Page 1 of 2 Plus and minus: How to win in Afghanistan
By Tariq Ali
Afghanistan has been almost continuously at war for 30 years, longer than both
World Wars and the American war in Vietnam combined. Each occupation of the
country has mimicked its predecessor. A tiny interval between wars saw the
imposition of a malignant social order, the Taliban, with the help of the
Pakistani military and the late Benazir Bhutto, the prime minister who approved
the Taliban takeover in Kabul.
Over the past two years, the United States/North Atlantic Treaty Organization
occupation of that country has run into serious military problems. Given a
severe global economic crisis and the election of a new American president - a
man separated in style, intellect and temperament from his predecessor - the
possibility of a serious discussion about an exit strategy from the Afghan
disaster hovers on the horizon. The predicament the US and its
allies find themselves in is not an inescapable one, but a change in policy, if
it is to matter, cannot be of the cosmetic variety.
Washington's hawks will argue that, while bad, the military situation is, in
fact, still salvageable. This may be technically accurate, but it would require
the carpet-bombing of southern Afghanistan and parts of Pakistan, the
destruction of scores of villages and small towns, the killing of untold
numbers of Pashtuns and the dispatch to the region of at least 200,000 more
troops with all their attendant equipment, air, and logistical support. The
political consequences of such a course are so dire that even Vice President
Dick Cheney, the closest thing to Dr Strangelove that Washington has yet
produced, has been uncharacteristically cautious when it comes to suggesting a
military solution to the conflict.
It has, by now, become obvious to the Pentagon that Afghan President Hamid
Karzai and his family cannot deliver what is required, and yet it is probably
far too late to replace him with United Nations ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad. On
his part, fighting for his political (and probably physical) existence, Karzai
continues to protect his brother Ahmad Wali Karzai, who has been accused of
being involved in the country's staggering drug trade, but has belatedly sacked
Hamidullah Qadri, his transport minister, for corruption. Qadri was alleged to
have taken massive kickbacks from a company flying pilgrims to Mecca. Is
nothing sacred?
A deteriorating situation
Of course, axing one minister is like whistling in the wind given the levels of
corruption reported in Karzai's government, which, in any case, controls little
of the country. The Afghan president parries Washington's thrusts by blaming
the US military for killing too many civilians from the air. The bombing of the
village of Azizabad in Herat province in August, which led to 91 civilian
deaths (of which 60 were children), was only the most extreme of such recent
acts. Karzai's men, hurriedly dispatched to distribute sweets and supplies to
the survivors, were stoned by angry villagers.
Given the thousands of Afghans killed in recent years, it is small wonder that
support for the neo-Taliban is increasing, even in non-Pashtun areas of the
country. Many Afghans hostile to the old Taliban still support the resistance
simply to make it clear that they are against the helicopters and missile-armed
unmanned aerial drones that destroy homes, and to "Big Daddy" who wipes out
villages, and to the flames that devour children.
In February, Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell presented a
bleak survey of the situation on the ground to the House Permanent Select
Committee on Intelligence:
Afghan leaders must deal with the endemic
corruption and pervasive poppy cultivation and drug trafficking. Ultimately,
defeating the insurgency will depend heavily on the government's ability to
improve security, deliver services, and expand development for economic
opportunity.
Although the international forces and the Afghan National Army continue to
score tactical victories over the Taliban, the security situation has
deteriorated in some areas in the south and Taliban forces have expanded their
operations into previously peaceful areas of the west and around Kabul. The
Taliban insurgency has expanded in scope despite operational disruption caused
by the ISAF [NATO forces] and Operation Enduring Freedom operations. The death
or capture of three top Taliban leaders last year - their first high-level
losses - does not yet appear to have significantly disrupted insurgent
operations.
Since then the situation has only deteriorated
further, leading to calls for sending in yet more American and NATO troops -
and deeper divisions inside NATO itself.
In recent months, Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, the British ambassador to Kabul,
wrote a French colleague (in a leaked memo) that the war was lost and more
troops were not a solution, a view reiterated recently by Air Marshal Sir Jock
Stirrup, the British defense chief, who came out in public against a
one-for-one transfer of troops withdrawn from Iraq to Kabul. He put it this
way:
I think we would all take some persuading that there would have to
be a much larger British contingent there ... So we also have to get ourselves
back into balance; it's crucial that we reduce the operational tempo for our
armed forces, so it cannot be, even if the situation demanded it, just a one
for one transfer from Iraq to Afghanistan, we have to reduce that tempo.
The Spanish government is considering an Afghan withdrawal and there is serious
dissent within the German and Norwegian foreign policy elites. The Canadian
foreign minister has already announced that his country will not extend its
Afghan commitment beyond 2011. And even if the debates in the Pentagon have not
been aired in public, it's becoming obvious that, in Washington, too, some see
the war as unwinnable.
Enter former Iraq commander General David Petraeus, center stage as the new
Central Command commander. Ever since the "success" of the "surge" he oversaw
in Iraq (a process designed to create temporary stability in that ravaged land
by buying off the opposition and, among other things, the selective use of
death squads), Petraeus sounds, and behaves, more and more like Lazarus on
returning from the dead - and before his body could be closely inspected.
The situation in Iraq was so dire that even a modest reduction in casualties
was seen as a massive leap forward. With increasing outbreaks of violence in
Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq, however, the talk of success sounds ever
hollower. To launch a new "surge" in Afghanistan now by sending more troops
there will simply not work, not even as a public relations triumph. Perhaps
some of the 100 advisers that Petraeus has just appointed will point this out
to him in forceful terms.
Flight path to disaster
President-elect Barack Obama would be foolish to imagine that Petraeus can work
a miracle cure in Afghanistan. The cancer has spread too far and is affecting
US troops as well. If the American media chose to interview active-duty
soldiers in Afghanistan (on promise of anonymity), they might get a more
accurate picture of what is happening inside the US Army there.
I learned a great deal from Jules, a 20-year-old American soldier I met
recently in Canada. He became so disenchanted with the war that he decided to
go absent without leave, proving - at least to himself - that the Afghan
situation was not an inescapable predicament. Many of his fellow soldiers, he
claims, felt similarly, hating a war that dehumanized both them and the
Afghans. "We
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