ASG Blog
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ASG Weekly Reader: Stuck in the Middle with You
Published: July 1st, 2011
Noteworthy developments in Afghanistan and the United States’ prosecution of our war there have included: Central Bank Gov. Abdul Qadir Fitrat’s flight to the US and a subsequent request by Afghan authorities for his extradition in connection with the Kabul Bank’s fraudulent loans, a terror attack on The Intercontinental Hotel, located in Kabul by Taliban suicide bombers on Tuesday, and here in the U.S. the shuffling of American intelligence and military officials is nearly complete.
General Petraeus moved to the CIA with Lt. Gen. John Allen taking over as the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Robert Gates retired, and Leon Panetta became the Secretary of Defense this morning. This personnel shift is indicative of a larger shift in policy. The White House is leaning towards a strategy that targets Al Qaeda and seeks to reduce the number of troops in Afghanistan. This could be an opportunity for the regional players to take a stronger role in developing peace in Afghanistan (Here’s looking at you China).
Both sides of the aisle are unhappy with the President’s plan. However, the American public at large supports the President’s plan. Amidst the shouts and murmurs of D.C. punditry, the American people are indicating they are in favor of the drawdown, and a significant portion think it should happen more quickly. They are right. It should. Because “a little bit of common sense” tells us we need the money we are spending in Afghanistan, here. Unfortunately, we may be staying in Afghanistan longer than we would like.
FROM ASG
6-28-11
US Forces in Afghanistan: Too Big to Succeed
The Atlantic by Steve Clemons
Even General David Petraeus has said that his troop recommendations to the President were not based on an assessment of America’s overall strategic needs and position — but were focused exclusively on the needs of the Afghanistan/Pakistan environment. In other words, America’s most famous and arguably successful general, a celebrity now in his own right, has been advocating that his venture be the Moby Dick of concern in America’s national security portfolio — rather than a more balanced venture weighed against other problems with which the US is strapped.6-29-11
Pro & Con: Should U.S. quicken drawdown of troops in Afghanistan?
ajc.com by Matthew Hoh, Gordon R. Sullivan and James M. Dubik
Obama announced his first surge of 20,000 troops in spring 2009. Pushing American forces well above the 50,000 mark and reinforcing a counterinsurgency strategy, he escalated a war in a country entering its fourth decade of continuous conflict.6-30-11
Afghan Financial Death Match: IMF versus Central Bank
Edward Kenney Afghanistan Study Group
Afghan growth rates have totaled 8.2% in 2010 and 20.9% in 2009, but these impressive numbers are likely the result of foreign aid and war spending representing up to 97% of the economy. Crucially, other macroeconomic factors have been far less promising. Unemployment is possibly as high as 35%, meanwhile inflation, thanks in part to a massive influx of foreign cash, was at 13.3% in 2009, one of the highest rates in the world.ARTICLES
6-23-11
Sen. Manchin on Afghanistan: We Need “A Little Bit of Common Sense”
REAL Clear Politics by Sen. Manchin
Senator Joe Manchin: Let me just first say I have the utmost respect for Sen. McCain, the sacrifices that he has made, the service that he has given to our country. And he’s right, I don’t have the experience he’s had. What I do have, like most West Virginians, is a little bit of common sense. And enough’s enough.6-24-11
War Savings Dividend for U.S. ‘Nation-Building’ Years Away, Analysts Say
Bloomberg by Margaret Talev and Mike Dorning
Any peace dividend from bringing U.S. troops home from Afghanistan likely will take years, not months, to make a dent in the federal budget, analysts said. [Obama’s] plan could save as little as $7 billion in fiscal year 2012, said Travis Sharp, a fellow at the Center for a New American Security, a defense-oriented policy institute in Washington. Sharp said he based his analysis on data from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.6-25-11
Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan to combat terrorism
AFP by Farhad Pouladi
Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan agreed on Saturday to jointly fight militancy as they attended a counter-terrorism summit overshadowed by an Afghan hospital bombing that killed at least 20 people….”All sides stressed their commitment to efforts aimed at eliminating extremism, militancy, terrorism, as well as rejecting foreign interference, which is in blatant opposition to the spirit of Islam, the peaceful cultural traditions of the region and its peoples’ interests,” the statement said.
6-27-11
China Slams U.S. war in Middle East, Afghanistan; calls for caution in Libya
International Business Times
“Foreign troops may be able to win war in a place, but they can hardly win peace. Hard lessons have been learned from what has happened in the Middle East and Afghanistan,” Wen told the Associated Press at a press conference with the British prime minister.Legacy of Mental Health Problems from Iraq and Afghanistan Wars Will Be Long-Lived
Scientific American by John Matson
As Operation Enduring Freedom, the war on terror in Afghanistan, winds down and some 33,000 U.S. servicemen and servicewomen return from overseas in the next year, a plan announced by President Obama on June 22, the psychological issues that veterans face back home are likely to increase.6-28-11
US message in drone strikes: If Pakistan doesn’t take on Taliban, we will
The Christian Science Monitor
The Obama administration has stepped up drone strikes inside Pakistan over the past year – in particular in the North Waziristan region abutting Afghanistan in recent months. Pakistani officials have called publicly for the strikes to cease, insisting they alienate the general population.6-29-11
Poll: Four in 5 approve of Obama’s plan for Afghanistan drawdown
CBS News by Lucy Madison
About four in 5 Americans approve of President Obama’s plan to bring troops home from Afghanistan and more than half would approve an even bigger withdrawal, a new CBS News/New York Times Poll finds.The true cost of the war on terror: $3.7trillion and counting… and up to 258,000 lives
Mail Online by Daily Mail Reporter
The cost of U.S. military action in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan will run to at least $3.7trillion, a study has revealed today. The staggering figure could reach as high as $4.4trillion, with the deaths of up to 258,000 people, according to research by Brown University’s Watson Institute for International Studies.7-4-11
Endgame
New Yorker by Dexter Filkins
In the ten years since American soldiers first landed in Afghanistan, their official purpose has oscillated between building and destroying. The Americans initially went in to defeat Al Qaeda, whose soldiers had attacked the United States, and to disperse the Taliban clerics who had given the terrorist group a home. Over time, the Pentagon’s focus shifted toward Afghanistan itself—toward helping its people rebuild their society, which has been battered by war and upheaval since the late nineteen-seventies. In strategic terms, the U.S. has swung between counter-insurgency and counterterrorism. Or, put another way, between enlightened self-interest and a more naked kind.OPINION
6-27-11
The Mythical Connection between Terrorism and Failed States
The National Interest by Christopher Preble
That storyline conveniently ignores the fact that the president’s decision, if fully implemented, will still leave more than 60,000 troops in Afghanistan. Depending upon the pace of the drawdown after next summer, there will certainly be more troops in Afghanistan (I predict that there will be nearly twice as many more) in January 2013 than were there when Barack Obama was sworn in as president in January 2009. Yes, there might be a glimmer of light in the distance; the war might eventually come to an end. But that light is still quite faint, and eventually looks to me like a very long time.Obama Plan Makes Victory in Afghanistan a Reality
Bloomberg by Noah Feldman
So how can President Obama say the U.S. has achieved most of its goals in Afghanistan? The answer is hiding in plain sight: Obama is aiming, as he said in his Afghanistan speech, to “refocus on al-Qaeda” — that is, to redefine the struggle in Afghanistan not as a fight against the Taliban, but as a war against al-Qaeda. -
Afghan Financial Death Match: IMF versus Central Bank
Published: June 30th, 2011
Edward Kenney Afghanistan Study Group
Last Fall I attended a conference by the Afghan-American Chamber of Commerce with keynote speaker Dr Abdul Qadeer Fitrat, the Afghan Central Bank Governor. The purpose of the conference was to reinvigorate foreign investment in Afghanistan in the wake of serious scandal involving Kabul Bank, one of largest Afghan financial institutions.
Few at the conference admitted what was already widely recognized at the time: promoting business development and investment in a country with spiraling violence, inadequate property rights, and rampant corruption is a massive challenge. Over six months have passed, but not much has changed. These obstacles to growth are still obscured by the moneymaking war machine, which spurs the Afghan economy forward. Afghan growth rates have totaled 8.2% in 2010 and 20.9% in 2009, but these impressive numbers are likely the result of foreign aid and war spending representing up to 97% of the economy. Crucially, other macroeconomic factors have been far less promising. Unemployment is possibly as high as 35%, meanwhile inflation, thanks in part to a massive influx of foreign cash, was at 13.3% in 2009, one of the highest rates in the world.
When I asked the Central Banker at the Afghan American Chamber of Commerce Conference about these key Macroeconomic indicators, he pointedly denied the numbers, which incidentally were compiled for the CIA World Factbook. In Afghanistan, it seems, you can wish bad data away.
You can’t always wish away a juicy scandal.
Flash forward to these last few weeks and Afghanistan macro-stability seems even further in doubt, thanks to a highly public standoff with the International Monetary Fund and the Afghan Government. The controversy involves, what else? Kabul Bank—the same bank which famously lost $850 million last October. As part of the fallout from this scandal, the IMF suspended its $120 million aid program through the Extended Credit Facility. This is not a lot of money, but as Martine Van Bijlert from the Afghan Analysts Network noted last week, other development funds have followed suit, so the impact of this impasse may be greater than it appears on the surface.
Van Bijlert explained that the main sticking point for the IMF is an audit of two Afghan banks, and the “recapitalization” of the Afghan Central Bank. Last fall, the Central Bank was forced to take over the floundering Kabul Bank. Because this financial transaction was marked as essentially a loss, the IMF required that the Afghan Government infuse the central bank with cash. Thus far, the Karzai administration has refused to budge.
This week, the standoff took another weird turn. Dr Abdul Qadeer Fitrat, yes the same Fitrat from the Afghan American Chamber of Commerce Conference, suddenly quit his post over the weekend and has fled to Arlington, VA. He has accused key members of the Karzai administration of corruption; now he himself is implicated in the Kabul bank heist from an indictment issued by the Attorney General.
I have no idea how this is going to turn out. Suffice to say, untangling these financial shenanigans may take years and will likely remain major obstacles to Afghan growth moving forward.
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Obama’s Speech: Beyond Troop Levels and Timetables
Published: June 29th, 2011
Edward Kenney Afghanistan Study Group
In many ways, the President’s decision to withdraw 10-thousand troops this year and an additional 23-thousand next year was anticlimactic. For weeks prognosticators had expected this level of withdrawal, and unsurprisingly Obama has staked out the middle ground between war skeptics and war boosters, the only place he is comfortable. The responses on Capitol Hill were similarly predictable. Progressives denounced the announcement as insufficient, while conservatives denounced it as “an unnecessary risk” to “hard won gains”.
Troop levels and timetables always receive the most attention, but what about the rest of the speech? The President talked about the gains that had been made through the surge at reducing al Qaeda’s threat:
When I announced this surge at West Point, we set clear objectives: to refocus on al Qaeda, to reverse the Taliban’s momentum, and train Afghan security forces to defend their own country…We’re starting this drawdown from a position of strength. Al Qaeda is under more pressure than at any time since 9/11. Together with the Pakistanis, we have taken out more than half of al Qaeda’s leadership. And thanks to our intelligence professionals and Special Forces, we killed Osama bin Laden, the only leader that al Qaeda had ever known.
This is undoubtedly a slight misreading of history: The destruction of al Qaeda had little if anything to do with the 2010 troop surge—al Qaeda has not had a large presence in Afghanistan since 2002; however his overall assessment is correct. Al Qaeda is both significantly weaker and more fractured than at any time its history. Its presence in Afghanistan has been estimated at 50 to 100, certainly not a threat worthy of the loss of thousands of U.S. lives and hundreds of billions of dollars.
The President also emphasized the need for a political settlement with the Taliban:
…as we strengthen the Afghan government and security forces, America will join initiatives that reconcile the Afghan people, including the Taliban. Our position on these talks is clear: They must be led by the Afghan government, and those who want to be a part of a peaceful Afghanistan must break from al Qaeda, abandon violence, and abide by the Afghan constitution. But, in part because of our military effort, we have reason to believe that progress can be made.
Again the President is a little off on the facts although his heart is in the right place: The military effort has, if anything made talks less likely to succeed. The Taliban field commanders have become increasingly radicalized, and distrust among the various parties is at an all time high. With that said, the President’s commitment to reconciliation with the Taliban is an important step in the right direction.
These were the positives, now for the negatives: Unfortunately the lack specificity in President’s address raised more questions than it answered. Are we abandoning the failed counterinsurgency (COIN) doctrine? Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says no, but the numbers don’t add up for COIN in the East next year—some commentary have already predicted that campaign to be even more violent (kinetic is the word they use) than the current effort in Southern Afghanistan.
What neither the President, nor the pundits in DC seem to understand is that the number of troops is less important than what they are sent to do. The focus needs to shift away from combat operations, towards building and training an Afghan army capable of protecting major cities. The ability to conduct counter-terror operations against known international terrorist should be maintained, but used efficiently and sparingly against high level al Qaeda. Until the president articulates this vision, the downward trends in the war will continue.
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The President’s Drawdown: Cracks in the Dam
Published: June 28th, 2011
The President’s decision to withdraw 10,000 U.S. troops from Afghanistan this year shows that the White House and Congress feel the heat from the work of anti-Afghanistan-War movement, but he didn’t go far enough. The bottom line for those of us working to end the war is this: We’ve got to redouble our efforts to get all of the troops home.
The work of organizations like the Afghanistan Study Group, Rethink Afghanistan, and supporters like you all across the country are the only reason any troops will come home from Afghanistan this year. Your activism turned the tide against this war in Congress and convinced most Americans that we should withdraw troops ASAP. With your support, we can drive public and insider opinion against the war until the administration brings our men, women, and tax dollars home.
The president’s plan leaves more than 90 percent of the troops in Afghanistan this year, and leaves tens of thousands of troops from the president’s prior escalations still in place after 2012. That means we’ll spend around $2 billion per week on this war for years. That’s unacceptable. We must pressure Washington, D.C. to start a real withdrawal now that gets all our troops home.
For example, the Afghanistan Study Group‘s proposal calls for “ceasefires, large troop reductions (30,000 this year, 40,000 in 2012), reformation of the Afghan government, and political negotiations within Afghanistan and amongst its neighbors to stabilize Afghanistan and the region.” That’s more than double the pace of the president’s proposed drawdown.
Think of the president’s announcement as the first crack in the dam; the whole disastrous policy hasn’t yet come crashing down, but the strain of fighting public opinion is starting to show.
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ASG Weekly Reader: A Speech No One Likes
Published: June 24th, 2011
Does removing 10,000 troops from Afghanistan amount to a change we can believe in?
Sadly, when it comes to President Obama’s announcement on troop withdrawals from Afghanistan, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
The President’s speech on Wednesday night certainly marks a turning point in the war. There will never again be as many American troops in Afghanistan as there are today. But the war has never lacked for turning points. What has been missing for ten years is a strategy that helps the country visualize what’s around the corner. And in that regard President Obama’s announcement failed to mark a real change for the war in Afghanistan, and both sides of the aisle are unhappy.
Yes, the President re-affirmed his decision to begin withdrawing troops, with 33,000 returning from Afghanistan by next summer. But that will leave 70,000 U.S. troops bogged down in Afghanistan’s increasingly fragmented conflict, thousands more troops than were deployed at the beginning of his administration.
Obama declared that there will be fewer American’s fighting in Afghanistan in the future, but he failed to define the strategy they will be fighting for. The President may see “the light of a secure peace” in the distance, but he failed to illuminate the exit from the dark days at hand.
As Timothy Kudo, former Marine officer and member of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America noted on Twitter Wednesday night: “While Obama’s speech has everyone claiming it’s over, some 18 yr old still in boot camp will be the last American to die in Afghanistan.”
FROM ASG
6-23-11
New Year, Same War: Moderate Withdrawal and No Change in Strategy
Matthew Hoh Afghanistan Study Group / Center for International Policy
“A token withdrawal that leaves nearly 100,000 U.S. troops in place through the end of this year, and tens of thousands of troops in place for years to come, does not meet the President’s order in December 2009 of an accelerated transition of responsibility to Afghan forces, and it certainly doesn’t foreshadow a foreseeable end to the war in Afghanistan.ARTICLES
6-20-11
Even hawkish Rep. Dicks seeks end to Afghan war
Miami Herald by Rob Hotakainen
WASHINGTON — If you need proof that the tide on Capitol Hill has turned against the war in Afghanistan, Exhibit A is Rep. Norm Dicks of Washington state, the top-ranked House Democrat in charge of the Pentagon’s budget. After nearly half his lifetime as a congressman, Dicks, 70, has established a reputation as a hawk, usually a reliable vote in backing a war or a strong defense budget.6-21-11
Huntsman Calls for ‘Aggressive Drawdown’ in Afghanistan
FoxNews.com by by Cristina Corbin
Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, just hours after announcing his bid for the White House Tuesday, called for an “aggressive drawdown” of troops in Afghanistan. Though Huntsman said he didn’t have “specifics” on a plan for withdrawal, he said the U.S. “should begin a fairly aggressive drawdown,” while “leaving behind a counter-terror effort that is appropriately matched to the threat we face.”Pew Research: Record Support For Afghanistan Troop Withdraw
Huffington Post by Mark Blumenthal
A new survey from the Pew Research Center finds a record number of Americans now want to bring the troops home from Afghanistan, confirming the trends of other recent polls showing majorities now opposed to the nearly decade-long war.6-22-11
Obama Won’t Use Troops to Save Afghan Hellhole (Drones, Maybe)
Wired Danger Room by Spencer Ackerman
The biggest news out of President Obama’s Afghanistan speech isn’t the 10,000 troops he’s withdrawing this year. It’s what Obama will — and won’t — do with the forces he’s leaving behind. Namely: the president won’t send the remainder of the surge troops into eastern Afghanistan, which has become the country’s most buck-wild region.Obama team: There hasn’t been a terrorist threat from Afghanistan “for the past seven or eight years”
Foreign Policy by Josh Rogin
One of the most prominent, remaining Obama administration justifications for continuing the war in Afghanistan is the need to squash the threat of attacks on the U.S. But top administration officials don’t believe there has been a terrorist threat coming from Afghanistan since at least 2004.Afghans say they’ll fill the gap as U.S. forces withdraw
McClatchy Newspapers by Hashim Shukoor
The Afghan army said Wednesday that it supported any U.S. plans to withdraw troops from the country and that it was ready to fill the gap.
“We welcome the decision of the U.S. people and the U.S. president regarding the withdrawal of a number of troops and support such a decision,” said Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi, a spokesman for the Defense Ministry.Maryland Sen. Cardin says timeline for troop withdrawal from Afghanistan can be sped up
The Washington Post by The Associated Press
Maryland Sen. Benjamin Cardin says he believes President Barack Obama’s timeline for troop withdrawal from Afghanistan can be sped up.
Cardin, a Democrat, wrote in a statement late Wednesday that he believes the United States “can be more aggressive in bringing our troops home.” He said troop withdrawal “should be sped up.”CBO: Ending the wars could save $1.4 trillion
Washington Post by Ezra Klein
Last night, President Obama announced that “the tide of war is receding,” and that he will soon bring the Iraq and Afghanistan wars “to a responsible end.” Left unsaid is the effect that could have on our projected deficits. According to the Congressional Budget Office, we’re talking big money: $1.4 trillion, to be exact.OPINION
6-19-11
Afghanistan Drawdown
RedState by sbogucki
The primary military objective in Afghanistan has been to disrupt enemy forces in such a way that they would no longer be able to project terror within the United States. I think that our Armed Forces have certainly been successful in seeing this mission through.6-23-11
Dissonance: Obama Wants Peace Talks And Forever War in Afghanistan
Wired Danger Room by Spencer Ackerman
President Obama firmly committed the U.S. to peace talks with the Taliban in Wednesday night’s big Afghanistan speech. His administration, meanwhile, is rowing in the opposite direction: negotiating deals with Hamid Karzai’s government that would keep drones and commandos in Afghanistan forever and ever. See if you can spot the tension there. -
Our Plan Has Not Worked in Afghanistan
Published: June 22nd, 2011
Matthew Hoh – Afghanistan Study Group Director
As he was announcing his second increase in troops for Afghanistan in December 2009, President Obama promised that by July 2011 those troops would begin coming home. As relayed by Bob Woodward’s book, Obama’s Wars, we know the president was skeptical about the United States’ war effort in Afghanistan. Now, as we review the results of that policy, we find his skepticism justified and his call for a drawdown prescient.
President Obama announced his first surge of 20,000 troops in spring 2009. Pushing American forces well above the 50,000 mark and reinforcing a counterinsurgency campaign, he escalated a war entering its fourth decade for the Afghan people.
Thousands of Marines and soldiers were rushed in, with the announcement that they were there to ensure free and fair Afghan elections. That summer, these troops found an insurgency fueled by resentment of their presence. Either because of hostility to foreign occupation or because our troops simply sided with someone else’s rival, akin to supporting just one side in a Hatfield-McCoy feud, 2009 became the deadliest year of the war, doubling the amount of American dead in 2008.
Meanwhile, the fire hydrant-like stream of dollars, being pumped into the second most corrupt nation in the world , seemed to purchase only further grievances among the population against a government radiantly kleptokratic. When President Hamid Karzai blatantly stole the elections in August, American officials were forced to abandon any narrative of Americans fighting and dying for democracy in Afghanistan. Then, in October, the president’s National Security Advisor, Jim Jones, announced that al-Qaeda had fewer than 100 members in Afghanistan.
However, given little political cover from the left, feeling little political pressure from the right and receiving nothing but a choice of small, medium or large escalation of the war by the Pentagon, President Obama in December 2009, ordered 30,000 more troops and billions of dollars into what soon would become America’s longest war.
Predictably, by doubling-down on a policy that had proved counter-productive, betrayed our national values and failed to inflict damage on al-Qaeda, we went from being waist-deep to chest-deep in quicksand.
This past year surpassed 2009 as the deadliest year of the conflict, killing 57 percent more American service members.
Tragically, but unsurprisingly, 2011 has been even more deadly. Insurgent attacks from January to March increased nearly 50 percent from the same period in 2010, while American deaths from March to May of this year increased 41 percent from last spring’s totals.
Nationwide, a U.S.-led campaign of night raids on homes has terrorized families, while a massive nation-building program funded by U.S. taxpayers has enriched a corrupt few and disenfranchised a poor majority. Again, betraying our own values, we looked the other way when elections were stolen for the second time in as many years. The number of civilian deaths are on pace to surpass the totals from 2010, the deadliest year of the war for civilians since 2001. The result: Eight in ten Afghan men now say the U.S. presence is bad for Afghanistan.
Al-Qaeda has not existed in any meaningful capacity in Afghanistan since we successfully scattered them in 2001. Over the last decade, they have evolved into an increasingly flat or networked organization(s) of individuals and small cells around the globe that is most successfully attacked through good intelligence, international law-enforcement cooperation and surgical-strikes, such as the raid against Osama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan. Our Afghan war policy does not affect al-Qaeda.
American troops killed or maimed in Afghanistan and others who have returned home with physical and mental injuries, increasing numbers of whom are taking their own lives, cannot be said to have made a worthy sacrifice. We must acknowledge to families that their losses did not prevent another September 11th.
Moreover, our policies have destabilized the region, most notably in Pakistan, a nuclear nation with 170 million people.
Indeed, President Obama was right to be skeptical.
It is in the United States’ moral, fiscal and security interests to drawdown its forces and de-escalate the Afghan war.
That drawdown should be significant — removing the most recent 30,000 surge troops by the end of 2011 and reducing to a total of fewer than 30,000 troops by the end of 2012. Combined with sincere political efforts in Afghanistan and the broader region, and by maintaining a focus on al-Qaeda, the United States can move Afghanistan and the region toward stability.
Unfortunately, it is expected that President Obama will announce this evening a withdrawal of 30,000 troops over 18 months. Such a withdrawal, particularly without a change in strategy commensurate with America’s actual interests in Afghanistan, will only bring us back to where we in December 2009. Further, an 18 month long process will push the next decision point on the war to January 2013, effectively punting the war from the US’s 2012 election cycle. By not making significant cuts in our troops in Afghanistan and no real changes in our strategy, we will continue to be stuck in Afghanistan’s quicksand for years to come.
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A Profile in Courage: Canada Draws Down in Afghanistan
Published: June 20th, 2011
Will Keola Thomas – Afghanistan Study Group
A few weeks ago, outgoing Secretary of Defense Robert Gates warned a gathering of NATO defense ministers that a “rush to the exits” in Afghanistan would put military gains there at risk.
“We are making substantial military progress on the ground…these gains could be threatened if we do not proceed with the transition to Afghan security lead in a deliberate, organized, and coordinated manner.
Even as the United States begins to draw down next month, I assured my fellow ministers that there will be no rush to exits on our part, and we expect the same from our allies.”
Leave aside the broken-record, and patently false, claim of substantial military progress.
Also, please disregard the assertion that there is anything deliberate, organized and coordinated about the game of “whack-a-mole” international forces are playing in their fight against the Taliban.
Why is Sec. Gates questioning the commitment of countries that have stuck by a failed and counterproductive military strategy for almost ten years at enormous risk to citizens in uniform and their families back home?
Many of the coalition members (…looking at you, Tonga) would be at a total loss if they were asked to define the vital strategic interest that had brought them to commit troops to a civil war in a landlocked Central Asian republic.
And in the past, Sec. Gates has suggested that the leaders of any country considering such a mission should have their heads examined.
Conservative Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper took Gates’ advice and decided it was time for some reflection on the national interests and collective fears that were driving his country’s commitment to the war in Afghanistan. In doing so, Harper realized that there was little to be afraid of except another decade of bloodletting in pursuit of imagined enemies.
This realization has led Canada towards a new approach in Afghanistan which the U.S. would do well to emulate.
Prime Minister Harper marked the taming of the Canadian id on a recent trip to visit the troops in Kandahar:
“This country does not represent a geostrategic risk to the world. It is no longer a source of global terrorism.”
After nearly a decade of war, including five years spent in a bloody struggle for the volatile southern province of Kandahar, Canada is ending its combat role in Afghanistan. The commitment of the Canadian troops should be unquestioned. With 156 troops killed and 1,500 wounded, Canada has the highest per capita casualty rate of any coalition member. Moreover, the Canadians’ focus on training Afghan security forces and sustaining their commitment to development support, while not without problems and limitations, holds out the possibility of long term benefits to the security and well-being of Afghans that whack-a-mole night raids and air strikes clearly do not.
Canada is setting an example for all coalition countries to follow: steadfast commitment to supporting the people of Afghanistan in their struggle for self-determination while at the same time refusing to let the imagined bogeyman of Afghan-born international terrorism force them into a stubborn allegiance to a counterproductive and failed military strategy.
The Canadian example makes the question explicit: What is the United States afraid of?
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ASG Weekly Reader: Winning the War at Home
Published: June 17th, 2011
More signs this week that the most significant progress being made toward resolving the conflict in Afghanistan is occurring on the home front. While the past week’s headlines reported a record number of civilian casualties in Afghanistan and further evidence of the double-game played by the U.S.’s essential partners in Pakistan, two pieces of good news emerged from the halls of Congress.
First, a letter urging a “sizable and sustained reduction” in U.S. forces beginning in July was delivered to the White House on Tuesday bearing the signatures of 27 senators. Then the House Appropriations Committee unanimously approved an amendment to the 2012 Defense Appropriations bill by Republican Rep. Frank Wolf of Virginia calling for the creation of an Afghanistan-Pakistan Study Group. The independent study group would provide an outside review of the current military strategy and offer recommendations for the future of the U.S. military mission.
Why does the country need an outside review of the current strategy? Because, says Rep. Wolf, “We are 10 years into our nation’s longest running war and the American people and their elected representatives do not have a clear sense of what we are aiming to achieve, why it is necessary, and how far we are from attaining that goal.”
Because Gen. Petraeus’ own staff concluded two months ago that the coalition “still does not fully understand the regenerative capacity of the insurgency.”
And because senior military leaders like Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen told Pres. Obama in November of 2009 that the U.S. would be able to hand over security responsibilities to the Afghan Army in 18 months. Now he says we won’t even have “clarity” on what the way forward looks like until the end of the year.
ARTICLES
6-12-11
Exclusive: Obama’s Secret Afghan Exit
Daily Beast by Leslie H. Gelb
Obama is keeping under wraps a hush-hush plan for withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan—and he hopes it will satisfy those pushing for a quick exit and the diehards determined to stay the courseNinety Percent of Petraeus’s Captured ‘Taliban’ Were Civilians
IPS by Gareth Porter
The claims of huge numbers of Taliban captured and killed continued through the rest of 2010. In December, Petraeus’s command said a total of 4,100 Taliban rank and file had been captured in the previous six months and 2,000 had been killed. Those figures were critical to creating a new media narrative hailing the success of SOF operations as reversing what had been a losing U.S. strategy in Afghanistan. But it turns out that more than 80 percent of those called captured Taliban fighters were released within days of having been picked up, because they were found to have been innocent civilians, according to official U.S. military data.6-13-11
Bob Corker Says War in Afghanistan ‘Not Sustainable’
ABC News by Jonathan Karl and Gregory Simmons
“I think all of us who have been in Afghanistan on the ground multiple times know that what we’re doing there on the ground is just not sustainable,” Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., said.As Local Militias Expand in Northern Afghanistan, Tales of Abuse Follow
NYTimes by Rod Nordland
Untrained local forces like the arbakai, who hope to be accepted and paid as Afghan Local Police, “just create problems,” an international official with knowledge of the A.L.P. program said. “It is still preying on the people, changing one predator for another.”6-14-11
House panel backs $649 billion in defense spending
Reuters by David Alexander and Susan Cornwell
When Democratic Representative Betty McCollum suggested a measure to force the Pentagon to curb the $100 million it spends annually in race car sponsorships as part of its recruitment campaign, the lawmakers balked. “Perhaps,” one suggested, “she does not understand the cultural relationship of NASCAR (stock car racing) to those of us who live in the South.”Candidates Show G.O.P. Less United on Goals of War
NY Times by Jeff Zeleny
The hawkish consensus on national security that has dominated Republican foreign policy for the last decade is giving way to a more nuanced view, with some presidential candidates expressing a desire to withdraw from Afghanistan as quickly as possible and suggesting that the United States has overreached in Libya.6-15-11
Withdrawal From Afghanistan Will Likely Be Slow
The Atlantic
Within the next few weeks, Obama will announce his decision about the pace of the transition. A small interagency review has already finished its work, which will provide the broader context for Petraeus’s recommendations.6-17-11
Even Rep. Dicks is now calling for ending war in Afghanistan
The News Tribune by Rob Hotakainen
If you need proof that the tide has turned against the war in Afghanistan, Exhibit A is Rep. Norm Dicks of Belfair, the top-ranked House Democrat in charge of the Pentagon’s budget.U.S. Mayors Announce Call to End Afghanistan War & Invest in Job Creation
Gamut News by Gamut News Staff
The nation’s mayors, led by Conference President and Burnsville, MN Mayor Elizabeth Kautz, will announce the introduction of a resolution, calling to end the Afghanistan War and re-direct spending for job creation this Friday, the beginning of their four-day annual meeting in Baltimore.Pentagon wants to ‘extend’ Afghanistan surge
AFP
The US military is asking President Barack Obama to maintain its troop surge in Afghanistan until the fall of 2012, a month before a scheduled withdrawal, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday. The timeline would mean the president could promise large troop reductions to a war-weary public just ahead of the November 2012 presidential elections in which he seeks a second term, but military officials told the Journal that the electoral schedule had nothing to do with their proposal.Report Sees Danger in Local Allies
Wall Street Journal by Dion Nissenbaum
The killings of American soldiers by Afghan troops are turning into a “rapidly growing systemic threat” that could undermine the entire war effort, according to a classified military study.OPINION
6-14-11
Our Current Strategy in Afghanistan Is Built on Strategic Myths
National Interest by Joshua Rovner
America’s strategy in Afghanistan has become incoherent. Among other problems, it is based on two questionable assumptions which large swaths of the foreign policy community take for granted. Both are wrong. -
A Case Study on Afghan Statistics: Does Poverty Reduce Conflict
Published: June 13th, 2011
Edward Kenney Afghanistan Study Group
In Washington DC there is a strong bias towards empirical research over either comparative or historical studies, but I have increasingly become convinced that most people cannot identify the characteristics of a good empirical study over a bad one. And no; shouting about correlation and causation does not signify an understanding of regression analysis. Last month, Jay Ulfelder contributed his thoughts to the subject. Here is his critical paragraph shortened for brevity.
But what does that association tell us about the causes of civil violence, really? …For starters, we have grievance-based theories, which see the roots of violence in poor people’s anger and frustration over their meager living conditions… More recently, some economists have argued that poverty breeds civil violence by lowering the opportunity costs involved with participation in armed conflict… Finally, still other scholars interpret poverty in models of civil violence as a feature of the state rather than its citizens.
Ulfelder is on the right track, but his argument is missing some key points and is confusing in some areas. For the layperson, there are three key questions a researcher must answer to establish causality that are highlighted by this analysis of poverty and civil conflict:
1. Theoretical Framework. For the poverty and civil violence example Ulfelder provides two avenues of causality. 1. Poverty leads to political grievance which in turn leads to violence and 2. Poverty leads to economic opportunism and violence. In Afghanistan there is a third potential “causal story” which Kandahar researcher Felix Kuehn described last month. Poorer Afghans are more likely to be educated and radicalized in the free-of-tuition madrasahs (call it indirect economic opportunism, if you like), which in turn has been linked to the insurgency. The fact that there are at least three mechanisms through which poverty leads to violence actually strengthens the causal claims linking poverty to violence.
2. Omitted Variables Bias (OVB). A variable such as state capacity affects both poverty and civil violence. Capable states generally have both less poverty and less violence. If we fail to include this variable in our study, our analysis almost certainly will be incorrect: After all, how can you separate the effects that are really due to poverty, and those that are due to poor state capacity “masquerading” as poverty. Looking at Afghanistan there are a whole host of other potentially omitted variables. As Felix Kuehn pointed out, the Ghilzai Pashtun tribes (from which the Taliban draw support) tend to be poorer, so our poverty explanation may be capturing a tribal dynamic. Even static variables like geography (which can be both favorable to an insurgency and destructive to economic development) must be included in an analysis to avoid OVB.
3. Reverse Causation. We believe we have a reasonable explanation for how poverty causes civil violence, but is the opposite also true? Can’t civil violence and the associated instability cause increased poverty? As with the previous example, “reverse causation” makes it impossible to judge the extent to which poverty causes civil violence. This is a really big problem and requires a more complex statistical process to resolve.
4. Making Policy Recommendations: Finally, Ulfelder is correct that caution is needed when moving from a descriptive model to a prescriptive one: Just because we may be able to prove that poverty causes civil violence, does not mean that economic aid reduces civil violence. Trying to model prescriptive policies in a conflict environment is incredibly difficult. The key players—whether they be the government, the insurgency, or local civilians—act strategically and take their opponents’ strategies into account. If the civilians in a town believe that the U.S. is likely to respond to an increase in violence by providing aid money, they may choose to increase their support for the insurgency, even if this equilibrium is suboptimal (see Nash, John). Furthermore, policy variables almost always fail the reverse causality test: In Afghanistan, aid is frequently sent to districts with higher than average violence.
Empirical work gets far too much credit in this town, often at the expense of better non-empirical work. I urge analysts to read statistical work critically, don’t be cowed by the fancy lingo, keep these basic points in mind, and don’t be afraid to critique ruthlessly.
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ASG Weekly Reader: The Problem with Gates’ Afghanistan About Face
Published: June 10th, 2011
“Bob, you have any problems?”
So asked President Obama in November of 2009. The question was whether Defense Secretary Robert Gates was on board to begin a significant withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan in July of 2011. Gates “said he was fine with it.”
Fast forward to June of 2011 and Secretary Gates has a problem. In the weeks leading up to President Obama’s deadline for making a decision on the size of his promised July troop withdrawal, the outgoing Defense Secretary has become increasingly outspoken in his opposition to the significant drawdown he agreed to 18 months before.
But Congress has a problem too. Two weeks ago the House came within a few votes of passing an amendment calling on the President to stay true to his promise. This week the upper house is taking action, with 16 senators signing on to Sen. Jeff Merkley’s (D-OR) letter expressing “strong support for a shift in strategy” and a “sizable and sustained reduction of U.S. military forces in Afghanistan.” (You can contact your senator and urge them to sign the letter here.)
And the American public definitely has a problem with Secretary Gates’ calls for a “modest” troop withdrawal. A CNN poll released Thursday found that a even a “significant” withdrawal isn’t enough for a growing percentage of the public that is fed up with the tremendous waste associated with the war. 39% of those surveyed say they want all the troops home now.
FROM THE ASG BLOG
6-9-11
Measuring Quicksand
ASG Blog by Afghanistan Study Group Director Matthew Hoh
In the Autumn of 2006, in the western part of Iraq’s Anbar Province, US Marine and Army units were taking dozens of attacks a day. Leaving one of the many bases we occupied in the Euphrates River Valley seemingly guaranteed a firefight, attack by a sniper or, more likely, a strike from an IED.The Mendacity of Hope: Why We Need to Leave Afghanistan
ASG Blog by Will Keola Thomas
From “Col. YYY,” described by former Air Force officer and Dept. of Defense military analyst Chuck Spinney as, “an active duty colonel who travels all over Afghanistan…This colonel, unlike many of his peers, actually goes on foot patrols with troops to see things for himself.” The anonymous colonel’s letter is a must read:6-10-11
Danielle Pletka: “The choices for America in Afghanistan are simpler than they appear…We can win or we can lose”
ASG Blog by Edward Kenney
We have a simple choice in Afghanistan, argues Danielle Pletka of the American Enterprise Institute: “we can win or we can lose.” But can we actually win? Pletka thinks so, and she helpfully counters eight arguments which have been raised by war skeptics. Here a counter-counter argument to each of the points she raises:ARTICLES
6-5-11
U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Pays High Price for Afghan Surge Year
AP by Kristin M. Hall
The soldiers of the Army’s famed 101st Airborne Division deployed to Afghanistan confident their counterinsurgency expertise would once again turn a surge strategy into a success but are headed home uncertain of lasting changes on the battlefield.6-7-11
Afghan nation-building programs not sustainable, report says
The Washington Post by Karen DeYoung
The hugely expensive U.S. attempt at nation-building in Afghanistan has had only limited success and may not survive an American withdrawal, according to the findings of a two-year congressional investigation to be released Wednesday. The report calls on the administration to rethink urgently its assistance programs as President Obama prepares to begin drawing down the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan this summer.6-8-11
Durbin calls for quitting Afghanistan
UPI.com
WASHINGTON, June 8 (UPI) — Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., said it’s time for the United States to get out of Afghanistan, withdrawing many more troops than the administration has proposed.6-9-11
Poll: Rising number of Americans want U.S. out of Afghanistan
Politico by Jennifer Epstein
As the Obama administration prepares to bring some troops home from Afghanistan next month, a new poll finds a sharply rising number of Americans support the withdrawal of all U.S. forces from the country.OPINION
6-3-11
War Fatigue in America
The National Interest by Paul Pillar
Signs are increasing that the American people are growing tired enough over fighting two and a half (or whatever the right number is, depending on how you count what’s going on in Libya) wars for their fatigue to affect policy, especially through the actions of their elected representatives in Congress.6-6-11
America’s best secretary of defense and his final error
Foreign Policy by David Rothkopf
But more importantly, whatever the expense is, it is extremely unlikely to be effective and staying longer is likely to only have utility as a political exercise. The troops should go now, as fast as we can draw them down. We should not start with 5,000 troops, but a multiple of that.6-7-11
How to exit Afghanistan without creating wider conflict
Washington Post by Henry Kissinger
The American role in Afghanistan is drawing to a close in a manner paralleling the pattern of three other inconclusive wars since the Allied victory in World War II: a wide consensus in entering them, and growing disillusionment as the war drags on, shading into an intense national search for an exit strategy with the emphasis on exit rather than strategy.6-8-11
What We’re Buying in Afghanistan
The New Yorker by Amy Davidson
Our Afghan war is Afghanistan’s military-aid bubble, with the bulk of the benefit going to élites. The report blames poor oversight of aid money, which was then skimmed off, for the Kabul Bank scandal (see Dexter Filkins’s piece for more of the awful details). We are making some Afghans rich, without making most of them like us or their government any more accountable.
6-9-11
It’s time to make peace. The sooner we leave the better
The Times by Jerome Starkey
Our soldiers’ sacrifice has been immense, but we do them no honour by sending more men to their deaths. All our soldiers should now be training up Afghan forces instead of fighting and our diplomats must help heal ethnic rifts within the Government to stop it fracturing when we leave.
