Afghanistan: Why we should be there (or not), how to conduct the mission (or not) & when to leave

[Flip]

What bugged me more was the reader commentary attached.

If I comment here I'm preaching to the choir.

When I commented there I was in a distinct minority.

The gist was "If we just make peace everything will work out".

I disagreed.

 

[McG]

NATO should talk to Taliban because military victory impossible: report
Last Updated: Thursday, March 1, 2007 | 12:48 PM ET
CBC News
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2007/03/01/nato-negotiations.html

NATO cannot succeed in Afghanistan with its current number of troops and should enter into diplomatic negotiations with the Taliban to end the conflict there, a former Canadian ambassador to NATO says.

NATO should not be doing this negotiation.  NATO is in Afghanistan at the request of the Afghan government and with the approval of the UN.  NATO is helping to build the security and develop the government institutions.  NATO is not in the country to dictate important decisions to the government.  Should NATO encourage negations?  If it makes sense, then yes.  It might even be fair to tell the Afghan government that continued support is dependant on negotiation.  However, the moment that NATO becomes the negotiator, then we have taken away the sovereignty of the Afghan people.

Smith suggests that the current poppy eradication campaign isn’t working and that the crop should be sold through a marketing board which would be processed for medicinal purposes.

Again, this is an Afghan initiative and not a NATO activity.

 

[Kirkhill]

+1 MCG

Afghanistan is a sovereign country and the CF and NATO are there at their sufferance, with the support of the international community.  The decisions on how to deal with their people have to be their's.

This is not about creating a UN or NATO or even a Canadian or DFAIT empire.  This can not be about imposing solutions. 

 

[Colin Parkinson]

They neglect to mention that the Afghan Government has held talks with Taliban, which failed, they have an amnesty program in place, routinely deal with low and mid level Taliban. Why should NATO talk to the Taliban, NATO can not make deals on behalf of the Afghan Government and the closest "deal" they had with the Taliban failed when the Taliban invaded a town against the wishes of the local government. NATO should continue to "talk" to the Taliban with their 105,25 & 155mm communications devices and save the diplomacy for Kabul.

 

[observor 69]

Memo to Canada: Might won't win in Afghanistan

Pakistanis advise Ottawa to open backdoor channels with resistance, notes Haroon Siddiqui

Mar 04, 2007 04:30 AM
Haroon Siddiqui

BRUSSELS–As Canadian and other NATO troops in Afghanistan nervously await the widely expected Taliban spring offensive, there are two distinct views on what the best course is for the future.

Here at the headquarters of NATO, as well as the European Commission, the consensus – hope, really – is that the allied troops can hold off the Taliban and buy the time needed to establish the security to do the development work to win over the Afghans in the troubled south.

It is this hope that Canada and the other allies are echoing.

The other view, found principally in Pakistan, is that there is no military solution, certainly not without a massive infusion of troops, for many years – two commitments that few or no allies are prepared to make.

This assessment goes beyond the familiar formulation that no foreigners have ever conquered Afghanistan; not Alexander the Great in 4th century B.C., not the British in the 19th century, not the Soviets in the 1980s.

The Pakistanis believe the allies did have a chance to get it right after toppling the Taliban in 2001 but have since blown it, and are now further hobbled by:

Blindly backing the corrupt, incompetent and unpopular government of Hamid Karzai.

Failing to distinguish between Al Qaeda, which has global terrorist designs, and the Taliban, which is fighting against the foreign presence in Afghanistan and for a greater share of power for fellow Pushtuns, who are 60 per cent of the population but are under-represented in Karzai's Kabul.
The Taliban are appealing to Afghan nationalism and financing their "jihad" from a cut of the $4 billion a year opium trade.

On a tour of Pakistan, I was surprised by how vehemently President Pervez Musharraf and his administration are attacking NATO's over-reliance on military tactics.

They are also angry at being blamed for the allied failure in Afghanistan.

A Western diplomat in Islamabad told me that "there's huge resentment here about Western criticism" that Pakistan is harbouring the Taliban and Al Qaeda and that the Pakistani army's Inter-Services Intelligence unit may be covertly helping them.

"I have seen nothing that'd indicate an ISI involvement," he said.

"They are in no mood to listen to Western lectures."

No sooner had Dick Cheney visited Musharraf last week than the latter snapped publicly: "Pakistan does not take dictation from any side."

Pakistan has also started taking decisions in its own interest, such as doing deals with tribal groups in South and North Waziristan bordering Afghanistan.

Whatever their impact on the Afghan war, the accords did help reduce attacks on Pakistani soldiers and also the public anger.

This will, no doubt, help Musharraf win the election this year for a second five-year term.

These developments have international significance.

While the Pakistani public has been anti-American, Musharraf has been a staunch U.S. ally. But now he, too, is distancing himself from Washington.

NATO is thus losing its one indispensable ally in the war in Afghanistan.

Under the circumstances, I asked some people what advice they had for Canada.

Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, spokesperson for Musharraf:

"If you think you can eliminate the Taliban, look at the results so far. Rethink your strategy."

Tariq Azim, information minister:

"Is your role to blindly go on with a policy that has clearly failed? Canada has always had independent thinking."

Owais Ahmad Ghani, governor of Baluchistan province:

"The foreign presence in Afghanistan was initially popular. But due to indiscriminate bombings and other mistakes, you've lost the high ground and turned the public against you. The current policy will continue to radicalize society and increase violence. There's no military solution, take it from me – I am a tribal person.

"Initiate backdoor political and diplomatic moves with the resistance groups who are not hard-core Taliban. Develop a level of accommodation.

"Then introduce a development package, and purchase all the opium for pharmaceutical purposes. Deny the land for opium cultivation. Unless you stop the narcotics, the Taliban won't come to the table."

These sentiments partly echo those of Stéphane Dion, who has said: "The Taliban will not be defeated solely through the barrel of a gun." And of German Defence Minister Franz-Josef Jung, who said: "I do not think it's right to talk about more and more military means."

To sum up: Stay in Afghanistan but change course.

The respite Canada needs from violence to do the good deeds it wants to do is not likely to come from more military operations.

Throwing another $200 million at humanitarian work, as Stephen Harper just has, may soften his image at home, but not do much in Afghanistan without a fundamental shift in thinking and tactics.


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Haroon Siddiqui appears Thursday and Sunday. hsiddiq@thestar.ca.

http://www.thestar.com/opinion/article/187723


Just before the flames start let me repeat he did say "To sum up: Stay in Afghanistan but change course. "

 

[Kirkhill]

So NATO "hopes" for success?  How about Pakistan "hopes" there is no military solution?  How about the ISI "hopes" that they can convince Canada to change strategy?  How about the Taliban "hope" that Karzai can be isolated as corrupt? How about Pervez "hopes" that all his troubles will disappear overnight?...........

Clockwise or Counter-Clockwise and increase the speed of rotation.

 

[MarkOttawa]

As for Haroon the Magnificent, a letter sent to the Star March 4 but not published:

Haroon Siddiqui writes of "...the familiar formulation that no foreigners have ever conquered Afghanistan; not Alexander the Great in 4th century B.C., not the British in the 19th century, not the Soviets in the 1980s."  That formulation is dead wrong.  The unconquerable Afghans are a myth of recent vintage.

Alexander the Great conquered the area now known as Afghanistan, and his successors ruled for around three centuries.  For most of its history the area was ruled by whoever was ruling in Persia/Iran and was part of what is called Greater Khorasan.  Genghis Khan successfully conquered the country, as did subsequent Turkic invaders such as Tamerlane and his descendant Babur, who went on to found the Moghul Empire in northern India.

It was in 1747 that an independent Afghan state was finally established.  So the Afghans (Pushtuns), having been ruled by others for most of their history, only established their own state some two and a half centuries ago. 

[...]

References:
http://afghanland.com/history/alexander.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Khorasan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Afghanistan

Mark
Ottawa

 

[observor 69]

So NATO "hopes" for success?  How about Pakistan "hopes" there is no military solution?  How about the ISI "hopes" that they can convince Canada to change strategy?  How about the Taliban "hope" that Karzai can be isolated as corrupt? How about Pervez "hopes" that all his troubles will disappear overnight?...........

Clockwise or Counter-Clockwise and increase the speed of rotation.

The reason I posted this article is because I thought the author did a good job of describing the challenges ISAF faces and some possible solutions.
Other than "stay the course" what options would you offer?  Or do you think there are no problems and no need to look at other options?
And call me naive but I don't follow your last sentence?

 

[MarkOttawa]

Star just phoned and are considering letter above for publication.

Mark
Ottawa

 

[Kirkhill]

The reason I posted this article is because I thought the author did a good job of describing the challenges ISAF faces and some possible solutions.
Other than "stay the course" what options would you offer?  Or do you think there are no problems and no need to look at other options?
And call me naive but I don't follow your last sentence?

Sorry BG - no personal attacks meant.  Frustration level rising.

Last sentence was an allusion to "spin".  The same information presented from a different perspective to support an alternate reality.

Baldly put I think "staying the course" is the ONLY option.  Tactics and stratagems need to be constantly adjusted as the enemy adjusts to the last round.  I am starting to like the analogy of a never ending game of "rock, paper, scissors" more and more.  Victory or defeat in any given round is the result of assymetry (paper vs rock).  A symmetrical response (rock vs rock) demands a do-over as nobody wins. The issue is how long can you play before you get tired.  We have to play longer than the other guy.

The article stated that NATO planned for success but denigrated that planning as mere "hope".

My counter-point is that it is in Pakistan's interest, and the interests of many others that a military solution be demonstrated as failing.  Right now there is only one military power and if that capability can be removed from it then all nations are equal  ...... to the benefit of some with whom I have philosophical differences.  Pakistan "hopes" there is no military solution but "fears" there is one.

Likewise the ISI will be pulling all possible levers to bring about the failure of the mission and the downfall of the Karzai government, not to mention the failure of Indian influence in the area.  They "hope" that they can get Canada back to the pre-Harper (pre-Graham?) position and leave the US isolated. 

Similarly the Taliban "hope" that they can stigmatize Karzai as corrupt, at least in the western public opinion, to hasten western withdrawal and improve their chances of regaining their place.  They "fear" that the westerners will stick around to support Karzai.  As far as the locals are concerned, they may or may not see Karzai as corrupt but I would be willing to bet that they would rather have a predictable corrupt government that they can plan around than a life of insecurity.

Finally, Pervez "hopes" that he can go back to the world of pre-2001 where he only had to balance the militiary, the ISI, the modernists, the Islamists and the separatists.  Now he has to balance America as well.  He "fears" that one of these days the military, the ISI, this Islamists or the separatists are going to succeed in blowing him up.

Nobody has a message without an agenda.

If we mean what we say then "Staying the Course" is the only option.

 

[a_majoor]

An interesting idea from Mesopotamia West:

http://mesopotamiawest.blogspot.com/

The Solution for Afghanistan

It's becoming clear in Afghanistan -- as it was in VietNam, Burma and the Boer War -- civilians aren't civilians in an insurrection. Any clear-headed view of the actual events recently in Afghanistan show the Taliban uses civilian 'safe houses' in which to disappear into the civil population.

Look at us, they say, we're civilians now because we've just put our AK47's down the well. The civilians? They run out into the street and shout 'death to America, Americans and NATO kill civilians'. And the Western media? Well, we know what they say.

Clearly the Taliban are using civilians as shields and as propaganda. What is not so clear, because it forces us to face an unpalatable prospect, is that plenty of civilians are supporting an insurgent army to try and restore the Taliban. And you know what? They're all men.

My solution is to arm the women of Afghanistan, to create a women's Army Corps in the Afghan Army, to create a Womens' police force and to have the whole operation run completely separately from the rest of the Afghan army and police.

The one group in Afghanistan who don't want to go back to the Taliban is standing right there in front of us. Give 'em some guns. Training. And they'll do the job.

Old men in Afghanistan with beards and 7th Century ideas on feminism will change their views if they're looking into the business end of a CZ 75.

The reason this simple plan hasn't occurred to anyone in Ottawa is that for a long time the Canadian government has been trying to disarm women in Canada. Changing 180 degrees, even for a Conservative government, is tough to do.

But do it. Empowering women in a war zone shouldn't just be empty words; it should be with arms, ammunition, training, and a new sense of self worth.

 

[3rd Herd]

An interesting idea from Mesopotamia West:

http://mesopotamiawest.blogspot.com/

Examples to be found in the realm of 20th century history are exemplified by such units as the "Battalion of Death", a female unit which 'went over the top' on July 8, 1917. To the "Peshmerga Force for Women", part of a Kurdish militia group defending Iraqi Kurdistan. But in "Women in Combat" by Lieutenant Colonel Edd D. Wheeler an interesting conclusion is explained,

"I AM NOT certain, but I do not believe that men are jealously protective of their role as combatants. Combat is not something to be coveted. Certainly, the military owes every judicious consideration to those women who, for whatever reason, seek to become combat participants. Perhaps it would not be chauvinistic to say that we owe to them almost as much consideration as we do collectively to those who would be assigned to fight at their left and right, almost as much consideration as must be given to the legions of nonparticipants who stand to the rear and whose lives may be affected irrevocably by the outcome."





Source:
The Petrograd Women's Battalion of Death
http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/20th_century_warfare/id30.htm

Harding, Luke."Time for revenge: Deep in northern Iraq, there are hundreds of women who are desperate for war."
The Guardian . Friday February 28, 2003
http://www.guardian.co.uk/gender/story/0,11812,904610,00.html

Wheeler, Edd D. Lieutenant Colonel "Women in Combat, a demurrer". Air University Review, November-December 1978

 

[a_majoor]

posted on Celestial Junk, this tracks with some of the behaviour I have started to see as well:

http://cjunk.blogspot.com/

16 March 2007
Think Like a Taliban

I sit with my fellow mujahedeen in the Pakistani Madrassa. We’ve been driven out of Helmand by the Christians. This past summer, we thought we were well prepared … Allah knows that the Russians paid dearly in the same limestone ditches and dry irrigation canals. But in 2006 all we managed was to kill a couple dozen crusaders … while their artillery, airplanes, and infantry tore us up. Our young recruits from Pakistan panicked and were martyred either where they lay or while they fled … Allah received them by the hundreds. And worse yet, the population … our own people … remained neutral.

Then winter came and each time we sallied forth to kill crusaders, they intercepted us … they slaughtered our mujahedeen and drove us out of the villages we took. Even the locals refused to stay and assist and chose instead to leave. And now, with our new army of martyrs and fighters ready to go, the Christian are attacking us as we cross the border. Only a handful of our beloved warriors have made it to their specified locations.

Clearly, it is time to change tactics. As we look to Iraq for guidance, it becomes clear what must be done. The crusaders hide behind their aircraft; their tanks; and their bases … they are weak and cowardly; but most cowardly of all are their aberrant and decadent fellow citizens. They have no stomach for the blood of children and women … even though Allah places women beneath men. The Westerns have a weakness, and we will exploit it, and destroy them, just as our brothers in Iraq have done.

Thousands of martyrs will cross into Afghanistan. They will avoid the enemy soldiers. They will travel in small groups and take the paths least traveled. Some will go as refugees … unarmed … and pass safely along the crusader infested roads.

But once our beloved reach their destinations, contact will be made with our commanders, and we shall begin the killing. We will wreak havoc in the markets, in the schools, and in the roadways. We will kill Afghans, because it is they who have refused to stand with us, and it is they whom Allah commands us to slay. After all, did not Allah say that those who are not with us … are with the infidel. Are not those who do business with Kuffar no better than Kuffar?

So this fighting season we will kill … women, children, shopkeepers, teachers, aid workers, and occasionally, soldiers. If we are lucky, one of our opium bought missiles will destroy a Canadian tank, and then watch his citizens crow. And, like in Iraq, the decadent soft fools of the West will recoil … and they will fight among themselves … and they will demand the removal of their satanic forces.

His most decadent, the communists and leftists, will take to the streets, and they will bicker in their houses of government … and in the end, with each child we slaughter the enemy will become weaker, and eventually he shall leave.

He has the watches; we have the time. He has the words; we have the will. He is soft and recoils from blood; Allah is pleased when we spill it. He needs the support of his spineless people; we have the madrassas. He craves life; we crave death for Allah’s sake.

 

[Quag]

posted on Celestial Junk, this tracks with some of the behaviour I have started to see as well:

http://cjunk.blogspot.com/

Does anybody have a more official source of where that came from?  I would really like to use it for my debate just as added flavour, but need a more official source to document it with.

Thanks in advance

 

[FuzzyLogic]

Does anybody have a more official source of where that came from?  I would really like to use it for my debate just as added flavour, but need a more official source to document it with.

Thanks in advance

The Cjunk piece is a parody ... but very close to the truth.  It's intended to make folks think outside the box ... Think Like a Taliban.

 

[Quag]

Oh haha! I should have seen that.  I guess my brain is overloaded right now trying to get stuff for a debate.

*Shakes head at own self*

 

[MarkOttawa]

Terrible drivel from Jim Travesty of the Crvena Zvezda--excerpts:

Putting a swagger into foreign policy
Under Stephen Harper's watch, Canada's top military man has helped refashion our approach to international affairs
http://www.thestar.com/columnists/article/192963

...
Decades ago, Lester Pearson famously commented: "Foreign policy is merely domestic policy with its hat on." Now, when Canadians go abroad they are more likely to wear a helmet.

No longer the good-scout peacekeeper, there's new toughness and even some swagger in the way Harper's government's and Hillier's troops walk through the global village. It was obvious last summer when the Prime Minister abandoned Canada's traditional neutrality and nuances to take one side in the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict. It is even more evident in Afghanistan where reconstruction is the rhetorical sugar coating on a bitter conflict.

Canada's unequivocal position on a complex border clash and Harper's arguably reckless rush to extend the Kandahar tour to 2009 are more than just reflex responses to the helter-skelter challenges of a post-cold war, post-9/11 world. They are the philosophically coherent, if politically controversial, result of a new, tightly focused and equally tightly held international perspective.

Instead of caring about everyone and everything – a Conservative charge more accurately targeted at ineffective aid than effective multilateralism  [what about those UN Security Council resolutions unanimously mandating ISAF's actions?] – Harper has two dominating priorities. While he is nostalgic enough to again hang the Queen's portrait in the cabinet room and worried enough about the neighbourhood to muse about the hemisphere, what really matters are the United States and Afghanistan...

Where Rempel [political scientist Roy Rempel and author of Dreamland: How Canada's Pretend Foreign Policy has Undermined Sovereignty finds leverage in being Uncle Sam's clone, others see the loss of the few essential degrees of separation. One of them, Joe Clark, served briefly as prime minister and then longer and admirably as external affairs minister in a Brian Mulroney government remembered for its close U.S. ties...

It needs to be noted that Clark hasn't forgiven Harper's takeover of the Tory brand. But the former Progressive Conservative leader is a serious international affairs observer, as well as a proven practitioner [emphasis added], and his concerns demand detailed attention...

...there will be no better time than the coming election to test support for a policy fast drifting south. The other is that Canada is now spiralling deeper into the complications of an insurgency in Afghanistan that looks a lot like a civil war [emphasis added--he just noticed, or is this a sneaky link to Iraq?].

Those issues meet in the Kandahar mission Hillier was instrumental in convincing Liberals to join and Conservatives to extend. Canadians have a right to know, and this government has a duty to explain, how much of this country's Afghanistan effort is driven by values and how much by interests. Are troops there to stabilize and reconstruct a failed state or is the primary purpose to gain leverage in Washington?

While the best answer is a bit of both, the ratio of one to the other is important...

For the armed forces, the project is already more advanced. It's not exactly what Martin had in mind but the muscular military he agreed Hillier should begin constructing and Liberals began funding is designed to fight beside the U.S. and is heavily dependent on Washington's logistical safety net [emphasis added--and what does Mr Travesty think will be the result of our getting CC-177s, C-130Js and CH-47s?].

There are clear defence, security and political benefits. There is also the liability that this country will be less able or inclined to intervene in places where the U.S. can't or won't go – even if those missions reflect Canada's values or its interests...

And it's the CDS' fault:

Promoted past more cautious rivals in 2005 by then-Liberal prime minister Paul Martin, Hillier is now the most visible member of the elite group helping Stephen Harper transform this country's international image. They are doing a remarkable job.

Bollocks.

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

I suppose what angers me about Mr Travers' column is his putting it all in political context rather than making any attempt to assess whether or not the Afghanistan mission has value--or realism--in itself.  Plus the clear anti-Americanism, economy with the truth, wrong facts, and inability to present realistic alternatives.  The essence of the piece is that Canadian interests should be by definiton different from American ones.  Nonsense.  Or if they are not we should still make a point of finding differences in some crazed effort to assert some sort of national identity.

Identity comes from action in support of principle, not piffling verbiage intended to discredit (a hardly perfect) government and a (very good) military leader.

Pshaw.

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

Silliness from Norman Spector in the Globe and Mail today:

Psst -- here's why we're really in Afghanistan
http://www.members.shaw.ca/nspector4/globe282.htm

For some time, I've been waiting for someone to fess up to the true reason Canadian troops are in Afghanistan. It isn't to build schools. Nor is it to promote women's rights. The reason we are in Afghanistan is oil...

It also must be said that Mr. Harper's government has been fairly effective in clouding the issue, thanks to much focus-group testing and public-opinion polling. It's been some months since the Prime Minister has referred to the “war on terror,” and I don't believe the term “Islamo-fascism” has ever crossed his lips. Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Peter MacKay increasingly sounds and acts as though he's extended his responsibilities for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency to the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. (Yes, that's its official name.) Stating that oil is the reason Canadian troops are in that country doesn't make their presence illegal or even illegitimate, and it's no reason not to root for our side. But Canadians have a right to know why their sons and daughters face death and dismemberment in a dirty war against an enemy that relishes counterstrikes in which civilians are killed. The enemy's tactics include suicide bombers, ours include construction — which is designed to win hearts and minds and ensure that neither Osama bin Laden nor his successors ever again find sanctuary there.

Doubt the proposition that we're in Afghanistan because of oil? Just ask yourself if Washington would give a fig whether Osama bin Laden or King Abdullah were ruling Saudi Arabia if that country's main export were tomatoes. Does anyone believe the United States would have maintained its large military and diplomatic footprint in the Mideast and the Persian Gulf — ever since the British pulled back in the 1940s — if it weren't for the large reservoirs of oil? And, if there was no oil and less U.S. presence in that part of the world, is there any reason to believe that Mr. bin Laden would have declared “war” on Bill Clinton's America in a 1998 fatwa, or that 2,972 people would have been killed on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001?

A letter just sent to the Globe:

Norman Spector writes in his column, "Psst — here's why we're really in Afghanistan (March 19)", that "The reason we are in Afghanistan is oil."  Unless Mr Spector is being ironical--and I see no reason to think that from the piece--he is being nonsensical.  Afghanistan's oil reserves are estimated at some 100 million barrels.  Kazakhstan, the major oil source in central Asia, produced approximately 1.29 million barrels per day in 2005.  In other words, Kazakhstan pumps Afghanistan's total oil reserves in around 80 days.  The amount of oil in Afghanistan is miniscule in global terms.

There is also no need for Afghanistan as a pipeline route for central Asian oil.  Kazakh oil is exported via Russia and to China.  It will now be shipped, following an agreement with Azerbaijan last year, across the Caspian Sea to Azerbaijan and onward via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline.  This pipeline ends at the eastern Mediterranean in Turkey.  Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, which have much smaller oil reserves than Kazakhstan, equally have no need for any Afghan pipeline should they ever become major oil exporters.

References:
http://www.oilgasarticles.com/articles/195/2/Oil-and-Gas-Infrastructure-in-Afghanistan/Page2.html
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/Kazakhstan/Oil.html
http://www.bicusa.org/en/Article.2862.aspx
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/Caspian/Oil.html

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

Actually Mr Spector was being too clever by half (in my view, and I've been accused of that too).  He has confirmed to me in personal communications that his message was that US interests in middle east oil are ultimately the major cause of al Qaeda terrorism, and that we thus have ultimately, because of
oil, become involved in the Afghan aspect of the GWOT--even though there is
no Afghan oil worth mentioning.

Mark
Ottawa