Breaking the Silence: Escalation in Afghanistan Does Not Keep America Safe

Last week, President Obama concluded his strategy review on the war in Afghanistan. In his speech announcing his conclusions, he explicitly stated the reason this war continues:

As President, my greatest responsibility is to protect the American people. We are not in Afghanistan to control that country or to dictate its future. We are in Afghanistan to confront a common enemy that threatens the United States , our friends and allies, and the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan who have suffered the most at the hands of violent extremists.

So I want the American people to understand that we have a clear and focused goal: to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan , and to prevent their return to either country in the future. That is the goal that must be achieved. That is a cause that could not be more just. And to the terrorists who oppose us, my message is the same: we will defeat you.

In this, I agree with the President. The goal of any war America prosecutes should be to keep America safe, and the goal of this war is to prevent terrorist attacks from Al Qaeda.

I am heartened that President Obama has explicitly endorsed what I think is the only reason America should ever go to war. I'm saddened that I disagree so much with his methods for achieving that goal. In that speech, he also explicitly linked Taliban control of Afghanistan to defeating Al Qaeda:

So let me be clear: al Qaeda and its allies - the terrorists who planned and supported the 9/11 attacks - are in Pakistan and Afghanistan . Multiple intelligence estimates have warned that al Qaeda is actively planning attacks on the U.S. homeland from its safe-haven in Pakistan . And if the Afghan government falls to the Taliban - or allows al Qaeda to go unchallenged - that country will again be a base for terrorists who want to kill as many of our people as they possibly can.

In fact, the logic is entirely wrong. At its heart, the Taliban is a foreign resistance organization. The Taliban is more powerful now, both in Afghanistan and Pakistan, precisely because there are foreign troops in their countries. By escalating in Afghanistan and putting more foreign troops into the region, we drive Taliban recruitment and power.

There is another way. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace has laid out a plan to eventually de-escalate in Afghanistan, fight Al Qaeda, and keep America safe. By focusing the current level of NATO troops in places where they can have the most impact, and working regionally with the Afghan government, Pakistan, and even the Taliban to disrupt Al Qaeda cells, we can get ourselves to a position where we guard over the region without being committed heavily on the ground. This will not only strengthen our allies in the region and cost less money and lives, but it will also sap the Taliban's recruiting power and allow us to focus on the real threat, Al Qaeda.

It has never been explained to me why we need thousands of troops on the ground to root out Al Qaeda. America, working with its allies, has been disrupting terrorist networks for decades without large ground forces. Why can't we do it in Afghanistan?

Because if you take this logic to its conclusion, that we need ground troops to disrupt Al Qaeda cells, then we need forces in Somalia, and Yemen, and Saudi Arabia, all of whom are known to host Al Qaeda members.

More importantly, the troop surge just will not work.

This decision by President Obama has historical parallels. As I wrote yesterday:

42 years ago today, on April 4th, 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King first spoke out against the Vietnam war in a speech entitled "A Time to Break Silence."

On April 6th, 2009, Get Afghanistan Right, in coordination with bloggers, writers, and activists all over the country, will participate in demonstrations both online and offline around the war in Afghanistan, with the aim of getting our fellow Americans to break their silence and voice their views on the conflict, which is escalating now that President Obama has completed his strategy review.

...

Write a blog post on April 6th. Write it on your own site and then email Get Afghanistan Right, so we can aggregate your post with others on our homepage. Or, write a post on Oxdown Gazette over at Firedoglake, a site where anyone can write a post. (Click here for instructions.) Whatever you choose to do, just break the silence. The world will be better for it.

So, please join me and speak out with your opinion on escalation in Afghanistan. You'll be in good company - today, bloggers on Daily Kos, Firedoglake, here at The Seminal, and numerous other outlets are expressing their views as well. So please , take a moment and write a blog post on Oxdown Gazette.

And when you're done, continue your activism. Sign a petition for oversight of the Afghanistan war by Congress. Call your representatives in Washington and share your views directly. And tell your friends about Get Afghanistan Right so more people can get involved.

We, as progressives, have been silent about this war for too long. As Dr. King said, "We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak."

Comments

[thetrajectory]

The refurbished Afghanistan policy hopefully moves beyond the mere catchy "AfPak" concept and recognizes the deeper dynamics of terrorism across the world. The anti-terror approach needs to move away from the realm of nation-state specific policies and deal with it as a socio-strategic phenomenon across the globe.
http://thetrajectory.com/blogs/?p=370

[Solaris123]

NAto, allies and U.S. should now maintain razor-like focus on suppressing Taliban and AQ elements. This requires dramatic escalation of the troop levels. But it is not just the numbers. Grunts are useless here. Afghanistan needs savvy, mountain trained and battle hardened troops. The fight must be also carried out into the Rand R and training areas of the enemy. Simultaneously, reconstruction of the country must be accelerated in the areas where Taliban presence is less acute.

[Luvial]

Escalation keeps Pentagon spending increasing while the American people are subjected to political fearmongering. Obama=Bush

[scampy123]

Americans just cannot bring themselves to say the 9/11 terrorists were our friends the Saudi's with one Egyptian., there were no Iraqi's or Afghans involved, they only existed in the mind of mad bad Cheney.

[ObamaSheeple]

But bin Laden does not currently live in Saudi. He lives in Pakistan. If we leave Afghanistan, he will reoccupy and plan from there and/or Pakistan. He and Zawahiri are the ones responsible and are more capable than anyone else of committing a new successful attack on us.

[mayor pufnstuf]

The campaign rhetoric of bringing the troops home was just that, rhetoric. A troop presence will remain in Iraq for decades to come. Playing semantics with "combat" and "non-combat" troops is a ruse. Troops are troops. Military presence is military presence. Period. I'd also be willing to wager that as troops leave Iraq for Afghanistan, the use of so-called security contractors (mercenaries) in Iraq will increase.

It's little more than slight of hand to distribute troops elsewhere. To Afghanistan, where a war is completely un-winnable.

What is Obama's "solution" in Afghanistan? A troop surge. What an innovative solution. We haven't seen that fail elsewhere recently.
What is the exit strategy? There is none.
Timeline? Nope
Goals? Supposedly new "narrow' goals. Whatever that means. Sounds just like the old "goals."

Substitute the name Obama with Bush, and change the dates to one year prior, on all the articles regarding the Obama administration policy on Afghanistan and you wouldn't be able to tell that it's not Bush's policy.

[ObamaSheeple]

So pull out some troops and leave the fewer number to be sitting ducks for the Taliban to target. If you suggest to pull all of the troops out, then how are we to implement the suggested strategy which won't work any more definitively then saying an escalation won't work?

So just let bin Laden get away and plan another attack on us? Boy, I'm glad you aren't in charge of the nation's security. The plan puts troops at great risk and the Afghan gov't at an even greater risk, not to mention Pakistan.

[Paul]

Al Qaeda will not die to defend Afghanistan - they will simply move on to some other failed state.

There is no military solution to terrorism - to attempt one is to play into their hand.

Afghanistan is a loser - time to come home.

[rlugbill]

You are absolutely right. The problem is nobody cares, so the military-industrial complex that makes money off of wars will prevail. They will get their way by putting people into powerful positions in government to continually persuade politicians to keep making war so they can keep making profits.

Look at the number of posts here (1) versus the number of posts about Levi Johnston's interview (thousands). People care more about who the governor of Alaska's daughter slept with than with wars thousands of miles away.

People don't care, but corporations do, so the corporate interests prevail. Democracy loses.

[batguano]

Speak the truth bro. This is not rocket surgery, if we don't start respecting our only planet fast, we are toast. If we don't start spending more money on life sustaining stuff rather than on death producing stuff, we are toast. If we don't give up the thinking that "the economy" is the most important aspect to life on Earth we are toast. If we don't acknowledge and begin to believe that the ability of Earth to sustain and nurture life is more relevant than "the economy" we are toast.