Another Letter About Afghanistan the President May Not Be Reading

Following up Matthew Hoh's resignation letter of a couple weeks ago comes this missive from William Polk who, like Hoh, finds the only prudent course of action regarding Afghanistan to be a timely removal of foreign (i.e., US and NATO) troops.  If you don't know why the "tribal areas" on the Pak-Afghan border are so notoriously hard for the Pakistanis to govern, if you wonder why the people in the Afghan countryside don't automatically see us as their friends and liberators, if you think this is the first time somebody has tried to modernize/westernize/democratize/liberalize Afghanistan, this letter is timely and important reading. 

The President Obama many of us voted for would, we imagined, have been the kind of guy to seek out this, and Matthew Hoh's, viewpoint before deciding on a new strategy.  The President Obama we got leaked (or opponents inside the White House did) weeks ago that a troop pullout was off the table.

I blame the table.

 

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Comments

[jrutle]

I sometimes wonder if newly elected Presidents undergo a Stepford-type brainwashing by the NSC to perpetuate the belief that military solutions exist to political problems. I only hope that President Obama is using his time developing a new course of action for Pak-Afghan wisely and that he's listening to the minority of advisors in his Administration who understand that the history and geography of this region is the very definition of quagmire. Its simply remarkable that the NSC can not look at the experience of the British, USSR, and other foreign occupations in Afghanistan and realize that we will end up with the same fateful results. We need an orderly withdrawal of military forces from Afghanistan and a multi-lateral approach for dealing with regional concerns about international terrorism. 100,000 military troops, another 70,000 contractor mercenaries, and $100B/year is a huge waste of resources on a worthless and unnecessary cause. The money would be much better used at home. The Nation has some excellent articles dispelling a number of myths about Afghanistan in its 9 Nov issue and a good interview with Gorbachev about the USSR's experience in the 16 Nov issue. All are recommended reading.

[Emerald1943]

I read with great interest Mr. Polk's open letter to the President. It was extremely well thought-out and puts the Afghanistan situation in the proper perspective. I do hope that the President has had an opportunity to read and digest the message.

The American people do not want this war anymore. GWB convinced us that using a huge military contingent was the only way to get Osama bin Laden "dead or alive". It should be apparent to anyone who is keeping up with events there that this has not worked, nor will it work. OBL is not in Afghanistan if he even exists anymore. It has been reported that there are perhaps only 100 Al Qaeda members in Afghanistan. It makes no sense to send thousands of troops and spend billions of dollars to go after a few tribesmen.

Let's end this now. It is certainly not worth even ONE MORE American life!

[hotaruSTAR16]

Thank you for sharing this. Have you considered writing for Asia Chronicle? The site provides in-depth analyses on the issues facing Asian nations, and the Afghanistan War is most definitely one of those "issues." Worth a read I think. www.asiachroniclenews.com

[progressiveconnie]

GOOD MORNING!!! MY FELLOW HOMO SAPIENS WHICH MEANS THE SPECIES WHO IS WISE.
After almost a whole year has past Obama is finally beginning to realize that he has been getting counterproductive, terrible advice from his warmongering Bushite/Clintonite advisers.
Obama should remember that another President put to much faith in one of his advisers, a guy named Mc Namara who thought he could win a war with computer programs and as a result plunged America deeper into that bottomless abyss called Viet Nam.
Obama's first year in office has been a terrible disappointment to most of the people who worked to get him elected and who also voted for him because of his message of change, unfortunately Obama ended up keeping those warmongering Bush appointees, those dimwitted Robber Baron Stooges and the Clintonites who believe in their rigid ideology that appeasing and moving toward the right no matter what it costs is the politically correct thing to do and as a result of this stupid ideology Obama has been prevented from achieveing any of his goals for major change and reform.
Obama is going to have to get rid of these Bush/Clinton advisers before he can achieve his vision and goals for America and replace them with sane, intelligent, wise advisors that believe in his vision for America.

[Oleg1]

re."Obama's first year in office has been a terrible disappointment to most of the people who worked to get him elected and who also voted for him because of his message of change,"

Obama clearly, repeatedly and forcefully argued for strong action against Taliban and foreign jihadsits in Afghanistan.
One had to be entirely out of touch with his presidential campaign to miss that.

[baldindian]

The Kashmir problem originated when Pakistan refused to accept the decision of the Maharaja of Kashmir to acceed to India.Pakistan felt that since the kingdom had a majority of Muslims, it should have become a part of Pakistan.

When the Mahraja signed to join his kingdom to India, the newly created state of Pakistan sent in its army,without uniforms, as irregular tribemen( sounds fimiliar?)­.Fortunate­ly, this band of irregulars stopped to loot and rape and got delayed enough for the indian army AND lots of Kashmir muslims(led by a one Mr. Sheik Abdullah) to stop them at Srinager.Thats how Kasmir got devided .

Nehru,India's 1st PM, took the issue to the UN and committed to a plebecite to the UN( not to Lord Mountbatten), ONCE ALL INVADING ARMIES LEFT THE REGION.That has not happened and the plebecite has not happened.

To India, Kashmir is important since it symbolises India's belief that religion cannot be the basis of creating and sustaining nations.If it was not so, India should not be host to 140 million Muslims who never left India for Pakistan.

Kashmir is important to Pakistan, for exactly the opposite reasons. Pakistan was created on the basis of a seperate nation being needed for muslim majority regions to protect muslims from a Hindu majority nation.How then can a Muslim majority region remain in Hindu India?(never mind that 140 million indian citizens are Muslims).

He is right. The USA should stay out of this.

Brilliant article.

[WorldofTomorrow420]

Endless war...thank you, Barack! I'll be sure to vote for your opponent in the 2012 primary.

[winningticket]

I'm sorry but Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin are also for endless war.

[Nelk]

Ah, but this was the "good war" according to BHO. Barrack can't make a decision. He is hopelessly out of his element. Someone, get him a teleprompter, quick.

[Harry Shearer - Huffpost Blogger]

More precisely, he called it the "necessary war" to distinguish it from Iraq, the war of choice. His conceptual problem is that the war may well have been necessary seven years ago, when Bush abandoned it, but history may have moved on past that stage in the intervening years. That's a problem a prompter won't solve.

[ConcernedAboutRFuture]

Ahhh, principal Skinner, you never fail to validate my perspective and concerns. I always look forward to reading your blogs.

Thanks for bringing this issue to the forefront.

[ConcernedAboutRFuture]

How can we pull out when war is such a big business for so many in the US? Yes, this reason is a disgrace.... but I suspect it is a strong validation for our president's flip flopping on this issue, rather than assuming he can "westernize" that region in any way. What are all those Pentagon Joe's going to do if there's no one to kill, no useless strategy to plot, no WMD's to look for?

The atrocities were there before and will continue, until there is a major social shift. We will not be those facilitating that shift I'm sure.... we are only hindering its evolution.

[3rdCitizen]

I honestly don't know what the best choice is for Obama to make about Afghanistan. But if he does decide to withdraw, his administration will be blamed for "losing Afghanistan," and for every human rights abuse & atrocity subsequently committed by the Taliban, and for whatever befalls the corrupt governments in Kabul & Islamabad. If he doesn't withdraw, it's hard to imagine any realistic scenario that isn't, at best, a quagmire.

[elbzee]

NO ONE has EVER won Afganistan. We need to leave. There are too many of us who remember Viet Nam to want to find ourselves in a similar quagmire so soon. Let's prove we learned something!

[RepugsOut08]

Agreed.
Bush lost Afghanistan at Tora Bora years ago. Everything since then has been folly, with American and allied lives, along with desperately needed capital at home, wasted. WASTED!

[Oleg1]

No one ever successfully occupied and defeated Japan before 1945.
But we did.
And extremely successfully too

[luziannagirl]

OK fine. Don't pull out of Afghanistan then. Focus on the region where Bin Laden may be hiding, and let the rest of the population figure things out for themselves. Hell it took the U.S. till 1920 to decide to give women the power of the vote, and U.S. women still don't have parity in pay and are scarce as hens' teeth in Congress and corporate board rooms. Would we have wanted to be invaded by some other "more enlightened" country to make things better faster for American women? Of course not.

Pull out of Iraq. Never should have gone there in the first place, it's more or less stable, our being there is a source of strife all by itself. Declare victory and exit. Now.

Regardless of who made this mess, it's tidy-up time, Mr. President.

[Radicalthinker]

Unless we develop a comprehensive South Asia strategy, the most we can hope for is a temporary peace in Afghanistan.

What would such a strategy look like? Well, at the very least it requires some moderation of the strategic competition between India and Pakistan. Without attention to this aspect of the problem, we really are only playing around at the edges of the conflict.

For more, there's a good piece here: http://bit.ly/3vYHPk

[Harry Shearer - Huffpost Blogger]

In the same way that the Israel-Palestine strategic conflict is at the root of our Middle East problem, the India-Pakistan one is at the root of our growing Central Asia problem. Maybe a wise administration would focus, like a laser beam, on the long-delayed resolution of those two matters....

[margoharris]

Hey Harry,
Why don't you run for congress or senate in LA?

[Oubastet]

You are spot-on with that.

[RickyJ]

Why are they "our" problems. What are the dire consequences of non involvement? Why are Russia and China so much less concerned than the US in being part of the solution? Why do I see so little discussion of how much better off the US would have been if we didn't try to support one side over the other and give away so much for murky, quixotic aims?

[Oubastet]

Mr. Shearer, we're in a damned do/don't situation with Afghanistan. It's another Vietnam in which we'll continue to get in deeper with no graceful or successful strategy to get out... But also a territory which poses terrible things if we don't stay. Consider the reasons:

Pro Afghan Militarization: We're working to deter the AlQaeda and Taliban from further destabilizationin the region; the collapse of neighboring Pakistani government, a nuclear power, has the potential for fallout of longer range (and worse) consequences than our prolongued presence. We will also manage to keep the ol' oil pipeline to Russia from happening; we're a piggish country about oil and we don't want to share. (I'm not saying this is right, but let's call it what it is)

Anti-Milit­arization: We're not going to win this one. We should have learned in both Vietnam and Iraq that you cannot go into these things loaded for bear, only end up fighting hornets. We're going to keep losing troops, money, resources, and never be doing much more than buying time. But buying time for what? Until when? Again, we can't win this one.

You're right that letters like Hoh's and Polk's need more coverage. We need to hear that there are sane, dissenting voices to the ongoing military action. We need to weigh these things against the shouts of those who want to keep us in that region endlessly.

And in the end, let's just hope Obama possesses the wisdom of Solomon in this case.

[RTIII]

Define "further destabilizationin" for Afghanistan. It was bombed back to the stone age by the Russians and has never been stable since. There's nothing to destabilize.

We are helping to protect Pakistan's nuclear arsenal.

You are right; we need to get out now.
.

[Oubastet]

In this case, the destabilization isn't a typical terrorism thing. It's not about small segments of the population being afraid of the occasional gunman or bombs. The Al Qaeda and Taliban are of the *religious* terrorist movement, which is a whole different ball game. They will strike and strike with as much intention of *converting* the frightened as with killing them. Afghan is not the biggest concern... They are already in Pakistan, and the movement continues to grow. The course of what happens when radical groups burgeon in great numbers, (again, think Vietnam) is easy to predict. It's in every history book and goes back thousands and thousands of years. Once they have control in Pakistan, they will be a nuclear power. This is how tyrants gain their footing, and at that point, today's "destabilization" will seem like child's play by comparison.

So there is the quandry. We need to withdraw... but can we afford to?

At this juncture, I'm just happy that Obama is still considering the whole picture instead of jumping in with Bush/Cheney's go-to-hell bravado. It seems half of this is going to be the President needing to straighten things out after a bar fight caused by a dimwit elder brother who couldn't control himself.

As it looks right now, either way this plays out, there's no happy ending and no complete satisfaction.

[Oleg1]

Mr. Polk states:"According to press accounts, you are being told that America can win the war against the Taliban by employing overwhelming military power."
This is factually incorrect.
Most of the MSM press accounts present a picture where millitray political leaders insist on a combination political, diplomatic, economic and strategic solutions to Afghanistan occupation.
Typical example:
"... But I do believe..a properly resourced counterinsurgency probably means more forces, and, without question, more time and more commitment to the protection of the Afghan people and to the development of good governance,” Admiral Mullen said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/16/world/asia/16mullen.html

three elements Adm. Miller addresses here: more force, political solutions and better security for Afghan citizens trying to rebuild their country.

Typical comment even from the notoriously belligerent Fox News:
"Obama has said that he will use diplomacy as part of a new strategy in Afghanistan.
"I am absolutely convinced that you cannot solve the problem of Afghanistan, the Taliban, the spread of extremism in that region solely through military means," he told CBC"

[Enliberate]

Excuse me, but that's what we call "spin"-you gotta come up with a cover story! The benefit of the Afghans is as good as any other. The oil pipe-line posted above you is a more likely reason. In any event, when you wipe out wedding parties with remote weaponry, you're showing that Afghan peasant is not #1 concern. And, honestly, living in a country that barely escaped the Bush years without lurching into martial law, maybe we ought to think about the development of good governance right here at home. You still don't see: We, to some degree, are the problem.

[Oleg1]

groan... not the "we fighting for Unocal" fantasy.

[Oleg1]

Mr.Polk claims that "what actually brought all the insurgencies, including the one in Vietnam, to a halt was the withdrawal of the foreigners."
This is factually incorrect.
Islamicist insurgency in Afghanistan got stronger following Soviet withdrawal and in fact resulted in insurgents taking over the country after several years of a struggle with progressive Afghan government.

[RepugsOut08]

So, your argument is we'd be better off with the Soviets still in Afghanistan? The Russians might dissagree with you. Probably the US government as well.

[Oleg1]

Obviously I did not claim such a thing.
In order to have a valid discussion certain fallacious pitfalls should be avoided. The one used in your reply is called straw man-- misrepresenting opponent's position. Here done to extend my point to an illogical conclusion ( "petitio principi" fallacy).

I merely stated that Mr. Polk presented factually incorrect data to support his argument.
To wit-- that Islamicist insurgency stopped when foreigners ( Soviets) left. Nothing can be further from the truth.
Anyone who is willing to argue this point--please do.

[Oleg1]

Timely withdrawal is the only solution.
Build schools and infrastructure (at least to Third World standards) bribe or intimidate trbies into a political deal, marginalize Taliban, defeat and/or chase out foreign Jihadis ( Iraq model) and...Exit ASAP!

But leaving without a serious attempt to achieve above goals will constitute an immoral betrayal of Afghans, Europeans and American people.

[Enliberate]

In all due respect, that immoral betrayal has already long been constituted. And though I appreciate your intention towards some good works, it just can't happen like this-the American image is too damaged to expect any kind of miraculous union of U.S. and Afghan policy. It would take a very long time, if at all possible.

[Oleg1]

It is not about the image. It is about global and regional security. And not abandoning Afghan people to Islsmicist militants (YET AGAIN) is the inextricable part of that strategy.
Regardless of what American neo- isolationists think.