US Security Team Delivers Grim Appraisal of Afghanistan War

War on Terror

10 Feb 2009, NewAgeIslam.Com

US Security Team Delivers Grim Appraisal of Afghanistan War

President Obama's national security team gave a dire assessment Sunday of the war in Afghanistan, with one official calling it a challenge "much tougher than Iraq" and others hinting that it could take years to turn around.   U.S. officials said more troops were urgently needed, both from America and its NATO allies, to counter the increasing strength of the Taliban and warlords opposed to the central government in Kabul. They also said new approaches were needed to untangle an inefficient and conflicting array of civilian-aid programs that have wasted billions of dollars. - Craig Whitlock, The Washington Post --------------------------   US Security Team Delivers Grim Appraisal of Afghanistan War   Monday 09 February 2009 by: Craig Whitlock, The Washington Post       Munich - President Obama's national security team gave a dire assessment Sunday of the war in Afghanistan, with one official calling it a challenge "much tougher than Iraq" and others hinting that it could take years to turn around.       U.S. officials said more troops were urgently needed, both from America and its NATO allies, to counter the increasing strength of the Taliban and warlords opposed to the central government in Kabul. They also said new approaches were needed to untangle an inefficient and conflicting array of civilian-aid programs that have wasted billions of dollars.       "NATO's future is on the line here," Richard C. Holbrooke, the State Department's special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, told attendees at an international security conference here. "It's going to be a long, difficult struggle.... In my view, it's going to be much tougher than Iraq."       Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, head of the U.S. Central Command, said the war in Afghanistan "has deteriorated markedly in the past two years" and warned of a "downward spiral of security."       In addition to more combat troops, Petraeus called for "a surge in civilian capacity" to help rebuild villages, train local police forces, tackle corruption in the Afghan government and reduce the country's thriving opium trade. He also suggested that the odds of success were low, given that foreign military powers have historically met with defeat in Afghanistan.       "Afghanistan has been known over the years as the graveyard of empires," he said. "We cannot take that history lightly."       The White House is conducting a strategic review of the war in Afghanistan and says it will unveil the results before NATO holds a 60th-anniversary summit in early April.       Obama administration officials have said they expect to send 30,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan, bringing the total U.S. deployment there to about 66,000. U.S. allies have a combined 32,000 troops in Afghanistan operating under NATO command. NATO officials have pressed European members of the alliance to send more, but few countries have been willing.       Germany, which has 3,500 troops in Afghanistan, the third most of any country, has questioned the need for more combat forces. Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung said more attention should be paid to training Afghan forces and to reconstruction projects.       "We won't win with military alone," he said at the conference. "There will be no development without security. But without development, we won't have security, either."       The debate over troops has led to a split within NATO. Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, NATO's secretary general, told conference attendees on Saturday that European members of the alliance needed to do more of the "heavy lifting" in Afghanistan.       British Defense Secretary John Hutton openly disagreed with his German counterpart, saying the need for more combat troops was the highest priority in Afghanistan. Reconstruction efforts, he said, would fail if the Taliban remains strong.       "We kid ourselves if we imagine that other contributions right now are of the same value, because they're not," he said. Britain has 8,900 troops in Afghanistan and has said it will probably send more.       Afghan President Hamid Karzai said his country had made large strides since the U.S.-led military invasion in 2001. He said Afghanistan was home to a thriving free press, 17 universities, and schools for thousands of girls who had been barred by the Taliban from receiving an education. In 2001, he said, Afghanistan had no paved roads; now it has 2,500 miles of new highways.       U.S. officials said one of the thorniest problems in Afghanistan is its flourishing drug trade, which accounts for an estimated 90 percent of the world's heroin supply. But Karzai, who faces reelection in August, dismissed portrayals of Afghanistan as being run by drug barons.       "Yes, we produce poppies. Yes, we are insecure because of that," he said. "Are we a 'narco-state,' as we've been called the past few years? No, we are not."       Karzai said the only way to bring stability to Afghanistan is to eventually negotiate a deal with the Taliban. He also blamed Afghanistan's slow recovery on a lack of coordination among donor countries.       U.S. and European officials agreed that poor coordination is a major obstacle. "I've never seen anything remotely resembling the mess we've inherited," Holbrooke said.       But some officials suggested the Afghan government was also responsible.       Brent Scowcroft, national security adviser to President George H.W. Bush, cited a fumbled attempt by the United Nations last year to name Paddy Ashdown, a British diplomat, as the overseer of international aid projects in Afghanistan. Ashdown's appointment was torpedoed by Karzai, who saw it as an infringement on Afghanistan's sovereignty.       Holbrooke replied that the Obama administration would revisit the idea of a development czar with Afghan officials. "The Paddy Ashdown fiasco - and there's no other word for it - really set back the international community."       Last week, in an open letter to Holbrooke published in the Times of London, Ashdown expressed some sympathy for "poor President Karzai" and said NATO members were chasing different goals in Afghanistan, depending on where their forces operate.       "The British think Afghanistan is Helmand, the Canadians think it's Kandahar, the Dutch think it's Uruzgan, the Germans think it's the Panjshir valley and the U.S. thinks it's chasing Osama bin Laden." He added, "Someone needs to bash heads together out there and if anyone can, you can."       Also Sunday, Vice President Biden held talks in Munich with Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov, a day after Biden said the White House wanted to "press the reset button" in its relations with the Kremlin. Ivanov praised Biden's speech, telling reporters that it was "very positive," and adding: "It is obvious the new U.S. administration has a very strong desire to change."   Some Comments on: http://www.truthout.org/020909A   Talks with the Taliban should begin.. and real peace should be made Tue, 02/10/2009 - 01:19 — Anonymous (not verified) As a Canadian, with friends and family in Afghanistan, I often find it odd that the American media tends to be very myopic, and uninformed when it comes to reporting what's going on in that region.. the fact that the US basically left NATO holding the bag there for so many years to pursue its raping of Iraq's resources... making grandiose claims that they had defeated the Taliban ( they did not ) pushing them into the hills where they need only wait for the right time, my country Canada has been doing the bulk of the fighting there and has suffered more casualties than the US or any other NATO power in region... the US should just stay out of the way ( so they do not kill more NATO i.e. Canadian troops with "friendly fire" or their own for that matter) NATO's role there should be to back up UN Peacekeepers under a Chapter 7 UN operation, and talks with the Taliban should begin.. and real peace should be made, and Reparations paid... you may not like the Taliban but that's not relevant the fact that they are still a military force to reckon with is what matters... they are not some small network of cells, they still possess heavy weapons and are still well funded... the issue with the poppies ( the Taliban are not really the people growing the poppy ) can be solved simply by BUYING it all.. and selling it to big pharma to make into morphine for medical use... but of course the oil lines running through the region are what's really important right?   If it were just billions in cash we were wasting, that would be wasteful enough, but to lose the the lives of our troops and the lives of thousands of the Afghan and Pakistani people? What do we hope to accomplish, a stabilized Afghanistan that will return to its old ways as soon as we leave? Does no one comprehend the role of social, religious and cultural roots that grow so deep that they will live well beyond any occupation or "nation building" we attempt? Getting Bin Laden is one thing though we lost the opportunity at Tora Bora (sp?), but if that is out of reach, get out. Get out now.   US war juggernaut Mon, 02/09/2009 - 22:51 — Peter Edler (not verified) President Obama is now sitting at the controls in the driver's cabin of the US war juggernaut. It's a very large vehicle. Even if he finds the levers and brakes that will stop it, it won't stop on a dime. Coming to a halt takes time. All we can do is watch and hope. If it starts slowing we know he's trying. But even as it slows it will keep on crushing bodies. And so far it has shown no signs of slowing, so we don't know what Barack is doing in there. Heck, it's a juggernaut. It's made to kill! Let's hope he finds the brakes soon. Let's hope he's looking for them. Peter Edler, Stockholm   Mon, 02/09/2009 - 21:28 — Anonymous (not verified) Those of us who have been reading news via the internet and not via the Western Propaganda Experts, Know the 9/11 terrorists came from Saudi Arabia NOT AFGHANISTAN. We also know that the Taliban offered to hand Ossama Bin Laden to the US if only proof of his involvement with 9/11 was shown to them - Bush simply ignored the demand for proof that the FBI says it does not have. We also know that the Trade Centre Buildings were DEMOLISHED - NOT BROUGHT DOWN BY AIRCRAFT COLLISIONS. AND THE PENTAGON WAS NOT HIT BY AN AIRLINER. Ivanoff put it very succintly "Let's see change from the War Mongering Westwhich STILL sees nothing wrong with using VIOLENCE TO ACHIEVE POLITICAL ENDS. A pipe line through Afghanistan and Pakistan is being sought via Military Might. The over 100 year US Administration Game.   Afghanistan is moral suicide Mon, 02/09/2009 - 20:56 — Anonymous (not verified) Obama needs to go on TV and Obama needs to go on TV and say "we don't do quagmires." He needs to state emphatically that we won't get bogged down in a ground war or an insurgent fight that could last years. There needs to be international cooperation in defeating Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and every where else but brute force will not achieve this goal. If Holbrooke doesn't understand this he needs to be replaced by a realist. It would be unimaginable folly to attempt to occupy Afghanistan and create a "client state." The smarter course would be to withdraw most of the troops, leaving an contingent of intelligence experts to work with locals who are interested in peace and accommodation with the more moderate Taliban faction. The next step would be to convene a meeting of all the neighboring nations to agree on a solution. None of these want to see a viable Al Qaeda. All fear Islamic extremism, including (and especially) Iran. There was an opportunity to work with Iran early in this decade but Bush and his neocon hard liners ignored it. They preferred to demonize Iran and it's cost us dearly. The Iranians are as fearful of Al Qaeda and the militant Taliban as we are and they are in a position to help defeat them. Bush and his band of fools truly believed we could swagger our way through foreign policy issues and take out the bad actors one by one without help from any of the nations in regions where they chose to fight. He must have watched too many John Wayne movies. There are many natural allies to deal with terrorism, Bush hoped to "set an example" to discipline nations like Russia, China and Iran with our high-tech war machine. It has to rank with Napoleon's attempt to invade Russia for stupidity and hubris. Let's hope our new administration has a better understanding about how the world works.   Double the number of troops Double the number of troops, double the number of flag-draped caskets being returned to the U.S. If our nation-building wasn't done with bombs, if our 'winning the minds' wasn't done with bullets to the cranium, things might have been different. Afghanis don't particularly like the Taliban, but they don't kill non-combatants in scores calling them collateral damage, and they don't seem to tolerate corruption. Did we pave the roads for the Afghanis, or did we pave them for our military convoys? Did we install Karzai as their leader, or ours? They may be an undeveloped country, but they certainly aren't blind to the west's imperial intentions.   Why are we there? Mon, 02/09/2009 - 20:14 — Anonymous (not verified) Why are we there? What is our mission? Can't we just go home? Is it the oil pipeline we want? What do we expect to accomplish by throwing our badly needed money at that place? Do we have to change the Afghan society? Is that our job? What are we doing Do any of the Washington thinkers ask that question? We could always legalize drugs too and take away the problem of drug lords etc. So the Americans propose to accomplish with 50,000 troops and and supply lines stretching to Missouri! what the Soviets with 150,000 troops and a common border could not?! Joke, right?   "NATO's future is on the Mon, 02/09/2009 - 18:31 — Fr Tothus (not verified) "NATO's future is on the line here," Richard C. Holbrooke. Could there be anyone more mired in hubris and obsolete thinking? "Afghanistan has been known over the years as the graveyard of empires," Patraeus said. "We cannot take that history lightly." And yet what is the US doing but taking that history lightly? What makes him think the US will fare any better than the empires of the past? "It is obvious the new U.S. administration has a very strong desire to change." Ivanoff said after his meeting with Biden. Well, damn it, let's see some change from the war-mongering West, which still sees nothing wrong with using violence to achieve political ends - the classic definition of terrorism!