berlin host talks with the Taliban.
MI-6, Britain's external security service, has held secret talks with the Taliban up to half a dozen times. At the local level, the British cut a deal, appointing a former Taliban leader as a district chief in Helmand province in exchange for security guarantees.
Senior British officers involved with the Afghan mission have confirmed that direct contact with the Taliban has led to insurgents changing sides as well as rivals in the Taliban movement providing intelligence which has led to leaders being killed or captured.
British authorities hold that there are distinct differences between different "tiers" of the Taliban and that it is essential to try to separate the doctrinaire extremists from others who are fighting for money or because they resent the presence of foreign forces in their country.
British contacts with the Taliban have occurred despite British Prime Minister Gordon Brown publicly ruling out such talks; on one occasion he told the House of Commons: "We will not enter into any negotiations with these people."
For months there have been repeated reports of "good Taliban" forces being airlifted by Western helicopters from one part of Afghanistan to another to protect them from Afghan or Pakistani military forces. At an October 11 news conference in Kabul, President Hamid Karzai himself claimed that "some unidentified helicopters dropped armed men in the northern provinces at night." 5
On November 2, IslamOnline.net (Qatar) reported: "The emboldened Taliban movement in Afghanistan turned down an American offer of power-sharing in exchange for accepting the presence of foreign troops, Afghan government sources confirmed. 'US negotiators had offered the Taliban leadership through Mullah Wakil Ahmed Mutawakkil (former Taliban foreign minister) that if they accept the presence of NATO troops in Afghanistan, they would be given the governorship of six provinces in the south and northeast ... America wants eight army and air force bases in different parts of Afghanistan in order to tackle the possible regrouping of [the] Al-Qaeda network,' a senior Afghan Foreign Ministry official told IslamOnline.net." 6
There has been no confirmation of this from American officials, but the New York Times on October 28 listed six provinces that were being considered to receive priority protection from the US military, five of which are amongst the eight mentioned in the IslamOnline report as being planned for US military bases, although no mention is made in the Times of the above-mentioned offer. The next day, Asia Times reported: "The United States has withdrawn its troops from its four key bases in Nuristan [or Nooristan], on the border with Pakistan, leaving the northeastern province as a safe haven for the Taliban-led insurgency to orchestrate its regional battles." Nuristan, where earlier in the month eight US soldiers were killed and three Apache helicopters hit by hostile fire, is one of the six provinces offered to the Taliban as reported in the IslamOnline.net story.
The part about al-Qaeda is ambiguous and questionable, not only because the term has long been loosely used as a catch-all for any group or individual in opposition to US foreign policy in this part of the world, but also because the president's own national security adviser, former Marine Gen. James Jones, stated in early October: "I don't foresee the return of the Taliban. Afghanistan is not in imminent danger of falling. The al-Qaeda presence is very diminished. The maximum estimate is less than 100 operating in the country, no bases, no ability to launch attacks on either us or our allies." 7
Shortly after Jones's remarks, we could read in the Wall Street Journal: "Hunted by U.S. drones, beset by money problems and finding it tougher to lure young Arabs to the bleak mountains of Pakistan, al-Qaida is seeing its role shrink there and in Afghanistan, according to intelligence reports and Pakistan and U.S. officials. ... For Arab youths who are al-Qaida's primary recruits, 'it's not romantic to be cold and hungry and hiding,' said a senior U.S. official in South Asia." 8
From all of the above is it not reasonable to conclude that the United States is willing and able to live with the Taliban, as repulsive as their social philosophy is? Perhaps even a Taliban state which would go across the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, which has been talked about in some quarters. What then is Washington fighting for? What moves the president of the United States to sacrifice so much American blood and treasure? In past years, US leaders have spoken of bringing democracy to Afghanistan, liberating Afghan women, or modernizing a backward country. President Obama made no mention of any of these previous supposed vital goals in his December 1 speech. He spoke only of the attacks of September 11, al Qaeda, the Taliban, terrorists, extremists, and such, symbols guaranteed to fire up an American audience. Yet, the president himself declared at one point: "Al Qaeda has not reemerged in Afghanistan in the same numbers as before 9/11, but they retain their safe havens along the border." Ah yes, the terrorist danger ... always, everywhere, forever, particularly when it seems the weakest.
How many of the West Point cadets, how many Americans, give thought to the fact that Afghanistan is surrounded by the immense oil reserves of the Persian Gulf and Caspian Sea regions? Or that Afghanistan is ideally situated for oil and gas pipelines to serve much of Europe and south Asia, lines that can deliberately bypass non-allies of the empire, Iran and Russia? If only the Taliban will not attack the lines. "One of our goals is to stabilize Afghanistan, so it can become a conduit and a hub between South and Central Asia so that energy can flow to the south ...", said Richard Boucher, Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs in 2007. 9
Afghanistan would also serve as the home of American military bases, the better to watch and pressure next-door Iran and the rest of Eurasia. And NATO ... struggling to find a raison d'être since the end of the Cold War. If the alliance is forced to pull out of Afghanistan without clear accomplishments after eight years will its future be even more in doubt?
So, for the present at least, the American War on Terror in Afghanistan continues and regularly and routinely creates new anti-American terrorists, as it has done in Iraq. This is not in dispute even at the Pentagon or the CIA. God Bless America.
Although the "surge" failed as policy, it succeeded as propaganda.
They don't always use the word "surge", but that's what they mean. Our admirable leaders and our mainstream media that love to interview them would like us to believe that escalation of the war in Afghanistan is in effect a "surge", like the one in Iraq which, they believe, has proven so successful. But the reality of the surge in Iraq was nothing like its promotional campaign. To the extent that there has been a reduction in violence in Iraq (now down to a level that virtually any other society in the world would find horrible and intolerable, including Iraqi society before the US invasion and occupation), we must keep in mind the following summary of how and why it "succeeded":
Thanks to America's lovely little war, there are many millions of Iraqis either dead, wounded, crippled, homebound or otherwise physically limited, internally displaced, in foreign exile, or in bursting American and Iraqi prisons. Many others have been so traumatized that they are concerned simply for their own survival. Thus, a huge number of potential victims and killers has been markedly reduced.
Extensive ethnic cleansing has taken place: Sunnis and Shiites are now living much more than before in their own special enclaves, with entire neighborhoods surrounded by high concrete walls and strict security checkpoints; violence of the sectarian type has accordingly gone down.
In the face of numerous "improvised explosive devices" on the roads, US soldiers venture out a lot less, so the violence against them has been sharply down. It should be kept in mind that insurgent attacks on American forces following the invasion of 2003 is how the Iraqi violence all began in the first place.
For a long period, the US military was paying insurgents (or "former insurgents") to not attack occupation forces.
The powerful Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr declared a unilateral cease-fire for his militia, including attacks against US troops, that was in effect for an extended period; this was totally unconnected to the surge.
We should never forget that Iraqi society has been destroyed. The people of that unhappy land have lost everything — their homes, their schools, their neighborhoods, their mosques, their jobs, their careers, their professionals, their health care, their legal system, their women's rights, their religious tolerance, their security, their friends, their families, their past, their present, their future, their lives. But they do have their surge.
The War against Everything and Everyone, Endlessly
Nidal Malik Hasan, the US Army psychiatrist who killed 13 and wounded some 30 at Fort Hood, Texas in November reportedly regards the US War on Terror as a war aimed at Muslims. He told colleagues that "the US was battling not against security threats in Iraq and Afghanistan, but Islam itself." 10 Hasan had long been in close contact with Anwar al-Awlaki, a US-born cleric and al Qaeda sympathizer now living in Yemen, who also called the US War on Terror a "war against Muslims". Many, probably most, Muslims all over the world hold a similar view about American foreign policy.
I believe they're mistaken. For many years, going back to at least the Korean war, it's been fairly common for accusations to be made by activists opposed to US policies, in the United States and abroad, as well as by Muslims, that the United States chooses as its bombing targets only people of color, those of the Third World, or Muslims. But it must be remembered that in 1999 one of the most sustained and ferocious American bombing campaigns ever — 78 days in a row — was carried out against the Serbs of the former Yugoslavia: white, European, Christians. Indeed, we were told that the bombing was to rescue the people of Kosovo, who are largely Muslim. Earlier, the United States had come to the aid of the Muslims of Bosnia in their struggle against the Serbs. The United States is in fact an equal-opportunity bomber. The only qualifications for a country to become an American bombing target appear to be: (a) It poses a sufficient obstacle — real, imagined, or, as with Serbia, ideological — to the desires of the empire; (b) It is virtually defenseless against aerial attack.
Notes
Video on Information Clearinghouse ↩
For the news items which follow if not otherwise sourced, see:
The Independent (London), December 14, 2007
Daily Telegraph (UK) December 26, 2007
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) May 1, 2008
BBC News, October 28, 2009 ↩
New York Times, March 11, 2009 ↩
Kuwait News Agency, November 24, 2009 ↩
Pakistan Observer (Islamabad daily), October 19, 2009; The Jamestown Foundation (conservative Washington, DC think tank), "Karzai claims mystery helicopters ferrying Taliban to north Afghanistan", November 6, 2009; Institute for War and Peace Reporting (London), "Helicopter rumour refuses to die", October 26, 2009 ↩
IslamOnline, "US Offers Taliban 6 Provinces for 8 Bases", November 2, 2009↩
Washington Times, October 5, 2009, from a CNN interview ↩
Wall Street Journal, October 13, 2009 ↩
Talk at the Paul H. Nitze School for Advanced International Studies, Washington, DC, September 20, 2007. ↩
Christian Science Monitor, November 17, 2009 ↩
–
William Blum is the author of:
Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War 2
Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower
West-Bloc Dissident: A Cold War Memoir
Freeing the World to Death: Essays on the American Empire
Portions of the books can be read, and signed copies purchased, at http://www.killinghope.org/
Previous Anti-Empire Reports can be read at this website.
To add yourself to this mailing list simply send an email to bblum6 [at] aol.com with "add" in the subject line. I'd like your name and city in the message, but that's optional. I ask for your city only in case I'll be speaking in your area.
(Or put "remove" in the subject line to do the opposite.)
Any part of this report may be disseminated without permission. I'd appreciate it if the website were mentioned.
Like his predecessors in the White House, Obama demonizes the Afghan enemy as "extremists" who act from "irrational" motives, as "bad guys" who only understand military force, and as "an implacable and monolithic enemy." While the focus is on this abstractly characterized and evil force, no attention is paid in White House discourse and little in the press as to why Afghanistan is of interest to US policy- and war-makers. Blum refers to the geo-political and oil-related considerations that make Afghanistan such an important target. And, additionally, the interests in justifying an ever-growing military-industrial complex. Forget the rhetoric on democracy and reconstruction and "freedom." They are all distractions from the real interests. Most of us, here and there, are, unfortunately, lost in these grand schemes.
Bob
-----------------------------------------
The Anti-Empire Report
December 9th, 2009by William Blumhttp://www.killinghope.org/
http://killinghope/org/bblum6/aer76.html
Yeswecanistan
All the crying from the left about how Obama "the peace candidate" has now become "a war president" ... Whatever are they talking about? Here's what I wrote in this report in August 2008, during the election campaign:
We find Obama threatening, several times, to attack Iran if they don't do what the United States wants them to do nuclear-wise; threatening more than once to attack Pakistan if their anti-terrorist policies are not tough enough or if there would be a regime change in the nuclear-armed country not to his liking; calling for a large increase in US troops and tougher policies for Afghanistan; wholly and unequivocally embracing Israel as if it were the 51st state.
Why should anyone be surprised at Obama's foreign policy in the White House? He has not even banned torture, contrary to what his supporters would fervently have us believe. If further evidence were needed, we have the November 28 report in the Washington Post: "Two Afghan teenagers held in U.S. detention north of Kabul this year said they were beaten by American guards, photographed naked, deprived of sleep and held in solitary confinement in concrete cells for at least two weeks while undergoing daily interrogation about their alleged links to the Taliban." This is but the latest example of the continuance of torture under the new administration.
But the shortcomings of Barack Obama and the naiveté of his fans is not the important issue. The important issue is the continuation and escalation of the American war in Afghanistan, based on the myth that the individuals we label "Taliban" are indistinguishable from those who attacked the United States on September 11, 2001, whom we usually label "al Qaeda". "I am convinced," the president said in his speech at the United States Military Academy (West Point) on December 1, "that our security is at stake in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This is the epicenter of violent extremism practiced by al Qaeda. It is from here that we were attacked on 9/11, and it is from here that new attacks are being plotted as I speak."
Obama used one form or another of the word "extremist" eleven times in his half-hour talk. Young, impressionable minds must be carefully taught; a future generation of military leaders who will command America's never-ending wars must have no doubts that the bad guys are "extremists", that "extremists" are by definition bad guys, that "extremists" are beyond the pale and do not act from human, rational motivation like we do, that we — quintessential non-extremists, peace-loving moderates — are the good guys, forced into one war after another against our will. Sending robotic death machines flying over Afghanistan and Pakistan to drop powerful bombs on the top of wedding parties, funerals, and homes is of course not extremist behavior for human beings.
And the bad guys attacked the US "from here", Afghanistan. That's why the United States is "there", Afghanistan. But in fact the 9-11 attack was planned in Germany, Spain and the United States as much as in Afghanistan. It could have been planned in a single small room in Panama City, Taiwan, or Bucharest. What is needed to plot to buy airline tickets and take flying lessons in the United States? And the attack was carried out entirely in the United States. But Barack Obama has to maintain the fiction that Afghanistan was, and is, vital and indispensable to any attack on the United States, past or future. That gives him the right to occupy the country and kill the citizens as he sees fit. Robert Baer, former CIA officer with long involvement in that part of the world has noted: "The people that want their country liberated from the West have nothing to do with Al Qaeda. They simply want us gone because we're foreigners, and they're rallying behind the Taliban because the Taliban are experienced, effective fighters." 1
The pretenses extend further. US leaders have fed the public a certain image of the insurgents (all labeled together under the name "Taliban") and of the conflict to cover the true imperialistic motivation behind the war. The predominant image at the headlines/TV news level and beyond is that of the Taliban as an implacable and monolithic "enemy" which must be militarily defeated at all costs for America's security, with a negotiated settlement or compromise not being an option. However, consider the following which have been reported at various times during the past two years about the actual behavior of the United States and its allies in Afghanistan vis-Ã -vis the Taliban, which can raise questions about Obama's latest escalation: 2
The US military in Afghanistan has long been considering paying Taliban fighters who renounce violence against the government in Kabul, as the United States has done with Iraqi insurgents.
President Obama has floated the idea of negotiating with moderate elements of the Taliban. 3
US envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, said last month that the United States would support any role Saudi Arabia chose to pursue in trying to engage Taliban officials. 4
Canadian troops are reaching out to the Taliban in various ways.
A top European Union official and a United Nations staff member were ordered by the Kabul government to leave the country after allegations that they had met Taliban insurgents without the administration's knowledge. And two senior diplomats for the United Nations were expelled from the country, accused by the Afghan government of unauthorized dealings with insurgents. However, the Afghanistan government itself has had a series of secret talks with "moderate Taliban" since 2003 and President Hamid Karzai has called for peace talks with Taliban leader Mohammed Omar.
Organizations like the International Committee of the Red Cross as well as the United Nations have become increasingly open about their contacts with the Taliban leadership and other insurgent groups.
Gestures of openness are common practice among some of Washington's allies in Afghanistan, notably the Dutch, who make negotiating with the Taliban an explicit part of their military policy.
The German government is officially against negotiations, but some members of the governing coalition have suggested Berlin host talks with the Taliban.
MI-6, Britain's external security service, has held secret talks with the Taliban up to half a dozen times. At the local level, the British cut a deal, appointing a former Taliban leader as a district chief in Helmand province in exchange for security guarantees.
Senior British officers involved with the Afghan mission have confirmed that direct contact with the Taliban has led to insurgents changing sides as well as rivals in the Taliban movement providing intelligence which has led to leaders being killed or captured.
British authorities hold that there are distinct differences between different "tiers" of the Taliban and that it is essential to try to separate the doctrinaire extremists from others who are fighting for money or because they resent the presence of foreign forces in their country.
British contacts with the Taliban have occurred despite British Prime Minister Gordon Brown publicly ruling out such talks; on one occasion he told the House of Commons: "We will not enter into any negotiations with these people."
For months there have been repeated reports of "good Taliban" forces being airlifted by Western helicopters from one part of Afghanistan to another to protect them from Afghan or Pakistani military forces. At an October 11 news conference in Kabul, President Hamid Karzai himself claimed that "some unidentified helicopters dropped armed men in the northern provinces at night." 5
On November 2, IslamOnline.net (Qatar) reported: "The emboldened Taliban movement in Afghanistan turned down an American offer of power-sharing in exchange for accepting the presence of foreign troops, Afghan government sources confirmed. 'US negotiators had offered the Taliban leadership through Mullah Wakil Ahmed Mutawakkil (former Taliban foreign minister) that if they accept the presence of NATO troops in Afghanistan, they would be given the governorship of six provinces in the south and northeast ... America wants eight army and air force bases in different parts of Afghanistan in order to tackle the possible regrouping of [the] Al-Qaeda network,' a senior Afghan Foreign Ministry official told IslamOnline.net." 6
There has been no confirmation of this from American officials, but the New York Times on October 28 listed six provinces that were being considered to receive priority protection from the US military, five of which are amongst the eight mentioned in the IslamOnline report as being planned for US military bases, although no mention is made in the Times of the above-mentioned offer. The next day, Asia Times reported: "The United States has withdrawn its troops from its four key bases in Nuristan [or Nooristan], on the border with Pakistan, leaving the northeastern province as a safe haven for the Taliban-led insurgency to orchestrate its regional battles." Nuristan, where earlier in the month eight US soldiers were killed and three Apache helicopters hit by hostile fire, is one of the six provinces offered to the Taliban as reported in the IslamOnline.net story.
The part about al-Qaeda is ambiguous and questionable, not only because the term has long been loosely used as a catch-all for any group or individual in opposition to US foreign policy in this part of the world, but also because the president's own national security adviser, former Marine Gen. James Jones, stated in early October: "I don't foresee the return of the Taliban. Afghanistan is not in imminent danger of falling. The al-Qaeda presence is very diminished. The maximum estimate is less than 100 operating in the country, no bases, no ability to launch attacks on either us or our allies." 7
Shortly after Jones's remarks, we could read in the Wall Street Journal: "Hunted by U.S. drones, beset by money problems and finding it tougher to lure young Arabs to the bleak mountains of Pakistan, al-Qaida is seeing its role shrink there and in Afghanistan, according to intelligence reports and Pakistan and U.S. officials. ... For Arab youths who are al-Qaida's primary recruits, 'it's not romantic to be cold and hungry and hiding,' said a senior U.S. official in South Asia." 8
From all of the above is it not reasonable to conclude that the United States is willing and able to live with the Taliban, as repulsive as their social philosophy is? Perhaps even a Taliban state which would go across the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, which has been talked about in some quarters. What then is Washington fighting for? What moves the president of the United States to sacrifice so much American blood and treasure? In past years, US leaders have spoken of bringing democracy to Afghanistan, liberating Afghan women, or modernizing a backward country. President Obama made no mention of any of these previous supposed vital goals in his December 1 speech. He spoke only of the attacks of September 11, al Qaeda, the Taliban, terrorists, extremists, and such, symbols guaranteed to fire up an American audience. Yet, the president himself declared at one point: "Al Qaeda has not reemerged in Afghanistan in the same numbers as before 9/11, but they retain their safe havens along the border." Ah yes, the terrorist danger ... always, everywhere, forever, particularly when it seems the weakest.
How many of the West Point cadets, how many Americans, give thought to the fact that Afghanistan is surrounded by the immense oil reserves of the Persian Gulf and Caspian Sea regions? Or that Afghanistan is ideally situated for oil and gas pipelines to serve much of Europe and south Asia, lines that can deliberately bypass non-allies of the empire, Iran and Russia? If only the Taliban will not attack the lines. "One of our goals is to stabilize Afghanistan, so it can become a conduit and a hub between South and Central Asia so that energy can flow to the south ...", said Richard Boucher, Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs in 2007. 9
Afghanistan would also serve as the home of American military bases, the better to watch and pressure next-door Iran and the rest of Eurasia. And NATO ... struggling to find a raison d'être since the end of the Cold War. If the alliance is forced to pull out of Afghanistan without clear accomplishments after eight years will its future be even more in doubt?
So, for the present at least, the American War on Terror in Afghanistan continues and regularly and routinely creates new anti-American terrorists, as it has done in Iraq. This is not in dispute even at the Pentagon or the CIA. God Bless America.
Although the "surge" failed as policy, it succeeded as propaganda.
They don't always use the word "surge", but that's what they mean. Our admirable leaders and our mainstream media that love to interview them would like us to believe that escalation of the war in Afghanistan is in effect a "surge", like the one in Iraq which, they believe, has proven so successful. But the reality of the surge in Iraq was nothing like its promotional campaign. To the extent that there has been a reduction in violence in Iraq (now down to a level that virtually any other society in the world would find horrible and intolerable, including Iraqi society before the US invasion and occupation), we must keep in mind the following summary of how and why it "succeeded":
Thanks to America's lovely little war, there are many millions of Iraqis either dead, wounded, crippled, homebound or otherwise physically limited, internally displaced, in foreign exile, or in bursting American and Iraqi prisons. Many others have been so traumatized that they are concerned simply for their own survival. Thus, a huge number of potential victims and killers has been markedly reduced.
Extensive ethnic cleansing has taken place: Sunnis and Shiites are now living much more than before in their own special enclaves, with entire neighborhoods surrounded by high concrete walls and strict security checkpoints; violence of the sectarian type has accordingly gone down.
In the face of numerous "improvised explosive devices" on the roads, US soldiers venture out a lot less, so the violence against them has been sharply down. It should be kept in mind that insurgent attacks on American forces following the invasion of 2003 is how the Iraqi violence all began in the first place.
For a long period, the US military was paying insurgents (or "former insurgents") to not attack occupation forces.
The powerful Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr declared a unilateral cease-fire for his militia, including attacks against US troops, that was in effect for an extended period; this was totally unconnected to the surge.
We should never forget that Iraqi society has been destroyed. The people of that unhappy land have lost everything — their homes, their schools, their neighborhoods, their mosques, their jobs, their careers, their professionals, their health care, their legal system, their women's rights, their religious tolerance, their security, their friends, their families, their past, their present, their future, their lives. But they do have their surge.
The War against Everything and Everyone, Endlessly
Nidal Malik Hasan, the US Army psychiatrist who killed 13 and wounded some 30 at Fort Hood, Texas in November reportedly regards the US War on Terror as a war aimed at Muslims. He told colleagues that "the US was battling not against security threats in Iraq and Afghanistan, but Islam itself." 10 Hasan had long been in close contact with Anwar al-Awlaki, a US-born cleric and al Qaeda sympathizer now living in Yemen, who also called the US War on Terror a "war against Muslims". Many, probably most, Muslims all over the world hold a similar view about American foreign policy.
I believe they're mistaken. For many years, going back to at least the Korean war, it's been fairly common for accusations to be made by activists opposed to US policies, in the United States and abroad, as well as by Muslims, that the United States chooses as its bombing targets only people of color, those of the Third World, or Muslims. But it must be remembered that in 1999 one of the most sustained and ferocious American bombing campaigns ever — 78 days in a row — was carried out against the Serbs of the former Yugoslavia: white, European, Christians. Indeed, we were told that the bombing was to rescue the people of Kosovo, who are largely Muslim. Earlier, the United States had come to the aid of the Muslims of Bosnia in their struggle against the Serbs. The United States is in fact an equal-opportunity bomber. The only qualifications for a country to become an American bombing target appear to be: (a) It poses a sufficient obstacle — real, imagined, or, as with Serbia, ideological — to the desires of the empire; (b) It is virtually defenseless against aerial attack.
Notes
Video on Information Clearinghouse ↩
For the news items which follow if not otherwise sourced, see:
The Independent (London), December 14, 2007
Daily Telegraph (UK) December 26, 2007
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) May 1, 2008
BBC News, October 28, 2009 ↩
New York Times, March 11, 2009 ↩
Kuwait News Agency, November 24, 2009 ↩
Pakistan Observer (Islamabad daily), October 19, 2009; The Jamestown Foundation (conservative Washington, DC think tank), "Karzai claims mystery helicopters ferrying Taliban to north Afghanistan", November 6, 2009; Institute for War and Peace Reporting (London), "Helicopter rumour refuses to die", October 26, 2009 ↩
IslamOnline, "US Offers Taliban 6 Provinces for 8 Bases", November 2, 2009↩
Washington Times, October 5, 2009, from a CNN interview ↩
Wall Street Journal, October 13, 2009 ↩
Talk at the Paul H. Nitze School for Advanced International Studies, Washington, DC, September 20, 2007. ↩
Christian Science Monitor, November 17, 2009 ↩
–
William Blum is the author of:
Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War 2
Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower
West-Bloc Dissident: A Cold War Memoir
Freeing the World to Death: Essays on the American Empire
Portions of the books can be read, and signed copies purchased, at http://www.killinghope.org/
Previous Anti-Empire Reports can be read at this website.
To add yourself to this mailing list simply send an email to bblum6 [at] aol.com with "add" in the subject line. I'd like your name and city in the message, but that's optional. I ask for your city only in case I'll be speaking in your area.
(Or put "remove" in the subject line to do the opposite.)
Any part of this report may be disseminated without permission. I'd appreciate it if the website were mentioned.
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Thousands of Afghans flee Marja in anticiption of US/UK attack
Jon Boone reports for the Guardian newspaper that tens of thousands of Afghan civilians are fleeing their homes in Marja in fear of an anticipated UK/US military attack. The attack is aimed at dislodging 1,700 or so Taliban fighters who are believed to be there. Note that there are no references in the article on preparations for temporary living arrangements or support services for the refugees. Apparently, the people of Marja have two choices. Stay in their homes and risk being killed in the upcoming battle. Or run for their lives, hoping that living is better than dying. In either case, if they survive, they may be left with devastated communities and homes.
The assault on Marja is based on the US counterinsurgency plan, the first phase of which is to secure an area. In this case, it is to drive out the Taliban. If the Taliban resist, there may not be much left for the Afghan residents who return. The second phase of counterinsurgency is to keep the Taliban from returning to the area. This remains to be seen. The third phase is to usher in rebuilding or development projects. In Marja, if there is a battle, a big rebuilding project may be required just to remove the rubble and get back to square one. Another question: Since this is a major drug producing and trafficking location, what are the plans to deal with this matter?
Bob
---------------------------------
Published on Saturday, February 6, 2010 by The Guardian/UK - reprinted by CommonDreams.org. (See URL at the end of the article.)
Thousands of Civilians Flee Afghan Region as Nato Plans Onslaught
Evacuation of most civilians will give commanders leeway to use air-to-ground missiles which have enraged Afghans
by Jon Boone
KABUL - Ten of thousands of Afghan civilians are abandoning an area of central Helmland where UK and US forces are set to launch one of the biggest operations of the year.
British troops during a firefight with Taliban forces in Helmand. Photograph: Major Paul Smyth/PA/MoDThe evacuation of most civilians from the town of Marjah and surrounding areas will give commanders greater leeway to use mortars-and-air-to ground missiles which have enraged Afghans in the past when responsible for civilian deaths.
US generals have unusually made no secret of their plan for a major onslaught against the town close to Helmand's besieged provincial capital, Lashkar Gah.
Larry Nicholson, commander of the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force which will spearhead the fight, has said he is "not looking for a fair fight".
Marjah is regarded as a stronghold of both Taliban insurgents and drug trafficking networks which must be removed to "protect" the people who live there. But so far the warnings have only had the effect of encouraging civilians to flee.
Abdul Salam, who has an extended family of 14 in the Marjah area, said his village looked almost deserted as most of its families had left for the cities of Lashkar Gah, Kandahar and Herat.
"They just picked up their jewellery and other small valuables and left everything behind," he said.
However, some civilians had remained because they could not afford to leave.
"People know they cannot protect everything, and they are more concerned about saving their lives than their houses. The people cannot protect their country from the infidels, so how can we protect our houses?"
The counterinsurgency plan pushed by Stanley McChrystal, the US commander of all Nato forces in Afghanistan, aims not to alienate the population. But a Marjah resident, an elder reached by phone, who was not prepared to give his name, said he had evacuated his family a week ago because he feared "the worst attack ever".
"Always when they storm a village the foreign troops never care about civilian casualties at all. And at the end of the day they report the deaths of women and children as the deaths of Taliban," he said.
A spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force, as the Nato troops are known, said that the main reason for publicity for the operation was to encourage insurgents to leave, but if civilians were also encouraged to evacuate that would be "helpful".
Most of the extra 30,000 US troops earmarked for the Afghan campaign will support Nato efforts in areas where the alliance has a presence, in a bid to keep insurgents out of villages. The battle for Marjah will therefore be a relatively rare push into an area not yet cleared of insurgents.
It is regarded as particularly important because an estimated 100,000 people live in the area - a relatively dense population for a largely desert province dotted with rural communities.
Marjah is also on the south-western doorstep of Lashkar Gah, home to the headquarters of the British military and civilian efforts in the province.
The fraught security in Lashkar Gah was highlighted yesterday when a motorbike packed with explosives detonated close to a crowd gathered on the city outskirts to watch a dog fight; it killed at least three people and injured at least 26, including seven children.
© Guardian News and Media Limited 2010
Article printed from www.CommonDreams.org
URL to article: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/02/06-0
The assault on Marja is based on the US counterinsurgency plan, the first phase of which is to secure an area. In this case, it is to drive out the Taliban. If the Taliban resist, there may not be much left for the Afghan residents who return. The second phase of counterinsurgency is to keep the Taliban from returning to the area. This remains to be seen. The third phase is to usher in rebuilding or development projects. In Marja, if there is a battle, a big rebuilding project may be required just to remove the rubble and get back to square one. Another question: Since this is a major drug producing and trafficking location, what are the plans to deal with this matter?
Bob
---------------------------------
Published on Saturday, February 6, 2010 by The Guardian/UK - reprinted by CommonDreams.org. (See URL at the end of the article.)
Thousands of Civilians Flee Afghan Region as Nato Plans Onslaught
Evacuation of most civilians will give commanders leeway to use air-to-ground missiles which have enraged Afghans
by Jon Boone
KABUL - Ten of thousands of Afghan civilians are abandoning an area of central Helmland where UK and US forces are set to launch one of the biggest operations of the year.
British troops during a firefight with Taliban forces in Helmand. Photograph: Major Paul Smyth/PA/MoDThe evacuation of most civilians from the town of Marjah and surrounding areas will give commanders greater leeway to use mortars-and-air-to ground missiles which have enraged Afghans in the past when responsible for civilian deaths.
US generals have unusually made no secret of their plan for a major onslaught against the town close to Helmand's besieged provincial capital, Lashkar Gah.
Larry Nicholson, commander of the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force which will spearhead the fight, has said he is "not looking for a fair fight".
Marjah is regarded as a stronghold of both Taliban insurgents and drug trafficking networks which must be removed to "protect" the people who live there. But so far the warnings have only had the effect of encouraging civilians to flee.
Abdul Salam, who has an extended family of 14 in the Marjah area, said his village looked almost deserted as most of its families had left for the cities of Lashkar Gah, Kandahar and Herat.
"They just picked up their jewellery and other small valuables and left everything behind," he said.
However, some civilians had remained because they could not afford to leave.
"People know they cannot protect everything, and they are more concerned about saving their lives than their houses. The people cannot protect their country from the infidels, so how can we protect our houses?"
The counterinsurgency plan pushed by Stanley McChrystal, the US commander of all Nato forces in Afghanistan, aims not to alienate the population. But a Marjah resident, an elder reached by phone, who was not prepared to give his name, said he had evacuated his family a week ago because he feared "the worst attack ever".
"Always when they storm a village the foreign troops never care about civilian casualties at all. And at the end of the day they report the deaths of women and children as the deaths of Taliban," he said.
A spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force, as the Nato troops are known, said that the main reason for publicity for the operation was to encourage insurgents to leave, but if civilians were also encouraged to evacuate that would be "helpful".
Most of the extra 30,000 US troops earmarked for the Afghan campaign will support Nato efforts in areas where the alliance has a presence, in a bid to keep insurgents out of villages. The battle for Marjah will therefore be a relatively rare push into an area not yet cleared of insurgents.
It is regarded as particularly important because an estimated 100,000 people live in the area - a relatively dense population for a largely desert province dotted with rural communities.
Marjah is also on the south-western doorstep of Lashkar Gah, home to the headquarters of the British military and civilian efforts in the province.
The fraught security in Lashkar Gah was highlighted yesterday when a motorbike packed with explosives detonated close to a crowd gathered on the city outskirts to watch a dog fight; it killed at least three people and injured at least 26, including seven children.
© Guardian News and Media Limited 2010
Article printed from www.CommonDreams.org
URL to article: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/02/06-0
Friday, February 5, 2010
Tribal power dynamics may have changed to weaken roles of traditional Afghan tribal leaders
Thomas L. Day's report for McClatchy Newspapers raises a few questions. (See the report after my comments.) (Also see the sources at the end of Day's article.)
First, the report identifies the oultines of the Afghan tribal structure. He tells us that there are 5 super tribes, with 350 or so sub-tribes variously embedded in them. And, further, there are clans that criss-cross the tribes. However, this description may imply that traditional tribal leaders at the various levels of the tribal structure have power. This idea is challenged by Antonio Giustozzi's analysis in his book, Koran, Kalashnikov, and Laptop: The Neo-Taliban Insurgency in Afghanistan. On page 40, Giustozzi writes the following.
"In Afghanistan the legitimacy of tribal and village elders was weakened by the war and by the emergence of armed strongmen who often tried to replace the elders, without entirely succeeding. Moreover, the youth who grew up in the Pakistani refugee camps were much less likely to be respectful of the tribal elders. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the disruption caused by Afghan militias, police and foreign troops contributed to further weaken tribal and local elders. At the same time the difficulty of the tribal system (where it still exists) or of the rural economy to cope with war, post-war, large scale-migration and resettlement, together with the uncertainty about the medium- and long-term future, led many families to see a diversifcation of their sources and influence. Hence an increase in the number of children sent to Pakistani religious madreas to become mullahs or to the cities to seek employment, both cases contributing to further weaken the influence of the elders over the youth."
If Guistozzi's analysis is valid, then the US military counterinsurgency strategy, including a focus on winning the support of tribal leaders, tribe or sub-tribe by tribe or sub-tribe, may be based on mistaken assumptions about tribal power arrangements.
Second, it remains questionable as to whether the US occupation/surge forces have the cultural and linguistic resources to establish meaningful relations with whomever holds power.
Third, the US-led occupation itself may contribute to undermining whatever legitimacy traditional tribal leaders and elders have had or to any tribal groups that cooperate with the occupation. Rather than strengthening anti-Taliban and rogue or dissenting groups, the occupation may strengthen them.
Fourth, where are the mullahs in all this?
Bob
-------------------------------
McClatchy Washington Bureau
Posted on Thu, Feb. 04, 2010 - http://www.mcclatchydc.com/world/v-print/story/83712.html
U.S. plan to win Afghanistan tribe by tribe is risky
Thomas L. Day McClatchy Newspapers
last updated: February 04, 2010 03:49:06 PM
PAKTIA PROVINCE, Afghanistan — U.S. officials put a lot of hope last year in Haji Rashid, an up-and-coming community leader in the Zormat district of Afghanistan's Paktia province. They considered Rashid a unifying figure who was capable of bringing together about a dozen tribes in the area to work in support of the American-backed Afghan government.
Their hopes collapsed, however, when Rashid was kidnapped, tortured, mutilated and murdered and his groundwork to broker the support of the tribes in Zormat quickly foundered.
Military officials aren't sure who killed Rashid, but their suspicions point to the Taliban. "It's to their benefit to have instability," said Lt. Col. Matthew Smith, a Georgia Army National Guard officer and the commander of about 1,000 U.S. troops in Paktia province.
Rashid's murder illustrates one of the obstacles that American officials and military commanders face as they try to persuade tribal leaders to cooperate with U.S. troops and with one another against the Taliban. Afghanistan's historically weak central governments have shared power with the country's five so-called "super-tribes" and the tribes that compose them, with 350 or so sub-tribes and with local clans, and most of the country's would-be conquerors — including the British and the Soviets — have employed their own tribal strategies.
Now American officials are attending tribal meetings, staying in close touch with tribal leaders and trying to determine which leaders are friendly and which aren't.
In Zormat, U.S. and Afghan officials have turned to tribal leaders as a channel of communication with several small Taliban networks in the region, networks they think could be persuaded to join a peaceful political process. American commanders declined to identify the Taliban commanders with whom they've been communicating.
Those efforts, however, risk feeding traditional tribal rivalries, to the detriment of any plan to undercut the Taliban.
"If you are seen as favoring one tribe over another, you are seen as an enemy to them," said 1st Sgt. Troy Arrowsmith of Odgen, Utah, the top enlisted soldier on the Paktia Provisional Reconstruction Team, a cooperative of about 100 troops and civilians from multiple U.S. agencies.
Unhappy tribes don't have to look far to find outside support.
"In Zormat, the tribes are fractured, and the Taliban are a part of those tribes," Arrowsmith said. "They live with them. They have families there."
American commanders in Paktia keep maps of the province, closely demarcating the tribal areas.
Rivalries among tribes, sub-tribes and families aren't confined to Zormat.
In Paktia's northeast, there's a long-standing animus between the Turi, a Shiite Muslim tribe that extends into Pakistan, and the Bushara, a Sunni Muslim tribe. U.S. officials think the tribes have been at odds over territorial boundaries for about 60 years.
The Bushara "claim that they won't allow them to move freely; the Turi claim that they get threatened when go to Gardez," said Genevieve Libonati, a State Department official who's assigned to Paktia.
The chaotic nature of tribal relations was on display on a recent Sunday, when a panoply of American military, diplomatic and Department of Agriculture officials joined about 100 government and tribal leaders from the region for a "shura," or meeting, near the Pakistani border.
After introductions, no U.S. officials spoke during the shura. They only listened.
What they heard was a cacophony of complaints. As emotions rose, any formalities guiding the shura were quickly abandoned. The only common issue among the tribal leaders involved the failings of the American occupiers.
"I'm glad the PRT commander is here," one Afghan participant told the other tribal leaders, referring to Lt. Col. Carlos Halcomb. "They were going to build a hospital in our district, and it hasn't been provided yet."
The comment brought an uproar of support and dissent.
"If we don't have good security in the area, we're not going to be able to finish the projects," retorted Abdul Rahman Mangal, the deputy governor of Paktia.
For several hours, tribal leaders shouted their concerns, with no one attempting to regulate who had the floor. One continued a harangue even after he'd left the lectern, directly in front of the provincial deputy governor and the U.S. officials seated in the back of the room.
Finally, the local director of the Afghan Intelligence Service approached the lectern and calmly delivered a clear message to the tribal chiefs: "Don't assist (the Taliban). Don't let them stay in your home overnight. Don't give them food. Just tell them to leave."
Turning away the Taliban isn't easy, though, particularly in areas that Taliban fighters call home. American officials think the Taliban even have infiltrated some local political meetings — denouncing the U.S. occupation — and threatened other tribal leaders who attend these shuras.
"Have I been to a shura where there was Taliban infiltration? I'm pretty sure I have," said 1st Lt. Luis Alberto Moreno, a U.S. civil affairs officer who specializes in tribal relations in the border region.
(Day reports for The Telegraph in Macon, Ga.)
ON THE WEB
"A Tribal Strategy for Afghanistan," from the Council on Foreign Relations
"One Tribe at a Time: A Strategy for Success in Afghanistan"
MORE FROM MCCLATCHY
New Afghan initiative: Convince insurgents to switch sides
U.S. turns to Afghan farmers to uproot insurgency
U.S. troops rely on Afghan police while trying to train them
Few see reason to take rumors of Taliban talks seriously
New U.S. air strategy in Afghanistan: First, do no harm
Afghan legislators hold tentative peace talks with insurgents
Follow Afghanistan news at McClatchy's Checkpoint Kabul
McClatchy Newspapers 2010
First, the report identifies the oultines of the Afghan tribal structure. He tells us that there are 5 super tribes, with 350 or so sub-tribes variously embedded in them. And, further, there are clans that criss-cross the tribes. However, this description may imply that traditional tribal leaders at the various levels of the tribal structure have power. This idea is challenged by Antonio Giustozzi's analysis in his book, Koran, Kalashnikov, and Laptop: The Neo-Taliban Insurgency in Afghanistan. On page 40, Giustozzi writes the following.
"In Afghanistan the legitimacy of tribal and village elders was weakened by the war and by the emergence of armed strongmen who often tried to replace the elders, without entirely succeeding. Moreover, the youth who grew up in the Pakistani refugee camps were much less likely to be respectful of the tribal elders. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the disruption caused by Afghan militias, police and foreign troops contributed to further weaken tribal and local elders. At the same time the difficulty of the tribal system (where it still exists) or of the rural economy to cope with war, post-war, large scale-migration and resettlement, together with the uncertainty about the medium- and long-term future, led many families to see a diversifcation of their sources and influence. Hence an increase in the number of children sent to Pakistani religious madreas to become mullahs or to the cities to seek employment, both cases contributing to further weaken the influence of the elders over the youth."
If Guistozzi's analysis is valid, then the US military counterinsurgency strategy, including a focus on winning the support of tribal leaders, tribe or sub-tribe by tribe or sub-tribe, may be based on mistaken assumptions about tribal power arrangements.
Second, it remains questionable as to whether the US occupation/surge forces have the cultural and linguistic resources to establish meaningful relations with whomever holds power.
Third, the US-led occupation itself may contribute to undermining whatever legitimacy traditional tribal leaders and elders have had or to any tribal groups that cooperate with the occupation. Rather than strengthening anti-Taliban and rogue or dissenting groups, the occupation may strengthen them.
Fourth, where are the mullahs in all this?
Bob
-------------------------------
McClatchy Washington Bureau
Posted on Thu, Feb. 04, 2010 - http://www.mcclatchydc.com/world/v-print/story/83712.html
U.S. plan to win Afghanistan tribe by tribe is risky
Thomas L. Day McClatchy Newspapers
last updated: February 04, 2010 03:49:06 PM
PAKTIA PROVINCE, Afghanistan — U.S. officials put a lot of hope last year in Haji Rashid, an up-and-coming community leader in the Zormat district of Afghanistan's Paktia province. They considered Rashid a unifying figure who was capable of bringing together about a dozen tribes in the area to work in support of the American-backed Afghan government.
Their hopes collapsed, however, when Rashid was kidnapped, tortured, mutilated and murdered and his groundwork to broker the support of the tribes in Zormat quickly foundered.
Military officials aren't sure who killed Rashid, but their suspicions point to the Taliban. "It's to their benefit to have instability," said Lt. Col. Matthew Smith, a Georgia Army National Guard officer and the commander of about 1,000 U.S. troops in Paktia province.
Rashid's murder illustrates one of the obstacles that American officials and military commanders face as they try to persuade tribal leaders to cooperate with U.S. troops and with one another against the Taliban. Afghanistan's historically weak central governments have shared power with the country's five so-called "super-tribes" and the tribes that compose them, with 350 or so sub-tribes and with local clans, and most of the country's would-be conquerors — including the British and the Soviets — have employed their own tribal strategies.
Now American officials are attending tribal meetings, staying in close touch with tribal leaders and trying to determine which leaders are friendly and which aren't.
In Zormat, U.S. and Afghan officials have turned to tribal leaders as a channel of communication with several small Taliban networks in the region, networks they think could be persuaded to join a peaceful political process. American commanders declined to identify the Taliban commanders with whom they've been communicating.
Those efforts, however, risk feeding traditional tribal rivalries, to the detriment of any plan to undercut the Taliban.
"If you are seen as favoring one tribe over another, you are seen as an enemy to them," said 1st Sgt. Troy Arrowsmith of Odgen, Utah, the top enlisted soldier on the Paktia Provisional Reconstruction Team, a cooperative of about 100 troops and civilians from multiple U.S. agencies.
Unhappy tribes don't have to look far to find outside support.
"In Zormat, the tribes are fractured, and the Taliban are a part of those tribes," Arrowsmith said. "They live with them. They have families there."
American commanders in Paktia keep maps of the province, closely demarcating the tribal areas.
Rivalries among tribes, sub-tribes and families aren't confined to Zormat.
In Paktia's northeast, there's a long-standing animus between the Turi, a Shiite Muslim tribe that extends into Pakistan, and the Bushara, a Sunni Muslim tribe. U.S. officials think the tribes have been at odds over territorial boundaries for about 60 years.
The Bushara "claim that they won't allow them to move freely; the Turi claim that they get threatened when go to Gardez," said Genevieve Libonati, a State Department official who's assigned to Paktia.
The chaotic nature of tribal relations was on display on a recent Sunday, when a panoply of American military, diplomatic and Department of Agriculture officials joined about 100 government and tribal leaders from the region for a "shura," or meeting, near the Pakistani border.
After introductions, no U.S. officials spoke during the shura. They only listened.
What they heard was a cacophony of complaints. As emotions rose, any formalities guiding the shura were quickly abandoned. The only common issue among the tribal leaders involved the failings of the American occupiers.
"I'm glad the PRT commander is here," one Afghan participant told the other tribal leaders, referring to Lt. Col. Carlos Halcomb. "They were going to build a hospital in our district, and it hasn't been provided yet."
The comment brought an uproar of support and dissent.
"If we don't have good security in the area, we're not going to be able to finish the projects," retorted Abdul Rahman Mangal, the deputy governor of Paktia.
For several hours, tribal leaders shouted their concerns, with no one attempting to regulate who had the floor. One continued a harangue even after he'd left the lectern, directly in front of the provincial deputy governor and the U.S. officials seated in the back of the room.
Finally, the local director of the Afghan Intelligence Service approached the lectern and calmly delivered a clear message to the tribal chiefs: "Don't assist (the Taliban). Don't let them stay in your home overnight. Don't give them food. Just tell them to leave."
Turning away the Taliban isn't easy, though, particularly in areas that Taliban fighters call home. American officials think the Taliban even have infiltrated some local political meetings — denouncing the U.S. occupation — and threatened other tribal leaders who attend these shuras.
"Have I been to a shura where there was Taliban infiltration? I'm pretty sure I have," said 1st Lt. Luis Alberto Moreno, a U.S. civil affairs officer who specializes in tribal relations in the border region.
(Day reports for The Telegraph in Macon, Ga.)
ON THE WEB
"A Tribal Strategy for Afghanistan," from the Council on Foreign Relations
"One Tribe at a Time: A Strategy for Success in Afghanistan"
MORE FROM MCCLATCHY
New Afghan initiative: Convince insurgents to switch sides
U.S. turns to Afghan farmers to uproot insurgency
U.S. troops rely on Afghan police while trying to train them
Few see reason to take rumors of Taliban talks seriously
New U.S. air strategy in Afghanistan: First, do no harm
Afghan legislators hold tentative peace talks with insurgents
Follow Afghanistan news at McClatchy's Checkpoint Kabul
McClatchy Newspapers 2010
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Major military offensive in Helmand provice - the effects?
A major test of President Obama’s “surge” policy in Afghanistan is in the offing. The surge, already underway in Helmand province, will add 30,000 additional US troops in Afghanistan, raising the total US troop level to about 100,000. This does not include the additional private contractors who will provide services for the new troops. The principal mission of the additional force, combined with Afghan soldiers and NATO allies, is to find and eliminate the Taliban from areas they control and take measures to keep these areas from falling back into the hands of the Taliban. Once these goals are achieved, so the theory goes, reconstruction and economic development can begin. These are all of the elements of the counterinsurgency strategy that has been adopted by the US generals in Afghanistan and endorsed by the Obama administration.
As reported by Rod Norland in an article for the New York Times today (Feb. 4th), “NATO and the Afghan army are about to launch their biggest joint offensive of the war….” Tony Perry reports for the Los Angeles Times on February 3rd that “US Marines and the Afghan army plan a major assault on Taliban fighters in Marja, the last main community under the militants’ control in what had been a largely lawless [Taliban-controlled] area of the Helmand River Valley….”
According to Wikipedia, “Marjah is a town in the province of Helmand…south-west of the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah.” Helmand itself is in the southern part of Afghanistan. We also learn that Marja has a population of 85,000 and that there are 1,700 [or so] insurgents in the town.
The Pakistan newspaper, The Nation, reports in its February 4th online issue that “Col. George ‘Slam’ Amland says that the offensive is be a showpiece of the ‘clear, hold, build and transition’ counterinsurgency strategy, in which Taliban fighters are forced out of a region and then a ‘civilian surge’ begins to rebuild war-ravaged community and bolster confidence of Afghan villagers in their provincial and national governments.”
The upcoming attack has been publicized in the hope that the Taliban insurgents in Marja will withdraw without a fight. Nordland’s writes in his New York Times report: “The deliberate publicizing of the offensive – with news conferences, press releases and public pronouncements – is relatively unusual for the military.”
All of this reporting leaves us with serious questions.
If the Taliban fighters leave the city before the US-led offensive begins and the US military can ascertain that they have left, then perhaps Marja and its citizens will be spared the devastation and death that accompanies military battles. But if the US forces face resistance or assume there will be resistance, then the city and its citizens may suffer massive damage. The destruction in 2004 of Fallujah in Iraq is an example of how a city can be laid to waste.
It is also not clear whether the citizens of Marja know about the looming assault. Will they be spared the destruction of an attack or not? Will they flee the city, becoming refugees? Withal, there appears to be no planning for the disruption and harm that may afflict them. The Israelis dropped leaflets in Gaza right before they bombed the strip, but there were no safe places for the Gazans to go.
In his report in the Los Angeles Times, Tony Perry refers to Col. Amland’s optimistic scenario:
“Though the military part of the Marja operation is the most dramatic, the role of US civilian employees, including those from the US Agency for International Development and the Agriculture Department will be even more significant, Amland said. The Afghan government is ready to install local officials to begin reopening schools and clinics and polling residents about what they want their government to do.”
Four points. First, to be more consistent with the evidence, 80% or more of the money spent on the Afghan war – and the Iraq war - has gone to support warfare, not reconstruction and economic development. What such wars do produce are refugees and casualties and more hatred toward the occupiers. Second, the Karzai government has been corrupt and ineffective. Third, insurgents are mobile - and they can withdraw to safer areas and still do harm to occupying forces and unprotected civilian populations. Fourth warlords dominate many of the towns and villages that have long been outside of Taliban control. What about them?
As reported by Rod Norland in an article for the New York Times today (Feb. 4th), “NATO and the Afghan army are about to launch their biggest joint offensive of the war….” Tony Perry reports for the Los Angeles Times on February 3rd that “US Marines and the Afghan army plan a major assault on Taliban fighters in Marja, the last main community under the militants’ control in what had been a largely lawless [Taliban-controlled] area of the Helmand River Valley….”
According to Wikipedia, “Marjah is a town in the province of Helmand…south-west of the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah.” Helmand itself is in the southern part of Afghanistan. We also learn that Marja has a population of 85,000 and that there are 1,700 [or so] insurgents in the town.
The Pakistan newspaper, The Nation, reports in its February 4th online issue that “Col. George ‘Slam’ Amland says that the offensive is be a showpiece of the ‘clear, hold, build and transition’ counterinsurgency strategy, in which Taliban fighters are forced out of a region and then a ‘civilian surge’ begins to rebuild war-ravaged community and bolster confidence of Afghan villagers in their provincial and national governments.”
The upcoming attack has been publicized in the hope that the Taliban insurgents in Marja will withdraw without a fight. Nordland’s writes in his New York Times report: “The deliberate publicizing of the offensive – with news conferences, press releases and public pronouncements – is relatively unusual for the military.”
All of this reporting leaves us with serious questions.
If the Taliban fighters leave the city before the US-led offensive begins and the US military can ascertain that they have left, then perhaps Marja and its citizens will be spared the devastation and death that accompanies military battles. But if the US forces face resistance or assume there will be resistance, then the city and its citizens may suffer massive damage. The destruction in 2004 of Fallujah in Iraq is an example of how a city can be laid to waste.
It is also not clear whether the citizens of Marja know about the looming assault. Will they be spared the destruction of an attack or not? Will they flee the city, becoming refugees? Withal, there appears to be no planning for the disruption and harm that may afflict them. The Israelis dropped leaflets in Gaza right before they bombed the strip, but there were no safe places for the Gazans to go.
In his report in the Los Angeles Times, Tony Perry refers to Col. Amland’s optimistic scenario:
“Though the military part of the Marja operation is the most dramatic, the role of US civilian employees, including those from the US Agency for International Development and the Agriculture Department will be even more significant, Amland said. The Afghan government is ready to install local officials to begin reopening schools and clinics and polling residents about what they want their government to do.”
Four points. First, to be more consistent with the evidence, 80% or more of the money spent on the Afghan war – and the Iraq war - has gone to support warfare, not reconstruction and economic development. What such wars do produce are refugees and casualties and more hatred toward the occupiers. Second, the Karzai government has been corrupt and ineffective. Third, insurgents are mobile - and they can withdraw to safer areas and still do harm to occupying forces and unprotected civilian populations. Fourth warlords dominate many of the towns and villages that have long been outside of Taliban control. What about them?
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Secret American detention facilities in Afghanistan raise questions about legality and abuse
The following information comes from one of the featured interviews on Democracy Now’s program, February 2, 2010. I refer below to some parts of the interview. The full interview can be found at: http://www.democracynow.org/2010/2/2/americas_secret_afghan_prisons_investigation_unearths
The interview revolves around new evidence on “America’s Secret Afghan Prisons.” Host Amy Goodman interviews Anand Gopal, a “journalist who has reported from Afghanistan for the Christian Science Monitor and The Wall Street Journal,” and Scott Horton, “attorney specializing in international law and human rights and a contributing editor of Harper’s Magazine, where he writes the blog No Comment.” Gopal’s “latest article is titled “America’s Secret Afghan Prisons” and appears in the February 15th edition of The Nation magazine.
Goodman introduces the interview with Gopal as follows.
AMY GOODMAN: A major UN report on secret detention policies around the world concludes the practice could reach the threshold of a crime against humanity. An advance unedited version of the report was published last week and will be presented to the UN Human Rights Council in March. The report examines the vast network of secret prisons connected to the so-called global war on terror.
Well, a new investigation by journalist Anand Gopal reveals some harrowing details about America’s secret prisons in Afghanistan, under both the Bush and Obama administrations. What emerges is a world that goes far beyond the main prison in Bagram and includes disappearances, night raids, hidden detention centers and torture. Gopal interviewed Afghans who were detained and abused at several disclosed and undisclosed sites at US and Afghan military bases across the country. He also reveals the existence of another secret prison on Bagram Air Base that even the Red Cross doesn’t have access to. It’s dubbed the Black Jail and reportedly is run by US Special Forces....
Anand, welcome to Democracy Now! Lay out your findings.
ANAND GOPAL: Well, there’s a vast complex network of prisons across Afghanistan, mostly situated on US military bases. There’s at least nine of them that we know about. These are small holding centers that people are taken to and interrogated. And then there’s also the main prison at Bagram.
In addition to that, there’s even more secretive prisons, some of which we don’t even know about, some of which we only have glimpses of. One is, as you mentioned, the Black Jail, which is also on Bagram and is run by US Special Forces. There’s also other prisons that are on other bases, for example, Afghan army bases and Afghan police bases.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about where you begin your piece, in the eastern Afghan town of Khost? Talk about the young government employee who simply disappeared.
ANAND GOPAL: Well, there was a young government employee there who one day merely simply vanished, and his family members did everything they could over the course of months to try to find out what happened to him. They appealed to government officials. They asked the Taliban. They asked the US military. And nobody had any idea what had happened to him. And months later, they got—received a letter from the Red Cross informing them that their loved one had been taken to Bagram. And he didn’t know why he was taken or how long he was going to be held.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about these night raids where people are picked up and the effect they’re having on the Afghan population.
ANAND GOPAL: Night raids are US military operations, usually done by Special Forces, that happen at night. They occur when US forces enter people’s homes in the middle of the night, often to find suspects or to look for weapons. Very often, they’ll take people away, and sometimes they even end up killing civilians in the process.
And one thing I found going throughout the country and interviewing people is that these night raids, which aren’t really talked about outside of Afghanistan, the night raids are the most unpopular actions of coalition forces, more so than air strikes that kill civilians. They’re seen as a major affront to local culture, to the extent where people are actually scared in many places to actually go to sleep at night, because they don’t know who will burst through the door at night and take away their loved ones....
Gopal provides more important details on how the American Special Forces are sometimes very abusive in the ways they capture people, sometimes Afghans are killed, imprisoned in secret detention facilities, abused (if not tortured) - and all of this occurs outside the purview of the US military, US government officials, and typically the media. Here Goodman turns to her other guest, Scott Horton.
SCOTT HORTON: Well, these are—these acts that are described, particularly things like the water cure or the use of stress positions, sleep deprivation, are clearly illegal. Not only that, the Department of Defense has issued a field manual on authorized interrogation techniques, under which these practices, also things like the use of dogs to intimidate prisoners, are clearly forbidden.
And the concern here, I think, goes particularly to the involvement of the Joint Special Operations Command, which is running these detention centers. Now, when President Obama, on January 22nd, issued an executive order shutting down the black sites, the secret prisons, that order was very carefully tailored so that it was only CIA black sites that were closed....
The interview revolves around new evidence on “America’s Secret Afghan Prisons.” Host Amy Goodman interviews Anand Gopal, a “journalist who has reported from Afghanistan for the Christian Science Monitor and The Wall Street Journal,” and Scott Horton, “attorney specializing in international law and human rights and a contributing editor of Harper’s Magazine, where he writes the blog No Comment.” Gopal’s “latest article is titled “America’s Secret Afghan Prisons” and appears in the February 15th edition of The Nation magazine.
Goodman introduces the interview with Gopal as follows.
AMY GOODMAN: A major UN report on secret detention policies around the world concludes the practice could reach the threshold of a crime against humanity. An advance unedited version of the report was published last week and will be presented to the UN Human Rights Council in March. The report examines the vast network of secret prisons connected to the so-called global war on terror.
Well, a new investigation by journalist Anand Gopal reveals some harrowing details about America’s secret prisons in Afghanistan, under both the Bush and Obama administrations. What emerges is a world that goes far beyond the main prison in Bagram and includes disappearances, night raids, hidden detention centers and torture. Gopal interviewed Afghans who were detained and abused at several disclosed and undisclosed sites at US and Afghan military bases across the country. He also reveals the existence of another secret prison on Bagram Air Base that even the Red Cross doesn’t have access to. It’s dubbed the Black Jail and reportedly is run by US Special Forces....
Anand, welcome to Democracy Now! Lay out your findings.
ANAND GOPAL: Well, there’s a vast complex network of prisons across Afghanistan, mostly situated on US military bases. There’s at least nine of them that we know about. These are small holding centers that people are taken to and interrogated. And then there’s also the main prison at Bagram.
In addition to that, there’s even more secretive prisons, some of which we don’t even know about, some of which we only have glimpses of. One is, as you mentioned, the Black Jail, which is also on Bagram and is run by US Special Forces. There’s also other prisons that are on other bases, for example, Afghan army bases and Afghan police bases.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about where you begin your piece, in the eastern Afghan town of Khost? Talk about the young government employee who simply disappeared.
ANAND GOPAL: Well, there was a young government employee there who one day merely simply vanished, and his family members did everything they could over the course of months to try to find out what happened to him. They appealed to government officials. They asked the Taliban. They asked the US military. And nobody had any idea what had happened to him. And months later, they got—received a letter from the Red Cross informing them that their loved one had been taken to Bagram. And he didn’t know why he was taken or how long he was going to be held.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about these night raids where people are picked up and the effect they’re having on the Afghan population.
ANAND GOPAL: Night raids are US military operations, usually done by Special Forces, that happen at night. They occur when US forces enter people’s homes in the middle of the night, often to find suspects or to look for weapons. Very often, they’ll take people away, and sometimes they even end up killing civilians in the process.
And one thing I found going throughout the country and interviewing people is that these night raids, which aren’t really talked about outside of Afghanistan, the night raids are the most unpopular actions of coalition forces, more so than air strikes that kill civilians. They’re seen as a major affront to local culture, to the extent where people are actually scared in many places to actually go to sleep at night, because they don’t know who will burst through the door at night and take away their loved ones....
Gopal provides more important details on how the American Special Forces are sometimes very abusive in the ways they capture people, sometimes Afghans are killed, imprisoned in secret detention facilities, abused (if not tortured) - and all of this occurs outside the purview of the US military, US government officials, and typically the media. Here Goodman turns to her other guest, Scott Horton.
SCOTT HORTON: Well, these are—these acts that are described, particularly things like the water cure or the use of stress positions, sleep deprivation, are clearly illegal. Not only that, the Department of Defense has issued a field manual on authorized interrogation techniques, under which these practices, also things like the use of dogs to intimidate prisoners, are clearly forbidden.
And the concern here, I think, goes particularly to the involvement of the Joint Special Operations Command, which is running these detention centers. Now, when President Obama, on January 22nd, issued an executive order shutting down the black sites, the secret prisons, that order was very carefully tailored so that it was only CIA black sites that were closed....
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Counterinsurgency is destined to fail in Afghanistan, just as it did in Vietnam
William R. Polk argues in the following article that US counterinsurgency in Afghanistan is failing - and will fail - just as it did in Vietnam and as it did when the Russians attempted it in Afghanistan back in the 1980s. Counterinsurgency doctrine says that a combination of military force and civil aid is necessary. Polk contends that you cannot lay the basis for providing civil aid until all groups in the society come to believe that the aid is not being used to consolidate a foreign military occupation and the continuation of associated corruption in the government and among warlords.
Polk's plan would start with the US giving a firm and comprehensive date for the withdrawal of US troops. This is a first step. He contends that, once this is accepted as authentic, civil aid will be welcome by "traditional [village] councils, who "will begin to seek those things that will heal their sick, feed their hungry, repair their destroyed and decayed infrastructure and generally make their lives easier." The Taliban already have agreed, he says, to negotiate once foreign forces are withdrawn. Once aid is offered and being delivered, and with foreign troops leaving the country, it will be hard for the Taliban to continue their warfare, given the great needs of the people. Polk implies that this aid would go directly to villages rather than through a central government.
Polk's analysis squares with our own and maintains that the US-led war should come to an end. He does not address how the political system, particularly the central government, will be reconstituted. He does not address how a national army, if there is one, can be organized in a way that it is not dominated by the Tajiks. And he does not address how the warlords and their militias can be marginalized or phased out. But the implication of his article is that all of these challenges will more easily reconciled or overcome in the absence of the US-led military occupation.
Bob
----------------------------
Missteps on Afghanistan
By William R. Polk
http://www.hnn.us/articles/122319.html - History News Network
William R. Polk was Professor of History at the University of Chicago. During the Kennedy and part of the Johnson administrations, he was the member of the Policy Planning Council responsible for North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia. Among his books are Understanding Iraq, Violent Politics and Understanding Iran. He is now at work on a book to be entitled Afghanistan: Descent into Unending War. He is the senior director of the W.P. Carey Foundation.
In his final report on January 6, 2009 to the Security Council, the senior UN representative to Afghanistan, Ambassador Kai Eide of Norway, highlighted two issues that will determine events far into the future. The first of these was development aid and the second is building a military capacity for the central government. He and others have argued that failure to accomplish one or both is likely to result in what General Stanley McChrystal called “mission failure.” Eide may be right, but history suggests that even more danger may result from success.
The Vietnam war tells us why. Then, as now, we engaged in the “civic action” programs Eide urges that we increase. Also then, as now, our adversaries regarded them as hostile moves. The Viet Minh deliberately destroyed not only the beneficial contributions – clinics, schools, bridges – but also targeted those Vietnamese and foreign aid workers who were trying to help the people. If proof were needed for the diabolical nature of the Communist guerrillas, this was surely it. At least that was what many of my government colleagues then thought. It is also what many people today think of the Taliban and their similar actions. What could have made them act in this way?
The obvious, but rarely mentioned, reason is that insurgents see civic action programs as a counterinsurgency tactic. In Vietnam they were designed to “win the hearts and minds” of the Vietnamese and so win them away from the insurgents. The insurgents regarded our civil aid as more dangerous to their cause than our bombs.
Ironically, they were partly wrong. Neither we nor the Viet Minh recognized a fatal side effect of our program: because the South Vietnamese government was hopelessly corrupt, any aid we turned over to officials was apt to be stolen or even sold to the Viet Minh. So we took on ourselves the task of delivering the aid direct to the villagers. Since our officials were honest, the program worked.
But, without realizing it, we sidelined the very government we were dedicated to supporting: by our intervention, we literally became the government of South Vietnam. Of course, we remained foreigners – indeed a study made during my time in government showed that many villagers thought we were a new batch of French colonialists, perhaps Foreign Legionnaires. But, since we were doing the “good things,” and the Saigon government continued to do the “bad things,” in part through our aid efforts, we further weakened its claim to legitimacy.
How does this experience in Vietnam relate to Afghanistan? Those who point out that there are major differences are right, but the general context, dealing with a hopelessly corrupt government, is what we now face. Few competent observers think we can reform that government. So, while we at least talk about trying, we effectively by-pass it just as we did in Vietnam. Consequently, while history does not exactly replay, knowing it can sometimes stimulate our thinking. What might Vietnam teach us to question Ambassador Eide’s recommendations that we increase our civic action program?
Like the Viet Minh, the Taliban understand the purpose of civic action. Simply put, it is a counterinsurgency weapon. Indeed, we told them it was. As General David Petraeus said, “Money is my most important ammunition in this war.” To implement this tactic, the U.S. Army published “the Commander’s Guide to Money as a Weapons System” (Handbook 09-27 April 2009) which tells officers how to use money and civic actions programs to defeat insurgents. This is the basis of a training program at the Combined Arms Center at Leavenworth, Kansas.
Our civic action program not only was informed by the Vietnam War, but mirrors the large-scale program undertaken by the Russians in Afghanistan. (It is odd that in his manual on counterinsurgency, General Petraeus never mentions the Russian program. Did he or the actual authors of the manual not know of it? As the philosopher George Santayana warned, those who are ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it. Perhaps that explains the manual.) During their occupation of Afghanistan, the Russians poured in hundreds of millions of dollar-equivalents to civic action. It did not win Afghan hearts and minds.
Will ours? After conducting some 400 interviews, Andrew Wilder of Tufts University concluded that “Afghan perceptions of aid and aid actors are overwhelmingly negative.”
This background and these findings explain, I think, both why the Taliban blows up the facilities we build and why the general population allows them to do so: what we see as generous help to needy people, they see as part of a campaign by foreigners to subdue them.
But it is clear that the Afghans need help. Without aid from abroad, the future of the people of Afghanistan would be grim and the chances for the reforms we have set as our goal would be unlikely. So can civic action programs be configured in a way that would make them acceptable? I believe they can. This is how:
Once we set a firm and believable date for actual withdrawal, the psychology of the war will change. This was not, of course, accomplished by President Obama’s vague statement that the process will begin in July 2011, particularly after what he announced was further weakened by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’s definition of “withdrawal” as amounting only to a “handful” of the occupation forces. To be effective the date must be firm and comprehensive -- and be believed. Then, particularly if they can at least partly be made multi- or inter-national, aid projects will gradually cease to be seen as “ammunition in this war.” At that point, the traditional councils (known in various parts of the country as jirgas, ulus and shuras) that exist in, and essentially govern, virtually every one of Afghanistan’s approximately 23,000 villages) will begin to seek those things that will heal their sick, feed their hungry, repair their destroyed or decayed infrastructure and generally make their lives easier.
Hopefully, by that time, negotiations with the Taliban – which even President Hamid Karzai has called vital and which he promised in September 2009 he would launch -- will begin. On his side, the Taliban leader, Mullah Muhammad Umar, has also agreed to negotiate once the foreign forces are withdrawn. He, too, should be driven by the announcement of a firm date. In December he even “signaled” that the Taliban would not allow aggressive action by al-Qaida on other states from Afghanistan. We have said, essentially, that we are not interested.
If we get interested and the war winds down, the Taliban will cease to oppose a redefined form of civic action. The Taliban will have to permit it because, if they continue in the new context of the winding down of the war to destroy what the villagers want, they will lose their most important asset, the support of the people. And without that support, as Mao Zedong memorably put it, they will become like fish stranded without supporting “water.”
So the setting the date of withdrawal is absolutely crucial. It must be the first step.
Now what about the call Ambassador Eide, almost everyone in the American and British governments, and our military leaders have sounded to create a much expanded security apparatus for the central government?
I do not believe this is in either ours or the Afghan national interest. Again, consider what history can teach us.
For many years before the Russian invasion in 1979, Soviet training missions worked with the almost entirely Pashtun Royal Afghan Army and took many officers and trainees to Russia for advanced instruction and indoctrination. By world standards, the army was not an impressive force, but it existed, had coherence and was disciplined. So when the Russians invaded and occupied the country, they and their puppet government “inherited” a standing army. To it, they added approximately 100,000 well-paid militiamen. These forces actually performed reasonably well for the Russians during at least the early part of their occupation. But they did not enable the Russians to “win.”
Contrast this with our current position: we have not inherited an existing army. The old royal army was compromised by its relationship with the Russians and virtually disappeared in the aftermath of their withdrawal in 1989. Thereafter, the resistance forces, particularly the “Northern Alliance,” the Tajik-based guerrillas who had operated from the Panjshir valley under the leadership of Ahmad Shah Massoud, and their Hazara and Uzbek rivals fought one another for dominance all over the country. They had nearly destroyed Afghanistan when the Taliban moved in and defeated them. Most of their leaders, the “warlords,” ran away. When the United States invaded in 2001, and defeated the Taliban, it began to rebuild the power of the warlords as the cheapest way to control the country. Helped by America, these warlords decimated what remained of the Taliban. Out of this turmoil, the local winners were mainly the Tajiks.
Today, Tajiks, who number about one in four Afghans (roughly half as many as the traditionally dominant Pashtuns), hold most of the key positions in the government, including intelligence and political police, and command seven in ten of the army’s battalions. Unwittingly, therefore, we may have laid the basis for a civil war. That is a long-term potential danger, but other aspects of what Ambassador Eide has recommended and General McChrystal intends to implement are more immediately worrying.
Because today’s soldiers are without a background of training and, according to NATO advisers, nine in ten are illiterate and three in ten are drug addicts, turning them into an army will justify – indeed require, as both the American and British military commanders agree – our forces to remain in Afghanistan for years, or more likely, decades. Such a program on such a timetable will not only convince the Afghans that we have become a colonial power but will also serve to convince the adherents to the party line of al-Qaida that Usama bin Ladin is right to target America and Britain.
The second effect is that emphasizing the army will inhibit the negotiating process that nearly everyone is beginning to see as the only hope of ending the war on acceptable terms.
The third result is that the army will become a major drain on the limited resources of the country. Pentagon planners are already calculating how soon we can off-load the costs onto the Afghans. Pursuit of this objective necessarily will clash with the plan we must also try to implement of making Afghanistan reasonably secure and reasonably prosperous. Today they can barely feed themselves: an estimated 42 percent live on the equivalent of about 7¢ a day. It will be decades, if ever, before they can shoulder the sort of war we want them to fight.
The fourth result is (mercifully perhaps) a future danger: it is that since balancing civil institutions are weak and will take years to become strong, a military force on the scale General McChrystal is beginning to build is likely to lead once again to a dictatorship of the kind that destroyed the earlier attempts in the 1920s and 1960s to build a reformist, modern state.
Thus, it seems to me that the message Ambassador Eide has delivered and which many of the new “experts” on Afghanistan also espouse would lead us in precisely the wrong direction – toward a period of greater threats of terrorism, further damage to our society, economy and legal system, and will result in virtually unending war.
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Polk's plan would start with the US giving a firm and comprehensive date for the withdrawal of US troops. This is a first step. He contends that, once this is accepted as authentic, civil aid will be welcome by "traditional [village] councils, who "will begin to seek those things that will heal their sick, feed their hungry, repair their destroyed and decayed infrastructure and generally make their lives easier." The Taliban already have agreed, he says, to negotiate once foreign forces are withdrawn. Once aid is offered and being delivered, and with foreign troops leaving the country, it will be hard for the Taliban to continue their warfare, given the great needs of the people. Polk implies that this aid would go directly to villages rather than through a central government.
Polk's analysis squares with our own and maintains that the US-led war should come to an end. He does not address how the political system, particularly the central government, will be reconstituted. He does not address how a national army, if there is one, can be organized in a way that it is not dominated by the Tajiks. And he does not address how the warlords and their militias can be marginalized or phased out. But the implication of his article is that all of these challenges will more easily reconciled or overcome in the absence of the US-led military occupation.
Bob
----------------------------
Missteps on Afghanistan
By William R. Polk
http://www.hnn.us/articles/122319.html - History News Network
William R. Polk was Professor of History at the University of Chicago. During the Kennedy and part of the Johnson administrations, he was the member of the Policy Planning Council responsible for North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia. Among his books are Understanding Iraq, Violent Politics and Understanding Iran. He is now at work on a book to be entitled Afghanistan: Descent into Unending War. He is the senior director of the W.P. Carey Foundation.
In his final report on January 6, 2009 to the Security Council, the senior UN representative to Afghanistan, Ambassador Kai Eide of Norway, highlighted two issues that will determine events far into the future. The first of these was development aid and the second is building a military capacity for the central government. He and others have argued that failure to accomplish one or both is likely to result in what General Stanley McChrystal called “mission failure.” Eide may be right, but history suggests that even more danger may result from success.
The Vietnam war tells us why. Then, as now, we engaged in the “civic action” programs Eide urges that we increase. Also then, as now, our adversaries regarded them as hostile moves. The Viet Minh deliberately destroyed not only the beneficial contributions – clinics, schools, bridges – but also targeted those Vietnamese and foreign aid workers who were trying to help the people. If proof were needed for the diabolical nature of the Communist guerrillas, this was surely it. At least that was what many of my government colleagues then thought. It is also what many people today think of the Taliban and their similar actions. What could have made them act in this way?
The obvious, but rarely mentioned, reason is that insurgents see civic action programs as a counterinsurgency tactic. In Vietnam they were designed to “win the hearts and minds” of the Vietnamese and so win them away from the insurgents. The insurgents regarded our civil aid as more dangerous to their cause than our bombs.
Ironically, they were partly wrong. Neither we nor the Viet Minh recognized a fatal side effect of our program: because the South Vietnamese government was hopelessly corrupt, any aid we turned over to officials was apt to be stolen or even sold to the Viet Minh. So we took on ourselves the task of delivering the aid direct to the villagers. Since our officials were honest, the program worked.
But, without realizing it, we sidelined the very government we were dedicated to supporting: by our intervention, we literally became the government of South Vietnam. Of course, we remained foreigners – indeed a study made during my time in government showed that many villagers thought we were a new batch of French colonialists, perhaps Foreign Legionnaires. But, since we were doing the “good things,” and the Saigon government continued to do the “bad things,” in part through our aid efforts, we further weakened its claim to legitimacy.
How does this experience in Vietnam relate to Afghanistan? Those who point out that there are major differences are right, but the general context, dealing with a hopelessly corrupt government, is what we now face. Few competent observers think we can reform that government. So, while we at least talk about trying, we effectively by-pass it just as we did in Vietnam. Consequently, while history does not exactly replay, knowing it can sometimes stimulate our thinking. What might Vietnam teach us to question Ambassador Eide’s recommendations that we increase our civic action program?
Like the Viet Minh, the Taliban understand the purpose of civic action. Simply put, it is a counterinsurgency weapon. Indeed, we told them it was. As General David Petraeus said, “Money is my most important ammunition in this war.” To implement this tactic, the U.S. Army published “the Commander’s Guide to Money as a Weapons System” (Handbook 09-27 April 2009) which tells officers how to use money and civic actions programs to defeat insurgents. This is the basis of a training program at the Combined Arms Center at Leavenworth, Kansas.
Our civic action program not only was informed by the Vietnam War, but mirrors the large-scale program undertaken by the Russians in Afghanistan. (It is odd that in his manual on counterinsurgency, General Petraeus never mentions the Russian program. Did he or the actual authors of the manual not know of it? As the philosopher George Santayana warned, those who are ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it. Perhaps that explains the manual.) During their occupation of Afghanistan, the Russians poured in hundreds of millions of dollar-equivalents to civic action. It did not win Afghan hearts and minds.
Will ours? After conducting some 400 interviews, Andrew Wilder of Tufts University concluded that “Afghan perceptions of aid and aid actors are overwhelmingly negative.”
This background and these findings explain, I think, both why the Taliban blows up the facilities we build and why the general population allows them to do so: what we see as generous help to needy people, they see as part of a campaign by foreigners to subdue them.
But it is clear that the Afghans need help. Without aid from abroad, the future of the people of Afghanistan would be grim and the chances for the reforms we have set as our goal would be unlikely. So can civic action programs be configured in a way that would make them acceptable? I believe they can. This is how:
Once we set a firm and believable date for actual withdrawal, the psychology of the war will change. This was not, of course, accomplished by President Obama’s vague statement that the process will begin in July 2011, particularly after what he announced was further weakened by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’s definition of “withdrawal” as amounting only to a “handful” of the occupation forces. To be effective the date must be firm and comprehensive -- and be believed. Then, particularly if they can at least partly be made multi- or inter-national, aid projects will gradually cease to be seen as “ammunition in this war.” At that point, the traditional councils (known in various parts of the country as jirgas, ulus and shuras) that exist in, and essentially govern, virtually every one of Afghanistan’s approximately 23,000 villages) will begin to seek those things that will heal their sick, feed their hungry, repair their destroyed or decayed infrastructure and generally make their lives easier.
Hopefully, by that time, negotiations with the Taliban – which even President Hamid Karzai has called vital and which he promised in September 2009 he would launch -- will begin. On his side, the Taliban leader, Mullah Muhammad Umar, has also agreed to negotiate once the foreign forces are withdrawn. He, too, should be driven by the announcement of a firm date. In December he even “signaled” that the Taliban would not allow aggressive action by al-Qaida on other states from Afghanistan. We have said, essentially, that we are not interested.
If we get interested and the war winds down, the Taliban will cease to oppose a redefined form of civic action. The Taliban will have to permit it because, if they continue in the new context of the winding down of the war to destroy what the villagers want, they will lose their most important asset, the support of the people. And without that support, as Mao Zedong memorably put it, they will become like fish stranded without supporting “water.”
So the setting the date of withdrawal is absolutely crucial. It must be the first step.
Now what about the call Ambassador Eide, almost everyone in the American and British governments, and our military leaders have sounded to create a much expanded security apparatus for the central government?
I do not believe this is in either ours or the Afghan national interest. Again, consider what history can teach us.
For many years before the Russian invasion in 1979, Soviet training missions worked with the almost entirely Pashtun Royal Afghan Army and took many officers and trainees to Russia for advanced instruction and indoctrination. By world standards, the army was not an impressive force, but it existed, had coherence and was disciplined. So when the Russians invaded and occupied the country, they and their puppet government “inherited” a standing army. To it, they added approximately 100,000 well-paid militiamen. These forces actually performed reasonably well for the Russians during at least the early part of their occupation. But they did not enable the Russians to “win.”
Contrast this with our current position: we have not inherited an existing army. The old royal army was compromised by its relationship with the Russians and virtually disappeared in the aftermath of their withdrawal in 1989. Thereafter, the resistance forces, particularly the “Northern Alliance,” the Tajik-based guerrillas who had operated from the Panjshir valley under the leadership of Ahmad Shah Massoud, and their Hazara and Uzbek rivals fought one another for dominance all over the country. They had nearly destroyed Afghanistan when the Taliban moved in and defeated them. Most of their leaders, the “warlords,” ran away. When the United States invaded in 2001, and defeated the Taliban, it began to rebuild the power of the warlords as the cheapest way to control the country. Helped by America, these warlords decimated what remained of the Taliban. Out of this turmoil, the local winners were mainly the Tajiks.
Today, Tajiks, who number about one in four Afghans (roughly half as many as the traditionally dominant Pashtuns), hold most of the key positions in the government, including intelligence and political police, and command seven in ten of the army’s battalions. Unwittingly, therefore, we may have laid the basis for a civil war. That is a long-term potential danger, but other aspects of what Ambassador Eide has recommended and General McChrystal intends to implement are more immediately worrying.
Because today’s soldiers are without a background of training and, according to NATO advisers, nine in ten are illiterate and three in ten are drug addicts, turning them into an army will justify – indeed require, as both the American and British military commanders agree – our forces to remain in Afghanistan for years, or more likely, decades. Such a program on such a timetable will not only convince the Afghans that we have become a colonial power but will also serve to convince the adherents to the party line of al-Qaida that Usama bin Ladin is right to target America and Britain.
The second effect is that emphasizing the army will inhibit the negotiating process that nearly everyone is beginning to see as the only hope of ending the war on acceptable terms.
The third result is that the army will become a major drain on the limited resources of the country. Pentagon planners are already calculating how soon we can off-load the costs onto the Afghans. Pursuit of this objective necessarily will clash with the plan we must also try to implement of making Afghanistan reasonably secure and reasonably prosperous. Today they can barely feed themselves: an estimated 42 percent live on the equivalent of about 7¢ a day. It will be decades, if ever, before they can shoulder the sort of war we want them to fight.
The fourth result is (mercifully perhaps) a future danger: it is that since balancing civil institutions are weak and will take years to become strong, a military force on the scale General McChrystal is beginning to build is likely to lead once again to a dictatorship of the kind that destroyed the earlier attempts in the 1920s and 1960s to build a reformist, modern state.
Thus, it seems to me that the message Ambassador Eide has delivered and which many of the new “experts” on Afghanistan also espouse would lead us in precisely the wrong direction – toward a period of greater threats of terrorism, further damage to our society, economy and legal system, and will result in virtually unending war.
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