A recent Open Letter to President Obama written by a host of well-known and experienced Afghan experts, which includes a recommendation to end the escalating war in Afghanistan and Pakistan through a power-sharing arrangement with the Taliban, presents itself as a realistic new alternative.
This "call to reason" comes from individuals purportedly well-equipped to recommend a workable solution that fits the needs of the United States, its Western allies and, of course, the affected populations of both Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Unfortunately, when it comes to Afghanistan and the Taliban what passes for reason has already been revealed as a series of loaded arguments based on false assumptions which repeat exactly the same mantras that produced Afghanistan's Taliban tragedy to begin with. And this letter is no exception.
During the Clinton administration the pressure came to recognize a Taliban regime that had seized control through the direct efforts of America's ally Pakistan. Posing as an indigenous force the Taliban fooled the war-weary Afghans into laying down their arms but upon assuming control acted as vicious occupiers while engaging in brutality towards women and the ethnic cleaning of Afghanistan's non-Pashtun minorities. Now we are told again that the "Taliban today are now a national movement."
Yet today's Taliban are no more a national movement chosen by the Afghan people than they were in the 1990s. The only difference to today's Taliban is in their level of military sophistication and their ability to control the false narrative of their creation to their advantage. Today's new Taliban narrative amounts to a formula for state collapse. So why is this distinguished group of experts willing to accept it?
One cannot rightly blame this group for its effort at reconciliation with the Taliban when no other viable options are known to be available. However, the clear defect in the open letter and all other medicaments bandied about to date is the lack of genuine indigenous feedback. And this is exactly what we at the New World Strategies Coalition (NWSC) firmly believe, because there is only one solution for peace in Afghanistan -- and that is an Afghan solution.
Fixing the problem does not lie in a presupposed remedy but in the process itself -- one constructed from scratch that will place the totality of the future design of the Afghan state into the hands of the Afghan people.
It's time to abandon the standard approach of purely focusing on U.S. and NATO collective security interests at the expense of Afghanistan's national interests. And the NWSC rejects the notion that we have to work with Afghanistan as it is and not how it can be.
Contrary to the conventional wisdom espoused in the open letter being pushed by the likes of Alex Strick van Linschoten, co-editor of My Life With the Taliban, Afghans do not have to choose between the lesser of two evils -- Karzai or the Taliban -- because there is another path to peace and national reconciliation.
The current situation is so intractable that to fix it requires more than simply "thinking outside the box" -- it requires throwing the entire box away, as Afghans symbolically tell friend and foe alike a new age is dawning. Afghanistan in its current state is unrecognizable to most Afghans anyway; hence a major paradigm shift is in order.
We propose restoring indigenous tribal institutions and resuscitating national solidarity by holding a series of three "All-Afghan Jirgas" to select a new national government and leadership -- the first two of which will be conducted in neutral foreign countries outside of the destabilizing and corruptive war zone, with the finale held back home in Afghanistan to announce the results of a legitimate national self-determination movement that will express the true will of the Afghan people.
This plan might sound similar to the Bonn Process that established Afghanistan's current system of government, yet no foreign influence will be allowed. The Bonn Accord, in contrast, was crafted under UN auspices with heavy involvement from Westerners and other regional actors and is the source of much of today's chaos. The U.S. installed Karzai as a puppet, violating the wishes of three fourths of the delegates at the 2002 Loya Jirga.
And the ultra-centralization that the Americans afforded to be written into the Afghan constitution has been almost as tragic a mistake as propping up Karzai in the first place, enabling maligned actors to indulge in unprecedented levels of graft and corruption.
The NWSC has developed a game-changing process and a tool, outlined in a white paper entitled Afghanistan National Reconciliation, which will revive Afghan nationalism and empower Afghanistan's "silent majority", so they can, finally, choose their own destiny.
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Michael Hughes writes similar articles as the Afghanistan Headlines Examiner and the Geopolitics Examiner for Examiner.com.
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We have no right to be deciding for them.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=22534
There is only one strategy change that will work for sure, and that is pulling out of Afghanistan totally, and allowing the despotic regime of Hamid Karzai to collapse.
The US should only have one goal in Afghanistan, the same goal that got US involved in Afghanistan, the elimination of Al-Qaeda.
Afghanistan will evenutally modernize, but not if it is being constantly bombed by, but it will take time and it must happen indigenously.
As 2011 dawns, public discourse in America has the country primed for a fascist dictatorship. situation will be worse by 2012. The most uncomfortable truth that emerges from WikiLeaks saga is that American public discourse consists of cries for revenge against those who tell us truths. The vicious mendacity of US government knows no restraint. Whether or not international law can save Julian Assange from clutches of Americans or death by a government black ops unit, both executive and legislative branches are working assiduously to establish National Security State as highest value and truth as its greatest enemy.
Paul Craig Roberts a former Assistant Secretary of US Treasury and former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal, has been reporting shocking cases of prosecutorial abuse for two decades. A new edition of his book, The Tyranny of Good Intentions, co-authored with Lawrence Stratton, a documented account of how Americans lost the protection of law, has been released by Random House.
Copyright © 2010 Paul Craig Roberts
balance of article: http://www.lewrockwell.com/roberts/roberts288.html
Our government ready to acceptidea of a Karzai-Taliban coalition government in Afghanistan. For Afghan women, that can only lead to continued repression. Is General Petraeus willing to accept that our soldiers have died for this?
When we ask, "What are we doing in Afghanistan?" we are assuming that our government has same goal as we do. But what if it doesn't? What if the real goal of U.S. policy is to disempower the people of Afghanistan and to disorganize their society? If so, then General Petraeus is doing his job extremely well.
What if our government's definition of winning is to install a corrupt government that will, for a small price, allow natural gas and minerals of their country to be stolen? Then General Petraeus' failure to follow his own rules of counterinsurgency begins to make some sense.
The Minerals Yearbook may offer clues to one of the real goals of U.S. policy. Maps from Minerals Yearbook show us that northwest Afghanistan and the three countries that border on it form a ring of natural gas deposits around Amu Darya River Basin
http://blog.buzzflash.com/node/12096
Presidents Hamid Karzai, Asif Ali Zardari and Gurbangulu Berdimuhammedov along with Indian Union Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Murli Deora signed agreements – an Inter-Government Agreement and the Gas Pipeline Transmission Agreement – to construct a natural gas pipeline from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan and Pakistan to India. The initials of first three countries involved lend themselves to the project’s acronym: TAP, now known as TAPI.
The Inter-Government Agreement “enjoins the four governments to provide all support including security for the pipeline.” [1]
The next day, Wahidullah Shahrani, Afghanistan’s Minister of Mines and Industries, confirmed that “Afghanistan will deploy about 7,000 troops to secure a major transnational gas pipeline slated to run through some of dangerous parts of war-torn country.” [2]
seven thousand security forces to safeguard pipeline route….
“Our mission is to help the government of Afghanistan generate and sustain the Afghan army and police, all the way from the ministerial systems – essentially, their version of the Pentagon – through their operational commands, down to the individual units.” [4]
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=22534
A strong central government serves the needs of other nations, in principle. But "nationalism" in many places is a matter of allegiance to a tribe, a village, a valley.
Devolve government functions to provinces and villages, expect only that local governance be in a form that is open, transparent, and responsive to the wishes of local communities.
Who are "these people" you are referring to? Afghanistan has thousands of different tribes, that are all very different, and some are more or less like US.
The innocent Afghanis that are not allied with the faction of the Taliban that was allied with Al-Qaeda do not deserve any punishment. In fact, punishing innocent Afganis is the a recipe for failure, and our top generals have already outlined in numerous papers that the only way to win hearts and minds is to not kill innocent civilians. So, you are saying things that are totally against the US interest and US strategy (if you can call it a strategy).
"Let the stories be told around their camp fires relating to the vaporization of a "brother" by a lightening bolt from the sky (drone attack). How their unprovoked attack was against god and did noting but bring trouble too them. Perhaps they will even learn something. "
You know nothing about Afghanistan people or history, they are a strong and peacful people, they never invaded anyone else and have been invaded countless times. The Afghan people have repulsed every invader, into their territory, since Alexander the Great.
I agree with your basic premise that Afghanistan will never be a McDemocracy in our lifetimes, and the U.S. shoots itself in the foot each time it decides on something to prop up Karzai. I'd go as far as to say that the natural socio-political system is anarchistic, but not necessarily violently so. It shown it can function without law, and has shown that it can function without top-down authority. Something transcends them, and the code has been there longer than flags, invaders, tyrants and thiefs.
Leaving some U.S. troops behind in defensive roles to assist in any transition is logical and owed to the Afghan people. We'd have to stop adding on to the massive Bagram Air Base in northern Afghanistan, one of many super bases that line Cheney's "Arc of Instability." Can Afghanis accept that role by the American military? And Bagram is remote, but how long would they tolerate a foreign, well-armed installation on their turf (even if he's locked away in the basement closet like a crazy uncle).