Reporting for Aljazeera online, Spencer Ackerman writes on the unprecedented CIA’s drone attacks in Waziristan areas of Pakistan (Dec. 17, 2010). Before delving further into his article, I draw information from Wikipedia that helps us to locate Waziristan in Pakistan, its official designation, and why it is important to the CIA and US military forces stationed in Afghanistan.
According to Wikipedia,
“Waziristan (Pashto and Urdu: وزیرستان, "land of the Wazir") is a mountainous region of northwest Pakistan, bordering Afghanistan and covering some 11,585 km² (4,473 sq mi). It is part of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, considered to be outside the country's four provinces.
“Waziristan comprises the area west and southwest of Peshawar between the Tochi River to the north and the Gomal River to the south. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa lies immediately to the east. The region was an independent tribal territory until 1893, remaining outside the British Empire. Tribal raiding into British-ruled territory was a constant problem for the British,[1] eliciting frequent punitive expeditions between 1860 and 1945. The region became part of Pakistan in 1947. [See map from Wikipedia below.]
“For administrative purposes, Waziristan is divided into two "agencies", North Waziristan and South Waziristan, with estimated populations (as of 1998) of 361,246 and 429,841 respectively. The two parts have quite distinct characteristics, though both tribes are subgroups of the Wazir Tribe and speak a common Wazirwola language. They have a reputation as formidable warriors,[2] and are known for their frequent blood feuds.[citation needed]
“The Wazir tribes are divided into sub-tribes governed by male village elders who meet in a tribal jirga. Socially and religiously, Waziristan is an extremely conservative area. Women are carefully guarded, and every household must be headed by a male figure. Tribal cohesiveness is also kept strong by means of the so-called Collective Responsibility Acts in the Frontier Crimes Regulation.
“Taliban presence in the area has been an issue of international concern in the War on Terrorism particularly since the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan.”
Expansion of Drone Warfare
Once focused on South Waziristan, the CIA drone attacks have been expanded to and increasingly concentrated on North Waziristan. Ackerman writes:
“Over the past two days, four Predators or Reapers fired their missiles at suspected militants in North Waziristan, with three of the strikes coming early today.
“They represent a geographic expansion of the drone war. Today’s strikes come in Khyber, an area abutting Afghanistan’s Nangahar province, that’s been notably drone-free. It has become an area for militants fleeing military action in South Waziristan to take succor.”
As drone attacks have been expanded geographically, they have also increased in number. The “drone-strike tally for this year,” Ackerman reports, [is] “up to 113, more than twice last year’s 53 strikes.” But there is more.
“According to a tally kept by the Long War Journal, 58 of those strikes have come since September: There has been a drone attack every 1.8 days since Labor Day. LWJ’s Bill Roggio says the pace of attacks between September and November (there was a brief December respite, now erased) is “unprecedented since the U.S. began the air campaign in Pakistan in 2004.” (By contrast, in 2008, there were just 34 strikes.)
And the majority of the drone attacks in 2010 have “clustered in North Waziristan.”
“Both Roggio and the New America Foundation have found that the overwhelming majority of this year’s strikes have clustered in North Waziristan: at least 99, by Roggio’s count.”
What are drones? The following information is from Wikipedia, “General Atomics MQ-1 Predator.”
“The General Atomics MQ-1 Predator is an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) used primarily by the United States Air Force (USAF) and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Initially conceived in the early 1990s for reconnaissance and forward observation roles, the Predator carries cameras and other sensors but has been modified and upgraded to carry and fire two AGM-114 Hellfire missiles or other munitions. The aircraft, in use since 1995, has seen combat over Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bosnia, Serbia, Iraq, and Yemen.
“The USAF describes the Predator as a "Tier II" MALE UAS (medium-altitude, long-endurance UAV system). The UAS consists of four aircraft or "air vehicles" with sensors, a ground control station (GCS), and a primary satellite link communication suite.[3] Powered by a Rotax engine and driven by a propeller, the air vehicle can fly up to 400 nautical miles (740 km) to a target, loiter overhead for 14 hours, then return to its base.
“Following 2001, the RQ-1 Predator drone became the primary UAV used for offensive operations by the USAF and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Afghanistan and the Pakistani tribal areas. It has also been deployed in other locations. Because offensive uses of the Predator are classified, US military officials have reported an appreciation for the intelligence and reconnaissance-gathering abilities of UAVs but declined to discuss their offensive use in public.[4]”
Effects on and responses from Pakistanis to Drone attacks
Ackerman:
“It may take years, but some researcher will travel to Pakistan’s tribal areas and produce a definitive study on what it’s been like to live amidst an aerial bombardment from American pilotless aircraft. When that account inevitably comes out, it’s likely to find that 2010 — and especially the final quarter of 2010 — marked a turning point in how civilians coped with a drone war that turned relentless.”
[….]
“But no one knows whether a backlash is just around the corner. While most Pakistanis remain ignorant of the strikes, those in the tribal areas live literally in their shadow, and register enormous discontent, approving of retaliatory attacks on U.S. forces.
“Reportedly, the CIA’s top officer in Islamabad has fled Pakistan after a man from North Waziristan whose son and brother were killed in a strike filed a lawsuit against the agency.
“There’s no official or universally accepted figure of how many civilians have died as a result of the strikes, but New America pegs it at around 25 percent of all fatalities. Long War Journal’s registry is more generous, claiming that 1,671 militants and 108 civilians have died in the strikes since 2006.”
Are the Drone Attacks Legal?
From Ackerman: “Then there’s the question of whether the strikes are legal. Obama administration claims that the September 2001 congressional Authorization to Use Military Force in retaliation for 9/11 provides all the legal protection necessary for the strikes. Some lawyers and law professors, by contrast, think that the drones’ remote pilots could eventually get hauled before a war-crimes tribunal.
“A United Nations report urged Obama to rein in the drones, restricting them to attacks on the seniormost militants. He did the opposite.
“Don’t expect him to heed that warning in 2011 either. After reading the administration’s war-progress report, The New York Times‘ David Sanger noted that background discussions with administration officials made it clear that next year “the pace will be picked up.” The technology certainly enables it: The Predator is giving way to the Reaper drone, which carries a bigger payload; while weapons manufacturers are lightening the weights of air-launched precision missiles.
[….]
“However targeted the strikes may be, the hundreds of thousands of civilians in North Waziristan and the rest of the tribal areas live with the anxiety of the missiles overhead. How long can the U.S. avoid a reckoning?” [End of quotes from Ackerman.]
For more information on the legality of the CIA drone attacks on Waziristan, see David W. Glazier’s statement before the House Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs on April 28, 2010. The Subcommittee hearings addressed the topic “Rise of the Drone II: Examining the Legality of Unmanned Targeting.” Glazier is a Professor of Law at the Loyola Law School, Los Angeles. You can find the full six page testimony at: www.fas.org/irp/2010_hr/042810glazier.pdf - In finishing his statement, Glazier says:
“But some matters, such as the use of CIA personnel to conduct armed attacks clearly fall outside the scope of permissible conduct and ought to be reconsidered, particularly as the United States seeks to prosecute members of its adversaries for generally similar conduct.”
Drone attacks may generate instability in Pakistan and backlash against the US.
Anatol Lieven offers his assessment of the implications in a long, informative article published in The Nation magazine, January 3, 2011issue. Lieven is “a professor in the war studies department of King’s College London and a senior fellow of the New American Foundation in Washington.” His thought: we are playing with fire. Here are a few of his paragraphs from the article, highlighting various issues on why Pakistan is important in the US-led Afghanistan war/occupation and generally for the stability of the region and globally.
“The top leadership of the Afghan Taliban is based in Pakistani Baluchistan under the protection of Pakistani military intelligence, and Pakistan has prevented the United States from launching drone attacks on them there (in contrast with the intensive campaign against targets in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas to the north). Taliban forces use Pakistani territory for rest and recuperation, with the support of the local Pashtun population. Pakistan also has close ties to the two other Afghan Pashtun Islamist forces allied to the Taliban, the Hizb-e-Islami of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and the Haqqani network in the Afghan region of Greater Paktika. All of this gives Pakistan considerable influence over the Afghan Taliban—though it must be stressed that this influence is also limited. Any settlement brokered by Pakistan would have to be one the Taliban could accept without humiliation.
“But if Pakistan is vital to a settlement, Pakistan is also vital in itself. It cannot be emphasized too strongly that the survival of Pakistan, not Afghanistan, is the most important issue for Western and global security in that region. With six times Afghanistan's population, plus nuclear weapons, a highly trained 500,000-man army and a huge diaspora (especially in Britain), Pakistan would increase the international terrorist threat by orders of magnitude if it collapsed. There is a widespread (though exaggerated) view in the West that the weakness of the Pakistani state and the strength of Islamist support makes the country's collapse a real possibility. Leaving aside the danger (as exposed by WikiLeaks) of nuclear materials and skills reaching terrorist groups, the disintegration of the Pakistani army, with its highly trained engineers and anti-aircraft forces, would vastly increase the "conventional" terrorist threat to India and the West.
“It was therefore with horror that I recently heard that the diminished threat from Al Qaeda means that some Western security officials are suggesting that the West can afford to put much more pressure on Islamabad to attack Taliban strongholds in Pakistan's border region, even though this may lead to greater destabilization within Pakistan. This is lunatic reasoning. The diminished power of Al Qaeda should be cause for the United States and NATO to find ways to withdraw from Afghanistan, not step up the fight against the Taliban—since it was to fight Al Qaeda that we went there in the first place. As for the terrorist threat to the West, this has never come from the Afghan Taliban—but it increasingly comes from the Pakistani Taliban and their allies, as the case of attempted Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad demonstrates.
“Unfortunately, the current US strategy is headed in the opposite direction from using Pakistan to broker a settlement, and toward an intensified fight against the Taliban and intensified pressure on Pakistan. Even worse, there are barely the rudiments of a Plan B if that strategy fails. If it proves impossible to strengthen the Afghan National Army sufficiently within the next two years, the options will be stark: either US forces will have to fight on in Afghanistan indefinitely or they will have to accept the probable loss of the south and east of the country and either unending civil war or de facto partition through bloody war rather than negotiated agreement. Among other things, all these options will be bad for Pakistan, especially if India is drawn into much greater support for the anti-Taliban forces in Afghanistan. This would in effect lead to an Indo-Pakistani proxy war in Afghanistan.”
[….]
In his concluding paragraph, Lieven writes:
“Behind all these questions lies once again the issue of Pakistan’s role, Pakistan’s future and the US role in that future. Since our options for coercing Pakistan are so limited – at least, without actions that would risk destroying Pakistan and involving us in far worse disasters – we should try to make the best of an admittedly very difficult situation and seek Pakistan’s help in finding a settlement to the Afghanistan conflict.”
In sum, the US is prosecuting a war/occupation in Afghanistan by expanding it into Pakistan, increasing the use of drones, which are of dubious legality, violating the sovereignty of Pakistan, causing civilian casualties, raising the level of anger and hatred of Pakistanis toward the US, potentially undermining the fragile stability of the Pakistan state, and avoiding real negotiations with the Taliban leaders. As Anatol Lieven notes, “This [or something like this] is lunatic reasoning.”
Showing posts with label Pakistan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pakistan. Show all posts
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Two levels in understanding US Afghanistan War
Two levels for understanding US Afghanistan War
Post for stopafghanwar
There are two levels for understanding the US-led and ongoing occupation of Afghanistan.
One level deals with news and analysis about current developments and debates about US troop casualties, whether troop levels are sufficient, whether US forces are making military progress (or is there light at the end of the tunnel), whether the Afghan elections are honest (or just how dishonest), whether the Karzai government is totally corrupt or only partially so, whether the special forces and unmanned drones and other destructive tactics are counterproductive with the goals of counterinsurgency, whether and to what extent the “Taliban” is gaining the support of the Afghan people, whether or how much private contractors are exploiting US taxpayer funds, whether the US military is forced to pay lucrative bribes to Taliban forces and certain tribal groups just to allow military supplies to get to their destinations, how long the US-led occupation will last, whether there will be a need for additional “surges,” and so forth, like, what’s with the training efforts of Afghan police and army and what is Pakistan up to. US think tanks and policy advisers are constantly offering ideas on how to deal with one or more of these problems.
Here is an example of analysis at this level. Juan Cole, the expert commentator on the Afghanistan situation – and much more – provides the following post on Dec 3, 2010, from his award-winning blog, Informed Comment. The title: “The Karzai Problem in Afghanistan: Wikileaks”
“The bodies of the six US troops — killed Monday by a newly recruited Afghan border guard who turned Taliban — arrived back in the United States late Wednesday. That 6 US soldiers were killed in one day was generally not news on the so-called news networks, though of course the major print media reported it.
“The troubling question is what they died fighting for. My own hypothesis is that the US is still in Afghanistan at this late date mainly to shore up the central government of President Hamid Karzai.
“But Karzai is himself extremely problematic. According to cables released by Wikileaks, and summarized by the Guardian, Karzai is prone to paranoid conspiracy theories, believes that the US is animated by sinister motives such as breaking up Pakistan and undermining Afghanistan, and is erratic and corrupt. He blithely just released 5 notorious drug runners captured by the US and turned over to him. He accused the US of funding the presidential campaign of his rival, Abdallah Abdallah, in the fall of 2009.
“Gen. David Petraeus is quoted as admitting that Karzai is “weak” but saying it is better to leave him there.
“But the problem with Karzai is not that he is weak. Rather it is that he is corrupt and believes in conspiracy theories, and the combination of the two causes him to act high-handedly and improperly.
“And here is the moral question: Is it right to ask US warriors to fight and die to prop up the administration of Hamid Karzai?
“And, how likely is it that Afghanistan National Army officers and troops are going to risk their lives for someone who is paranoid, erratic and corrupt?
“In short, the whole strategy of the US, of rapidly training Afghan security forces who could establish order in the country, assumes that the Afghanistan National Army and the police will be loyal to Karzai. But how likely is that?
“PS Wikileaks was down Thursday evening but went live with a new dns early Friday morning. The 600 or so State Department cables so far releasedcan be searched here.”
There is nothing wrong with this first level of analysis. As in Cole’s many posts, they are absolutely necessary to help us keep abreast of events in this war-torn and devastated country. Another level of analysis, which Cole well understands and writes about in some other posts, articles, and a book, deals with more fundamental strategic and political-economic forces. David Williams and Phyllis Bennis provide an example of this perspective in their book, Ending the US War in Afghanistan: A Primer, which is an outstanding reference book for learning about a host of important questions and answers on Afghanistan. They write as follows.
“While Afghanistan has only relatively small reserves of strategic resources, it is located smack in the middle of the oil- and gas-rich Central Asia/Caspian Sea Basin region. Land-locked Afghanistan has a millennial history as part of the trade and cultural exchange of the Silk Road, and in the modern world remains a strategic transit point for its resource-rich neighbors to get oil and gas to far-off markets. The US relationship with Afghanistan both pre- and post-9/11…has been grounded in the potential for these oil and natural gas pipelines.
“Afghanistan’s neighbors are also almost all of strategic interest to the US. US tensions with Pakistan and Iran dominate the southern east-to-west arc of Afghanistan’s frontier. Dependence on airbases, access to natural gas and oil, and especially competition – resource-driven and otherwise – with an ascendant Russia…shape US relations with Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan on Afghanistan’s northern borders” (pp. 44-47).
Additionally, one should bear in mind that both Pakistan and India have major interests in how Afghanistan is governed, there are great tensions between them (e.g., Kashmir), and they both have nuclear weapons, along with the capacity to deliver them on each other’s territory. Also recall that the US has played a significant role in the development of their nuclear capacities. The reasons go on. US leaders also want to do everything they can to persuade India not to develop relations with China that may further undermine US hegemonic aspirations in Asia. It’s all bewildering, but real.
So what’s the point of all this. We shouldn’t get entirely lost in the rapid-fire and changing events that are covered by the media and delivered in policy-statements by the White House. And we should never forget that all wars are based on lies, the manipulation of public opinion, destruction and huge numbers of civilian deaths and casualties in the affected countries, our own troop casualities, the waste of US resources, the weakening of diplomatic and other peace-oriented approaches to conflict, the strengthening of conservative and reactionary forces in the US itself, justifications for yet more military spending and a distortion of budget priorities, etc. It all adds up to a no-win, no-win, even worst, unfolding and tragic process.
For a provocative and useful defense of the claim that “War is a Lie,” read the book by that title, authored by David Swanson.
Post for stopafghanwar
There are two levels for understanding the US-led and ongoing occupation of Afghanistan.
One level deals with news and analysis about current developments and debates about US troop casualties, whether troop levels are sufficient, whether US forces are making military progress (or is there light at the end of the tunnel), whether the Afghan elections are honest (or just how dishonest), whether the Karzai government is totally corrupt or only partially so, whether the special forces and unmanned drones and other destructive tactics are counterproductive with the goals of counterinsurgency, whether and to what extent the “Taliban” is gaining the support of the Afghan people, whether or how much private contractors are exploiting US taxpayer funds, whether the US military is forced to pay lucrative bribes to Taliban forces and certain tribal groups just to allow military supplies to get to their destinations, how long the US-led occupation will last, whether there will be a need for additional “surges,” and so forth, like, what’s with the training efforts of Afghan police and army and what is Pakistan up to. US think tanks and policy advisers are constantly offering ideas on how to deal with one or more of these problems.
Here is an example of analysis at this level. Juan Cole, the expert commentator on the Afghanistan situation – and much more – provides the following post on Dec 3, 2010, from his award-winning blog, Informed Comment. The title: “The Karzai Problem in Afghanistan: Wikileaks”
“The bodies of the six US troops — killed Monday by a newly recruited Afghan border guard who turned Taliban — arrived back in the United States late Wednesday. That 6 US soldiers were killed in one day was generally not news on the so-called news networks, though of course the major print media reported it.
“The troubling question is what they died fighting for. My own hypothesis is that the US is still in Afghanistan at this late date mainly to shore up the central government of President Hamid Karzai.
“But Karzai is himself extremely problematic. According to cables released by Wikileaks, and summarized by the Guardian, Karzai is prone to paranoid conspiracy theories, believes that the US is animated by sinister motives such as breaking up Pakistan and undermining Afghanistan, and is erratic and corrupt. He blithely just released 5 notorious drug runners captured by the US and turned over to him. He accused the US of funding the presidential campaign of his rival, Abdallah Abdallah, in the fall of 2009.
“Gen. David Petraeus is quoted as admitting that Karzai is “weak” but saying it is better to leave him there.
“But the problem with Karzai is not that he is weak. Rather it is that he is corrupt and believes in conspiracy theories, and the combination of the two causes him to act high-handedly and improperly.
“And here is the moral question: Is it right to ask US warriors to fight and die to prop up the administration of Hamid Karzai?
“And, how likely is it that Afghanistan National Army officers and troops are going to risk their lives for someone who is paranoid, erratic and corrupt?
“In short, the whole strategy of the US, of rapidly training Afghan security forces who could establish order in the country, assumes that the Afghanistan National Army and the police will be loyal to Karzai. But how likely is that?
“PS Wikileaks was down Thursday evening but went live with a new dns early Friday morning. The 600 or so State Department cables so far releasedcan be searched here.”
There is nothing wrong with this first level of analysis. As in Cole’s many posts, they are absolutely necessary to help us keep abreast of events in this war-torn and devastated country. Another level of analysis, which Cole well understands and writes about in some other posts, articles, and a book, deals with more fundamental strategic and political-economic forces. David Williams and Phyllis Bennis provide an example of this perspective in their book, Ending the US War in Afghanistan: A Primer, which is an outstanding reference book for learning about a host of important questions and answers on Afghanistan. They write as follows.
“While Afghanistan has only relatively small reserves of strategic resources, it is located smack in the middle of the oil- and gas-rich Central Asia/Caspian Sea Basin region. Land-locked Afghanistan has a millennial history as part of the trade and cultural exchange of the Silk Road, and in the modern world remains a strategic transit point for its resource-rich neighbors to get oil and gas to far-off markets. The US relationship with Afghanistan both pre- and post-9/11…has been grounded in the potential for these oil and natural gas pipelines.
“Afghanistan’s neighbors are also almost all of strategic interest to the US. US tensions with Pakistan and Iran dominate the southern east-to-west arc of Afghanistan’s frontier. Dependence on airbases, access to natural gas and oil, and especially competition – resource-driven and otherwise – with an ascendant Russia…shape US relations with Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan on Afghanistan’s northern borders” (pp. 44-47).
Additionally, one should bear in mind that both Pakistan and India have major interests in how Afghanistan is governed, there are great tensions between them (e.g., Kashmir), and they both have nuclear weapons, along with the capacity to deliver them on each other’s territory. Also recall that the US has played a significant role in the development of their nuclear capacities. The reasons go on. US leaders also want to do everything they can to persuade India not to develop relations with China that may further undermine US hegemonic aspirations in Asia. It’s all bewildering, but real.
So what’s the point of all this. We shouldn’t get entirely lost in the rapid-fire and changing events that are covered by the media and delivered in policy-statements by the White House. And we should never forget that all wars are based on lies, the manipulation of public opinion, destruction and huge numbers of civilian deaths and casualties in the affected countries, our own troop casualities, the waste of US resources, the weakening of diplomatic and other peace-oriented approaches to conflict, the strengthening of conservative and reactionary forces in the US itself, justifications for yet more military spending and a distortion of budget priorities, etc. It all adds up to a no-win, no-win, even worst, unfolding and tragic process.
For a provocative and useful defense of the claim that “War is a Lie,” read the book by that title, authored by David Swanson.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Indications that the war in Afghanistan will last for years to come
Rick Rozoff's article on Global Research.ca today describes developments in Afghanistan that indicate US military and allied forces will remain in the country for many years to come, as the number of occupational forces increase, the number of bases in Afghanistan and in surrounding countries increase, as military actions become more multifaceted, and despite the rising deaths and casualties among US and allied troops. Rozoff notes also that US troop and drone attacks in Pakistan are causing some tension in Pakistan-US relations. This, along with massive government corruption, increasing insurgent and Taliban advances, a lack of progress in meeting the needs of the great majority of Afghans, appear to conflict with the US generals' dreams of success.
Still, there is strong bipartisan support in the US Congress for the funding of this war. Last July, the Senate supported by a voice vote supplemental funding of over $30 billion for US military forces in Afghanistan. The House passed the request by a vote of 308 to 114. Obama then signed it. A few months later General Patraeus tested the waters, unofficially suggesting even more troops were needed. Congress has not dealt with any further requests. But, sadly, the Obama administration and the US Congress have a proven record of supporting American war efforts and increased military budgets when asked. A rubber-stamp. The US government and military appear not to be deterred in this unending war by rising US troop casualties and seem little concerned about Afghan deaths and the continuing devastation to that country's infrastructure, economy, education, health care, water, and other basic services.
Here are some paragraphs from Rozoff's article.
[....]
"October 7 will mark the advent of the tenth year of the US war in Afghanistan. NATO joined the war on September 12, 2001, "invoking its Article 5 collective military assistance clause." The combined US and NATO forces are referred to as the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).
[There is little doubt, though, that this is an American-led military occupation.]
"There are now at least 152,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan, 120,000 under NATO command [US dominates the command], according to several recent statements by American and NATO officials most if not all of them will remain there byond the 2011 withdrawal date announced by the American administration last year."
[....]
American and Alliance military bases have expanded into other central Asian countries - "Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan - and the elaboration of networks for the transit of troops, military equipment and supplies and for combat and training and bombing runs from Estonia and Latvia on the Baltic Sea to Georgia on the Black Sea and Azerbaijan and Turkmenistand on the Casbian Sea as well as in several other nations from Eastern Europe to the so-called Broader Middle East, including Pakistan, Kuwait, Iraq, Jordan, Diego Garcia, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, and Kazakhstan."
[....]
"US and NATO deaths for 2009 and so far this year account for over half of the total of 2,129 killed since the beginning of the war: 1,082."
[....]
Drone attacks are increasing. Rozoff: "The Washington Post...disclosed that massive intensification of drone warfare 'represents a significant evolution of an already controversial targeted killing program, run by the CIA, which in the past month...has been delivering what amounts to a cross-border bombing campaign in coordination with the conventional military operations a few miles away."
[....]
"The integrated strategy the US and NATO are purusing is threefold: Counterinsurgency operations, including targeted assassinations, in Afghanistan's eastern and southern povinces bordering Pakistan; an unprecedented escalation of drone missile strikes in northwestern Pakistan; and attacks by helicopter gunships in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) in combination with drone strikes."
[....]
"The Pakistan government has 'halted NATO supply trucks and oil tankers from entering Afghanistan, which policy remainsin force with 160 vehicles stopped near the border on Oct. 5."
Still, there is strong bipartisan support in the US Congress for the funding of this war. Last July, the Senate supported by a voice vote supplemental funding of over $30 billion for US military forces in Afghanistan. The House passed the request by a vote of 308 to 114. Obama then signed it. A few months later General Patraeus tested the waters, unofficially suggesting even more troops were needed. Congress has not dealt with any further requests. But, sadly, the Obama administration and the US Congress have a proven record of supporting American war efforts and increased military budgets when asked. A rubber-stamp. The US government and military appear not to be deterred in this unending war by rising US troop casualties and seem little concerned about Afghan deaths and the continuing devastation to that country's infrastructure, economy, education, health care, water, and other basic services.
Here are some paragraphs from Rozoff's article.
[....]
"October 7 will mark the advent of the tenth year of the US war in Afghanistan. NATO joined the war on September 12, 2001, "invoking its Article 5 collective military assistance clause." The combined US and NATO forces are referred to as the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).
[There is little doubt, though, that this is an American-led military occupation.]
"There are now at least 152,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan, 120,000 under NATO command [US dominates the command], according to several recent statements by American and NATO officials most if not all of them will remain there byond the 2011 withdrawal date announced by the American administration last year."
[....]
American and Alliance military bases have expanded into other central Asian countries - "Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan - and the elaboration of networks for the transit of troops, military equipment and supplies and for combat and training and bombing runs from Estonia and Latvia on the Baltic Sea to Georgia on the Black Sea and Azerbaijan and Turkmenistand on the Casbian Sea as well as in several other nations from Eastern Europe to the so-called Broader Middle East, including Pakistan, Kuwait, Iraq, Jordan, Diego Garcia, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, and Kazakhstan."
[....]
"US and NATO deaths for 2009 and so far this year account for over half of the total of 2,129 killed since the beginning of the war: 1,082."
[....]
Drone attacks are increasing. Rozoff: "The Washington Post...disclosed that massive intensification of drone warfare 'represents a significant evolution of an already controversial targeted killing program, run by the CIA, which in the past month...has been delivering what amounts to a cross-border bombing campaign in coordination with the conventional military operations a few miles away."
[....]
"The integrated strategy the US and NATO are purusing is threefold: Counterinsurgency operations, including targeted assassinations, in Afghanistan's eastern and southern povinces bordering Pakistan; an unprecedented escalation of drone missile strikes in northwestern Pakistan; and attacks by helicopter gunships in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) in combination with drone strikes."
[....]
"The Pakistan government has 'halted NATO supply trucks and oil tankers from entering Afghanistan, which policy remainsin force with 160 vehicles stopped near the border on Oct. 5."
Sunday, August 29, 2010
CIA overview of Afghanistan economy and some reminders of CIA involvement
The information below, following my comments and quotes from another source, is from a section of the CIA's latest World Factbook, a section offering an overview of the Afghan economy. The thrust of the CIA's analysis is that Afghanistan is among the poorest countries in the world and any economic gains are mostly linked to international assistance. The statements begin by referring to how the "economy is recovering from decades of conflict."
Keep in mind, that the U.S. has been a direct or indirect actor in the conflict from 1979 and thus bears some responsibility for the current conditions of the Afghan economy. Before going to the CIA's information, here are just a few reminders about the history of U.S. involvemen from David Wildman and Phyllis Bennis' very informative book, Ending the US War in Afghanistan: A Primer. I quote parts of a section of their book, where the authors respond to the question "What is the history of US involvement in Afghanistan before 9/11?" (After these quotes, I go to the CIA "overview.")
"Throughout the sequence of empires that have risen and fallen in the region, the land is now Afghanistan, a nation-state since the middle of the eighteenth century....
"The US was not directly involved in Afghanistan until the Cold War. In 1973 Afghanistan's monarchy was overthrown, and a republic declared. A left-wing rebellion in 1978 resulted in the creation of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (PDPA). The PDPA was a community party whose program tended toward liberal, secular, and socialist reforms, building on some of the social reforms (including outlawing the purdah, a form of isolating women from social contact) that had started in Afghanistan in the 1950s. Although much of the reformist social agenda did not reach beyond Kabul, land reform and support for farmers in the rural areas were high on the PDPA agenda. At least in the cities, Afghan women played a major role in the emerging political and economic life of the country....
"President Jimmy Carter's national security advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, began a secret campaign of arming, training, and funding Islamist guerrillas known as the Mujahideen against the government in Afghanistan, funneling arms and US and Saudi money through Pakistan's intelligence agency, the ISI. One of the Mujahideen leaders was the young Osama bin Laden, whose organization trained and funded the ISI- and US-backed Mujahideen....
[....]
"In 1985 Reagan's CIA director, William Casey, crafted National Security Decision Directive 166, which provided the legal justification for a huge escalation of the CIA's role inside Afghanistan. During that time the Reagan administration also became special patrons of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, head of one of the most powerful and most extreme Islamist guerrilla organizations. Hekmatyar had the closest ties to the ISI, received most of the funds from the US and the Saudis, and was the main recipient of the much-coveted Stinger anti-aircraft misiles provided by the US.
"From 1985 on, the US- and Pakistan-backed Islamist guerrillas escalated the fight against the Soviet forces in Afghanistan. The violence forced almost half the population of the country from their homes, and millions feld Afghanistan to seek refuge in neighboring Iran or especially Pakistan...."
CIA World Factbook
Afghanistan: Economy-Overview
Last updated August 19, 2010
http://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/goes/af.html
Afghanistan's economy is recovering from decades of conflict. The economy has improved significantly since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001 largely because of the infusion of international assistance, the recovery of the agricultural sector, and service sector growth.
Despite the progress of the past few years, Afghanistan is extremely poor, landlocked, and highly dependent on foreign aid, agriculture, and trade with neighboring countries. Much of the population continues to suffer from shortages of housing, clean water, electricity, medical care, and jobs. Criminality, insecurity, weak governance, and the Afghan Government's inability to extend rule of law to all parts of the country pose challenges to future economic growth. Afghanistan's living standards are among the lowest in the world.
While the international community remains committed to Afghanistan's development, pledging over $57 billion at three donors' conferences since 2002, the Government of Afghanistan will need to overcome a number of challenges, including low revenue collection, anemic job creation, high levels of corruption, weak government capacity, and poor public infrastructure.
Keep in mind, that the U.S. has been a direct or indirect actor in the conflict from 1979 and thus bears some responsibility for the current conditions of the Afghan economy. Before going to the CIA's information, here are just a few reminders about the history of U.S. involvemen from David Wildman and Phyllis Bennis' very informative book, Ending the US War in Afghanistan: A Primer. I quote parts of a section of their book, where the authors respond to the question "What is the history of US involvement in Afghanistan before 9/11?" (After these quotes, I go to the CIA "overview.")
"Throughout the sequence of empires that have risen and fallen in the region, the land is now Afghanistan, a nation-state since the middle of the eighteenth century....
"The US was not directly involved in Afghanistan until the Cold War. In 1973 Afghanistan's monarchy was overthrown, and a republic declared. A left-wing rebellion in 1978 resulted in the creation of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (PDPA). The PDPA was a community party whose program tended toward liberal, secular, and socialist reforms, building on some of the social reforms (including outlawing the purdah, a form of isolating women from social contact) that had started in Afghanistan in the 1950s. Although much of the reformist social agenda did not reach beyond Kabul, land reform and support for farmers in the rural areas were high on the PDPA agenda. At least in the cities, Afghan women played a major role in the emerging political and economic life of the country....
"President Jimmy Carter's national security advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, began a secret campaign of arming, training, and funding Islamist guerrillas known as the Mujahideen against the government in Afghanistan, funneling arms and US and Saudi money through Pakistan's intelligence agency, the ISI. One of the Mujahideen leaders was the young Osama bin Laden, whose organization trained and funded the ISI- and US-backed Mujahideen....
[....]
"In 1985 Reagan's CIA director, William Casey, crafted National Security Decision Directive 166, which provided the legal justification for a huge escalation of the CIA's role inside Afghanistan. During that time the Reagan administration also became special patrons of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, head of one of the most powerful and most extreme Islamist guerrilla organizations. Hekmatyar had the closest ties to the ISI, received most of the funds from the US and the Saudis, and was the main recipient of the much-coveted Stinger anti-aircraft misiles provided by the US.
"From 1985 on, the US- and Pakistan-backed Islamist guerrillas escalated the fight against the Soviet forces in Afghanistan. The violence forced almost half the population of the country from their homes, and millions feld Afghanistan to seek refuge in neighboring Iran or especially Pakistan...."
CIA World Factbook
Afghanistan: Economy-Overview
Last updated August 19, 2010
http://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/goes/af.html
Afghanistan's economy is recovering from decades of conflict. The economy has improved significantly since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001 largely because of the infusion of international assistance, the recovery of the agricultural sector, and service sector growth.
Despite the progress of the past few years, Afghanistan is extremely poor, landlocked, and highly dependent on foreign aid, agriculture, and trade with neighboring countries. Much of the population continues to suffer from shortages of housing, clean water, electricity, medical care, and jobs. Criminality, insecurity, weak governance, and the Afghan Government's inability to extend rule of law to all parts of the country pose challenges to future economic growth. Afghanistan's living standards are among the lowest in the world.
While the international community remains committed to Afghanistan's development, pledging over $57 billion at three donors' conferences since 2002, the Government of Afghanistan will need to overcome a number of challenges, including low revenue collection, anemic job creation, high levels of corruption, weak government capacity, and poor public infrastructure.
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.
Monday, July 26, 2010
Aljazeera adds details on Wikileak's Afghan war revelations
Aljazeera
UPDATED ON:Monday, July 26, 2010 17:10 Mecca time, 14:10 GMT
VIDEO
Pakistani agents 'aiding Taliban'
Pakistan has rejected the reports that its intelligence service gave support to the Taliban [AFP]
US officials believe that the intelligence agency of ally Pakistan, which receives billions of dollars in aid from Washington, has been secretly supporting the Taliban in Afghanistan, leaked records say.
Wikileaks, the online whistleblower organisation, published more than 90,000 secret US military documentson Sunday, revealing an unedited account of the nearly nine-year-old war in Afghanistan.
The unverified files say that Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, the country's spy service, has been holding strategy sessions with Taliban leaders to aid their efforts in Afghanistan.
An ISI spokesman denied the allegations, saying they were "far-fetched and unsubstantiated," but said the agency would be examining the files.
Wikileaks' documents, which cover a period from January 2004 to December 2009, include descriptions of a covert US special operations unit formed to target high-level al-Qaeda and Taliban figures. They say more than 2,000 leaders are on a "kill or capture" list, but missions to hunt them down have led to unreported civilian deaths.
Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, said he expected the leaked records would "shape a [new] understanding of the past six years".
"The real story of this material is that it's war, it's one damn thing after another," Assange said at a news conference in London on Monday. "It is the continuous small events, the continuous death of children, insurgents, allied forces, the maimed people."
Taliban dealings
The New York Times in the United States, Britain's Guardian newspaper and the German weekly Der Spiegel were all given about a month's advanced access to the dosier, with each jointly unveiling their findings on Sunday.
According to the Times report, the documents suggest Pakistan "allows representatives of its spy service to meet directly with the Talibanin secret strategy sessions to organise networks of militant groups that fight against American soldiers in Afghanistan, and even hatch plots to assassinate Afghan leaders".
IN DEPTH
Reports reveal Afghan war details
Ex-spy chief denies Taliban links
Excerpts: A less encouraging story
Video: Ability of Afghan forces questioned
Focus: Why the world needs WikiLeaks
Husain Haqqani, Pakistan's ambassador to the US, called the release of the files "irresponsible" and said it consisted of "unprocessed" reports from the field.
"The documents circulated by WikiLeaks do not reflect the current on-ground realities," Haqqani said in a statement.
"The United States, Afghanistan and Pakistan are strategic partners and are jointly endeavouring to defeat al-Qaeda and its Taliban allies militarily and politically," he said.
The US government also condemned the records' disclosure, saying they could threaten national security and endanger the lives of its forces.
"The United States strongly condemns the disclosure of classified information by individuals and organisations which could put the lives of Americans and our partners at risk," James Jones, the US national security adviser, said.
"These irresponsible leaks will not impact our ongoing commitment to deepen our partnerships with Afghanistan and Pakistan; to defeat our common enemies."
Assange, however, defended his organisation's decision to release the classified files, saying Wikileaks "tried hard to make sure this material does not put innocents at harm", adding that all the documents were at least seven months old.
Rejecting US government claims, he said: "We are familiar with groups whose abuse we expose attempting to criticise the messenger, to distract from the power of the message ... we don't see any difference in the White House's response in this case to the other groups that we have exposed."
'Grimmer picture'
According to the records, the US has tried to cover up the fact that the Taliban have heat-seeking surface-to-air "stinger" missiles.
The documents also show that the Taliban's widening use of roadside bombs have killed more than 2,000 civilians.
The documents reveal new details about Afghan civilian deaths [EPA]
Eric Schmitt, one of the New York Times reporters who worked on analysing the files over the last month, told Al Jazeera that the documents gave an unvarnished view of the war, a "very fine grain, down on the ground level detail that hasn't been revealed before ... whether it's in firefights or drone activities, secret operations performed by commandos of the CIA".
He said they painted "a much grimmer picture and portrayal than either the Bush or Obama administrations have allowed so far".
Included in the many revelations of the leaked documents were also reports that the CIA expanded paramilitary operations in Afghanistan and ran the Afghan spy agency from 2001-2008.
Pakistan's ISI had helped establish the Taliban's government in the 1990s, when Afghanistan was wracked by infighting following the withdrawal of Soviet troops.
The country's leadership reversed course after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the US, agreeing to assist the US against the Taliban, which the US accused of sheltering Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader.
But US officials and analysts have persistently questioned whether all of Pakistan's security apparatus is on the same page, with some believing that Islamabad's main interest is to ensure continued influence in Afghanistan.
Iraq video
Wikileaks has become one of the biggest and most controversial sources of classified government information, even publishing a document showing that US intelligence had plans to shut it down.
In April, Wikileaks released video footage from a helicopter cockpit showing a deadly 2007 aerial strike in the Iraqi capital that killed 12 civilians, including two journalists from the Reuters news agency.
Army Specialist Bradley Manning, 22, was charged this month with misconduct and putting national security at risk for allegedly leaking the classified video, and has now been implicated in the release of the Afghan documents as well.
Sunday's released records consist largely of classified reports and assessments from junior officers in the field that analysts use to advise policymakers.
The leak is expected to put further pressure on Barack Obama, the US president, to get results in Afghanistan as he send thousands of additional troops to bolster forces already in the country.
Source: Al Jazeera and agencies
UPDATED ON:Monday, July 26, 2010 17:10 Mecca time, 14:10 GMT
VIDEO
Pakistani agents 'aiding Taliban'
Pakistan has rejected the reports that its intelligence service gave support to the Taliban [AFP]
US officials believe that the intelligence agency of ally Pakistan, which receives billions of dollars in aid from Washington, has been secretly supporting the Taliban in Afghanistan, leaked records say.
Wikileaks, the online whistleblower organisation, published more than 90,000 secret US military documentson Sunday, revealing an unedited account of the nearly nine-year-old war in Afghanistan.
The unverified files say that Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, the country's spy service, has been holding strategy sessions with Taliban leaders to aid their efforts in Afghanistan.
An ISI spokesman denied the allegations, saying they were "far-fetched and unsubstantiated," but said the agency would be examining the files.
Wikileaks' documents, which cover a period from January 2004 to December 2009, include descriptions of a covert US special operations unit formed to target high-level al-Qaeda and Taliban figures. They say more than 2,000 leaders are on a "kill or capture" list, but missions to hunt them down have led to unreported civilian deaths.
Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, said he expected the leaked records would "shape a [new] understanding of the past six years".
"The real story of this material is that it's war, it's one damn thing after another," Assange said at a news conference in London on Monday. "It is the continuous small events, the continuous death of children, insurgents, allied forces, the maimed people."
Taliban dealings
The New York Times in the United States, Britain's Guardian newspaper and the German weekly Der Spiegel were all given about a month's advanced access to the dosier, with each jointly unveiling their findings on Sunday.
According to the Times report, the documents suggest Pakistan "allows representatives of its spy service to meet directly with the Talibanin secret strategy sessions to organise networks of militant groups that fight against American soldiers in Afghanistan, and even hatch plots to assassinate Afghan leaders".
IN DEPTH
Reports reveal Afghan war details
Ex-spy chief denies Taliban links
Excerpts: A less encouraging story
Video: Ability of Afghan forces questioned
Focus: Why the world needs WikiLeaks
Husain Haqqani, Pakistan's ambassador to the US, called the release of the files "irresponsible" and said it consisted of "unprocessed" reports from the field.
"The documents circulated by WikiLeaks do not reflect the current on-ground realities," Haqqani said in a statement.
"The United States, Afghanistan and Pakistan are strategic partners and are jointly endeavouring to defeat al-Qaeda and its Taliban allies militarily and politically," he said.
The US government also condemned the records' disclosure, saying they could threaten national security and endanger the lives of its forces.
"The United States strongly condemns the disclosure of classified information by individuals and organisations which could put the lives of Americans and our partners at risk," James Jones, the US national security adviser, said.
"These irresponsible leaks will not impact our ongoing commitment to deepen our partnerships with Afghanistan and Pakistan; to defeat our common enemies."
Assange, however, defended his organisation's decision to release the classified files, saying Wikileaks "tried hard to make sure this material does not put innocents at harm", adding that all the documents were at least seven months old.
Rejecting US government claims, he said: "We are familiar with groups whose abuse we expose attempting to criticise the messenger, to distract from the power of the message ... we don't see any difference in the White House's response in this case to the other groups that we have exposed."
'Grimmer picture'
According to the records, the US has tried to cover up the fact that the Taliban have heat-seeking surface-to-air "stinger" missiles.
The documents also show that the Taliban's widening use of roadside bombs have killed more than 2,000 civilians.
The documents reveal new details about Afghan civilian deaths [EPA]
Eric Schmitt, one of the New York Times reporters who worked on analysing the files over the last month, told Al Jazeera that the documents gave an unvarnished view of the war, a "very fine grain, down on the ground level detail that hasn't been revealed before ... whether it's in firefights or drone activities, secret operations performed by commandos of the CIA".
He said they painted "a much grimmer picture and portrayal than either the Bush or Obama administrations have allowed so far".
Included in the many revelations of the leaked documents were also reports that the CIA expanded paramilitary operations in Afghanistan and ran the Afghan spy agency from 2001-2008.
Pakistan's ISI had helped establish the Taliban's government in the 1990s, when Afghanistan was wracked by infighting following the withdrawal of Soviet troops.
The country's leadership reversed course after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the US, agreeing to assist the US against the Taliban, which the US accused of sheltering Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader.
But US officials and analysts have persistently questioned whether all of Pakistan's security apparatus is on the same page, with some believing that Islamabad's main interest is to ensure continued influence in Afghanistan.
Iraq video
Wikileaks has become one of the biggest and most controversial sources of classified government information, even publishing a document showing that US intelligence had plans to shut it down.
In April, Wikileaks released video footage from a helicopter cockpit showing a deadly 2007 aerial strike in the Iraqi capital that killed 12 civilians, including two journalists from the Reuters news agency.
Army Specialist Bradley Manning, 22, was charged this month with misconduct and putting national security at risk for allegedly leaking the classified video, and has now been implicated in the release of the Afghan documents as well.
Sunday's released records consist largely of classified reports and assessments from junior officers in the field that analysts use to advise policymakers.
The leak is expected to put further pressure on Barack Obama, the US president, to get results in Afghanistan as he send thousands of additional troops to bolster forces already in the country.
Source: Al Jazeera and agencies
Wikileaks blows whistle again and again on US military actions in Afghanistan
The central point: WikiLeaks has published more than 90,000 internal (i.e., classified) records of US military actions in Afghanistan over the past six years. Democracy Now features a roundtable discussion of this story on today's program, July 26, 2010. You can link to the program at http://www.democracynow.org. Here is the introductory description from Democracy Now.
The New Pentagon Papers: WikiLeaks Releases 90,000+ Secret Military Documents Painting Devastating Picture of Afghanistan War
It’s one of the biggest leaks in US military history. More than 90,000 internal records of US military actions in Afghanistan over the past six years have been published by the whistleblower website WikiLeaks. The documents provide a devastating portrait of the war in Afghanistan, revealing how coalition forces have killed hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents, how a secret black ops special forces unit hunts down targets for assassination or detention without trial, how Taliban attacks have soared, and how Pakistan is fueling the insurgency. We host a roundtable discussion with independent British journalist Stephen Grey; Pentagon Papers whistleblower, Daniel Ellsberg; former State Department official in Afghanistan, Matthew Hoh; independent journalist Rick Rowley; and investigative historian Gareth Porter.
The New Pentagon Papers: WikiLeaks Releases 90,000+ Secret Military Documents Painting Devastating Picture of Afghanistan War
It’s one of the biggest leaks in US military history. More than 90,000 internal records of US military actions in Afghanistan over the past six years have been published by the whistleblower website WikiLeaks. The documents provide a devastating portrait of the war in Afghanistan, revealing how coalition forces have killed hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents, how a secret black ops special forces unit hunts down targets for assassination or detention without trial, how Taliban attacks have soared, and how Pakistan is fueling the insurgency. We host a roundtable discussion with independent British journalist Stephen Grey; Pentagon Papers whistleblower, Daniel Ellsberg; former State Department official in Afghanistan, Matthew Hoh; independent journalist Rick Rowley; and investigative historian Gareth Porter.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Obstacles to a settlement in Afghanistan
The following article, orginally from Guardian newspaper online, was included in short commentaries and a list of abridged articles from various sites on today's Just Foreign Policy website: http://justforeignpolicy.org, July 20-10.
One of the central points of the article, expressing the views of various experienced and knowledgeable analysts, is that the US-led occupation cannot succeed. Why? The insurgency is too strong, the Afghanistan state is in shambles, and the sanctuaries to which insurgents can retreat and regroup are plentiful across the border in Pakistan. In addition, the US-led counterinsurgency is focused on Kandahar and Helmand provinces, where the Taliban have their greatest influence. Counterinsurgency is not effective in this context.
Some analysts now think that there is no constructive point in extending the conflict. In the end, there will be a settlement that allows the Taliban to control southern provinces, while warlords will dominate elsewhere in the country. There is not much attention paid in this discussion to "democracy." US and/or UN forces would, it's suggested, keep the Taliban confined in the south. Pakistan could play a vital role in constraining the Taliban. If there is a settlement of this kind in the not-to-distant future, it would leave little room for democratic participation, secular education, or women's rights.
Taliban talks: the obstacles to a peace deal in AfghanistanJon Boone, Guardian, 19 July 2010 20.02 BST
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/19/taliban-talks-obstacles-peace-deal-aghanistanKabul -
[...]
Organisers have attempted to attach great historic symbolism to the half-day conference. Of the nine international conferences on Afghanistan held in the last nine years, this is the first to actually convene inside Afghanistan. But even diplomats involved in the five-hour event roll their eyes when asked whether it is going to produce any dramatic changes in policy.
The communique - already leaked in draft form to the media - focuses on efforts to build up the Afghan state by making it more effective, better funded and less corrupt. But on the fringes of the conference the hot topic is a subject that is barely mentioned in the draft and until recently eschewed by the US administration; making peace with the Taliban.
That's because despite the fact that the Afghan government is finally strong enough to organise its own conference, the prospect of that government ultimately prevailing over an ever stronger insurgency has never looked more bleak. At an evening reception a few days before the conference, a senior European diplomat said glumly: "I cannot think of a single reason to die for Afghanistan."The country, which has suffered almost 30 years of war of one form or the other, is a problem for its neighbours, not for Europe, he said. It was a different a few years ago, when most people still thought victory was possible, he said. But now, pessimism has taken over.
"Afghanistan is in a state of freefall and I don't think strategy proposals announced at a one-day conference will solve that," said Candace Rondeaux, a senior analyst from the International Crisis Group. A paper by the Afghanistan NGO Security Office articulated what most people believe: that the counter-insurgency programme cannot win. It sees this summer's surge of US troops in southern Afghanistan as the "grand finale" of a western intervention which is looking to wind itself up.
The biggest problem is that what Nato soldiers are trying to do cannot be achieved on the time frames of the "political clocks" ticking down in Washington and its allied cities. In a recent off-record briefing, one of the most senior US soldiers in Afghanistan pointed out that no counter-insurgency has prevailed against an enemy with sanctuaries of the size the Taliban and other groups enjoy over the border in Pakistan.
No wonder then that most people's thoughts, including Barack Obama's administration, are turning to some sort of negotiated settlement with the insurgents. It is now part of the conventional wisdom in Kabul that the west will have to make compromises with insurgents that once would have been unthinkable, including dropping efforts for women to be given a more equal place in Afghan society. Few people put it quite as bluntly as Francesc Vendrell, a retired senior diplomat who served first the UN in Afghanistan before 2001 and then worked as the top representative of the European Union in Kabul. He recently told the Guardian that the current military effort to push the Taliban out of Kandahar and Helmand was particularly foolish because these are precisely the areas that, in his view, will have to be handed over to Taliban control.
Such a handover of the south could be achieved, he argued, through constitutional reform that would decentralise power from Kabul. In a trice, the south would be ceded to Taliban control, under the pretence of local democracy. Meanwhile, the north would similarly be handed back to the old warlords, the former strongmen who rose to prominence during the 1980s resistance to the Soviet occupation and its violent aftermath.
[...]
European diplomats say that whatever the latest thinking in the White House might be, David Petraeus, the new US commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan seems interested in making the fight against the Taliban last as long as possible. After years of refusing to contemplate even the most secret of discussions with a movement viewed as partly responsible for the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, the Americans have precious few ways of reaching out to the other side.
A security official who has in the past been involved in efforts to reach out to the Taliban bemoaned the fact that so many years had been wasted, pointing out that in Northern Ireland the British government had contacts "from the beginning".
Instead of a well-organised effort to talk to the Taliban, there is currently an extraordinary free-for-all, with a whole range of people and countries trying to make contacts with the quetta shura, the Taliban's leadership council. They include Karzai's elder brother Qayoum, and even Burhanuddin Rabbani, a northern power broker and former president. Countries interested in getting in on the act are the UK, Germany, Turkey and Indonesia.
[...]
One of the central points of the article, expressing the views of various experienced and knowledgeable analysts, is that the US-led occupation cannot succeed. Why? The insurgency is too strong, the Afghanistan state is in shambles, and the sanctuaries to which insurgents can retreat and regroup are plentiful across the border in Pakistan. In addition, the US-led counterinsurgency is focused on Kandahar and Helmand provinces, where the Taliban have their greatest influence. Counterinsurgency is not effective in this context.
Some analysts now think that there is no constructive point in extending the conflict. In the end, there will be a settlement that allows the Taliban to control southern provinces, while warlords will dominate elsewhere in the country. There is not much attention paid in this discussion to "democracy." US and/or UN forces would, it's suggested, keep the Taliban confined in the south. Pakistan could play a vital role in constraining the Taliban. If there is a settlement of this kind in the not-to-distant future, it would leave little room for democratic participation, secular education, or women's rights.
Taliban talks: the obstacles to a peace deal in AfghanistanJon Boone, Guardian, 19 July 2010 20.02 BST
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/19/taliban-talks-obstacles-peace-deal-aghanistanKabul -
[...]
Organisers have attempted to attach great historic symbolism to the half-day conference. Of the nine international conferences on Afghanistan held in the last nine years, this is the first to actually convene inside Afghanistan. But even diplomats involved in the five-hour event roll their eyes when asked whether it is going to produce any dramatic changes in policy.
The communique - already leaked in draft form to the media - focuses on efforts to build up the Afghan state by making it more effective, better funded and less corrupt. But on the fringes of the conference the hot topic is a subject that is barely mentioned in the draft and until recently eschewed by the US administration; making peace with the Taliban.
That's because despite the fact that the Afghan government is finally strong enough to organise its own conference, the prospect of that government ultimately prevailing over an ever stronger insurgency has never looked more bleak. At an evening reception a few days before the conference, a senior European diplomat said glumly: "I cannot think of a single reason to die for Afghanistan."The country, which has suffered almost 30 years of war of one form or the other, is a problem for its neighbours, not for Europe, he said. It was a different a few years ago, when most people still thought victory was possible, he said. But now, pessimism has taken over.
"Afghanistan is in a state of freefall and I don't think strategy proposals announced at a one-day conference will solve that," said Candace Rondeaux, a senior analyst from the International Crisis Group. A paper by the Afghanistan NGO Security Office articulated what most people believe: that the counter-insurgency programme cannot win. It sees this summer's surge of US troops in southern Afghanistan as the "grand finale" of a western intervention which is looking to wind itself up.
The biggest problem is that what Nato soldiers are trying to do cannot be achieved on the time frames of the "political clocks" ticking down in Washington and its allied cities. In a recent off-record briefing, one of the most senior US soldiers in Afghanistan pointed out that no counter-insurgency has prevailed against an enemy with sanctuaries of the size the Taliban and other groups enjoy over the border in Pakistan.
No wonder then that most people's thoughts, including Barack Obama's administration, are turning to some sort of negotiated settlement with the insurgents. It is now part of the conventional wisdom in Kabul that the west will have to make compromises with insurgents that once would have been unthinkable, including dropping efforts for women to be given a more equal place in Afghan society. Few people put it quite as bluntly as Francesc Vendrell, a retired senior diplomat who served first the UN in Afghanistan before 2001 and then worked as the top representative of the European Union in Kabul. He recently told the Guardian that the current military effort to push the Taliban out of Kandahar and Helmand was particularly foolish because these are precisely the areas that, in his view, will have to be handed over to Taliban control.
Such a handover of the south could be achieved, he argued, through constitutional reform that would decentralise power from Kabul. In a trice, the south would be ceded to Taliban control, under the pretence of local democracy. Meanwhile, the north would similarly be handed back to the old warlords, the former strongmen who rose to prominence during the 1980s resistance to the Soviet occupation and its violent aftermath.
[...]
European diplomats say that whatever the latest thinking in the White House might be, David Petraeus, the new US commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan seems interested in making the fight against the Taliban last as long as possible. After years of refusing to contemplate even the most secret of discussions with a movement viewed as partly responsible for the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, the Americans have precious few ways of reaching out to the other side.
A security official who has in the past been involved in efforts to reach out to the Taliban bemoaned the fact that so many years had been wasted, pointing out that in Northern Ireland the British government had contacts "from the beginning".
Instead of a well-organised effort to talk to the Taliban, there is currently an extraordinary free-for-all, with a whole range of people and countries trying to make contacts with the quetta shura, the Taliban's leadership council. They include Karzai's elder brother Qayoum, and even Burhanuddin Rabbani, a northern power broker and former president. Countries interested in getting in on the act are the UK, Germany, Turkey and Indonesia.
[...]
Friday, May 28, 2010
Negotiations as the only potentially constructive goal
IN THESE TIMES
This article is permanently archived at: http://www.inthesetimes.com/main/article/6011/
The Case for Negotiations
Dealing with the Taliban is unsavory--but this war cannot be won.
By Gilles Dorronsoro
May 24, 2010
The coalition's strategy in Afghanistan is at an impasse. The renewed efforts undertaken since the summer of 2009 have failed to temper the guerrilla war. A few tactical successes are possible, but this war cannot be won. The coalition cannot defeat the Taliban as long as Pakistan continues to offer them sanctuary. And increasing resources to wage the war is not an option. The costs of continuing the war--to use Ambassador Karl Eikenberry's expression in the leaked telegram to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton--are "astronomical."
The entire U.S. strategy revolves around a swift Afghanization of the conflict, yet the coalition's Afghan partner is weaker than it was a year ago. The state's presence in the provinces has declined sharply and the legitimacy of President Hamid Karzai's government is contested.
As a result of the massive fraud in the August 2009 presidential elections, the government has no popular legitimacy, and the legislative elections slated for fall 2010 will probably undermine the political system even further because fraud is inevitable. It is unlikely that the Afghan regime will ever be able to assume responsibility for its own security.
As a result, the coalition faces an endless war accompanied by an intolerable loss of life and treasure. A less costly alternative would be to negotiate a broad agreement with the Taliban leadership to form a national unity government, with guarantees against al Qaeda's return to Afghanistan. But even if such negotiations might occur, they hold no guarantee of success.
Yet the cost of their failure is negligible compared with the potential gain: a relatively swift way out of the crisis that preserves the coalition's essential interests. Time is not on the coalition's side. The United States should contact Taliban leaders as soon as possible rather than waiting for the situation to deteriorate further.
In pursuit of a losing strategy
The Taliban cannot be defeated militarily because the border with Pakistan is and will remain open for the insurgents. The Pakistani army, which refuses to launch an offensive against the Afghan Taliban, has never considered taking action against the Taliban leadership based in Pakistan. The February arrest of acting Taliban military commander Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar is probably a sign that the Pakistani military wants more control over the insurgency to prepare for the negotiation process.
What's more, the insurgency is now nationwide and cannot be contained by counterinsurgency (COIN) operations in two or three southern provinces. The COIN strategy cannot succeed because of the immense resources it requires. In a marginal, strategically unimportant district such as Marjah, the coalition would have to keep thousands of troops for years to prevent the Taliban's return. To replicate such strategy, even in one province, would overstretch the U.S. military.
In addition to COIN, military strategists think they can quickly weaken the Taliban through the creation of militias, the co-opting of Taliban groups and targeted assassinations. These policies will not strengthen the Afghan government's legitimacy or influence; to the contrary, they are destroying the Karzai government's credibility. The effects of this strategy are irreversible, and with the acceleration of political fragmentation, the coalition is faced with the prospect of a collapse of Afghan institutions.
The Karzai government is unlikely to engage in institutional reform, given that it is increasingly dependent on the networks that ensured its fraudulent re-election. Consequently, the coalition is having more and more trouble influencing Karzai. The weakness of the central political institutions means that the development of the army and the police force--the coalition's priorities--is occurring in a vacuum. Transferring security responsibilities to our Afghan partner will probably not be possible in the foreseeable future.
Afghans perceive their representative institutions as illegitimate. Between 10 percent and 15 percent of Afghan voters are believed to have supported Karzai during the 2009 presidential elections. All indications point to a high level of cynicism among the people and their rejection of the government; in fact, they massively refrained from voting even in places where security was reasonably good.
The legislative elections scheduled for September 2010 will further erode faith in the political system. The lack of security makes it impossible to hold credible elections in at least half of Afghanistan. And in February 2010, Karzai seized control of the ECC (Electoral Complaints Commission); there is no longer an independent institution to validate the process.
Aside from fraud and corruption, Karzai's lack of legitimacy is linked to his presumed lack of autonomy vis-à-vis the coalition. Internal U.S. Army studies, and the experiences of numerous journalists and researchers indicate that a majority of the population in combat zones now considers the foreign forces as occupiers. Military operations are polarizing the population against foreign forces and further weakening Karzai's regime, which appears irreparably unpopular and illegitimate. The coalition is perceived as the main provider of insecurity. Villagers do not want to see the establishment of coalition outposts that can bring only bombings and IEDs.
Furthermore, the coalition is hurt by the dependence of Karzai on his local allies, who generally oppose the coalition's objectives. The coalition is also undermined when the Afghan government aggressively distances itself from the coalition when civilians are killed by "friendly fire."
The failed Karzai government
The government in Kabul is now too weak to reassert control over the periphery of the country. As a result, the coalition is increasingly dependent on local strongmen who it helped put in place or with whom it has worked.
The weakening of the Afghan regime is very bad news for the coalition, which is promoting Afghanization in order to reduce its own investment. It is hard to build a military that is independent of the institutional network that constitutes the state. Problems such as ethnic tensions, local and national corruption, and the lack of a clear purpose make it hard to motivate soldiers and officers.
The coalition should recognize that an autonomous Afghan army is a very distant goal. The coalition's large offensive to "clear" Taliban territory will not work, because the Afghan army and the police are not ready. If the coalition tries to secure Taliban territory on a long-term basis, it will overstretch itself and casualties will increase significantly.
Modest objectives would be more realistic. Most observers recognize the impossibility of a military solution. Nonetheless, different arguments have been put forward to reject negotiations. First, the coalition needs more time. Reinforcements are not yet fully in place, so talk of failure is premature. Second, experts such as Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid explain that the Taliban have reached the height of their influence, implying that the coalition would be in a stronger position in the future.
One can counter that the coalition should begin negotiations now while it still has the means to exert military pressure. There is nothing to indicate that the Taliban are going to slow their advance. They are pursuing a strategy that includes expanding their influence in the cities. And nothing indicates that the Karzai regime won't be even weaker a year from now.
From this perspective, the Afghan surge will have had the same result as all troop increases since 2003: a deterioration of security. Consequently, marginal military gains for the coalition in the next 18 months are the exact equivalent of a strategic defeat. Hence the need for a negotiated settlement.
But negotiations with Taliban leaders can be undertaken only if the Pakistani army agrees to act as a broker. Without Pakistan, there will be no solution in Afghanistan. Official negotiations must also include the Karzai regime and international guarantees preventing the return of radical groups to Afghanistan.
Along with negotiations, it is important to increase areas of cooperation with the insurgence. A ceasefire must therefore be observed during the negotiation process. The reduction in violence could help demobilize the Taliban and distance them from the radical groups currently in Pakistan, such as al Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban. Likewise, aid must be demilitarized and NGOs must be permitted to negotiate directly with the Taliban in order to work in the regions under their control.
The privatization of security (reliance on militias, deals with individual tribes and private companies) is also dangerous. These groups will be difficult to control in the event of an agreement and are currently weakening Afghan institutions. The United States should immediately stop funding militias, which is counterproductive in the long term, and immediately bring an end to the proliferation of these armed groups.
Nothing guarantees that negotiations--if agreed to by the Taliban--will succeed. Furthermore, the regime that such negotiation will establish will be unstable for months, perhaps even years. But if the negotiations succeed, they will enable the formation of a national unity government in Kabul, a new constitution negotiated during a Loya Jirga, and both internal and international guarantees to prevent the return of al Qaeda.
Given the current impasse in which the coalition finds itself, such an outcome is the best that the United States can hope for.
This essay was adapted from Gilles Dorronsoro's April 2010 report "Afghanistan: Searching for Political Agreement," which can be read on the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace website.
Gilles Dorronsoro, a scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, is the author of Revolution Unending: Afghanistan 1979 to the Present.
This article is permanently archived at: http://www.inthesetimes.com/main/article/6011/
The Case for Negotiations
Dealing with the Taliban is unsavory--but this war cannot be won.
By Gilles Dorronsoro
May 24, 2010
The coalition's strategy in Afghanistan is at an impasse. The renewed efforts undertaken since the summer of 2009 have failed to temper the guerrilla war. A few tactical successes are possible, but this war cannot be won. The coalition cannot defeat the Taliban as long as Pakistan continues to offer them sanctuary. And increasing resources to wage the war is not an option. The costs of continuing the war--to use Ambassador Karl Eikenberry's expression in the leaked telegram to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton--are "astronomical."
The entire U.S. strategy revolves around a swift Afghanization of the conflict, yet the coalition's Afghan partner is weaker than it was a year ago. The state's presence in the provinces has declined sharply and the legitimacy of President Hamid Karzai's government is contested.
As a result of the massive fraud in the August 2009 presidential elections, the government has no popular legitimacy, and the legislative elections slated for fall 2010 will probably undermine the political system even further because fraud is inevitable. It is unlikely that the Afghan regime will ever be able to assume responsibility for its own security.
As a result, the coalition faces an endless war accompanied by an intolerable loss of life and treasure. A less costly alternative would be to negotiate a broad agreement with the Taliban leadership to form a national unity government, with guarantees against al Qaeda's return to Afghanistan. But even if such negotiations might occur, they hold no guarantee of success.
Yet the cost of their failure is negligible compared with the potential gain: a relatively swift way out of the crisis that preserves the coalition's essential interests. Time is not on the coalition's side. The United States should contact Taliban leaders as soon as possible rather than waiting for the situation to deteriorate further.
In pursuit of a losing strategy
The Taliban cannot be defeated militarily because the border with Pakistan is and will remain open for the insurgents. The Pakistani army, which refuses to launch an offensive against the Afghan Taliban, has never considered taking action against the Taliban leadership based in Pakistan. The February arrest of acting Taliban military commander Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar is probably a sign that the Pakistani military wants more control over the insurgency to prepare for the negotiation process.
What's more, the insurgency is now nationwide and cannot be contained by counterinsurgency (COIN) operations in two or three southern provinces. The COIN strategy cannot succeed because of the immense resources it requires. In a marginal, strategically unimportant district such as Marjah, the coalition would have to keep thousands of troops for years to prevent the Taliban's return. To replicate such strategy, even in one province, would overstretch the U.S. military.
In addition to COIN, military strategists think they can quickly weaken the Taliban through the creation of militias, the co-opting of Taliban groups and targeted assassinations. These policies will not strengthen the Afghan government's legitimacy or influence; to the contrary, they are destroying the Karzai government's credibility. The effects of this strategy are irreversible, and with the acceleration of political fragmentation, the coalition is faced with the prospect of a collapse of Afghan institutions.
The Karzai government is unlikely to engage in institutional reform, given that it is increasingly dependent on the networks that ensured its fraudulent re-election. Consequently, the coalition is having more and more trouble influencing Karzai. The weakness of the central political institutions means that the development of the army and the police force--the coalition's priorities--is occurring in a vacuum. Transferring security responsibilities to our Afghan partner will probably not be possible in the foreseeable future.
Afghans perceive their representative institutions as illegitimate. Between 10 percent and 15 percent of Afghan voters are believed to have supported Karzai during the 2009 presidential elections. All indications point to a high level of cynicism among the people and their rejection of the government; in fact, they massively refrained from voting even in places where security was reasonably good.
The legislative elections scheduled for September 2010 will further erode faith in the political system. The lack of security makes it impossible to hold credible elections in at least half of Afghanistan. And in February 2010, Karzai seized control of the ECC (Electoral Complaints Commission); there is no longer an independent institution to validate the process.
Aside from fraud and corruption, Karzai's lack of legitimacy is linked to his presumed lack of autonomy vis-à-vis the coalition. Internal U.S. Army studies, and the experiences of numerous journalists and researchers indicate that a majority of the population in combat zones now considers the foreign forces as occupiers. Military operations are polarizing the population against foreign forces and further weakening Karzai's regime, which appears irreparably unpopular and illegitimate. The coalition is perceived as the main provider of insecurity. Villagers do not want to see the establishment of coalition outposts that can bring only bombings and IEDs.
Furthermore, the coalition is hurt by the dependence of Karzai on his local allies, who generally oppose the coalition's objectives. The coalition is also undermined when the Afghan government aggressively distances itself from the coalition when civilians are killed by "friendly fire."
The failed Karzai government
The government in Kabul is now too weak to reassert control over the periphery of the country. As a result, the coalition is increasingly dependent on local strongmen who it helped put in place or with whom it has worked.
The weakening of the Afghan regime is very bad news for the coalition, which is promoting Afghanization in order to reduce its own investment. It is hard to build a military that is independent of the institutional network that constitutes the state. Problems such as ethnic tensions, local and national corruption, and the lack of a clear purpose make it hard to motivate soldiers and officers.
The coalition should recognize that an autonomous Afghan army is a very distant goal. The coalition's large offensive to "clear" Taliban territory will not work, because the Afghan army and the police are not ready. If the coalition tries to secure Taliban territory on a long-term basis, it will overstretch itself and casualties will increase significantly.
Modest objectives would be more realistic. Most observers recognize the impossibility of a military solution. Nonetheless, different arguments have been put forward to reject negotiations. First, the coalition needs more time. Reinforcements are not yet fully in place, so talk of failure is premature. Second, experts such as Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid explain that the Taliban have reached the height of their influence, implying that the coalition would be in a stronger position in the future.
One can counter that the coalition should begin negotiations now while it still has the means to exert military pressure. There is nothing to indicate that the Taliban are going to slow their advance. They are pursuing a strategy that includes expanding their influence in the cities. And nothing indicates that the Karzai regime won't be even weaker a year from now.
From this perspective, the Afghan surge will have had the same result as all troop increases since 2003: a deterioration of security. Consequently, marginal military gains for the coalition in the next 18 months are the exact equivalent of a strategic defeat. Hence the need for a negotiated settlement.
But negotiations with Taliban leaders can be undertaken only if the Pakistani army agrees to act as a broker. Without Pakistan, there will be no solution in Afghanistan. Official negotiations must also include the Karzai regime and international guarantees preventing the return of radical groups to Afghanistan.
Along with negotiations, it is important to increase areas of cooperation with the insurgence. A ceasefire must therefore be observed during the negotiation process. The reduction in violence could help demobilize the Taliban and distance them from the radical groups currently in Pakistan, such as al Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban. Likewise, aid must be demilitarized and NGOs must be permitted to negotiate directly with the Taliban in order to work in the regions under their control.
The privatization of security (reliance on militias, deals with individual tribes and private companies) is also dangerous. These groups will be difficult to control in the event of an agreement and are currently weakening Afghan institutions. The United States should immediately stop funding militias, which is counterproductive in the long term, and immediately bring an end to the proliferation of these armed groups.
Nothing guarantees that negotiations--if agreed to by the Taliban--will succeed. Furthermore, the regime that such negotiation will establish will be unstable for months, perhaps even years. But if the negotiations succeed, they will enable the formation of a national unity government in Kabul, a new constitution negotiated during a Loya Jirga, and both internal and international guarantees to prevent the return of al Qaeda.
Given the current impasse in which the coalition finds itself, such an outcome is the best that the United States can hope for.
This essay was adapted from Gilles Dorronsoro's April 2010 report "Afghanistan: Searching for Political Agreement," which can be read on the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace website.
Gilles Dorronsoro, a scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, is the author of Revolution Unending: Afghanistan 1979 to the Present.
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