Recently
the ongoing war in Afghanistan has fallen into the spotlight as the
most hotly debated and important part of our nation’s foreign policy,
and rightly so. As he took office, President Obama called it “the good
war” and has indicated he would do whatever is necessary to succeed
there, but exactly what that means has recently become the topic of
quite a good deal of debate and discussion between the White House’s
national security team and the Pentagon. Many conservative news outlets
have begun dragging up every patriotic and sentimental reason why the President should immediately redouble his efforts in the region.
Many
of those patriotic and sentimental reasons, however, are based on myths
about the situation in Afghanistan and we rightly respect that the
President is taking his time in making a decision on how to proceed and
wish to present him a debunking of those myths in hopes that he will
come to the right decision.
In September General Stanley
McChrystal’s classified report on the situation in Afghanistan to
President Obama was leaked and it immediately caused quite a commotion.
The General told CBS’s 60-minutes that “I think that in some areas that
the breadth of violence, the geographic spread of violence, places to the north and to the west, are a little more than I
would have gathered,”1 and his report requests additional troops to
complete the counter-insurgency mission he was given. There is some
confusion as to exactly how many troops he is asking for; many news
outlets report that the General is asking for an additional
40,000-50,000 troops, but some sources point out that deep inside his
classified report he concludes that he needs 500,000 troops over five
years. This figure may include local Afghani police and military, but
there is a good deal of confusion surrounding it.
“The
numbers are really pretty horrifying. What they say, embedded in this
report by McChrystal, is they would need 500,000 troops – boots on the
ground – and five years to do the job. No one expects that the Afghan
Army could step up to that. Are we gonna put even half that of U.S.
troops there, and NATO forces? No way.” (source: MSBNC’s Morning Joe, September 23, 2009) 2
Since
the leak of this report the President has been portrayed as waffling on
his commitment to the counter-insurgency strategy with many Republicans
in Congress calling for him to immediately begin to fulfill Gen.
McChrystal’s request. However, it seems that President Obama has chosen
to take his time in evaluating his options in Afghanistan instead of
sending more of our brave young men and women in uniform into harms way
without clearly defined goals, an exit strategy or even a clear
purpose. 2009 is already the deadliest year for US troops in
Afghanistan, suggesting a simple and direct correlation between the
number of troops in Afghanistan and the number of troops that are
killed there. Before any more troops are sent to the country, we ask that the President and the
American people re-evaluate our mission there and take a close look at
some of the commonly held misconceptions and outright falsehoods
rattled off by the media’s talking heads and the pundits pushing for an
expansion of the war.
Myth:
Al-Qaeda, the organization responsible for the deaths of more than
3,000 Americans on 9/11, uses Afghanistan as it’s major operating base.
Facts:
After the attacks on September 11, 2001, the U.S. was forced to
recognize the global actors of terror in a real way, which lead to the
U.S. invading Afghanistan in an attempt to shut-down Al-Qaeda’s
training and operational bases there and defend our nation from further
attacks. Unfortunately, we failed to recognize how exactly Al-Qaeda
operates. It is a radicalized and extremist international criminal
organization who operates out of Germany, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and the
U.S. as well as many other countries around the world. The initial
invasion of Afghanistan very successfully routed or destroyed those
members of Al-Qaeda in the region, and to date they have not returned.
Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai claimed earlier this year that
there are “no Al-Qaeda based in Afghanistan,” a statement backed up by CENTCOM Commander, General David Petraeus on CNN,
“I would agree with that assessment, certainly [about] Al-Qaeda and
it’s affiliates.”3 This criminal organization continues to exist and
operate around the world, but not in Afghanistan.
Myth: Al-Qaeda/The Taliban are conspiring together and fighting the Taliban is essential to fighting the Global War on Terror.
Facts:
This is flawed for several reasons. The Taliban is a
Pashtun/Afghani/Pakistani nationalist group who see themselvs as
fighting a civil war against a corrupt
government and the foreign
occupiers that provide protection for that government. It would be easy
to say that they are just another extremist group with “conspiracy
theories” about the corruption in their government, but even General
McChystal’s report discusses at some length the deep problems within
President Karzai’s government, which is composed of corrupt top-level
cabinet members, local officials and regional drug lords that came to
power when the US supported the Mujahideen in expelling Russia from
Afghanistan in the 1980’s. Further evidence of corruption within the
Karzai regime can be seen in the internationally disputed Presidential
election results, with reports of widespread vote rigging, fraud and
even reports of “a systematic cover-up to conceal the extent of
electoral fraud by President Karzai.”4
The Taliban have no
interest in international military activities or terrorist attacks on
American soil. They are not conspiring with Al-Qaeda to destroy America
anymore than the US is conspiring with the U.K. to destroy Afghanistan.
McChrystal’s report even backs up the assessment that the Taliban’s
primary focus is fighting a corrupt central government. This is a
US-invited problem because, despite all of these allegations of fraud,
we continue to back Karzai’s government and protect him with American
troops and military contractors. The Global War on Terror came about
because of the 18 people who attacked us on 9/11, who were from Saudi
Arabian Wahabi traditions and not Taliban leaders.
If
occupying countries who harbor Al-Qaeda is acceptable foreign policy
for the US, why do we not invade Germany, Somalia or Yemen, three
countries that Al-Qaeda has operated and planned attacks from? In fact,
Mohamed Atta and other leaders of the group that attacked the United
States on 9/11 operated, planned and trained in Germany for many years
as “the Hamburg Cell.” (source: The 9/11 Commission Report)
Myth: General McChrystal’s surge strategy worked in Iraq so it will work in Afghanistan.
Facts:
Iraq and Afghanistan have almost nothing in common. In Iraq the Sunni
were losing a civil war against the newly empowered Shiites and were
more than ready to back up the US surge effort, especially when it came
with monetary payouts. The “Great Awakening” added 100,000 Sunni troops
to General McChrystal’s 30,000 additional American forces. There is no
similar group in Afghanistan ready and willing to join a surge of
American forces. Afghan’s see US troops as a colonizing force, one like
the many others that they have fought to repel over the country’s
history, and more troops would only exacerbate that problem.
Myth: We’re liberating the women in Afghanistan and they want us to help them.
Facts:
The cabinet and Supreme Court that President Hamid Karzai installed
have the same fundamentalist and misogynistic views of women’s rights
that the Taliban did.
“For most Afghan women you would have
to say that, although there have been improvements on paper in the
Constitution and International treaties, for most Afghan women, life
has stayed the same and for a very great number, life has gotten much
worse.” Ann Jones, author “Kabul in Winter”
“The
perception of the women of Afghanistan having been severely oppressed
only under the regime of the Taliban and then having been freed by the
United States military intervention in 2001 is a false perception“ – Kavita Ramdas, President & CEO, Global Fund for Women
According
to Afghan Member of Parliament Malalai Joya “unfortunately there is no
fundamental change in the situation of the women of Afghanistan.”5 The
women of Afghanistan now living under the US occupation are just as
oppressed as they were before the invasion, but now they also live in a
war zone where women “disproportionately suffer the effects of the
war.”6
There is no question that women in Afghanistan have
long been oppressed by the fundamentalist and misogynistic attitudes of
those in power, but the problem is, we’re not helping. President Hamid
Karzai recently signed a law that Amnesty International and the UN
calls “the legalization of rape.” As long as we continue to blindly
support this corrupt and oppressive government, the people of
Afghanistan and the women in particular will see us as directly
supporting their oppressive policies. A recent BBC/ABC opinion poll done in March of 2009 revealed 80% of Afghanis do not want us in Afghanistan.
As
Karzai continues in his struggle to maintain some semblance of control,
he is continuing to use authoritarian and oppressive means and the US
has not challenged him to change.
Myth: It’s better to take the fight “over there” than let them bring the fight “over here.”
Facts:
In the early days of the War on Terror, Jerry Fallwell and Jesse
Jackson debated
the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Jerry Fallwell
repeated the phrase uttered by Donald Rumsfeld, “rather fight them over
there than over here.” Jesse Jackson wisely responded, “the fight is
not one that should be dealt with through military intervention.”
This
statement needs some critical thought. Whomever we are fighting in
Afghanistan, our considerations should be founded on the threat to our
own nation. The Taliban is a Nationalist organization that has no interest in leaving
their own country. Al-Qaeda operates all over the world, so fighting
them “over there” clearly is not something that can be done through
massive military intervention when “they” are actually spread out
across the globe.
In
2008, the Rand Corporation did a study of 648 terrorist groups between
1963 and 2006. When they looked into how those groups ended they found
that military force was effective only only 7% of the time.
“The
United States cannot conduct an effective long-term counterterrorism
campaign against al-Qaeda or other terrorist groups without
understanding how terrorist groups end,” said Seth Jones, the study’s lead author and a political scientist at RAND, a nonprofit research organization. “In most cases, military force isn’t the best instrument.“7
Relying
on a policy of proper police and intelligence work to root out
terrorist leaders is a more appropriate alternative to
counter-insurgency-minded military-intervention and has historically
been much more successful, “40 percent was through police and
intelligence services either apprehending or killing the key leaders of
these groups.” Donald Rumsfeld, Jerry Fallwell and other supporters of
the old conventional war-fighting framework refuse to change their
worldview. The US must reshape our worldview and deal with the threat
of international criminal groups like Al-Qaeda appropriately.
Additionally, the RAND corporation points out that; “Al
Qaida has been involved in more terrorist attacks since Sept. 11, 2001,
than it was during its prior history and the group’s attacks since then
have spanned an increasingly broader range of targets in Europe, Asia,
the Middle East and Africa,”
This is evidence that
fighting the “War on Terror” by occupying Afghanistan has done nothing
to reduce Al Qaeda’s ability to mount attacks around the world.
Myth: We are helping to bring stability to the Afghanistan/Pakistan region.
Facts:
The US-led war in Af-Pak is one in which 25 million Afghanis and 172
million Pakistanis are engaged in a geopolitical and social nightmare.
Afghanistan
is the third poorest country in the world with little-to-no natural
resources.
Before there is true stability an entire infrastructure is
needed in this region; an infrastructure that the UN, the Arab League, NATO
and the rest of the western world have not adequately directed funds to
create. This should be the goal of the US budget for Af-Pak, not
military interventionism. Indeed, the US Senate foreign relations
committee in August of 2009 stated about Afghanistan;
“Unlike
Iraq, Afghanistan is not a reconstruction project—it is a construction
project, starting almost from scratch in a country that will probably
remain poverty-stricken no matter how much the U.S. and the
international community accomplish in the coming years.“8
Due
to rising civilian casualties caused by Predator drone strikes, local
Afghans are now seeing the US occupation the same way they saw the
Soviet Hind Helicopters from 3 decades ago. As stated by the Rand
Corporation, the Cato Institute, and many scholars, the rising civilian
casualties are, “A recruiting windfall for the Pakistani Taliban.”
Additionally,
we should also re-evaluate the very basis of the assumption that it is
in the best interests of our national security to rebuild failed
states, because it “ignores that terrorists can move to governed
spaces. Rather than setting up in weak, ungoverned states, enemies can
flourish in strong states because these countries have formally
recognized governments with the sovereignty to reject foreign
interference in their domestic affairs. This is one reason why
terrorists find sanctuary across the border in Pakistan.”9
Myth: Afghanistan’s opium trade is run by the insurgents as a method of funding their activities.
Facts:
Before the US invaded Afghanistan, the Taliban government, with the
support and collaboration of the UN, “had imposed an impressive drug
eradication program, leading to a complete ban on poppy cultivation. By
2001, prior the US led invasion, opium production had collapsed by more
than 90 percent.” In fact, “in the history of the Vienna based United
Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), no
other country was able to implement a comparable program.”10 Since the
invasion, however, opium production in the region has grown
dramatically, increasing twenty-two fold by 2004.
Many
pundits argue that Taliban insurgents are responsible for these
increases, but according to UN Office of Drugs and Crime, the
insurgents control only 3% of the Afghanistan drug trade. Who controls
the other 97%?
Myth: Our Country and our Troops are obligated to fulfill this task in Afghanistan.
Facts:
The Department of Defense’s primary responsibility is to protect our
Constitution and our citizens from the military forces of other states.
Our military is not suited for or trained to conduct operations of
state-building and foreign-government protection. Even if it were, we
do not have the 600,000 troops truly needed to pacify this region. The
leadership of the United States needs to recognize the very real limits
of our capabilities.
According to the Department of Veterans affairs, approximately 43,000 troops with PTSD and TBI
are being redeployed to Afghanistan for combat duties. We need to make
a priority of dealing with the damage already done to our troops by
eight long years of war before stretching our men and women in uniform
even further.
Myth: The cost of the war, both in dollars and in lives, is negligible because it assures our further national security.
Facts:
Most Americans fail to grasp exactly how costly these wars have been.
We are spending 4-6 billion dollars a week to continue them, which we
are paying for via loans from foreign governments and “quantitative
easing.” These absurd costs have made their way through congress as
“emergency” warfunding bills and have been pushed through the House and
Senate with minimal debate for eight years.
To date we have
spent over $228 billion on the war in Afghanistan and see no end in
sight. At a rate of $60 billion or more per year, how long can we keep
this up?
This year has already seen more American troops
lose their lives in Afghanistan than any year previously. As of Sunday,
Oct 4, 2009 at least 779 members of the US military have died in
Afghanistan.11 Unfortunately, there is no quantifiable or logical
connection between the war in Afghanistan and our own national security.
Myth:
If we leave we will lose our place as the world leader and the country
will fall back into the hands of terrorist-sympathizers or even
terrorists themselves.
Facts: This is an
absurd discussion. Our strength as a nation in this world did not fall
when we were attacked on 9/11; the events of that day only increased
the world’s sympathies for the United States.
Every day
that we conduct military operations against the largely civilian
population and violate international law we alienate the entire muslim
world. We should be engaging the international community in regards to
the problems in Afghanistan. The world wants the US to be a leader for
the ideals of freedom and fairness that we once represented, not the leader
in state-building disasters like Iraq and Afghanistan have turned out
to be.
The
Taliban have recently publicly stated that they have no interest in
attacking other countries, but that as long as there are foreign
occupiers in their country they would continue to fight them.
“We did not have any agenda to harm other countries including Europe, nor we have such agenda today,” the group said. “Still,
if you want to turn the country of the proud and pious Afghans into a
colony, then know that we have an unwavering determination and have
braced for a prolonged war.” 12
Obviously the U.S. does
not want Al-Qaeda to find a safe haven in Afghanistan, but there are
far better methods to prevent that from happening than simply occupying
the country until it embraces Western Democracy or until every last Taliban fighter is dead or captured.
As
a U.S. Marine Corps Infantryman, Corporal Rick Reyes deployed to
Afghanistan in 2001 to destroy Al-Qaeda’s bases of operations there.
Recently he went back to meet with locals and NGOs and understand
better what is currently happening in the country. The following is his
assessment of the situation as well as his recommendation for how he
suggests we should proceed.
The most effective weapon we
have in combating and suppressing Taliban extremists in Afghanistan is
the very system we are currently systematically destroying, the tribal
nature of the country. Working with and supporting rural areas and with
tribal leaders directly is the best chance we have for winning in
Afghanistan. Using this system is the only effective way to get
anything done there.
On my recent trip back to Afghanistan, I met with the UNDP.
They’ve had a very successful disarmament program with which they’ve
been able to reach out to 30,000 villages and they have disarmed 28,000
of them.
Women for Women International-Afghanistan
is undergoing a pilot program that has also proved to be very
successful. They are getting large groups of men into classroom
settings and teaching these men about women’s rights, they are in their
second batch now and these men are taking the message back to their
villages.
I also met with the minister of
Afghanistan’s reconstruction and rehab agency who has also had a very
successful rebuilding program. They ask the participating villages for
a 10% stake in all projects. Therefore, the village has vested interest
in the reconstruction projects and allow no one, not even the Taliban
to interfere with them. They continue to stand strong today.
I met with Chris Eaton, the executive director to Agha Kan, an NGO, who has also been very successful in his program. This NGO
has been in Afghanistan for five years. The first year, when they chose
to use private security to protect their group, they were attacked.
They quickly figured out the best form of security is no security at
all. Once they took a more personal approach with the villagers and did
away with ALL security, they immediately began having better success and have not been attacked or threatened in the last four years.
On the final day of my stay I met with Mohamed Akram, the President of PTSweapons and join the peace process. I also met with a former Taliban
leader who was one of 29 blacklisted before he made contact with the PTS Commission. He is now working for the organization.
Commission 13, Afghanistan. His organization is heading the peace and
reconciliation program, an effort to reach out to village elders to
make contact with known Taliban fighters and convince them to lay down
their
They’ve
been able to bring through their program 9,000 Taliban, with 13,000
more going through right now. The Taliban members agree to leave the
Taliban, undergo a process of picture-taking, document signing and
finger-printing. Once complete, they are integrated back into society
as civil servants.
The common thread I found
between all these programs is that they utilize the tribal systems
already in place to reach out to elders and tribal leaders. The
programs that they have implemented have proved very successful, all
without any support or protection from US or NATO forces.
When
the Taliban’s governance of Afghanistan collapsed in 2001, the UN lead
a very successful peace-keeping operation of aid and security. It is my
firm opinion that any security and policing that is needed has to be
done by the UN initially, and then Afghan police if it’s going to have
any hope of being successful as the US is currently seen by the
majority of the country as a colonizing force.
Every day, tribal elders continue to convince more Taliban members to lay down their weapons and go to the PTS
Commission and they’ve been very successful thus far. These village
elders are also convincing the young men of their tribes not to join
the Taliban. With very little infrastructure and virtually zero
industry in the country, it’s a constant challenge.
It
is the village elders who are working with the UN to disarm fighters,
it’s the village elders who are enforcing women’s rights with Women for
Women international, and it’s the village elders who are helping the
Afghanistan rebuilding program to be successful. It will be them that
will suppress and eventually eliminate the Taliban and not allow safe
havens for Al Qaeda because they know it’s what their country needs.
They will be the ones to secure and rebuild. Unfortunately, it is our
occupation of the country that is compromising the success of these programs, directly and indirectly.
Our
current foreign policy is the problem and our troops will be targeted
regardless of the task they are intending to achieve, even if it’s
planting daisies. We need to think outside the box, we need to look at
this war differently and not from a viewpoint clouded by fear of
“terrorists.” America is suffering from an acute case of PTSD
and it’s time we cure ourselves and begin to have some solidarity with
the people of Afghanistan. We are at a stale-mate with no chance of a
military success. We need to withdraw on our own terms rather than
running from complete defeat as the Soviets did. But we can do
something that they failed to do when they left. We can support Afghans
in ways that will help Afghanistan become more stable, both for their
own sake, and for our own.