"I was really depressed when I learned he [Obama] was going to say it's all about al Qaeda," Marvin Weinbaum said. Weinbaum is a scholar-in-residence at the Middle East Institute and an Afghanistan expert who visited the White House during the months President Obama was crafting his new AfPak policy. Now he is working with the Afghan Familiarization Program to help prepare the civilians who are going in country, the "expeditionary forces" who will implement a significant part of the president's new policy. On Friday he spoke to a group of journalists at the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism at the University of Maryland. (Watch the speech and the Q & A here.)
"But for political expediency reasons -- and I understand, that's what grabs the American people," Weinbaum continued, going on to explain why al Qaeda is not the reason we are still in Afghanistan. Although I think Marvin Weinbaum is wrong on the subject of what grabs us Americans (I do not believe that the threat of al Qaeda is any longer one of those attention-grabbers), Weinbaum does know Afghanistan. "I'm one of the few people left who took any interest in Afghanistan in the 1960s and 1970s," Weinbaum said. His discourse at the Knight Center is telling in many ways. Since the session is an hour-and-a-half long, I annotate the highlights below.
55:37 This is not an 18-month commitment. "I was in the White House last week. I'll give you first-hand what their thinking is -- it's an indefinite commitment. . . . At 18 months we're going to be evaluating whether our strategy is working. . . . We're not saying forever.... We might go from 100,000 to 98,000 [troops] if we are succeeding."
01:06:48 We are going around Karzai. "We know we don't have much going with Hamid Karzai and the central government. You've got to go around it. Hence the bottom-up approach."
01:09:28 Announcing an exit date was a big mistake. "He [Obama] said that [the exit date] because he had to for domestic consumption." In answer to a question about Afghans and Pakistanis planning around our announced strategy and therefore hedging their bets, Weinbaum concurred. "Exactly. I asked the same question at the White House. This is the problem. . . . You've made it all al Qaeda. . . . Media sources in the region [AfPak] played up not the speech [Obama gave] but the date. . . . An unintended consequence but a serious one."
01:18:20 "We had better realize what we are facing." "When it appears we are getting out, there will be a rush to the exit. What will be the consequence? Very quickly, a return to fighting. . . . Iranians and Russians and their clients, Indians and Saudis, all jump in. . . . Pakistan picks up their Pashtun card. . . . everyone trying to salvage what they can for their own interests . . . Afghanistan becomes a killing field. . . Taliban come back in to settle scores. . . . There is a refugee crisis and a humanitarian crisis tracked back to the international command [now in Afghanistan]. . . . The Taliban, these are not nationalists [as they were before 2001]. Now they all share the idea of an Islamic state in their image. It is the caliphate for this region."
Success there, by the way, Weinbaum (see 43:43) gives only a 50-50 chance.
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America cannot defeat the Taliban because they live there we don't. We are the invaders, the occupiers. How much of a chance would invaders and occupiers have in America? How would they win over the American people? Why would the Afghans be any different than Americans? The war is a bad joke. Nine years of what? Nothing. Nothing but death.
European occupiers did pretty well in America., thank you.
Have you heard from Iroquois nation, Aztec, Inca and Maya lately?
Next subject.
The real objective is to establish a 'forever war" and thereby gain a beachhead in that part of the world to make sure it doesn't become completely unglued.
That's what has happened in Iraq.
Next stop on the neo-imperalism of the USA is Yemen.
Is Afghanistan our first experiment in this? Perhaps? Perhaps this is our new way of walking softly and carrying a big stick. I don't see this as Bush years extended. We are getting rid of corrupt mercenaries, putting civilian experts back in place, and coming at it afresh to try to get a handle on something that is only irrelevant if you think that Afghanistan is not the tip of the iceberg. But it is. And unlike the polar cap, it's growing not melting.
Who are these "large numbers of people" you speaking of
Who else beside the islamic militants willing to kill anyone who opposes their narrow minded fantasies?
I
Marvin Weinbaum
Quotes:
"There are no short cuts to victory in the task before the United States in Afghanistan-Pakistan.
The Obama Administration needs to make a strong case to the American public in support of a long-term commitment to both countries.
The message needs to be clear that an increased military role in Afghanistan and strategic cooperation with Pakistan are only marginally about destroying al Qaeda.... Hence it’s of paramount importance that the Obama administration encourage a public consensus to engage diplomatically and economically, in addition to militarily, until both Afghanistan and Pakistan are able to stand up to the attacks on their fragile democracies."
http://www.mei.edu/Scholars/MarvinWeinbaum/tabid/444/ctl/Detail/mid/1965/xmid/585/xmfid/13/Default.aspx
"We are not winning, which means we are losing and as we are losing, the message traffic out there to (insurgency) recruits keeps getting better and better and more keep coming."
(Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff)
"The Taliban are not nationalists [as they were before 2001]. Now they all share the idea of an Islamic state in their image. It is the caliphate for this region."
(Marvin Weinbaum, Middle East Institute/Mayhill Fowler article
6 December '09)
"Success there, by the way, Weinbaum gives only a 50-50 chance."
(Mayhill Fowler: 'Some Straight Truths About Afghanistan' 6 December '09)
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We may not see statements this honest again for a very long time. They aren't anything to party to, but I prefer these kind to spin.
I wonder if, in the end, we will have to settle for containment.
Item: Bush is not in charge this time. Instead, we have a COC who's fixed on making Afghanistan work like it ought to, rather than creating a NeoCon paradise in a raped country. Training up the cops and Army is exactly what we need to do, and Obama and his Generals will do what they said they will.
Besides all that, don't forget that us just leaving, would leave Pakistan to the tender mercies of the Taliban, who are by some estimates winning there already. What are you going to say in the future, about what you are saying right now, when the Taliban have possession of Pakistan's nukes? Who do you think is first on the list, for their demonstration use of those armaments? One guess, on that.
The sad truth is, as with any colonial misadventure, these consequences are inevitable - whether we leave tomorrow or in a hundred years. We cannot save Afghanistan from it's own geopolitical history, I'm sorry. The sooner we leave the better for ourselves and for the rest of the world - the Afghans wll have to solve their own problems; they will have to do so eventually in any case.
For those who subscribe to a higher power, I leave you with something I learned long ago:
God’s great power it tempered by His love and His love is backed up by His power.
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In theory, I totally agree, and have long thought as much. But I fear that in practice what seems historically, democratically and geographically 'obvious' to one set of people would be challenged by another that picked a different point in history to 'freeze' the status quo -- Kuwait and Iraq come immediately to mind. But the fact is that if 2 or more countries/regions/tribal area/spheres-of-influence mutually agree -- either amicably or through a hard fought peace treaty -- to redraw or re-establish their borders, they can, and do, as in the Balkans, Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Republics. So maybe one day there'll actually be a 'Kurdistan' and 'Pashtunistan', but only by the mutual consent of everyone in the region, not because the UN says so (we saw where that one got us with Israel and Palestine) -- and I really can't see that happening anytime soon the way we're going!
We are in Afghanistan so that the major oil companies and infrastructure contractors can build their pipelines, airports, highways, etc., without interference from the Taliban and other hostile forces. Afghanistan offers the most strategic transit for pipelines which will keep Iran and Russia "out of the loop" so to speak.
Once these reasons are understood, "almost" everything else makes perfect sense. I emphasize the word "almost", because even knowing the truth, I still cannot answer one question: When will this fatal attraction to oil cease to control the destiny of the human race?
"You can check out any time you like..... but you can never leave"