Following the release of Gen. Stanley McChrystal's assessment of the situation in Afghanistan, President Obama faces some tough questions and some even tougher decisions, decisions that have the very real potential to have more of an affect on his presidency than the fate of health care reform.
Think about it; health care reform, if passed, will not take effect until after the 2012 election. But if we're still in Afghanistan, with no end in sight, three years from now, and the Republicans run a candidate with a Nixonian plan to withdraw and have "peace with honor," it would have serious repercussions on President Obama's re-election effort.
According to the Washington Post:
"The top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan warns in an urgent, confidential assessment of the war that he needs more forces within the next year and bluntly states that without them, the eight-year conflict "will likely result in failure."
This comes after remarks last week by chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen that, "a properly resourced counterinsurgency probably means more forces, and, without question, more time."
Two questions, how many more forces and how much more time? More troops and more time equals more blood and more treasure--in an increasingly unpopular war.
As to the counterinsurgency strategy, Gen. McChrystal's report, "repeatedly warns that without more forces and the rapid implementation of a genuine counterinsurgency strategy, defeat is likely."
Another question. Will a counterinsurgency be as effective in Afghanistan as it was in Iraq? Maybe, maybe not.
"First, the Iraqi surge succeeded only because it was accompanied by several other developments (primarily the Sunni awakening, two previous years of sectarian cleansing, and al-Sadr's ceasefire), none of which can or will be duplicated in Afghanistan. Second, the Iraqi surge was fundamentally targeted at Baghdad...most of the troops were deployed in Baghdad, where it meant a near doubling of capacity, and that did have an effect. Baghdad was so central to the rest of Iraq that a reduction of violence there had a country-wide effect.
But no such concentration is possible in Afghanistan. Kabul isn't as important to Afghanistan as Baghdad is to Iraq, and in any case Kabul is already relatively safe. It's the rest of the country that needs more troops, and it's hard to think of any single place they could be concentrated enough to have a real impact."
Gen. McChrystal's report also calls for rapid expansion of Afghan Army and police forces;
"The existing goal is to expand the army from 92,000 to 134,000 by December 2011. McChrystal seeks to move that deadline to October 2010. Overall, McChrystal wants the Afghan army to grow to 240,000 and the police to 160,000 for a total security force of 400,000, but he does not specify when those numbers could be reached."
First, a security force that large cannot be sustained by the Afghan economy. Afghanistan is the "fourth poorest country on the planet with a gross national product of only $23 billion (a striking percentage of which comes from the drug trade) and an annual government budget of only about $600 million...if U.S. officials were capable of building such a force...we, the American taxpayers, would own it for all eternity."
What about the 92,000 now in the Afghan National Army? How reliable is that number?
"It may well be true that Afghan men have gone through some version of "Basic Warrior Training" 90,000 times or more. When I was teaching in Afghanistan from 2002 to 2006, I knew men who repeatedly went through ANA training to get the promised Kalashnikov and the pay. Then they went home for a while and often returned some weeks later to enlist again under a different name."
And what about their commitment?
"In a country where 40% of men are unemployed, joining the ANA for 10 weeks is the best game in town. It relieves the poverty of many families every time the man of the family goes back to basic training...when ANA soldiers were given leave after basic training to return home with their pay, they generally didn't come back."
Tough questions all. One more thing for President Obama to keep in mind as we go forward, the strategy of the Mujahideen against the Soviets:
"All the Mujahideen can do is harass the enemy, make them tired and their lives difficult and dangerous. We must prolong the war so the cost of the war will finally bleed the enemy to death. The cost will be economic, in manpower and equipment, and the end will come through crisis and the loss of public and political support. The enemy cannot smash the Mujahideen, the vanguard of the people, as this is a national resistance and a holy war. In the end, we will not defeat the enemy. We will force them to retreat."
Think about it; health care reform, if passed, will not take effect until after the 2012 election. But if we're still in Afghanistan, with no end in sight, three years from now, and the Republicans run a candidate with a Nixonian plan to withdraw and have "peace with honor," it would have serious repercussions on President Obama's re-election effort.
According to the Washington Post:
"The top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan warns in an urgent, confidential assessment of the war that he needs more forces within the next year and bluntly states that without them, the eight-year conflict "will likely result in failure."
This comes after remarks last week by chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen that, "a properly resourced counterinsurgency probably means more forces, and, without question, more time."
Two questions, how many more forces and how much more time? More troops and more time equals more blood and more treasure--in an increasingly unpopular war.
As to the counterinsurgency strategy, Gen. McChrystal's report, "repeatedly warns that without more forces and the rapid implementation of a genuine counterinsurgency strategy, defeat is likely."
Another question. Will a counterinsurgency be as effective in Afghanistan as it was in Iraq? Maybe, maybe not.
"First, the Iraqi surge succeeded only because it was accompanied by several other developments (primarily the Sunni awakening, two previous years of sectarian cleansing, and al-Sadr's ceasefire), none of which can or will be duplicated in Afghanistan. Second, the Iraqi surge was fundamentally targeted at Baghdad...most of the troops were deployed in Baghdad, where it meant a near doubling of capacity, and that did have an effect. Baghdad was so central to the rest of Iraq that a reduction of violence there had a country-wide effect.
But no such concentration is possible in Afghanistan. Kabul isn't as important to Afghanistan as Baghdad is to Iraq, and in any case Kabul is already relatively safe. It's the rest of the country that needs more troops, and it's hard to think of any single place they could be concentrated enough to have a real impact."
Gen. McChrystal's report also calls for rapid expansion of Afghan Army and police forces;
"The existing goal is to expand the army from 92,000 to 134,000 by December 2011. McChrystal seeks to move that deadline to October 2010. Overall, McChrystal wants the Afghan army to grow to 240,000 and the police to 160,000 for a total security force of 400,000, but he does not specify when those numbers could be reached."
First, a security force that large cannot be sustained by the Afghan economy. Afghanistan is the "fourth poorest country on the planet with a gross national product of only $23 billion (a striking percentage of which comes from the drug trade) and an annual government budget of only about $600 million...if U.S. officials were capable of building such a force...we, the American taxpayers, would own it for all eternity."
What about the 92,000 now in the Afghan National Army? How reliable is that number?
"It may well be true that Afghan men have gone through some version of "Basic Warrior Training" 90,000 times or more. When I was teaching in Afghanistan from 2002 to 2006, I knew men who repeatedly went through ANA training to get the promised Kalashnikov and the pay. Then they went home for a while and often returned some weeks later to enlist again under a different name."
And what about their commitment?
"In a country where 40% of men are unemployed, joining the ANA for 10 weeks is the best game in town. It relieves the poverty of many families every time the man of the family goes back to basic training...when ANA soldiers were given leave after basic training to return home with their pay, they generally didn't come back."
Tough questions all. One more thing for President Obama to keep in mind as we go forward, the strategy of the Mujahideen against the Soviets:
"All the Mujahideen can do is harass the enemy, make them tired and their lives difficult and dangerous. We must prolong the war so the cost of the war will finally bleed the enemy to death. The cost will be economic, in manpower and equipment, and the end will come through crisis and the loss of public and political support. The enemy cannot smash the Mujahideen, the vanguard of the people, as this is a national resistance and a holy war. In the end, we will not defeat the enemy. We will force them to retreat."
bubba,
As Obama cited in his U.N. address, the whole world shares in the responsibility and they MUST step up to the plate.
We cannot just bail on Afghanistan for myriad reasons. Despite all the missteps (Tora Bora), crass, self serving distractions (Iraq), and just general piss poor planning, execution, and strategy by the previous administration, I think history has proven that we will always pay a higher price in American blood and long term international standing for cutting and running and not finishing what we started and promised to fix.
We owe it to the people and country of Afghanistan that we ruined twice (in the 80's using them as proxies to fight Soviet expansionism and then leaving them armed in an anarchic power vacuum when the Soviets withdrew that was ripe for the development of al Qaeda) and more recently in the grossly mismanaged "War on Terror" in response to 9-11. And of course we owe it to the victims of 9-11 and the brave soldiers who served and died to not sacrifice their lives in vain. We need to ultimately fix Afghanistan as best we can for our own national safety.
When George Bush Senior incited the Iraqi Shiites to revolt against Saddam Hussein post-Gulf War and then idly stood by and did nothing while Saddam crushed the under armed and under manned rebellion and massacred the people, we slit our own throats politically in the region for generations to come.
And then we compound that horror and regional animosity with the Mogadishu "Blackhawk Down" fiasco and subsequent immediate withdrawal by Bill Clinton that painted the US as a paper tiger and emboldened Osama bin Laden to perpetrate the seminal evils of 9-11.
If we cut and run and abandon Afghanistan now, we will pay with the blood of even more innocent Americans in the future. We need to fix now what we broke there to do what is right and to ensure the well being of the Afghani people AND the American people, abroad and at home.
President Obama has initiated the proper corrective measures by stabilizing and drawing down our presence in Iraq (that we should never have been in the first place) so that we may focus our attentions, efforts, and our brightest and bravest to stabilize first and then get the hell out of Afghanistan...permanently.
For Whatever It's Worth:
Thomas P.M. Barnett is a must read to prepare for what surely is coming. He has several books and is a...blogger.
I assure you that despite having a history and a career that would relegate most ordinary humans to staunch conservatism and a devotion to hawkishness, this is a very enlightened human being. I recommend checking his thoughts on, what else, war and peace.
Right after we bombed the hell out of Afghanistan, I remember ALL the promises we made not to abandon the people. We were going to rebuild, and help them start life over without the conservative rule of the Taliban. I remember Afghan women going to school in droves.
Iraq changed everything, and we broke every promise. *I* wouldn't trust us, so why should they. Hopefully, some of the Afghan people will get out of that country before the Taliban takes it back. We need to get out, but to keep the special forces hunting for OBL. If we find and kill him, then our dead, both on 9/11 and on the battlefields, will have some justice.
I agree. Train as many military and police personnel as we can in the next 12 months and start a pullout and leave it to the UN.
Ain't NONE of the countries over there EVER gonna be stable. To many social, religious and political factions with tons of weapons and a "die for the cause" attitude.
Unless and until someone over there points out there ARE options to dying for your cuase, NOTHING WILL EVER CHANGE. And that applies to all countries that end in "stan" or begin with "Ir".
I remember another Democratic president, trying to win a war that could not be won, not even with "counter insurgency techniques". Win their hearts and minds has a familiar ring to it. The GOP will be all over us for it, but in the end, pulling out makes the most sense for our country.
I wrote the President this morning and implored him to find a way out of Afganistan, with the argument that history was definitely NOT on our side. I see nothing but ruin coming out of our continued involvement there.
History clearly shows these people do not take kindly to outsiders. My only question is whether a withdraw would be successfully hung on Obama or Bush. Personally, I think Bush is most culpable because he abandoned the whole thing with his Iraq gaffe, but we know how hard it is to pin stuff that far back. My fear is he will be blamed for the "failure".
I must differ with the General. I don't think "winning" is an option. Temporary victory, maybe. Followed by another imsurgency or rebellion or coup.
Just think if Afghanistan was handled the right way, from the beginning, think where we would be right now. If Reagan had not abandoned them after the Soviet Union pulled out. No distraction in Iraq from G.W.'s war for oil. A real commitment to the Afghan people from the very beginning. Two decades of helping them build an actual economy. But alas, this did not happen... of course. The republicans have been in control for most of those two decades. We are barely able to take care of ourselves under the thumb of the right-wing.
Afghan is going to take a commitment that I believe most think isn't warranted. If we are going to win in Afghanistan we are going to need to do what it takes to win. I foresee us abandoning these people... again.