US options in Afghanistan

Now that a team of US Special Forces has found and killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, what are the chances of the US government withdrawing the hundred thousand US troops from Afghanistan over the next 12 months or so.

Bear in mind the cost of maintaining this large force is not a piddling sum in an economy with 16 percent of the work force unemployed, given up looking for a job after months of searching for one, plus those working part-time only because they cannot find a full-time job. There other signs of decline, including 59 million or so Americans who are without health insurance for part of a year or the entire year. There are also an unprecedented number of Americans who have been forced into foreclosure or who are paying more for their mortgages than their houses are worth and they can afford. There are other social indicators that times are hard for Americans. While wealthy people and most large corporations, especially in finance, pharmaceuticals, and oil, are making substantial profits and paying low actual rates of taxes, the overall trend in both income and wealth distributions show that only the top few percent of the population are reaping benefits. In the meantime wages stagnate or fall and more and more families are lucky to have even one member in a job.

If US policymakers decided to end the war/occupation in Afghanistan, and used the savings from the occupation/war for pressing domestic needs in our country, it would make a significant difference. Just one example. The Center for Budget Policies and Priorities estimates that the budget shortfalls for 44 of the 50 states will total $112 billion for fiscal year 2012, which begins on July 2, 2011. The anticipated state deficits could be paid for by what is now being spent on the US occupation of Afghanistan. The CBPP report notes that one of the reasons for why the state deficits is this: “Federal assistance for states, which has been enormously helpful in allowing states to avert some of the most harmful potential budget cuts, will be largely gone by the end of fiscal year 2011.” The $120 billion spent annually by the US government on the Afghanistan war/occupation would go a long way in averting the state deficits and in the process save tens of thousands of public-sector jobs. (http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=711)

Afghanistan War OptionsThere are three general options being considered on the issue of the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan, and this has been true for some years. I’ll start with the most conservative option, then consider the slow and hedged withdrawal option, and finally focus on the accelerated withdrawal option, the option that we at “stopafghanwar” have advocated.

The Republican/Conservative Option: Increase or sustain US troop levels and do what it takes to “win” the war in Afghanistan.From this perspective, US government policymakers and military leaders should support an increase the number of troops in Afghanistan. This is the position of Sen. McCain and most Republicans, excluding those with libertarian values. Max Boot writes in an article for Commentary magazine (4-19-11) that we need to build more military bases in Afghanistan to assure the Afghan government and people that the US will not again abandon them. Boot contends: “ if we are to safeguard hard-fought gains, we will need to maintain a military presence in that country for many years too, just as we have in Germany, Japan, South Korea, etc.”

Anthony Dimaggio refers to other Republican positions on Afghanistan, and writes:

“John McCain announced shortly following the ’09 Afghanistan escalation that any inclusion of a withdrawal date was ‘dispiriting,’ and would guarantee that Afghans would be less likely to ‘risk their lives to take our side in this fight.’ The withdrawal date, McCain argued, is one that ‘enemies can exploit to weaken and intimidate our friends.’ In March of this year, Republican Congressman Mike Coffman similarly announced that he was skeptical of a possible withdrawal, considering the ‘security interests in Afghanistan that we must accept…we need to make sure that the Taliban don’t take over the country.’ Coffman’s comments came at a time when a non-binding House resolution calling for a full, accelerated withdrawal from Afghanistan (by year’s end) was defeated by a vote of 93-321, with only eight Republicans voting in support.” (http://www.counterpunch.org/dimaggio04262011.html)

The expectation of the Republicans and most conservatives is that additional US forces, as many as are deemed necessary, will finally result in the conquest of the Taliban and any other insurgents, the creation of a stable central government, the realization of Afghan military and police forces capable of maintaining law and order in the country, and a situation where warlords, drug lords, and tribal elders are willing to go along with the US project. When all of this is accomplished, the US would then be able to withdraw some of its troops with honor, its stature as the strongest military power intact, and in a position to influence geopolitical and fossil fuel issues in the Middle East and Caspian Sea regions. After all is said and done, winning and maintaining the US hegemonic position is what matters most.

The Republican/Conservative vision is, in the end, wishful thinking that will waste resources and lives and serve the further destabilize the world.

Second Option, Realists/Pragmatists in the Political Center: Surges in troop levels coupled with the Promise of Token Withdrawals of troops

President Obama and his administration are among the paramount realists/pragmatists when it comes to Afghanistan. They want to compromise. On the one hand, they want to continue the war toward an ultimate victory, that is, continuing the status quo in troop levels with periodic surges in troop levels. On the other hand, they will bend to public opinion and political realities with promises of the withdrawal of some troops and even actual, though token, withdrawal of some troops now and again.

The compromise is likely next to be based on token withdrawals, referring to an end date, say, the end of 2014, and hedging this date by specifying that “conditions on the ground” and recommendations from the military brass may lengthen the time the same level of troops, or more than now, stay in Afghanistan. The Pentagon has recently recommended that 5,000 US troops be withdrawn from Afghanistan beginning in July of this year (2011) and another 5,000 in December.

It’s not clear yet what Obama will do in July with respect of the status of US troops in Afghanistan. But it is clear that he savored the “victory” of bin Laden’s killing. Here again from our last post on this site is a summary of what Obama said on May 2 to the nation and world in his celebratory announcement of bin Laden’s death.

He suggested that after ten years Osama bin Laden had been located, thanks to “the countless intelligence and counterterrorism professionals,” and then killed by the heroic “men who carried out the operation.” The implications of bin Laden’s death are profound, in Obama’s view, because they take out the leader and symbol of al-Qaeda. His death “is not the end of our efforts,” the President said. Al Qaeda groups may be in disarray but they “continue to pursue attacks against us.” The President maintains that the costs of the war in Afghanistan and anywhere else al-Qaeda threatens the US or its friends, are justified and necessary for the sake of our country’s security. The war(s) will continue because “the cause of security [for] our country is not complete.” In the end, the President says, America will prevail because “America can do whatever we set out mind to” and because we are “one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

Will the president tilt to the status quo or support a token withdrawal in July? Whichever it is, Obama was exalted by the killing of bin Laden, with the implication that we can “win” this war in time. Bear in mind also that if there are token withdrawals, this does not rule out surges in troop levels in the future.

Anthony Dimaggo, whose article is cited above, suggests also that Obama will tilt for the foreseeable future toward the status quo, with perhaps periodic emergency surges. His argument is persuasive.

“In the case of Afghanistan, the Obama administration announced that the beginning of a phased withdrawal could begin as early as July of 2011, and continue through 2014. The 2011 withdrawal date was promised as far back as late 2009, at the same time that Obama announced his ‘surge’ of an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan. Obama’s ‘09 withdrawal announcement, made simultaneously alongside his announcement of the escalation of war, was unprecedented in U.S. history. Rarely do aggressors provide an ‘exit strategy’ at the onset of their onslaughts. This novel development, however, reflected not so much the ‘democratic’ responsiveness of the Obama administration to the public (considering that most Americans opposed the war at the time, and continue to do so today), but rather a begrudging concession on the part of the Democrats that they can no longer pursue (a la Bush) bloody wars without a (at least vague) promised end in sight. Still the unprecedented escalation-de-escalation strategy should hardly be viewed as a ‘revolutionary’ development in U.S. foreign policy. After all, under Obama the Afghan war is set to endure for a grueling 13 years at minimum, considering the initial escalation of the conflict began immediately following the September 11th attacks. Furthermore, through the first four years of his presidency, Obama will have spent more on the military than even George W. Bush did by the end of his first term. If anything, Obama has demonstrated that imperialist policies and military escalation can be even more effectively pursued under Democratic regimes, with ‘anti-war’ figures like Obama farcically celebrated as a proponent of ‘de-escalation’ and ‘peace.’

A third option, Liberals, progressives, leftists: Planning for a responsible withdrawal of US Troops from Afghanistan over the coming 12 months

This is generally the position we on this blog take and which, according to recent surveys of American attitudes, a growing number of Americans endorse, namely, to have policymakers plan for a full withdrawal by some date in the near future.

Proponents - There are those, like us, who advocate the position for a quick withdrawal of troops, removing a majority of US troops by the end of this year and the remainder by the end of July 2012. After setting aside some of the “historic” reasons supporting our position, we then turn to immediate justifications, and finish by consideration a general consequence of ending the US occupation of Afghanistan in these terms.

PUTTING ASIDE SOME HISTORIC FACTS - Putting aside the fact that the US, with the significant assistance of Saudi Arabia, supported bin Laden and other foreign mujahedeen to fight against the Soviet occupation of the country during the 1980s. We helped to create al Qaeda in the first place. Putting aside the question of whether the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 was necessary or not and the assertion that the Taliban leaders were unwilling to negotiate on whether to hand over bin Laden to the US or not. As Noam Chomsky has documented, the Taliban leaders had not slammed the door on further negotiations. Putting aside the fact that the US did too little to support the Afghan government and people after bin Laden fled and the Taliban were defeated. Putting aside the concern that the escalated and surged military occupation of Afghanistan is based on US interests in having an oil pipeline built through from the Casipan Sea region down through Afghanistan and Pakistan to the Arabian Sea. Putting such flawed or self-interest-based policies aside, there are other justifications for our position in favor of a quick withdrawal.

#1 - NO CLEAR GOAL - The US has not stated publicly a goal for staying in Afghanistan, except somehow to ensure that bin Laden is killed or captured (this is done), that al Qaeda is eliminated from Afghanistan (haven’t had a substantial number for years), and that al Qaeda must not return to Afghanistan in large numbers and use the country as its base of worldwide terrorist operations. This last point is based on the assumption that the Taliban will take over the Afghan government when and if a US/NATO occupation is ended and that this government will welcome al Qaeda to return to Afghanistan. The issue is taken up in the next point.

#2 – TALIBAN ARE NOT AL QAEDA – An article from Reuters, “Separating the Taliban from al Qaeda (February 7 2001) captures one of the basic differences between. The article refers to research by Kandahar-based researchers Alex Strick, van Linschoten and Felex Kuehn that has recently be released by New York University. The researchers found that:

“the relationship between the Taliban and al Qaeda was strained both before and after the September 11 2001 attacks, partly because of their very different ideological roots. Al Qaeda grew out of militant Islamism in the Middle East, notably in Egypt, which — when fused with the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan — created its own view of global jihad. Taliban leaders grew up in rural southern Afghanistan, isolated from world events. Many were too young to play a big role in the Afghan jihad, and had no close ties to al Qaeda until after they took power in 1996.

“’Many Taliban leaders of the older generation are still potential partners for a negotiated settlement. They are not implacably opposed to the U.S. or West in general but to specific actions or policies in Afghanistan. These figures now understand the position of the international community much better than they did before 2001. They are not seeking a return to the failed interactions between the Taliban and the international community of the 1990s. At present they still represent the movement,’ the report concludes.
http://blogs.reuters.com/pakistan/2011/02/08/separating-the-taliban-from-al-qaeda

#3 – SUICIDE ATTACKS IN AFGHANISTAN ARE LINKED TO OCCUPATION, NOT TO ISLAMIC FUNDAMENTALIST AND SUPRA-NATIONAL GOALS

Consider the facts notes by Robert A. Pape and James K. Feldman in their book, Cutting the Fuse: The Explosion of Global Suicide Terrorism and How to Stop It. They maintain that suicide bombings in Afghanistan increased in response to the impact of the occupation.

“In the immediate aftermath of America’s conquest, Afghanistan experienced only a small number of suicide attacks – fewer than 15 total attacks from 2002 through 2005. Suddenly suicide attacks began to increase by an order of magnitude – with 93 in 2006, 137 in 2007, 136 in 2008, and 98 in 2009. Moreover, the overwhelming percentage of the suicide attacks (80%) has been against security targets related to American and allied forces, and nearly all (90%) carried out by Afghan nationals.”

Pape and Feldman make the following point about the principal cause of the rise in suicide bombing. “Although there are multiple causes, one stands out: the growth and redeployment outside of Kabul of Western Forces in Afghanistan” (p. 34).

The implication of their analysis is that if you end the occupation, you diminish or end suicide bombings. Another implication is that the principal opposition to the occupation is home-grown, not international in its participants or ideology.

ETCETERA – The goals of making Afghanistan a democracy, social order, economic progress, etc., have not been achieved over the last ten years of the US military presence and surges.
Consider the following incomplete, but telling, list of points, which have been discussed one time or another on our blog over the last18 months of the costs and lack of success.

• the corruption used to consolidate central government power
. the central Afghan government has not earned legitimacy in the minds of the majority of Afghan people
• the continuing ethnic divisions
• the fact that the Afghan economy remains dependent on foreign aid and the production and distribution of drugs
• the warlords sometimes with their own militia
• infrastructure problems have not been adequately addressed
• the continuing discrimination against girls/women in state law and traditions
• the absence of a well trained and committed Afghan army and police force
• the poverty, limited education, and lack of opportunities for the majority of Afghans
• the US cannot afford to spend tens of billions of dollars on another endless war
• the casualties and deaths to American troops
• the rising health care costs for US Afghan veterans for both long-term or life-long physical and psychological health services
• public opinion polls indicate support for a withdrawal of troops – a Gallup poll conducted May 5-8 found that 59% of those surveyed favored bringing the troops home

Some implications

The withdrawal of a large percentage of US troops in Afghanistan is not likely next year or for several or even many years (decades?). At the same time, the opposition to the war is likely to grow. The difficulty is that there are so many problems besetting Americans that they may not be sufficiently galvanized for the level of protests that are necessary to achieve the quick withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan that the liberal/progressive/left so desires. And the electoral alternatives may not give voters the option of a genuine and heightened withdrawal of troops.

In the meantime, those reporting on the war, those engaging in the sustained collection of evidence on the war and its effects, and those offering proposals for an end to the Afghanistan war, will serve an important purpose – helping to keep the significance

Afghanistan - much that's going wrong

Surely, we cannot go on supporting the war in Afghanistan when there is so much that is going wrong for the US/NATO occupation of the country, so many civilian and military casualties, so much poverty and so little progress for most of the Afghan people, so much corruption in the Afghan government and among US contractors, so much waste of US resources in a war that seems to chase its own tail.
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Even Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates seems discouraged about US prospects in Afghanistan, as reported as follows by Thom Shanker for the New York Times (Feb. 25, 2011).

“Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates bluntly told an audience of West Point cadets on Friday that it would be unwise for the United States to ever fight another war like Iraq or Afghanistan, and that the chances of carrying out a change of government in that fashion again were slim.

‘In my opinion, any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should ‘have his head examined,’ as General MacArthur so delicately put it,’ Mr. Gates told an assembly of Army cadets here.”
Secretary Gates did not mean to suggest that such wars are out of the question, but only that they should be based less on ground forces and more on “air and sea” power – and perhaps, implicitly, on pilotless drones and other mechanized warfare. Still, the Secretary and other leaders must be weighed down by the US devastation sheer price of it all caused by their policies in Iraq and now Afghanistan, with at the moment no end in sight. Where is the “democracy” and progress they promised, as all US leaders have done to justify invasions and wars.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/26/world/26gates.html
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Ordinary Americans have caught this dark and dismal mood, as reflected in public opinion polls anyway. There is an overall trend in the news coverage of the Afghanistan War among people in the US who are questioned by pollsters. Those responding to unfavorable choices about the war are growing in number while the number of those responding favorably to US involvement in Afghanistan is falling. You can see the results of polls going back in some cases to 2007 or earlier at Polling Report.com. - Afghanistan. Support for the war in Afghanistan is declining among US citizens. Not good news for US Afghan policymakers. Here are examples of responses from two recent polls.

A CBS News Poll conducted from February 11-14, 2011 and based on 1,031 interviews found that 54 percent of the respondents indicate that the US “should…not be involved in Afghanistan now.” Only 37 percent agreed with the other option that “the US is doing the right thing. Nine percent were “unsure.” In the same CBS News Poll, the pattern held up in the responses to another question. The question, “What is your impression of how the war in Afghanistan is going for the US right now,” 55% chose “somewhat badly” (36%) or “very badly” (19%) compared to 36% who chose “somewhat well” (33%) or “very well” (3%).

A poll of 1,012 people by CNN/Opinion Research found 58 percent of the respondents who “oppose the US War in Afghanistan,” and a lesser percentage of 40% who “favor the US war in Afghanistan.”
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A similar climate of opinion seems to hold among Afghans. The Huffington Post (Dec. 6, 2010) titles an article “Afghanistan Poll: Afghans Lose Confidence in US and NATO Forces. The poll, “based on face-to-face interviews with a random sample of nearly 1,700 Afghan adults in all 34 of the country’s provinces,” was “conducted from Oct. 29-Nov. 13 [2010] by ABC News, the BBC, ARD German TV and the Washington Post.” Here are two relevant quotes from the article.
“Monday's survey also showed Afghans are losing confidence in the United States and NATO to provide security in their country, and they are more willing to see a negotiated settlement with the Taliban than they were last year.

“Just 36 percent of those polled expressed confidence in the U.S. and NATO to bring stability, down by 12 percentage points from last year and down by 31 percentage points since 2006. The survey also said 73 percent favor a negotiated settlement with the Taliban, up by 13 percentage points since 2007.”
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While Secretary of Defense Gates seems demoralized, you can say that at least he seems guided by a certain rationality about the present and future of warfare. The same cannot be said of an outburst by General Patraeus. On Antiwar.com (Feb 21, 2001), Jason Ditz captures what happened, and it appears to be a sudden loss of concentration or an expression of pent-up rage on the part of the general. Who knows? The title of Ditz’ article is “Petraeus Accuses Afghan Parents of Burning Kids to Make US Look Bad. Here is some of what Ditz penned:

“One would think that the effort to downplay the killings of as many as 64 civilians, including a large number of children, would be enough to spark considerable anti-US outrage, but apparently Gen. David Petraeus saw an opportunity to make things even worse, and took it.
“In a closed door meeting aimed at explaining why they had killed so many civilians, Gen. Petraeus actually accused parents in the region of burning their own children in an attempt to raise the death count and make the US look bad.
[….]

“The US has a long history of making up ridiculous hypotheticals that might explain away massive civilian death tolls, including the May 2009 Farah Province massacre, in which the US initially claimed the Taliban had “pre-killed” a large number of civilians and stored them in buildings before tricking the US into bombing them, scattering the bodies. They later admitted the claim was entirely made up.

“….This appears, however, to be the first time they actually accused parents of killing their children just to make the US occupation look bad.”
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The bad news onslaught is tragically reflected in other recent new items. Consider just five recent sources worth looking up.

#1 - The Independent. Uk posted on their website the following AP news item that “Afghan security worst for 10 years, says UN.” The post, from Feb 24, 2011, reports, ‘Security in the country is at its lowest level for a decade and two-fifths of the country is off-limits,’ according to “Robert Watkins, a Canadian diplomat and the UN's deputy special representative in Afghanistan.” Watkins is also quoted as saying, the occupation is‘at its lowest point since the departure of the Taliban" following the 2001 invasion.’”

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/afghan-security-worst-for-10-years-says-un-2223699.html
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#2 – C.J. Civers, Alissa J. Rubin, and Wesley Morgan write about “US Pulling Back in Afghan Valley It Called Vital to War,” Feb 24, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/25/world/asia/25afghanistan.html
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#3 – Slobodan Lekic, “NATO: Afghan [troop] attrition remains stubbornly high,” Yahoo News, Feb 23, 2011.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110223/ap_on_re_en/eu_nato_afghan_training
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#4 – Emma Graham-Harrison, “NATO’s Afghan night raids come with high civilian cost.”
http://ca.reuters.com/articles/topNews/idCATRE71N15U20110224
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#5 – John Donnelly, “Pentagon Contracts: No bid required,” Congress.org, Feb 15, 2011
http://www.congress.org/new/2011/02/15/pentagon_contracts_no_bids_required

Iraq war will not end with US troop withdrawal

Juan Cole sees promise for a complete US military withdrawal from Iraq as a result of three developments. (“Iraq has a Government: Can we Please Come Home Now?” Informed Comment, 12-22-10).

First, the 50,000 troops still deployed in Iraq “are scheduled to be out of the country on December 31, 2011.” This deadline is reinforced by the “newly reinstalled prime minister Nuri al-Maliki...insisting that the deadline be met.”

Second, “the United Nations Security Council removed Chapter 7 restrictions on Iraq,” that is the long-standing sanctions first imposed on Iraq back in 1991. This means that in July of 2011, when the UN decision takes effect, Iraq “will again become a fully sovereign nation in the law.”

Third, Iraq has “finally formed a new government of national unity....” These “milestones” herald “good news” and “mean that the troops really can and likely will come home now.” Cole continues: “A long nightmare is coming to an end. Iraq has been Lebanonized and will likely be fragile for years, with occasional bombings and attacks. But it can now muddle through on its own.”

The Iraq war has indeed been a nightmare for US decision-makers, US troops, US citizens/taxpayers, the mounting US debt. It has also been an illegal war that has set a perverse example to other nations and generated anger and hatred toward the United States among many people in the Middle East and in Muslim countries elsewhere. In his new book, War is a Lie, David Swanson refers to the research of Michael Haas, who “identifies and documents 263 war crimes, in addition to aggression, that have occurred just in the current War on Iraq, and divides them into the categories of ‘conduct of war,’ ‘treatment of prisoners,’ ‘and ‘the conduct of the postwar occupation’” (p. 309-310).

As Cole implies here and explicates in other posts, the war does not end for the Iraqi people even when, and if, the US troops go home. But the word “fragile” does not capture the full effects of the war (and the sanctions) on Iraq and its citizens (see examples below). Furthermore, many of the last American troops that may come home at the end of 2011, and the troops that have preceded them, in the hundreds of thousands in all, will require costly health and psychological treatment for many years, and in some cases their whole lives. The war does not end for them, their families, or for the society as a whole.

Here I list only examples and quotes from sources that focus on the situation of Iraq and its citizens. They represent a legacy of the US-initiated and –led war and occupation. What does this have to do with Afghanistan? Wherever US military forces wage war, civilians suffer, whether directly or indirectly.

Agriculture - “By August 2009, the New York Times reported that the once-rich agricultural system had been so devastated ‘during the past few years’ (that is, during the U.S. occupation) that ‘there are increasing doubts about whether it makes much sense to grow dates – or much of anything for that matter.’ (Noam Chomsky, Hopes and Prospects, 2010).

Electricity - “Iraqis promised development with the ouster of Saddam Hussein and the arrival of the U.S. are now suffering a lack of development as never before. And where it hurts every moment is through the collapse of power supply.” “More than seven years into the U.S. occupation, most Iraqis lack electricity, leading to demonstrations in towns and cities across the country.” “The problems since 2003 have been far worse” (Abdu Rahman and Dahr Jamail, After Flase Promises, the Heat in On in Iraq, http://dahrjamail.com/after-false-promises-the-heat-is-on-inIraq#more-1990).

Housing - “By United Nations estimates, Iraq has 2.8 million housing units for a population of 30 million, leaving a shortage of about 1.3 million homes. As the population continues to grow, the country needs to build 3.5 million housing units — more than doubling its stock — by 2015, said Istabraq I. al-Shouk, the senior deputy minister of construction and housing (John Leland, “Cramped Quarters Define Struggles of Iraqi Families, NYT, Feb 27, 2010).

Water - According to government statistics cited by the ICRC, one in four of Iraq’s 30 million people does not have access to safe drinking water” (Julia Apland Hitz, “Water, Another Crisis for Iraq,” Earth Institute, June 17, 2010 – http://blogs.eicolumbia.edu/2010/06/17/water-another-crisis-for-Iraq).

Uranium depletion effects- “Months of bombing during the first Gulf War by the United States and Great Britain left a deadly and insidious legacy: tons of shell casings, bullets and bomb fragments laced with depleted uranium. In all, the United States hit Iraqi targets with more than 970 radioactive bombs and missiles (Jeffrey St. Clair and Joshua Frank, “Iraq Wrecked Environment,” Counterpunch, May 1-3, 2009)

Cluster bomb effects - UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, “Iraq: Local NGOs welcome cluster bomb ban,” Feb 18, 2010 - BAGHDAD, 18 February 2010 (IRIN) - Iraqi NGOs working in the field of landmine and unexploded ordnance (UXO) clearance have welcomed the ratification of an international convention banning the use of cluster bombs. (http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900sid/SHIG-82SHXW?Open Document&RSS20&RSS20=FS). However:

Ali Jawad Kati, who heads the Baghdad-based NGO Aysen, which raises awareness about mine risks says: “millions of bomblets dispersed by cluster bombs were still scattered across the country as a result of the 1991 Gulf War and the 2003 US-led invasion.” “In Baghdad 331 areas are affected by cluster bomb debris, mostly from the 2003 war….Welfare runs out – “Iraq has run out of money to pay for widows' benefits, farm crops and other programs for the poor, the parliament leader told lawmakers, who have collected nearly $180,000 so far this year in one of the world's most oil-rich nations” (Lara Jakes, “Welfare funding runs out in Iraq,” AP News, Nov 21, 2010).


Missing billions and serious health rates - Juan Gonzalez, on Democracy Now - “We turn now to news from Iraq, where an official audit by the US Special Investigator for Iraq Reconstruction found that the Pentagon cannot account for almost $9 billion taken from Iraqi oil revenues between 2004 and 2007 for use in reconstruction. The report comes amidst continuing Iraqi concerns that, seven years since the US-led invasion, the billions of dollars pumped into reconstruction have failed to rebuild the country’s ravaged infrastructure.” “Meanwhile, a new medical study has found dramatic increases in infant mortality, cancer and leukemia in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, which was bombarded by US Marines in 2004. The rates of infant mortality and cancer exceed those reported by survivors of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945” (Andrew Cockburn interviewed on Democracy Now on “the missing billions in Iraq and soaring cancer and infant mortality rates,” July 29, 2010).

Devastation, Not Liberation - The US leaders said that we were invading Iraq to “liberate” it. Tom Engelhardt summarizes in the following paragraph from his book, The American Way of War (2010) the “devastation” that US forces brought to the country.

“Since then, Saddam Hussein’s killing fields have been dwarfed by a fierce set of destructive US military operations, as well as insurgencies cum-civil-wars-cum-terrorist-acts: major cities have been largely or partially destroyed, or ethnically cleansed; millions of Iraqis have been forced from their homes, becoming internal refugees or going into exile; untold numbers of Iraqis have been imprisoned, assassinated, tortured, or abused; and the country’s cultural heritage has been ransacked. Basic services – electricity, water, food – were terribly impaired and the economy was simply wrecked. Health services were crippled. Oil production upon which Iraq now depends for up to 90 percent of its government funds, has only relatively recently barely surpassed the worst levels of the pre-invasion era” (155)

US troop brutality – some sources

See Dahr Jamail, “Iraq War Vet: ‘We Were Told Just to Shoot People, and the Officers Would Take Care of Us,” Truthout, April 7, 2010

Wikileaks releases would further confirm this the summer of 2010….
Pervasive Violence – see Kamil Mahdi, “What the Wikileaks don’t reveal, Stop the War Coalition, 10-24-10 – http://stopwar.org.uk/content/view/2117/1/

More on violence – Pratap Chatterjee, “Wikileaks Iraq War Logs Reveal Private Military Contractors Killing With Impunity, Alternet.org, Oct. 25, 2010 http://www.alternet.org/story/1485941

Number of excess Iraqi deaths - Swanson refers to the findings of two “serious” studies. Here are his comments on one of them. “The second serious study of deaths caused by the War on Iraq was a poll of 2,000 Iraqi adults conducted by Opinion Research Business (ORB) in August 2007. ORB estimated 1,033,000 violent deaths due to the War, on Iraq: ’48 percent died from a gunshot wound, 20 percent from the impact of a car bomb, 9 percent from aerial bombardment, 6 percent as a result of an accident, and 6 percent from another blast/ordnance” (War is a Lie, 220).

Soaring Cancer rates in Fallujah - David Edwards, “The Non-Reporting of Fallujah’s Cancer Catastrophe,” Znet,Sept., 12, 2010, makes the following points.

“After all, the cancer crisis reported in the study is impacting thousands of people in one of Iraq's largest cities and is so severe that local doctors are advising women not to have children.

“In the Independent, Patrick Cockburn wrote:

‘Dramatic increases in infant mortality, cancer and leukemia in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, which was bombarded by US Marines in 2004, exceed those reported by survivors of the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, according to a new study.’ (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/toxic-legacy-of-us-assault-on-fallujah-worse-than-hiroshima-2034065.html)

Millions of refugees - Fred Branfman – http://www.alternet.org/story/147281, June 22, 1010:

“’Counting both internal and external refugees, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates that nearly 5 million of Iraq’s population of 24 million have been uprooted during the conflict,’ the N.Y. Review of Books reported on May 13, 2010. This is the equivalent of 60 million Americans by percentage of population. Five-hundred thousand are homeless squatters within Iraq, whose ‘settlements all lack basic services, including water, sanitation and electricity and are built in precarious places -- under bridges, alongside railroad tracks and amongst garbage dumps’ according to Refugees International in March 2010. The emigration of 2-3 million Iraqis to refugee camps in Syria and other Mideast countries decimated Iraq's educated middle class, with some daughters forced to become prostitutes and sons menial laborers just to keep their families alive.”

Iraqi children – a humanitarian and educational crisis – from Save the Children: Iraq, July 2009 (includes the entire, unedited post from: http://www.savethechildren.org)

“Although the violence that followed the invasion of Iraq by multi-national forces in 2003 has ebbed and flowed, Iraq remains within the top five humanitarian emergencies in the world. Children continue to suffer from the psychological trauma of war and conflict, and access to education and development opportunities has been severely constrained.

“As an example, in the northern part of Iraq (where Save the Children is currently operating) 15 schools host operations for 43 separate institutions — that is, most schools serve three to four shifts of students per day, for a few hours at a time. Besides overcrowding, these schools lack a clean water supply, sanitation and garbage disposal systems — as do many of the communities in which the schools are based.

“In the south of the country, including Basra, the situation is more acute. In particular, access to fresh water remains a key issue due to the use of a brackish water supply in Basra. Exacerbating the situation, temperatures can reach 140 F during the summer. Because of the salty residue, the water supply needs to go through a complex process of desalinization and purification, which is costly, time consuming and not always effective. It remains another obstacle for children in obtaining a quality education and having a healthy childhood.”

Iraq – a country of orphans

John Tirman estimated in Feb. 2009 that there were 5 million orphans. See John Terman, “4.5 Million Displaced, 1-2 Million Widows, 5 Million Orphans,” The Nation, Feb 2, 2009
Editor-in-Chief: Saad Albazzaz, “Iraq a country of Orphans,” Azzaman.com, September 13, 2010:

“One in every six Iraqis is an orphan. That is the toll Iraqi children are paying in a country which is supposedly under the occupation and protection of the world’s only superpower.

“Not all the orphans are the result of the violence that swept the country in the aftermath of the 2003-U.S. invasion.

“But the invasion has caused untold miseries for Iraqis, surpassing those inflicted on them by their former tormentors, the clique that ruled Iraq under Saddam Hussein.

“There were unconfirmed reports that Iraq has turned into a country of orphans. But the exact figure only became a reality recently, when the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs made public its own statistics.

“The statistics points to dangerous demographics with grave social, health and economic consequences for a country which still lacks basic infrastructure.

“ These are the voiceless Iraqis. Their U.S. occupiers have almost cut and run and their Iraqi rulers are not so much concerned about their livelihood and well-being.

“In a violent country like Iraq, where U.S. marines with bullet-proof jackets and thick armor, cannot feel safe, there is not so much room for an orphan.

“Hundreds of thousands of them live on the street. There is no social security system to look after them.”


Children – PSID (post-traumatic stress disorder) -- “The great number of Iraqi children affected with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is one of the saddest, and least known, legacies of the Iraq war. That a new clinic for their treatment opened last August in Baghdad is the first of its kind says a lot about how this problem is being addressed. Until now, hundreds of children suffering from PTSD have been treated by Dr. Haider Maliki at the Central Pediatric Teaching Hospital in Baghdad. Hundreds of thousands remain untreated” (Cesar Chelala, “Iraqi Children Bear the Costs of War,” CommonDreams.org, March 5, 2010).


Imprisonment – Tens of thousands of Iraqi men spent years in American prisons. Most of the prisons and prisoners have been transferred to the Iraqis, who are known for the brutal treatment of prisoners. (Leila Fadel, “Some worry about abuse as U.S. hands over final detention center to Iraq,” Washington Post Foreign Service, July 16, 2010).
Democracy Now interview with Malcolm Smart on Amnesty International of Abuses in Iraqi Prisons, Sept 20, 2010:

Amy Goodman: Amnesty International has released a new report that finds more than 30,000 prisoners are being held in Iraq without charge, including 10,000 prisoners who were recently transferred from US custody. Amnesty’s report is called "New Order, Same Abuses: Unlawful Detentions and Torture in Iraq."

Torture - Tim Branfman reports: “Tens of thousands of innocents imprisoned, many tortured: “In an article headlined "In Iraq, A Prison Full of Innocent Men, the Washington Post reported that ‘100,000 prisoners have passed through the American-run detention system in Iraq,’ that Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi says that ‘most of the people they detain are innocent’ but that prisoners are not permitted to prove their innocence. Conditions have been even worse in the secret torture chambers run for five years by General Stanley McChrystal, from which all outside observers including the Red Cross have been excluded. Salon's Glenn Greenwald recently reported that ‘72% of Guantanamo detainees who finally were able to obtain just minimal due process -- after years of being in a cage without charges -- have been found by federal judges to be wrongfully detained.’ Countless innocent Iraqis have been regularly tortured.”

The situation of women and girls has deteriorated - Nadje Al-Ali, “The Iraq Legacy: Millions of Women’s Lives Destroyed,” Alter Net.com, March 31, 2008 – (http://www.alternet.org/story/80609) [Also Nadje Al-Ali and Nicola Pratt’s book, What Kind of Liberation?: Women and the Occupation of Iraq.]

“In fact, Iraq's women have become the biggest losers in the post-invasion disaster. While men have borne the brunt in terms of direct armed violence, women have been particularly hard-hit by poverty, malnutrition, lack of health services and a crumbling infrastructure, not least chronic power cuts which in some areas of Iraq see electricity only available for two hours a day.

“More than 70 percent of the four million people forced out of their homes in the past five years in Iraq have been women and children. Many have found temporary shelter with relatives who share their limited space, food and supplies. But this, according to the UN refugee agency, has created ‘rising tension between families over scarce resources.’ Many displaced women and children find themselves in unsanitary and overcrowded public buildings under constant threat of eviction.

“Meanwhile, rampant political violence has also engulfed women in Iraq. Islamist militias with links to political parties in government and insurgent groups opposing both the government and the occupation have particularly targeted Iraqi women and girls. A new Islamist puritanism is seeing women and girls being violently pressured to conform to rigid dress codes. Personal movement and social behaviour are being ‘regulated,’ with acid attacks (deliberately designed to disfigure ‘transgressive’ women's faces), just one of the sanctions of the new moral guardians of post-Saddam Iraq.”

President Obama's speech is misleading

President Obama read from a five-page summary of US policies in Afghanistan and Pakistan on Thursday, December 16 (2010). The title of the summary document is “Overview of the Afghanistan and Pakistan Annual Review. The president does his best to bring an upbeat message to Americans and to defend the US/NATO occupation of Afghanistan. But then he says this occupation/war will continue until at least 2014 and perhaps “beyond.” Overall, his rhetoric and evidence are unconvincing.

He shamefully echoes former-president Bush’s rationale for the Afghan invasion and occupation in some instances, when he says that the “core goals” of the US-led Afghanistan occupation is to defeat “al-Qa-ida,” that is, “to disrupt, dismantle, and eventually defeat al-Qa-ida” and “to prevent its return to either country” (i.e., Afghanistan or Pakistan). The evidence overwhelmingly challenges the idea that al-Qaeda is the principal threat to the creation of a stable Afghanistan. There are few Afghans affiliated with al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.

The President maintains that al-Qaeda poses a direct threat to the US. He says: “Al-Qa-ida continues its terrorist plotting…against the United States and our allies and partners.”

Eliminating al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan will not end the threat of random terrorist attacks on the US or any other country. The roots of such terrorism stem from rage over the US-led occupations and wars in the Iraq and Afghanistan, support for dictatorial Middle East regimes (e.g., Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan), and the one-sided support of the long-standing US support of Israeli oppression and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Jerusalem, Gaza, and the West Bank. (Juan Cole has documented this point many times on his award-winning blog, Informed Comment. Also see: David Wildman and Phyllis Bennis' book, Ending the US War in Afghanistan.)

Experts point out that Al-Qaeda is a decentralized international network located in various parts of the Middle East, Central Asia, and some “developing countries” (e.g., Indonesia), but it does not have a consolidated center. The President does acknowledge, “There are a range of other groups, including some affiliated with al-Qa-ida, as well as individuals inspired by al-Qa-ida, who to do harm to our nation and our allies.” (See, for example, Loretta Napaleoni’s new book, The Politics of Fear: How Fighting Terrorism is Bankrupting the World and Making US Less Safe, Seven Stories Press, 2010.)

The major opponents of the foreign US and allied occupiers come from Afghan participants variously associated with the “Taliban,” a category that includes separate, uncoordinated, groups from mainly the Pashtun population of the country. Grievances are local and often responses to the ground and escalating air attacks of the American forces, and to a war that has produced tens of thousands of Afghan refugees, further destruction of infrastructure and communities, widespread corruption, and little reconstruction.

As a consequence, Afghanistan has one of the poorest and most deprived populations in the world. Kathy Kelly provides a glimpse of Afghan impoverishment and the counterproductive use of increasingly destructive weaponry by US forces in an article on Antiwar.com, December 10, 2010:

“In Afghanistan, a nation where 850 children die every day, about a quarter of the population goes hungry. The UN says that 7.4 million Afghans live with hunger and fear of starvation, while millions more rely on food help, and one in five children die before the age of five.

"’Do you think we like to live this way?’ an Afghan man asked me, last October, as he led us toward a primitive tent encampment on the outskirts of Kabul. ‘Do you see how we live? The cold and the rain are coming. How will we protect our children?’ He flicked his forefinger on a weather-beaten blanket covering a tent. The blanket immediately ripped.”
[….]

“Inside one of the tents, a young mother welcomed me to sit down on the only available cushion. It appeared that they slept on the ground. The families share one pot over a fire pit, and a few utensils. They also have access to a water pump. Near their area is a tent where they join for prayers, and also one that is used for classes. One man begged us to tell the authorities that they have no medicines in the camp and that many of the children are ill.
[…]

“Although the U.S. military forbids soldiers to mutilate corpses and go on killing sprees that target civilians, the U.S. occupying forces in Afghanistan have bragged, in recent weeks, about increased capacities to kill with ever more invulnerable weapons. A company of 16 Abrams tanks was recently delivered to Afghanistan. ‘We’ve taken the gloves off,’ said an unnamed U.S. military official, ‘and it has had huge impact.’ (Washington Post, November 19, 2010) The 68-ton tanks fire high explosive, white phosphorus and anti-personnel shells that can destroy a house a mile away. Each tank costs 4.3 million dollars and uses 3 gallons of jet fuel per mile.

“The Pentagon is also sending 12,500 XM25 Individual Air Burst Weapons to Afghanistan, one to each infantry squad and Special Forces team in Afghanistan. The XM25 gun can fire a projectile that will travel the length of eight football fields. ‘When fired, the projectile is designed to explode directly above a target,’ says the Army Times, ‘raining shrapnel down on an enemy crouched behind cover.’

“In a report to the November 2010 NATO conference held in Lisbon, 29 aid groups working in Afghanistan warned that the increases in air attacks, the use of night raids, and the destruction of civilian property contributes to ‘rapidly deteriorating" security for most Afghans and a rise in civilian casualties. People who flee from U.S. attacks face food insecurity, loss of income, lack of health care, and homelessness. The aid groups’ report is entitled ‘Nowhere to Turn.’ Increasingly, Afghans living in war zones have nowhere to hide.”

The president claims that US and allied forces are “degrading the Taliban insurgency,” another unsubstantiated claim. Unsurprisingly, as noted above, there is nothing in Obama’s annual review of the conditions in Afghanistan concerning civilian casualties, devastation of those parts of the country invaded by US and allied forces, or the ever-more destructive weaponry employed by these forces in places identified as war zones. And the insurgency is growing. Tom Anderson reports in an article for CommonDreams.org, Dec. 16, 2010, evidence that contradicts President Obama’s claim of degrading the insurgency. Anderson writes:

“A U.S. intelligence estimate presented to President Obama in October 2009 showed that the number of fighters in the insurgency had ballooned to 25,000 from only 7,000 in 2006. Now Matt Waldman, former Head of Policy and Advocacy for Oxfam International in Afghanistan, reports that "today [the NATO force] estimates the Taliban as 35,000 to 40,000. One of the points we have to bear in mind is they have a very large pool of recruits inside Afghanistan and Pakistan."

In the meantime, security is down and violence is up, according to Anderson’s sources.

“Nationwide, security in Afghanistan has not improved. According to the Pentagon's own report to Congress in November 2010, the portion of the population living in districts with a ‘satisfactory' security rating "remains relatively unchanged over the past three quarters." In fact, "the number of Afghans rating their security situation as ‘bad' is the highest since the nationwide survey began in September 2008. This downward trend in security perception is likely due to the steady increase in total violence over the past nine months."

“Violence has dramatically increased in Afghanistan over the last year. Kinetic events -- Pentagon speak for violence -- "are up 300 percent since 2007 and up an additional 70 percent since 2009." The Afghanistan NGO Safety Office reports a 59% increase in insurgent-led attacks in the 3rd quarter of this year over and above the 2009 level. They state: "By any measure 2010 has been the most violent year since ANSO's records began in 2002."

“Any progress toward increased security in the south has been more than offset by increased violence elsewhere in Afghanistan. Insurgent attacks in Kunar province in eastern Afghanistan "rose 200% in June compared with June 2009." There are reports that "in northern Afghanistan, security has been deteriorating for the past two years in Kunduz and surrounding provinces" and that "the Taliban also have spread their influence in western Afghanistan and now control several districts."

President Obama’s review of conditions in Afghanistan are similarly dubious on a number of his other claims; for example that US forces are “supporting Afghanistan’s efforts to better improve national and sub-national governance.” Andrews refutes this claim as follows.

“Corruption runs rampant, fueling the insurgency. The Pentagon's own polling from September 2010 ‘shows that 80.6 percent of Afghans polled believe corruption affects their daily lives. This is consistent with the view that corruption is preventing the Afghan Government from connecting with the people and remains a key reason for Afghans supporting the insurgency...’

“As the New York Times reported, after a meeting with President Karzai's brother, Ahmed Walid Karzai, Ambassador Eikenberry wrote that ‘one of our major challenges in Afghanistan [is] how to fight corruption and connect the people to their government, when the key government officials are themselves corrupt.’

“And just this past weekend, Afghanistan's Attorney General asked their Supreme Court to nullify the results of recent parliamentary elections due to allegations of fraud and to ‘issue sentences against 14 top officials who organized the vote and oversaw fraud investigations.’”
And, furthermore, Andrews adds:

“Nationwide, governance has not expanded. The Pentagon reports that only ‘38 percent of the population live in areas rated as having ‘emerging' or ‘full authority' Afghan governance. This reflects no substantial change since March 2010.’ ‘Shadow governments’ run by insurgent forces continue to operate in many parts of the south and east, ‘extracting taxes and carrying out ‘official' functions like trials and determining land and marriage disputes.’”

There are other downbeat rather than upbeat issues that Obama omits from his speech. Wasted US aid: Patrick Cockburn documents the “billions down the drain in useless US Afghan aid” (Counter Punch, Dec. 13, 2010). Mounting US debt: the costs of the wars and occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq (it’s not over) are undermining the American economy and helping to deepen the US national debt.

In another article, this one for The Independent (Dec 18, 2010), Cockburn provides the words for ending this post and implicitly indicating how misleading Obama’s speech is. Cockburn writes:

“Afghans are adept at concealing their real views. A government official was giving me a bland account of his ministry's activities. Bored, I asked if there was anything he would like to say to me unattributably. ‘Well’, he said, without changing his smooth tone of voice, ‘there is no chance of any progress here so long as our country is run by gangsters and warlords.’ But it is to keep these same people in power that the US and Britain are now fighting a war.”

US needs alternative policies in Afghanistan and at home

The Afghanistan Study Group refers to a new report on Afghanistan. The report, released in August 2010, is titled "A New Way Forward." It, or an overview of the report, can be retreived at http://www.afghanistanstudy.org.

The report goes into important reasons for why the US-led Afghanistan war and occupation should be scaled down.

The report estimates that the US government is spending $100 billion a year in mostly military expenses in Afghanistan. This is "a sum roughly seven times larger than Afghanistan's annual gross produce of $14 billion and greater than the total annual cost of the new US health insurance program." The costs are more than financial. The report indicates that "thousands of American and allied personnel have been killed or gravely wounded."

The report overlooks the damage caused by the war to Afghanistan's land and infrastructure, to the Afghan people, to the intensified ethnic tensions and conflicts, to the consolidation of war-lord and insurgent power in all parts of the country, and to widespread corruption.

It does recognize that the US-led occupation has done little to bring political stability to Afghanistan. "Instead of toppling terrorists, America's Afghanistan war has become an ambitious and fruitless effort at 'nation-building.'" Continuing: "We are mired in a civil war in Afghanistan and our struggling to establish an effective central government in a country that has long been fragmented and decentralized."

Further, there is "no clear definition of what would comprise 'success' in this endeavor." Recent US-led offenses have not achieved the expected results. "The 2010 spring offensive in Marjah was inconclusive and a supposedly 'decisive' summer in Kandahar has been delayed and the expectations downgraded." And, as Tom Engelhardt reminds us (see Tom Dispatch.com, Nov. 17, 2010), the US has 400 military bases in Afghanistan. Along with these bases, the date for the "beginning" the withdrawal of US troops is pushed back time and again and now is tentatively set for the 2014.

When the authors of "A New War Forward," identify the elements of an alternative that moves in the direction of eliminating the need for US military forces, it is reasonable to think that we have heard this before.

Nonetheless, better something different than the same old military myths. The authors of the report include a set of recommendations, including (1) a draw down of US and allied military presence; (2) a limited security effort, involving "special forces, intelligence assets, and other US capabilities...to seek out and target known Al Qadea cells in the region"; (3) the encouragement of an "internationally-led effort to develop Afghanistan's economy; and (4) the engagement of "regional and global stakeholders in a diplomatic effort designed to guarantee Afghan neutrality and [thereby] foster regional stability."

There is nothing in these recommendations that suggest how the Afghanistan people can themselves participate in creating a politically stable government.

In the meantime, the Afghan people suffer. For example, Juan Cole writes on his blog Informed Comment on Oct. 7, 2010, that both Iraq and Afghanistan are "among the 22 [most] food insecure countries. The evidence comes from a report by the Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Food Program. Coles quotes from the report:

"Chronic hunger and food insecurity are the most common characteristics of a protracted crisis. On average, the proportion of people who are undernourished in countries facing these complex problems is almost three times as high as in other developing countries."

While hunger in the US is not as great as in these developing countries, a BBC News report on Nov. 16, 2010, refers to a US Deptartment of Agriculture study that finds "almost 15% of US households experience a food shortage at some point in 2001." That is, 45 million or more people.

War is bad for people. It wastes resources and lives, and generates fear and hatred. And, as in the US, bloated military budgets, a far-flung system of military bases, permanent or endless wars, an expanding plutocracy, and capitalist system gone bonkers, are also bad for the people.

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.

Civilian casualties in Afghanistan spurred by US and NATO attacks

Without Juan Cole's blog, the Middle East would be more in an intellectual fog than it is. In the following post from today's Informed Comment, Cole refers to two recent studies indicating that after civilian deaths from attacks by US/NATO, Afghan insurgents or others retaliate - and the war escalates and drags on.

Civilian Casualties are Causing the War in the First Place: Rethinking Afghanistan, Pt. 4
Posted on July 24, 2010 by Juan Cole, Informed Comment, July 24- 2010

[....]
A new study by America’s National Bureau for Economic Research looking at the circumstances around 4,000 civilian deaths in Afghanistan found a high correlation between NATO killing of even two civilians in an area and a spike of attacks on NATO and US troops. It turns out that Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s much-maligned stricter rules of engagement, especially limitations on blunt air strikes, actually likely reduced the number of attacks. Gen. David Petraeus is said to be considering altering the ROE.

There is only one way to interpret the NBER report, which is that President Obama was wrong to escalate the Afghanistan war, since US and NATO war-fighting, which inevitably causes civilian deaths, is actually ratcheting up the war. A heavy footprint and more NATO operations likely will create the monster Washington fears, a growing insurgency, rather than ‘blunting the momentum’ of the ‘Taliban’ as Obama and Petreaus hope.

The Afghan Human Rights Monitor recently issued a report on civilian casualties in the first half of 2010. AFP summarized key findings:

‘ About 1,074 civilians were killed and more than 1,500 injured in war-related incidents in the first six months of 2010, compared with 1,059 killed in the same period last year, ARM said. “Up to 1,200 security incidents were recorded in June, the highest number of incidents compared to any month since 2002,” it said. . . In a breakdown of parties to blame for civilian deaths, ARM says 61 percent were caused by insurgents, 30 percent by US, NATO and Afghan forces, six percent by “criminals and private security firms”, with three percent unknown.

The full report in pdf format is here

See also their report, “Children Suffered the Brunt of War Casualties in 2009″

Aljazeera English has a recent report on rising children and adult Afghan casualties:

and here is Rethinking Afghanistan pt. 4: http://www.juancole.com/2010/07/civilian-casualties-rethinking-afghanistan-pt-4.html;

Government corruption flourishing in Kandahar

Jennie Green, the author of the article below is the director of North American operations for the Arghand Cooperative in Kandahar. The title of the article is "The Curse of Kandahar. I found the article at: http://outlookafghanistan.net/news_Pages/Opinion.html#02, July 18, 2010. Her principal points are that Aghan citizens in Kandahar and NGOs attempting to offer genuine assistance are caught between an illegitimate central government, corrupt local government officials and police, Taliban insurgents, and a US-led occupation that has offered them little security or improvement in their conditions. Further, US money continues to flow to this same government. As one consequence, the Taliban insurgency is replenished as Afghanis become disillusioned with the government and the unfulfilled promises of President Obama and the realities of an ineffective US-led occupation.


The Curse of Kandahar
By Jennie Green


No wonder ordinary Afghans don't trust the U.S.: American leaders have backed a corrupt government. Even before the jet lag had worn off after a visit to Kandahar earlier this year, I received a disturbing e-mail from a colleague there. An improvised explosive device had detonated outside the home of one of the members of the cooperative I help run. It had apparently been placed to target a convoy in which the district chief of police was traveling.

Unharmed but outraged, the police chief ordered his subordinates to find out who owned the house. When my Afghan co-worker and his brother opened their gate, they were beaten and sworn at repeatedly, then hauled to police headquarters, where they spent the night. There was no evidence to suggest that the men had buried the IED, and every reason to think they hadn't. Between them, the brothers have many small children who might have been hurt in the explosion, and neither has ties to violent groups. Fortunately, my friend and his brother were released the following day, but only because of personal connections. Afterward, they cleared their house of anything that could be construed as a weapon, fearing that anyone who had it in for either of them could peg them as insurgents. They were taking a gamble.

Weapons are common in Afghan homes, in part because they are needed for protection against Taliban insurgents who regularly threaten ordinary citizens, particularly those who work for the Afghan government, NATO's International Security Assistance Force or foreigner-initiated organizations like our cooperative. For this reason, all members of our cooperative, which manufactures skin care products from locally grown fruits and flowers, are potential targets.

In the months after President Obama was sworn in and before the Afghan election of August 2009, many of the Afghans with whom I communicate regularly dared to hope that the new U.S. president would help bring about change in Hamid Karzai's administration. They applauded the way in which Obama immediately distanced himself from the Afghan president and condemned the rampant corruption that plagues the country. Finally, they thought, the international community might be able to compel Karzai to deliver the kind of responsible governance and rule of law that people craved.

But when those same officials wilted in the heat of an Afghan election so fraudulent that more than a million votes had to be disqualified, my friends became despondent. "Afghanistan is going in the river," one of them declared. "We are swimming now." Next came the Marja offensive, followed by a troop buildup for the much-publicized Kandahar operation. If ever there was a moment when it would seem as if Kandaharis would want to distance themselves from the loathsome Taliban and rally around their government and the formidable NATO forces that were ramping up to support it, this would be the time. Instead, more people than ever before seem to be joining the insurgency. Why? Because for all the talk about tackling corruption, including the "governments in a box" the U.S. promised to deliver, Kandaharis have yet to experience any noticeable improvements.

The infamous Ahmed Wali Karzai — the president's half brother, who has been publicly accused of all kinds of corruption, including opium trafficking, land confiscation and employing insurgents for his own advantage — is still running the province and much of the region as if they were his personal fiefdom. He still largely controls the appointment of officials, who then preside over an appalling system of patronage, protections and punishments. Worse still is the fact that ordinary citizens have to watch Wali Karzai and others of his ilk get showered with American dollars to provide private security, logistics, construction materials and intelligence.

People in the West tend to view corruption as something of an abstraction. But after six trips to Kandahar in the last three years, I've seen how favors are doled out as a form of patronage or in response to bribes. These are not victimless crimes. Every day, citizens face annoyance, expense and sometimes genuine trauma at the hands of corrupt officials. They are refused passports until they cough up half a month's salary in bribe money, or are forced at ruinous expense to produce documentation that proves they own their land to prevent it from being confiscated or avoid being hauled off to jail for no good reason. Everybody I have met in Kandahar has an impressive portfolio of such stories, and they are all exhausted from navigating an endless stream of humiliating abuses.

The people of Kandahar are caught between abusive governance and a lethal insurgency, and they are waiting for some indication that the Americans will do something more helpful than play warrior and build enormous, air-conditioned mansions with bulletproof windows for greedy Afghan officials.

In April, when I last visited, nobody even wanted to talk politics — that was too depressing. Now, when we talk over a bad Skype connection, my friends first rattle off a list of the most recent bombings and assassinations and then tell me that daily life in Kandahar is continuing on as usual.

To the Afghans I work with, it makes no difference which general runs the war, or how many of our troops get deposited on their soil, or even how many bad guys we kill. They won't trust the United States as long as it continues to cast its lot with corrupt politicians who profit shamelessly from the abusive governance that is driving so many of their countrymen into the Taliban's winning arms. Hearts and minds? I don't suspect we'll win too many of those until we take the lead in stepping out of the patronage game by refusing to play nice with gangsters.

(Courtesy LA Times)

McChrystal resignation connected to his pessimistic assessment of conditions in Afghanistan

Here are excerpts from an article by Jonathan Owen and Brian Brady printed in The Independent (UK) online site, and my interpretations or comments preceding the excerpted sections (in red).

The last post: McChrystal's bleak outlook
President Obama lost patience with Runaway General's failed strategy
By Jonathan Owen and Brian Brady

Sunday, 27 June 2010
The Independent – http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/the-last-post-mcchrystals-bleak-outlook.html

The real reason General McChrystal resigned his position as military head of the U.S.-led occupation and war in Afghanistan is that McChrystal assessed the situation in Afghanistan as going poorly.

Sacked US General Stanley McChrystal issued a devastatingly critical assessment of the war against a "resilient and growing insurgency" just days before being forced out.

Using confidential military documents, copies of which have been seen by the IoS, the "runaway general" briefed defence ministers from Nato and the International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) earlier this month, and warned them not to expect any progress in the next six months. During his presentation, he raised serious concerns over levels of security, violence, and corruption within the Afghan administration.

General McChystal made gave a pessimistic presentation at the G8 summit in Toronto. The G8 subsequently

...called for "concrete progress" within five years on improving the justice system and for Afghan forces to assume greater responsibility for security. The implication here is that a large contingent of allied troops will remain in Afghanistan for at least five more years, and that the G8 members agreed with McChrystal's assessment.

Specific points made by McChrystal in his assessment, or "campaign overview":

...only a fraction of the areas key to long-term success are "secure", governed with "full authority", or enjoying "sustainable growth". He warned of a critical shortage of "essential" military trainers needed to build up Afghan forces – of which only a fraction is classed as "effective".

...pinpointed an "ineffective or discredited" Afghan government and a failure by Pakistan "to curb insurgent support" as "critical risks" to success. "Waning" political support and a "divergence of coalition expectations and campaign timelines" are among the key challenges faced, according to the general.

According to "informed sources," McChrystal's assessment was as important in convincing President Obama to call for the general's resignation as the article in the Rolling Stone article.

[....]

Obama may have a political motivation as well.

General McChrystal's presentation to Nato defence ministers and Isaf representatives provided an uncompromising obstacle to Mr Obama's plan to bring [some] troops home in time to give him a shot at a second term, according to senior military sources. The general was judged to be "off message" in his warning to ministers not to expect quick results and that they were facing a "resilient and growing insurgency".

[....]

The reality, according to a senior military source, is that General McChrystal's candour about the reality of the situation was an obstacle to Mr Obama's search for an "early, face-saving exit" to help his chances in the 2012 presidential elections. "Stan argued for time, and would not compromise. Rolling Stone provided an excuse for Obama to fire the opposition to his plan without having to win an intellectual argument," he said (or being put in a situation where Obama had to provide more details about his plan to withdraw troops by next summer).

[....]

U.S. Afghan policy will continue as before.

Admiral Mike Mullen met with President Karzai yesterday to assure him that the new Nato commander will pursue the same strategy followed by his predecessor. He pledged that General
Petraeus would also do his best to reduce civilian casualties.

McChrystal was too frank about his position that a successful occupation in Afghanistan will take more than six months and, implictly, some years rather than some months.

General McChrystal said progress in the next six months was unlikely. He raised serious concerns over levels of security, violence, and corruption within the Afghan administration. Only five areas out of 116 assessed were classed as "secure" – the rest suffering various degrees of insecurity and more than 40 described as "dangerous" or "unsecure".

[....]

A strategic assessment referred to in the presentation revealed just how close the strategy in Afghanistan is to failing. It stated that the campaign was "on track temporarily" – but this was defined as meaning that there was "a low level of confidence that positive trends will be sustained over the next six-month period".

[....]

British Envoy to Afghanistan Resigns over failed US military policy

Here is one of the headlines from today's Democracy Now program. You can find other headlines and featured interviews at http://www.democracynow.org.

British Envoy to Afghanistan Resigns

The news comes as Britain’s special representative to Afghanistan, Sherard Cowper-Coles, has resigned. Formerly Britain’s ambassador to Afghanistan, Cowper-Coles has frequently clashed with US counterparts on Afghan policy. He has been a proponent of reconciliation efforts, including negotiations with the Taliban and other insurgent groups, and has questioned the US push for a military solution in Afghanistan. In 2008, he was quoted saying the US strategy in Afghanistan is "destined to fail" and calling the occupation "part of the problem, not the solution."

McChystal episode reveals a war without coherence

Joshua Holland's article focuses on the media interest on General Stanley McChrystal, the commanding military officer in Afghanistan. The article appearing in the magazine Rolling Stone. Written by Matt Hastings, he reports on "derogatory comments McChrystal and his staff made about the White House. Media pundits and hosts are speculating on whether President Obama will fire McChrystal from his job because of the general's insubordination. While this part of Hastings' story has been covered widely in the media, the most important part of the story, Holland points out, is overlooked, namely, that the US-led war and occupation in Afghanistan is failing and has no coherent direction. Military leaders think that with enough time and more troops the war in Afghanistan can still be won. Here are excerpts from Holland's article.

Dont Let the McChrystal Frenzy Obscure the Dirty Truth About Afghanistan
By Joshua Holland, Printed on June 23, 2010
http://www.alternet.org/story/147302/

It should come as no surprise that General Stanley McChrystal’s return to Washington to explain a series of derogatory comments he and his staff made about the White House has ignited a media frenzy.

[....]

....the most important part of Hastings’ article is largely being ignored by the corporate media.

Hastings told a tale of a project with no hope for success. His story shows us that the U.S. presence in Afghanistan is all about tactics dressed up as a strategy. It’s a profile of a military establishment running on inertia -- unable to withdraw because withdrawing is an admission of defeat, but also unable to accomplish the wholly unrealistic tasks put before it.
This is perhaps the most revealing passage from Hastings’ report:

"[Team Obama] are trying to manipulate perceptions because there is no definition of victory – because victory is not even defined or recognizable," says Celeste Ward, a senior defense analyst at the RAND Corporation who served as a political adviser to U.S. commanders in Iraq in 2006. "That's the game we're in right now. What we need, for strategic purposes, is to create the perception that we didn't get run off. The facts on the ground are not great, and are not going to become great in the near future."

...."If Americans pulled back and started paying attention to this war, it would become even less popular," a senior adviser to McChrystal says. Such realism, however, doesn't prevent advocates of counterinsurgency from dreaming big: Instead of beginning to withdraw troops next year, as Obama promised, the military hopes to ramp up its counterinsurgency campaign even further.

[....]

Anan Gobal noted that in 2008, after seven years of fighting, less than a third of the country was under the control of the central government in Kabul, and added: “Many say even that is now an optimistic assessment.” Earlier this month, Bloomberg reported that the Pentagon was making cash payments to Afghan warlords. According to Bloomberg, “Contractors told congressional investigators they believe that, in turn, the ‘warlords make protection payments to insurgents’ who are fighting the U.S.”

[....]

According to a report released in January, the U.S.-backed government is also awash in corruption, which Afghans now view “as a bigger concern than security and unemployment.” The government we’re backing may be extracting as much as one quarter of Afghanistan’s gross national product in bribes. And Karzai’s own brother has been implicated in Afghanistan’s rich drug trade.

[....]

Max Bergmann of the Center for American Progress didn’t miss what lies at the heart of the Rolling Stone report. “The significance of this food fight is not in what was said,” he wrote, “but in what it says about where the United States is in Afghanistan":

What has become apparent is that … the mythic status now given to the surge in Iraq led to a significant degree of over-confidence on the part of McChrystal and others about their ability to turn the Afghan war around after it had utterly deteriorated year after year under the neglectful watch of the Bush administration.


Joshua Holland is an editor and senior writer at AlterNet.

Still no security for many Afghan citizens

Here are excerpts from two articles printed today, May 28, 2010, in Outlook Afghanistan. Both articles offer evidence of continued insecurity and casualties among Afghan civilians in areas where US-led assaults have occurred or continue.

#1 - The full Internet address for the first article is: http://outlookafghanistan.net/news_Pages/main_news.html#01

"Hundreds of families, fearing the resumption of clashes between the Taliban and security forces [US-led military forces] have fled troubled districts of Marja and Nad-Alit in southern Helmand province. The fresh exodus of 400 families from the towns comes nearly three months after a massive counter-insurgency operation, involving thousands of Afghan and foreign [US-led] troops."

[....]

The article includes a quote of a resident, Haji Aminullah, who says: "We have trenches around us, set up by the rebels [groups of "Taliban"] and foreign troops. As a result, we are confined to our homes...."

[....]

Another resident Sahib Khan says "innocent people were being killed in clashes on a daily basis."

[....]

"a large number of families have fled their houses, migrating to Lashkargah...."

"An official responsible for refugee affairs in the province, Haji Ghulam Farooq Noorzai, said 10 families arrived daily in Lashargah. Linking the displacement to frequent clashes, bomb blasts, search operations, and threats from the Taliban, he said they have so far registered 379 families."

#2 - "Civilian Casualties Causing Deep Unrest." http://outlookafghanistan.net/news_Pages/opinion.html#03

"...The number of suicide bombings, political assassinations, and armed clashes has risen in the northern provinces of Afghanistan, which indicates a gradual deterioration of the situation in this relatively peaceful part of the country...According to news reports Coalition Forces have killed around 76 civilians, mostly children...during an air operation."

US "flailing wars" in Afghanistan, etc.

In the following entry, I paraphrase and draw loosely on Tom Engelhardt's essay, "Obama's Flailing Wars." The full and original version of the article can be retreived at http://original.antiwar.com/engelhardt/2010/05/16/obama-flailing-wars

Engelhardt sees US military strategy and operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan as a "tragedy," when not viewed as a "farce."

He reviews recent attempts by the US President and other US military and civilian leaders to stir Afghan President Hamid Karzai into more productive action, advising him, threatening him. Barak Obama recently flew into Kabul for a six hour for a dressing down of Karzai. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Adm. Mike Mullen met with Karzai a few days later in the same critical mode.

Then changing the tone, at least for the media, Karzai and some of his government officials visited the White House for what was orchestrated as a congenial confab. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Afghan War Commander Gen. Stanley McChristal were reported to reassure Karzai that the US military presence in Afghanistan was for the long term.

The flip flops, as Engelhard describes them, "seemed to reflect tactical and strategic incoherence," both with respect to Afghanistan and to Pakistan. He adds (later), "In place of strategic coherence, there is just one knee-jerk response: escalation," something like "the Washington mentality in the Vietnam War years."

Some seriously-grounded evidence indicaes that "the US mission in Afghanistan is going dreadfully, evan as the Taliban insurgency gains potency and expands." The recent US offensive in Marjah has proven to be a "fiasco," as Taliban groups "re-infiltrate the area," in the absence of a competent and non-corrupt Afghan government, police, and military. Engelhardt refers "to a report by the International Council on Security and Development...," which finds "the local population [in Marjah] is far more hostile about NATO forces after" the US-led attacks than before them.

Engelhardt stresses that the US occupation and escalation cannot succeed without an effective Afghan government "partner," and without well-trained, honest, and reliable Afghan police and army troops.

Any vision of winning some sort of American hegemony in Afghanistan (and Pakistan) is losing credibility, at great expense and destructiveness. That's a tragedy. That it is has something to do with ridding the world of Islamic extremists or Islamic insurgents appears more and more like a "farce."

US Afghan policy not working

Gareth Porter compiles evidence that the US counterinsurgency strategy is not working in the targeted Afghan provinces of Helmand and Kandahar.

The US then is left with a limited number of options. More counterinsurgency, i.e., more of the same. As one of Porter's informants notes, this may mean keeping US troops in Afghanistan for more years than planned. This option has the feeling of quagmire. Negotiating with key Taliban leaders, with an agreed upon end to the US-led occupation and war. This would mean that the US would have to alter its demonizing rhetoric and "the war on terrorism." Shift in tactics from mostly military to more, or mostly, economic and humanitarian assistance. Would probably require an international plan. A plan for the withdrawal of US troops. That's what we have favored.

What about the larger US geopolitical interests? If US planners decided to withdraw from Afghanistan, they would then have to take a harder look at the US economy itself and the growing dependence on petroleum and other resources. What are the alternatives in this regard? And is it likely that a major turn toward the creation of a truly green domestic economy could represent one step toward a less militarized and unequal international system?

One thing is pretty certain: We can't afford more war or ever-increasing dependence on foreign oil and other foreign resources.

---------------------------

Doubts Grow Even in the Pentagon
McChrystal's Afghan War Plan Unravels
By GARETH PORTER

Counter Punch, May 11, 2010
http://counterpunch.org/porter05112010.html

Although Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal's plan for wresting the Afghan provinces of Helmand and Kandahar from the Taliban is still in its early stages of implementation, there are already signs that setbacks and obstacles it has encountered have raised serious doubts among top military officials in Washington about whether the plan is going to work.

Scepticism about McChrystal's ambitious aims was implicit in the way the Pentagon report on the war issued Apr. 26 assessed the progress of the campaign in Marja. Now, it has been given even more pointed expression by an unnamed "senior military official" quoted in a column in the Washington Post Sunday by David Ignatius.

The senior military officer criticised McChrystal's announcement in February that he had "a government in a box, ready to roll in" for the Marja campaign, for having created "an expectation of rapidity and efficiency that doesn't exist now", according to Ignatius.

The same military official is also quoted as pointing out that parts of Helmand that were supposed to have been cleared by the offensive in February and March are in fact still under Taliban control and that Afghan government performance in the wake of the offensive had been disappointing, according to Ignatius.

The outlook at the Pentagon and the White House on the nascent Kandahar offensive is also pessimistic, judging from the comment to Ignatius by an unnamed "senior administration official". The official told Ignatius the operation is "still a work in progress", observing that McChrystal's command was still trying to decide how much of the local government the military could "salvage" and how much "you have to rebuild".

That is an obvious reference to the dilemma faced by the U.S. military in Kandahar: the entire government structure is controlled by Ahmed Wali Karzai, the much-despised brother of President Hamid Karzai. The U.S.-supported provincial governor now being counted on to introduce governance reforms, on the other hand, is generally regarded by Kandaharis as powerless, as Jonathan Partlow reported in the Washington Post Apr. 29.

These negative comments on the campaign in Helmand and Kandahar by senior Washington officials pointing to problems with McChrystal's plan suggest that even more serious concerns are being expressed behind the scenes.

The Pentagon report on the war betrays similar doubts about the strategy being carried out by McChrystal, both by what it highlights and what it fails to say. Damning with faint praise, the report says the offensive waged in the Marja region and elsewhere in Helmand achieved only "some success in clearing insurgents from their strongholds".

Paralleling the quote from the "senior military official", the report says progress in "governance and development" in has been "slow". Demonstrating that the Afghan government could provide "governance and development" had been announced as the central aim of the offensive in Marja.
The section of the Pentagon report on the state of the insurgency goes even further toward declaring that the McChrystal plan had failed to achieve a central objective, concluding that the Taliban strategy for countering the offensive "has proven effective in slowing the spread of governance and development".

The key finding is that the Taliban have "reinfiltrated the cleared areas" of Helmand and "dissuaded locals from meeting with the Afghan government" by executing some who had initially collaborated.

The overall negative tone of the analysis of what happened in Helmand appears to reflect a decision by Pentagon officials to withhold its vote of confidence in the McChrystal war plan.
The only feature of McChrystal's strategy which the Pentagon report treats as having proven effective against the insurgents is its most controversial element: the programme of Special Operations Forces (SOF) night raids against suspected Taliban in their homes, which has stirred anger among Afghans everywhere the SOF have operated.

In an indirect expression of doubt about the impact of the McChrystal strategy, the report suggests that the willingness of Taliban insurgent leaders to negotiate will be influenced not by the offensives aimed at separating the population from the Taliban but by the "combined effects" of the high-level arrests of Taliban leaders in Pakistan and targeted raids by special operations forces against "lower level commanders".

In fact, Taliban leaders have already indicated a readiness to negotiate, although not on terms the Barack Obama administration is yet prepared to accept.

McChrystal appears to have responded to the setbacks he has encountered in Helmand and Kandahar by setting aside his most ambitious counterinsurgency aim: the creation of a large zone of control covering both provinces. In late January, an official working for McChrystal at the ISAF told IPS, "The first thing you'll see is an effort to establish a contiguous security zone in Helmand and Kandahar accounting for 85 percent of the economic resources."

McChrystal referred to that same aim in his interview with the Financial Times published Jan. 25. "If we can protect 85 percent of the people and deny access to them from the insurgents, it's pretty hard for them to have a significant effect," he said.

But since the end of the Marja operation, neither McChrystal nor any other ISAF official has said anything about a plan to establish a "contiguous security zone".

McChrystal has to provide a one-year assessment of the progress of his strategy in December 2010, and senior administration officials told the Washington Post in late March that he will have to show that the "overall transition to stability and vastly improved governance" has been completed by that time.

McChrystal was confident in a talk in Kabul in late January excerpted in a NATO video that, by December, he would be able to "show with hard numbers and things, real progress".
But the failure to clear Taliban guerrillas from areas where they have been strongest, along with the inability to break the power of Karzai's brother in Kandahar and the absence of support from the population and tribal elders for military occupation in the province, is likely to make administration officials highly sceptical of such a case.

McChrystal's staff has made no secret of their hope to convince the U.S. public that his strategy is making such progress in Helmand and Kandahar that it should be extended past mid-2011, when President Obama has said he would begin a U.S. military withdrawal and transition to Afghan responsibility for security.

After interviewing members of McChrystal's team in Kabul, pro-war journalist Robert Kaplan wrote in the April issue of Atlantic magazine, "The very prospect of some success by July 2011 increases the likelihood that U.S. forces will be in Afghanistan in substantial numbers for years."

Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist with Inter-Press Service specialising in U.S. national security policy. The paperback edition of his latest book, "Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam", was published in 2006.