Although, by any reasonable measure the situation in Afghanistan is worsening steadily – a corrupt government, rigged elections, a resurgent Taliban – instead of reconsidering its military mission (which costs the American taxpayer almost $4 billion each month) the Obama administration has decided to double down on its military engagement in the country. Since coming into office, President Obama has added 21,000 troops and committed billions more to the military presence in Afghanistan, strangely undeterred by the country’s dark reputation as a “graveyard of empires.”
The last great power to be brought down by underestimating what it takes to subdue Afghanistan was the Soviet Union. Throughout the 1980s the Red Army fought a shadowy guerrilla enemy which was heavily financed by covert military aid from America and Saudi Arabia. But instead of reconsidering the mission when it was still possible to withdraw without conceding defeat, they dug themselves in deeper each time they faced a setback. Soon enough, just as the Saudis, Americans and mujahedin had hoped, the Soviets had built a Vietnam of their own, one that played a major part in the eventual collapse of the Communist empire.
Apparently, the US military believes that the country is now more susceptible to military pressure. The senior generals David Petraeus and Stanley McChrystal have both argued that a larger military presence will shift the odds in their favour, even though the fighting has now become bloodier than at any point in the last eight years. Generals may develop new strategies, but presidents have to live with the political fallout. Recent polls indicate that a majority of the American public no longer approve of the war in Afghanistan – in which the US army has now been engaged for longer than its involvement in both world wars combined. But there seems little hope that the current escalation is likely to be curtailed any time soon. The coalition presence in Afghanistan is already around 100,000 – but far more will be needed if the Obama administration really intends to take on al Qaeda and the Taliban as it has promised.
During his campaign, candidate Obama made much of the fact that he did not support “dumb wars” like the one in Iraq – but he backed military action in Afghanistan as an example of the “right war.” That was then. In its final year, the Bush administration’s neglect of Afghanistan during 2008, left it prey to the lucrative international drugs trade (the country currently produces more than 90 per cent of the world’s heroin) and infighting among local warlords. This has undermined the Karzai government’s credibility, and encouraged further intrigues from Pakistan’s ISI, and the deteriorating situation in Baluchistan, Waziristan and other tribal areas, has now turned the Af-Pak conflict into a confusing multi-front theatre in which there are few clearly definable goals, and an awful lot of room for mission creep and the dreaded Vietnam syndrome of a military “quagmire.”
Now that he is commander in chief, there is plenty of evidence that Afghanistan has become a “dumb war”; after a temporary setback the Taliban has been very successful at spreading violence to all parts of the country, inter-tribal tensions are increasing, and the government’s power barely extends beyond Kabul – few analysts doubt that it would collapse without foreign support. Ironically, the Karzai government’s bungled rigging of the recent elections seems to have been driven largely by its desire to regain credibility in the eyes of an administration which it increasingly views as hostile. But the election fraud has now created a new double-bind for the Americans. If the Pashtun Karzai is allowed to keep power through blatantly rigged elections, all the promises about democratizing Afghanistan begin to sound awfully similar to Bush’s hollow rhetoric in Iraq; but, if they press too hard for transparency, and appear to be installing Dr Abdullah Abdullah (whose mother is Tajik), then they run the danger of opening up a completely new set of unwanted internal ethnic unrest.
In 2003, the Taliban controlled 30 of Afghanistan’s 364 districts; at the end of last year that number had risen to 164. Coalition efforts to displace them have succeeded, but largely because the Taliban are willing to trade space for time. Knowing that the Obama administration needs to produce results before the mid-term elections, they are playing a waiting game with the Americans. The Pakistan military’s successful push against Taliban troops in the Swat valley, raises hopes that the tide can be turned, but a closer look at the situation suggests that there too, Taliban forces, far from being defeated, chose to carry out a strategic retreat.
Military progress within Afghanistan is often ephemeral. After a month of intensive fighting in Helmland province – ostensibly to encourage voting in ‘free and fair’ elections, not only did less than 10 per cent of the electorate attend the polls, but Karzai supporters then engaged in utterly shameless rigging – thereby confirming all the Taliban’s wild allegations that democracy is a sham which will be used to subjugate the country to a puppet with Western sympathies. The American taxpayer is not likely to tolerate more disappointments like this.
President Obama seems doomed either way. If he yields to common sense and scales down the mission, he will be branded a defeatist. But if he continues to escalate, he runs the risk of stumbling further into a costly, confused and probably unwinnable conflict. His growing reluctance to dismantle the massive national security state of the Bush years, or to question the military who always seem to have plans remarkably similar to ones which have just failed, are signs that he is losing his intellectual independence. Unfortunately, the mid-term elections wait for no man. Unless this President can pull a rabbit out of the tattered hat left behind by his predecessor, he too will likely become yet another victim of imperial overreach in Afghanistan.
I would like to commend the SN news team for allowing more factual reporting instead of repeating CNN censored, biased news rehashes.
I have addressed this Afganistan problem before, it is now enough to simply say that Alexander the great, the British four attempts, the Russians and now the Americans have invaded Afganistan. All failed and America will be no exception. Afganistan will preserve its reputation as the Graveyard of Empires.
The USA and Israel is ready to attack Iran in order to run their oil pipelines thru the region, Russia and China will respond accordingly, if that ever happens.
It has been quite a journey for me as a blogger on SN. Not only have I truthfully denounced the lies of the western media but also rebutted the the illusions and lies of the Guyana government. I provided solutions, I made predictions of unfolding world events and local events that will affect Guyana, contrary to what the Government was telling the people.
I have not been wrong so far. Check out the SN archives for proof.I am not seeking my 15 minutes of fame, I only strive to inform my Guyanese brothers and sisters to the truth.If I have accomplished this, then my task is done.
I hold no animositys against the American people or the country, neither against the Guyana government, I only point out the underlying hidden truth.
Joe.
Gone are the days when entrepreneurship meant expanding horizons without creating pain.Greed has taken over and nations strive to outdo each other in a mad frenzy that ends in dissolution. The world today is not moving on its preordained axis, it has moved out of its orbit and speeding to nowhere. The French told the Americans to leave South Asia alone, look at the results. Many nations tried to conquer the Afghans, today America is there and will not achieve anything, apart from killing thousands, both Americans and Afghans. The foreign policy needs overhauling and the yanks need to be told to police their own turf. We see what democracy has done to the way of life in the USA, greed and illegal business policies built on weak foundations. Guyana is a country with a few people, yet one has to go through all kinds of illegal schemes and hurdles to get something done. The world today is a colossal failure of common sense.
Firstly, I would like to congratulate the writer for making a very good summary of the state of play in Afghanistan and its related foreign influences. This from a small country newspaper too!
AMERICA HAS MADE SOME GHASTLY MISTAKES AND CONTINUES TO MAKE MISTAKES
I am reminded of the old saying…
“…if you continue to do what you have been doing, you’ll continue to get what you have been getting”
1 The USSR originally invaded Afghanistan to try and suppress growing terrorism within its own Muslim areas. America should have understood what trying to do however, they instead helped finance and train the Taliban to kill Russians soldiers.
2 The US used Pakistan as its agent of death and CONTINUES TO DO SO EVEN TODAY, knowing full well that Pakistan regularly double-crosses them and uses US financing to wage terrorism on India. Pakistan knows full well that peace in the South-Asian theatre means that Pakistan will get no more money from the US. What sort of motivation is this going to produce in the Pakistanis?
3 Saudi financing still goes through to Al Queda in Afghanistan and elsewhere even to this day. The US knows this, yet seem powerless to cut the lines of financing from their Saudi ‘friends’.
4 When the US originally attacked Afghanistan, they only reluctantly befriended the Northern Alliance when they could not gain foothold with their ‘shock and awe’ tactics. This made enemies of the Northern Alliance who could have been of more use to the US.
5 A fatal mistake is to say that Afghanistan has become a ‘dumb war’. Failure to stay the course in this particular conflict will be catastrophic for the planet. Going to war in Iraq was the stupidest (and illegal) thing at the time. Walking away from Afghanistan without fixing the problems there WOULD BE STUPIDER STILL.
Two things are able make the situation easier but it is UNLIKELY that Mr Obama is strong enough to do them.
1 Israel should be brought to heel and the US should grant Palestine full autonomy including returning Palestinian lands stolen by the Israeli ‘settlers’. The US should be willing to cut their lines of financing to Israel to enforce this.
2 The US should apologise to Russia for misjudging the USSR in the 1980s and for causing the deaths of so very many Russian soldiers. The US should beg the Russians to return to Afghanistan to stay with the US there for the next 40 years to ensure peace and stable (hopefully democratic) government. Russia may even accept this seeming ‘poisoned chalice’ because suppressing terrorist action in Afghanistan will have a soothing influence in places like Chechnya etc.
There is an old Arabic saying that …The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
THAT IS CERTAINLY TRUE IN AFGHANISTAN.
America should pull its troops out of Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan. It has no right being there. The warlords create wars to keep munitions businesses running. All the islamic countries continue to get money from the Saudis and nothing will change that, it is for the Americans to stop policing the world and start looking after their own turf. The United Nation is a failed entity and at that forum many people lied to the world just to start wars of destruction.
Just curious of Joe’s predictions. Will there be ‘mo fyah’ in Guyana?
Joe don’t Blow this, will there be a Nuclear Iran? President Obama’s USA is going electric, no need for pipeline.
Will BJ be extending his term?
D.P’s who seeks refuge in America, are constantly hurting America. Many feed their wife and children with food stamps assistance. Hey, lets go America bashing, they cannot touch us here, we have freedom!
The terrorists came to America, we are just returning the visit!
This talk about CLEAN ELECTRICITY is a joke, Kyattman.
Consider:
1 The high-tech batteries are made of rare metals which require extensive denuding of the planet to get to the ores.
2 Having made those expensive batteries; those batteries still have to be charged from the national grid. The national grid uses oil products (petroleum/diesel/gas) to create that electricity so we are back in the same expanding pollution vicious circle.
NOTE: Let us not discuss nuclear. That is REALLY complicated.