IT was expected that Gen McChrystal would seek more troops for Afghanistan in his assessment report of June 2009 and that he would scapegoat India for doing good work among the Afghan people. The report also showed up that, eight years into the Long War, the Americans have still not understood the culture of the people they ostensibly went to help while securing themselves.
It was clear from Gen McChrystal’s observations that the Americans were still groping for a strategy against their enemy.
President Obama will now have to live up to his Nobel image as he fights his necessary war. But he is surrounded by military men who determine policy in Afghanistan; not Clinton nor Holbrooke. His advisers include retired Lt General Karl Eikenberry, currently Ambassador in Kabul, Lt Gen Douglas Luke, Presidential Adviser on Afghanistan and Pakistan, James Jones a retired Marine Corps general is the National Security Adviser and former CIA Chief, Robert Gates is the Secretary Defence. By inclination they will ask for more troops and funds.
Meanwhile, a Norman Mailer style campaign reminiscent of the Vietnam war era has begun in America.
The argument is that Afghanistan means little to Americans who do not even know where it is located. The fear that if Afghanistan falls to the Taliban then Pakistan will surely follow, is misplaced.
The idea of bombing the country and then offering aid is considered hypocritical and ineffective. Andrew Bacevich begins his most recent article with the comment “ No serious person thinks that Afghanistan — remote, impoverished, barely qualifying as a nation state — seriously matters to the United States.” But surely the Americans went into Afghanistan to make Americans safe from Al Qaeda and to ensure that no terrorist attack would take place from that country against the US and its friends.
Dilemma
The dilemma is that losing is not an option for the US; stalemate is strategic defeat for a superpower; troop augmentation to the extent required is unacceptable, and even a surge of 40000 is difficult. The much talked of Afghan army is still a ghost army. Ann Jones in her report in the Nation ( Sep 21, 2009) describes the Afghan Army as a figment of Washington’s imagination. It does not exist in the numbers claimed, it is poorly trained, many of the recruits/ trainees are repeats who come back with new names for the money, the food and the equipment they can take away and sell. It is a frightening thought to have a man trained with rubber guns for three weeks, then given the real gun and sent off to fight battles for his country.
This became apparent when the Helmand campaign began last July and the ANA could muster only 600 men, far short of the 90000 that are supposed to be enlisted. The hope that Afghanistan will suddenly have an efficient 134000 strong army in two years is very much a false hope.
What should worry Washington is that now there are reports of demoralisation and self- doubts among some sections of the US forces. The state of the Afghan police is even worse with 60 per cent suspected to be on drugs. Ill- equipped and illtrained, they are easy pickings for the Taliban. No wonder Pakistan will continue to hedge its bets with the Taliban, targeting only those that they see threatening them. They are aware also that NATO countries may not be able last out in Afghanistan much beyond 2010.
Vice President Joe Biden’s alternative plan to resort to off shore targeting of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan does not make sense since the Al Qaeda, the Pakistan Taliban and the Afghan Taliban hierarchy are all comfortably located in NWFP, FATA, Balochistan or elsewhere in Pakistan. It is obvious to all that the US/ NATO is staring at a stalemate in Afghanistan.
The US has already spent 50 per cent more time in this war than it did in the two world wars with an estimated military expenditure of US $ 4 billion a month and no light at the end of the tunnel.
There is no getting away from several aspects of this arduous campaign.
The US needs to have substantially increased troop deployment if it wants to subdue the Taliban. There is just no other alternative.
Worse than no troops is an inadequate force which runs the risk of military defeat or overkill tactics.
The present spin portraying the Taliban as a local territorial problem that does not threaten the US is patently shortsighted and leaves no one in doubt that the US is preparing to negotiate with the very force that it has been battling for eight years and which has now regained dominance in varying degrees over 70- 80 per cent of Afghan territory. Negotiating now will be appeasement.
Instead be prepared for the long haul. Any dithering now in Washington will only strengthen the hands of the fundamentalists in the Pak Army.
The Afghans do not understand democracy the way the Americans do but to leave them now in the hands of the Taliban would mean leaving them in the hands of the Al Qaeda, under a strong Sunni Wahhabi Islam preached in Saudi Arabia and increasingly in Pakistan.
Assistance
The American forces must not give the impression that they are fighting for themselves. This makes it America’s war and a war of occupation.
Instead, foreign forces must fight for the Afghans and show it. This means spend more money on them instead of on the forces or the for- profit private military companies or the notfor- profit NGOs. It would be difficult for the ISAF/ NATO to protect themselves without protecting the Afghan from the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
Apart from sheer military force, in a country where 40 per cent of the men are unemployed it is not enough to dole out money. They need jobs and the dignity that goes with it. We cannot get rid of the opium — which is a source of revenue for the Taliban and livelihood for the peasant — unless we simultaneously provide alternative livelihood for the Afghan peasant.
Neighbourhood
The fear is that unable to go in for the long haul, the US may opt for a surge, a quick thrust, parry and withdraw after proclaiming victory. The US is realising, perhaps a bit too late, that Pakistan never intended to be the most suitable boy, who would let his benefactors down repeatedly. In tremendous difficulties in the Punjab, the Pakistan Army is unlikely to be willing to do anything substantial for the Americans, citing dangers from its traditional enemy. It is not that the Pakistan Army fears an assault by the Indian forces but for them to move troops away from its eastern borders would mean that the threat from India is minimal and this would undercut its very own primacy. Then there is China, waiting in the wings for the Americans to get sufficiently unpopular and then move in with its deep pockets. Pakistan would be comfortable with an increasing Chinese profile in Afghanistan but not with an Indian profile.
This is where India comes in. It must stay the course in Afghanistan and concentrate on the various infrastructure projects in the country — roads, dams, bridges, communications, schools, hospitals, power stations and transmission lines. Training of the Afghan Army and police, civil servants, education in various disciplines can be handled by the Indians. This would be far more economical and relevant to local conditions and requirements.
Pakistan will respond in its own way. There will be more bombs and attacks on Indian interests in Afghanistan. Sending troops to Afghanistan is not an option.
Do we back out or do we hunker down, more determined than before?
Source : Mail Today , 16th October 2009
0 comments:
Post a Comment