Obama Conflict-ridden Afghan Plan
By guestwriter at 9 December, 2009, 2:54 am
By: Shamsa Ashfaq.According to a recent US Government Accountability Office audit report, nearly 13,000 attacks were recorded in Afghanistan
between January and the end of August 2009. There was an average of 100 attacks a day on international forces, Afghan security forces and ordinary civilians, which makes the figure 2.5 times higher this year than that of 2008. During 2005, approximately 2,400 attacks were reported in Afghanistan. The most recent data available, as of August 2009, showed the highest rate of Taliban-initiated attacks making Afghanistan’s security situation worse. Worth observing is the fact that violence skyrocketed in Afghanistan after the arrival of 21,000 troops reinforcements to stabilize the country in last August. Irrespective of this fact, top US military command Gen. Stanley McChrystal recommended additional placement of 40,000 additional troops to carry out an effective counter-insurgency campaign in Afghanistan. There are already some 68,000 US troops deployed in Afghanistan, contributing to a coalition force of more than 100,000. And more surprisingly, President Obama and his war cabinet has agreed to send up to 30,000 fresh troops to Afghanistan without realizing that the insurgency in Afghanistan can be blunted but not defeated outright by force.
On 1st December 2009, President Obama announced the deployment of 30,000 US troops to defeat the Taliban and Al-Qaeda extremists in Afghanistan by May 2010 and set a July 2011 deadline for an exit of American troops from the violence-torn country. The reinforcements that would be sent into Afghanistan at the fastest pace possible will now raise the total US force to 98,000. Beginning in July, US troops will begin their transition out of Afghanistan, handing over responsibility for security to newly trained Afghan soldiers and police. However, the pace and end date of withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan would depend on the situation on the ground and cannot be predicted. Interestingly, a new survey by Gallup organizations showed only 35 percent of Americans surveyed has approved Obama’s handling of the war while 55 percent disapproved.
If truth be told, rising combat deaths and military costs have sapped public support for the eight-year old war and Obama’s troop increase has prompted protests from left-leaning leaders of his democratic party, the republicans and some outside critics. The critics are certain to argue that the strategy lacks a convincing civilian and political dimension. They worry about the fact that the strategy shift, which is deploying of 30,000 additional US troops into the Pushtun heartland, will break their fighting capabilities faster than the presence of American intruders will boost Taliban recruiting among 6 million Pushtun men.
Democratic Senator Russell Feingold of Wisconsin said a surge of US forces to Afghanistan would be a serious mistake that could further destabilize Pakistan. There is no denying the fact that the additional US troop’s deployment in the southern regions of Afghanistan such as the Taliban-infested Helmand province would encourage the militants to seek refuge in Pakistan’s tribal areas across the border and further unsettle conditions in its Baluchistan province.
In views of Democratic Congressman James McGovern of Massachusetts, sending tens of thousands of more troops to Afghanistan would only make it much harder for United States to extricate itself from the problems there. According to Medea Benjamin, an American politician and renowned anti-war activist, “Sending 30,000 more troops is really a political decision to make Obama look tough on security, to try to quiet some elements of the right in this country. But, in terms of a war strategy, it really does not make any sense”. Also the US ambassador to Kabul, Karl Eikenberry, had sent memos to Washington expressing deep concern over the deployment of more troops to the country because of the graft issue.
Edward Corcoran, a senior fellow at Global Security Organization, has coined the current effort to provide large numbers of additional troops and solve the problem in short order as misguided for a number of reasons. It appears that the large numbers of foreign troops only validate the Taliban claim of occupation and will inevitably result in more incidents not only inflaming local sensitivities and supporting fundamentalist recruitment but also draining the support of the American public. Also, unable to provide significant economic, social and political improvements, additional troops will have no longer impact, instead it will further invigorate the Taliban and confirm the transient nature of American support.
In an article published in The Washington Post, Eugene Robinson has written that “as he decides to escalate war in Afghanistan, Obama must have kept in mind the geopolitical calculation that has human consequences. Sending more troops means more coffins arriving at Dover, more funerals at Arlington, more stress and hardship for military families. It would be wrong to demand such sacrifices in the absence of military goals that are clear, achievable and worthwhile”. Medics and air force pilots at main US base, Bagram Air Field, in Afghanistan have also started gearing up for the grim reality of the new US war Strategy which is likely escalation in the number of causalities in an increasingly bloody battlefield. Oscillating between the options of counter-terrorism and counterinsurgency would in the ultimate analysis come to naught, as neither can reasonably hope to deliver. There are no quick fixes but to immediately forge a coordinated response to all problems and to top it show the strategic resolve to see it through.
A large army alone is no guarantor of stability in Afghanistan, especially if the domestic forces and the central government that controls them are driven by factionalism and ethnic tensions. Unemployment is estimated at around 40 percent, while access to electricity is among the lowest in the world. Afghans have an average life expectancy of just 43 years and some of the highest rates of illiteracy in the world. Ninety percent of women in rural areas cannot read. However, the US military buildup, due to be phased over few months, will cost $30 Bn. By some calculations, the cost of each extra American soldier per year, up to $1 million, could build 20 schools in Afghanistan. Each and every meal prepared for US soldiers in Afghanistan costs about 28 dollars a head, more than most Afghans earn in a month. In this stark backdrop, still USAID, is budgeting for around $2 Bn only in annual development aid to Afghanistan as compared to spending on the military operation in Afghanistan, which will cost nearly $95 Bn this fiscal year.
The ground realities of Afghan war manifest the fact that unless the political, economic and diplomatic legs of the plan are solid, disproportionally strengthening the military leg could prove counterproductive. And it is evident that unless the US changes both its current policies and present attitudes, failure in Afghanistan is still inevitable.
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dear Shamsa Ashfaq According to the White House spokesman, the U.S. president would discuss in the speech how he intends to pay for the plan, and will make clear that he has an exit strategy.This is not an open-ended commitment, press secretary said. The president will meet with Congressional leaders on Tuesday. He will spend Monday in close consult with friends and allies throughout the day
President Barak Obama weighs his options on Afghanistan amid dwindling public support in America for the war. Political debate has escalated in Congress and the media about both the aims of the western mission and its chance of success, at a time when there is growing unease within a fractious international coalition whose members see drift and a lack of strategic clarity in Washington.
President Obama has promised a comprehensive policy re-assessment before making decisions on strategy. He has said he would not be rushed into making up his mind about sending more troops until he had “absolute clarity about strategy”.
While he mulls over the assessment submitted late last month by General Stanley A McChrystal, the commander of US and NATO forces, the fraud-ridden presidential election in Afghanistan has thrown Washington’s political strategy into disarray.
With no legitimate political structure in place this denudes any counterinsurgency plan of its most critical requirement. Although frenetic damage limitation efforts by western diplomats are in progress, the uncertainty created by a deeply flawed election is feeding into growing public doubts in the US as well as in Europe.
As American casualties have risen, public support for the war has waned. A series of opinion polls indicate the changing public mood in America and rising war weariness in the midst of pressing domestic concerns.
Polls show that the American public is deeply sceptical about President Obama’s view that Afghanistan is a “war of necessity”. A Washington Post-ABC poll found 51 per cent saying that the war is not worth fighting while 46 per cent said it is. Other polls have also found that the majority are now opposed to a troop surge.
It is among President Obama’s own party that support for the war has been flagging. Leading Democrats have been calling on President Obama to resist requests for more troops. Speaker Nancy Pelosi has warned that there is little appetite in Congress to authorize additional forces beyond the 21,000 that are already on their way and which will take the total of US forces to 68,000 by year end. Liberal Democrats like Senator Russel Feingold have urged a “flexible timetable” to withdraw US forces from Afghanistan.
With most Democrats opposed to continuing or expanding the conflict, Obama has been placed in the awkward position of relying more on the Republicans for support in the war.
As the counterinsurgency mission in Afghanistan has become almost entirely Americanized, this has made it even harder to garner domestic support. Eliciting such backing seems to increasingly rest on internationalizing the military effort but the western coalition itself is afflicted by dissension.
It is in this challenging environment that the White House is reflecting on the recommendations made by General McChrystal. The bulk of this review of reviews was leaked last week. In the 66-page report the general describes the situation in Afghanistan as “serious but with success still achievable”. He warns that unless he is provided more troops and a robust counterinsurgency strategy the war may be lost. He suggests that the aim of the military engagement should be to protect the population and unify the coalition effort.
Last Friday McChrystal submitted a formal request to the Pentagon for additional forces, possibly as many as 40,000 troops. The administration had earlier asked the general to delay making this request, to get inputs from civilians and outsiders to rethink overall strategy.
The debate over troop numbers is really one about how deeply to commit to a conflict that has already exceeded American combat engagement in the two World Wars combined. The debate so far has been polarizing. Republicans like Senator John McCain have called for committing “decisive military force”. Powerful Democrats have argued against deeper involvement in a war in which an escalation strategy offers no guarantee of success and exposes the US to the risk of being bogged down in a Vietnam-style quagmire.
The debate has also pitted Vice President Joe Biden and key Congressional leaders who advocate a narrow counterterrorism approach that focuses on Al Qaeda and those like General McChrystal who are pressing for a broader counter insurgency strategy.
It is now more than apparent that the Obama administration rushed into a policy review of Afghanistan and hastily announced its conclusions in March 2009, sixty days after assuming power. This review represented a compromise between different views and sought to bridge the minimalist/maximalist approaches by offering something to everybody. What followed was more a statement of intent than an actual plan.
What was rolled out on the ground reflected little break with past. For all the emphasis on a civilian surge and a stronger diplomatic thrust, only a military strategy was implemented, on which virtually all the reliance was placed. And as the “new approach” was pursued without taking hard decisions mission drift followed.
President Obama now confronts tough choices that many believe he sought to avoid in the first seven months of his presidency. The immediate decision is whether to accede to the military’s request for more troops or to scale back and redefine both the mission and its goals. His administration probably calculates that it has less than a year (as mid-term Congressional elections are then due) to show progress before public support disappears.
The choice for him should not be one between abandoning Afghanistan and pursuing an open-ended military engagement. Both would be destabilizing for the region. They are also unfeasible. The challenge is to find the best way of preventing the country from being a haven for terrorist networks but avoiding a course in where only a military solution is pursued.
He can no longer take the decisions that are necessary without addressing strategic questions: Is the goal of the military mission now simply the avoidance of defeat? What does “success” in Afghanistan really mean? Can Afghanistan be stabilized by just military means without applying non-military elements of strategy? This is what another troop surge implies. Is it at all feasible for outsiders to undertake nation building?
If insurgencies are neutralized as much by political as by military means, how can a viable political strategy be fashioned in the aftermath of the fraud-stricken Afghan election? How can talks with the insurgents be initiated? On what terms? And with whom?
If training and expanding the Afghan National Army and police is the basis on which an ultimate exit plan depends how can progress be expected when that process remains skewed in favour of non-Pashtuns? How can such forces take over more responsibility for their country’s security if they suffer from this critical deficit as well as other disabilities in training and professionalism?
It is how President Obama addresses these questions that future stability in Afghanistan may hinge. He has shown a sense of realism in stating in recent interviews that he does not believe in an indefinite occupation and is not interested in being in Afghanistan to “save face”.
The president Obhama has finally come to his senses. He is going to fortify the Kabul garrison. They will arrive in time to stop an Afghan uprising. Thousands of speedy camels ridden by angry tribesmen are preparing to attack. Most are armed with automatic weapons, the rest carry swords imported from Damascus. Their blades are capable of slicing off a mans head with a single blow. The camels and their riders are not easy to stop. They are injected with pain killers before the bugles sound the charge.