October’s B-side
October’s B-side continues to focus on the scourge that is America’s continued influence in Pakistan, even her indirect rule of Pakistan. The much lauded and derided Kerry-Lugar bill is a key focus in the B-side whilst two alternative strategies for ending the occupation by America of Afghanistan are explored.
October’s B-side contents include:
- With Friends Like the US, Pakistan Doesnt Need Enemies by SIMON TISDALL
- Don’t Try to Arrest the Sea: An Alternative Approach to Afghanistan by MEHAR OMAR KHAN
- 10 Steps to Victory in Afghanistan by VARIOUS NEW YORK TIMES COMMENTATORS
The first article is written by the Simon Tisdall who is the assistant editor of the respected British daily The Guardian and a respected foreign policy commentator. The title of the article is indicative of its contents and it is well worth a read.
With Friends Like the US, Pakistan Doesnt Need Enemies by Simon Tisdall
As the Obama administration dithers over what to do for the best in Afghanistan, neighbouring Pakistan is paying an increasingly heavy price. Like a spate of previous Taliban attacks in recent days, today’s mayhem in Lahore underscored fears that the principal consequence of Washington’s Afghan paralysis, albeit unintended, is the further destabilisation of the Pakistani state.
Pakistanis might be forgiven for wondering whether, with friends like these in Washington, who needs enemies? The rumbling row over a $7.5bn, five-year US aid package is a case in point. Imperious conditions attached to the bill by a Congress reluctant to send more unaccounted billions “down a rat hole”, as Democrat Howard Berman charmingly put it, were condemned as insulting and colonialist in Pakistan.
By linking the cash to tighter civilian control of Pakistan’s military, Washington was trying, clumsily, to strengthen Asif Ali Zardari’s government. But it achieved the exact opposite. The president was accused of failing to defend the country’s sovereignty, much as he has failed to halt escalating American cross-border air raids, and the occasional covert ground incursion, on targets inside Pakistan.
After hurried consultations in Washington, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Pakistan’s foreign minister, obtained an “explanatory document” from Congress this week that he said effectively waived some of the bill’s more objectionable caveats. But this is unlikely to silence critics who draw on deep anti-American sentiment among the Pakistani public dating back to the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan and the launch of George Bush’s “global war on terror”.
“Poll after poll shows Pakistanis increasingly do fear the threat posed by Islamic extremists … but they believe the US is an even bigger danger to their country,” Bruce Riedel of the Brookings Institution was quoted as saying this week. Many Pakistanis rated the threat posed by the US to their independence and security above that from historical foe India, he said. “Any time you out-poll India as the bad guy in Pakistan you are in deep trouble.”
Intense Obama administration pressure on Pakistan to root out the Tehrik-e-Taliban (Taliban Movement of Pakistan), close allies and collaborators of the Afghan Taliban, resulted in this spring’s costly military offensive in Swat, in North West Frontier province, which displaced hundreds of thousands of civilians.
Yet the Swat campaign is likely to be dwarfed by an imminent Pakistani army offensive in South Waziristan, in the ungoverned tribal areas adjacent to Afghanistan. Although senior Pakistani officials deny they are doing Washington’s bidding, it’s no secret that US commanders are increasingly focused on both sides of Afghanistan’s eastern border with Pakistan, where Taliban militants and their foreign jihadi and al-Qaida allies have staked out common ground ignoring national boundaries.
Pakistan’s Taliban leader, Hakimullah Mehsud, who replaced Baitullah Mehsud after the latter was killed in a US drone missile strike in August, said in a recent video that attacks such as today’s in Lahore would quickly cease if the government stopped behaving like a US lackey and broke its American alliance. If that happened, Mehsud said he would turn his guns on India, presumably in Kashmir. To many Pakistanis, that may not sound such a bad idea.
The realisation that Washington is stoking a conflict approaching all-out civil war is gradually dawning in the US. New York Post columnist Ralph Peters drew a comparison with post-invasion Iraq. “Civil war never quite happened [there]. Yet no one seems to notice that we’re now caught up in two authentic civil wars – one in Afghanistan, the other in Pakistan,” he said. By lumping the two together in one “Afpak” policy, the Obama administration had effectively made both problems worse.
Neither extra US troops, nor extra aid, nor more “hugs-not-slugs counterinsurgency nonsense” was the answer, Peters argued. “The only hope for either beleaguered territory (these really are territories, not authentic states) is a decision by its own population to fight and defeat the Taliban.”
The impulse, fanned by this sort of imperial hubris, to get out of Afghanistan, or at least to narrow the fight to a counter-terrorism campaign against al-Qaida, has gathered US adherents in recent months. But a Washington Post editorial argued this week that with al-Qaida much reduced, the Taliban in both countries now constituted the main enemy. Pakistan was moving towards “full-scale war”, it said. Pulling back in Afghanistan could have disastrous, possibly fatal consequences there, too.
By this measure and others, only one conclusion is possible: Pakistan is already so destabilised by US actions since 9/11 that it cannot be left to fend for itself. In such tortuous logic is found the death of empires.
Published in The Guardian
WASIM VIEW- The title of Tisdall’s article leaves little need for me to comment, except for me to echo his sentiments. Tisdall pinpoints and lays bare the failure of the US in Afghanistan and its resultant price paid by the ordinary Pakistani in blood and tears daily. What makes it worse is that this is an US Administration led by the celebrity President, one Barack Obama who enjoyed goodwill and support not only in Pakistan but across the world. As I wrote in my post Drones and the Obama Speech, actions speak louder than words as demonstrated by the disgrace that is the Kerry-Lugar bill which devalues and diminishes Pakistan as a nation and as a proud people.
The second article offers a credible and sensible approach for improving Afghanistan and consequently is likely to be ignored by Uncle Sam!
Don’t Try to Arrest the Sea: An Alternative Approach to Afghanistan by Mehar Omar Khan
Over the last three months that I’ve spent in the United States, I’ve heard with concern and trepidation the growing calls for a possible pull out from Afghanistan. No sane citizen of our world, let alone a Pakistani infantry officer who may soon end up being another name on an ever-growing list of the fallen soldiers in the war against terror, enjoys thinking about the painful possibility of our world’s greatest military power and history’s most inspiring nation retreating in the face of an onslaught by Kalashnikov-wielding bearded barbarians riding on the back of motorcycles, hungry horses and perspiring mules. What is being realized with increasing intensity is the pain of a seemingly endless and bloody war for almost a decade now; the pressure of a US public opinion that’s almost irreversibly weary of war (at least for now); the misery of a mismatch between resources and mandate; the rising groans of despairing allies unwilling to persevere and, the scary scarcity of success stories. However what needs to be realized is the fact that abandoning Afghanistan will be an unmitigated tragedy.
For the United States, I believe, Afghanistan is not a case of ‘success or failure’. The USA is too big and too powerful to fail against a collection of miserable fanatics holed up in the treacherous mountains of Southern Afghanistan. It’s instead a case of doing too much with too little care and attention. It’s a challenge (still quite surmountable) aggravated by ditching smart choices and contracting wrong compulsions.
The current US approach to fixing Afghanistan is impressive in detail but seriously flawed in design. Despite recent adjustments reflected most profoundly in Gen McChrystal’s Counterinsurgency Directive, the ship is still headed for rough seas. The overall design continues to be based on ‘mending and reforming’ Afghanistan the country – as a whole. The brass-tacks continue to be muddied by unclear strategic intent. The ‘reform route’ continues to be pursued ‘top-down’. Too many coalition personnel and too many international dollars still reside in Kabul or at best in the provincial headquarters. The majority of Afghans continues to stare angrily from the sidelines while a few thugs rule the streets and corridors of Kabul. Too many criminals continue to be respectable and powerful despite being in the neighborhood of so many well-meaning people. While too many US soldiers continue to die, radical surgery is still being pended in favor of cosmetics.
What is being tried is too much. What needs to be done is economizing the force and maximizing the effect. What needs to be done is to increasingly get smarter or leaner in physics and more effective and skillful in chemistry. What is being done is more and more of physics. What is
needed is more skill. What is being poured in is more troops. US public opinion is rightly angry about all of this. Why should young men continue to fall for a ‘losing cause’?
But is it a case of a ‘losing cause’ or one of a ‘badly managed success’. I believe it’s the latter. And it is with this belief that I want to suggest an alternative approach to what is being done. This approach is embedded in the belief that troops required to manage or govern Afghanistan will never be ‘enough’ and the right route is ‘bottom up’ and ‘hub to spokes’ and not the reverse. I also believe that promise and prosperity is the only magnet that can wean desperate people away from violence and that Afghanistan is too big to be made prosperous all-together. Hence the process of rebuilding and development will have to be ‘selective’ to start with.
The approach, suggested hereunder, is based on some ‘can’t do’ and some ‘can do’ principles for Afghanistan. The identification of what can be done has to be based on a dispassionate recognition of what can’t be done.
First, therefore, the ‘can’t do’ part:
Can’t ‘govern’ this country: It is historically incorrect to call Afghanistan a country or even a place. It has always been and is a people. Afghanistan represents a people who have always been divided and loosely managed; never properly ‘governed’ at any level even in the loosest sense of that word. Any effort to reverse that historical trend or reality will be a terribly misdirected investment of blood and money. Afghans, vastly ignorant as well as illiterate, have never been clever enough to submit to a central authority. ‘Liberal democracy’, ‘united vision’, a ‘social contract’, ‘tolerant co-existence’, ‘civil society’, ‘civil debate’, ‘national discourse’ – are all misnomers largely tossed around in a small section of expatriate community residing in the West. Hence, even the smartest bunch of people can’t govern this place as a whole.
Can’t ‘protect’ all Afghans: The emphasis in the ISAF Counterinsurgency Directive on ‘protecting the civilians, instead of killing the Taliban’ in unachievable in its entirety. Coalition troops can never reach the numbers necessary to extend adequate protection to the populace across Afghanistan. It will only give an additional propaganda tool to the Taliban, in addition to increasing the range of their target zone. Every suicide bombing will now be seen and portrayed as a sign of coalition’s failure to deliver on its ‘promise’ of ‘protecting’ the people. And promises mean a lot in that medieval society. My proposed ‘approach’ addresses this dilemma.
Can’t have ‘total’ peace: In Afghanistan, peace has always been relative – both in time as well as space. In that unfortunate part of the world, ‘peace’ has mostly meant ‘less fighting’ or ‘fighting contained to a few a tribes in a few pockets’ or ‘bloodletting restricted to family feuds’. Afghans are fatally skillful in digging up reasons to fire and fight. No amount of money, time or effort can reverse this tragic historical reality in a space of few years. It will instead take sincere national leadership and international commitment spanning generations – something very hard to come by.
Can’t have ‘rivers of milk and honey’ flowing in a few years: After centuries of war, Afghanistan is now way ‘beyond a quick or economical repair’. Too much is required to be set right and built anew. Roads, hospitals, schools and colleges – nothing is there. Attitudes, dreams,
aspirations, ideals, sense of unity, and a ‘unifying’ sense of patriotism – again, nothing is there. It’s all broken; shattered by wounds and trauma inflicted by unkind times and endless misery. Brigades of straight-thinking US soldiers with scant support or commitment from Afghan ‘national’ leadership or international community (if there ever were two things by those names) can’t do it in decades, let alone years.
Can’t do it without Pashtuns: Like it or not, Afghanistan has always been a Pashtun country. Many as they are though, Uzbeks, Tajiks and Hazaras have always been the ‘outsiders’. Regardless of who holds the banner (the Taliban or anyone else) Pashtuns will never cease fighting unless given their leadership role in Kabul. They have always shed blood for the defense of their ‘right’ on the throne of Kabul. One can’t mess with that ‘right’ without incurring serious consequences. What we are facing in Afghanistan is ‘Pashtun Intifada’. It is only ‘led’ by bearded mullahs calling themselves ‘Taliban’. Take out Taliban and the insurgency will continue.
Now what ‘can be’ done:
The list is very short. Don’t try to arrest the sea. Create islands. Having gone well past the phase of breaking the back of Al-Qaeda and dispersing the Taliban, concentrate on ‘creating and building’ examples. Set the beacon and you’ll see that all the lost ships and boats will come ashore. Here’s how to do it.
First and foremost, believe that it’s not God that drives these people crazy; it’s poverty. Believe that Pashtuns don’t submit to the Taliban out of sheer love for the one-eyed Mullah Omar; its deprivation and fear that drives this herd to the first man holding the flag of power and promise. Raise your flag higher than the Mullah’s and the half-blind lunatic will be devoured by Pashtuns. What is being done is unfortunately not the right way of raising the banner. It defies the logic of ‘can’t do’s’ given above. The Pashtun face of the country is not sufficiently visible.
Kabul or the Provincial Reconstruction Teams will NOT work. Provinces are too big a governance laboratory for Afghanistan. Instead, pick a few districts (nothing more than that) in the heart of areas worst-afflicted by the Taliban-led insurgency. Invest heavily in these districts.
Do it in two phases; first craft the message, then two, let the message spread itself.
Here’s is how to create the message. In selected (preferably non-contiguous) districts, give them an honest and polished leadership from ‘amongst themselves’, a transparent and efficient court, a model Pashtun police heavily armed with both weapons and motivation, schools (separate for girls and boys), a few hospitals, electricity, money for farming and setting up small businesses through a few efficiently functioning banks, paved roads, a model transport system and, not the least, build a beautiful grand mosque and an FM station that recites Quran with Pashtu translation 24/7. If possible, build a few plants and job-creating projects around mineral mines and informal fire-arms industry. Let these people serve as an example for rest of the Pashtun country. Having created these models, international community can then work ‘upwards’ and ‘outwards’ to include more and more areas and tribes.
Simultaneously the governance, right from district up to Kabul must be painted with an unmistakable Pashtun color. As of now, Pashtuns are being seen and treated like Sunnis of Iraq. In reality they are a majority and deserve to be empowered like Shias in Iraq.
A few examples of model districts would unmistakably mean this: that the USA means good and only good; that Islam is not the sole monopoly of Mullah Omar; that Islam and Quran can co-exist with banks and schools and hospitals and businesses; that life without bloodshed is a good life and that what Americans do is better than what Taliban do or plan to do. The approach will give Pashtuns an irresistibly attractive reason to ditch the message and manipulation of the Taliban in addition to stripping Mullah Omar and his Al Qaeda cohorts off their narrative and their manifesto.
Militarily, the coalition must hold fast to these model districts as bases and let the Taliban fester and sulk in the outlying, ungoverned margins. Their lack of ability to give in their areas of influence what coalition gives in its area of control will delegitimize them in due course of time. This may sound like giving away vast swathes of land to Taliban. In reality, it means a considerable improvement on the current situation. The Taliban structure of governance stands on a foundation of both fear and promise. The existing effort to pursue them everywhere leaves them surviving everywhere. They thrive on the coalition chasing their shadows. This new approach of excluding them from selected pockets will progressively deprive them of targets for violence and an audience for propaganda. Their brutalities in areas without coalition presence will discredit them while doing no harm to coalition’s image. Relative peace in coalition-governed districts will fuel discontent in Taliban-controlled districts. It will also give coalition and Afghan Forces the strategic advantage of operating from the ‘interior lines’ instead of having to hopelessly roll up the Taliban from the margins to the center.
Such ‘model district projects’ should not be the responsibility of the USA alone. Other members of the international community must also partake by taking up a district each.
These islands of peace and prosperity, though small, will be seen by all the lost mariners in the sea (of chaos and cruelty). It is my sincere belief that these model districts will serve as the ‘clarion call’. Pashtuns, hungry for food and promise, will come running and rally to the cause that gives hope of a better future, of peace and of return to the ‘throne of Kabul’.
Major Mehar Omar Khan, Pakistan Army, is currently a student at the US Army Command and General Staff College at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas. He has served as a peacekeeper in Sierra Leone, a Brigade GSO-III, an instructor at the Pakistan Military Academy in Kakul, and as Chief of Staff (Brigade Major) of an infantry brigade. He has also completed the Command and Staff Course at Pakistan’s Command and Staff College in Quetta.
Published in the Small Wars Journal
WASIM VIEW- Khan’s article is an authoritative one and well worth considering for implementation due to two key reasons. First and foremost, Khan writes the article aided by real-time knowledge of the key issues since he is a Pakistani soldier who has served in the frontline and therefore has been there and got the t-shirt as it were. Secondly Khan is a Pashtun and knows his people well and can advise on a way forward that takes into account tribal and cultural customs with a view to bringing peace in Afghanistan and the wider region.
Khan begins his excellent article by congratulating the US and her military prowess and at the same time ridicules their timid opponents that are the Afghan Taliban. However in doing so he has missed the key point which is that the Taliban are native to the country unlike Uncle Sam and for good or bad (and its bad) will have a say in its future for a long time, indeed America must learn this truth fast.
Khan‘s article is the first article I have read for a long time that focuses on problems and crucially solutions for Afghanistan. The Americans could do far better if they pay attention to Khan’s can’t do and can do list and then decide on an exit strategy as Khan is so right when he labels the insurgency in Afghanistan as a ‘Pashtun Intifada’ that will continue with or without the Taliban. Khan ‘s ‘ islands of peace’ or model districts plan is well thought out and makes eminent sense and would serve NATO and the people of Afghanistan far better than the current chaos strategy that is being employed with supreme failure. That said I still believe that the sooner Uncle Sam and NATO, wake up and smell the ‘koffee from Kabul’ and leave this volatile region, the better it will be for all.
The final article for October’s B-side must be read as it shows why the US is failing and will fail in Afghanistan.
10 Steps to Victory in Afghanistan by Various New York Times Commentators
Reform or Go Home
COUNTERINSURGENCY is only as good as the government it supports. NATO could do everything right — it isn’t — but will still fail unless Afghans trust their government. Without essential reform, merely making the government more efficient or extending its reach will just make things worse.
Only a legitimately elected Afghan president can enact reforms, so at the very least we need to see a genuine run-off election or an emergency national council, called a loya jirga, before winter. Once a legitimate president emerges, we need to see immediate action from him on a publicly announced reform program, developed in consultation with Afghan society and enforced by international monitors. Reforms should include firing human rights abusers and drug traffickers, establishing an independent authority to investigate citizen complaints and requiring officials to live in the districts they are responsible for (fewer than half do).
Other steps might include a census and district-level elections (promised since 2001, but never held), fair and effective taxation to replace kickbacks and extortion, increased pay to diligent local officials, the transfer of more budgetary authority to the provinces and the creation of local courts for dispute resolution.
If we see no genuine progress on such steps toward government responsibility, the United States should “Afghanize,” draw down troops and prepare to mitigate the inevitable humanitarian disaster that will come when the Kabul government falls to the Taliban — which, in the absence of reform, it eventually and deservedly will.
— DAVID KILCULLEN, a former adviser to Gen. David Petraeus and the author of “The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One”
End Suicide Attacks
TO win in Afghanistan, the United States and its allies must prevent the rise of a new generation of anti-American terrorists, particularly suicide terrorists.
The metric for measuring this threat is not the amount of territory controlled by the Taliban or Al Qaeda, but the number of people willing to be recruited as suicide terrorists. These individuals are motivated not by the existence of a terrorist sanctuary, but by deep anger at the presence of foreign forces on land they prize.
This is why the number of suicide attacks in Afghanistan, overwhelmingly against military targets, has skyrocketed as United States and NATO forces have increasingly occupied the country from 2006 on. There were nine attacks in 2005, 97 in 2006, 142 in 2007, 148 in 2008 and more than 60 in the first six months of this year.
It is imperative to decrease the number of suicide attacks. Given the ethnic divisions of the country, our best tactic is to use political and economic means to empower local Pashtuns to feel that they have greater autonomy from both Taliban and Western domination, and less need to respond violently.
A similar strategy toward Sunni groups in Anbar Province reduced anti-American suicide terrorism in Iraq and is our best way forward in Afghanistan.
— ROBERT A. PAPE, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago and the author of “Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism”
If You Can’t Beat Them, Let Them Join
WITHIN a year, we must persuade large numbers of insurgents to lay down their arms or switch to the government’s side. Afghanistan’s doughty warriors have a tradition of changing alliances, but success will require both military operations focused on the insurgent leadership and, even more important, incentives for fighters at the local level.
Mid-level insurgents and their followers should be offered a chance to join a revised version of the Afghan Public Protection Force. These local self-defense forces should be expanded and tied to legitimate local governing structures — both official and tribal. The majority of development funds should be funneled to leaders to strengthen local governance and development and pay the militias’ salaries.
Local self-defense forces in Colombia, Peru, South Vietnam and, most recently, Iraq, have proved very successful. The creation of a viable force like this is the single most important benchmark for the counterinsurgency effort in Afghanistan.
— LINDA ROBINSON, the author of “Tell Me How This Ends: Gen. David Petraeus and the Search for a Way Out of Iraq”
Pump up the Police
FOR all the disputes over strategy, virtually everyone agrees that we need to strengthen the Afghan security forces, make them true partners and put them in the lead. Afghans want lasting security, and they want it to have an Afghan face.
Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top American commander there, wisely wants to double the size of the Afghan Army and increase the police forces to 160,000 men. This requires not just money, but also a commitment to send more trainers, embedded advisers and partner units. At the moment, international forces in Afghanistan say they still lack about 30 percent of the trainers and mentors needed to train even the current police force.
Creating effective security forces will also require more aid to create a functioning local justice system with courts, lawyers and jails. This will take at least a decade, so for the short term we should assist efforts to revive Afghanistan’s traditional justice systems.
— ANTHONY CORDESMAN, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies
Kick Out Corruption
TO defeat the insurgency, the Afghan government and its main partner, the United States, need to win the confidence of the public. Accountability must replace the widespread immunity enjoyed by officials who abuse their power.
Despite all the problems with our recent election, the incoming government will have a chance to start fresh, and a proper vetting of all new officials is the place to begin. This means establishing strict accountability mechanisms for high officials in the districts and provinces as well as in the ministries and directorates in Kabul. Simply shuffling abusive and incompetent officials among offices — as has been the norm over the past eight years — keeps the public from getting the governmental services it needs.
While the corruption in Kabul is well known, the alliances that American and other foreign forces have made at the local level with abusive officials and influential figures have emboldened those Afghans and alarmed the Afghan public. These alliances must be examined and stopped. The next government should make a statement by quickly clearing out some of the most blatantly corrupt officials.
— NADER NADERY, a commissioner on the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission
Learn to Tax From the Taliban
SKEPTICS of state-building proposals question whether the Kabul government — now almost fully dependent on foreign aid — will ever be able to support the military and police forces being trained. Yet there has been comparatively little investment by the international community in helping Kabul collect taxes, even though insurgents and corrupt officials have proved it can be done.
In addition to collecting taxes from the illegal opium trade, Taliban forces extort money from trucks carrying legal cargo through their territories and demand “protection fees” from local businesses, even hitting up construction projects financed by NATO.
Government officials also take illegal kickbacks — one governor in the eastern part of the country is reported to earn as much as $10 million a month extorting trucking firms. But this money doesn’t end up in state coffers — it just lines the governor’s deep pockets.
The “civilian surge” should include tax experts who could help federal and provincial officials develop mechanisms for collecting revenue — and make sure that money ends up where it belongs.
— GRETCHEN PETERS, the author of “Seeds of Terror”
Polls Have the Power
BY and large, my generation of military professionals trained for and thought about what we might call “Type A” war — modern war, featuring the clash of mechanized forces fielded by industrial states. Happily, we never had to fight the Soviets on the northern German plain, though Operation Desert Storm showed we might have been pretty good at it, had the balloon gone up.
In Afghanistan we’re fighting a “Type B” war that is in some of its essentials “postmodern.” Like postmodernism itself, the concept has a variety of meanings and may not represent a coherent set of ideas. But one thing is clear: the Type B enemy likely has little to lose — no territory to protect, few important targets at risk, perhaps even no life worth living. Thus the Type A objective of fatally weakening an opponent by destroying assets important to his success — in theory, a measurable process — is replaced in Type B war by the much more complicated, essentially unquantifiable task of defeating him.
In time, democracies tire of war, as well they should. Thus, the single most important factor a Type B enemy counts on is time. The outcome in Afghanistan may be determined already, simply because we’ve been there for eight years. The strategic center of gravity is American public opinion, which will tell us when we’ve run out of time. If you want to know how we are doing in Afghanistan, read the polls in America.
— MERRILL McPEAK, the chief of staff of the Air Force from 1990 to 1994
Take a Risk
WHILE in Afghanistan last summer as part of Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s initial assessment team, I found many American and other international units more focused on protecting themselves than protecting the Afghan population. Traveling through the allegedly secure city of Mazar-i-Sharif with a German unit, for example, was like touring Afghanistan by submarine. What little I saw of the city was through a small slit of bulletproof glass in an armored personnel carrier. (While I was a light-infantry officer in both the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, I had never before traveled in an armored personnel carrier.) The Germans offered their assessment of security in the region, but since they lack regular face-to-face contact with the people living there, why should I trust their analysis? Can they speak with authority on the degree to which an insurgent campaign of intimidation is having an effect when they themselves keep the Afghans at such a distance?
It’s not just the Germans, though. Some American and other allied commanders also insist on protective measures that hamper troops from interacting with the population and gathering information on what is driving the conflict at the local level.
After eight years of war with little to show for American and allied efforts, many Americans have tired of the campaign in Afghanistan and are wary of putting our soldiers in greater danger. But if we are to be successful in Afghanistan, it is a risk we must take.
— ANDREW McDONALD EXUM, a fellow at the Center for a New American Security
Don’t Believe That We Can Afford to Lose
AMERICA cannot achieve even the minimal objective of preventing Al Qaeda from re-establishing safe havens in Afghanistan without a substantial increase in forces over the coming year. The Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan’s south is growing. The Afghan and international forces there now cannot reverse that growth. They may not even be able to stem it. That is the assessment of the top American commander there, Gen. Stanley McChrystal.
President Obama said in August, “If left unchecked, the Taliban insurgency will mean an even larger safe haven from which Al Qaeda would plot to kill more Americans.” Some of his advisers now say the opposite: Taliban control will not lead to terrorist havens. Why not? Osama bin Laden first built camps in the territory of a Taliban leader, Jalaluddin Haqqani, in the mid-1980s. Relations between Al Qaeda and the Taliban remain close. Even if they do not invite Al Qaeda in, could they, unlike Pakistan, keep Al Qaeda out? The president was right: the triumph of the Taliban will benefit Al Qaeda.
Rejecting General McChrystal’s request for more forces leaves two options. The United States withdraws and lets Afghanistan again collapse into chaos, or it keeps its military forces and civilians in harm’s way while denying them the resources they need to succeed. Neither is acceptable.
— FREDERICK KAGAN, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, and KIMBERLY KAGAN, the president of the Institute for the Study of War
Pakistani Patronage
THE government of Pakistan, through its intelligence agency, has long been a patron of the Afghan Taliban, and Gen. Stanley McChrystal recently warned that the collaboration continues. Pakistan sees the relationship as a way of hedging its bets in Afghanistan, an asset in its confrontation with India.
It is difficult to define a clear benchmark for ending that aid because the Pakistanis refuse to acknowledge that any relationship exists. But let us consider it to have ended or gone into remission if, a year from now, six consecutive months have gone by with no credible reporting of the sort that underlay the general’s observation.
The significance of this benchmark is threefold. First, Pakistani patronage is an impediment to subduing the Taliban. Second, it is an excellent gauge of how well or poorly NATO’s campaign in Afghanistan is going. Continued Pakistani dealing with the Taliban would reflect Islamabad’s judgment that it is going poorly enough that bets still must be hedged. Third, an end to the relationship would eliminate one of the biggest paradoxes in the rationale for the counterinsurgency: the Pakistani government that our efforts in Afghanistan are supposedly helping to save is assisting the forces from which we are trying to save it.
— PAUL R. PILLAR, a former national intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia at the C.I.A. and a professor in Georgetown University’s Security Studies Program
Published in the New York Times
WASIM VIEW- The New York Times has attempted to bring together many diverse voices in this useful article with a view to finding a way out for the US from the graveyard that is Afghanistan. From Kilcullen to Nadery, most of the commentators offer only a quick fix and little else save for blue sky thinking that will never see the light of day.
Kilcullen’s views are a case in point with its narrow focus on the mayor of Kabul aka the Afghan President plus his love for a loya jirga that he promises will solve Afghanistan’s ills. Remember this is the same man who predicted Pakistan would fall in six months to the Taliban!
The article is a good one to read as it showcases (read names and shames) the best strategic and foreign policy minds of the US and their pearls of wisdom all offering nothing in the way of a long-term strategy for success. A simple compare and contrast exercise is worthwhile and can be done so by reading Mehar Omar Khan’s article covered in the B-side already. Readers will conclude than whilst Khan makes good sense in identifying the problems and providing credible solutions, the ten experts called on by the New York Times offer only rants, muddled thoughts and patchwork.
