Military policy in Afghanistan
'barking mad' By Sanjay Suri
LONDON - There have been critics enough of
the US-led military actions under way in
Afghanistan, but now military commanders, too,
have begun to question just what they are doing in
Afghanistan.
Most prominently, an officer
who was an aide to the British forces in Helmand,
the southern district of Afghanistan that has
witnessed the strongest fighting between the
Taliban and international forces, has come out
with strong criticism of the
British army in Afghanistan -
and quit the army.
Captain Leo Docherty
said the British campaign in Helmand province was
"a textbook case of how to screw up a
counterinsurgency". His statements came in an open
letter that was reported in the British media -
but not followed up in much public debate.
The officer raised the fundamental
question of the development of Afghanistan arising
from the campaign to capture Sangin town in
Helmand, a military campaign in which he
participated. Docherty says British troops managed
to capture the Taliban stronghold, but then had
nothing to offer by way of development.
"The military is just one side of the
triangle," he said. "Where were the Department for
International Development and the Foreign Office?"
As forces sat back with little to offer, the
Taliban hit back and British troops there were
bunkered up and under daily attack, he wrote. "Now
the ground has been lost and all we're doing in
places like Sangin is surviving," said Docherty.
"It's completely barking mad."
And such
action is only provoking greater support for the
Taliban, he warned. "All those people whose homes
have been destroyed and sons killed are going to
turn against the British. It's a pretty clear
equation - if people are losing homes and poppy
fields, they will go and fight. I certainly
would." He added that British troops had been
"grotesquely clumsy" in their operations, and that
the military policy was "pretty shocking and not
something I want to be part of".
Development and rights groups have for
long been critical of an exclusively military
intervention. They have warned also that military
action of this kind appears to local Afghans as
part of a larger Western assault on the Muslim
world.
"There were windows of opportunity
for collaboration five years ago between the West
and Muslim countries, but the window of
opportunity is closed now, that is for sure," said
Emmanuel Reinert, head of the Senlis Council, an
independent group studying the effects of drug
policies in Afghanistan.
"We can still
reopen it, but we need to show that we are going
to change our ways," he said. "There has to be a
clear change in our approach, a change of
management."
There is little promise that
will happen. The United States has been struggling
to get more soldiers into Afghanistan to bolster
the international force. The emphasis on
strengthening the military rather than raising
resources for development is only getting
enhanced.
Human development by way of
improved rights for women is in fact becoming a
casualty of the military operations - after
declarations that human development was one of the
goals of the Afghanistan intervention, besides
countering terrorism.
The Senlis Council
has reported starvation conditions in several
parts of southern Afghanistan. And this is only
increasing support for the Taliban, and
potentially for terrorism, too.
The
increased military presence is not always helping
the military, either. Another British army officer
said in a leaked e-mail that the air force was
"utterly, utterly useless" in protecting troops on
the ground in Afghanistan. The air force has been
called in as ground troops face increased attacks
from the Taliban.
Such military voices
from the front in Afghanistan are in alarming tune
with warnings from groups such as the Senlis
Council. Some soldiers are talking the language of
development now more than governments are.
The new voices from Washington suggest
increased pressure on Pakistan to cease military
support for the Taliban, under pressure from
visiting Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Much of
the future of Afghanistan could depend on
decisions - or the lack of them - on increasing
development support for the country.
