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.