THE COMMITMENT OF ADDITIONAL FORCES IN AFGHANISTAN LOOKS LIKE A LOSING PROPOSITION FOR U.S.
WE ARE COMBATING AN ELUSIVE AND UNTRACEABLE ENEMY THAT FIGHTS BY DIFFERENT RULES OF ENGAGEMENT
IN DEFENSE OF A GOVERNMENT [ACTUALLY TWO—AFGHANISTAN AND PAKISTAN] RACKED WITH CORRUPTION AND HELD IN CONTEMPT BY ITS CITIZENS
It has got to be nearly impossible to win a conflict when the people of that land hate foreigners “occupying” their sacred soil and simultaneously believe the “occupier” to be in cahoots with a government they know is thoroughly corrupt, that does not have their best interest at heart and is ripping off every dollar of foreign aid designed to improve their lives for the sole purpose of the top dogs in leadership positions.
If, indeed, this is a battle against our sworn enemy, al Qaeda, and its leader Osama bin Laden, why do they successfully regain control of areas of the country from which we drove them and their sponsors, the Taliban, out but a few years ago?
Yes, Yes, we all want to see al Qaeda destroyed, broken into irreplaceable little pieces never to be put back together again.
Like the rhyme Humpty Dumpty tells us—
“Humpty Dumpty sat of a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All of the king’s horses,
And all the king’s men,
Couldn’t put Humpty together again.”
That is precisely what most Americans would like to see. After all, these infidels, these godless villains killed nearly 3,000 innocent people on 9/11in the very interior of our largest city. We will never forget that day and the shock that spread across this land like black, ferociously swirling cone shaped tornado that landed deep in the very heart of every one of us. Because other than Pearl Harbor, no enemy of this nation had ever successfully attacked us; a handful of crazy young men who no longer cared about living, and, in fact, looked forward to dying with great anticipation where they were convinced they would be the proud inheritors of seventy (70) young virgins and be given a seat of honor at the table of Allah
From 9/11 I have supported the war President Bush instigated against the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan. Few American argued with the Bush administration’s decision to pursue the murderous enemies whose organization was responsible for the deaths of nearly 3,000 citizens in New York’s World Trade Center.
What we did not comprehend and probably never will, was why American soldiers and our massive war machine was suddenly redeployed to Iraq with a hurried invasion of the kingdom of Saddam Hussein in his capital of Baghdad.
Suddenly, the authentic enemies, the genuine invaders, the legally responsible murderers were left to their old ways of killing innocent people believed to be their opponents, of raising money for a major event that kills hundreds of blameless victims in a major complex somewhere in a unsuspecting city al Qaeda deems to be an adversary.
After eight years of fruitless fighting and bloodshed we have deemed it time to withdraw our forces from Iraq and dispatch some of them, i.e. men and war gear to Afghanistan and the remainder to other military locations around the world [and for some unwarranted reason we have at least 1000 military installations today].
Let us all remember that the surge so widely heralded as an overwhelming victory—was no such thing. The war between Sunni and Shiites will go on as long as the earth circles the sun. Fourteen hundred years of hatred cannot be erased with the cessation of “occupation’ by the U. S. or the redeployment of one hundred and thirty thousand American troops off of what to them—is their sacred soil.
I do not have the same confidence in Commanding General Stanley McChrystal and particularly in his proposed strategy that I had in General David Petraeus. And while the Petraeus did not bring an end to the killing in Iraq [even today, a roadside IED killed dozens of people in Iraq] nor did he bring an end to the conflict between the Kurds, the Sunnis and the Shiites, the quantity of deaths have decreased dramatically since the U. S. pullback. However, the religious “war,” the ancient loathing between the three Islamic sects will never vanish which, if true, means that killings will be written into the future of Iraq’s history as long as the nation exists.
We are being asked by McChrystal to send 20,000, then 40,000, and from time to time I have heard reports that he is requesting as many as 80,000 additional troops. To be candid, I do not care if he sends anything less than 300,000 troops (which we do not have available) and place them strategically on the Afghanistan-Pakistani border which we know al Qaeda considers its private domain and are permitted to do so because neither the Afghanistan military nor the Pakistan Army invest enough military power to stop the back and forth traffic on these narrow, mountainous, dusty roads al Qaeda’s adherents traverse on a daily basis.
We can not defeat al Qaeda in a way American’s are accustomed to comprehending the word “defeat.” There will never be a winner. Al Qaeda will never disappear. There are too many embittered people who live in countries in the Middle East and Asia where governments are in power that have done nothing but steal from the poor to give to the rich, where few politicians, if any in any country, are committed to enhancing the lives of the millions who suffer under their reign.
These people see massive corruption in all levels of government, justice comes at a terrible price if it comes at all [not too unlike how justice is doled out in the good old U. S. A.] and the basic needs—shelter, water, power, medical facilities, schools, and the like are so far down on the list of their politicians’ “to do list” that they are barely noticed.
How can 20 or 40 or 80,000 troops make a difference if we do not work both sides of Afghan/Pakistani boundaries? And how can we even dream of creating a truly democratic country when the president of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and the president of Pakistani People’s Party and President of Pakistan are both up to their necks in corruption. That is the only way this part of the world operates.
And the corruption which the people see every day of their lives, which has inhabited the streets and alleys of both Islamabad and Kabul and most other capitals of the region forever gives no solace to the average man who is forced to live in a mud hut with a straw roof if he lives in a rural area and survives because of the generosity not of the government, but of al Qaeda and other political and religious groups vying for his support.
In the cities, the families of the average man on the street literally lives on the streets or in uninhabited rooms that are crowded with as many people as they can cram into a small space in a old building with broken glass windows, slabs of paint [if the space and hallways are painted at all] is falling from the ceilings and walls, dirt more often than not is the carpet of necessity, and they eat what little food they can beg, borrow or steal.
This brand of warfare requires “special forces” trained to function particularly in this type of topography, to sustain themselves in this type of life style that drop in and out of the cracks and crevasses the al Qaeda forces call home. It is not in the numbers of troops, it is in the training of the troops.
Meanwhile, we need sophisticated trainers to teach in rapid fire order how to fight this brand of war and to see that they are paid sufficiently to have an incentive to fight for their corrupted and undeserving countries.
The U. S. should not invest one more dollar or the life of one more of our soldiers while the wholly corrupt government of President Karzai of Afghanistan is in office. We cannot win friends and influence the minds of the people of that country as long as they believe that we are partners in crime with Karzai. Obama knows that. McChrystal knows that. It sounds to me like this general is trying to wage the old fashioned war that is not longer winnable.
I was pleased to see that Obama committed $7.5 billion to Pakistan. But we must have advisors with their eye on every dollar to insure that it is spent for the betterment of the people, the training and pay of the military and does not go within 100 feet of any government official’s pocket.
President Zardari of Pakistan is the husband of Benazir Bhutto who was assassinated by what is believed to be an arm of al Qaeda. While he has been up to his neck in suspicious activity, he is probably more trustworthy than any other of the leading Pakistani politicians.
The investment that Obama is making in Pakistan is a very smart move. Pakistan is a far more vital link in our war with al Qaeda than Afghanistan. As Fareed Zakaria, an international columnist for NewsWeek Magazine wrote in his piece in the October 19, 2009 issue, “Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen recently acknowledged what U. S. intelligence and all independent observers have long said: Al Qaeda is in Pakistan, as is the leadership of the hard-core Afghan Taliban…All attacks against Western targets that have emanated from the region in the past eight years have come from Pakistan and not Afghanistan.”
And yet, until Obama’s recent move, the U. S. was spending $30 in Afghanistan for every dollar in Pakistan.
Zakaria persuasively that the U. S. is not failing in Afghanistan. We had one main objective, he says, “to deny Al Qaeda the means to reconstitute, train, and plan major terror attacks. This mission has been largely successful for the past eight years. Al Qaeda is dispersed, on the run, and unable to direct attacks of the kind it planned and executed routinely in the 1990’s. Fourteen of the top 20 leaders of the group have been killed by drone attacks. Its funding sources are drying up and its political appeal is at an all-time low…”
William Polk, in an article in The Nation’s October 19, 2009 edition entitled “An Open Letter to President Obama.” makes this quite interesting statement: “Afghanistan has always baffled foreign invaders. After three attempts from 1842 to 1919 to rule it, the British gave up; at the end of a decade of costly war, the Russians did as well. Neither understood the complex social and political makeup of the country Without doing so, we cannot hope to accomplish our objectives, so let me highlight the main points.”
“As insurgents, the Taliban remain formidable foes. Our chances of defeating them are poor. Indeed, some independent observers believe they are becoming more popular while we are becoming less popular. They, and many non-Taliban Afghans, regard us, as they regarded the Russians, as foreign, anti-Muslim invaders. Moreover, they see that the government we are backing is corrupt and rapacious. Observers report that it is deeply involved in the drug trade, stealing aid money and even selling U. S. supplied arms to the Taliban (as the South Vietnamese government did to the Vietcong). Moreover, it is ineffective: its writ hardly runs outside Kabul. Most of the country is in the hands of brutal, predatory warlords. The Karzai government will not last long after our withdrawal—that was the fate of the Soviet puppet government there and of our puppet government in Saigon. Forced to choose between warlords and the Taliban, Afghans are likely to choose the Taliban. As Gen. Stanley McChrystal has said, ‘Key groups have become nostalgic for the security and justice Taliban rule provided.’ Thus, we are courting long-term strategic defeat.”
Polk makes another very crucial statement: “Even in the tactical short run, I believe, trying to defeat the Taliban is not in America’s interest. The harder we try, the more likely terrorism will be to increase and spread. As the history of every insurgency demonstrates, the more foreign boots there are on the ground and the harder the foreigners fight, the more hatred they endanger.”
He concluded with this profound statement:”…as long as we are there, the war will continue, with disastrous consequences for the things you [President Obama] want to do and we Americans need you to do. We must not follow Britain and Russia into Afghanistan’s quicksand.”
The president is about to make one of the most important decisions of his presidency. Of course, the military wants more troops because ignorant of history and driven by the deeply imbedded need to “win the war,” it is hard to find any general who will contradict the field commander. However, the president is the Commander-in-Chief and he is the president of all of the people. If he says “no” to McChrystal the right wing and the hard right wing will go into hysteria. Remember, these are the people who dragged us into Iraq.
Remember also that we are in a serious financial crisis; we cannot afford the $3-6 trillion some have estimated it will cost us to successfully take the war to the al Qaeda and that is without winning.
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