Issue #69
Last Update October 31, 2010
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International Why Are we There? by Gerry Krownstein August 28, 2009 Remind me again why we are in Afghanistan? I used to know. After 9/11, with the support of the American people and most of Western Europe, we issued an ultimatum requiring the Afghan government (the Taliban, for most of he country) to hand over Osama bin Laden and the rest of the Al Qaeda leadership. The Taliban refused, and we sort of invaded. Most of the hard work of displacing the Taliban was done by regional warlords whom the Taliban had displaced. The next step was to have been the capture or killing of bin Laden and the rest of the Al Qaeda high command, but president Bush diverted our attention to Iraq. and bin Laden et al got away. Since then, Al Qaeda and the Taliban have been working at destabilizing western Pakistan and regaining a foothold in Afghanistan. A lot has changed since our initial invasion, including our President. What seems not to have changed is the penchant to pursue a war without defining our goals.
President Obama has increased our troop strength in Afghanistan, and our top generals seem to be pushing to make the safety of the Afghan people our top concern. Yet we, the American people have not been presented with a clear statement of goals, with a list of observable objectives that can be used to gauge our progress. Even if we "win", how will we know it? Without goals, how do the American people evaluate whether the likely cost will be worthwhile?
With our original goals overtaken by time and events, the justifications for remaining in Afghanistan seem to come down to these:
-We broke it, so we have to buy it
-We must deny Al Qaeda a staging area for future attacks on the US
-Leaving would allow the Taliban to regain control of all or part of Afghanistan, threatening the stability of Pakistan with the potential of letting the nuclear genie out of the bottle
-We must ensure that the Afghans have a government that respects human rights, and especially women's rights.
None of these justifications, or even all of them taken together, is worth the cost in lives and money that will be spent. Worse, none of these outcomes seems to be achievable.
The "we broke it" justification is just a euphemism for "lets throw good money after bad". Our original goal, the capture of bin Laden and the destruction of his organization, was a specific, limited objective that we threw away. Once we did that, our whole rationale for intervening in Afghanistan's affairs disappeared, especially in the eyes of the Afghanis. The disarray and corruption of the government we put in place, and the frequent deaths of civilians as a result of military and CIA action, depleted the reservoir of good will created by the overthrow of the Taliban (whose original ascent to power was fueled by the same kind of corruption and infighting that is evident today). The debacle of the recent rigged elections, and the German airstrike, with its civilian deaths, further weaken the case that our staying will be beneficial.
Denying Al Qaeda a staging area for future attacks on the US sounds like a good thing to do, and it is. The question is, which Al Qaeda? And what constitutes a staging area any more? Every group of thugs looking to strike at their local government or attack US military or civilian personnel in their country calls itself Al Qaeda, without necessarily having any connection to Osama bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri. As for staging areas, Pakistan and the Sudan (as well as Britain, Germany and many other countries) are just as much staging areas now as Afghanistan would be if we pulled out. What are we gaining in security by staying?
As for Afghanistan relapsing into a Taliban nation and destabilizing Pakistan, it is important to remember how the Taliban took over Afghanistan in the first place: after the Russians left, the resulting Afghan government was so corrupt and inefficient that the Taliban’s promise of probity and religiosity seemed preferable to the graft and warlordism that was in force. The current Afghan government is not much better than the government the Taliban replaced. It may well be that our remaining will only embroil us in a civil war, although Afghanis seem to be fed up with the Taliban’s brutality. In any event, maintaining Pakistan’s stability is a task for the Pakistanis, and our efforts to help defeat the Taliban within Pakistan seems only to have angered local Pakistanis. We are more likely to blunder our way into a crisis than actually achieve Pakistani stability if we get involved in military operations inside of Pakistan, or at the Afghan border.
Finally, while it important that Afghanistan have a government that respects people’s rights, especially women’s rights, and while it is clear that a Taliban resurgence would be devastating for women in particular, and the Afghan population in general, it is not clear what our military activity would contribute. Nationbuilding does not flow from the barrel of a gun, and the nation must be willing to be built. Afghani men and especially Afghani women must take the lead.
What should be done? Training and supply of the Afghan military must continue. The current Afghan government, never well respected outside Kabul and now tarnished by election improprieties, must be put on notice that security of the Afghan people is their number one priority, that elimination of the Taliban is their responsibility, and that we stand ready with money, materiel and air support to help them achieve their goals, but that we reject the idea that the burden of fighting must fall on American troops. A Loya Jirga, or assembly of tribal elders, is probably needed to regain a sense of national unity in the face of current problems. What is not needed is another “surge”. President Obama must realize that this is his (and our) last chance to refuse ownership of the Afghan/Iraq mess left by President Bush. President Obama does not need to be identified with a war that drags on for another seven years, and the American people and military do not need the costs and casualties that that would entail.
New York Stringer is published by NYStringer.com. For all communications, contact David Katz, Editor and Publisher, at david@nystringer.com