WHAT SHOULD THE U.S. DO IN AFGHANISTAN?
Gary Ater
September 28, 2009
... a home-made international mileage sign on a military base in Afghanistan
I had hoped to stay away from commenting on the war in Afghanistan until the current health care issues had settled down a bit.
But with the top US military commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal´s US military strategy being leaked, which just happens to include requests for more troops, I guess it´s time to respond to the reader´s requests.
In addition, with all the comparisons to the wars in Iraq and Vietnam and the historical comments about what has happened to every other country that has ever tried to conquer or occupy the Afghans, it´s now time to offer some other approaches.
From all the research that I have done, the only thing that is crystal clear about Afghanistan is that, other than being a very poor country, Afghanistan cannot be compared to any of the major countries that surround them. They do not have the oil resources of an Iran, nor the nuclear threats of a Pakistan. In addition, most of the original reasons that George W. Bush went into Afghanistan, as in going after Osama bin Laden and the al Qaeda, those circumstances have seriously changed over the past 8 years.
The initial focus, (before the Bush Administration got distracted into invading the wrong country), was to get Osama and al Qaeda and to help keep the Afghani Taliban from supporting these radical Muslim insurgents. All of this approach was initially working fairly well until President Bush and the then Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, did not agree to increase the US efforts in Afghanistan. This of course, allowed Osama and his top al Qaeda lieutenants to escape into the border mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
With the US military focus then moved over to the war in Iraq, Osama and the al Qaeda were free to set up their shop in those mountains that bordered Pakistan. It also allowed for Osama to support and finance the local Taliban as it slowly regained its hold on the local villages and as the opium trade once again became the country´s largest "cash crop". (Seven to eight years is a very long time for allowing a rogue and dedicated religious military operation to reorganize and become locally stable.)
Now today, based on what has been leaked about the McChrystal strategy, a former CIA officer who worked with Afghan tribes during the 1980s offers this interpretation of General McChrystal's approach: "Move out to the hinterlands and live with the locals. Fund them, arm them and exploit the warlord structure. If you don't want them to sell opium, then pay them more than they make selling drugs. Turn Afghan warlords on the foreign fighters, and leverage them against each other." In many ways, this is another variation of how General David Petraeus dealt with the Sunni´s and Shiites in Iraq, but this approach still supports an armed internal conflict.
This answer is also very close to what the British came up in the late 1900´s. They had worked with tribal leaders in the border regions, paid them subsidies and wooed them away from the bad guys who genuinely threatened the British interests. They otherwise let the Afghans run their own affairs.
It was also a highly cynical approach that left Afghanistan as the poor, backward country that it is today. However, it basically worked well enough, especially when considering the alternatives at the time. The other option would have been the never-ending of bloodshed, both English and Afghani, in a faraway country that for centuries had refused to be occupied or colonized.
A modern version of this "work with the tribes" approach seems to be an important part of General McChrystal's strategy that was leaked. McChrystal's strategy is dressed up in the language of "counterinsurgency". The general speaks of "population-centric" operations, and he uses the word "community" 44 times. But his assessment is basically a discussion of how to stabilize the country without just shooting a lot of Afghans.
But on the other hand, per one of Britain's top Afghanistan experts. "If you pull your forces out, the place would collapse. Kandahar would be in Taliban hands in a week, and Lashkar Gah [the capital of the Helmand province] would follow in another week."
The British like the General's focus on reintegration at the local and tribal levels, followed by reconciliation at the national level. And they share his enthusiasm for empowering provincial and district governors, and for creating local assemblies that can draw-in former insurgents and take responsibility for governance. However, getting Afghanistan to act as a single nation under one leader has never occurred over 2000 years. Afghanistan is not the classic "single unified nation". It is a loose association of warlords and villages, and they will most likely never follow a single national leader.
And the idea that a surge of U.S. troops is needed to regain the initiative against the Taliban is highly questionable. "The idea that you will bring them to the table with military force is wrong," says one top Afghan expert. "Unless you are planning to colonize or occupy the country, this won't work. Building a fort and putting men in uniforms incites the local tribes rather than calming them down." In other words, more troops doesn´t necessarily mean more security for the Afghans or the US military personnel.
The second problem, compared to what the British dealt with, is that today compared to the past, the Afghan tribal structure appears to be seriously broken. The authority of many of the tribal elders has been shattered by the recent past decades of armed conflict. And as expected, today much of the power has flowed directly to those locals with the big money. That means the country´s drug dealers, gunrunners and the Taliban fighters are running the show.
From my basic research and my personal point-of-view, unless the United States is planning on "Nation Building" in Afghanistan, (which has never worked, and is an expensive and a decades-long process), there is no simple or short-term answer to this problem.
SO, WHAT SHOULD THE UNITED STATES DO?
Afghanistan is a country that consists of thousands of small villages that are not easily unified and these communities consist mostly of poor and illiterate Muslims. Therefore, the only real and usable material for a potential, short-term solution is to have a massive infusion of "cold-hard-American-cash".
The money would need to be used to displace the drug sales and additional money would be needed to build hospitals, schools, roads and local town and village infrastructures. But the money must not be distributed through the corrupt local political or religious leaders, it must go directly to support the people and their needs.
Third party organization such as the Peace Corps or the International Red Cross or perhaps a division of the United Nations could help the Afghani´s and could keep the outside money and resources away from the drug and gun cartels. But the reality is that these "cartels" are well established and well financed and keeping the state´s support finances "clean" in a country filled with corruption would be virtually impossibile.
But even if it worked, all of this would take years if not decades. And it will take at least another generation of real education to get them to where they could possibly manage themselves in today´s modern world. In a backward, poor Muslim country such as Afghanistan, that kind of change could be many generations away from today, if in a devout Muslim country it was possible that it could ever actually occur.
The situation that the American president is facing today is much different from what the US was facing while he was running for office. At the time, "candidate" Obama was saying that, "Iraq was the wrong war, Afghanistan was the right war". Philosophically that was correct back then, but the situation now, (after 8 years), is; "what is the goal today as there is no military solution?" And the American public has become very tired of a full-time war with those questionable goals and objectives.
Since the 9/11 attacks, al Qaeda has become a very well financed, global terrorist threat to more than just the United States. They can leave the mountains of Afghanistan and set up their "shop" in any number of poor and corrupt Muslim nations around the world. To focus the US military on Afghanistan could be a major waste of lives, time and resources with no real achievable objectives in sight. And just what would a "win" in Afghanistan actually look like? What if Osama and the al Qaeda just decided to pick up and leave for another poor country? What then?
As to the current situation, it is appearing that there should be a coalition of countries that would take the approach for investing in getting the Afghan farmers back to growing food and in helping to build schools and hospitals. These countries would work with the population to see the benefits of not fighting each other and by rewarding those that agree to change their way from drugs and gun cartels to regular business for the good of the Afghan people. The main issue is to slowly stop the current military efforts and to convert them to civilian support and for growing the local schools and businesses. And mainly, to convince the Afghani´s that the United States is not trying to "conquer" or occupy the country, but to instead help them to become an independent country with a government of their own choosing.
Yes it´s a tall order, and it will take the help and effort of countries other than just the United States. Is it a simple and easy answer? "No it´s not," and there are no guarantees. But it is a start in getting them targeted toward living and growing their communities instead of destroying them.
There is no military solution in Afghanistan for anyone and that has now become a foregone conclusion. Therefore, other alternatives need to attempted. The only other choice is for more internal fighting and continued anarchy.
Of course, as I was asked to respond to the question, this is all just my humble opinion.
Copyright G.Ater 2009
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