What Will End It

American military occupation in Afghanistan, that is.  From the BBC:

Mr Karzai has held back from signing a long-term binding security agreement with the US, amid fears that Afghan sovereignty is being undermined. He is unwilling to grant US soldiers immunity from prosecution.

No way will the US or its military accept those terms.  It is a sine qua non for our military.  Our forces will not be subject the locals, that's all there is to it.  We won't be staying without those guarantees.   Lack of immunity ended American military occupation in Iraq.

US and Iraqi authorities reached a similar sticking point in negotiations over the drawdown of US troops from Iraq. Aside from a contingent guarding the embassy, all US soldiers left the country by December 2011.

 I certainly hope President Karzai stands up for his nation's sovereignty. 

More Coda for a War

Another sign of American/NATO/Western failure in Afghanistan.  Students of either gender can no longer attend school in many Taliban controlled areas.  The number of those places are increasing as American/NATO/Western forces draw down.  The one hopeful note is that students still make sacrifices to become educated.  Perhaps someday they will lead their nation to a peaceful future.

Two comments liken America's fate in Afghanistan to its fate in Vietnam.  One strategic thinker describes the draw down as a:

... facade of peace [that] will crumble within few years after the departure of US troops and Pakistan will bring Afghanistan under its suzerainty with reimposition of Taliban rule just as it did in 1996 while tired and financially broke Uncle Sam will helplessly look the other way just as it did in 1975.

A lesson we should have learned in 1975.  Foreign war is a losing proposition.  Maybe this time the lesson will take.

A second comment is from a two-tour US officer who worked with South Vietnamese forces Vietnam:

The countryside was left pretty much to the VC and NVA, unless we conducted sweeps. It was like sticking your finger into a glass of water. As soon as we finished a sweep the water level (VC/NVA) assumed its former level.   

Afghanistan these days does sound much like Vietnam in the early 70's.  The US is exiting and leaving behind a semblance of non-Taliban government and will, no doubt, also leave behind advisors, contractors and others to assist in various ways.  The Karzai government will last as long as he keeps the Western money spigot flowing.  Sooner or later, the money may dwindle.

If Vietnam is the analogy, then is Afghanistan's future Vietnam's present?  That's a better fate than I would predict.  Vietnam present would be a considerable improvement for most Afghans.

As for the United States, we'll call the mission a success as long as we don't have to evacuate from the embassy rooftop.  That way we can say no one died for a mistake.

Coda for a War

 Eleven years on, the violence continues. 

“The ground shook and everyone started to run,” said Abdul Wali, 25, a hardware shop owner whose gaping glass storefront was still covered with a blanket Monday. “I don’t know who would do such a terrible thing, but we have no security at all. The police beat people, the Americans raid our villages and still we are not safe. We would be happy if they all left tomorrow.”

A great deal of happiness would ensue if Mr. Wali gets his wish.  I don't doubt that some difficulty will occur along the way to that happiness but I know that the likelihood of Afghans coming to terms with one another will be enhanced with Americans out of the equation.  I also don't doubt that after 2014 Americans will continue to be in Afghanistan.  They won't be the bigfoot highly visible foreign occupiers, though.  After 2014 Americans will morph from foreign occupiers to a big money foreign interest.  I hope Mr. Wali's village finds safety in the changes to come.

What We Have Is Folly

Just finished reading Rajiv Chandrasekaran's Little America:  the War Within the War For Afghanistan.  Chandrasekaran spent three years--2009 through 2011covering the Afghan War and before that the Iraq War.  He had a great deal of access to virtually all of the key players as well as real time access to the war on the ground as seen by both Americans and Afghans.  The book traces American involvement from the original Little America projects of the 1950's through the current war.

Chandrasekaran presents Little America in three parts that pretty.  Part One--Grand Dreams quickly moves from the opening chapter, "An Enchanting Time" to "The Road to Ruins" and ends with "The Surge".  The story does not improve in Part 2--Shattered Dreams; the Surge is largely wasted through incompetence, bureaucratic sloth, institutional rivalries and individual ego.  Part 3--Triage is all about looking desperately for an exit.  The final chapters "My Heart Is Broken" and "What We Have Is Folly" tell the reader that the exit will not be pretty.

Most tellingly, Chandrasekaran understands Afghans, their culture,their history and their rivalries. He understands far more than most Americans he meets.  Throughout Little America he shows how Americans largely ignored the country and the people that we were supposedly helping.  He celebrates the few Americans who do understand Afghanistan in its own terms and chronicles their occasional success and all-too-often not success.  Cultural ignorance and bureaucratic incompetence torpedo  whatever possibilities America might have had for success in Afghanistan. 

The final pages show some real passion, more than is typical for most mainstream reporters.  Chandrasekaran writes as a man who has seen a terrible waste, life and treasure spent for naught, and he's willing to name names:  "The Pentagon was too tribal...The generals were too rigid...The grunts committed too many unforced errors...The war cabinet was too often at war with itself...[R]ivalries were compounded by stubborness and incompetence at the State Department and USAID...For years we dwelled on the limitations of the Afghans.  We should have dwelled on ours."  

If you want to know what America gained for the more than 1,200 dead in Afghanistan since 2010, you can find out in Little America.  The results are not good.

End Times

The Washington Post story about an Army unit winding down the Afghan war sounds much like an updated version of my unit's experience during 1971 in Vietnam.  Updated in that:  1) today's soldiers, unlike conscripts, may actually want to fight, 2) the combat outpost base in Afghanistan appears more substantial than Vietnam fire support bases, and 3) soldiers can maintain direct and sometimes frequent contact with family in the States. No doubt there are other differences.

But the differences don't obscure the fact that these soldiers aren't aren't sure that their efforts do much by way of contributing to their country's safety and national interest.  Or maybe it's that serving the national interest as articulated by American strategy is a limited, boring job that can turn deadly.  Either way, it doesn't offer much relief for the sacrifices made. 

My experience in Vietnam showed me that soldiers can be brave, dedicated and determined even as their efforts are marginalized.  But I also knew coming in-country that I would be marking time, paying for a "graceful" American exit with my body.  When a bunch of us newbies joined Alpha Company, the commander spoke of "troop withdrawals and none of us being among "the last to die" in Vietnam.  But in the meantime, we ran weeks'-long patrols, got wounded, had accidents and a few died.  All while marking time.

Winding down.  Marking time.  It makes do difference if you're dead.

Arlington Northwest Olympia 2012

This weekend the Rachel Corrie Chapter 109 Veterans For Peace put up about 3000 military style markers in memory of the American dead from the last 10 years of war and occupation.  It took about five hours to install these which account for less than half of the dead.  In addition, we also installed markers to recognize 100.000 or so civilian dead from these wars.

How many more?

Local photographer Berd Witlock has more photos here.

Thin Line Twixt Reality and Fiction

After reading the piece about Condoleeza Rice in Bad Attitudes, I kept thinking that I'd heard this line in her her endorsement of Mitt Romney before. 

“The only thing that people [in other countries] dislike more than unilateral American leadership is no American leadership at all.”

And then I remembered.  It was in Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket when the Marine colonel in tells Joker, 

"We are here to help the Vietnamese, because inside every gook there is an American trying to get out."

Same-same thinking.  Same-same results.

Self-Licking Ice Cream Cone

Leon Panetta on the plan for Afghanistan:

I think you’ve got 50 nations in NATO that agree to a plan in Afghanistan. It’s the Lisbon agreement, an agreement that, you know, others, President Bush, President Obama, everyone has agreed is the direction that we go in in Afghanistan.

“What is that direction? It’s to take us to a point where we draw down by the end of 2014. That is the plan that has been agreed to. And it’s a plan that is working. And very frankly, the only way to get this accomplished in terms of the transition that we have to go through is to be able to set the kind of timelines that have been set here in order to ensure that we fulfill the mission of an Afghanistan that governs and secures itself. That’s what this is about.”

He's a man with a plan and the plan fits the man and we're going to stay in Afghanistan. 

Repeat until fully exhausted.

Mission Never-to-be-Accomplished

 Gen. John R. Allen, supreme allied commander in Afghanistan, describing his hopes for withdrawing American forces from that country,

We want them to miss us because we were special to them. We don’t want them wiping their brows and saying, ‘Thank God they’re gone.’

But they will say exactly that, only the thanks will be to Allah.  Many Afghans wish they could say those words now. 

So do many Americans.

Can We Possibly Do Worse?

Ten years of American government building in Afghanistan and this is what we get?

“Afghans and the world’s Muslims should rise against the foreigners. We have no patience left,” said an Afghan police officer at a checkpoint in central Kabul. He looked at his colleague, who stood next to him, nodding. “We both will attack the foreign military people.”“Afghans and the world’s Muslims should rise against the foreigners. We have no patience left,” said an Afghan police officer at a checkpoint in central Kabul. He looked at his colleague, who stood next to him, nodding. “We both will attack the foreign military people.”

We are so fucked.

Exit Strategy

Fred Kaplan makes a reasonably convincing argument that Barack Obama is doing in Afghanistan what Lyndon Johnson did not in Vietnam: pull out. Well, maybe not all the way--we'll still be fighting on the border with Pakistan--but a significant change in the level of effort and resources the United States will continue to devote to securing an Afghan government that has minimal legitimacy.

The critical fact is that, by and large, we’ve done our part, but Karzai hasn’t done his. The U.S. military (increasingly with Afghan counterparts coming along) has made considerable progress on the tactical military front. But the Afghan government hasn’t followed through—hasn’t provided services, hasn’t cleaned up its corruption, in short hasn’t given the population’s fence-sitters much reason to turn away from the insurgents (who exploit real grievances) and pledge allegiance to the government.

That being the case, there’s only so much a foreign army can do.

[...]

Obama isn’t quite bailing. American troops will be on the ground for some time to come. But the page has turned. If we didn’t have troops in Afghanistan already, the present conditions would hardly justify sending tens of thousands there. And, while we shouldn’t expect those whose land we occupy to love us for our assistance, we should at least have the same basic interests as the government that our troops are fighting and dying to uphold—and that doesn’t seem to be the case either.

Kaplan acknowledges that Obama is taking a chance and that Afghanistan's fate may well be more years of civil war and mayhem. He concludes,

It’s a mess, but it would be a mess, whether we stayed for one year, two years, or 10. So why not make it one year, push hard, hope for the best, then stop spending lives and money on a lost cause?

Why not, indeed?

Home Safe

Friends Larry Kershner, Doug and Jody Mackey returned safely from three weeks in Afghanistan. If you've not read their blog, I recommend that you do so. You will get an unvarnished view of the hope and despair that is Afghan society these days.

The most notable image from their trip for me is their account of joining the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers picking up litter in Bamiyan Peace Park (September 24). Other Afghans would be surprised because "Westerners never pick up trash here."

Most disturbing image:

Last night two of the local police armed with rifles walked into my room without knocking. They just looked around and then left. Again they didn't appear menacing. Very curious.

Pawns and Not -So-Pawns

As a long-time hiker, I am pleased to see that Shane Bauer and Joshua Fattal,the American hikers held prisoner by Iran are now free. Two years in any prison is a difficult ordeal, especially when all you wanted to do was get out and see the countryside. Now free, Bauer, Fattal and Sarah Shourd can get on with their lives as best they can. No doubt Iran will always be part of those lives.

So that's over. Meanwhile, another group of Americans are in southwest Asia--Afghanistan, to be exact. These Americans, Doug and Jody Mackey of Olympia and Larry Kershner from nearby Centralia, are in Afghanistan teaching low-technology water purification and sanitation. Their mission is one of both sharing knowledge and understanding--two-way direct communication between cultures that are now linked by events.

Unlike the American hikers whom I don't believe were ever at risk of death, Jody, Doug and Larry are in an active war zone. They are the same nationality of the foreign occupiers. And they bring ideas and knowledge that some in Afghanistan fear. Knowing the risks, that Larry, Jody and Doug chose to go there shows their essential humanity and courage. Not a surprise to those of us who know them.

Like the American hikers, I wish these three a safe return to family and friends.

About As Good As Possible

Obama declares success and begins the ever so slow process of downsizing America's war in Afghanistan. "We are meeting our goals" rather than "mission accomplished" even if his claim is as hollow as CheneyBush's juvenile outburst.

For the first time since Lyndon Johnson told General Westmoreland "no more troops" in 1968 a president has challenged the logic of the war machine. Of course, it took another seven years to end that earlier war so I'm not too sanguine about present prospects but at least Obama went a bit beyond the token withdrawal that the generals were offering.

That's about as good as it gets in America these days.

Why You Should Not Rely on Mainstream Media

You won't get anything like MK Bhadrakumar's analysis of the Afghanistan-Pakistan regional dynamics and his assessment of possibilities for an Afghan-led peace process. The article is a detailed assessment of players and interests that leads Bhadrakumar to conclude,

[E]verything points toward a favorable backdrop for Kabul and Islamabad to kickstart a peace process, finally. Both capitals profess that Washington will be a participant in such a process - and neither is exaggerating the fact. Indeed, they will be downright unrealistic to visualize that there can be an Afghan settlement without the US's involvement and backing.

But neither is likely to seek or offer a "larger-than-life" role for the US in the peace process or hand over the steering wheel to it. Their trust deficit with the US runs far too deep, thanks to flawed US policies over recent years - bullying Karzai and humiliating him and even seeking his replacement on the one hand, while on the other hand sowing the seeds of doubt in the Pakistani mind about American intentions toward Pakistan.

Bhadrakumar's article is long and requires some effort. And it is not US-centric. Asking Americans to make some effort to think outside of our distinctly unique American perspective is not something mainstream media will do. Conventional wisdom--comfort food for the mind--is more their style.

That's why you can't rely on the mainstream media.

You will miss too much real information.

Maybe the Times They Are A-Changing

Senior Democratic Representative Norm Dicks of Washington has warned President Obama that he cannot ignore the growing “war fatigue” in Congress and must consider steps to accelerate a U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan. Dicks is the ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee and Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. He was an enthusiastic supporter of Obama's "surge" in Afghanistan. He now has serious reservations and last week quietly sided with anti-war forces in backing an amendment demanding that Obama come up with plans this summer to accelerate the withdrawal and pursue a negotiated settlement with “all interested parties” in Afghanistan, including the Taliban.

Combined with growing cost of the endless wars, maybe something is a-changing. I won't count on it, though. Dick's predecessor, the late John Murtha, made a similar about fact on the Iraq war in 2005. Nothing happened then. I'm not sure that the US has made the fundamental changes in mindset that will allow Obama to follow Dicks' advice.

Other Priorities

The US is standing down on womens' rights in Afghanistan. The plight of Afghan women is beyond desperate--30 years of war, denied access to education and medical care severe restrictions on personal choice, subservient to men in all spheres of life. I can't think of a hell on earth that would be less horrible. So improving womens' in Afghanistan has always been the one redeeming feature of US occupation. Even at that, the effort redeemed very little of America's war in Afghanistan but womens' rights were always there as some small salve for the national conscience.

No more.

"Gender issues are going to have to take a back seat to other priorities," said the senior official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal policy deliberations. "There's no way we can be successful if we maintain every special interest and pet project. All those pet rocks in our rucksack were taking us down."

[...]

"Nobody wants to abandon the women of Afghanistan, but most Americans don't want to keep fighting there for years and years," the official said. "The grim reality is that, despite all of the talk about promoting women's rights, things are going to have to give."

Aside from thinking of womens' rights as pet rocks, I agree with the official. Changing the fundamental laws and customs that govern relationships between men and women in Afghanistan is not a realistic objective for American military policy in Afghanistan. Womens' rights should remain an important objective for our diplomatic and cultural policies but not military and National (in)Security policy. But even at that remove, America may still be "radioactive", unlikely to even have the opportunity to the trust and credibility needed to effect real change. Any American efforts to strengthen womens' rights in Afghanistan will best be pursued through other nations and NGO's.

Now if American political and military leaders would only be so realistic...

Counterproductivity in Action

Good story in the Washington Post about Afghan imams preaching against foreign military forces. The Imams unleash some strong, insulting language. The foreign forces are "children of Jews", "jackals" and "brothers of monkeys, gorillas and pigs". But the money quote for me was,

"If you see a feeling of xenophobia these days, that's understandable," Balegh, the preacher, who is also a professor of Islamic law at Kabul University, said in an interview. "I don't think even a single Afghan is happy with the presence of the foreign military forces here." (emphasis added)

Going on ten years and someone can plausibly say that not "even a single Afghan" is happy with the foreign presence in their country.

Could we have possibly done it any worse?

The Plan All Along

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has boldly announced its plan for a campaign of small scale attacks on America and its economy. They proudly celebrate the the simplicity and low cost of their toner cartridge bomb and its assembly. Cheaper bombs means more bombs they warn, and even unsuccessful attempts will disrupt international air freight. Their tone is almost mocking.

But this should be no surprise to anyone who listened to Osama bin Ladin six years ago:

All that we have to do is to send two mujahedeen to the furthest point East to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al-Qaeda, in order to make the generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic, and political losses without their achieving for it anything of note other than some benefits for their private companies. (emphasis added)

Bin Laden was mocking us then. He's still mocking us.

This latest boast is a reminder that the Bad Guys are still out there and their plans need to be foiled. But it should also remind us that these are small scale threats. Compared to the economy, climate change and the decay of our national infrastructure, $4,200 cartridge bombs don't amount to much of a threat. They are criminal acts to be prevented by intelligent, knowledgeable police and intelligence work in America and other nations. We don't need the 101st Airborne in Afghanistan to stop bombs on airplanes coming out of Yemen.

But we do need people who know what's going in and out of Yeman and other places where al-Qaeda has affiliates. Or maybe we no longer accept packages from those places or at least pay much closer attention to those packages. Any combination of the above would make America safer than bringing tanks to Afghanistan. Or extending the war to 2014.

For Osama bin Laden and his spawn it's all good. The plan worked. America took the bait and remains firmly hooked.

Without achieving for it anything of note.

A Policy America Could Live With

Afghanistan for the Afghanis.

What Karzai wants, rather, is for Western forces to take a less active role in engaging with residents, leaving such interaction to Afghan army, police and government officials.

"We want, as part of that review, for the international forces to gradually take distance from the daily life of people," Daudzai said. "Because people are getting tired with the way they are behaved with."

Daudzai described a recent evening when he headed home from the palace only to be caught in a time-consuming traffic check by international troops.

"That's not their job. . . . That's the Afghan police job," he said. "Or in the rush hour, going into the market with these heavy cars, not letting anybody overtake them. Or on the main highways, they go on the wrong day. Like, for instance, on New Year's Day, everybody goes out for a picnic, then you see a huge NATO convoy comes on that day and blocks the whole road.

"This is what we mean by taking distance from their lives."

The US would do well to listen to the Afghanis and stand down. We certainly don't need to occupy Afghanistan to protect America from terrorist attack. The only "terrorist threat" to America from Afghanistan is what it was on 9-11: a bunch of narrow-minded and absolutist believers are willing to kill and injure others to further their cause and might train and organize in Afghanistan.

A reasonably competent national security team should be able to identify and disrupt planned attacks without resorting to military occupation. You know, like what Bush's team did NOT do with the early warnings of airplanes as fire bombs on 9-11.

Leaving Afghanistan to local control is likely to be pretty ugly, though. But I don't see that more years of war and occupation added to the past nine years of war and occupation is any less ugly.