Keeping Afghanistan Safe from Democracy

The most idiotic thing being said about America's involvement in Afghanistan is that the best way to protect the 68,000 U.S. troops there now is by putting an additional 40,000 in harm's way.

People who argue for that plan clearly have not read Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal's report pushing for escalation. The general is as honest as he is wrong in laying out the purpose of this would-be expanded mission, which is to remold Afghanistan in a Western image by making U.S. troops far more vulnerable, rather than less so.

He is honest in arguing that American troops would have to be deployed throughout the rugged and otherwise inhospitable terrain of rural Afghanistan, entering intimately into the ways of local life so as to win the hearts and minds of a people who clearly wish we would not extend the favor. He is wrong in indicating, without providing any evidence to support the proposition, that this very costly and highly improbable quest to be the first foreign power to successfully model life in Afghanistan would be connected with defeating the al-Qaida terrorists.

As the president's top national security adviser has stated, there are fewer than 100 al-Qaida members left in Afghanistan and they have no capacity to launch attacks. These remnants of a foreign Arab force assembled by the U.S. to thwart the Soviets in their hapless effort to conquer Afghanistan are now alienated from the locally based insurgency.

As Matthew Hoh, the former Marine captain and foreign service officer in charge of the most contested area, said recently in his letter of resignation, we have stumbled into a 35-year-long civil war between rural people "who want to be left alone" and a corrupt urban government that the U.S. insists on backing. Hoh, who quit after a decade of service in Iraq and Afghanistan, wrote that he was resigning not because of the hardships of his assignment but rather because he no longer believed in its stated purpose:

" ... [I]n the course of my five months of service in Afghanistan ... I have lost understanding and confidence in the strategic purposes of the United States' presence in Afghanistan. ... To put simply: I fail to see the value or the worth in continued U.S. casualties or expenditures of resources in support of the Afghan government in what is, truly, a 35-year old civil war. ... Like the Soviets, we continue to secure and bolster a failing state, while encouraging an ideology and system of government unknown and unwanted by its people. ... I have observed that the bulk of the insurgency fights not for the white banner of the Taliban, but rather against the presence of foreign soldiers and taxes imposed by an unrepresentative government in Kabul."

Just how unrepresentative was amply demonstrated in a very low-turnout election which the U.S.-backed candidate, Hamid Karzai, won after stealing one-third of the ballots he claimed for his victory, according to U.N. observers. In a message of congratulation to Karzai, President Barack Obama made reference to the need for reform and an end to the corruption that is endemic in the Karzai regime but then stated, "Although the process was messy, I am pleased to say that the final outcome was determined in accordance with Afghan law, which I think is very important."

What law? A runoff was avoided only when Karzai refused to accede to his opponent's demand for changes in the election commission that had stuffed the ballot boxes.

When Bob Schieffer of CBS said of the election "the thing was a fraud," White House senior adviser David Axelrod had the arrogance to defend the rigged process as having "proceeded in the constitutional way." Just what is it we are telling the world about our belief in the integrity of elections? It is no different from our having extolled those garbage elections that occurred with great regularity in Vietnam during the war there, a point made to great effect by Hoh:

"Our support for this kind of government, coupled with a misunderstanding of the insurgency's true nature, reminds me horribly of our involvement with South Vietnam; an unpopular and corrupt government we backed at the expense of our Nation's own internal peace, against an insurgency whose nationalism we arrogantly and ignorantly mistook as a rival to our own Cold War ideology."

Obama must know the truth of those words and should heed them before he marches down the disastrous path pursued by another Democratic president, Lyndon Johnson -- who, we now know from his White House telephone tapes, sacrificed the youth of this country in a war that he always knew never made sense.

 

Comments

[MosheDayanHero]

One doesn't troops in "harm's way" They're not little children who need protection from sugary drinks and chilly weather.
One deploys troops to cause harm to the enemy.

[mjc]

It is extremely difficult to understand why Obama and even his gun-ho military don't understand what the real issues are in Afghanistan. We don't need any MORE proving grounds for our military weapons, our military..­.the humans, or our killing ability. Most of the people who have posted here and elsewhere about Afghanistan seem to. This is not a nation. It is a corrupt combination of various warlord-ships. We are not going to change their almost "political" system, unless we are willing to stay about 1,000 years or so. We almost did what we could have done four years or so ago and that is to limit the Taliban. If Pakistan wants to rid themselves of this rather unique tribal system, let them do it. We really don't have any interest in them, except that they don't want to be occupied by a foreign power; they prefer their own tribal system. Any women who can't abide that sort of system should just leave. We aren't fighting for a women's movement in Afghanista­n.....are we????

[NCAV2]

It's not the military's job to "win the hearts and minds of people." Their sole purpose is to obliterate things for goodness sake! If the Chinese army came into America using McChrystal's same strategy, wouldn't we have many citizens lining up to fight them? The same thing that is happening in Afghanistan.

[William50]

The fundamental flaw in this is that Afghanistan is a nation. To be truthful the best can be said that is a grouping of many small armed areas that at best are not even loosely joined except in fighting a central government or out side military force. In American terms, so they may understand, Afghanistan is a collection of areas, with very different views on religion, government and with little economic growth that is grouped together by magical lines on a map as a nation.
Its history, when it had a central government, was either a very powerful central figure accepted by the Warlords and tribal leaders or a king with no power. We, America have put an outsider into power, given the people who will not fight the chance to vote and backed it all with bombs and some very strong proud to do their duty American military. We will not win.
To win; destroy the poppy fields. Have small hunter killer groups that can live in country destroying the leadership and targeting poppy production and military hard points. If we did this we may see a real leader arise, who will demand America to leave and have a decade of civil war.

middleamerican2010
Casey

[nirek]

This can all be done without all the extra troops . Bring home the ones not needed for your plan. Works for me and let the mercinaries do it too. Seems to be 74000 of them.

[WorldofTomorrow420]

You're right. Ours is the typical (naive) American way to fight: assume your opponent is just like you.

[Froggie99]

I quite agree that it is a dumb idea to send over more troops. What an extra 40,000 troops in this tiny country will accomplish that 68,000 troops could not accomplish up to now is incomprehensible.

I get the sense that the Afghanis are not a patriotic people, they are just out for themselves. And why shouldn't they be ? The people are manipulated and ignored by an elitist government whose head is only concerned with his heroin empire, at the expense of his people's well being as well as the world's health and sanity. Keeping the people ignorant and illiterate achieves this.

The problem is Karzai and his cohorts. The only way to remove him is through some over-arching authority like the United Nations, or the World Court in the Hague. Both these institutions act in a sluggish and difficult manner - sorry, it's not a good solution; but it's the best one we have.

[GreatNews27]

Two words: Pakistan nukes.

[nirek]

USA , Russia , France and many others have nukes , too.
What is your point?

[holeybuybull]

Our presence in Afghanistan is the major proponent in the destabilization of Pakistan. Any decision, other than complete withdrawal from Afghanistan, smells of the PNAC manifesto.

[batguano]

Thank you Robert for your insightful and accurate view of this war. Withour wars and conflict what would the military and the arms industry do? How much longer will we feed a bloated military machine at the expense of our civilian priorities.

[den1953]

We truly need to leave Afghanistan if the Government does not want to help there own people and our Government can't destroy the poppy crop then why are we there?

[dim]

Destroying the poppy crop means destroying the Aghans' livelihood. That's not how you win hearts and minds. If you really are bent on destroying poppies, give the country back to the Talibs.

[holeybuybull]

You'd advocate destroying the poppy crop. The CIA depends on the proceeds for funding, without which they couldn't function as effectively as the "Hit-Man" for America, Inc.

[melpol]

Poppy crops have been milked for 5 years and turned into enough Heroin to supply the worlds addicts for a century. It sits in abandoned missile silos guarded by private armies, the rest is hidden in Afghanistan caves. The Heroin is owned by a man called Feelgood whose real name remains a secret.

[holeybuybull]

I won't reveal his real name, but his nickname is "Poppy".