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

[The Bread Guy]

Latest tea leaf reading of a quote from the PM:

....“We went to the Parliament, we got our extension to 2011, and that’s what we will do. I will certainly not be making any commitments without the consent of the Parliament of Canada.”....

 

[Infanteer]

The best thing we can do to hurt the taliban is to defoliate the poppy fields.

I may have to reread "Counterinsurgency 101" or "Hearts-and-Minds for Dummies", but how does that seperate the the insurgent from the populace (drain the swamp, etc, etc, blahblahblah)?

I suspect at some point we might be better off offering to pull out and reminding Karzai what happened to Najibullah.

So we should encourage him not to run a Communist puppet government?  ???

 

[Journeyman]

The Center for a New American Security -- a reasonably new beltway think thank -- recently published a short paper entitled, Tell Me Why We’re There? Enduring Interests in Afghanistan (and Pakistan). The authors are (or should be) familiar names: Nathaniel C. Fick, David Kilcullen, John A. Nagl, and Vikram J. Singh.

The gist of their argument is that, "U.S. interests in Afghanistan may be summarized as 'two no’s': there must be no sanctuary for terrorists with global reach in Afghanistan, and there must be no broader regional meltdown."

Despite the nay-saying of various political, educational, and media spokespeople, the bottom line is that Canada's interests quite often coincide with America's. As such, many of the points raised in the monograph apply equally to Canada.

 

[OldSolduer]

We've just begun to make progress in Afghanistan in the last three years. To expect the Afghan people to change within the time we've been there is unrealistic. It will take education of the younger people to effect real change. Look how long it took the democracies (Canada, US and Britain) to get it right.
This is a mission worth seeing through.

 

[zipperhead_cop]

We've just begun to make progress in Afghanistan in the last three years.

I don't want to be contradictory sir, but if I would be surprised if we are breaking even.  Slightly losing ground is likely more accurate.

To expect the Afghan people to change within the time we've been there is unrealistic. It will take education of the younger people to effect real change. Look how long it took the democracies (Canada, US and Britain) to get it right.

They don't need to change anything culturally.  They just have to be held to an accounting, which doesn't happen now.  We have given away several thousand tonnes of carrots and the stick appears to be a McDonald's straw. 
Whether Canada, the US and Britain "have it right" is the stuff for a different thread, but I'm not seeing that either.

This is a mission worth seeing through.

For some reason I still agree with that.

Vampire 6 was bang on, and Tomahawk 6 is right too.  Perhaps the wording and semantics can be pulled apart, but it doesn't change the fact that this adventure is off the rails.  It has little to do with the Taliban and religious extremism any more and more to do with drug trafficking and organized crime.  If you go after the poppies, you hurt both the Taliban AND the government and their families that are involved in the poppy trade (and are likely working together in the back ground).  Besides, it isn't "us" who would do that anyway.  The ANA/ANP are supposed to be eradicating their countries poppies now.  We would just be helping them.  But when the largest poppy fields are owned by people (let's make up a name...Abdul Waheem Karazek...just off the top of my head) who are tied right to the highest governmental officials, you aren't going to see much progress other than some BS photo op to provide the illusion of progress.
IMO there are more people concerned with their performance reviews (and this is most certainly not aimed exclusively at the military) and ignoring the reality on the ground than actually saying "hey, this needs a major overhaul".  If this was an exercise, the umpires would have stopped the whole thing, jacked up many people and restarted it. 
Sadly, it would appear that too many people are waiting for "End Ex" to get called and are phoning it in.  That kind of sucks for the forward deployed dudes who get to live with those decisions. 

 

[Journeyman]

Vampire 6 was bang on, and Tomahawk 6 is right too.  

OK, Vampire 6 said basically, win hearts and minds by supporting developmental infrastructure (roads, inter-province commerce, education), and political development ("force the Afghan government to start taking the lead").

Tomahawk 6 said basically, eliminate commerce (by destroying their livelihood), political development isn't good ('Karzai now wants to approve NATO troop deployments/locations....and wants more say in the strategy'), and cares nothing of hearts & minds ( "hamstringing us by siding with the 'dont bomb civilians' crap").

Sorry, but the two aren't even close in their thinking -- and it goes well beyond semantics.


As for your conclusion:

too many people are waiting for "End Ex" to get called and are phoning it in.

Sadly, I agree. I suspect that this may be more tied to 'donor fatigue' than unscrupulous leadership. It tends to be even more problematic as rotos draw to a close, and will likely get worse amongst the Canadians as the often-cited ENDEX date of 2011 approaches.
As a separate thought, it may also get worse as the massive influx of US troops increasingly marginalizes Canadians; with no effective voice at the table, there may be a response of "why bother."

 

[observor 69]

More along the last few posters line of thought....ENDEX

The return of the Taliban
As the insurgents infiltrate the area west of Kandahar, Canadian troops concentrate on holding territory until U.S. forces arrive

JANE ARMSTRONG
From Tuesday's Globe and Mail
January 27, 2009 at 3:48 AM EST
PASAB, AFGHANISTAN — The foot patrol to Charkuchi, an impoverished rural enclave in western Kandahar province, didn't follow the script. Coalition forces operations in southern Afghanistan rarely do.

The Canadian soldiers, led by Afghan police, were to walk through the mud-walled village, speak to residents, wave at children and inquire about insurgent activity. The goal: to let war-weary Afghan villagers know that Canadian Forces and Afghan police are dug in at a police station a few hundred metres away.

Ten minutes into the patrol, on the outskirts of town, a shot is fired at the troops. The soldiers hit the ground. Crouching in a ditch, Master Corporal Jason Thompson, acting commander of the unit, radios the police station to get a fix on where the shot came from.

It isn't a close call - the gunman is at least 450 metres away - but the patrol is aborted and the soldiers never get a chance to mingle with the Afghans.Two years after the success of Operation Medusa, a Canadian-led routing of Taliban forces from this region of southern Afghanistan, the insurgents have returned, emboldened and newly confident. No longer organized into armies, they have traded the battlefield for guerrilla warfare. They plant roadside bombs, assassinate police officers and, most important, infiltrate villages, compound by family compound, insinuating themselves into the lives of the locals.

"They are everywhere," Corporal Gord Martin, a Canadian Forces mentor for the Afghan police, mused about the insurgents. "They mimic us. Whatever we do, they follow. We've seen them in trees, watching us. They're 300 metres outside these walls."

As Canadian troops wait for an influx of as many as 60,000 U.S. soldiers this year, senior military officials have quietly adjusted their goals. In western Kandahar province's Zhari district, the birthplace of the Taliban movement, the key word is "holding" territory. The now-modest twin goals are to keep the residents safe and prevent insurgents from using the region, as they do in depopulated northern districts, as a freeway into Kandahar city.
Canadian soldiers on their daily foot patrols try to persuade wary Afghans to spurn Taliban incursions into their villages and put their faith in Afghan and coalition forces, an effort that has been met with mixed results.

When a Canadian soldier has tea with a local elder, the Taliban show up five minutes after the Canadian has left, demanding to know what was discussed. When Canadians distribute posters urging locals to call the police with news of insurgent activity, the Taliban distribute their own literature reminding locals that co-operating with foreign forces is un-Islamic. Insurgents have killed civilians for co-operating with security forces; and while many Afghans would like to side with legitimate security forces, they are afraid, hedging their bets to see who comes out on top in southern Afghanistan.

On a recent foot patrol in another Zhari village, Captain Fern Bosse stopped to chat with a bearded elder. The man was familiar with Capt. Bosse's unit, which has been stationed in the region since August. The Afghan was upset about a series of compound searches by coalition and Afghan forces. Villagers have grown to resent these searches, which disrupt their lives but bring no guarantee of security.

Capt. Bosse said the searches must continue. "It's not because I don't trust [the villagers]" he said as he walked through the winding streets of the village. "But the Taliban is just west of here," he added, raising his hand to a row of fields in the direction of the setting sun. "There's nothing to stop them from coming in at night and putting their weapons in a compound."

To a large degree, the insurgency's tactics have worked. Reconstruction and development plans have been delayed or shelved as securing the region becomes the chief priority of stretched coalition forces.

Today, Canadian troops are simply holding on to hard-won territory, trying to secure crucial rural areas west of Kandahar city to prevent insurgents from getting a foothold in the provincial capital. They've already ceded some districts to the north. Ghorak, for example, has fallen to the Taliban and large swaths of territory in western Zhari are no-go zones for Canadian troops.

But the landscape is about to change, as is Canada's role in the Kandahar countryside, with the imminent arrival of U.S. troops. The Americans will be dispatched to the countryside, while Canadian forces will be deployed closer to Kandahar city. Eventually, the provincial capital will become the main focus of Canadian efforts in southern Afghanistan.

Senior military officials say they're confident the new strategy will work.

"What we think is, if we can concentrate security, governance and reconstruction development in certain areas, we will reach a kind of tipping point in which we will see an accelerated progress," said Major-General Mart de Kruif, commander of NATO forces in southern Afghanistan.

"People will feel safe, reconstruction and redevelopment will gain fruit. We can open schools, open markets. We will have access to markets. ... And once you reach that tipping point, then the whole dynamic changes."

With tens of thousands of new troops expected on the ground, a better-trained Afghan National Army and an improved Canadian-led reconstruction team in Kandahar city, Gen. de Kruif said coalition forces will be in a better position to secure southern Afghanistan.

For now, Canadians hope to hold the fort until more help arrives.

"We're aren't trying to drag [Afghans] into the modern world," an officer said.

"We're not trying to convince them that democracy and TV is the answer to their problems. What we're trying to do is build up government [institutions] to actually provide for them."


http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090127.wafghan27/BNStory/Afghanistan/home

 

[Blue Max]

IMHO, I partially agree with Tomahawk6 regarding the poppy fields. But just as it is not enough to just kill the tangos, but to also rebuild the country, you must offer the poor farmer an alternative to opium, whether it be some other cash viable crop, or to licence some poppie growth for medical use such as Morphine.

Having said that, the monumental effort that Canadian troops are making on the mission in As-tan, will only be a game of "hit the gofer on the head", if the open sore of Pakistan is not resolved.  Hopefully the US surge will go a long way to enabling the elected Afghan govt in policing its lands soon.

Good luck in your mission gentlemen, and come home safe.

 

[MarkOttawa]

Excerpts from a rather cold-blooded GEOPOLITICAL INTELLIGENCE REPORT by George Friedman in STRATFOR (no mention of NATO):

Strategic Divergence: The War Against the Taliban and the War Against Al Qaeda
http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20090126_strategic_divergence_war_against_taliban_and_war_against_al_qaeda

...it is now time to focus on the central issue. What are the strategic goals of the United States in Afghanistan? What resources will be devoted to this mission? What are the intentions and capabilities of the Taliban and others fighting the United States and its NATO allies? Most important, what is the relationship between the war against the Taliban and the war against al Qaeda? If the United States encounters difficulties in the war against the Taliban, will it still be able to contain not only al Qaeda but other terrorist groups? Does the United States need to succeed against the Taliban to be successful against transnational Islamist terrorists? And assuming that U.S. forces are built up in Afghanistan and that the supply problem through Pakistan is solved, are the defeat of Taliban and the disruption of al Qaeda likely?..

The Taliban and the Guerrilla Warfare Challenge

The Taliban have forged relationships among many Afghan (and Pakistani) tribes. These tribes have been alienated by Karzai and the Americans, and far more important, they do not perceive the Americans and Karzai as potential winners in the Afghan conflict. They recall the Russian and British defeats. The tribes have long memories, and they know that foreigners don’t stay very long. Betting on the United States and Karzai — when the United States has sent only 30,000 troops to Afghanistan, and is struggling with the idea of sending another 30,000 troops — does not strike them as prudent. The United States is behaving like a power not planning to win; and, in any event, they would not be much impressed if the Americans were planning to win.

The tribes therefore do not want to get on the wrong side of the Taliban. That means they aid and shelter Taliban forces, and provide them intelligence on enemy movement and intentions. With its base camps and supply lines running from Pakistan, the Taliban are thus in a position to recruit, train and arm an increasingly large force.

The Taliban have the classic advantage of guerrillas operating in known terrain with a network of supporters: superior intelligence. They know where the Americans are, what the Americans are doing and when the Americans are going to strike. The Taliban declines combat on unfavorable terms and strikes when the Americans are weakest. The Americans, on the other hand, have the classic problem of counterinsurgency: They enjoy superior force and firepower, and can defeat anyone they can locate and pin down, but they lack intelligence. As much as technical intelligence from unmanned aerial vehicles and satellites is useful, human intelligence is the only effective long-term solution to defeating an insurgency. In this, the Taliban have the advantage: They have been there longer, they are in more places and they are not going anywhere.

There is no conceivable force the United States can deploy to pacify Afghanistan. A possible alternative is moving into Pakistan to cut the supply lines and destroy the Taliban’s base camps. The problem is that if the Americans lack the troops to successfully operate in Afghanistan, it is even less likely they have the troops to operate in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. The United States could use the Korean War example, taking responsibility for cutting the Taliban off from supplies and reinforcements from Pakistan, but that assumes that the Afghan government has an effective force motivated to engage and defeat the Taliban. The Afghan government doesn’t...

U.S. Strategy in Light of al Qaeda’s Diminution

From the beginning, the Karzai government has failed to take control of the countryside. Therefore, al Qaeda has had the option to redeploy into Afghanistan if it chose. It didn’t because it is risk-averse. That may seem like a strange thing to say about a group that flies planes into buildings, but what it means is that the group’s members are relatively few, so al Qaeda cannot risk operational failures. It thus keeps its powder dry and stays in hiding.

This then frames the U.S. strategic question. The United States has no intrinsic interest in the nature of the Afghan government. The United States is interested in making certain the Taliban do not provide sanctuary to al Qaeda prime. But it is not clear that al Qaeda prime is operational anymore. Some members remain, putting out videos now and then and trying to appear fearsome, but it would seem that U.S. operations have crippled al Qaeda.

So if the primary reason for fighting the Taliban is to keep al Qaeda prime from having a base of operations in Afghanistan, that reason might be moot now as al Qaeda appears to be wrecked. This is not to say that another Islamist terrorist group could not arise and develop the sophisticated methods and training of al Qaeda prime. But such a group could deploy many places, and in any case, obtaining the needed skills in moving money, holding covert meetings and the like is much harder than it looks — and with many intelligence services, including those in the Islamic world, on the lookout for this, recruitment would be hard.

It is therefore no longer clear that resisting the Taliban is essential for blocking al Qaeda: al Qaeda may simply no longer be there. (At this point, the burden of proof is on those who think al Qaeda remains operational.)

Two things emerge from this. First, the search for al Qaeda and other Islamist groups is an intelligence matter best left to the covert capabilities of U.S. intelligence and Special Operations Command. Defeating al Qaeda does not require tens of thousands of troops — it requires excellent intelligence and a special operations capability. That is true whether al Qaeda is in Pakistan or Afghanistan. Intelligence, covert forces and airstrikes are what is needed in this fight, and of the three, intelligence is the key.

Second, the current strategy in Afghanistan cannot secure Afghanistan, nor does it materially contribute to shutting down al Qaeda. Trying to hold some cities and strategic points with the number of troops currently under consideration is not an effective strategy to this end; the United States is already ceding large areas of Afghanistan to the Taliban that could serve as sanctuary for al Qaeda. Protecting the Karzai government and key cities is therefore not significantly contributing to the al Qaeda-suppression strategy.

In sum, the United States does not control enough of Afghanistan to deny al Qaeda sanctuary, can’t control the border with Pakistan and lacks effective intelligence and troops for defeating the Taliban.

Logic argues, therefore, for the creation of a political process for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan coupled with a recommitment to intelligence operations against al Qaeda. Ultimately, the United States must protect itself from radical Islamists, but cannot create a united, pro-American Afghanistan. That would not happen even if the United States sent 500,000 troops there, which it doesn’t have anyway.

A Tale of Two Surges

The U.S. strategy now appears to involve trying a surge, or sending in more troops and negotiating with the Taliban, mirroring the strategy used in Iraq. But the problem with that strategy is that the Taliban don’t seem inclined to make concessions to the United States. The Taliban don’t think the United States can win, and they know the United States won’t stay. The Petraeus strategy is to inflict enough pain on the Taliban to cause them to rethink their position, which worked in Iraq. But it did not work in Vietnam. So long as the Taliban have resources flowing and can survive American attacks, they will calculate that they can outlast the Americans. This has been Afghan strategy for centuries, and it worked against the British and Russians.

...the defeat of the Taliban under rationally anticipated circumstances is unlikely and that a negotiated settlement in Afghanistan will be much more difficult and unlikely than the settlement was in Iraq — but that even so, a robust effort against Islamist terror groups must continue regardless of the outcome of the war with the Taliban.

Therefore, we expect that the United States will separate the two conflicts in response to these realities. This will mean that containing terrorists will not be dependent on defeating or holding out against the Taliban, holding Afghanistan’s cities, or preserving the Karzai regime. We expect the United States to surge troops into Afghanistan, but in due course, the counterterrorist portion will diverge from the counter-Taliban portion. The counterterrorist portion will be maintained as an intense covert operation, while the overt operation will wind down over time. The Taliban ruling Afghanistan is not a threat to the United States, so long as intense counterterrorist operations continue there.

The cost of failure in Afghanistan is simply too high and the connection to counterterrorist activities too tenuous for the two strategies to be linked. And since the counterterror war is already distinct from conventional operations in much of Afghanistan and Pakistan, our forecast is not really that radical.

Tell Stratfor What You Think
https://www.stratfor.com/contact?type=responses&subject=RE%3A+Strategic+Divergence%3A+The+War+Against+the+Taliban+and+the+War+Against+Al+Qaeda

This report may be forwarded or republished on your website with attribution to www.stratfor.com

Odd that Mr Friedman never deals with efforts to turn the ANA and the Afghan Uniformed Police into effective forces.  And what of the effect on Pakistan if the Taliban take over, at a minimum, most of eastern and southern Afstan--surely not a happy prospect from the standpoint of US national interest?

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

A post at The Torch:

Afstan: Why writing letters to the Toronto Star (gasp!) can pay off
http://toyoufromfailinghands.blogspot.com/

Background:
http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/573230
http://www.thestar.com/article/577663

Mark
Ottawa

 

[leroi]

Looks like someone scooped your ideas.

Good work, Mark! 

 

[zipperhead_cop]

Good Stratfor article. 
Consider this:  If one were to want to have a convenient jumping off point to hit, say, Iran (or be able to threaten same) or wanted to keep a closer eye on Pakistan/Russia/China, would one have a vested interest in making things too good in Afghanistan?  One cannot justify creating foriegn mega-bases without a conflict to point at. 
Jus sayin'....

 

[MarkOttawa]

Two more perspectives:

1) Washington Post editorial:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/28/AR2009012803267.html

FOR YEARS, Democrats excoriated the Bush administration for not devoting sufficient resources to Afghanistan. But now that Barack Obama has taken office, some seem to be having second thoughts. "Our original goal was to go in there and take on al-Qaeda. . . . It was not to adopt the 51st state of the United States," said Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), the new chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Mr. Kerry pioneered the Democratic argument to send more troops during his own presidential campaign in 2004. Now he says "the parallels" to Vietnam "just really keep leaping out in so many different ways."

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates seconded that skepticism at a congressional hearing on Tuesday. "If we set ourselves the objective of creating some sort of Central Asian Valhalla over there, we will lose," he said, "because nobody in the world has that kind of time, patience and money, to be honest."

We're happy to agree that Afghanistan should not become the 51st state, or Valhalla -- but we're not sure who or what Mr. Kerry and Mr. Gates have in mind. So far as we know, the American objective in Afghanistan since 2002 has been pretty much what Mr. Gates says it should be: "an Afghan people who do not provide a safe haven for al-Qaeda, who reject the rule of the Taliban and support the legitimate government they have elected and in which they have a stake." ..

The way to avoid a quagmire is not to hold back on U.S. military reinforcements or development aid but to assemble a national civil-military plan that integrates war-fighting with reconstruction and political reconciliation. As Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) points out, such a plan was the foundation of the U.S. recovery in Iraq, but the model has never been applied in Afghanistan. That's largely because the United States must share authority with some 40 allies, many of which place strict limits on what their troops may do, insist on managing their own development programs, or both. The Afghan government of President Hamid Karzai, mired in corruption and increasingly at odds with U.S. commanders, is also not on board.

Afghanistan doesn't need to become the 51st state, but it does need a single, coherent, integrated plan to become a state strong enough to resist the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Creating one will require some aggressive diplomacy and maybe a little political china-breaking. That's something for which the State Department's new envoy to the region, Richard C. Holbrooke, is known. But low-balling the scale of the challenge, or the costs it may incur, won't help.

2) From a founding member of the Canada Afghanistan Solidarity Committee:

The cultural relativists can't excuse evil
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/cultural+relativists+excuse+evil/1229247/story.html

In November, when a group of unveiled girls was attacked by men on motorcycles who sprayed acid in their faces as they were walking to morning classes in Kandahar, Canadians were shocked...

...millions of brave Afghan schoolgirls are dedicated to pursuing their studies, in sometimes perilous and hostile circumstances, and their devotion is heartfelt, homegrown and hardy. It has not been "imposed" upon them by the "West."

As Canadians, we should be proud and honoured that history has afforded our country a specific opportunity to help young Afghan women assert their fundamental right to education. Our focus should be on how we can do more, and better. Instead, a bizarre kind of cultural relativism has come to infect national debates about the Afghan mission, clouding our judgment and entirely obscuring the very meaning of universal human rights...

Human rights are culturally relative, the thinking goes, and the universality of human rights is some sort of western imperialist construction. It is as though girls have no right to read if their "culture" forbids it. It is a rarely scrutinized assumption, but it is ubiquitous in Canadian universities, and it reaches its most toxic concentrations in "anti-war" debates...

Afghanistan is not just a theatre of war in the conventional meaning of the term. It is also a battleground of values. But it is not a clash between "western" and "eastern" cultures. The Afghan people want their girls to go to school. The Afghan people do not want the Taliban. But in Canada, it has nonetheless become necessary to point this out, over and over, and also to point out what it is that the Taliban actually do want.

"They want what they had before 2001: an extremist, eccentric Islamic state where the sports stadium is used for public executions of dissenters, homosexuals and women accused of adultery," Cheryl Benard of the Rand Corporation recently reminded us here in the "West." What the Taliban want is a place apart from humanity, where "religious police roam the streets with sticks to beat anyone whose beard or chador is too short; and all education for girls is eliminated."..

Yet to hear from some of the more prominent "troops out" voices in Canada, the Taliban are merely "dissidents" or "the resistance." To listen to these voices, you could be forgiven for thinking that the Taliban were some quaint tribe, engaged in a noble fight against the power-hungry, capitalist West.

Once you strip away the misleading "explanations" offered up by the cultural relativists, all that remains is disgraceful excuse-making for an ideology that requires its adherents to pull women's fingernails out for the crime of wearing nail polish. It is an ideology engaged in an open revolt against humanity, against the values shared by Afghans and Canadians alike, and against an entire international order founded in the aftermath of the Holocaust...

Lauryn Oates is a founding member of the Canada Afghanistan Solidarity Committee
http://afghanistan-canada-solidarity.org/
and project director of Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan's Excel-erate Teacher Training Program.
http://www.w4wafghan.ca/pdf/CW4WAfghanTeacherTrainingProfile-2008.pdf
She has advocated for the rights of Afghan women and girls since the Taliban invasion in 1996 and travels frequently to Afghanistan.

Mark
Ottawa

 

[observor 69]

Gates Predicts 'Slog' in Afghanistan
U.S. Military Can Achieve Limited Goals in Conflict, Defense Secretary Testifies

By Ann Scott Tyson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 28, 2009; Page A06
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates yesterday signaled sharply lower expectations for the war in Afghanistan, warning the conflict will be "a long slog" and that U.S. and allied military forces, even at higher levels, can achieve limited goals.

Gates said the U.S. military expects to be able to send three additional combat brigades -- between 10,000 and 12,000 troops -- to Afghanistan between late spring and midsummer to address a security vacuum "that increasingly has been filled by the Taliban."

Still, he warned that he would be "deeply skeptical" of any further U.S. troop increases, saying that Afghan soldiers and police must take the lead, in part so that the Afghan public does not turn against U.S. forces as it has against foreign troops throughout history. The U.S. force in Afghanistan numbers about 36,000, and commanders there have asked for as many as 30,000 more combat and support troops.
"There is little doubt that our greatest military challenge right now is Afghanistan," Gates said, marking the formal shift in priorities away from Iraq in his first congressional testimony as Pentagon chief under President Obama. Still, Gates said, U.S. goals in Afghanistan must be "modest" and "realistic."

"This is going to be a long slog, and frankly, my view is that we need to be very careful about the nature of the goals we set for ourselves in Afghanistan," he said. "If we set ourselves the objective of creating some sort of central Asian Valhalla over there, we will lose, because nobody in the world has that kind of time, patience and money," Gates testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee. (Valhalla is used as a synonym for heaven, but in Norse mythology it is a great hall where heroes slain in battle are received.)

Civilian casualties resulting from U.S. combat and airstrikes have been particularly harmful to progress in Afghanistan and must be avoided, Gates stressed. "My worry is that the Afghans come to see us as part of their problem rather than part of their solution, and then we are lost," he said.Moreover, the U.S. military must immediately voice regret for any civilian casualties, rather than waiting to investigate the details, Gates said in separate testimony before the House Armed Services Committee yesterday afternoon.

Gates said this is necessary to counter Taliban insurgents, who he said hide among the population and then report civilian deaths in coalition military operations quickly and widely on the Internet. "The instant we believe there may have been civilian casualties, we have to be out there" expressing condolences, rather than arguing over the numbers, he said.

Gates also warned of Iranian interference in Afghanistan, pointing to a slightly increased flow of weapons including components of lethal munitions known as "explosively formed projectiles." He said Iran wants to "have it both ways," seeking economic and diplomatic benefits of relations with Kabul while still attempting to impose "the highest possible costs" on U.S. and coalition troops.

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Michael Mullen said at a news conference late yesterday that roadside bomb and suicide attacks in Afghanistan have increased an estimated 40 percent over last year.

Iranian activities have been troubling in other parts of the world, Gates said, including Latin America, where Iran is setting up "a lot of offices and a lot of fronts."

On Iraq, Gates said Pentagon and military leaders are working on several timetables for U.S. troops to move from a combat to an advisory role beginning as early as 16 months from now and extending until the end of 2011. The options for and risks of withdrawing the 142,000 U.S. troops now in Iraq are being presented to Obama, who will meet with the Joint Chiefs at the Pentagon today, Gates said.

At the Pentagon, Gates made it clear that in a time of financial austerity his priority will be to reform the Pentagon's cumbersome acquisition process while crafting "a unified defense strategy that determines our budget priorities."

"The spigot of defense spending that opened on 9/11 is closing. With two major campaigns ongoing, the economic crisis and resulting budget pressures will force hard choices on this department," he said.

In particular, he criticized "entrenched attitudes throughout the government" that he said "are particularly pronounced in the area of acquisition: a risk-averse culture, a litigious process, parochial interests, excessive and changing requirements, budget churn and instability, and sometimes adversarial relationships" between the Pentagon and other parts of government.

Gates gave few details about the upcoming defense budget but offered a glimpse of how he will approach his pledge to take a hard look at Pentagon spending on weapons systems. New weapons systems should be able to address a "hybrid" threat from enemies who combine high technology with insurgent tactics.

"I want us to look for systems that have the maximum possible flexibility across the broadest possible range of conflict," he said in the House testimony.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/27/AR2009012700472.html?hpid=sec-nation

 

[MarkOttawa]

Paddy Ashdown's advice to Richard Holbrooke (usual copyright disclaimer):
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article5634470.ece

Dear Richard,

I'm glad that President Obama chose you as his special envoy in Afghanistan.
http://toyoufromfailinghands.blogspot.com/2009/01/afstan-to-fore.html
For I know that you are passionate about the country and have all the skills, experience and muscle to turn things round before it is too late.

It's not going to be easy, of course. But you know that. The talk here is of a troop surge with the new President asking Europe for more troops and to share more of the fighting. Quite right. We are trying to win in Afghanistan with one twenty-fifth of the troops and one fiftieth of the aid per head than in Bosnia. And, as you know, Afghanistan is much more difficult. If we are serious about avoiding defeat, it's time to get serious about raising our game. The fact that some Nato members won't allow their troops to fight undermines Nato, just when we may need it most - and not just in Afghanistan.

So more troops, more aid and more risk-sharing, is necessary - but not sufficient.

Some think that, in Iraq it was the surge that turned it round. But, as you know, there was more to it than that. The new politics in Iraq was as important as the extra soldiers. That's what's missing in Afghanistan. When it comes to post-conflict reconstruction, the soldiers' job is not to chase the enemy, but to create a secure space in which the politicians can rebuild a peace that has the support of the people.

It's not the military battle we are losing - it's the political one. I see your boss, Hillary Clinton, recently pointed the finger at corruption and the Karzai Government. She is right, of course. But the real problem is not President Karzai, it's us. The international community has failed to get its act together on a clear plan that we pursue through unity and speaking with a single voice. The British think Afghanistan is Helmand, the Canadians think it's Kandahar, the Dutch think it's Uruzgan, the Germans think it's the Panjshir valley and the US thinks it's chasing Osama bin Laden.

Everyone sees Afghanistan through their own national prism. Far too much aid comes with a metaphorical national barcode to ensure that national money is spent, often through national profit-making companies, on their own national projects, rather than through the Afghan Government on our jointly agreed priorities (here it's USAID that is most guilty).

And so, instead of unity, poor President Karzai gets confusion from his international partners and conflicting advice (sometimes instructions) from every ambassador he meets. If we can't get our act together, how can we expect him to? This is a sure way to defeat. It also means that our young soldiers are winning battles, often at considerable cost, while their political masters are wasting their sacrifices by failing to get their act together to win the peace. That's the real scandal of Afghanistan. Someone needs to bash heads together out there and if anyone can, you can.

We need a clear plan and some ruthless priorities. When I was going to Afghanistan in 2008 they told me we had 15 priorities. But if you have 15 priorities, you have none. You will decide your own priorities, no doubt. I set three; human security (including things such as jobs and electricity and water); governance (but working with the grain of Afghanistan's tribal structures, not trying to enforce a Western-model centralised Government from Kabul) and the rule of law, without which we cannot tackle the corruption eating at the heart of the Karzai Government or restore respect for Kabul's laws, rather than those of the Taleban.

Having got a plan, we need a policy. Here the US Secretary for Defence, Robert Gates, had it exactly right when he said “Afghanisation” is our task and our ticket out. The Afghan National Army is getting better and better. But the police are not and you will need to change that.

Mr Gates was also right when he said that we have to lower our expectations in Afghanistan. Trying to create a Western-style government with gender-aware citizens is setting ourselves up for failure. We may have to be satisfied for a bit with simply keeping al-Qaeda out and preventing the Taleban taking over.

You will have to decide, too, whether to talk to the Taleban. In the end it will probably be necessary, provided they will put aside the gun in favour of the ballot box. But they are in no mood for talking now, because they think they are winning. The first step is get them on the back foot, militarily - which is where the surge is so important. They must be convinced we have the force, the will and the staying power to beat them, before they will come to the table.

Finally, we have forgotten a truth that you yourself taught us when you drafted the Dayton Agreement for Bosnia; you can't build peace in a country without the help of the neighbours. We need a Dayton for Afghanistan, too, that secures the country's borders and enables the neighbours to play a role. This includes Iran, of course. But I don't think Tehran wants a vacuum of chaos and conflict on its borders. And getting Iran engaged could pave the way for Islamic countries, rather than Western ones, to help Pakistan to regain control of its lawless borders where al-Qaeda and the Taleban have their sanctuaries. Like Dayton, we would need international guarantors for such a treaty. Here I think China would play a part, for it has its own reasons for fearing Islamic jihadists. Maybe this could even open the way for a broader US/China strategic relationship that would benefit us all as the world moves deeper and deeper into instability.

Speaking of the Chinese, they have an old curse: “May you live in interesting times.” You're just about to find the truth of that. Best of luck !

Paddy.

PS. Jane says it's great you are involved in Afghanistan. What she really means is she's glad I'm not!

Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon was the international community's High Representative in Bosnia
http://www.libdems.org.uk/people/lord-ashdown-of-norton-sub-hamdon-gcmg-kbe-pc

Mark
Ottawa

 

[Journeyman]

He's absolutely correct in his advice, and people will all nod their heads in agreement -- and continue to tie aid to specific agendas, POLADS will continue to push for a Westernized central government, national caveats will limit military abilities, and the tactical view ('British thinking Afghanistan is Helmand; Canadians, Kandahar...') will continue to trump strategic requirements.

Despite lofty, and I believe correct, advice, the various players will default to what they know best; it's what we do -- hence the profusion of conflicting advice and operations.


In a similar vein, but from a predominantly military perspective, I'd recommend Col. Ian Hope's article,
UNITY OF COMMAND IN AFGHANISTAN:
A FORSAKEN PRINCIPLE OF WAR

 

[MarkOttawa]

A curse upon the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (please check the links within The Torch post):
http://toyoufromfailinghands.blogspot.com/2009/02/curse-upon-canadian-broadcasting.html

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

Maj.-Gen. (ret'd) Lewis MacKenzie suggests how Canada might respond to the new US administration:

Has Uncle Sam run out of patience?
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090202.wcoafghan03/BNStory/specialComment/home

...
There is little doubt that the current euphoria accompanying the new President into office will make it more difficult for NATO leaders to say no when the inevitable requests for additional troop support are made. Canadian commentators are already speculating that we will be asked to stay in Afghanistan in a combat role after 2011. Mr. Obama could well raise the issue during his visit.

The painful truth is that Canada will not be capable of remaining in Afghanistan in a combat role beyond 2011. Indeed, remaining in such a role until 2011 will present enough of its own problems and challenges.

Our military was slashed and burned during the 1990s when ordered to contribute 27 per cent of its budget toward paying down the national debt, a percentage greater than any other government department. It was impossible to immediately reduce spending by that amount except by dramatically reducing the number of its uniformed personnel. As a result, Canada has an army that can be seated in the old Maple Leaf Gardens with some empty seats left over...

Despite these tiny numbers, by 2011, we will have maintained a battle group (a combat unit of some 1,000 soldiers) in theatre for nearly nine years. The number of soldiers completing multiple tours in Afghanistan (some as many as four to date) and the one-year pretour training and temporary deployments on return to Canada to train recruits have broken parts of the army. Without respite, the remainder will be broken by 2011. This "best little army in the world" needs to be rebuilt. Maintaining the current combat role beyond 2011 would be virtually impossible.

This is not to suggest there would be no Canadian military and paramilitary roles in Afghanistan post-2011. Canada could - and probably will - carry on with numerous enhanced tasks. Our Kandahar Provincial Reconstruction Team and its infantry company protection force could well remain. There is a crying need for additional instructors for the understaffed NATO teams training the expanding Afghan National Army. The international police currently training the problematic Afghan National Police are short some 3,000 instructors! In concert with expanded diplomatic, governance and development commitment, the Canadian footprint in Afghanistan after 2011 could well total 1,000 compared with the nearly 3,000 in-country today [what about the Air Force?
http://forums.milnet.ca/forums/threads/49908/post-801875.html#msg801875 ]...

It appears that U.S. patience with NATO's lack of progress in Afghanistan is running out. Barack Obama is about to play political hardball.

Retired major-general Lewis MacKenzie was the first commander of UN peacekeeping forces in Sarajevo.

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

A Torch post:

The "Americanization" of ISAF
http://toyoufromfailinghands.blogspot.com/2009/02/americanization-of-isaf.html

Mark
Ottawa

 

[leroi]

One encouraging opinion from The Walrus:  March 2009.

http://www.walrusmagazine.com/articles/2009.03-letters-letters-march-2009/

From the Letters (Reproduced under the Fair Dealing Provision of the Copyright Act.)

The Key to Kabul

I have been engaged in health care development and policy work for more than three of the past eight years in Afghanistan, most recently in Kabul. A friend sent me Charles Montgomery’s article “The Archipelago of Fear” (December 2008), which I thought a reasonably good representation of the dysfunction that plagues the city’s reconstruction and the effect of architectural fearmongering on its people.

But Montgomery doesn’t give any credit where it’s due: to the organizations, both national and international, that have improved the economic situation, literacy, and health of the Afghan people. Some of us were in here before the barriers were built, when we could meet the people. I speak enough Dari to get by and have, unlike most of the westerners in Montgomery’s article, made a tremendous effort to understand the culture and bring this knowledge to bear in my work. Of course, it’s easy to see why successes like mine didn’t make it into the story. Those of us who don’t hang out at L’Atmosphère are harder to find.

It’s typical for the media to focus on the hopelessness of the situation in Afghanistan. But I was also here during the Taliban regime, and I can assure readers there have been many positive changes since then. Maybe if reporters had witnessed this change themselves, they would see fit to broadcast some hope.

Maureen Mayhew
Management Sciences for Health
Kabul, Afghanistan