President Obama, Secretary of Defense Gates, Secretary of State Clinton, the majority in the US Congress, and the top military brass support the policy that an unspecified number of the 100,000 US forces stationed in Afghanistan as of now will remain in the country until the end of 2014, and perhaps beyond that time depending on how the generals in command assess “conditions on the ground.”
There is still a question about whether some troops will be withdrawn at the end of July, the goal Pres. Obama promised to achieve back in December of 2009 when he authorized an additional 20,000 US troops for deployment to Iraq.
While the Obama administration and Department of Defense have not yet specified the number of troops that will be brought home in 2011, there are indications that the US military will have a strong presence in Afghanistan until at least 2014, and perhaps beyond that year.
Perhaps the strongest indication is the sheer volume of military bases that were already built and in operation by early 2010. In February of 2010, Nick Turse documented this fact in an article re-printed on Alternet.org, “Totally occupied: 700 Military Bases Spread Across Afghanistan.” Here are some of Turse’s observations.
“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 that began last year.”
“Colonel Wayne Shanks, 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.”
http://www.alternet.org/world/1456311
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Recent developments in Iraq serve as an example of what is likely to unfold in Afghanistan.
In September of 2010, Sharif Abdel Kouddous interviewed Jacquie Soohen on Democracy Now.org, on this issue of whether many bases in Iraq would remain under US control and occupation. Jaquie Soohen is an independent journalist of Big Noise Films who has reported on this issue. During this segment, DN runs parts of a documentary film Soohen did originally for the program Empire on Al Jazeera English, along with the interview with Soohen and also Jeremy Scahill. Soohen raises the question whether the US military is planning for “an enduring presence” in Iraq rather than a genuine withdrawal. The facts support the former.
“JACQUIE SOOHEN: The current Status of Forces Agreement with Iraq requires a full US withdrawal and an end to the occupation. And the US military and State Department are busy planning for what they call an "enduring presence" after the treaty’s deadline on December 31st, 2011. But on bases like this one in Balad, Iraq, the military continues to invest hundred of millions in infrastructure improvements, and it is difficult to imagine them fully abandoning everything they are building here.
COL. SAL NODJOMIAN: Joint Base Balad is approximately ten square miles, which equates to about 6,500 acres. To put that in relative terms, Andrews Air Force Base, which is right outside DC, is about 20 percent smaller than that. And we don’t even have golf courses here, so that kind of puts it in perspective of how big that is. We have about 28,000 people who call Joint Base Balad home.
JACQUIE SOOHEN: US Air Force Colonel Sal Nodjomian takes us on a tour of what is essentially a small American city, complete with three large gyms, multiple shopping centers, recreation areas and a movie theater. In 2003, military planners expected to keep Balad as a long-term air base. While smaller US outposts are closing down around the country, Balad keeps expanding. And some in the military still believe that the US Air Force will remain here past the 2012 deadline.
COL. SAL NODJOMIAN: Our senior leadership is studying options to draw down our presence here in Iraq. Joint Base Balad is one of the bases that’s often talked about as one of the more semi-permanent or strategic overwatch bases.
[….]
COL. SAL NODJOMIAN: If an agreement is reached, and the Iraqis ask us to stay or invite us to stay, in whatever capacity, whether it’s a training capacity or a collective capacity, then that’s something that can be—that’ll be decided.
JACQUIE SOOHEN: It remains to be seen whether conventional US forces will stay in some of these massive bases. But there are some troops who definitely plan to be here after the withdrawal deadline. Forty-five hundred members of elite special operations forces will train Iraqis and cooperate on counterterrorism missions.
BRIG. GEN. SIMEON TROMBITAS: We have advisers that work with the whole chain of INCTF.
JACQUIE SOOHEN: Brigadier General Simeon Trombitas shows us a training exercise of Iraq’s counterterrorism force that his men train and work with. He says that they spend most of their day side by side with Iraqi officers.
BRIG. GEN. SIMEON TROMBITAS: Throughout the world and in this region, special forces are—you know, we’re special because we do maintain a relationship with foreign forces. There will be a working relationship for a while.
JEREMY SCAHILL: The United States is going to continue to train Iraqi special operations forces. What this essentially amounts to is an Iraqization of the US occupation.
BRIG. GEN. SIMEON TROMBITAS: We maintain that relationship so we, you know, impart our values and maintain those values. And the longer we work together, the more liked we are.
JEREMY SCAHILL: What this means is that the United States can say, "We don’t have a military occupation in Iraq," while at the same time having US military forces effectively directing forces that are masquerading as indigenous but in reality amount to basic proxy forces for the United States.
JACQUIE SOOHEN: In addition to several thousand special operations forces and an unknown number of Air Force personnel, the US State Department has announced that it will hire an army of as many as 7,000 mercenaries to be deployed on five enduring presence posts across Iraq.
JEREMY SCAHILL: Yes, a lot of US military forces are going to be leaving the country, but what we’re seeing happen right now, the US State Department is beginning a militarization of its operations in Iraq. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has asked for a doubling of the number of armed private security contractors in the country. The State Department has also put in a request from the Pentagon for military-grade equipment, including Black Hawk helicopters, armored vehicles. What we’re seeing in Iraq right now is a downsizing and a rebranding of the US occupation.
http://democracynow.org/appearances/enduring_presence, Sept. 1, 2010
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Bases are not built or taken over in Afghanistan or Iraq on the assumption that they, or many of them, will be abandoned after the officially defined end of an occupation. The US economy and political power in the world are declining. The self-image of US exceptionalism and US power around the world rests increasingly on US military superiority. Losing the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq would provide evidence that the ability of the US to get its way in the world based on military force is diminishing. US leaders will resist such outcomes.
History doesn’t offer much basis for optimism. Here is a quote from the Democracy Now interview above from Andrew Bacevich that sums it up well.
ANDREW BACEVICH: My guess is that the US government and the Iraqi government [and now the Afghanistan government] will find some way of finessing this promise to close down US bases. You know, we’ve had Air Force bases in the United Kingdom for the last half-century. They’re not called US Air Force bases. They’re called Royal Air Force bases. But they’re owned, lock, stock and barrel, by the United States Air Force. So there are ways—ways to work around what might seem like an airtight commitment.
Showing posts with label Afghan national army. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Afghan national army. Show all posts
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Monday, October 18, 2010
Training Afghan for police force and army still questionable
Robert Farago raises one of the pivotal questions about the US/NATO (US-led?) occupation in Afghanistan, namely, how long will US/NATO troops stay in the country. Whatever the final answer, you can bet that the US troops will be the last to leave, if they ever leave. Farago’s focus is on the training of an Afghan army and police force, but it has relevance for the question of “how long” military officials estimate it will take to train and equip an independent national army and police force. One of the sources cited by Farago is Brig. Gen. Armelo Burgio, “an Italian officer who commands the police development effort,” who says we need patience and time to develop a “well-rounded” police force – “many years,” he says.
I have posted Farago’s article, as follows. The URL for his article is:
http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2010/10/robert-farago/afghan-army-and-police-getting-better-or- not.
See two other sources after the article on the topic of training Afghan men and women for the country’s national police and army.
Farago’s article:
Alone amongst the press corps deployed to the Sand Box, New York Times gun blogger C.J. Chivers has exposed the abject ineffectiveness of Afghanistan’s home-grown army and police force. Not to mention the billions of dollars U.S. taxpayers have wasted on attempting to arm and train same. Reading his latest dispatch is like listening to someone arguing with himself. Chivers chronicles the renewed effort to create an effective fighting force with something bordering on enthusiasm. And then contrasts it with pessimistic (i.e. realistic) assessments. And then cheers up. And then goes back to the dark side. Check it out . . .
Long a lagging priority, the plan to produce many more highly trained Afghan troops is moving this fall at a rapid pace.
Two main training sites — the Kabul Military Training Center, used principally by the Afghan Army, and the Central Training Center, used by the police — have become bustling bases, packed with trainers and recruits, and there is a sense among the officers that they are producing better soldiers than before.
The military center has been graduating 1,400 newly trained soldiers every two weeks, as the Obama administration, eager to show progress in a slow-going war, has devoted more trainers and money to the effort.
Sense and sensibility, then. Yes, well, optimism may be breaking out all over, but there are plenty or reasons not to be cheerful, Part 2.
At the small-unit level, Western troops and journalists have documented their corruption, drug use, mediocre or poor fighting skills and patterns of lackluster commitment, including an unwillingness to patrol regularly and in sizable numbers, or to stand watch in remote outposts.
At the higher levels, Western military officers often describe patronage, favoritism and an absence of managerial acumen, rooted in part in the pervasive culture of corruption and in widespread illiteracy. (Now, 14 percent of the combined force can read or write — at the third-grade level.)
There is also a strong worry about Taliban infiltration into the ranks, especially among the police.
So . . . that sucks, right? But that was then (i.e. the last ten years). This is now!
“Basically, there is a big change in training, the quality of the training,” said Brig. Gen. Aminullah Patyani, the commander of the Kabul Military Training Center . . .
Col. John G. Ferrari, a deputy commander of the NATO Training Mission Afghanistan, spoke of an “inevitability factor,” in which local security forces, in theory and if trained properly, rise in quantity, skill and state of equipment, sharply tilting the war in the government’s favor.
Chivers goes on to describe the attrition bedeviling U.S. and NATO efforts to increase Afghan troop levels. To grow the army by 36,000 soldiers, the government must recruit and train 83,000 Afghans. For the police hit its target of 14,000 more cops, it’s got to train 50,000 more recruits. And guess who gets to pay for all of that?
As they head down the home stretch, U.S. forces and their allies are aware of the long-ignored accountability issue. And they’re doing their level best to deal with it.
Even as these deadlines approach, many officers have spoken of managing expectations.
Brig. Gen. Carmelo Burgio, the Italian officer who commands the police development effort, said that NATO had made practical steps toward police competence, and that training had improved.
But developing a well-rounded police officer, much less a well-rounded force, takes many years — perhaps much longer than America and other NATO nations have the patience for. “We believe we are on the right path,” General Burgio said. “We need time. Without time, without patience, it is impossible.”
Other sources:
Andrew Tighman, “Illiteracy, desertion slow Afghan training, Marine Corps Times, August 24, 2010.
Ann Jones, “US wins minds, Afghan hearts are lost," Asia Times Online, Sept. 22, 2010.
I have posted Farago’s article, as follows. The URL for his article is:
http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2010/10/robert-farago/afghan-army-and-police-getting-better-or- not.
See two other sources after the article on the topic of training Afghan men and women for the country’s national police and army.
Farago’s article:
Alone amongst the press corps deployed to the Sand Box, New York Times gun blogger C.J. Chivers has exposed the abject ineffectiveness of Afghanistan’s home-grown army and police force. Not to mention the billions of dollars U.S. taxpayers have wasted on attempting to arm and train same. Reading his latest dispatch is like listening to someone arguing with himself. Chivers chronicles the renewed effort to create an effective fighting force with something bordering on enthusiasm. And then contrasts it with pessimistic (i.e. realistic) assessments. And then cheers up. And then goes back to the dark side. Check it out . . .
Long a lagging priority, the plan to produce many more highly trained Afghan troops is moving this fall at a rapid pace.
Two main training sites — the Kabul Military Training Center, used principally by the Afghan Army, and the Central Training Center, used by the police — have become bustling bases, packed with trainers and recruits, and there is a sense among the officers that they are producing better soldiers than before.
The military center has been graduating 1,400 newly trained soldiers every two weeks, as the Obama administration, eager to show progress in a slow-going war, has devoted more trainers and money to the effort.
Sense and sensibility, then. Yes, well, optimism may be breaking out all over, but there are plenty or reasons not to be cheerful, Part 2.
At the small-unit level, Western troops and journalists have documented their corruption, drug use, mediocre or poor fighting skills and patterns of lackluster commitment, including an unwillingness to patrol regularly and in sizable numbers, or to stand watch in remote outposts.
At the higher levels, Western military officers often describe patronage, favoritism and an absence of managerial acumen, rooted in part in the pervasive culture of corruption and in widespread illiteracy. (Now, 14 percent of the combined force can read or write — at the third-grade level.)
There is also a strong worry about Taliban infiltration into the ranks, especially among the police.
So . . . that sucks, right? But that was then (i.e. the last ten years). This is now!
“Basically, there is a big change in training, the quality of the training,” said Brig. Gen. Aminullah Patyani, the commander of the Kabul Military Training Center . . .
Col. John G. Ferrari, a deputy commander of the NATO Training Mission Afghanistan, spoke of an “inevitability factor,” in which local security forces, in theory and if trained properly, rise in quantity, skill and state of equipment, sharply tilting the war in the government’s favor.
Chivers goes on to describe the attrition bedeviling U.S. and NATO efforts to increase Afghan troop levels. To grow the army by 36,000 soldiers, the government must recruit and train 83,000 Afghans. For the police hit its target of 14,000 more cops, it’s got to train 50,000 more recruits. And guess who gets to pay for all of that?
As they head down the home stretch, U.S. forces and their allies are aware of the long-ignored accountability issue. And they’re doing their level best to deal with it.
Even as these deadlines approach, many officers have spoken of managing expectations.
Brig. Gen. Carmelo Burgio, the Italian officer who commands the police development effort, said that NATO had made practical steps toward police competence, and that training had improved.
But developing a well-rounded police officer, much less a well-rounded force, takes many years — perhaps much longer than America and other NATO nations have the patience for. “We believe we are on the right path,” General Burgio said. “We need time. Without time, without patience, it is impossible.”
Other sources:
Andrew Tighman, “Illiteracy, desertion slow Afghan training, Marine Corps Times, August 24, 2010.
Ann Jones, “US wins minds, Afghan hearts are lost," Asia Times Online, Sept. 22, 2010.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
US military plans and requests suggest a long occupation in Afghanistan
The website Antiwar.com is an excellent source of news and reports on countries around the world. The focus is usually critical and on situations that have some relevance to US foreign and military policies.
Today, one of the many articles posted is about Gen. Patraeus request for 2,000 additional troops for Afghanistan. You can find the full article at: http://news.antiwar.com/2010/09/06/patraeus-seeks-more-troops-for-afghanistan.
Another article (see below) deals with plans for the US to spend $6 billion a year on the Afghan police and military forces, probably a low-ball estimate.
These articles unfortunately suggest that US military leaders in Afghanistan are expecting to be in the country for many years. This follows the pattern of US military wars and interventions around the world since at least the Korean War. Once in a country, stay there.
US Plans to Spend $6 Billion a Year on Afghan Troops
Posted By Jason Ditz On September 6, 2010
http://news.antiwar.com/2010/09/06/us-plans-to-spend-6-billion-a-year-on-afghan-troops
According to previously undisclosed estimates, the United States is planning to spend $6 billion annually on supporting Afghanistan’s military and police starting in 2011, an expense which given the weak Afghan economy will probably continue more or less forever.
But the estimate could also be unrealistically low, as the administration spent about $9 billion this year and is planning to spend $11.6 billion next year on this expense. As US plans to increase the size of Afghanistan’s military seem to grow virtually annually, it seems the expected “drop” past 2011 is not based on anything.
Training pledges and goals seem to constantly go unfulfilled, and most officials openly say that it will take another decade, at best, to build the Afghan security forces, so the $6 billion “maintenance” level, which will be quite a bit lower than the training costs, will likely not come for quite some time.
This cost is only a comparatively small percentage of the overall amount the US spends annually on its occupation of Afghanistan. But it serves as perhaps the clearest reminder of how long the Obama Administration intends to keep the US chained to Afghanistan.
Article printed from News From Antiwar.com: http://news.antiwar.com
Today, one of the many articles posted is about Gen. Patraeus request for 2,000 additional troops for Afghanistan. You can find the full article at: http://news.antiwar.com/2010/09/06/patraeus-seeks-more-troops-for-afghanistan.
Another article (see below) deals with plans for the US to spend $6 billion a year on the Afghan police and military forces, probably a low-ball estimate.
These articles unfortunately suggest that US military leaders in Afghanistan are expecting to be in the country for many years. This follows the pattern of US military wars and interventions around the world since at least the Korean War. Once in a country, stay there.
US Plans to Spend $6 Billion a Year on Afghan Troops
Posted By Jason Ditz On September 6, 2010
http://news.antiwar.com/2010/09/06/us-plans-to-spend-6-billion-a-year-on-afghan-troops
According to previously undisclosed estimates, the United States is planning to spend $6 billion annually on supporting Afghanistan’s military and police starting in 2011, an expense which given the weak Afghan economy will probably continue more or less forever.
But the estimate could also be unrealistically low, as the administration spent about $9 billion this year and is planning to spend $11.6 billion next year on this expense. As US plans to increase the size of Afghanistan’s military seem to grow virtually annually, it seems the expected “drop” past 2011 is not based on anything.
Training pledges and goals seem to constantly go unfulfilled, and most officials openly say that it will take another decade, at best, to build the Afghan security forces, so the $6 billion “maintenance” level, which will be quite a bit lower than the training costs, will likely not come for quite some time.
This cost is only a comparatively small percentage of the overall amount the US spends annually on its occupation of Afghanistan. But it serves as perhaps the clearest reminder of how long the Obama Administration intends to keep the US chained to Afghanistan.
Article printed from News From Antiwar.com: http://news.antiwar.com
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Some libertarians also support a withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan
Not all voices supporting the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan come from the left-of-center crowd. In the following article, Doug Bandow, associated with the libertarian Cato Institute, supports in general terms a withdrawal. He offers a host of arguments in defense of his position.
Is war in Afghanistan necessary?
By Doug Bandow
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/opinion/2010/08/137_70943.html
August 6, 2010
The massive document leak on U.S. policy in Afghanistan is causing more Americans to ask: Why are we in Afghanistan? There is no good answer.
The original justification for war long ago disappeared. Today, says CIA Director Leon Panetta, “At most, we’re looking at 50 to 100, maybe less” al-Qaida operatives in Afghanistan. Nevertheless, John Bolton argues that the Taliban and al-Qaida must be defeated lest they “reconquer Afghanistan and make it a base for international terrorism.” However, the Taliban leadership appeared unhappy that its guests brought down the wrath of Washington back in 2001. The Taliban likely would avoid a repeat performance.
In any case, al-Qaida doesn’t need Afghanistan. Pakistan’s northwest has proved to be a hospitable home. Other failed or semi-failed states could similarly host terrorists. It’s hard to fathom another reason for staying. Would withdrawal harm U.S. credibility? Unfortunately, the longer Washington and its allies stay, the greater will be its ultimate loss of face.
Of course, leaving Afghanistan a better place is a worthy objective, but is not easily achieved through outside military intervention. Civilian deaths in Afghanistan may run 10,000, and as fighting grows more intense more civilians will be harmed. Sadly, Americans are directly responsible for many deaths. Then-U.S. commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal complained in March: “We’ve shot an amazing number of people [at checkpoints] and killed a number and, to my knowledge, none has proven to have been a real threat.” There are still Afghans who hope to create a liberal society. But the Western allies already have been at war in Afghanistan for nearly nine years. Yet after the sacrifice of nearly 2,000 lives and expenditures approaching $400 billion, the country remains a wreck. In June Gen. McChrystal briefed NATO members. He indicated that just five of 116 areas were rated “secure.” In only five of 122 districts did the government exercise full authority.
Taliban attacks are up. The Afghanistan Rights Monitor recently complained that “the insurgency has become more resilient, multi-structured and deadly.” When I visited in May, allied personnel warned that many areas had become much more dangerous.
Nevertheless, some war advocates praise the new allied strategy. However, manpower remains inadequate. Traditional counter-insurgency doctrine suggests that more than 600,000 troops are needed, which would mean quintupling current force levels. Islamabad continues to play a double game, aiding the Pashtun Taliban forces. One Westerner working with the Afghan government told me: “Pakistan is in a state of undeclared war with NATO and Afghanistan.”Nor is salvation likely to come from an increasing number of Afghan security personnel. The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction recently noted that only 23 percent of the Afghan National Army (ANA) and 12 percent of the Afghan National Police (ANP) were rated in the top of four categories, meaning they were capable of independent action. On my recent trip one Afghan complained that sending in the ANP is the best way to turn people into Taliban.
Then there is the Afghan government, which is noted for its corruption. Kabul is a vampire city in which the well-connected elite live off of drug or Western money. A long-time associate of President Karzai told me that no Afghan politician could long survive without “taking care of” his family and friends.The daunting challenge facing the U.S. and its allies is evident from operations in both Marja and Kandahar. The town of Marja was a Taliban sanctuary targeted by the U.S. military in February. In May Gen. McChrystal complained of the perception that Marja had become “a bleeding ulcer.”The far larger operation planned for Kandahar has been put off from June and support for the Taliban remains worrisomely strong. Again, success will depend on effective local governance which does not exist.
Washington is pursuing the wrong objective in the wrong place. The West's critical objectives are to prevent Afghanistan from again becoming an al-Qaida training ground and to avoid destabilizing next-door nuclear-armed Pakistan. The first has been achieved, and could be maintained through a negotiated withdrawal with the Taliban ― which likely would prefer not to be deposed again ― backed by air/drone strikes and Special Forces intervention if necessary. The second would be best served by deescalating the conflict. The war is a major source of instability in Pakistan.
Failing to “win” in Afghanistan would be bad. But carrying on in a war not worth fighting would be worse. Washington and its allies should leave nation-building in Afghanistan to the Afghan people.
Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. A former special assistant to President Ronald Reagan, he is the author of several books, including ``Foreign Follies: America’s New Global Empire” (Xulon). He can be reached at ChessSet@aol.com.
Is war in Afghanistan necessary?
By Doug Bandow
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/opinion/2010/08/137_70943.html
August 6, 2010
The massive document leak on U.S. policy in Afghanistan is causing more Americans to ask: Why are we in Afghanistan? There is no good answer.
The original justification for war long ago disappeared. Today, says CIA Director Leon Panetta, “At most, we’re looking at 50 to 100, maybe less” al-Qaida operatives in Afghanistan. Nevertheless, John Bolton argues that the Taliban and al-Qaida must be defeated lest they “reconquer Afghanistan and make it a base for international terrorism.” However, the Taliban leadership appeared unhappy that its guests brought down the wrath of Washington back in 2001. The Taliban likely would avoid a repeat performance.
In any case, al-Qaida doesn’t need Afghanistan. Pakistan’s northwest has proved to be a hospitable home. Other failed or semi-failed states could similarly host terrorists. It’s hard to fathom another reason for staying. Would withdrawal harm U.S. credibility? Unfortunately, the longer Washington and its allies stay, the greater will be its ultimate loss of face.
Of course, leaving Afghanistan a better place is a worthy objective, but is not easily achieved through outside military intervention. Civilian deaths in Afghanistan may run 10,000, and as fighting grows more intense more civilians will be harmed. Sadly, Americans are directly responsible for many deaths. Then-U.S. commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal complained in March: “We’ve shot an amazing number of people [at checkpoints] and killed a number and, to my knowledge, none has proven to have been a real threat.” There are still Afghans who hope to create a liberal society. But the Western allies already have been at war in Afghanistan for nearly nine years. Yet after the sacrifice of nearly 2,000 lives and expenditures approaching $400 billion, the country remains a wreck. In June Gen. McChrystal briefed NATO members. He indicated that just five of 116 areas were rated “secure.” In only five of 122 districts did the government exercise full authority.
Taliban attacks are up. The Afghanistan Rights Monitor recently complained that “the insurgency has become more resilient, multi-structured and deadly.” When I visited in May, allied personnel warned that many areas had become much more dangerous.
Nevertheless, some war advocates praise the new allied strategy. However, manpower remains inadequate. Traditional counter-insurgency doctrine suggests that more than 600,000 troops are needed, which would mean quintupling current force levels. Islamabad continues to play a double game, aiding the Pashtun Taliban forces. One Westerner working with the Afghan government told me: “Pakistan is in a state of undeclared war with NATO and Afghanistan.”Nor is salvation likely to come from an increasing number of Afghan security personnel. The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction recently noted that only 23 percent of the Afghan National Army (ANA) and 12 percent of the Afghan National Police (ANP) were rated in the top of four categories, meaning they were capable of independent action. On my recent trip one Afghan complained that sending in the ANP is the best way to turn people into Taliban.
Then there is the Afghan government, which is noted for its corruption. Kabul is a vampire city in which the well-connected elite live off of drug or Western money. A long-time associate of President Karzai told me that no Afghan politician could long survive without “taking care of” his family and friends.The daunting challenge facing the U.S. and its allies is evident from operations in both Marja and Kandahar. The town of Marja was a Taliban sanctuary targeted by the U.S. military in February. In May Gen. McChrystal complained of the perception that Marja had become “a bleeding ulcer.”The far larger operation planned for Kandahar has been put off from June and support for the Taliban remains worrisomely strong. Again, success will depend on effective local governance which does not exist.
Washington is pursuing the wrong objective in the wrong place. The West's critical objectives are to prevent Afghanistan from again becoming an al-Qaida training ground and to avoid destabilizing next-door nuclear-armed Pakistan. The first has been achieved, and could be maintained through a negotiated withdrawal with the Taliban ― which likely would prefer not to be deposed again ― backed by air/drone strikes and Special Forces intervention if necessary. The second would be best served by deescalating the conflict. The war is a major source of instability in Pakistan.
Failing to “win” in Afghanistan would be bad. But carrying on in a war not worth fighting would be worse. Washington and its allies should leave nation-building in Afghanistan to the Afghan people.
Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. A former special assistant to President Ronald Reagan, he is the author of several books, including ``Foreign Follies: America’s New Global Empire” (Xulon). He can be reached at ChessSet@aol.com.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Neither counterinsurgency nor US occupation under any guise works
Tom Engelhardt writes in the article below that counterinsurgency is not advancing US goals in Afghanistan. Along with special forces operations, counterinsurgency kills too many civilians, fails to win the "hearts and minds" of most Afghanis, and puts many Afghanis in the intolerable position of having to choose between the occupation, with all of its lethal manifestations, or the Taliban, often led by foreigners from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, or elsewhere in the Middle East.
Before turning to Engelhardt's article, I want to recommend and pull a quote from his new book titled The American Way of War: How Bush's War Became Obama's. It is a collection of essays that originally appeared on TomDispatch.com. On p. 187, Engelhardt captures some of the failures of the US-led occuation where he writes:
"If it weren't so grim, despite all the upbeat benchmarks and encouraging worlds in the president's speech [i.e., Obama's speech], this would certainly qualify as Monty Python in Afghanistan. After all, three cabinet ministers and twelve former ministers are under investigation in Afghanistan on corruption charges. And that barely scratches the surface of the problems in a country that one Russian expert recently referred to as an 'international drug firm." where at least one-third of the gross national produce comes from the drug trade. The Taliban now reportedly take a cut of the billions of dollars in US development aid flowing into the county, much of which is otherwise squandered, and of the American money that goes into 'protecting' the convoys that bring supplies to US troops throughout the country. One out of every four Afghan soldiers has quit or deserted the Afghan National Army, while the ill-paid, largely illiterate, hapless Afghan police with their 'well-deserved reputation for stealing and extorting bribes,' not to speak of a drug abuse rate estimated at 15 percent, as it's politely put, 'years away from a functioning independently. Meanwhile, the insurgency is spreading to new areas of the country and reviving it in others."
The article.
Advice for General Petraeus on the Rules of Engagement:It’s Neither/Nor, Not Either/Or
Guest Editorial: Tom Engelhardt, author of the recently-published The American Way of War: How Bush’s Wars Became Obama’s (Haymarket Books, July 2010) and editor of Tomdispatch.com, writes in a guest editorial for Informed Comment:
Posted on Juan Cole's blog, Informed Comment, July 20, 2010
Recently, we’ve been flooded with news stories and debate about the “rules of engagement” for U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Now-discredited war commander General Stanley McChrystal, we’ve been told, instituted fiercely restrictive rules of engagement to lessen the number of Afghan civilians who died or were wounded at the hands of American forces, and to “protect the people,” just as the “hearts and minds” part of counterinsurgency doctrine tells us should be done.
Specifically, he made it far harder for U.S. troops under fire to call in air strikes or artillery support if civilians might possibly be in the vicinity of any firefight. Grumbling about this among those troops, according to Michael Hastings, the Rolling Stone reporter whose piece took McChrystal down, had already reached something close to fever pitch by the time the general and his special ops cronies began mouthing off in frustration in Paris.
Articles in which troops or mid-level officers claim to be “handcuffed by our chain of command” are now almost as common as implicitly critical stories about the dismal failure of McChrystal’s counterinsurgency effort in Afghanistan. General David Petraeus, on being given command of the war effort, turned immediately to those rules of engagement, promising not to change them, but to thoroughly review and “clarify” their “implementation and interpretation.”
What this means, we don’t yet know, but we should know one thing: the present discussion of counterinsurgency and of those rules of engagement makes little sense. They are being presented as a kind of either/or option — kill us or kill them — when it would be more accurate to say that it’s a neither/nor situation.
After all, in another, less protective part of McChrystal’s counterinsurgency war, he was bulking up special operations forces in the country and sending them out on night raids searching for Taliban mid-level leaders. These raids continue to caused a cascade of civilian casualties, as well as an increasing uproar of protest among outraged Afghans. In addition, even with McChrystal’s tight rules for normal grunts, stories about the deaths of civilians, private security guards, and Afghan soldiers from air strikes, misplaced artillery fire, checkpoint shootings, and those night raids continue to pour out, followed by the usual American initial denials and then formulaic apologies for loss of life.
Whatever the rules, civilians continue to die in striking numbers at the hands of guerrillas and of American forces, and here’s the thing: tighten those rules, loosen them, fiddle with them, bend them, evade them, cancel them — at some level it’s all still neither/nor, not either/or. In any counterinsurgency war where guerrillas, faced with vastly superior fire power, fight from cover and work hard to blend in with the populace, where the counterinsurgents are foreigners about as alien from the land they are to “protect” as humanly possible, and fight, in part, from on high or based on “intelligence” from others about a world they can’t fathom, civilians will die. Lots of civilians. Continually. Whatever rules you make up. The issue isn’t the “rules of engagement.” No rules of engagement will alter the fact that civilian death is the central fact of such wars.
It’s time to stop talking about those rules and start talking about the madness of making counterinsurgency the American way of war. It wasn’t always so. Not so long ago, after all, it was considered a scandal that, post-Vietnam, the U.S. military rebuilt its all-volunteer force without rewriting or reconsidering its counterinsurgency manual. The high command, in fact, let counterinsurgency go to hell, exactly where they thought it deserved to rest in peace, and were focused instead on preventing Soviet armies from pouring through Germany’s Fulda Gap (something they were conveniently never likely to do). After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the U.S. military would continue to focus for some years on Colin Powell’s doctrine of overwhelming force, decisive victory, and quick exit.
Then, of course, Iraq happened and decisive victory (“mission accomplished”) soured into decisive disaster. It was at this moment, in 2006, that Generals Petraeus and James “Mad Dog” Mattis (now respectively Afghan war commander and head of Centcom) dusted off the old, failed Vietnam-era counterinsurgency doctrine and made it sexy again. They oversaw the writing of a whole new guidebook for the Army and Marines, 472 pages of advice that even got its own (university press) trade edition, and became the toast of Washington and the Pentagon.
So, after being buried and disinterred, COIN, as its known, is once again the reigning monarch of American war-fighting doctrines as the Pentagon prepares for one, two, three Iraqs or Afghanistans — and the scandal is that (surprise, surprise!) it’s not working. This should, of course, hardly have been news. The history of counterinsurgency warfare isn’t exactly a success story, or our present COINistas wouldn’t have taken their doctrine largely from failed counterinsurgency wars in Vietnam and Algeria, among other places. It’s not so encouraging, after all, when the main examples you have before you are defeats.
Our generals might have better spent their time studying the first modern war of this sort. It took place in early nineteenth century Spain when the Islamic fundamentalists of that moment — Catholic peasants and their priests — managed to stop Napoleon’s army (the high-tech force of the moment) in its tracks. Just check out Goya’s “Disasters of War” series, if you want to see how grim it was. And it’s never gotten much better.
Looked at historically, counterinsurgency was largely the war-fighting option of empires, of powers that wanted to keep occupying their restive colonies forever and a day. Of course, past empires didn’t spend much time worrying about “protecting the people.” They knew such wars were brutal. That was their point. As George Orwell summed such campaigns up in 1946 in his essay “Politics and the English Language”: “Defenseless villagers are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set afire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification.” The rise of anti-colonialism and nationalism after World War II should have made counterinsurgency history. Certainly, there is no place for occupations and the wars that go with them in the twenty-first century.
Unfortunately, none of this has been obvious to Washington or our leading generals. Of course, if they can rewrite the Army’s counterinsurgency manual for a new century, any of us can, so let me offer my one-line rewrite of their 472 pages. It’s simple and guaranteed to save trees as well as lives: “When it comes to counterinsurgency, don’t do it.”
—-Tom Engelhardt, co-founder of the American Empire Project, runs the Nation Institute’s TomDispatch.com. His latest book, The American Way of War: How Bush’s Wars Became Obama’s (Haymarket Books),
Recently, we’ve been flooded with news stories and debate about the “rules of engagement” for U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Now-discredited war commander General Stanley McChrystal, we’ve been told, instituted fiercely restrictive rules of engagement to lessen the number of Afghan civilians who died or were wounded at the hands of American forces, and to “protect the people,” just as the “hearts and minds” part of counterinsurgency doctrine tells us should be done. Specifically, he made it far harder for U.S. troops under fire to call in air strikes or artillery support if civilians might possibly be in the vicinity of any firefight. Grumbling about this among those troops, according to Michael Hastings, the Rolling Stone reporter whose piece took McChrystal down, had already reached something close to fever pitch by the time the general and his special ops cronies began mouthing off in frustration in Paris.
Articles in which troops or mid-level officers claim to be “handcuffed by our chain of command” are now almost as common as implicitly critical stories about the dismal failure of McChrystal’s counterinsurgency effort in Afghanistan. General David Petraeus, on being given command of the war effort, turned immediately to those rules of engagement, promising not to change them, but to thoroughly review and “clarify” their “implementation and interpretation.”
What this means, we don’t yet know, but we should know one thing: the present discussion of counterinsurgency and of those rules of engagement makes little sense. They are being presented as a kind of either/or option — kill us or kill them — when it would be more accurate to say that it’s a neither/nor situation.
After all, in another, less protective part of McChrystal’s counterinsurgency war, he was bulking up special operations forces in the country and sending them out on night raids searching for Taliban mid-level leaders. These raids continue to caused a cascade of civilian casualties, as well as an increasing uproar of protest among outraged Afghans. In addition, even with McChrystal’s tight rules for normal grunts, stories about the deaths of civilians, private security guards, and Afghan soldiers from air strikes, misplaced artillery fire, checkpoint shootings, and those night raids continue to pour out, followed by the usual American initial denials and then formulaic apologies for loss of life.
Whatever the rules, civilians continue to die in striking numbers at the hands of guerrillas and of American forces, and here’s the thing: tighten those rules, loosen them, fiddle with them, bend them, evade them, cancel them — at some level it’s all still neither/nor, not either/or. In any counterinsurgency war where guerrillas, faced with vastly superior fire power, fight from cover and work hard to blend in with the populace, where the counterinsurgents are foreigners about as alien from the land they are to “protect” as humanly possible, and fight, in part, from on high or based on “intelligence” from others about a world they can’t fathom, civilians will die. Lots of civilians. Continually. Whatever rules you make up. The issue isn’t the “rules of engagement.” No rules of engagement will alter the fact that civilian death is the central fact of such wars.
It’s time to stop talking about those rules and start talking about the madness of making counterinsurgency the American way of war. It wasn’t always so. Not so long ago, after all, it was considered a scandal that, post-Vietnam, the U.S. military rebuilt its all-volunteer force without rewriting or reconsidering its counterinsurgency manual. The high command, in fact, let counterinsurgency go to hell, exactly where they thought it deserved to rest in peace, and were focused instead on preventing Soviet armies from pouring through Germany’s Fulda Gap (something they were conveniently never likely to do). After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the U.S. military would continue to focus for some years on Colin Powell’s doctrine of overwhelming force, decisive victory, and quick exit.
Then, of course, Iraq happened and decisive victory (“mission accomplished”) soured into decisive disaster. It was at this moment, in 2006, that Generals Petraeus and James “Mad Dog” Mattis (now respectively Afghan war commander and head of Centcom) dusted off the old, failed Vietnam-era counterinsurgency doctrine and made it sexy again. They oversaw the writing of a whole new guidebook for the Army and Marines, 472 pages of advice that even got its own (university press) trade edition, and became the toast of Washington and the Pentagon.
So, after being buried and disinterred, COIN, as its known, is once again the reigning monarch of American war-fighting doctrines as the Pentagon prepares for one, two, three Iraqs or Afghanistans — and the scandal is that (surprise, surprise!) it’s not working. This should, of course, hardly have been news. The history of counterinsurgency warfare isn’t exactly a success story, or our present COINistas wouldn’t have taken their doctrine largely from failed counterinsurgency wars in Vietnam and Algeria, among other places. It’s not so encouraging, after all, when the main examples you have before you are defeats.
Our generals might have better spent their time studying the first modern war of this sort. It took place in early nineteenth century Spain when the Islamic fundamentalists of that moment — Catholic peasants and their priests — managed to stop Napoleon’s army (the high-tech force of the moment) in its tracks. Just check out Goya’s “Disasters of War” series, if you want to see how grim it was. And it’s never gotten much better.
Looked at historically, counterinsurgency was largely the war-fighting option of empires, of powers that wanted to keep occupying their restive colonies forever and a day. Of course, past empires didn’t spend much time worrying about “protecting the people.” They knew such wars were brutal. That was their point. As George Orwell summed such campaigns up in 1946 in his essay “Politics and the English Language”: “Defenseless villagers are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set afire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification.” The rise of anti-colonialism and nationalism after World War II should have made counterinsurgency history. Certainly, there is no place for occupations and the wars that go with them in the twenty-first century.
Unfortunately, none of this has been obvious to Washington or our leading generals. Of course, if they can rewrite the Army’s counterinsurgency manual for a new century, any of us can, so let me offer my one-line rewrite of their 472 pages. It’s simple and guaranteed to save trees as well as lives: “When it comes to counterinsurgency, don’t do it.”
—-Tom Engelhardt, co-founder of the American Empire Project, runs the Nation Institute’s TomDispatch.com. His latest book, The American Way of War: How Bush’s Wars Became Obama’s (Haymarket Books),
Before turning to Engelhardt's article, I want to recommend and pull a quote from his new book titled The American Way of War: How Bush's War Became Obama's. It is a collection of essays that originally appeared on TomDispatch.com. On p. 187, Engelhardt captures some of the failures of the US-led occuation where he writes:
"If it weren't so grim, despite all the upbeat benchmarks and encouraging worlds in the president's speech [i.e., Obama's speech], this would certainly qualify as Monty Python in Afghanistan. After all, three cabinet ministers and twelve former ministers are under investigation in Afghanistan on corruption charges. And that barely scratches the surface of the problems in a country that one Russian expert recently referred to as an 'international drug firm." where at least one-third of the gross national produce comes from the drug trade. The Taliban now reportedly take a cut of the billions of dollars in US development aid flowing into the county, much of which is otherwise squandered, and of the American money that goes into 'protecting' the convoys that bring supplies to US troops throughout the country. One out of every four Afghan soldiers has quit or deserted the Afghan National Army, while the ill-paid, largely illiterate, hapless Afghan police with their 'well-deserved reputation for stealing and extorting bribes,' not to speak of a drug abuse rate estimated at 15 percent, as it's politely put, 'years away from a functioning independently. Meanwhile, the insurgency is spreading to new areas of the country and reviving it in others."
The article.
Advice for General Petraeus on the Rules of Engagement:It’s Neither/Nor, Not Either/Or
Guest Editorial: Tom Engelhardt, author of the recently-published The American Way of War: How Bush’s Wars Became Obama’s (Haymarket Books, July 2010) and editor of Tomdispatch.com, writes in a guest editorial for Informed Comment:
Posted on Juan Cole's blog, Informed Comment, July 20, 2010
Recently, we’ve been flooded with news stories and debate about the “rules of engagement” for U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Now-discredited war commander General Stanley McChrystal, we’ve been told, instituted fiercely restrictive rules of engagement to lessen the number of Afghan civilians who died or were wounded at the hands of American forces, and to “protect the people,” just as the “hearts and minds” part of counterinsurgency doctrine tells us should be done.
Specifically, he made it far harder for U.S. troops under fire to call in air strikes or artillery support if civilians might possibly be in the vicinity of any firefight. Grumbling about this among those troops, according to Michael Hastings, the Rolling Stone reporter whose piece took McChrystal down, had already reached something close to fever pitch by the time the general and his special ops cronies began mouthing off in frustration in Paris.
Articles in which troops or mid-level officers claim to be “handcuffed by our chain of command” are now almost as common as implicitly critical stories about the dismal failure of McChrystal’s counterinsurgency effort in Afghanistan. General David Petraeus, on being given command of the war effort, turned immediately to those rules of engagement, promising not to change them, but to thoroughly review and “clarify” their “implementation and interpretation.”
What this means, we don’t yet know, but we should know one thing: the present discussion of counterinsurgency and of those rules of engagement makes little sense. They are being presented as a kind of either/or option — kill us or kill them — when it would be more accurate to say that it’s a neither/nor situation.
After all, in another, less protective part of McChrystal’s counterinsurgency war, he was bulking up special operations forces in the country and sending them out on night raids searching for Taliban mid-level leaders. These raids continue to caused a cascade of civilian casualties, as well as an increasing uproar of protest among outraged Afghans. In addition, even with McChrystal’s tight rules for normal grunts, stories about the deaths of civilians, private security guards, and Afghan soldiers from air strikes, misplaced artillery fire, checkpoint shootings, and those night raids continue to pour out, followed by the usual American initial denials and then formulaic apologies for loss of life.
Whatever the rules, civilians continue to die in striking numbers at the hands of guerrillas and of American forces, and here’s the thing: tighten those rules, loosen them, fiddle with them, bend them, evade them, cancel them — at some level it’s all still neither/nor, not either/or. In any counterinsurgency war where guerrillas, faced with vastly superior fire power, fight from cover and work hard to blend in with the populace, where the counterinsurgents are foreigners about as alien from the land they are to “protect” as humanly possible, and fight, in part, from on high or based on “intelligence” from others about a world they can’t fathom, civilians will die. Lots of civilians. Continually. Whatever rules you make up. The issue isn’t the “rules of engagement.” No rules of engagement will alter the fact that civilian death is the central fact of such wars.
It’s time to stop talking about those rules and start talking about the madness of making counterinsurgency the American way of war. It wasn’t always so. Not so long ago, after all, it was considered a scandal that, post-Vietnam, the U.S. military rebuilt its all-volunteer force without rewriting or reconsidering its counterinsurgency manual. The high command, in fact, let counterinsurgency go to hell, exactly where they thought it deserved to rest in peace, and were focused instead on preventing Soviet armies from pouring through Germany’s Fulda Gap (something they were conveniently never likely to do). After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the U.S. military would continue to focus for some years on Colin Powell’s doctrine of overwhelming force, decisive victory, and quick exit.
Then, of course, Iraq happened and decisive victory (“mission accomplished”) soured into decisive disaster. It was at this moment, in 2006, that Generals Petraeus and James “Mad Dog” Mattis (now respectively Afghan war commander and head of Centcom) dusted off the old, failed Vietnam-era counterinsurgency doctrine and made it sexy again. They oversaw the writing of a whole new guidebook for the Army and Marines, 472 pages of advice that even got its own (university press) trade edition, and became the toast of Washington and the Pentagon.
So, after being buried and disinterred, COIN, as its known, is once again the reigning monarch of American war-fighting doctrines as the Pentagon prepares for one, two, three Iraqs or Afghanistans — and the scandal is that (surprise, surprise!) it’s not working. This should, of course, hardly have been news. The history of counterinsurgency warfare isn’t exactly a success story, or our present COINistas wouldn’t have taken their doctrine largely from failed counterinsurgency wars in Vietnam and Algeria, among other places. It’s not so encouraging, after all, when the main examples you have before you are defeats.
Our generals might have better spent their time studying the first modern war of this sort. It took place in early nineteenth century Spain when the Islamic fundamentalists of that moment — Catholic peasants and their priests — managed to stop Napoleon’s army (the high-tech force of the moment) in its tracks. Just check out Goya’s “Disasters of War” series, if you want to see how grim it was. And it’s never gotten much better.
Looked at historically, counterinsurgency was largely the war-fighting option of empires, of powers that wanted to keep occupying their restive colonies forever and a day. Of course, past empires didn’t spend much time worrying about “protecting the people.” They knew such wars were brutal. That was their point. As George Orwell summed such campaigns up in 1946 in his essay “Politics and the English Language”: “Defenseless villagers are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set afire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification.” The rise of anti-colonialism and nationalism after World War II should have made counterinsurgency history. Certainly, there is no place for occupations and the wars that go with them in the twenty-first century.
Unfortunately, none of this has been obvious to Washington or our leading generals. Of course, if they can rewrite the Army’s counterinsurgency manual for a new century, any of us can, so let me offer my one-line rewrite of their 472 pages. It’s simple and guaranteed to save trees as well as lives: “When it comes to counterinsurgency, don’t do it.”
—-Tom Engelhardt, co-founder of the American Empire Project, runs the Nation Institute’s TomDispatch.com. His latest book, The American Way of War: How Bush’s Wars Became Obama’s (Haymarket Books),
Recently, we’ve been flooded with news stories and debate about the “rules of engagement” for U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Now-discredited war commander General Stanley McChrystal, we’ve been told, instituted fiercely restrictive rules of engagement to lessen the number of Afghan civilians who died or were wounded at the hands of American forces, and to “protect the people,” just as the “hearts and minds” part of counterinsurgency doctrine tells us should be done. Specifically, he made it far harder for U.S. troops under fire to call in air strikes or artillery support if civilians might possibly be in the vicinity of any firefight. Grumbling about this among those troops, according to Michael Hastings, the Rolling Stone reporter whose piece took McChrystal down, had already reached something close to fever pitch by the time the general and his special ops cronies began mouthing off in frustration in Paris.
Articles in which troops or mid-level officers claim to be “handcuffed by our chain of command” are now almost as common as implicitly critical stories about the dismal failure of McChrystal’s counterinsurgency effort in Afghanistan. General David Petraeus, on being given command of the war effort, turned immediately to those rules of engagement, promising not to change them, but to thoroughly review and “clarify” their “implementation and interpretation.”
What this means, we don’t yet know, but we should know one thing: the present discussion of counterinsurgency and of those rules of engagement makes little sense. They are being presented as a kind of either/or option — kill us or kill them — when it would be more accurate to say that it’s a neither/nor situation.
After all, in another, less protective part of McChrystal’s counterinsurgency war, he was bulking up special operations forces in the country and sending them out on night raids searching for Taliban mid-level leaders. These raids continue to caused a cascade of civilian casualties, as well as an increasing uproar of protest among outraged Afghans. In addition, even with McChrystal’s tight rules for normal grunts, stories about the deaths of civilians, private security guards, and Afghan soldiers from air strikes, misplaced artillery fire, checkpoint shootings, and those night raids continue to pour out, followed by the usual American initial denials and then formulaic apologies for loss of life.
Whatever the rules, civilians continue to die in striking numbers at the hands of guerrillas and of American forces, and here’s the thing: tighten those rules, loosen them, fiddle with them, bend them, evade them, cancel them — at some level it’s all still neither/nor, not either/or. In any counterinsurgency war where guerrillas, faced with vastly superior fire power, fight from cover and work hard to blend in with the populace, where the counterinsurgents are foreigners about as alien from the land they are to “protect” as humanly possible, and fight, in part, from on high or based on “intelligence” from others about a world they can’t fathom, civilians will die. Lots of civilians. Continually. Whatever rules you make up. The issue isn’t the “rules of engagement.” No rules of engagement will alter the fact that civilian death is the central fact of such wars.
It’s time to stop talking about those rules and start talking about the madness of making counterinsurgency the American way of war. It wasn’t always so. Not so long ago, after all, it was considered a scandal that, post-Vietnam, the U.S. military rebuilt its all-volunteer force without rewriting or reconsidering its counterinsurgency manual. The high command, in fact, let counterinsurgency go to hell, exactly where they thought it deserved to rest in peace, and were focused instead on preventing Soviet armies from pouring through Germany’s Fulda Gap (something they were conveniently never likely to do). After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the U.S. military would continue to focus for some years on Colin Powell’s doctrine of overwhelming force, decisive victory, and quick exit.
Then, of course, Iraq happened and decisive victory (“mission accomplished”) soured into decisive disaster. It was at this moment, in 2006, that Generals Petraeus and James “Mad Dog” Mattis (now respectively Afghan war commander and head of Centcom) dusted off the old, failed Vietnam-era counterinsurgency doctrine and made it sexy again. They oversaw the writing of a whole new guidebook for the Army and Marines, 472 pages of advice that even got its own (university press) trade edition, and became the toast of Washington and the Pentagon.
So, after being buried and disinterred, COIN, as its known, is once again the reigning monarch of American war-fighting doctrines as the Pentagon prepares for one, two, three Iraqs or Afghanistans — and the scandal is that (surprise, surprise!) it’s not working. This should, of course, hardly have been news. The history of counterinsurgency warfare isn’t exactly a success story, or our present COINistas wouldn’t have taken their doctrine largely from failed counterinsurgency wars in Vietnam and Algeria, among other places. It’s not so encouraging, after all, when the main examples you have before you are defeats.
Our generals might have better spent their time studying the first modern war of this sort. It took place in early nineteenth century Spain when the Islamic fundamentalists of that moment — Catholic peasants and their priests — managed to stop Napoleon’s army (the high-tech force of the moment) in its tracks. Just check out Goya’s “Disasters of War” series, if you want to see how grim it was. And it’s never gotten much better.
Looked at historically, counterinsurgency was largely the war-fighting option of empires, of powers that wanted to keep occupying their restive colonies forever and a day. Of course, past empires didn’t spend much time worrying about “protecting the people.” They knew such wars were brutal. That was their point. As George Orwell summed such campaigns up in 1946 in his essay “Politics and the English Language”: “Defenseless villagers are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set afire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification.” The rise of anti-colonialism and nationalism after World War II should have made counterinsurgency history. Certainly, there is no place for occupations and the wars that go with them in the twenty-first century.
Unfortunately, none of this has been obvious to Washington or our leading generals. Of course, if they can rewrite the Army’s counterinsurgency manual for a new century, any of us can, so let me offer my one-line rewrite of their 472 pages. It’s simple and guaranteed to save trees as well as lives: “When it comes to counterinsurgency, don’t do it.”
—-Tom Engelhardt, co-founder of the American Empire Project, runs the Nation Institute’s TomDispatch.com. His latest book, The American Way of War: How Bush’s Wars Became Obama’s (Haymarket Books),
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Pentagon report questions quality of Afghan army
The US-led occupation of Afghanistan is justified publicly by official statements from the US government and military that the US occupation will end, or largely end, when two objectives are achieved: (1) a "democratic" government of some sort is established, and (2) an Afghan military force, capable of providing "security" to the country is created. There are a host of reports that find the Afghan central government in Kabul has little influence in the country as a whole, is filled with corruption, and is dependent on warlords.
The following article reports on a new Pentagon report and related interviews that strongly indicate that there is too little progress in creating an effective Afghan army. There is another relevant point, made by Rachel Maddow on her MSNBC program last night. Rachel said that the cost of the US training programs is currently 9 billion, rising an additional billion a year over the next two years (or more). If the US were to withdraw its troops, the Afghan government would not have the financial ability to maintain an Afghan army of any sufficient size, let alone an army like the one now being trained or in the field.
The implication is that the US is on a fool's errand.
Here is a quote from an article by correspondent Tim McGirk in Time magazine online, June 14, 2010 (http://www.time.com/). The title of the article: "Will Afghanistan's Military Ever Be Fit to Fight?" McGirk reports in the quote on just the US support payments for the Afghan army and refers to the relatively paltry Afghan government's annual tax revenues.
"It will require loads of money to stave off the ANA's collapse. Not counting training costs, the price tag for just keeping the Afghan army fed, paid, clothed and ready for combat is estimated at more than $6 billion a year, far beyond the Kabul government's yearly earnings of $1 billion in tax revenue, as calculated by the presidential office. This guarantees that the U.S. and its NATO allies will be footing the bill for many years to come." Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1993886-2,00.html#ixzz0to9uiRoB
Quality of Afghan Army Questioned by Pentagon
Ben Farmer and James Kirkup, The Daily Telegraph, with files from Matthew Fisher, Postmedia News · Wednesday, Jul. 14, 2010
Source: National Post.com (see full URL at end of article); also can be found at Antiwar.org, July 15-2010
Raising the competence of the Afghan army is central to the entire NATO strategy for Afghanistan, but a recent Pentagon report questions the quality and reliability of the force.
With the Afghan National Police widely regarded as corrupt and unreliable, even greater importance rests on the Afghan National Army (ANA). Western nations have said they will only withdraw their forces when the Afghans can secure the country themselves.
NATO leaders have repeatedly claimed that the ANA is making excellent progress, but those claims have been questioned by a U.S. government audit.
Arnold Fields, the U.S. Defense Department's inspector general for Afghanistan, concluded that the capabilities of many "top-rated" ANA units had been "overstated" by NATO commanders.
Several ANA units officially passed as able to operate without international support or guidance have not proved they are capable of independent operations, the auditor found in a report last month.
NATO admits that Afghan forces remain totally reliant on NATO for air support and artillery, for medical evacuation from the battlefield and often for supplies.
The audit's findings are echoed by NATO commanders in the field.
Many NATO troops have hair-raising stories of careless young Afghan soldiers accidentally firing their weapons, including rocket launchers.
Commanders in the field have also occasionally questioned the Afghans' commitment.
On a recent visit to the Babaji area of Helmand, where yesterday's shooting took place, The Daily Telegraph saw Afghan troops refuse to carry their own food or water on patrol and demanded that Gurkhas supply them instead.
Some Afghan soldiers also refuse to patrol at night or in the heat of midday. One British officer said, "The Afghan soldiers and police like to have fresh food. They are fixed to their meal times. Sometimes they have been out on patrol and said 'It's lunchtime, it's over'."
NATO commanders almost always describe operations as Afghan-led, although it is not always obvious that is the case. For example, when an important bridge near Kandahar City was blown up by insurgents several months ago, NATO said the operation to fix it was led by Afghan troops.
In fact, virtually all the work was done by Canadian and U.S. navy Seabee engineers while the few Afghan soldiers at the site rested in the shade.
There are about 119,000 members of the ANA. To allow the transfer of security duties, NATO has set a target of 171,000, due to be reached by 2014. That means an accelerated process that sees new recruits given two months' basic training before being assigned to units, often formed from scratch.
Professor Michael Clarke of the Royal United Services Institute said a few units are of good quality but, because of the short training period for rank-and-file soldiers, "the quality is always going to be patchy".
There are questions about the commitment of the ANA and Prof. Clarke estimated that one in ten newly trained ANA soldiers go absent without leave.
British officers training the ANA say that there is a particular shortage of noncommissioned officers, the sergeants and sergeants-major who are the backbone of any modern army.
Read more: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/world/Quality+Afghan+army+questioned+Pentagon/3273913/story.html#ixzz0tnaie8sW
The following article reports on a new Pentagon report and related interviews that strongly indicate that there is too little progress in creating an effective Afghan army. There is another relevant point, made by Rachel Maddow on her MSNBC program last night. Rachel said that the cost of the US training programs is currently 9 billion, rising an additional billion a year over the next two years (or more). If the US were to withdraw its troops, the Afghan government would not have the financial ability to maintain an Afghan army of any sufficient size, let alone an army like the one now being trained or in the field.
The implication is that the US is on a fool's errand.
Here is a quote from an article by correspondent Tim McGirk in Time magazine online, June 14, 2010 (http://www.time.com/). The title of the article: "Will Afghanistan's Military Ever Be Fit to Fight?" McGirk reports in the quote on just the US support payments for the Afghan army and refers to the relatively paltry Afghan government's annual tax revenues.
"It will require loads of money to stave off the ANA's collapse. Not counting training costs, the price tag for just keeping the Afghan army fed, paid, clothed and ready for combat is estimated at more than $6 billion a year, far beyond the Kabul government's yearly earnings of $1 billion in tax revenue, as calculated by the presidential office. This guarantees that the U.S. and its NATO allies will be footing the bill for many years to come." Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1993886-2,00.html#ixzz0to9uiRoB
Quality of Afghan Army Questioned by Pentagon
Ben Farmer and James Kirkup, The Daily Telegraph, with files from Matthew Fisher, Postmedia News · Wednesday, Jul. 14, 2010
Source: National Post.com (see full URL at end of article); also can be found at Antiwar.org, July 15-2010
Raising the competence of the Afghan army is central to the entire NATO strategy for Afghanistan, but a recent Pentagon report questions the quality and reliability of the force.
With the Afghan National Police widely regarded as corrupt and unreliable, even greater importance rests on the Afghan National Army (ANA). Western nations have said they will only withdraw their forces when the Afghans can secure the country themselves.
NATO leaders have repeatedly claimed that the ANA is making excellent progress, but those claims have been questioned by a U.S. government audit.
Arnold Fields, the U.S. Defense Department's inspector general for Afghanistan, concluded that the capabilities of many "top-rated" ANA units had been "overstated" by NATO commanders.
Several ANA units officially passed as able to operate without international support or guidance have not proved they are capable of independent operations, the auditor found in a report last month.
NATO admits that Afghan forces remain totally reliant on NATO for air support and artillery, for medical evacuation from the battlefield and often for supplies.
The audit's findings are echoed by NATO commanders in the field.
Many NATO troops have hair-raising stories of careless young Afghan soldiers accidentally firing their weapons, including rocket launchers.
Commanders in the field have also occasionally questioned the Afghans' commitment.
On a recent visit to the Babaji area of Helmand, where yesterday's shooting took place, The Daily Telegraph saw Afghan troops refuse to carry their own food or water on patrol and demanded that Gurkhas supply them instead.
Some Afghan soldiers also refuse to patrol at night or in the heat of midday. One British officer said, "The Afghan soldiers and police like to have fresh food. They are fixed to their meal times. Sometimes they have been out on patrol and said 'It's lunchtime, it's over'."
NATO commanders almost always describe operations as Afghan-led, although it is not always obvious that is the case. For example, when an important bridge near Kandahar City was blown up by insurgents several months ago, NATO said the operation to fix it was led by Afghan troops.
In fact, virtually all the work was done by Canadian and U.S. navy Seabee engineers while the few Afghan soldiers at the site rested in the shade.
There are about 119,000 members of the ANA. To allow the transfer of security duties, NATO has set a target of 171,000, due to be reached by 2014. That means an accelerated process that sees new recruits given two months' basic training before being assigned to units, often formed from scratch.
Professor Michael Clarke of the Royal United Services Institute said a few units are of good quality but, because of the short training period for rank-and-file soldiers, "the quality is always going to be patchy".
There are questions about the commitment of the ANA and Prof. Clarke estimated that one in ten newly trained ANA soldiers go absent without leave.
British officers training the ANA say that there is a particular shortage of noncommissioned officers, the sergeants and sergeants-major who are the backbone of any modern army.
Read more: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/world/Quality+Afghan+army+questioned+Pentagon/3273913/story.html#ixzz0tnaie8sW
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Interview excerpts - Daniel Ellsberg on Obama's good war in Afghanistan
Below I quote some points made on Democracy Now by Daniel Ellsberg, interviewed by Anjali Kamat and Amy Goodman, March 30, 2010. Ellsberg drew parallels between the war in Afghanistan and the Vietnam War. In the excerpts from the interview that follow I focus on some of his responses on Afghanistan – for the most part. Ellsberg’s position on the Afghanistan War is to bring it to an end as soon as it is reasonable to do so. (Go to democracynow.org for the full interview.)
A little background on Daniel Ellsberg - We [Democracy Now] are joined by a man who played a major role in efforts to end the Vietnam War in the 1970s. In 1971, the then-RAND Corporation analyst Daniel Ellsberg leaked to the media what became known as the Pentagon Papers, a 7,000-page classified history outlining the true extent of US involvement in Vietnam. After avoiding a life sentence on espionage charges, Daniel Ellsberg has continued to speak out against US militarism until the present day.
Daniel Ellsberg - [excerpts from interview follow]
Obama’s war - President Obama is taking every symbolic step he can to nominate this as Obama’s war, just as the Vietnam War became Nixon’s war in November of 1969, just about the time I was copying the Pentagon Papers in hopes of forestalling that, and Johnson made Vietnam his war, Johnson’s war, and McNamara’s war in June of 1965…with very much the same results in the end, tragic results.
Secret cables - Secret cables from the US ambassador in Kabul, Lieutenant General, retired, Karl Eikenberry were leaked by someone in January…He’s describing the President, Karzai, to whom he’s accredited and who he just visited with President Obama. And Karzai has presumably read Eikenberry’s assessment of him as—that he is not an adequate strategic partner for the United States, and for reasons of corruption and inefficiency.
Drugs are necessary to Afghan government- Allegedly, we hear that Obama’s reason for going seventeen hours over to Afghanistan was to convey in person our desire that he clean up his government….In Karzai’s government, as in the Mafia, corruption are us, drugs are us. Corruption is his government. That’s his constituency, his source of income. There is no chance whatever that he’ll, for instance, root out his brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, from Kandahar, which is our next base of operations, despite the fact that our chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff says no success is possible in Kandahar while corruption is still the heart of that, while drug dealing is the heart of that, so long as Wali, the President’s, Karzai’s brother, is in charge there.
Counterinsurgency will not work - What it ignores is that the recruiting tool of our adversaries there is predominantly the presence of foreign troops. And when we add more foreign troops, we are sustaining that recruiting tool. And for every enemy trying to eject foreigners from his country that we kill, and especially his families, the wedding parties, and the funeral parties after we’ve hit the wedding parties, all of those recruit more people in a way that will—assures us that, contrary to what President Obama is saying, we will not prevail. When he does say we aren’t going to quit, in the short run, at least, he’s right, unfortunately. We have many years ahead of us.
Additional US troops will make the problem worse - ….when we have those extra 30,000 to 40,000 troops there and are up to the level of 100,000, which, with NATO troops, will bring us up to the level at which the Soviets occupied Afghanistan and failed after ten years, the thought that that’s the last request by McChrystal is simply absurd. McChrystal himself was asking for 80,000 troops at this point, and that, too, was a first installment.
Training of Afghans for Afghan army [and police] will continue to go badly - ….That is not going to come from the Afghan troops, who desert about as fast as we recruit them and who are not very highly motivated working for foreigners, like the government of Vietnam soldiers we worked with. They are not going to fill that gap.
The number of US troops in Afghanistan will not be drawn down next year - ….four years from now we will have more troops in Afghanistan than we have two years from now.
Afghan civilian casualties -….He [Gen. McChrystal] also, for the first time, talks about wanting to reduce civilian casualties. But by increasing the number of US troops over there greatly and increasing the number of engagements, even if you reduce the rate of civilian deaths per engagement, the overall effect is going to be that you’re killing the relatives of people who are going to enlist in the insurgency.
Congress will have to withhold funding for the war to end, but that’s unlikely - ….The head of the Appropriations Committee, David Obey, Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House, Harry Reid in the Senate have all said they oppose further escalation, just like Eikenberry, the general who is our ambassador in Afghanistan. But does that mean they will vote against the appropriations that send those people over there to die and to kill? No, very, very unlikely
A little background on Daniel Ellsberg - We [Democracy Now] are joined by a man who played a major role in efforts to end the Vietnam War in the 1970s. In 1971, the then-RAND Corporation analyst Daniel Ellsberg leaked to the media what became known as the Pentagon Papers, a 7,000-page classified history outlining the true extent of US involvement in Vietnam. After avoiding a life sentence on espionage charges, Daniel Ellsberg has continued to speak out against US militarism until the present day.
Daniel Ellsberg - [excerpts from interview follow]
Obama’s war - President Obama is taking every symbolic step he can to nominate this as Obama’s war, just as the Vietnam War became Nixon’s war in November of 1969, just about the time I was copying the Pentagon Papers in hopes of forestalling that, and Johnson made Vietnam his war, Johnson’s war, and McNamara’s war in June of 1965…with very much the same results in the end, tragic results.
Secret cables - Secret cables from the US ambassador in Kabul, Lieutenant General, retired, Karl Eikenberry were leaked by someone in January…He’s describing the President, Karzai, to whom he’s accredited and who he just visited with President Obama. And Karzai has presumably read Eikenberry’s assessment of him as—that he is not an adequate strategic partner for the United States, and for reasons of corruption and inefficiency.
Drugs are necessary to Afghan government- Allegedly, we hear that Obama’s reason for going seventeen hours over to Afghanistan was to convey in person our desire that he clean up his government….In Karzai’s government, as in the Mafia, corruption are us, drugs are us. Corruption is his government. That’s his constituency, his source of income. There is no chance whatever that he’ll, for instance, root out his brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, from Kandahar, which is our next base of operations, despite the fact that our chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff says no success is possible in Kandahar while corruption is still the heart of that, while drug dealing is the heart of that, so long as Wali, the President’s, Karzai’s brother, is in charge there.
Counterinsurgency will not work - What it ignores is that the recruiting tool of our adversaries there is predominantly the presence of foreign troops. And when we add more foreign troops, we are sustaining that recruiting tool. And for every enemy trying to eject foreigners from his country that we kill, and especially his families, the wedding parties, and the funeral parties after we’ve hit the wedding parties, all of those recruit more people in a way that will—assures us that, contrary to what President Obama is saying, we will not prevail. When he does say we aren’t going to quit, in the short run, at least, he’s right, unfortunately. We have many years ahead of us.
Additional US troops will make the problem worse - ….when we have those extra 30,000 to 40,000 troops there and are up to the level of 100,000, which, with NATO troops, will bring us up to the level at which the Soviets occupied Afghanistan and failed after ten years, the thought that that’s the last request by McChrystal is simply absurd. McChrystal himself was asking for 80,000 troops at this point, and that, too, was a first installment.
Training of Afghans for Afghan army [and police] will continue to go badly - ….That is not going to come from the Afghan troops, who desert about as fast as we recruit them and who are not very highly motivated working for foreigners, like the government of Vietnam soldiers we worked with. They are not going to fill that gap.
The number of US troops in Afghanistan will not be drawn down next year - ….four years from now we will have more troops in Afghanistan than we have two years from now.
Afghan civilian casualties -….He [Gen. McChrystal] also, for the first time, talks about wanting to reduce civilian casualties. But by increasing the number of US troops over there greatly and increasing the number of engagements, even if you reduce the rate of civilian deaths per engagement, the overall effect is going to be that you’re killing the relatives of people who are going to enlist in the insurgency.
Congress will have to withhold funding for the war to end, but that’s unlikely - ….The head of the Appropriations Committee, David Obey, Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House, Harry Reid in the Senate have all said they oppose further escalation, just like Eikenberry, the general who is our ambassador in Afghanistan. But does that mean they will vote against the appropriations that send those people over there to die and to kill? No, very, very unlikely
Monday, March 29, 2010
Some evidence challenges upbeat message to US troops in Afghanistan
Yesterday, President Barack Obama paid an unannounced visit to Afghanistan. During his short time there, he addressed an audience of US troops. If you go to the whitehouse.gov website, you can read and/or hear the full address.
The White House emphasizes on its web site the following paragraph from the President’s speech that sums up what Obama, his administration, and military advisers view as the principal missions of the US occupation in Afghanistan. There is nothing new in what the President said in this regard, only the same themes that we have long ago found unpersuasive and why we support a reasonable, but committed, timeline for withdrawing our troops.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/03/28/one-night-afghanistan
In his remarks, President Obama reiterated the mission before the troops:
Our broad mission is clear: We are going to disrupt and dismantle, defeat and destroy al Qaeda and its extremist allies. That is our mission. And to accomplish that goal, our objectives here in Afghanistan are also clear: We’re going to deny al Qaeda safe haven. We’re going to reverse the Taliban’s momentum. We’re going to strengthen the capacity of Afghan security forces and the Afghan government so that they can begin taking responsibility and gain confidence of the Afghan people.
Here are some recent articles that dispute or raise serious doubt about success in Obama’s Afghan mission statement, namely, (1) the training of Afghan army recruits is going badly, (2) similarly it is going badly for the training of Afghan police recruits, (3) the US is turning parts of the huge Bagram military base in Afghanistan into another Gitmo, and (4) the US military goal of reducing or ending poppy cultivation is being put on hold.
First, the McClatchy Washington Bureau reports that US marines find it exasperating to team up with Afghan soldiers. http://mcclatchydc.com/2010/03/24/91014/afghan-soldiers-way-below-standard.html.
Second, an article written by T. Christian Miller, Mark Osenball and Ron Moreau for Mother Jones magazine documents how the training of Afghan police is going badly, even after the US has spent $6 billion on the effort. See: http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/03/6-billion-later-afghan-cops-aren’t%E2%80%99t-ready-serve
Pratap Chatterjee provides further documentation of the poor police training results for Afghan recruits in his article for TomDispatch.com, “How Afghan Police Training Became a Train Wreck.” See: http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175220/tomgram%3A-pratap-chatterjee%2C-failing-afghanistan%27s-cops
Third, here are two “headlines” from Democracy Now’s program of March 23. http://www.democracynow.org/2010/3/23/headlines
Report: US Mulls Bagram as Next Gitmo
The Los Angeles Times is reporting the Obama administration is considering a plan to jail foreign prisoners at the Bagram prison in Afghanistan instead of at Guantanamo Bay. Using Bagram would allow the administration to meet its pledge to close Guantanamo while still denying prisoners the right to challenge their detentions in US courts. The plan would also help the White House evade scrutiny for the torture and mistreatment of prisoners because they would remain jailed off US soil. The Los Angeles Times also reports US officials decided to kill a foreign suspect in Somalia last year in part due to uncertainty over where he would be jailed if captured. The suspect, Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, was killed in a US air strike after US officials decided they wouldn’t know where to imprison him.
US Halts Poppy Eradication in Afghan Areas
The US military, meanwhile, has confirmed it’s ended poppy eradication in several areas of Afghanistan. US forces have previously targeted Afghan farmers responsible for poppy crops that produce large quantities of opium and heroin. But the US says it’s ended the eradications in a bid to win over Afghan support. A US military official said, “We don’t trample the livelihood of those we’re trying to win over.”
These are all sources that bring President Obama’s upbeat address to the troops in Afghanistan yesterday into question.
There is another somewhat relevant point. Obama has sometimes been compared to Martin Luther King, Jr. However, if you compare what Obama has said about our missions in Afghanistan and how it is “a good war,” with MLK’s 1967 speech “Beyond Vietnam – A Time to Break the Silence,” you may quickly understand how they fundamentally differ on the use of military force in resolving conflicts abroad. Obama sees the use of military force as a good strategy in Afghanistan, whereas MLK found military force to be counterproductive in Vietnam – and, of course, was a historically major voice for non-violence and negotiations in the use of American power and influence in the world. For MLK, there were no good wars. You can find MLK’s speech at http://americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksilence.htm
The White House emphasizes on its web site the following paragraph from the President’s speech that sums up what Obama, his administration, and military advisers view as the principal missions of the US occupation in Afghanistan. There is nothing new in what the President said in this regard, only the same themes that we have long ago found unpersuasive and why we support a reasonable, but committed, timeline for withdrawing our troops.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/03/28/one-night-afghanistan
In his remarks, President Obama reiterated the mission before the troops:
Our broad mission is clear: We are going to disrupt and dismantle, defeat and destroy al Qaeda and its extremist allies. That is our mission. And to accomplish that goal, our objectives here in Afghanistan are also clear: We’re going to deny al Qaeda safe haven. We’re going to reverse the Taliban’s momentum. We’re going to strengthen the capacity of Afghan security forces and the Afghan government so that they can begin taking responsibility and gain confidence of the Afghan people.
Here are some recent articles that dispute or raise serious doubt about success in Obama’s Afghan mission statement, namely, (1) the training of Afghan army recruits is going badly, (2) similarly it is going badly for the training of Afghan police recruits, (3) the US is turning parts of the huge Bagram military base in Afghanistan into another Gitmo, and (4) the US military goal of reducing or ending poppy cultivation is being put on hold.
First, the McClatchy Washington Bureau reports that US marines find it exasperating to team up with Afghan soldiers. http://mcclatchydc.com/2010/03/24/91014/afghan-soldiers-way-below-standard.html.
Second, an article written by T. Christian Miller, Mark Osenball and Ron Moreau for Mother Jones magazine documents how the training of Afghan police is going badly, even after the US has spent $6 billion on the effort. See: http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/03/6-billion-later-afghan-cops-aren’t%E2%80%99t-ready-serve
Pratap Chatterjee provides further documentation of the poor police training results for Afghan recruits in his article for TomDispatch.com, “How Afghan Police Training Became a Train Wreck.” See: http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175220/tomgram%3A-pratap-chatterjee%2C-failing-afghanistan%27s-cops
Third, here are two “headlines” from Democracy Now’s program of March 23. http://www.democracynow.org/2010/3/23/headlines
Report: US Mulls Bagram as Next Gitmo
The Los Angeles Times is reporting the Obama administration is considering a plan to jail foreign prisoners at the Bagram prison in Afghanistan instead of at Guantanamo Bay. Using Bagram would allow the administration to meet its pledge to close Guantanamo while still denying prisoners the right to challenge their detentions in US courts. The plan would also help the White House evade scrutiny for the torture and mistreatment of prisoners because they would remain jailed off US soil. The Los Angeles Times also reports US officials decided to kill a foreign suspect in Somalia last year in part due to uncertainty over where he would be jailed if captured. The suspect, Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, was killed in a US air strike after US officials decided they wouldn’t know where to imprison him.
US Halts Poppy Eradication in Afghan Areas
The US military, meanwhile, has confirmed it’s ended poppy eradication in several areas of Afghanistan. US forces have previously targeted Afghan farmers responsible for poppy crops that produce large quantities of opium and heroin. But the US says it’s ended the eradications in a bid to win over Afghan support. A US military official said, “We don’t trample the livelihood of those we’re trying to win over.”
These are all sources that bring President Obama’s upbeat address to the troops in Afghanistan yesterday into question.
There is another somewhat relevant point. Obama has sometimes been compared to Martin Luther King, Jr. However, if you compare what Obama has said about our missions in Afghanistan and how it is “a good war,” with MLK’s 1967 speech “Beyond Vietnam – A Time to Break the Silence,” you may quickly understand how they fundamentally differ on the use of military force in resolving conflicts abroad. Obama sees the use of military force as a good strategy in Afghanistan, whereas MLK found military force to be counterproductive in Vietnam – and, of course, was a historically major voice for non-violence and negotiations in the use of American power and influence in the world. For MLK, there were no good wars. You can find MLK’s speech at http://americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksilence.htm
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].
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?
Thursday, January 28, 2010
US efforts to build a Taliban army and counterforce are questionable
The part of the US strategy in Afghanistan that concerns counterinsurgency implies a number of tactics. One is to clear out the Taliban from villages and surrounding areas, village by village. Two is to secure them so that the Taliban cannot return to the villages. Three is start reconstruction projects, which will create jobs and generate demand for local businesses.
US forces do not have the resources to advance this counterinsurgency policy very far, or in a sustainable way. Therefore, the Obama administration is betting that, in time, there will be an Afghan army capable of dealing with the Taliban. There seem to be two plans for doing this.
The first, and dominant, plan is to build up the Afghan army so that its soldiers can take responsibility for the counterinsurgency efforts in the countryside. The article below indicates that there is little progress in creating a viable Afghan army.
The second plan, just being reported in various sources, is to pay rank-and-file members of the Taliban who pledge to leave the insurgency. Underlying this strategy is the assumption that many young Afghan men have been members of the Taliban for economic reasons. The Taliban pay their rank-and-file recruites monthly wages, while there are few or no opportunities beyond the Taliban. The US now plans to offer these men a wage and job to leave the Taliban.
This plan has been addressed in an early blog and raises the issues of how long the US will have to go on paying the Afghans, whether the jobs they will be given are of value to the villages and surrounding areas, and whether the recruits will be able or willing to secure these places from Taliban incursions. We don't see much merit in this approach, unless the elders or other leaders in the villages can be included in the process and be convinced that the plan is in the interest of their tribes.
Bob
--------------------------
Juan Cole, Informed Comment, January 28, 2010
Cole's comments and references on the parts of Obama speech that focus on Afghanistan
Understandably, President Obama concentrated on domestic issues, especially job creation, in his State of the Union address. But there were a few paragraphs toward the end about foreign affairs that I want to talk about. While I thought the speech generally strong, and the flash polls suggest that the public did, as well, I felt that there were significant problems with the foreign policy passages that signal trouble ahead.
' In Afghanistan, we are increasing our troops and training Afghan Security Forces so they can begin to take the lead in July of 2011, and our troops can begin to come home. We will reward good governance, reduce corruption, and support the rights of all Afghans – men and women alike. We are joined by allies and partners who have increased their own commitment, and who will come together tomorrow in London to reaffirm our common purpose. There will be difficult days ahead. But I am confident we will succeed.'
This passage was one of the few lauded by Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell in the Republican response. But it is among the weaker parts of the speech.
1. Reserve Col. Lawrence Sellin, a Ph.D. and a veteran of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, summarized the problems with training the Afghan army:
a. The US has already spent more than $17 bn. since 2001 building the Afghanistan National Army, but without much success.
b. Although the government of President Hamid Karzai claims that the army numbers 100,000 now, in fact some battalions are at half strength and not combat ready. The chance that the ANA can be expanded to 240,000 effective soldiers for another $16 bn. in a year or two is slim to none.
c. If a new Afghan army can be built at all, it will take at least 4 years, and it is not plausible that US troops will withdraw beginning in 2011. Moreover, Memos of US ambassador Karl Eikenberry in Kabul insist that President Hamid Karzai is unreliable and refuses to try to take command of the country, so that he is not deploying the army he already has. The profound divisions within the Obama camp, among the most experienced Afghan hands, make it anything but certain that the counter-insurgency strategy of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, to which Obama committed himself, can succeed.
d. Veteran NBC war correspondent Richard Engel maintains that staff officers work short hours and are corrupt. Only some of the small companies of troops deployed in the countryside can effectively be said to be at war. Even these are 90% illiterate, and some have received only 2 weeks of 'show and tell' training. Drug use is rampant among troops, and some 25 percent go AWOL. See Engle on the Rachel Maddow show:
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economyAs is often the case, in this paragraph Obama was attempting to please both right and left, with a troop escalation advertised as a mere prelude to withdrawal. But the task, of training an effective 240,000-man AFghanistan National Army is an enormous one and cannot be even partially completed by summer 2011.
US forces do not have the resources to advance this counterinsurgency policy very far, or in a sustainable way. Therefore, the Obama administration is betting that, in time, there will be an Afghan army capable of dealing with the Taliban. There seem to be two plans for doing this.
The first, and dominant, plan is to build up the Afghan army so that its soldiers can take responsibility for the counterinsurgency efforts in the countryside. The article below indicates that there is little progress in creating a viable Afghan army.
The second plan, just being reported in various sources, is to pay rank-and-file members of the Taliban who pledge to leave the insurgency. Underlying this strategy is the assumption that many young Afghan men have been members of the Taliban for economic reasons. The Taliban pay their rank-and-file recruites monthly wages, while there are few or no opportunities beyond the Taliban. The US now plans to offer these men a wage and job to leave the Taliban.
This plan has been addressed in an early blog and raises the issues of how long the US will have to go on paying the Afghans, whether the jobs they will be given are of value to the villages and surrounding areas, and whether the recruits will be able or willing to secure these places from Taliban incursions. We don't see much merit in this approach, unless the elders or other leaders in the villages can be included in the process and be convinced that the plan is in the interest of their tribes.
Bob
--------------------------
Juan Cole, Informed Comment, January 28, 2010
Cole's comments and references on the parts of Obama speech that focus on Afghanistan
Understandably, President Obama concentrated on domestic issues, especially job creation, in his State of the Union address. But there were a few paragraphs toward the end about foreign affairs that I want to talk about. While I thought the speech generally strong, and the flash polls suggest that the public did, as well, I felt that there were significant problems with the foreign policy passages that signal trouble ahead.
' In Afghanistan, we are increasing our troops and training Afghan Security Forces so they can begin to take the lead in July of 2011, and our troops can begin to come home. We will reward good governance, reduce corruption, and support the rights of all Afghans – men and women alike. We are joined by allies and partners who have increased their own commitment, and who will come together tomorrow in London to reaffirm our common purpose. There will be difficult days ahead. But I am confident we will succeed.'
This passage was one of the few lauded by Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell in the Republican response. But it is among the weaker parts of the speech.
1. Reserve Col. Lawrence Sellin, a Ph.D. and a veteran of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, summarized the problems with training the Afghan army:
a. The US has already spent more than $17 bn. since 2001 building the Afghanistan National Army, but without much success.
b. Although the government of President Hamid Karzai claims that the army numbers 100,000 now, in fact some battalions are at half strength and not combat ready. The chance that the ANA can be expanded to 240,000 effective soldiers for another $16 bn. in a year or two is slim to none.
c. If a new Afghan army can be built at all, it will take at least 4 years, and it is not plausible that US troops will withdraw beginning in 2011. Moreover, Memos of US ambassador Karl Eikenberry in Kabul insist that President Hamid Karzai is unreliable and refuses to try to take command of the country, so that he is not deploying the army he already has. The profound divisions within the Obama camp, among the most experienced Afghan hands, make it anything but certain that the counter-insurgency strategy of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, to which Obama committed himself, can succeed.
d. Veteran NBC war correspondent Richard Engel maintains that staff officers work short hours and are corrupt. Only some of the small companies of troops deployed in the countryside can effectively be said to be at war. Even these are 90% illiterate, and some have received only 2 weeks of 'show and tell' training. Drug use is rampant among troops, and some 25 percent go AWOL. See Engle on the Rachel Maddow show:
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economyAs is often the case, in this paragraph Obama was attempting to please both right and left, with a troop escalation advertised as a mere prelude to withdrawal. But the task, of training an effective 240,000-man AFghanistan National Army is an enormous one and cannot be even partially completed by summer 2011.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
US and UK put pressure on Karzai government
Here are the principal points from an article found in today's Independent newspaper (UK, on-line).
The US and UK administrations are putting pressure on President Karzai to expedite efforts to ban a key ingredient used in "improvised roadside explosives.
Karzai is also being asked to meet certain deadlines with respect to the number of Afghans sent to the British and US trainers for police and military training. General McCrystal wants training to be completed by October 2011 for a total of 171,000 troops and 134,000 police.
Bob
--------------------------------
On the eve of a London conference on his country, Afghanistan's President bans key ingredient used in insurgents' bombs
By Jane Merrick
Sunday, 24 January 2010 - http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/karzai-takes-on-the-roadside-bombmakers-1877279
President Hamid Karzai has banned a key ingredient in the roadside bombs that have killed hundreds of British, American and Nato soldiers in his country as he moved to reassure the international community that he is acting against terrorism ahead of a major conference on Afghanistan this week.
The Afghan government outlawed the use of ammonium nitrate fertiliser, used by the Taliban in 90 per cent of improvised roadside explosives, on the eve of the London conference to set out a political and military plan for the region. President Karzai will join US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Gordon Brown for the one-day meeting, chaired by Foreign Secretary David Miliband, on Thursday. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Nato Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen and foreign ministers of Afghanistan's leading regional partners will also attend.
It will follow an emergency conference on Yemen in London on Wednesday, prompted by the heightened threat of terrorism following the attempted airplane attack on Christmas Day, which it is suspected was hatched in the country.
The Afghanistan conference will set out a strategy for the next 12 months, including milestones for President Karzai's government to pass before the eventual handover of military control and political governance to Kabul.
At the London gathering, President Karzai will propose a plan, funded by Western governments, to offer money and jobs to rank-and-file Taliban fighters, who are not members of al-Qa'ida or other terror groups, in an attempt to persuade them to switch sides and bring an end to the fighting. Taliban commanders pay their foot soldiers higher rates than government forces, but wages for Afghan forces would rise from $120 (£75) a month to $165 a month.
Mrs Clinton unveiled a plan last week, to be presented in London, for the stabilisation of Afghanistan, also including bringing low-level fighters back into mainstream society. Taliban leaders have been excluded from the reintegration plans, but yesterday Pakistan's foreign ministry said it was reaching out to "all levels" of the Taliban in an attempt to bring peace to Afghanistan.
The British government wants the conference to approve a timetable for transferring power to Afghan security forces and government.
At the Commonwealth heads of government meeting in November, Mr Brown called on Kabul to identify within three months from the date of the conference additional Afghan troops to be sent to Helmand for training. By six months, there should be a clear plan for police training, including tackling corruption, while within nine months some 400 provincial and district governors should be appointed. Within a year, the Prime Minister said, 50,000 additional Afghan troops must be trained, taking the total number of soldiers to 134,000. At least five out of 34 provinces should be under Afghan control within a year.
US General Stanley McChrystal, commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan, wants the London meeting to set a target of 171,000 Afghan soldiers by October 2011, and police numbers to increase from 94,000 to 134,000 by that date.
The scale of the task facing world leaders was underlined on Friday with another death of a British soldier from an explosive device in Helmand. The soldier from A Company 4 Rifles was the 250th to be killed in the country.
Nato troops have seized tons of ammonium nitrate fertiliser over the past five months in southern Afghanistan, but the new ban is designed to send a message that the government is doing everything it can to curb the insurgency. President Karzai banned the use, production, storage, purchase or sale of the fertiliser and farmers have one month to turn in their stocks or face prosecution.
The Afghan president is under intense pressure to act against terrorism and corruption following his disputed second-term election last year. Mr Miliband last week said the Afghan government needed to show it was taking steps. Writing in the New Statesman, the Foreign Secretary said: "To remain resistant to Taliban intimidation, Afghans need to know that their government can provide basic justice and maintain order."
Mrs Clinton said on Thursday: "What [Afghans] want is a government that can and will function, and we are expecting a lot from President Karzai and his new government."
US President Barack Obama has set a timeline of July 2011 for the start of a withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, echoed by Mr Brown.
The Independent on Sunday has led calls for a withdrawal of British troops from Afghanistan within a year, while leaders in other EU countries are under pressure to demand a speeded-up withdrawal. Germany is among those said to be frustrated at the lengthy commitment.
The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, who will not attend the talks at Lancaster House, central London, but who is instead sending her foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle, yesterday stressed her country's commitment to training Afghan troops. She will hold talks in Berlin with President Karzai this week before he travels to London for the conference.
The meeting will also highlight the effort needed by Pakistan to tackle terrorism in its country and border areas with Afghanistan.
Pakistan's foreign ministry said yesterday that the government was reaching out to "all levels" of the Afghan Taliban to end the insurgency against Kabul.
The talks on Yemen on Wednesday will bring together the foreign ministers of the country's main development partners, including the US and Saudi Arabia. Britain arranged the conference to coincide with the Afghanistan meeting after a Yemen-based al-Qa'ida group claimed it was behind the failed bid to blow up the Amsterdam to Detroit plane on 25 December.
The talks will focus on security and development funding to prevent Yemen becoming a failed state and being used by al-Qa'ida to launch further attacks. The Yemen government is also contending with a Shia revolt in the north and separatist movement in the south.
Underscoring the fragility of the its authority over the country, the bodies of 20 of 26 Saudi soldiers reported missing were yesterday found on the border after fighting against Shia rebels.
US General David Petraeus, who discussed military co-operation with Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh earlier this month, pledged a doubling of aid from Washington to the country, taking it to $140m (£87m).
Saudi Arabia is believed to be spending between $200m and $300m a year on helping Yemeni security authorities conduct counter-terrorism work. Britain launched a £7m five-year justice and policing programme in the country in 2008, and earlier this month Mr Brown agreed funding with President Obama for a counter-terrorism police unit.
The US and UK administrations are putting pressure on President Karzai to expedite efforts to ban a key ingredient used in "improvised roadside explosives.
Karzai is also being asked to meet certain deadlines with respect to the number of Afghans sent to the British and US trainers for police and military training. General McCrystal wants training to be completed by October 2011 for a total of 171,000 troops and 134,000 police.
The article also notes that President Obama has set a deadline of July 2011 for the start of a withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan.
In addition, President Karzai will propose a plan, financed by Western governments, to offer money and jobs to rank-and-file Taliban fighters who are not affiliated with terrorist groups. The wages are designed to be higher than the Taliban commanders pay their "foot soldiers."
UK and Britain also expect the Karzai government to extend its control over provincial and district governments and to root out corruption in the government.
Comment: It remains to be seen whether these goals will be met. Past experience justifies some skepticism. It's not clear what types of jobs will be proferred to Taliban soldiers. There is nothing explicit here about rebuilding the economy or economic support for Afghan villages and towns. Obama's goals for the withdrawal of US troops, beginning in July 2011, offer few details about how many troops will be withdrawn or over what period of time. Many such pledges are qualified by "conditions on the ground."Bob
--------------------------------
On the eve of a London conference on his country, Afghanistan's President bans key ingredient used in insurgents' bombs
By Jane Merrick
Sunday, 24 January 2010 - http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/karzai-takes-on-the-roadside-bombmakers-1877279
President Hamid Karzai has banned a key ingredient in the roadside bombs that have killed hundreds of British, American and Nato soldiers in his country as he moved to reassure the international community that he is acting against terrorism ahead of a major conference on Afghanistan this week.
The Afghan government outlawed the use of ammonium nitrate fertiliser, used by the Taliban in 90 per cent of improvised roadside explosives, on the eve of the London conference to set out a political and military plan for the region. President Karzai will join US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Gordon Brown for the one-day meeting, chaired by Foreign Secretary David Miliband, on Thursday. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Nato Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen and foreign ministers of Afghanistan's leading regional partners will also attend.
It will follow an emergency conference on Yemen in London on Wednesday, prompted by the heightened threat of terrorism following the attempted airplane attack on Christmas Day, which it is suspected was hatched in the country.
The Afghanistan conference will set out a strategy for the next 12 months, including milestones for President Karzai's government to pass before the eventual handover of military control and political governance to Kabul.
At the London gathering, President Karzai will propose a plan, funded by Western governments, to offer money and jobs to rank-and-file Taliban fighters, who are not members of al-Qa'ida or other terror groups, in an attempt to persuade them to switch sides and bring an end to the fighting. Taliban commanders pay their foot soldiers higher rates than government forces, but wages for Afghan forces would rise from $120 (£75) a month to $165 a month.
Mrs Clinton unveiled a plan last week, to be presented in London, for the stabilisation of Afghanistan, also including bringing low-level fighters back into mainstream society. Taliban leaders have been excluded from the reintegration plans, but yesterday Pakistan's foreign ministry said it was reaching out to "all levels" of the Taliban in an attempt to bring peace to Afghanistan.
The British government wants the conference to approve a timetable for transferring power to Afghan security forces and government.
At the Commonwealth heads of government meeting in November, Mr Brown called on Kabul to identify within three months from the date of the conference additional Afghan troops to be sent to Helmand for training. By six months, there should be a clear plan for police training, including tackling corruption, while within nine months some 400 provincial and district governors should be appointed. Within a year, the Prime Minister said, 50,000 additional Afghan troops must be trained, taking the total number of soldiers to 134,000. At least five out of 34 provinces should be under Afghan control within a year.
US General Stanley McChrystal, commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan, wants the London meeting to set a target of 171,000 Afghan soldiers by October 2011, and police numbers to increase from 94,000 to 134,000 by that date.
The scale of the task facing world leaders was underlined on Friday with another death of a British soldier from an explosive device in Helmand. The soldier from A Company 4 Rifles was the 250th to be killed in the country.
Nato troops have seized tons of ammonium nitrate fertiliser over the past five months in southern Afghanistan, but the new ban is designed to send a message that the government is doing everything it can to curb the insurgency. President Karzai banned the use, production, storage, purchase or sale of the fertiliser and farmers have one month to turn in their stocks or face prosecution.
The Afghan president is under intense pressure to act against terrorism and corruption following his disputed second-term election last year. Mr Miliband last week said the Afghan government needed to show it was taking steps. Writing in the New Statesman, the Foreign Secretary said: "To remain resistant to Taliban intimidation, Afghans need to know that their government can provide basic justice and maintain order."
Mrs Clinton said on Thursday: "What [Afghans] want is a government that can and will function, and we are expecting a lot from President Karzai and his new government."
US President Barack Obama has set a timeline of July 2011 for the start of a withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, echoed by Mr Brown.
The Independent on Sunday has led calls for a withdrawal of British troops from Afghanistan within a year, while leaders in other EU countries are under pressure to demand a speeded-up withdrawal. Germany is among those said to be frustrated at the lengthy commitment.
The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, who will not attend the talks at Lancaster House, central London, but who is instead sending her foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle, yesterday stressed her country's commitment to training Afghan troops. She will hold talks in Berlin with President Karzai this week before he travels to London for the conference.
The meeting will also highlight the effort needed by Pakistan to tackle terrorism in its country and border areas with Afghanistan.
Pakistan's foreign ministry said yesterday that the government was reaching out to "all levels" of the Afghan Taliban to end the insurgency against Kabul.
The talks on Yemen on Wednesday will bring together the foreign ministers of the country's main development partners, including the US and Saudi Arabia. Britain arranged the conference to coincide with the Afghanistan meeting after a Yemen-based al-Qa'ida group claimed it was behind the failed bid to blow up the Amsterdam to Detroit plane on 25 December.
The talks will focus on security and development funding to prevent Yemen becoming a failed state and being used by al-Qa'ida to launch further attacks. The Yemen government is also contending with a Shia revolt in the north and separatist movement in the south.
Underscoring the fragility of the its authority over the country, the bodies of 20 of 26 Saudi soldiers reported missing were yesterday found on the border after fighting against Shia rebels.
US General David Petraeus, who discussed military co-operation with Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh earlier this month, pledged a doubling of aid from Washington to the country, taking it to $140m (£87m).
Saudi Arabia is believed to be spending between $200m and $300m a year on helping Yemeni security authorities conduct counter-terrorism work. Britain launched a £7m five-year justice and policing programme in the country in 2008, and earlier this month Mr Brown agreed funding with President Obama for a counter-terrorism police unit.
Friday, January 22, 2010
General McChrystal wants to fund/arm tribal militias
The following article presents evidence revealing the make-it-up-as-you-go US military plan for Afghanistan. General McChrystal wants to fund and arm local tribal militias through his "Local Defense Initiative." There are at least three implications. One implication is that the US military in Afghanistan does not have the personnel (and perhaps know how) to win the support of local village leaders in many of the areas outside of the areas already controlled by the Taliban. The second implication is that Afghan leaders, who have a dominating influence in villages or districts and who have militias to enforce their will, are warlords. According to Milalai Joya, warlords are no better for the Afghan people than the Taliban. Their power is based on fear and coercion rather than on the interests of the local populations. The third implication is that the Afghan military and police force remain unable to protect the security of the people in many areas of the country.
Bob
Eikenberry Blocking Gen. McChrystal’s Afghan Militias Plan
Posted By Jason Ditz On January 21, 2010 @ 8:34 pm
US officials say that the inability of General Stanley McChrystal to move forward with his “Local Defense Initiative” (LDI) in Afghanistan is directly related to Ambassador Karl Eikenberry’s opposition to the program.
The LDI, in short, is a plan for the US to fund and in some cases arm tribal militias in the hopes that those groups will be able to fight the nation’s ever growing insurgency. Gen. McChrystal has hoped the plan could make up for struggling NATO efforts to increase the size of the Afghan military and police forces.
But Eikenberry expressed concern that the program was unwise until they had managed to transform the Afghan central government into a credible ruling force, as increasing the power of locals could further threaten Karzai’s tenuous reign. He also reportedly said that shoddy intelligence could mean the US was funding groups whom it was fundamentally at odds with.
Making matters worse, officials have expressed concern that the LDI could further strengthen tribal warlords, who would presumably be leading most of these forces. Afghan society is rife with corruption, and warlords are seen as no small part of that phenomenon.
Though Gen. McChrystal is under pressure to produce quick results to sell the continuation of the war to the American public, the consensus, at least among civilian administrators, is that the LDI may create even more problems than it is supposed to solve.
Article printed from News From Antiwar.com: http://news.antiwar.com/
URL to article: http://news.antiwar.com/2010/01/21/eikenberry-blocking-gen-mcchrystals-afghan-militias-plan/
Bob
Eikenberry Blocking Gen. McChrystal’s Afghan Militias Plan
Posted By Jason Ditz On January 21, 2010 @ 8:34 pm
US officials say that the inability of General Stanley McChrystal to move forward with his “Local Defense Initiative” (LDI) in Afghanistan is directly related to Ambassador Karl Eikenberry’s opposition to the program.
The LDI, in short, is a plan for the US to fund and in some cases arm tribal militias in the hopes that those groups will be able to fight the nation’s ever growing insurgency. Gen. McChrystal has hoped the plan could make up for struggling NATO efforts to increase the size of the Afghan military and police forces.
But Eikenberry expressed concern that the program was unwise until they had managed to transform the Afghan central government into a credible ruling force, as increasing the power of locals could further threaten Karzai’s tenuous reign. He also reportedly said that shoddy intelligence could mean the US was funding groups whom it was fundamentally at odds with.
Making matters worse, officials have expressed concern that the LDI could further strengthen tribal warlords, who would presumably be leading most of these forces. Afghan society is rife with corruption, and warlords are seen as no small part of that phenomenon.
Though Gen. McChrystal is under pressure to produce quick results to sell the continuation of the war to the American public, the consensus, at least among civilian administrators, is that the LDI may create even more problems than it is supposed to solve.
Article printed from News From Antiwar.com: http://news.antiwar.com/
URL to article: http://news.antiwar.com/2010/01/21/eikenberry-blocking-gen-mcchrystals-afghan-militias-plan/
Saturday, November 21, 2009
US occupation and warlords kill and imprison wrong people, civilians suffer
23 Dead in Afghanistan Bombings; Most Bagram Detainees Mercenaries
Afghan insurgents greeted the inauguration of Hamid Karzai as president for another 5 years with a string of attacks and bombings that left 23 dead and dozens wounded on Friday. A motorcycle-driving suicide bomber in the southwestern province of Farah struck near a truck depot, killing 15 and wounding 38, according to AFP.
In Kabul, the capital, a roadside bomb targeted the convoy of Abdul Rabb Rasul Sayyaf, killing 5 of his bodyguards. Sayyaf, a warlord member of parliament had fought the Soviets in the 1980s and espouses a hard line Muslim ideology. In the 1980s and the 1990s he was close to some al-Qaeda leaders, but threw in with the pro-American government that emerged after the overthrow by the Bush administration of the Taliban. He is an ally of the Karzai government and campaigned for Karzai in the recent election. Although American observers make a strong distinction between the Taliban and the pro-Karzai warlords in Afghanistan, they are often are not very far apart with regard to ideology. What seems important to Washington is whether they are pro-Karzai right right now or not.
In Khost, a roadside bomb killed 3 civilians when it ripped through their automobile.Meanwhile, UNICEF draws attention to the wretched living conditions of Afghans, calling it the world's worst place for a child to be born. The Guardian writes, "Afghanistan has the highest infant mortality rate in the world - 257 deaths per 1,000 live births, while 70 percent of the population lacks access to clean water." More statistics are given here. The life expectancy in Afghanistan at birth is 44. The adult literacy rate is 28%, which I suspect means that the female adult literacy rate is on the order of 6%.Where is NATO going to get 400,000 well trained police and troops in a country with a 28% literacy rate? At the moment, 10% of the Afghanistan National Army is said to be literate, suggesting that they are being largely recruited from the ranks of the rural poor, since that is only a little over 1/3 the national rate. Another problem with the ANA is that it is 40% Tajik, when Tajiks are likely 22# of the population, and has no recruits from Helmand and Qandahar provinces, the centers of Pashtun resistance to the Karzai government and foreign forces. USA Today undermines the entire master narrative of US/NATO military operations in Afghanistan, writing: "The U.S. military says the vast majority of the 700 detainees at its biggest prison in Afghanistan could eventually be released because they're fighting more for money than ideology."War hawks are always saying we are there to fight the Taliban because they are ideologically aligned with and inseparable from al-Qaeda. But the guys we've been fighting and imprisoning seem just to be poor schmucks looking to make a buck by militia activity.
Aljazeera English reports that a US raid on a village in Afghanistan on Friday morning is alleged by local Afghans to have gone badly wrong, leaving innocent civilians dead. The village, Haidarabad, is in Ghazni province. I could not find any other report on this incident aside from that of Aljazeera.
Afghan insurgents greeted the inauguration of Hamid Karzai as president for another 5 years with a string of attacks and bombings that left 23 dead and dozens wounded on Friday. A motorcycle-driving suicide bomber in the southwestern province of Farah struck near a truck depot, killing 15 and wounding 38, according to AFP.
In Kabul, the capital, a roadside bomb targeted the convoy of Abdul Rabb Rasul Sayyaf, killing 5 of his bodyguards. Sayyaf, a warlord member of parliament had fought the Soviets in the 1980s and espouses a hard line Muslim ideology. In the 1980s and the 1990s he was close to some al-Qaeda leaders, but threw in with the pro-American government that emerged after the overthrow by the Bush administration of the Taliban. He is an ally of the Karzai government and campaigned for Karzai in the recent election. Although American observers make a strong distinction between the Taliban and the pro-Karzai warlords in Afghanistan, they are often are not very far apart with regard to ideology. What seems important to Washington is whether they are pro-Karzai right right now or not.
In Khost, a roadside bomb killed 3 civilians when it ripped through their automobile.Meanwhile, UNICEF draws attention to the wretched living conditions of Afghans, calling it the world's worst place for a child to be born. The Guardian writes, "Afghanistan has the highest infant mortality rate in the world - 257 deaths per 1,000 live births, while 70 percent of the population lacks access to clean water." More statistics are given here. The life expectancy in Afghanistan at birth is 44. The adult literacy rate is 28%, which I suspect means that the female adult literacy rate is on the order of 6%.Where is NATO going to get 400,000 well trained police and troops in a country with a 28% literacy rate? At the moment, 10% of the Afghanistan National Army is said to be literate, suggesting that they are being largely recruited from the ranks of the rural poor, since that is only a little over 1/3 the national rate. Another problem with the ANA is that it is 40% Tajik, when Tajiks are likely 22# of the population, and has no recruits from Helmand and Qandahar provinces, the centers of Pashtun resistance to the Karzai government and foreign forces. USA Today undermines the entire master narrative of US/NATO military operations in Afghanistan, writing: "The U.S. military says the vast majority of the 700 detainees at its biggest prison in Afghanistan could eventually be released because they're fighting more for money than ideology."War hawks are always saying we are there to fight the Taliban because they are ideologically aligned with and inseparable from al-Qaeda. But the guys we've been fighting and imprisoning seem just to be poor schmucks looking to make a buck by militia activity.
Aljazeera English reports that a US raid on a village in Afghanistan on Friday morning is alleged by local Afghans to have gone badly wrong, leaving innocent civilians dead. The village, Haidarabad, is in Ghazni province. I could not find any other report on this incident aside from that of Aljazeera.
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