Withdrawal date extended, training of Afghan troops goes badly, US intelligence on Taliban is very poor, and there is little to show, outside of death, destruction, and corruption, for the tens of billions the US spends on the Afghanistan War.
The last few months of the US-led occupation of Afghanistan has done little to reverse the growing opposition among ordinary Americans to this costly and misbegotten intervention that appears to lurch from one strategy to another with little progress to show for it. Despite all this, the consensus among policy-makers in US government and military higher circles is that the occupation will continue until at least the end of 2014. Further, Gen. Petraeus and others have specified that 2014 is not a firm date for troop withdrawal. Whether there is any troop withdrawal depends on conditions on the ground.
There is another implication of this unfolding policy. While the US now has 100,000 or so combat troops in Afghanistan, along with special forces, an escalating air war, and more than 200,000 “trained” Afghan soldiers and police, news reports agree that the Taliban and various other insurgent groups are increasing their control or influence across the country, not only in southern provinces.
----------
Jason Ditz reports that the US occupation is now as long as the Soviet occupation, each lasting 9 years and fifty days, though the US occupation will continue years beyond Nov 25, 2010. Ditz notes that the US generals lack an exit strategy.
Source: Jason Ditz, “NATO’s occupation of Afghanistan as long as Soviet one,” Nov 25, 2010.
----------
Tom Engelhardt confirms Ditz’s reading of the situation and writes that US troops are not leaving any time soon, that is, “If you take the word of the Afghan war commanders, the secretary of defense, and top officials of the Obama administration and NATO.”
These high officials now agree that the withdrawal date of US troops from Afghanistan will be at the end of 2014, though General Petraeus waffles on this seeming consensus. Engelhardt refers to statements by Patraeus in which “he insisted that 2014 was nothing more than ‘an inflection point’ in an ever more-drawn out drawdown process.” Indeed, Petraeus insists that the US occupation “would likely extend to 2015 and beyond, which, Engelhardt says now puts “2016 officially in play.”
In the meantime – right now – US air attacks have increased. According to Engelhardt, “In Oct [2010], US planes launched missiles or bombs on 1,000 separate Afghan missions, numbers seldom seen since the 2001 invasion….Civilian deaths are rising rapidly….Special Operations’ night raids on Afghan homes by ‘capture/kill teams have tripled with 1,572 such operations over the last three months….”
The escalated military actions indicate that force now overshadows any attempts to win the hearts and minds of ordinary Afghans. As a consequence, Engelhardt concludes: “Afghans will once again pay with lives and treasure in a war that couldn’t be more bizarre, a war with no end in sight.”
Source: Tom Engelhardt, “How to Schedule a War: The Incredible Shrinking Withdrawal Date, “ Tomdispatch, Nov 24, 2010.
----------
There is another serious problem with the US-led occupation of Afghanistan, that is, US intelligence of the Taliban and other insurgent groups is extremely poor. Gareth Porter discusses a recent example to illustrate this point. Porter writes that in the last few months General Petraeus has repeatedly remarked that the Taliban leadership has shown a willingness to talk peace with Karzai. Patreus has suggested that this is a sign that his strategy, whatever it is, happens to be effective. But the central, or only, Afghan person in this supposed unfolding negotiation did not represent any Taliban group. “…Petraeus even deceiving himself as well as the news media in accepting the man claiming to be the second-ranked Taliban commander Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour as genuine, despite a number of indications to the contrary.”
Then “on September 29, a Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Majahid said that Petraeus claims that the Taliban were negotiating with the Afghan government was completely baseless, and that the Taliban would not negotiate with ‘foreign invaders or their puppet government.’” Back to where we started.
Source: Gareth Porter, “Why Gen. Petraeus was Snookered by the ‘Taliban’ Imposter,” Counter Punch, Nov 25, 2010.
----------
The problems facing the US-led occupation of Afghanistan are not related to insufficient funding. According to Juan Cole’s review of the evidence, “the war is costing on the order of $7 billion a month, a sum that is still being borrowed and adding nearly a $100 billion a year to the already burgeoning national debt.”
Cole adds: “Although the US and NATO have spend $27 billion on training Afghan troops, only 12 percent of them can operate independently.” There is more from Cole. He writes “Karzai and his circle are extremely corrupt, taking millions in cash payments from Iran and looting a major bank for unsecured loans, allowing the purchase of opulent villas in fashionable Dubai.”
Source: Juan Cole, “Afghanistan: Obscenely Well-Funded, But Largely Unsuccessful War Rages Out of Sight of the American Public,” Informed Comment, Nov 19, 2010.
Friday, November 26, 2010
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
US needs alternative policies in Afghanistan and at home
The Afghanistan Study Group refers to a new report on Afghanistan. The report, released in August 2010, is titled "A New Way Forward." It, or an overview of the report, can be retreived at http://www.afghanistanstudy.org.
The report goes into important reasons for why the US-led Afghanistan war and occupation should be scaled down.
The report estimates that the US government is spending $100 billion a year in mostly military expenses in Afghanistan. This is "a sum roughly seven times larger than Afghanistan's annual gross produce of $14 billion and greater than the total annual cost of the new US health insurance program." The costs are more than financial. The report indicates that "thousands of American and allied personnel have been killed or gravely wounded."
The report overlooks the damage caused by the war to Afghanistan's land and infrastructure, to the Afghan people, to the intensified ethnic tensions and conflicts, to the consolidation of war-lord and insurgent power in all parts of the country, and to widespread corruption.
It does recognize that the US-led occupation has done little to bring political stability to Afghanistan. "Instead of toppling terrorists, America's Afghanistan war has become an ambitious and fruitless effort at 'nation-building.'" Continuing: "We are mired in a civil war in Afghanistan and our struggling to establish an effective central government in a country that has long been fragmented and decentralized."
Further, there is "no clear definition of what would comprise 'success' in this endeavor." Recent US-led offenses have not achieved the expected results. "The 2010 spring offensive in Marjah was inconclusive and a supposedly 'decisive' summer in Kandahar has been delayed and the expectations downgraded." And, as Tom Engelhardt reminds us (see Tom Dispatch.com, Nov. 17, 2010), the US has 400 military bases in Afghanistan. Along with these bases, the date for the "beginning" the withdrawal of US troops is pushed back time and again and now is tentatively set for the 2014.
When the authors of "A New War Forward," identify the elements of an alternative that moves in the direction of eliminating the need for US military forces, it is reasonable to think that we have heard this before.
Nonetheless, better something different than the same old military myths. The authors of the report include a set of recommendations, including (1) a draw down of US and allied military presence; (2) a limited security effort, involving "special forces, intelligence assets, and other US capabilities...to seek out and target known Al Qadea cells in the region"; (3) the encouragement of an "internationally-led effort to develop Afghanistan's economy; and (4) the engagement of "regional and global stakeholders in a diplomatic effort designed to guarantee Afghan neutrality and [thereby] foster regional stability."
There is nothing in these recommendations that suggest how the Afghanistan people can themselves participate in creating a politically stable government.
In the meantime, the Afghan people suffer. For example, Juan Cole writes on his blog Informed Comment on Oct. 7, 2010, that both Iraq and Afghanistan are "among the 22 [most] food insecure countries. The evidence comes from a report by the Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Food Program. Coles quotes from the report:
"Chronic hunger and food insecurity are the most common characteristics of a protracted crisis. On average, the proportion of people who are undernourished in countries facing these complex problems is almost three times as high as in other developing countries."
While hunger in the US is not as great as in these developing countries, a BBC News report on Nov. 16, 2010, refers to a US Deptartment of Agriculture study that finds "almost 15% of US households experience a food shortage at some point in 2001." That is, 45 million or more people.
War is bad for people. It wastes resources and lives, and generates fear and hatred. And, as in the US, bloated military budgets, a far-flung system of military bases, permanent or endless wars, an expanding plutocracy, and capitalist system gone bonkers, are also bad for the people.
The report goes into important reasons for why the US-led Afghanistan war and occupation should be scaled down.
The report estimates that the US government is spending $100 billion a year in mostly military expenses in Afghanistan. This is "a sum roughly seven times larger than Afghanistan's annual gross produce of $14 billion and greater than the total annual cost of the new US health insurance program." The costs are more than financial. The report indicates that "thousands of American and allied personnel have been killed or gravely wounded."
The report overlooks the damage caused by the war to Afghanistan's land and infrastructure, to the Afghan people, to the intensified ethnic tensions and conflicts, to the consolidation of war-lord and insurgent power in all parts of the country, and to widespread corruption.
It does recognize that the US-led occupation has done little to bring political stability to Afghanistan. "Instead of toppling terrorists, America's Afghanistan war has become an ambitious and fruitless effort at 'nation-building.'" Continuing: "We are mired in a civil war in Afghanistan and our struggling to establish an effective central government in a country that has long been fragmented and decentralized."
Further, there is "no clear definition of what would comprise 'success' in this endeavor." Recent US-led offenses have not achieved the expected results. "The 2010 spring offensive in Marjah was inconclusive and a supposedly 'decisive' summer in Kandahar has been delayed and the expectations downgraded." And, as Tom Engelhardt reminds us (see Tom Dispatch.com, Nov. 17, 2010), the US has 400 military bases in Afghanistan. Along with these bases, the date for the "beginning" the withdrawal of US troops is pushed back time and again and now is tentatively set for the 2014.
When the authors of "A New War Forward," identify the elements of an alternative that moves in the direction of eliminating the need for US military forces, it is reasonable to think that we have heard this before.
Nonetheless, better something different than the same old military myths. The authors of the report include a set of recommendations, including (1) a draw down of US and allied military presence; (2) a limited security effort, involving "special forces, intelligence assets, and other US capabilities...to seek out and target known Al Qadea cells in the region"; (3) the encouragement of an "internationally-led effort to develop Afghanistan's economy; and (4) the engagement of "regional and global stakeholders in a diplomatic effort designed to guarantee Afghan neutrality and [thereby] foster regional stability."
There is nothing in these recommendations that suggest how the Afghanistan people can themselves participate in creating a politically stable government.
In the meantime, the Afghan people suffer. For example, Juan Cole writes on his blog Informed Comment on Oct. 7, 2010, that both Iraq and Afghanistan are "among the 22 [most] food insecure countries. The evidence comes from a report by the Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Food Program. Coles quotes from the report:
"Chronic hunger and food insecurity are the most common characteristics of a protracted crisis. On average, the proportion of people who are undernourished in countries facing these complex problems is almost three times as high as in other developing countries."
While hunger in the US is not as great as in these developing countries, a BBC News report on Nov. 16, 2010, refers to a US Deptartment of Agriculture study that finds "almost 15% of US households experience a food shortage at some point in 2001." That is, 45 million or more people.
War is bad for people. It wastes resources and lives, and generates fear and hatred. And, as in the US, bloated military budgets, a far-flung system of military bases, permanent or endless wars, an expanding plutocracy, and capitalist system gone bonkers, are also bad for the people.
Monday, November 8, 2010
Malalai Joya offers an inspiring example and vision for an Afghanistan of justice and democracy
Malalai Joya represents a voice for Afghanistan independence and democracy about which you rarely read or hear. She was elected to the lower house of the Afghan parliament in 2005. Then banned from the parliament after she criticized the warlords who were "chosen" or "elected" by the people in their districts. From Malalai's point of view, they were in the parliament not because of their desire to serve their constituents and the public good, but because of the fear of reprisal that they generated in the villages and towns.
In her book, A Woman Among Warlords, Malalai provides a memoir and political analysis of her journey from being a refugee with her family to her election to the parliament and to the years thereafter. As a member of parliament, she continued to speak out against the corrupt government of President Karzai and the warlords who dominate the parliament and Karzai's government. She does not mince words when it comes to the Taliban, speaking out agains them for their undemocratic, oppressive and mysogynist agenda and for their violence and extremist Islamic religious beliefs. As a result there have been assassination attempts on her life. She must move from safe-house to safe-house to avoid her would-be killers. And, all along, she continues to speak out against the warlords, Taliban, Karzai government, and the US-NATO occupation that causes more death and devastation than anything else. In the last pages of her book, Malalai writes these inspiring words:
"I am young [born in 1978 in a small village of Ziken] and value life; I don't want to be killed. But I don't fear death; I fear remaining silent in the fact of injustice...You can kill me, but you can never kill my spirit...Afghans are more than just a handful of warlords, Taliban, drug lords, and lackeys." She continues: "I have a country full of people who know what I know and believe what I believe: That we Afghans can govern ourselves without foreign interference. That democracy is possible here but can never be imported at gunpoint. That the blood of millions of freedom-loving martyrs runs through our veins, and their memories live on in every corner of our country. That Afghan women have been at the forefront of our struggle throughout our proud history....Out enemies can cut down the flower, but nothing can stop the coming of spring" (pp. 228-229).
An article
I just came across the following article by Malalai Joya, titled "Afghanistan neither wants nor needs NATO's occupying force," at: http://stopwar.org/uk/content/view/2132/1/
Afghanistan neither needs nor wants Nato's occupying forces
The question should be not "What happens if we leave Afghanistan" but "What happens while we are in Afghanistan", because crimes of mutilation, rape and murder against women are commonplace today. While Afghans want the world's support and solidarity, we neither need nor want Nato's occupying forces.
By Malalai Joya The Guardian 02 November 2010
One year ago Hamid Karzai was declared re-elected as president of Afghanistan, ending an election that had no legitimacy in the eyes of ordinary Afghans.
The presidential election last year was a fraud, with ballot stuffing, vote buying and massive corruption reported by the world's media.
Even if the independent election commission had not cancelled the planned run-off between Karzai and his main challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, it would have represented only a choice of the "same donkey with a new saddle".
People had no incentive to participate as they knew that both main candidates would bring nothing positive for Afghan people.
Karzai had lost his popularity way before the 2009 election. This was due to the ever increasing corruption of the government, the never-ending crimes of the many fundamentalists and warlords in his regime, and the financial scandals and corruption of his brothers. In Kandahar people even started calling Ahmed Wali Karzai the "little Bush", after the hated US president.
The vast majority of Afghans have lost all hope in Karzai. For us his words and actions have no value, and that includes his latest "peace negotiations" and other measures. Including killers like Mullah Omar and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar in the government is not about negotiating for peace, but completing the decades-old circle of warlordism and fundamentalism.
It's important to say that these so-called elections haven't damaged Afghanistan as much as the US and its Nato allies have, with their bombing and occupation. Wikileaks has exposed some of the truth about the civilian toll of this war against the Afghan and Iraqi peoples. Afghans hold the US and Nato, and their puppet Karzai, responsible for these war crimes.
Biggest terrorists
They claim to fight terrorism, but in fact they are the biggest terrorists in the eyes of our people because of their crimes and brutalities.
Unfortunately the Afghan people are not yet strong enough to drive out the US, overthrow the mafia government of Karzai and bring an end to the crimes of the Taliban and other fundamentalists. Our history proves that this resistance to occupation will continue until we have won our freedom. Until both the US and the fundamentalists – of both the Northern Alliance and Taliban brands – are driven out of power in Afghanistan, we cannot see a bright future.
It is now more than five years since I was elected to the Afghan parliament. My experience of this "democratic process" was to see my microphone cut off, and to be threatened with death by other MPs – many of whom teamed up to remove me illegally from my seat. My case alone is enough to prove that women's rights in Afghanistan have not truly been safeguarded – our situation was just invoked to justify the war.
In fact, it's important to remember another document that Wikileaks exposed earlier this year: a CIA paper assessing western public opinion on the war that recommended using "testimonials by Afghan women" expressing fear about a Taliban takeover in the event of Nato pulling out. A Time cover story featuring the disfigured Bibi Aisha was a clear example of using the plight of women as war propaganda.
The headline – "What happens if we leave Afghanistan" – could have, or should have, been "What happens while we are in Afghanistan", because crimes of mutilation, rape and murder against women are commonplace today.
Many warlords and commanders aligned with Nato and Karzai carry out their sexist, misogynist crimes with impunity. Time could, for example, have done a cover story condemning the law signed by Karzai in 2009 that legalised crimes against Shia women, or about the shocking levels of women committing suicide by self-immolation.
Bad joke
We had another so-called parliamentary election in September, but I chose not to run. Any hope I had for using the ballot box to achieve change in Afghanistan is gone. Like last year's presidential vote, September's election was full of the buying and selling of votes – one province, Paktika, reported a turnout of 626%. This sort of thing is the reason elections in Afghanistan long ago became a bad joke.
Tomorrow there is an election in the US, and it is now two years since Barack Obama was elected president. His surge of troops has brought only a surge of violence, and his expansion of the war into Pakistan has claimed many innocent lives. Obama promised "hope" and "change", but Afghans have seen only change for the worse. Here he is now seen as a "second Bush".
The only change that can make us hopeful about the future is the strengthening and expansion of a national anti-fundamentalist and democracy-loving movement. Such a movement can be built only by Afghans. And while we want the world's support and solidarity, we neither need nor want Nato's occupying forces.
See also by Malalai Joya:
Memo to America: Stop murdering my people...
A troop surge can only magnify the crime against Afghanistan...
Afghan people want immediate end to US occupation...
In her book, A Woman Among Warlords, Malalai provides a memoir and political analysis of her journey from being a refugee with her family to her election to the parliament and to the years thereafter. As a member of parliament, she continued to speak out against the corrupt government of President Karzai and the warlords who dominate the parliament and Karzai's government. She does not mince words when it comes to the Taliban, speaking out agains them for their undemocratic, oppressive and mysogynist agenda and for their violence and extremist Islamic religious beliefs. As a result there have been assassination attempts on her life. She must move from safe-house to safe-house to avoid her would-be killers. And, all along, she continues to speak out against the warlords, Taliban, Karzai government, and the US-NATO occupation that causes more death and devastation than anything else. In the last pages of her book, Malalai writes these inspiring words:
"I am young [born in 1978 in a small village of Ziken] and value life; I don't want to be killed. But I don't fear death; I fear remaining silent in the fact of injustice...You can kill me, but you can never kill my spirit...Afghans are more than just a handful of warlords, Taliban, drug lords, and lackeys." She continues: "I have a country full of people who know what I know and believe what I believe: That we Afghans can govern ourselves without foreign interference. That democracy is possible here but can never be imported at gunpoint. That the blood of millions of freedom-loving martyrs runs through our veins, and their memories live on in every corner of our country. That Afghan women have been at the forefront of our struggle throughout our proud history....Out enemies can cut down the flower, but nothing can stop the coming of spring" (pp. 228-229).
An article
I just came across the following article by Malalai Joya, titled "Afghanistan neither wants nor needs NATO's occupying force," at: http://stopwar.org/uk/content/view/2132/1/
Afghanistan neither needs nor wants Nato's occupying forces
The question should be not "What happens if we leave Afghanistan" but "What happens while we are in Afghanistan", because crimes of mutilation, rape and murder against women are commonplace today. While Afghans want the world's support and solidarity, we neither need nor want Nato's occupying forces.
By Malalai Joya The Guardian 02 November 2010
One year ago Hamid Karzai was declared re-elected as president of Afghanistan, ending an election that had no legitimacy in the eyes of ordinary Afghans.
The presidential election last year was a fraud, with ballot stuffing, vote buying and massive corruption reported by the world's media.
Even if the independent election commission had not cancelled the planned run-off between Karzai and his main challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, it would have represented only a choice of the "same donkey with a new saddle".
People had no incentive to participate as they knew that both main candidates would bring nothing positive for Afghan people.
Karzai had lost his popularity way before the 2009 election. This was due to the ever increasing corruption of the government, the never-ending crimes of the many fundamentalists and warlords in his regime, and the financial scandals and corruption of his brothers. In Kandahar people even started calling Ahmed Wali Karzai the "little Bush", after the hated US president.
The vast majority of Afghans have lost all hope in Karzai. For us his words and actions have no value, and that includes his latest "peace negotiations" and other measures. Including killers like Mullah Omar and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar in the government is not about negotiating for peace, but completing the decades-old circle of warlordism and fundamentalism.
It's important to say that these so-called elections haven't damaged Afghanistan as much as the US and its Nato allies have, with their bombing and occupation. Wikileaks has exposed some of the truth about the civilian toll of this war against the Afghan and Iraqi peoples. Afghans hold the US and Nato, and their puppet Karzai, responsible for these war crimes.
Biggest terrorists
They claim to fight terrorism, but in fact they are the biggest terrorists in the eyes of our people because of their crimes and brutalities.
Unfortunately the Afghan people are not yet strong enough to drive out the US, overthrow the mafia government of Karzai and bring an end to the crimes of the Taliban and other fundamentalists. Our history proves that this resistance to occupation will continue until we have won our freedom. Until both the US and the fundamentalists – of both the Northern Alliance and Taliban brands – are driven out of power in Afghanistan, we cannot see a bright future.
It is now more than five years since I was elected to the Afghan parliament. My experience of this "democratic process" was to see my microphone cut off, and to be threatened with death by other MPs – many of whom teamed up to remove me illegally from my seat. My case alone is enough to prove that women's rights in Afghanistan have not truly been safeguarded – our situation was just invoked to justify the war.
In fact, it's important to remember another document that Wikileaks exposed earlier this year: a CIA paper assessing western public opinion on the war that recommended using "testimonials by Afghan women" expressing fear about a Taliban takeover in the event of Nato pulling out. A Time cover story featuring the disfigured Bibi Aisha was a clear example of using the plight of women as war propaganda.
The headline – "What happens if we leave Afghanistan" – could have, or should have, been "What happens while we are in Afghanistan", because crimes of mutilation, rape and murder against women are commonplace today.
Many warlords and commanders aligned with Nato and Karzai carry out their sexist, misogynist crimes with impunity. Time could, for example, have done a cover story condemning the law signed by Karzai in 2009 that legalised crimes against Shia women, or about the shocking levels of women committing suicide by self-immolation.
Bad joke
We had another so-called parliamentary election in September, but I chose not to run. Any hope I had for using the ballot box to achieve change in Afghanistan is gone. Like last year's presidential vote, September's election was full of the buying and selling of votes – one province, Paktika, reported a turnout of 626%. This sort of thing is the reason elections in Afghanistan long ago became a bad joke.
Tomorrow there is an election in the US, and it is now two years since Barack Obama was elected president. His surge of troops has brought only a surge of violence, and his expansion of the war into Pakistan has claimed many innocent lives. Obama promised "hope" and "change", but Afghans have seen only change for the worse. Here he is now seen as a "second Bush".
The only change that can make us hopeful about the future is the strengthening and expansion of a national anti-fundamentalist and democracy-loving movement. Such a movement can be built only by Afghans. And while we want the world's support and solidarity, we neither need nor want Nato's occupying forces.
See also by Malalai Joya:
Memo to America: Stop murdering my people...
A troop surge can only magnify the crime against Afghanistan...
Afghan people want immediate end to US occupation...
Thursday, November 4, 2010
US diplomatic facilities expanded, no firm date for a drawdown of US troops
The following four articles provide indications that the US will continue to have an enlarged diplomatic presence in Afghanistan over coming years and and that the US military will remain in Afghanistan after the July, 2011 drawdown date first mentioned by President Obama in December of 2009. It was in December, we may recall, that President Obama announced an increase in troops to be deployed to Afghanistan. At that time, the President also referred to the possibility that some US troops would begin to be withdrawn, beginning in July 2011. However, he never specified how many troops might then be withdrawn or if any troops at all would be brought home. He emphasized that any such drawdown of troops depended on conditions in Afghanistan and what his generals recommended.
There are two points that strike one from the four articles to which I refer below. First, the US government shows every indication of having a diplomatic and military presence in Afghanistan for years to come. Second, Republicans and the President seem to be virtually on the same page when it comes to a drawdown date. President Obama has said that some troops may be withdrawn from Afghanistan beginning in July 2011, but not necessarily. Republicans say this is too ambiguous and they want a policy that excludes any date or timetable. They suggest that we should leave it up to the generals who are in command. That could be in July 2011, or many years after that.
The first article reports on the contruction of US diplomatic facilities. The other three articles report on Republican opposition to any date or timetable for the drawdown of US troops from Afghanistan.
First article: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/11/03-5
Rahim Faiez reports in an article posted on Common Dreams.org that the "U.S. government will spend $511 million to expand its embassy in Kabul," according to the US ambassador Karl Eikenberry. The construction project is "a demonstration of America's long-term commitment to Afghanistan. Faiez writes: "The project stated earlier this year and currently employes about 500 Afghans. Once construction is under way, more than 1,500 Afghan workers will be employed." There are other building projects in the works. Over the last two years, the US government has signed two contracts to expand American diplomatic facilities in Kabul and consulates in Mazar-e-Sharif and Herat provinces that total $790 million, according to Eikenberry.
Second article: http://antiwar.com/2010/11/3/republicans-vow-to-target-already-disavowed-afghan-drawdown-date
Jason Ditz reports for Anti-War.com that House Republicans "have promised [that] one of their first orders of business is to attack President Obama's policy of possibly drawing down the number of US troops in Afghanistan." Ditz points out that Obama would probably have no trouble with such a Republican initiative because he, the Secretary of State, and his generals have never committed the US government to a firm drawdown date.
Third article: http://antiwar.com/2010/06/24/obama-disavows-july-2011-afghan-drawdown-date
In an earlier report last June, Ditz reports that President Obama announced that there would be no "hasty exit" from Afghanistan, clarifying that "the July 2011 drawdown date he set himself in December" (2009) was a date when the withrawal of an unspecified size would begin only if conditions on the ground in Afghanistan were sufficiently stable, that is, there existed a stable and legitimate Afghan government and an Iraq army and policy force capable of maintaining security.
Fourth article - Just Foreign Policy, Nov. 3, 2010, adds further evidence (see below) that the Republicans, not only in the House but also in the Senate, will be pushing for legislation that explicitly rules out any date or timetable, however conditional it might be, for a drawdown of US troops from Afghanistan.
McCain hopes for fresh look at Afghan policySteve Holland, Reuters, Wed Nov 3, 2010 http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6A21K320101103
'Republican Senator John McCain said on Tuesday in the wake of big Republican victories in Congress that he hopes President Barack Obama will take a fresh look at U.S. war policy in Afghanistan. McCain won re-election to his Arizona Senate seat by a large margin, ensuring he will retain have a strong voice on the Senate Armed Services Committee as its ranking Republican member.
"In an interview, McCain told Reuters he was looking forward to a December review the Obama administration is preparing to give an update on the U.S. troop increase Obama ordered a year ago to try to repulse a strengthened Taliban.McCain, who is expected to visit Afghanistan soon, said he would like to see a change in Obama's decision to begin withdrawing some U.S. troops from Afghanistan next August."I can only speak for myself, but this date for withdrawal that the president announced without any military advice or counsel has caused us enormous problems in our operations in Afghanistan, because our enemies are encouraged and our friends are confused over there," he said.
[...]
There are two points that strike one from the four articles to which I refer below. First, the US government shows every indication of having a diplomatic and military presence in Afghanistan for years to come. Second, Republicans and the President seem to be virtually on the same page when it comes to a drawdown date. President Obama has said that some troops may be withdrawn from Afghanistan beginning in July 2011, but not necessarily. Republicans say this is too ambiguous and they want a policy that excludes any date or timetable. They suggest that we should leave it up to the generals who are in command. That could be in July 2011, or many years after that.
The first article reports on the contruction of US diplomatic facilities. The other three articles report on Republican opposition to any date or timetable for the drawdown of US troops from Afghanistan.
First article: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/11/03-5
Rahim Faiez reports in an article posted on Common Dreams.org that the "U.S. government will spend $511 million to expand its embassy in Kabul," according to the US ambassador Karl Eikenberry. The construction project is "a demonstration of America's long-term commitment to Afghanistan. Faiez writes: "The project stated earlier this year and currently employes about 500 Afghans. Once construction is under way, more than 1,500 Afghan workers will be employed." There are other building projects in the works. Over the last two years, the US government has signed two contracts to expand American diplomatic facilities in Kabul and consulates in Mazar-e-Sharif and Herat provinces that total $790 million, according to Eikenberry.
Second article: http://antiwar.com/2010/11/3/republicans-vow-to-target-already-disavowed-afghan-drawdown-date
Jason Ditz reports for Anti-War.com that House Republicans "have promised [that] one of their first orders of business is to attack President Obama's policy of possibly drawing down the number of US troops in Afghanistan." Ditz points out that Obama would probably have no trouble with such a Republican initiative because he, the Secretary of State, and his generals have never committed the US government to a firm drawdown date.
Third article: http://antiwar.com/2010/06/24/obama-disavows-july-2011-afghan-drawdown-date
In an earlier report last June, Ditz reports that President Obama announced that there would be no "hasty exit" from Afghanistan, clarifying that "the July 2011 drawdown date he set himself in December" (2009) was a date when the withrawal of an unspecified size would begin only if conditions on the ground in Afghanistan were sufficiently stable, that is, there existed a stable and legitimate Afghan government and an Iraq army and policy force capable of maintaining security.
Fourth article - Just Foreign Policy, Nov. 3, 2010, adds further evidence (see below) that the Republicans, not only in the House but also in the Senate, will be pushing for legislation that explicitly rules out any date or timetable, however conditional it might be, for a drawdown of US troops from Afghanistan.
McCain hopes for fresh look at Afghan policySteve Holland, Reuters, Wed Nov 3, 2010 http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6A21K320101103
'Republican Senator John McCain said on Tuesday in the wake of big Republican victories in Congress that he hopes President Barack Obama will take a fresh look at U.S. war policy in Afghanistan. McCain won re-election to his Arizona Senate seat by a large margin, ensuring he will retain have a strong voice on the Senate Armed Services Committee as its ranking Republican member.
"In an interview, McCain told Reuters he was looking forward to a December review the Obama administration is preparing to give an update on the U.S. troop increase Obama ordered a year ago to try to repulse a strengthened Taliban.McCain, who is expected to visit Afghanistan soon, said he would like to see a change in Obama's decision to begin withdrawing some U.S. troops from Afghanistan next August."I can only speak for myself, but this date for withdrawal that the president announced without any military advice or counsel has caused us enormous problems in our operations in Afghanistan, because our enemies are encouraged and our friends are confused over there," he said.
[...]
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Counter-terrorism vs. Reconciliation in Afghanistan
There have been reports in the media over the past few months that the Karzai government in Afghanistan has been holding high-level talks with Taliban leaders. Some reports indicate representatives of other countries (e.g. Saudi Arabia) have been using their offices to facilitate other negotations. US military leaders have not publicly opposed any of these negotations or efforts to get negotiations started, but there are no reported indications that they favor negotations and they have insisted on certain preconditions before they become directly involved in them. Among the preconditions are that the Taliban give up their weapons, cease hostilities, and drop their precondition that US troops must leave the country before negotiations may commence. At the same time, the US Afghan command continues to use counter-insurgency (better, counter-terrorist) campaigns, often by special forces, to root out and kill alleged Taliban leaders. The gist of these dual, seemingly incompatible, strategies is that, while the US officials in Afghanistan do not publicly or officially oppose negotiations, its violent operations on the ground undermine any movement toward peaceful talks.
Jeremy Scahill, author of the definitive book, Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army, and prolific investigative reporter, has written an article for The Nation magazine that is relevant for understanding what the US military's approach to the Taliban is about and the likely repercussions. The major point of his article is that, indeed, the US occupation force in Afghanistan is pursuing a counter-terrorist course of action against Taliban, targeting leaders of the insurgency. But it is proving yet again to be counterproductive, as US forces kill innocent Afghanis, generate hatred against and fear of US troops, and drive more and more of the Afghan people to support Taliban groups.
Here are excerpts from Scahill's eye-opening article, which can be found at: http://www.thenation.com/article/155622/killing-reconciliation
Killing Reconciliation
Jeremy Scahill October 27, 2010
On March 26, 2009, Mullah Sahib Jan, a militant Taliban imam from the Mohammed Agha district in Afghanistan's Logar province, walked into the office of the Independent National Reconciliation Commission, the main body encouraging the Taliban to lay down their weapons and work with the government. He was escorting fifty Taliban fighters who, he said, had committed to ending their fight against the Afghan government and entering the process of integration. To the government, Sahib Jan was a shining example of how reconciliation with the Taliban is supposed to work. But less than a year later, the former militant's story would stand as a devastating symbol of how the actions of US Special Operations Forces are sabotaging the very strategy for reaching a political settlement that US officials claim to support.
[....]
When Sahib Jan walked into the reconciliation office, he publicly announced that he and his Taliban colleagues had agreed to work with the government on a peace process after the commission assured him that it would restrict US-led NATO forces from conducting night raids and killing civilians. "If the killing and arrests of people were not stopped," he said, "we would withdraw our support to the government and the foreign forces."
Reconciliation officials in Logar province say that making allies out of figures like Sahib Jan is the centerpiece of their work. Logar and its neighboring provinces, Paktia, Wardak and Ghazni, contain a strong presence of not only the Taliban but also the Haqqani network, the insurgent group portrayed by US officials as having the closest ties to Al Qaeda and a cozy relationship with Pakistan's ISI spy organization. Logar is also home to several tribes that say they have spent the past two years trying to make peace. A crucial part of this, they say, is building enough trust with the Taliban to make a serious case for ending their insurgency. Soon after his initial trip to the reconciliation office, Sahib Jan left his calling as an imam and took a position as a religious adviser to the reconciliation commission. As part of his work, reconciliation officials say, he traveled to hardcore Taliban areas.
"He was preaching to the Taliban, encouraging them to come to the government, telling the fighters there were a lot of benefits to laying down their arms," says Mohammed Anwar, director of Logar's reconciliation commission and an adviser to a local tribal council. Council officials credit Sahib Jan with putting Taliban fighters on the road to reconciliation.
But on the morning of January 14, Sahib Jan's bullet-riddled body lay on the ground outside his family's mud-brick compound in Logar's Safed Sang village. According to local officials and his family, he was killed in a night raid by US Special Operations Forces. "At 1 or 1:30 in the morning, US soldiers pulled up to the gas station in front of our house.
[....]
According to Haider, US forces entered the compound with ladders and corralled the men into one room, where they handcuffed and blindfolded them. They moved the women to a separate room. "They tied all of our hands and roughed us up a little bit. They were beating us with both weapons and their hands," recalls Haider. "I was tied up from 1 or 1:30 in the morning until 6 in the morning." The family says that during the raid much of their property was damaged or destroyed. As Sahib Jan's sons were tied up, they had no idea of their father's fate until the Afghan translator appeared with US soldiers. They showed them a picture and said, "This is the man we killed."
"It was my father," Haider recalls. The soldiers then escorted the surviving men of the family to their father's body, where they saw about six bullets in it. With that, the Americans left; they have never contacted the family since.
"We have checked our logs and with our units that conduct these types of mission profiles. There is no record of the operation," US Lt. Commander Thomas Porter wrote in an e-mail to The Nation. But an eyewitness to the raid named Azmuddin, who works at the gas station in front of Sahib Jan's home, says, "US forces told me the next morning that they killed him because he had shot at them." Azmuddin says the morning after the raid he was arrested by US forces and taken to the classified Tor Prison, or "black jail," for fifteen days before being locked up at the Bagram prison for four months. In response to NATO's statement, government officials in Logar reacted angrily and swore that Sahib Jan was killed by US forces.
"There was a false report claiming that Sahib Jan was a Taliban, and the Americans conducted a night raid and killed him even though he had been working with us for months," says Anwar, the head of Logar's reconciliation commission.
[....]
Officials at the reconciliation office point to several night raids over the past year, which they say targeted former Taliban who entered the process of reconciliation, as devastating to their work. "We are trying to build bridges between the Taliban and the government and trying to find jobs for them. We are working to get them decent housing in return for leaving the Taliban," says Anwar. "We are also trying to ensure that once they turn themselves in, they are not arrested again. How can we encourage reconciliation in good faith in the face of these American raids against the very people who agree to disarm?"
[....]
On the ground the Taliban seem to be gaining traction and increasing membership despite, or perhaps because of, intensified US targeted-killing operations and night raids.
Two senior officials of the former Taliban government have told The Nation that the Taliban will not engage in any meaningful talks until foreign troops are expelled from Afghanistan and that reports that the Taliban are engaged in serious negotiations are false. "There is nothing going on, no negotiations between the Taliban and the Americans or the Taliban and the [Afghan] government," says Abdul Salam Zaeef, who served as the Taliban government's ambassador to Pakistan, in an interview at his home in Kabul. He says if anyone claiming to be Taliban is negotiating, they are essentially nobodies to the movement. "There was no 'peace meeting' because the Taliban reject it."
[....]
The US strategy seems to be to force the Taliban to the table through a fierce killing campaign. According to the US military, over a ninety-day period this past summer, US and coalition Special Operations Forces killed or captured more than 2,900 "insurgents," with an estimated dozen killed a day. Between July 4, when Gen. David Petraeus assumed command in Kabul, and early October, according to the military, US and Afghan Special Operations Forces killed more than 300 Taliban commanders and more than 900 foot soldiers in 1,500 raids. "This is precisely the kind of pressure we believe will lead to reconciliation and reintegration" of the Taliban, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said recently.
Zaeef, the former senior Taliban official, who spent four years in Guantánamo prison, confirmed that the American targeted-killing campaign of Taliban leaders has been successful, but he believes that the strategy will backfire for both the US and Afghan governments. "If these people, important, known people, disappear from the [Taliban] movement, what will happen? Who should [the Afghan government] make a dialogue with?" he asks. "The fighting will not stop. I know the new generation is more extremist than the last generation. The new generation will not listen to anyone. This is a dangerous thing. It will be bad for the Americans, but it will be worse for the people of Afghanistan."
[....]
Zaeef says the night raids and the targeted killings are strengthening the Taliban and inspiring more people "to become extremist against the Americans." US political and military leaders, he says, "are thinking, 'When we scare the people, they should be quiet.' But this is a different nation. When you are killing one person, four or five others rise against you. If you are killing five people, twenty, at least, are rising against you. When you are disrespecting the people or the honor of the people in one village, the whole village becomes against you. This is creating hatred against Americans."
The US killing of civilians, combined with a widely held perception that the Afghan government exists only for facilitating the corruption of powerful warlords, drug dealers and war criminals, is producing a situation in which the Taliban and the Haqqani network are gaining support from the Pashtun heartland in communities that would not otherwise be backing them. Since 2005, when Zaeef was released from Guantánamo, "the Taliban have become stronger," he says. "Are the Taliban coming from the sky?" Zaeef asks. "No, it's new people."
[....]
On a practical level, the discontent in those rural areas with the corruption of the Afghan government and the consistent killing of civilians by US forces is raising the prospect that Afghans offering assistance to the Afghan government and NATO forces—such as allowing safe passage to key supply convoys—may withdraw that support.
[....]
In Afghanistan, Taliban commanders are fond of characterizing their fight to expel the United States and its allies with the phrase, "You've got the clocks, we've got the time." While US leaders are struggling to define what victory would look like in Afghanistan, the forces they are fighting are not. "We have two goals: freedom or martyrdom," says Taliban commander Salahuddin. "If we do not win our freedom, then we'll die honorably for its cause." The continuing US targeted-killing campaign and renewed airstrikes ordered by General Petraeus seem only to be further weakening the already fragile Karzai government. In plain terms, the United States' own actions in Afghanistan seem to be delivering the most fatal blows to its counterinsurgency strategy and its goal of winning hearts and minds. "I think that the Americans are already defeated in Afghanistan, they are just not accepting it," says former Taliban official Zaeef.
Jeremy Scahill, author of the definitive book, Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army, and prolific investigative reporter, has written an article for The Nation magazine that is relevant for understanding what the US military's approach to the Taliban is about and the likely repercussions. The major point of his article is that, indeed, the US occupation force in Afghanistan is pursuing a counter-terrorist course of action against Taliban, targeting leaders of the insurgency. But it is proving yet again to be counterproductive, as US forces kill innocent Afghanis, generate hatred against and fear of US troops, and drive more and more of the Afghan people to support Taliban groups.
Here are excerpts from Scahill's eye-opening article, which can be found at: http://www.thenation.com/article/155622/killing-reconciliation
Killing Reconciliation
Jeremy Scahill October 27, 2010
On March 26, 2009, Mullah Sahib Jan, a militant Taliban imam from the Mohammed Agha district in Afghanistan's Logar province, walked into the office of the Independent National Reconciliation Commission, the main body encouraging the Taliban to lay down their weapons and work with the government. He was escorting fifty Taliban fighters who, he said, had committed to ending their fight against the Afghan government and entering the process of integration. To the government, Sahib Jan was a shining example of how reconciliation with the Taliban is supposed to work. But less than a year later, the former militant's story would stand as a devastating symbol of how the actions of US Special Operations Forces are sabotaging the very strategy for reaching a political settlement that US officials claim to support.
[....]
When Sahib Jan walked into the reconciliation office, he publicly announced that he and his Taliban colleagues had agreed to work with the government on a peace process after the commission assured him that it would restrict US-led NATO forces from conducting night raids and killing civilians. "If the killing and arrests of people were not stopped," he said, "we would withdraw our support to the government and the foreign forces."
Reconciliation officials in Logar province say that making allies out of figures like Sahib Jan is the centerpiece of their work. Logar and its neighboring provinces, Paktia, Wardak and Ghazni, contain a strong presence of not only the Taliban but also the Haqqani network, the insurgent group portrayed by US officials as having the closest ties to Al Qaeda and a cozy relationship with Pakistan's ISI spy organization. Logar is also home to several tribes that say they have spent the past two years trying to make peace. A crucial part of this, they say, is building enough trust with the Taliban to make a serious case for ending their insurgency. Soon after his initial trip to the reconciliation office, Sahib Jan left his calling as an imam and took a position as a religious adviser to the reconciliation commission. As part of his work, reconciliation officials say, he traveled to hardcore Taliban areas.
"He was preaching to the Taliban, encouraging them to come to the government, telling the fighters there were a lot of benefits to laying down their arms," says Mohammed Anwar, director of Logar's reconciliation commission and an adviser to a local tribal council. Council officials credit Sahib Jan with putting Taliban fighters on the road to reconciliation.
But on the morning of January 14, Sahib Jan's bullet-riddled body lay on the ground outside his family's mud-brick compound in Logar's Safed Sang village. According to local officials and his family, he was killed in a night raid by US Special Operations Forces. "At 1 or 1:30 in the morning, US soldiers pulled up to the gas station in front of our house.
[....]
According to Haider, US forces entered the compound with ladders and corralled the men into one room, where they handcuffed and blindfolded them. They moved the women to a separate room. "They tied all of our hands and roughed us up a little bit. They were beating us with both weapons and their hands," recalls Haider. "I was tied up from 1 or 1:30 in the morning until 6 in the morning." The family says that during the raid much of their property was damaged or destroyed. As Sahib Jan's sons were tied up, they had no idea of their father's fate until the Afghan translator appeared with US soldiers. They showed them a picture and said, "This is the man we killed."
"It was my father," Haider recalls. The soldiers then escorted the surviving men of the family to their father's body, where they saw about six bullets in it. With that, the Americans left; they have never contacted the family since.
"We have checked our logs and with our units that conduct these types of mission profiles. There is no record of the operation," US Lt. Commander Thomas Porter wrote in an e-mail to The Nation. But an eyewitness to the raid named Azmuddin, who works at the gas station in front of Sahib Jan's home, says, "US forces told me the next morning that they killed him because he had shot at them." Azmuddin says the morning after the raid he was arrested by US forces and taken to the classified Tor Prison, or "black jail," for fifteen days before being locked up at the Bagram prison for four months. In response to NATO's statement, government officials in Logar reacted angrily and swore that Sahib Jan was killed by US forces.
"There was a false report claiming that Sahib Jan was a Taliban, and the Americans conducted a night raid and killed him even though he had been working with us for months," says Anwar, the head of Logar's reconciliation commission.
[....]
Officials at the reconciliation office point to several night raids over the past year, which they say targeted former Taliban who entered the process of reconciliation, as devastating to their work. "We are trying to build bridges between the Taliban and the government and trying to find jobs for them. We are working to get them decent housing in return for leaving the Taliban," says Anwar. "We are also trying to ensure that once they turn themselves in, they are not arrested again. How can we encourage reconciliation in good faith in the face of these American raids against the very people who agree to disarm?"
[....]
On the ground the Taliban seem to be gaining traction and increasing membership despite, or perhaps because of, intensified US targeted-killing operations and night raids.
Two senior officials of the former Taliban government have told The Nation that the Taliban will not engage in any meaningful talks until foreign troops are expelled from Afghanistan and that reports that the Taliban are engaged in serious negotiations are false. "There is nothing going on, no negotiations between the Taliban and the Americans or the Taliban and the [Afghan] government," says Abdul Salam Zaeef, who served as the Taliban government's ambassador to Pakistan, in an interview at his home in Kabul. He says if anyone claiming to be Taliban is negotiating, they are essentially nobodies to the movement. "There was no 'peace meeting' because the Taliban reject it."
[....]
The US strategy seems to be to force the Taliban to the table through a fierce killing campaign. According to the US military, over a ninety-day period this past summer, US and coalition Special Operations Forces killed or captured more than 2,900 "insurgents," with an estimated dozen killed a day. Between July 4, when Gen. David Petraeus assumed command in Kabul, and early October, according to the military, US and Afghan Special Operations Forces killed more than 300 Taliban commanders and more than 900 foot soldiers in 1,500 raids. "This is precisely the kind of pressure we believe will lead to reconciliation and reintegration" of the Taliban, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said recently.
Zaeef, the former senior Taliban official, who spent four years in Guantánamo prison, confirmed that the American targeted-killing campaign of Taliban leaders has been successful, but he believes that the strategy will backfire for both the US and Afghan governments. "If these people, important, known people, disappear from the [Taliban] movement, what will happen? Who should [the Afghan government] make a dialogue with?" he asks. "The fighting will not stop. I know the new generation is more extremist than the last generation. The new generation will not listen to anyone. This is a dangerous thing. It will be bad for the Americans, but it will be worse for the people of Afghanistan."
[....]
Zaeef says the night raids and the targeted killings are strengthening the Taliban and inspiring more people "to become extremist against the Americans." US political and military leaders, he says, "are thinking, 'When we scare the people, they should be quiet.' But this is a different nation. When you are killing one person, four or five others rise against you. If you are killing five people, twenty, at least, are rising against you. When you are disrespecting the people or the honor of the people in one village, the whole village becomes against you. This is creating hatred against Americans."
The US killing of civilians, combined with a widely held perception that the Afghan government exists only for facilitating the corruption of powerful warlords, drug dealers and war criminals, is producing a situation in which the Taliban and the Haqqani network are gaining support from the Pashtun heartland in communities that would not otherwise be backing them. Since 2005, when Zaeef was released from Guantánamo, "the Taliban have become stronger," he says. "Are the Taliban coming from the sky?" Zaeef asks. "No, it's new people."
[....]
On a practical level, the discontent in those rural areas with the corruption of the Afghan government and the consistent killing of civilians by US forces is raising the prospect that Afghans offering assistance to the Afghan government and NATO forces—such as allowing safe passage to key supply convoys—may withdraw that support.
[....]
In Afghanistan, Taliban commanders are fond of characterizing their fight to expel the United States and its allies with the phrase, "You've got the clocks, we've got the time." While US leaders are struggling to define what victory would look like in Afghanistan, the forces they are fighting are not. "We have two goals: freedom or martyrdom," says Taliban commander Salahuddin. "If we do not win our freedom, then we'll die honorably for its cause." The continuing US targeted-killing campaign and renewed airstrikes ordered by General Petraeus seem only to be further weakening the already fragile Karzai government. In plain terms, the United States' own actions in Afghanistan seem to be delivering the most fatal blows to its counterinsurgency strategy and its goal of winning hearts and minds. "I think that the Americans are already defeated in Afghanistan, they are just not accepting it," says former Taliban official Zaeef.
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