Old military hardware in a new bottle
By Aunohita Mojumdar
KABUL - Obama's call for a fresh approach to Afghanistan and his promise of
allocating greater resources have all but obscured the fact that Washington
remains focused on its strategic military interests and the exit strategy,
goals not synonymous with the interests of Afghans or long-term stability in
the region. The added danger this time round is that the use of soft power -
diplomacy and aid initiatives that kept a counterbalance to the military
perspective - may now be reduced to handmaidens in the aid of strategic
military aims.
One does not have to go much further than last month's White Paper outlining
the Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy to understand the Obama administration's main
tactical aims in Afghanistan. The "core goal of the US", the paper states,
"must be to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al-Qaeda and its safe havens in
Pakistan
and to prevent their return to Pakistan or Afghanistan". This core has been
reiterated time and again at different levels by senior administration
officials, but continues to be ignored by other members of the international
community. Desperate for some signs of a positive change, other donor
countries, the United Nations (UN) and even the Afghan government have
cherry-picked the parts of the Obama strategy that suit their contentions.
While President Hamid Karzai dwelt on the US recognition that the theater of
war would now extend to Pakistan, the UN's top man in Afghanistan, Kai Eide,
focused on the "greater balance between the military and civilian sides".
Indeed the White Paper has something for everyone. The hold-all strategy lays
out a number of simultaneous aims that include bolstering governance, economic
aid, building political institutions and establishing the rule of law. What
analysts are ignoring, however, is that the Obama administration has already
signaled its priorities within the wish list it has spelt out and these remain
focused on short-term tactical military advantages.
A focus on the military strategy itself does not presage an undermining of
other goals. The evidence for that lies in the details: the budgetary details,
the tools of implementation, a high tolerance for operating procedures that
result in violence against civilians, and a "hearts and minds" campaign that
impacts on the ability of aid workers to deliver independent aid. The evidence
also lies in hints about the apparent willingness to compromise on some aspects
of fundamental democratic and human-rights principles.
Obama's core goals are a reiteration of the early goals of the Bush era before
it got into the messy business of "nation-building". The means it uses to
achieve these may also merely result in an expanded version of the George W
Bush administration's toolbox.
Take the talk of a civilian surge. At best the number of civilians who are
going to be sent by Washington will number in the hundreds, not the thousands
that the "military surge" entails. Moreover, according to the office of the
Special Inspector General for Afghanistan's Reconstruction in the US
administration, the 215 civilian posts are related to the expansion of the
civilian-military provincial reconstruction teams (PRT), ie the civilian and
aid workers will be embedded within the military bases. The decision to expand
the PRTs comes at a time when 11 reputable international non-governmental
organizations (NGOs), with a track record of years of consistent work in
Afghanistan, have called for a phasing out of the PRTs. The NGOs Oxfam, Care,
Action Aid, Save the Children and others have joined hands to express concern
that the continued delivery of humanitarian and development aid through the
military component has not only been ineffective but is continuing to intensify
the danger to the operations of civilian agencies working on the ground.
While the PRTs were set up as a means of reaching out to areas where the
civilian agencies had not been able to reach, the intensifying conflict since
2005 has fundamentally altered that role. The heavy fighting has meant that
soldiers engaged in fighting are also delivering aid, blurring the lines
between the civilian and military and eroding the neutrality that aid workers
depend on for effective and safe delivery of aid.
There appears to be a willful disregard of the need to maintain this
distinction. Though the international military forces have signed onto the May
2008 Afghanistan National Civilian Military guidelines, they have not followed
them. The UN, which is expected to play the role of coordinator, has also not
fulfilled its mandate. "It is profoundly regrettable that for over a year the
UN took few steps to fulfill this important responsibility" said a report on
civilians caught in conflict released earlier this month by this group of NGOs.
Some examples of the disregard are in the unwillingness of military forces to
carry clear identification, the military's continued use of unmarked white
vehicles that are universally used by humanitarian workers, and the location of
military facilities and the passage of military convoys in urban areas.
Rather than emphasizing the need for the neutrality in aid delivery, many of
the major donors have tended to pour their money into the PRTs. As fighting has
intensified, donor money has also followed the troops, with some of the largest
donors like the US, Britain and Canada routing substantive chunks of their
money into the provinces where their troops are fighting. In the existing
conditions the aid money has come to resemble pacification tactics: money that
is expected to win the hearts and minds battle and mitigate the fallout of the
intense fighting.
Humanitarian and aid agencies talk of the difficulty of getting donor money.
"We are feeling the pull on our sleeve from the military tent and the political
tent", said Dave Hampson of Save the Children UK, adding "we are not being
funded on the basis of humanitarian need".
The $75.5 billion for Afghanistan and Iraq in the Supplemental Appropriations
Request for 2009 has been widely reported. Less reported is the fine print: $38
billion will fund ongoing military operations, $11.6 billion is for equipment,
$3.6 billion is for the Afghan security forces and $3.1 billion for
counter-terrorism operations. Only $1.6 billion will go towards economic
assistance for Afghanistan, a portion of it for supporting additional civilian
personnel and diplomatic operations. Only $170 million is earmarked to support
economic growth in Afghanistan, including agriculture sector development.
An example of the preference for routing funds through the military is evident
in the figures for the US Commander's Emergency Response Program (CERP). In
2008, this was close to $0.5 billion, which exceeds the total amount the Afghan
government spends on health and education. The supplementary budget provides
for an additional $0.5 billion in additional funds to continue the CERP "which
enables US military commanders to respond to urgent, humanitarian relief and
reconstruction needs in their areas of responsibility".
With a former military commander, General Karl Eikenberry, nominated in March
as the next US ambassador to Afghanistan, will the emphasis on using aid to
buttress military strategy undergo any change?
The tolerance for civilian casualties is another example of how the long-term
goal of stability and security of the civilian population is being compromised
for short-term military goals. "Corollary damage" - that euphemistic term for
civilian casualties from use of excessive use of force - has grown not
diminished. In the year 2008, a year when the international military forces
reportedly changed their operating methods to minimize civilian casualties, the
number of deaths from air strikes by international military forces rose by 72%
over the previous year, with a 40% increase in the use of aerial munitions.
According to the NGO report, almost 60% of the civilian deaths caused by
international military forces were attributable to American-led forces serving
in Operation Enduring Freedom.
The NGOs have also expressed concern about the possible adverse fallout of the
presence of an increased number of international troops on the civilian
population. They are calling for significant changes in the operating
procedures of the international military forces.
US policy makers have made much of not creating a "Valhalla" in Afghanistan,
speaking of shorter goal posts and lowered ambitions. There are fears here that
these could represent a willingness to compromise on essential human and
democratic rights in exchange for a measure of illusory "stability".
A resurgent conservatism has provided a useful tool for political mobilization
amongst a section of powerful political powerbrokers. Debate within the
international community has also shifted. It now speaks of the need for
"Afghanisation" and to respect Afghanistan's culture. There has been increasing
rhetoric around the fact that Afghanistan does not need to replicate the model
of democracy. While such talk is always made with deference to the country's
constitution, the recent controversy over the Shia bill - that would return
Taliban-style restrictions on women - has shown that the constitution is only
as good as its implementers and no bulwark to the erosion of basic rights.
Aspects of women's rights, democracy, media freedoms and cultural tolerance are
increasingly being labeled as "foreign concepts" by a powerful section of
Afghan leaders. The international community has largely left this unchallenged.
Long before Afghanistan's citizens can lay claim to the basic rights of life
and liberty, the debate now centers around the need to curtail these rights in
accordance with Afghanistan's traditions.
President Bush was castigated for the US policy of supporting predatory
warlords with untenable human-rights records. There are no signs that this
policy will change. Individual commanders with poor track records continue to
be propped up by the US administration on the grounds of being 'can do guys'
that the Obama administration feels it can do business with. The world view and
ideologies of some of these so-called leaders have little to differentiate them
from that of many of the Taliban on several counts.
Little wonder then that negotiations with the Taliban are increasingly being
touted as a way out of the current morass. If hard-won democratic freedoms and
human rights are bartered in exchange, it will undoubtedly be dubbed "the
Afghan way" of doing things. After all the US has long been quite comfortable
with authoritarian undemocratic regimes, as long as they are seen to be on the
American side.
Aunohita Mojumdar is an Indian journalist who is currently based in
Kabul. She has reported on the South Asian region for 16 years and has covered
the Kashmir conflict and post-conflict situation in Punjab extensively.
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