Out of Afghanistan

Dredging 9/11 fear to support war

2010-02-22T15:28:00.004-05:00

Nine years later, U.S. officials continue to justify the war in Afghanistan with the threat of another 9/11. On NBC's "Meet the Press" yesterday, U.S. general David Petreaus said, "I don't use words like 'optimist' or 'pessimist.' I use 'realist.' . . . We're in Afghanistan to ensure it cannot once again be a sanctuary for the kinds of attacks that were carried out on 9/11."

However, Afghans perceive U.S. military efforts there as terrorism, as civilians continue to be killed through drone bombings and other strikes. Just today a NATO airstrike killed 27 Afghan civilians in Marjah, despite the U.S. proclaimed effort to avoid civilian deaths during its current offensive there, the largest since the war began. Ironically, in its attempt to wipe out the Taliban, the U.S. and its (increasingly few -- see below) allies continue to stoke the flame of anger, resentment and fear within civilians, creating an even richer breeding ground for "terrorists" filled with anti-American sentiment.

Meanwhile, the Dutch government collapsed Sunday over its role in Afghanistan. When, after a 16-hour debate, Parliamentarians could not agree whether Dutch troops would continue to work in Afghanistan under a NATO request, all members of the Labor Party resigned their 12 Cabinet post. They wanted to reject the request. Shortly after the collapse, Prime Minister Jan-Peter Balkenende said troops would pull out of Afghanistan as originally planned.

If only the U.S. would figure out a way to follow suit.

News of Marjah, and beyond?

2010-02-19T10:57:00.003-05:00

Much of the news from Afghanistan this week centers around the "Marjah offensive," with both Afghan civilian and U.S./NATO deaths, consensus in mainstream press that the offensive is "working" despite ramped up gunfire, roadside bombings and more from the Taliban, and Pakistan's "lucky accident" capture of Taliban commander Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar.

Some outlets report that Taliban fighters have been using civilians as human shields, propping them up and firing from behind them, preventing U.S./NATO forces from fighting back or advancing.

Few outlets however give nearly as much analysis, if any, to the next step in the U.S. plan for Afghanistan once Marjah is "cleared." If any, like in this New York Times piece, it centers around the strategy to hand off power to Afghans, or as Obama says, a transfer. But, said Gen. Stanley McChrystal recently, “We’ve got a government in a box, ready to roll in.”

Government in a box? Is it a transfer of power, or a U.S. installation of its own puppet government?

12 Afghan civilians killed by US troops

2010-02-15T10:34:00.003-05:00

Juan Cole, president of the Global Americana Institute, offers on his blog today a straightforward analysis of the start of the current U.S./NATO offensive in Marjah, Afghanistan. Because of many roadside bombs and other Taliban guerilla tactics, foreign troops are moving slowly.

Yesterday the US military shot rockets at a civilian home, killing 12 civilians, 10 from the same family, believing it to be a Taliban "source" of attacks. Gen. Stanley McChrystal said these sort of attacks must stop, since they'll continue to tick off Afghan civilians. Not good, Cole writes, since U.S./NATO "conceive of Marjah as a counter-insurgency operation, which begins by clearing out the insurgents but then depends on the territory being held in the long term, with locals being guaranteed security and prosperity by the forces coming in from Kabul."

The offensive might last 30 days. For Afghan civilians, it might feel like 30 years.

Women contractor employees finally get some respect

2010-02-12T17:31:00.004-05:00

In some relatively good Friday news: the Pentagon is finally showing a small sign of recognition and respect for U.S. employees of U.S. military contractors (private "security" corporations hired by the U.S. government) who are sexually assaulted.

After pressure from Congress, the Pentagon will set up a system to monitor these assaults, and is developing plans of how to help survivors of assault, whether through medical, legal and other forms of assistance.

Many employees, most of them American, have had enormous trouble having their claims taken seriously. One Texas woman, Jamie Leigh Jones, sued Halliburton Co. and its former subsidiary KBR, after some employees gang raped her in 2005 while she was working for KBR in Iraq and the companies did nothing. Jones, who started a non-profit to support other assault survivors, said 40 former employees have contacted her "alleging a variety of sexual assault or sexual harassment incidents -- and claim that Halliburton, KBR or other PMCs have either failed to help them or outright obstructed them," according to the United Press Press International, and there are surely more.

But the Military Criminal Investigative Organizations conducted only 25 sexual assault investigations between 2005 to 2007, according to the New York Times.

Sexual assault, many argue, is hardly given attention within civilian society, and is most definitely a low priority within a military culture with imperial interests. But for all the attention given to comraderie, trust, and military honor, one would think the treatment of women contractors and soldiers within a military environment should be taken far more seriously.

Talking with the Taliban, speaking for women

2010-02-09T22:37:00.001-05:00

More folks today have joined the debate of whether the U.S. should talk with the Taliban, most claiming talks would be too dangerous and ineffective. In a New York Times column today on the subject, Richard Bernstein quotes Robert Mnookin, chairman of the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law, at length -- in fact, he's the only source he consults for the whole of his column (so much for fair and balanced). Mnookin draws a comparison to Churchill's decision not to talk to Hitler at the height of World War II, and Bush's decision to refuse talks after Sept. 11. Negotiations with the Taliban now would fail and essentially give them more power and control, Mnookin said.

Mnookin also adds, “With control, I have no doubt they would shut down schools for girls and do lots of things that would be disastrous.”

Like hundreds of other political pundits, Mnookin cites the conditions of Afghan women as the first, or best (?), justification of why U.S. military force in Afghanistan must continue and alternative solutions to force must be discounted. One wonders how many Afghan women Mnookin has spoken with; do they share his concern, and does he speak for them? Afghan women do speak out -- in fact, Afghan women are quite strong and willing to organize -- and they say that while they suffered incredibly under the Taliban, all Afghans, especially women, will suffer as long as the U.S. occupation continues -- no solution within the context of a military occuation will prevent that. Mnookin's "saving Afghan women" argument is not only offensive, as it makes them bargaining chips without even a seat at the bargaining table, but also a red herring from the real argument -- whether talks would work to end the occupation more quickly, to strengthen the Afghan army, to supply humanitarian aid and job training, and allow Afghanistan to rebuild itself.

But since Mnookin brought it up: will talks hurt or help Afghan women? The jury's out. If only Goldstein could write his column about that.

(Photo: AP)

Salted pamphlets from the sky

2010-02-08T21:24:00.005-05:00

In cars stuffed with clothes and mattresses, Afghan civilians are fleeing the southern Afghanistan town of Marjah in droves to avoid a coming NATO offensive intended to drive out the Taliban there.

The town's 80,000 civilians learned of the offensive this weekend after NATO troops dropped leaflets over the area warning them that it was coming. It is expected to be the largest offensive since the war's start in 2001.

This warning, on the surface, seems thoughtful. But it's too little too late, just more salt in the wounds. After all, in the past nine years of their occupation, foreign troops have done far too little to ensure civilian safety. Under the banner of rooting out terror, U.S. troops have killed thousands of civilians with aerial drones and other weaponry, more than 2,400 last year. They have knocked into Afghan homes in violent midnight raids, have inflamed more Taliban and spent way too little effort investing in infrastructure, schools, job training, and food and water aid for Afghans. No wonder civilians feel angry, weary, distrustful and anxious for new solutions.

"Ending operations in Afghan villages is what the Afghan people are seeking as a priority," President Hamid Karzai said yesterday in Munich. "...That means Afghanistan really gaining judicial independence completely and rather very very soon."

Many of the fleeing civilians will stay with family, according to humanitarian groups, though the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) have prepared resources to set up refugee camps in case a refugee crisis develops. Let's hope NATO and U.S. officials do the same -- after all, if or when that happens, civilians will need far more than pamphlets.

Winning Afghan hearts and minds -- a better strategy

2010-02-04T08:49:00.005-05:00

After more than eight years of war in Afghanistan, many Americans -- including politicians and military leaders -- have begun to question whether military action really offers any solution.

In this remarkably clear-cut piece today, Hekmat Karzai, director of the Center for Conflict and Peace Studies in Kabul, and US Congressman Michael Honda (D-CA), argue that the Afghan people know exactly what's needed to defeat the Taliban and rebuild the country. This includes an investment in and cooperation with local companies rather than foreign corporations, more training and payment for Afghan soldiers, an end to collaboration with extremely corrupt warlords (allowing most Afghan civilians to again trust our efforts, especially as we continue to criticize President Karzai for his corruption). "Afghans want better delivery of services, professional and competent appointments, and minimal bureaucracy within the government, all of which reduces corruption...The key to the main challenges facing the country is to build Afghan acceptance and ownership. When 80 per cent of all foreign aid dollars circumvents the Afghan government entirely, and when the same amount leaves the country in contractor hands not Afghan ones, locals question the motive of the US."
Of course, Afghanistan is a sovereign nation -- why do innocent Afghans have no say in America's role there? As the authors point out, we must begin listening to them.

Karzai faces more rejection over nominees

2010-01-17T14:43:00.003-05:00

President Karzai's cabinet nominees were once again rejected by the Afghan Parliament. Two weeks after Karzai saw 17 of his 24 nominees denied, Parliament approved seven more. This leaves Karzai's cabinet with fourteen approved appointees, but ten vacancies two months into his presidency.

The main issue, as during the first round of nominations, is Karzai's attempt to appoint cronies of local warlords he owes favors to for their support during last year's presidential elections.

Al Qaeda, Afghanistan, Yemen and a Confused American Intelligence Community

2010-01-14T12:49:00.005-05:00

Before the underwear bomber captured America's attention, there was a growing rumbling about the "next front" of the fight against terrorism, Yemen.

Yemen is the poorest country in the Middle East, and it is run by a despotic president who lavishes himself with exorbitant mosques and palaces while his people suffer from lack of food and water. President Sellah will be our "ally" as we seek to crack down on the hundreds of local Al Qaeda operatives in Yemen, but the more important figure in the equation is Sheik Abdulmajeed Al-Zendani (pictured above). The most important religious leader in Yemen, Zendani has given the green light to target CIA operatives in Yemen as a form of Jihad.

Zendani is not so subtly cautioning against U.S military intervention in Yemen, a sentiment offered by the brilliantly titled Minister of Religious Endowment and Islamic Guidance, Hamoud al-Hitar. Al-Hitar has said said that military action by the U.S or any other government will inflame and unite the Yemenese people.

These words of caution are being disregarded by Senator Carl Levin (D-MI), who rather cavalierly suggested that the U.S should consider airstrikes in Yemen. Levin has held reasonable positions on Iraq and Afghanistan, so his hawkishness could be a classic Washington case of "finding the good war," which is how Obama because so committed to escalating Afghanistan.

A recent article by the excellent Tom Engelhardt reveal seismic weaknesses in our Afghanistan intelligence operations that seem likely to be repeated in Pakistan and Yemen. Whether intentionally or not, the military and intelligence community continue to insist on referring al-Qaeda as a global operation, when it is in fact a highly fragmented series of cells that largely do not communicate with each other.

Engelhardt calls this bin Laden's "open-sourcing-" basically any set of disgruntled young militants that subscribe to his beliefs can carry out their evil deeds "in the name of al-Qaeda." This open-sourcing renders our pursuit of "top al-Qaeda leadership" in Afghanistan and Pakistan less meaningful than we might be led to believe. Yet we still pour in thousands of troops to these mountainous wasteland, creating what Engelhardt calls a "666:1" ratio between NATO forces and known al-Qaeda fighter.

My summary can't do Engelhardt justice, so you should reach his whole piece. The larger point, however, is that both Afghanistan and Yemen currently contain known jihadists looking to attack the United States in some capacity. In the first country, we have engaged in an exhausting, deadly and expensive 3024-day war with no end in sight. In the latter, we still have choices. Let's choose a little more carefully before we jump to military action in Yemen.

Grim Numbers for Afghan Civilians in 2009

2010-01-14T12:18:00.003-05:00

The United Nations is reporting that more civilians were killed last year than any other since the US-led invasion of 2001. According to the UN mission in Afghanistan, over 2,400 died in 2009, a 14 percent increase from 2008. These figures come in the heels of a report from the Afghanistan Rights Monitor alleging that over 1,050 people under the age of eighteen have been killed in Afghanistan, an average of at least three every day.

We are back to report...more of the same

2010-01-14T11:57:00.003-05:00

We are back after nine days, the longest lay-off at this site yet. I've been working on a lawsuit against Mayor Bloomberg, which has eaten up my time. Here are some refreshers:

The war in Afghanistan has now lasted 3024 days.

As of this moment, the war has cost the United States $247, 604,000,000.

The U.N released a report calling 2009 the bloodiest year for civilians since the war began in 2001. According to the report, 2412 civilians were killed, two-thirds by anti-government forces, mainly the Taliban. The number killed by NATO forces was actually lower than the year before. General McChrystal has made the reduction in civilian deaths a priority, and he deserves credit for that.

President Obama's $33,000,000,000 request to fund the surge has confirmed the once disputed notion that this war costs the United States approximately $1,000,000 per soldier per year. Obama's overall defense budget request will top $700,000,000, becoming the largest defense budget in history. To be fair, the defense budget grows pretty much every year, so this is a 'record' that will only last until the 2011 budget request.

Karzai Nominations- Update

2010-01-05T11:10:00.002-05:00

President Karzai has ordered, by decree, that Parliament remain open until key Cabinet positions are confirmed. Currently seventeen of the twenty-four positions remain vacant, including the Ministry of Justice and Ministry of Public Health. Unfortunately, Parliament is set to begin a six week vacation (apparently they have inherited American legislators' love of vacations) and remain unlikely to confirm Karzai's second choices anyway.

Karzai is currently trapped between placating members of Parliament, who wanted skilled technocrats to lead important ministries, and warlords that want to be rewarded for their political support in the presidential elections last August. Maybe there's some way Karzai could split the baby by appointing technocrats who fill ethnic and regional niches being asked of by warlords, but that's just me talking. The warlords may be making more hardline demands than that.

We'll remain on this story as it develops.

Karzai nominations slammed, rejected by Parliament

2010-01-04T00:10:00.001-05:00

In a truly surprising move, the Afghan Parliament rejected 17 out of Karzai's 24 nominees for the Cabinet. In doing so, they sent a powerful message to Karzai that his days as quasi-director may be coming to an end.

Of the seven that were confirmed, five were incumbent ministers, and are generally supported by the United States. All passed by narrow margins, with none winning the support of two thirds of Parliament.

So what to make of this? There's the view of MP Barakzai (Kabul):

"Those who came as a representative of a group, they failed," Ms. Barakzai said. "I hope it will be a good lesson for President Karzai that when the issue of reform comes, he is not alone; the members of Parliament really want reform. It was the moderates and the technocrats who got the vote of confidence."

This would be the optimistic perspective. It rests on the assumption that there are enough technocrats and MPs voting on principle that they can hold Karzai's corruption in line this term. However, the New York Times suggested that ethnic politics might have also been at play.

Either way, watching the Parliament demonstrate such independence from Karzai is a sign that Afghanistan is embracing separation of powers. In our society, that leads to constant paralysis, and blocks most attempts at meaningful reform. In Afghanistan, hopefully it will instead lead to to the birth of political culture that embraces progress and reform, and ultimately the election of someone other than Karzai and his ilk next election, five years from now.

While there's no question that some of his nominees were human rights abusing warlords, my impression was that their nominations were meant to win political support in hard to control areas of the country. What a mess, what a mess. Happy Saturday night all.

Time and Money

2010-01-03T17:26:00.002-05:00

The war in Afghanistan has now lasted 3011 days. My previous calculation for the 3000 day mark was mistaken, as it neglected two leap years.

After 2010 money has been appropriated, the United States will have spent $325 billion since the war began in 2001. That means the war has cost the average taxpayer $2,298.80.

The 30,000 troop surge, alone, costs the United States $57,000 per minute. I will be very impressed if someone can demonstrate to me how we are getting a worthwhile return on our investment.

The War Rages On Into The New Year

2010-01-02T12:31:00.002-05:00

Afghans celebrate March 21 as the start of the new years, not January 1, but Taliban fighters probably had the western calendar in mind when they launched a series of vicious attacks this weekend. The Taliban killed seven CIA operatives in an attack in eastern Afghanistan, and killed five Canadians in a roadside bombing.

Roadside bombs will be the bane of the occupation. They are inexpensive to make, and with Afghanistan's limited road system, extremely difficult to avoid. While the Taliban's already limited ability to engage us in the battlefield will be further reduced by the surge, the surge will do nothing to reduce NATO vulnerabilities to roadside bombs. As for the CIA killing, rumors are a-swirling of insider betrayal, and the killer was able to smuggle bombs past the security checkpoint without being searched.

But fear not, that Afghan National Army will be ready to step up soon and take our place, so we don't have to be betrayed by double-crossing Afghans and blown up by roadside bombs. Except for one small problem. Buried in the news crush of New Years celebrations and Top Ten lists was an explosive Washington leak: a 25-page report for General David Petraeus declaring that "Nepotism, corruption and absenteeism among ANA leaders makes success impossible...If Afghan leaders do not place competent leaders in charge, no amount of coalition support will suffice in the long term." The report also noted that because Afghan leaders are paid by the number of local soldiers they recruit, Afghan National Army numbers are often inflated by up to 50%.

The surge might provide us some TV-friendly momentary victories. But President Obama, like his predecessor, cannot reconcile NATO's purpose in Afghanistan with a viable strategy for achieving it. If transferring power to Afghans in 18 months is the goal, we should acknowledge now that the transfer will be an ugly, hasty excuse to get the hell out of there, which is, of course, something I don't think we need 18 months to figure out.

Gloomy Expectations for 2010

2009-12-30T01:36:00.002-05:00

In only a couple of days, the politically bruising 2009 will come to a close and we will begin another year. After being severely disappointed by our freshman president in the current year, we must now assess the year that lays ahead. Unfortunately, 2010 has already been doomed by terrible foreign policy due in large part to President Obama's erroneous choice to escalate the war in Afghanistan.

The rise in troops in Afghanistan will surely bring more war casualties. Not only for our troops, but also for Afghanistan's already vulnerable civilian population. Considering that the number of civilians killed in Afghanistan jumped by ten percent during the first ten months of 2009, this is extremely frightening (a total to 2,038 during that period according to the U.N.). It is in this context that President Obama will have to ask Congress for close to $100 billion to carry out operations in Afghanistan. Getting these funds is sure to be a political struggle as President Obama will have to lobby congress himself for the funds, as Democratic speaker Pelosi refuses to do it.

Given the many political entanglements President Obama has found himself caught himself up in (i.e. the heath care fiasco, the economy), the lack of "success" in Afghanistan will not bode well for neither his presidency nor for the Democratic party. He simply does not have the political capital to afford anything but "success" in Afghanistan. Sadly, in Afghanistan, a military victory is wishful thinking.

3000 Days Later

2009-12-28T14:42:00.001-05:00

We have now been at war in Afghanistan for 3000 days.
That is all.

Afghanistan War Notes: December 28, 2009

2009-12-28T10:51:00.005-05:00

The American people showed off their brilliant foreign policy cred in a recent CNN poll. Put simply, Americans oppose the war in Afghanistan 55%-43%, but favor sending 30,000 more troops by 59%-39%. I suppose you could parse out what "opposing" a war means. Personally, when I oppose something I want it to stop. I've seen some bloggers and commenters try to twist the numbers to a logical conclusion, and there's some support for the notion that that Americans are fed up with the war, but willing to give it "one last try" with the troop surge. Since we know that the Obama administration is lying about the size and duration of the surge, it seems that the American people have been duped again.
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Our hearts go out to Bowe Bergdahl, the 23 year old Idahoan who was captured by the Taliban six months ago. Bergdahl was captured after he fell behind the rest of his group on patrol, and on Christmas the Taliban released a video in which Bergdahl read a statement. Bergdahl is being treated well by his captors, who probably recognize the propaganda opportunity that comes with treating a prisoner of war with dignity, in contrast to what we are doing in Bagram. I know the U.S has a sometimes policy of not negotiating with terrorists, but the Taliban are not a terrorist outfit, and it seems fair to Bergdahl's family to at least consider the Taliban's offer to release him in exchange for "a few prisoners" we are currently holding.
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Oh, and we are doing all kinds of crazy shit in Yemen. It was only a matter of time before the no longer called War on Terror expanded to another lawless backwater. The nation's dire poverty and authoritarian regime leads to great discontent, and easy recruiting for Al Qaeda. The U.S, for its part, has offered military aid and drones, instead of, obviously, support to improve the lives of regular people there. There is no doubt the war will continue to widen into a hard conflict, with a warmongering assist from the U.S Senate's worst person, Joe Lieberman, who yesterday called Yemen "the war of the future."

War Notes: December 26, 2009

2009-12-26T14:54:00.004-05:00

I hope everyone enjoyed the holidays. The war drags on, and we'll kick along with it.

Did you know that we are approaching the 3,000th day of U.S military involvement in Afghanistan? When I was a kid I remember an explosive documentary on Vietnam called "The 10,000 Day War." If you were to begin counting the "War in Afghanistan" as beginning with the 1979 Soviet invasion, the war has now lasted 11,000 days. Oh well, at the end of the day, these are all numbers. Hopefully someone will throw together some poignant analysis to commemorate the 3,000th day on Thursday.
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Here's another statistic for you: zero. That's the number of floor debates about the war in Afghanistan since the invasion was authorized in 2001. That bothers Representative Eric Massa (D-NY). Massa is a rock solid progressive, and though he has called on the House of Representatives to hold public deliberations on the conduct and future of the conflict it's unclear if he's got the statute among the leadership to get any meaningful action going.
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The New York Times is displeased with El Presidente:
Mr. Karzai still does not seem to understand that substantial and urgent change is needed- in policies and personnel- to fix a government that has lost credibility and is barely hanging on in the face of an increasingly powerful Taliban insurgency.
Karzai's new cabinet, unrolled to some fanfare, actually does little to address corruption and competency issues that have plagued the government since its early days. Most notably, Karzai excluded Abdullah Abdullah and his close allies, while returning 12 out of 24 members to the cabinet, and appointing several warlords with highly questionable human rights backgrounds. As far as I can tell, it's par for the course.

A Dangerous U.S. Dependency on Shady Afghan Private Contractors

2009-12-25T12:05:00.005-05:00

With the escalation of troops in Afghanistan, a surge of Afghan private troops is sure to follow. According to the Defense Department, the current number of contractors in Afghanistan (most of whom are Afghans) stands at 104,100. In December, a report by the Congressional Research Service projects that the overall number of contractors in Afghanistan could swell to 160,000. These contractors will be hired to work at U.S. bases, guard U.S. installations, and participate in expanded U.S. training programs.

Unfortunately, according a report released in the Army Times, these private security guards are "trigger-happy" and are "killing civilians and undercutting counterinsurgency efforts." According to a U.S. officer in the area, Capt. Casey Thoreen, the heavily armed guards are like "gun-toting mercenaries with probably not a whole lot of training" and are "light on the trigger-finger." The Afghan district chief has said that most of them are "heroin addicts armed with rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles".

Citing the district's senior Afghan intelligence representative, the Army Times reports that on one particular road, Highway 1 in Afghanistan, where vehicles ferry supplies to coalition bases, "more than 30 civilians have been wounded or killed in the past four years by the private guards tasked with protecting the convoys."

Since locals associate these contractors with the coalition, their reckless behavior is not only morally unacceptable, but it is also contributing to the occupying forces' staggering unpopularity in the region. Ultimately, these are the factors that are lining this war up to amount to a military disaster.

Pondering Balochistan

2009-12-22T11:37:00.003-05:00

What was once the mission to drive Al Qaeda from their sanctuary and kill their leaders has officially devolved into a question of whether we should invade Pakistan to kill the leaders of our puppet government's opponents in Afghanistan.

Every now and then you'll hear the mainstream media mention Balochistan, or its key city, Quetta, but this is no side front. What happens there over the next one to two years will determine the success of our military mission in Afghanistan, as well as the future of our relationship with Pakistan (or our relationship with the current Pakistani government).

Baluchistan has become the home of the Afghan Taliban, with much of their leadership permanently based in, or known to pass through Quetta. As the map on the left demonstrates, Baluchistan is pretty huge- in fact, its Pakistan's largest and poorest province. Quetta is pretty deep on the Pakistani side of the border, meaning any incursion into the Taliban's base would be a pretty large breach of national sovereignty, unless, of course, Pakistan allowed it. And they won't:

"We can't fight everyone, everywhere. We need to be pragmatic. And we will not be dictated to," said a senior official with Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), speaking on condition of anonymity. The official admitted that insurgents "do come and go" in Balochistan, but insisted the ISI was already cooperating with the CIA in the province, citing 60 joint raids over the past year.

Drone strikes in densely populated Quetta would be "disastrous", he said, both in terms of civilian casualties and anti-American hostility. "I think this is just pressure tactics, the Americans aren't stupid enough to [extend drone strikes]. But if their objective is to destabilise Pakistan, that would be a good way to do it."

The U.S would disagree with the assertion that Pakistan is doing everything that they can. The reality is that the U.S will not be around forever, and Pakistan would rather not trigger an endless battle with the Afghan Taliban when it could just as well become a strategic party with them down the road. Witness the difference in policy in northeastern Waziristan, "the tribal area." There the U.S and Pakistan have been launching an intense drone and ground attack against Afghan Taliban. The reason for Pakistan's enthused participation that Waziristan is the base of the "Pakistani Taliban," who have been suicide bombing Pakistani cities and truly terrorizing the region.

It is simply not in Pakistan's interest to help us properly take out the Afghan Taliban leadership in Quetta. I do not believe that national sovereignty issues would morally prevent us from taking the fight into Balochistan (though legally I'm more conflicted). If an enemy of the United States is attacking us from Pakistan, and Pakistan won't do anything about it, we have a right to act. However, in this case, it is not American interests that are at stake, but the Karzai government's. That is quite different. The Afghan Taliban will not "follow us home." That we are thinking of creating a regional and international uproar by sending troops into Pakistan goes to show how pointless and ill-fated our battle against the Taliban is.

Blackwater's Role in Obama's War

2009-12-20T22:37:00.000-05:00

In November, The Nation magazine broke out an explosive and frightening report detailing Blackwater's previously unknown (and denied) role in Pakistan. The New York Times has now released an article reporting on the notoriously evil security company's role in Iraq and Afghanistan, thus further exposing the real character of the so-called "just war" that is now being escalated by President Obama.

According to The Times, the parameter of Blackwater's role was meant to be limited to providing "security during raids, leaving it up to CIA officers and Special Operations military personal to capture or kill suspected insurgents". However, the firm's role was more extensive than publicly admitted with its agents participating "in some of the CIA's most sensitive activities — clandestine raids with agency officers against people suspected of being insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan and the transporting of detainees." Many of these operations involved the killing of individuals suspected of participating in resistance to U.S. occupation and "occurred on an almost nightly basis during the height of the Iraqi insurgency from 2004 to 2006, with Blackwater employees playing central roles," the Times reports.

Responding to the recent negative press, a spokesman for Blackwater insisted that there was never any contract for the firm to participate in raids with CIA or Special Forces troops "in Iraq, Afghanistan or anywhere else". This disingenuous comment circumvents an ugly truth: this lack of "contract" is precisely what allows the so-called security firm to act without accountability. The lack of a defined role allows it to act without regard to any government oversight or to civil and military law.

It's clear that the use of these mercenaries has become out of control. Yes, Blackwater is particularly evil. We know its horrific history in Iraq (well, we know some of it). Remember the September 2007 event when Blackawater operatives opened fire on unarmed civilians, killing 17 Iraqis? But aside from its shady character, there is no reason why a private contractor firm should be doing the CIA's or the military's job. No reason other than the convenience of having some third party do the dirty job without having to take the responsibility. Obama has pledged transparency in Afghanistan. If we’re pointing fingers at the corrupt Karzai administration, we need to get our act straight ourselves.

The Impossible Balancing Act

2009-12-19T15:31:00.001-05:00

Remember when everyone wondered, "How can we reconcile Obama's promise to stay until we get the job done with his pledge not to make an open-ended commitment?" Funny, how sometimes the seemingly pesky little questions are actually the important ones.

Colonel Lawrence Sellin (a P.H.D, no less) painted a grim portrait of war's future by explaining Pakistan's reluctance to cooperate. Sellin notes that Pakistan is very much taking into consideration our eventual departure, calculating that it is not worth antagonizing the Afghan Taliban or tribal leaders operating on the border. Unless a group is explicitly targeting the Pakistani government, like the Pakistani Taliban, Islamabad sees no value in creating new enemies that it will have to confront down the road without our troops and money.

Republicans would take the previous point as a mean to bash the president for suggesting a withdrawal there. "Afghanistan: today, tomorrow and forever!" is their battle cry. Incidentally, that is the reason the parallel between Obama and LBJ will not end with him being driven from office as a one-term president because of the war. American support for the war is incredibly strained, but since the Republicans are only offering war, harder and longer, they will not be able to use the issue effectively against Obama. At least Nixon had a "secret plan" to end the war.

In a follow-up article for UPI, Sellin advocates for a bottom up approach to conducting the war that puts allied tribal elders in the lead, with the U.S military serving more of a supporting role. This makes sense: while the Taliban will rally locals against the occupation as long as we are in Afghanistan, their argument will carry less weight if Afghans lead the fight against them. Part of this strategy involves training soldiers locally in their tribal areas, rather than sending them to Kabul. Given the wack-a-mole nature of the insurgency, it would be wise to heed Sellin's advice by strengthening local tribal leaders that we can work with in the long run, who can hopefully be weened off our support in the near-mid future.

With Friends Like These

2009-12-17T12:10:00.000-05:00

Everyone agrees that NATO's pursuit of Al Qaeda and Taliban leadership will only be as successful as the cooperation the allied forces receive from Pakistan. However, the New York Times reports that Pakistani military and intelligence agencies have launched a campaign to harass American diplomats and operatives:

The problems affected military attachés, C.I.A. officers, development experts, junior level diplomats and others, a senior American diplomat said. As a result, some American aid programs to Pakistan, which President Obama has called a critical ally, are “grinding to a halt,” the diplomat said. American helicopters used by Pakistan to fight militants can no longer be serviced because visas for 14 American mechanics have not been approved, the diplomat said.

There are a number of reasons for Pakistani resentment cited in the article, including local opposition to the expansion of the American embassy and the presence of Blackwater operating in the AfghPak frontier on the Pakistani side of the border. It could also have something to do with American drone attacks, which are reportedly on the rise, and destined to encroach further into Pakistani territory. Americans want to target Taliban leadership in Quetta, which is not on the border, and have expressed frustration that Pakistani forces will not pursue the Afghan Taliban there, implying that drone attacks may be necessary.

Pakistan will continue to serve as an unwieldy ally in this war, especially now that President Zardari is in danger of being impeached on corruption charges. Zardari is another one of those inadequate leaders we are doomed to support, as his opposition is full of extremist militants. Lest anyone forget, Pakistan is the nation we hope Afghanistan can become in 20-30 years...

A Proud Day For Brooklyn

2009-12-16T23:01:00.000-05:00

Today the House of Representatives held a perfunctory final vote on the 2010 Defense Budget. However, 24 Congresspersons voted against the bill due to the $130 billion it allocated for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

During the 1970s, progressive leaders like Senator Frank Church (D-Idaho, yes, Idaho) helped bring the Vietnam war and its illegal spawn wars to an end by choking Congressional funding for the wars.

It is unlikely that Congress would ever vote down a complete defense bill such as the one voted on today, but those who voted against it loudly demonstrated their dissent. Reps need constant affirming when they are swimming against the tide, particularly against a president from their own party.

What I am proud to say is that four of the twenty four votes came from Brooklyn representatives (there are six reps who cover different parts of the borough). Those votes were from Representatives Nydia Velazquez (North Brooklyn and Queens), Ed Towns (North and East Brooklyn), Jerry Nadler (South Brooklyn and Manhattan) and Yvette Clark (Central Brooklyn).

Part of the reason for their vote can be attributed to Brooklyn for Peace, which lobbied these reps heavily, and generally keeps its reps very informed of its anti-war activities. Another reason is that each of these Congresspersons represents some hard hit neighborhoods that need financial help from the government that is going to wars overseas. Finally, their votes are a testament to the strong progressive roots in Brooklyn as a whole, beyond just the anti-war movement. Though our state politics are a mess, we New Yorkers demand that our federal officials properly represent our views in Congress. If you don't, we'll primary you.

Anyways, this is a moment of congratulations. Thank you to Congresswoman Velazquez, Congressman Towns, Congressman Nadler and Congresswoman Clark for your support in ending these wars.

Why I've Always Hated Joe Lieberman

2009-12-16T00:06:00.000-05:00

Joe Lieberman made news today by helping ruining healthcare. This deeply distressed and depressed some of the Democratic faithful, but not me. No, I've loathed the man for so long that his antics only make me mad at his enablers, in this case Obama and Reid. The man who said during the 2006 election that he was with the Democrats "on everything except the war" also turned out to be against them on the central domestic policy plank of the party over the last four decades.

I dug up an old post I wrote during the 2008 election on our sister site, Roving Storm. I'll quote only a snippet here, but if you're pissed at Joe Lieberman, the full rant is really a treat:

Let’s be clear: Lieberman was always a total loser. He was the guy so lame he made Gore look like the vibrant one on the 2000 ticket, and he was so soft on Cheney in the vice-presidential debate that people came away actually liking the Monster. In 2002, during the Lamest Presidential Campaign in History, I got to pin Smokey Joe down on why his name was listed on a statement by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, a fanatical right-wing group supporting the suppression of academics and students speaking against the war in

Afghanistan

. Lieberman said his name had been placed on the list by mistake, and that he did not think those who opposed the war were unpatriotic. Turns out Lieberman was lying through his teeth- the motherfucker FOUNDED the organization with Lynne Cheney in 1995.

Indeed, I remember that moment like it was yesterday. Lieberman was full stride in his "strong on defense" campaign for the Democratic nomination, a quixotic journey that started with him claiming a "three-way tie for third" after he clearly came in fifth in the New Hampshire primary, and ended with a "last stand" in Delaware, where he lost to Kerry by over 30 points. I could write a whole post about what a loser he is. But that would be off topic. The point here is that he is a war monger. What makes his warmongering even worse than than the fanatics like Bush and Rumsfeld is that you can tell, due to his overwhelming transparency, that Lieberman talks the talk for cheap political points.

Yes, Lieberman ruined healthcare reform. But he's also ruined the lives of thousands, if not millions, with his remorseless bloodthirst. I asked his New Hampshire Students for Lieberman about this back in '04, and he responded, "the Senator is pro-defense." I shot back quizzically, "What does that even mean? Who isn't pro-defense?" We both chuckled.
"Whatever..." he smiled. "We all make up our own bullshit."

Out of Afghanistan Takes Off For The Weekend

2009-12-10T22:02:00.000-05:00

We are off to Jamaica for the weekend. It should be warm and awesome.

Meanwhile, check out a piece I wrote on Tiger Woods for IndieJourno, a site run by a friend of mine.

Also, the Mayor of Kabul who was just sentenced to four years in prison for corruption is still running the city with impunity. Good to see things are really shaping up around there.

Posts will be back up against starting Sunday.

Afghan Women Protest Karzai in Kabul

2009-12-10T21:34:00.000-05:00

In a rare display of public rebellion, the inspiring Afghan feminist group, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) led a demonstration in Kabul denouncing the corrupt Karzai administration. Several hundred women marched, with 500 men marching in support. The group opposes the escalation, claiming,

"The innocent and oppressed people will be the victims of American air and ground attacks."

Afghanistan has a long way to go before developing its civic traditions, and allowing for healthy dissent in the streets, particularly from women, is a good step.

You Gotta Pay The Troll Toll...

2009-12-10T21:06:00.000-05:00

At a press conference a few days ago, General McChrystal somewhat surprisingly admitted that Taliban soldiers are getting paid more than the Afghan National Army soldiers for a day's work. We may be spending untold billions in Afghanistan, but when it comes to paying for the people whose training and commitment to self-governance will allow us to leave, we were being quite the cheapskates.

The Taliban are allegedly paying their soldiers $250-300 a month. Their recruits do have to go head to head with the U.S military, which has to rank among the world's toughest jobs. But when they go head to head with the Afghan National Army, the two sides are rather evenly matched, the former's superior skill balanced by the latter's better equipment. The U.S has recently increased its new recruit pay to $240 a month, from previous amounts ranging $120-180. How it took our military geniuses this long to figure out such an outstanding discrepancy is incredible. The new amount is obviously still less than what the Taliban pays, but U.S officials have explained that it comes with benefits like literacy training. Other benefits they cite, like the chance for promotions and the opportunity to fight for your country, are less unique to one side.

The obvious answer is to pay Afghan soldiers on our side $400 a month, which would be well worth the investment if it could end the war quicker by accelerating recruitment and lowering desertion rates. The main problem is that the Afghan military infrastructure, like everything in Afghanistan right now, reeks of corruption. There is no guarantee that more funding for such an effort would lead to more cash in the soldiers' pockets. Similarly, more money wouldn't guarantee that two-timing military officials wouldn't line their pockets from both sides.

Kucinich To Attempt a House Vote to Withdraw from Afghanistan and Pakistan

2009-12-10T19:12:00.000-05:00

Democracy Now reports that Congress member Dennis Kucinich will attempt to force a House vote on withdrawing all U.S. forces from Afghanistan and Pakistan. Kucinich announced on Wednesday that his resolution will call for a "timely withdrawal" from the AfPak region. He expects to introduce the measure next month.

Kucinich said he was motivated to act by hearing Afghan President Hamid Karzai assert that his country will probably need U.S. financial aid and training for the next 15 to 20 years.

"We shouldn't be there another 15 to 20 months, let alone 15 to 20 years," Kucinich said. "We can't afford the loss of lives. We can't afford the loss of taxpayers' money. We've got to get our priorities straight."

Kuddos, Congressman Kucinich!

2024: An Afghan Odyssey

2009-12-08T15:32:00.001-05:00

Though it's quite dubious that Karzai himself will be in power fifteen years from now, that didn't stop Afghanistan's corrupt president from predicting that Afghanistan would not be able to pay for its own military operations until 2024.

Asked how long he would depend on NATO allies for support in pacifying the country, Karzai responded, "For another 15 to 20 years, Afghanistan will not be able to sustain a force of that nature and capability with its own resources.”

The comment was strange for a couple of reasons. First, there seemed little harm in giving a far shorter timetable, since no one in the press bothers following up on political timetables. Second, predicting what will be happening in Afghanistan fifteen to twenty years from now is completely unreasonable given not only the turmoil that has taken place there in the last two decades, but because of how dramatically things could shift in Pakistan or the United States. Most basically, it is very difficult to measure how much maintaining such an army would cost, since we have not achieved that goal yet. We can't even control all of Afghanistan with OUR OWN troops. Finally, while the New York Times took the comment to suggest that Karzai would need our cash for decades to come, "resources" can mean different things to different people. Worth clarifying that he will not need NATO military support for another 15-20 years.

If anything, this was a desperate cry for help. Karzai was basically promising that as long as he will be in power, his government will be impoverished and incompetent. Secretary Gates responded to Karzai's comments by noting that an economically stabilized Afghanistan would not have the need for such a large military force, which is true in theory. The problem is that Afghanistan will be dirt poor for decades, probably forever, unless they get massive oil pipeline revenues. In poor countries, the military is a steady paying job that will always be high in demand. Correspondingly, it will be high in supply, as poor countries like North Korea and Pakistan can feel militarily muscular and address huge unemployment problems in one fell swoop.

An inopportune comment from Karzai, who is so shady that you must always speculate about the motives behind what he says. Hmmm.............

Good luck, Rep. Mike Capuano!

2009-12-07T17:51:00.001-05:00

Tomorrow, Massachusetts will be having a special election to fill the shoes of the irreplaceable Senator Ted Kennedy.

Win or lose, this site sends its gratitude to long-time Boston-area Representative Mike Capuano. Capuano was recently profiled by anti-war activist Ralph Lopez, who called him a "maverick who will take unpopular votes and side with anti-war forces."

Capuano most recently showed his commitment to ending the war by co-sponsoring Rep. Barbara Lee's HR 3699 which would prevent funding for an escalation in Afghanistan." Though the bill has only 24 sponsors, the Appropriations Committee Chair, Rep. David Obey, is also a strong opponent of the war.

In one his campaign ads, Capuano promised that without a clear exit plan, “I will never, ever vote to send more American troops to Afghanistan.” Capuano has also voted against PATRIOT Act, the Military Commissions Act of 2006, and is an all-round excellent progressive.

Representative Capuano, best of luck tomorrow, and win or lose, we know the anti-war movement has a strong ally in Congress.

Statement from Zoya (Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan) Opposing Escalation

2009-12-07T17:47:00.000-05:00

"I'm a representative of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), which was established in 1977 as a women's organization struggling for women's rights. But, after the former Soviet Union's invasion, RAWA got involved in resistance against the Soviets and the puppet regime of theirs. After 1992, RAWA started to focus on anti-fundamentalist struggle, which is continuing today. . . . We are still suffering in the chains of fundamentalism – from one side, the Taliban, from the other side, the Northern Alliance and the occupiers. So we have a long way to go to achieve our goals of democracy, freedom, and secularism. I think eight years is quite enough time to prove that the US-NATO occupation of Afghanistan, under the banner of bringing democracy, women's rights, and war on terror, has completely failed. . . . The Taliban have 80% of Afghanistan under their control. They are increasing, day by day, in number, and they are also getting stronger politically and militarily. So, we see that this so-called war on terrorism has just affected our innocent civilians: our women and children are being killed, attacked by US bombs, by NATO bombs. It seems that the US invaded Afghanistan not to get rid of terrorism but to punish our people who were already suffering from three decades of war. . . . RAWA strongly believes that throwing more troops in will not solve the crisis of Afghanistan. It will even make the situation worse than before." -- Zoya

Time Magazine Turns on War in Afghanistan Hard

2009-12-07T17:23:00.001-05:00

Tony Karon's new Time Magazine defiantly denounces President Obama's call for a troop escalation. It's title, Five Flawed Assumptions of Obama's Afghan Surge, says it all, and the piece itself summarizes concisely points that this site and many others have been arguing for months:
1. Expanding the ground war against the Taliban will in no way guarantee us any greater success in finding and confront members of Al-Qaeda.
2. We cannot build an Afghan National Army capable of defending its national sovereignty within a few years.
3. We cannot work with President Karzai.
4. A an alleged withdrawal date will not exert pressure on President Karzai, who has been forging alliances with the expectation that we will leave eventually anyway.
5. Pakistan may take on insurgents that challenge its own government, but it never has, and probably never will fight members of Al-Qaeda or the Taliban on the border if they are merely using the region to launch attacks into Afghanistan.

Conducting a war under these realities is a lot harder than waging one under the false assumptions the Obama administration has presented. Surprisingly, the Time article does not even offer an "on the hand" argument. This article is firmly against Obama's Afghanistan policy, in more decisive terms than any publication of its stature. It's worth checking out.

The most recent Time issue also includes a typically wishy-washy editorial from Joe Klein, who does include a gem of a sentence in which he calls Obama's deliberations over the war:
the struggles of a highly intelligent, dispassionate man to find a rationale for a mission that is crucial but slightly crazy, a decision that will define his presidency.
Amen.

Digging Deeper Into Private Contractors

2009-12-07T10:46:00.001-05:00

One of the lessons I learned doing disaster relief in Biloxi, Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina is that the sheer fiscal irresponsibility of the Republican plan to "shrink government." By 2005, President Bush and his Republican henchmen had been running the show for five years, repeating the mantra of "small government." Then Hurricane Katrina came along. Responding to the largest disaster in American history requires certain needs, and the federal government chose to meet these needs through private contractors, including many with a history of contributing to the Republican Party, and many who received massive contracts without competitive bidding. After all, stuff needs to get done, and if the government can't do it, it has to pay someone anywhere from 4x to 10x the cost to do it. In our experience in Biloxi, we found private contractors to be every bit as wasteful as the government. Without accountability, private contractors have no need to be "more efficient" than the allegedly lackadaisical public sector.

Now, to Afghanistan. Last Thursday we noted the skyrocking private contractor surge. There are now 104,000 contractors in Afghanistan, up 40% from June 2009, representing 57% of the Pentagon's current workforce. These are the kind of numbers President Obama and Secretary Gates will avoid mentioning, because doing so would reveal the true scope and cost of the war. Because our all-volunteer army is so hopelessly depleted after nearly a decade in Afghanistan and Iraq, the U.S is now using a higher percentage of private contractors in Afghanistan than any war in American history.

Who are these private contractors? Well, there's DynCorp International and Fluor Corp. The two donated $400,000 to federal candidates last election. Don't worry- they covered their bases and donated to both parties. They've now been awarded contracts in Afghanistan that could come to $7.5 billion each. This after a rare instance of federal auditing in which the government found that DynCorp's contract to train Iraqi police had been so badly mismanaged that "they were unable to determine how the money was spent." The government has launched a Commission on Wartime Contracting, which will issue a comprehensive report...in 2011. Just in time for the withdrawal! It's unclear to me why the government needs such a long time to address this issue, when the financial waste is so damaging. I suppose that's what $400k can buy you, especially during a recession.

Helpful Map from the New York Times

2009-12-06T23:32:00.001-05:00

(Just click on it to actually read the contents- formatting is not my forte)

Death Toll Surpasses 300 for 2009

2009-12-06T19:31:00.000-05:00

A roadside bomb over the weekend killed an American soldier, marking the 301st death in Afghanistan during 2009. This has by far been the bloodiest year of the war- in 2008, by comparison, 155 Americans were killed in combat. Expect death totals to continue climbing during the surge, especially as more dangerous combat missions are ordered.

Best Cartoon Ever

2009-12-05T12:46:00.000-05:00

War Notes: December 5, 2009

2009-12-04T21:32:00.000-05:00

There are rumors that western diplomats have persuaded President Karzai to sweep out his current cabinet and replace them will less corrupt officials. The hold up, apparently, is that doing so would incur the wrath of the warlords holding the precarious country together. A real win win.
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Pakistan's Prime Minister Gilani is apparently aggrieved at the suggestion that they are carrying water for us in the war on terror. Gilani said they would conduct the campaign against insurgents on their border according to their own national interests.
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Add to the ranks of the pissed off President Karzai, who is offended that Prime Minister Gordon Brown could generate goals and time tables for Afghanistan. Karzai saw Brown's declaration as imperialistic, but if he could manage his country at all, perhaps he wouldn't see such heavy-handedness from the people bankrolling him.
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American Seth Jones calls for a series of Pakistani police raids coupled with U.S drone strikes in Baluchistan, where Mullah Omar and the rest of the Taliban leadership appear to be based. He says that allowing the Taliban to organize and operate with impunity with allow the war to go on continuously, and while respecting Pakistani sovereignty, we must disrupt the Taliban's infrastructure.

Pelosi Puts War Tax To Pasture

2009-12-03T17:38:00.000-05:00

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has rejected calls from Representative David Obey to levy a "war surtax" that would raise the revenues to pay for the Afghanistan escalation. Pelosi had no alternative idea for paying for the war. This is unsurprising, the rejection of Obey's proposal was always an issue of "when", not "if".

A Quick Reflection On Yesterday's Times Square Event

2009-12-03T16:06:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I very briefly stopped by the anti-escalation in protest in Times Square. I was greeted a speaker on a megaphone declaring, "Obama wants to talk about terrorism? How about talking about the world's biggest purveyor of terrorism, the United States of America?!" I don't know who obtains the permits that allow voters to occupy small strips of sidewalk and bike lane space in the city's most congested part of town, but to be effective, the anti-war movement cannot continue to function with this type of, or lack of, leadership. The event yesterday was supposed to involve Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans Against the War, Code Pink and Brooklyn Peace, all organizations I have a lot of respect for. But when I left, the speaker was railing about Henry Kissinger.

Folks, it's not the fall of 2001 anymore. A majority of Americans want this war to end, and most Americans have some reservations about it. Now's not the time to call for Rumsfeld to be indicted for war crimes, it's time to convince a lot of moderate Americans (and some liberals!) why a troop escalation is not in the best interest of the United States. And it's not a boring pitch either- just give me the mic. It is absolutely detrimental to the anti-war movement, however, to have the crazies running the megaphones if we really have any interest in turning more people against the war.

How many and for how long? Does the Obama administration think we're idiots?

2009-12-03T14:15:00.000-05:00

It turns out that the Obama administration is not exactly being straight when it comes to troop numbers or the supposed 2011 withdrawal.

First, Democracy Now broke the following story this morning:
The Pentagon has acknowledged President Obama’s new troop deployment to Afghanistan could be higher than the 30,000 he announced this week. The Washington Post reports Defense Secretary Robert Gates has been authorized to deploy another 3,000 troops at his discretion. A senior Pentagon official said the number of additional US forces deployed under Obama’s escalation plan could ultimately top 35,000. Speaking before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Gates said the first troops would begin to arrive in Afghanistan later this month.
So 30,000 becomes 33,000 becomes more than 35,000. The beat goes on.

Second, remember when Gibbs said the July 2011 date was "etched in stone." That was yesterday. Here's something else he said yesterday:
MR. GIBBS: The policy is -- let me be clear, let me be clear, because the President was clear -- our forces, in July of 2011, will transition out of Afghanistan. Again, understand what he said: This is a conditions-based drawdown, decisions made by the Commander-in-Chief, but that's -- understand where we're talking about. Let's understand where we got to July 2011 ...

Q So a drawdown will begin in July -- of some magnitude will be --

MR. GIBBS: A conditions-based --

Q -- if conditions warrant?

MR. GIBBS: A conditions-based drawdown will begin in July 2011.

We can invent a new game called "guess the conditions". I have a feeling the conditions will be based on whatever General McChrystal wants.

Finally, the real surge has already begun, as private military contractors flood Afghanistan. Contractors have increased 40% since the early summer, such that there are now 104,000 in Afghanistan, compared to 113,000 in Iraq. Private contractors are extremely expensive, often making 5-10 times what soldiers and other government employees make for the same work. They are also problematic on the battlefield, as they are unaccountable to the military command structure. We all know what happened with Blackwater in Iraq. For a president who claims to recognize the fiscal costs of war, he's sure not doing a lot about it....

More Voices Opposing The Escalation

2009-12-03T13:48:00.000-05:00

For those of you already opposed to the escalation, articles like these are helpful to organize talking points and forward information to your friends. For those of you who are undecided on what course of action the United States should take in Afghanistan.

The first response highlighted today comes from Congresswoman Louise Slaughter (D-NY), who represents swaths of upstate New York including Rochester and Buffalo. Slaughter makes a number of arguments against escalation, but particularly focuses on how overstretched our military has become during this war.

The second response comes from Ken Silverstein at Harper's Weekly. In addition to questioning, if not outright denying Obama's claim that he will begin a drawdown by 2011, Silverstein decries the lack of focus in the so-called War on Terrorism generally. Quoting national security expert Michael Sheehan, Silverstein notes:
We have continually moved the ‘goal posts’ of our counter-terrorism success in the name of a counterinsurgency campaign. The initial objective of kicking out al Qaeda has now morphed into an ambitious program of reinventing Afghanistan as a “modern state”.

War Notes: December 3, 2009

2009-12-03T01:41:00.000-05:00

Will keep it brief, since it is late.
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Only a day after a bizarre report that the U.S State Department would support a high-ranking civilian to essentially co-manage the country with President Karzai, U.S Ambassador to the U.N Susan Rice denied that the U.S would back such a proposal. The plan had seemed to be pushed by Richard Holebroke, and it did not go well at the U.N, who saw it as undercutting the role of their man on the ground, Kai Eide.
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Perhaps to make amends for all the progressive people's hearts President Obama shattered with his troublesomely hawkish speech last night, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs clarified that July, 2011 was not some vague goal for withdrawal, but in fact, that it was "etched in stone." Defense Secretary Gates testified before the Senate that the date was "a statement of strong intent." Those comments would suggest that the withdrawal date is as much to give Karzai and his crew an ultimatum as anything else, though I maintain my skepticism that Obama wouldn't push back the withdrawal date in a heartbeat if the military and Republicans howled at withdrawal. Incidentally, aren't promises usually "set" in stone, and not "etched" in them?
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The Columbia Journalism Review asks why media outlets have done such a poor job asking Afghans what exactly they think of the massive escalation. Actually, they kind of just point out the poor job the media has done. I don't think people really need to ask anymore.
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Though I am sure there have been many good responses to last night's speech around the blogosphere, and even a decent Tom Friedman piece that now sits on the upper right hand corner of the screen, my favorite was this piece from DailyKos, in which a diarist ably disassembled many of the "straw man" arguments supporters of the escalation have been making. To clarify, he is responding to frequent arguments made on DailyKos itself- that is, progressives and Obama supporters who support or are ambivalent about the escalation, not to Republicans, who should not have their arguments taken seriously on most issues.

Progressives Need Not Hide Their Disappointment

2009-12-02T22:35:00.000-05:00

Let me quickly rebut the notion that the progressive base "knew this was coming when they voted him." It is true that Obama always said this was a war that required increased focus, and that he would send more troops. However, people quickly forget that President Obama already has escalated the war. In March, Obama gave a speech highlighting the importance of the war in Afghanistan, and deployed 34,000 additional troops. Now granted, they haven't all been there long enough to make a serious impact, but let's not pretend that's not a dramatic surge. Folks, that is doubling the size of U.S forces in Afghanistan from the last year of the Bush presidency. I think that would have sufficed as far as living up to campaign rhetoric.

But you know what? Instead of getting better, the situation in Afghanistan has been getting worse throughout 2009. This summer featured the highest casualty rates of the entire war for U.S soldiers. The Taliban march with impunity across vast swaths of the country. The country has largely turned against the corrupt Karzai government. Progressives, seeing Obama as either one of their own, or perhaps coming from a common ancestor, felt that maybe Obama would see the unraveling shit-show, and seriously rethink the implications of "doubling-down" in Afghanistan. We now know that even partial withdrawal from Afghanistan was never seriously discussed as an option.

Thus, Obama disappointed the progressive base that fought for him throughout the primary season when he said: "I don't want to just end the (Iraq) war, but I want to end the mind-set that got us into war in the first place." Calling this "The Obama Doctrine," the American Prospect wrote that Obama was "offering the most sweeping liberal foreign-policy critique we've heard from a serious presidential candidate in decades." This is as strong a progressive clarion call as an anti-war activist could hope for.

Then he sent 21,000 extra troops, which was somewhat expected, based on campaign rhetoric. Then he sent 13,000 more. Then he weighed a series of options on how to continue the war, but refused to consider any option that did not involve sending at least 10,000 soldiers and increasing air raids. Then he sent 30,000 more troops, making the announcement in front hundreds of young cadets for whom dissent was not a professional option. The close advisers who helped him craft this decision were all hawkish Democrats or hawkish Republicans, the pacifist wing represented by Vice President Biden, who voted for the war in Iraq in 2002 and himself supported more troops being sent to Afghanistan.

Look at that last paragraph and tell me that progressives don't have a right to be disappointed with Obama's Afghanistan war policy. Sure, there was little drama going into last night. But let's be honest- he's let us down. He'll have plenty of opportunities to make it up, be they his handling of Iraq, healthcare, or the honesty of his 2011 withdrawal pledge for this war. This, however, was not what I campaigned for, what I voted for.

Reaction to President Obama's Speech

2009-12-01T20:01:00.001-05:00

My criticisms of President Barack Obama tonight come with love. He is a good man, and my hope is still that he can become a great president. I do believe him that he "does not make this decision lightly." But his decision, nevertheless, is mistaken.

President Obama began by taking us through the events of September 11th, and the early stages of the war. Then "we took our attention away from Afghanistan." The truth is, we have steadily increased the number of troops in Afghanistan since our initial invasion, even during the war in Iraq. It is true that we have had many more troops in Iraq, but Obama's rhetoric would have you believe that we had no presence in Afghanistan for the last seven years. That is false. Our problem has been that without a defined purpose or goal, the longer we have remained in Afghanistan, the more bogged down we have become. Local groups unaffiliated with the Taliban have turned against us, either because their family we killed in battle with our troops, or because of our support for the corrupt Karzai administration. Our presence has increasingly looked like what it is: an occupation. No, we are not ruthless, like the Soviets. Yes, we have authorization from the U.N and NATO. But it is still an occupation.

Obama went on to not just imply, but actually say that the Taliban and Al Qaeda were working together. That is simply false, even if it may have been true in the early years of the insurgency. The two organizations have separate goals, and just because we are trying to kill members of both groups at the present does not mean that they are inseparably linked.

Not all of Obama's speech was dispiriting. He did pledge that in a mere 18 months, our troops will begin to come home. Unfortunately, I cannot take him at his word. His constant comparisons between the tranquil of Iraq and the future tranquil of Afghanistan were disingenuous, and demonstrated why that timeline is false. There are still 115,000 troops in Iraq, plus about as many military contractors. They are supposed to start drawing down next year, which is what I remember hearing last year, and even then, some will be shipped straight to Afghanistan.

We don't know yet whether withdrawing from Iraq will lead to increased violence there. If it does, do we need to send more troops back in? The question may be hypothetical, but if President Obama is using Iraq as some excellent model, he needs to be honest about what we have actually achieved there.

At this point, Obama addressed the withdrawal argument. He said that this situation was not like Vietnam because 43 nations were with us. Unlike Vietnam, when we had all of our Cold War allies in support of us. Just saying. He said unlike Vietnam, there is no popular broadbased insurgency. This is partially true. There is no equivalent of the Viet Cong or Ho Chi Minh. At the same time, Afghanistan has a long history of resistance to foreign invaders, and no matter what a UN resolution says, that is how a large part of the population sees it. Finally he says we were attacked from Afghanistan, not Vietnam. Once again, this conflates the fight against the Taliban with the fight against Al Qaeda. There are 100-300 members of Al Qaeda on the Afghan-Pakistan border. Why does this require 100,000 NATO troops? Not a single soldier we send in this surge will fight a member of Al Qaeda. As I've written before, I believe that a mixture of threats and incentives can prevent Al Qaeda from ever being comfortably situated in Afghanistan again, outside of the impenetrable mountains they currently operate in.

I did agree with some of the things Obama had to say. I agree that a timeframe is needed to establish a sense of urgency (putting aside that I don't agree with the mission in the first place).
I am especially proud that Obama said, "We cannot afford to ignore the costs of these wars...I am willing to address these costs openly and honestly." This line alone immediately separates from the foreign policy of George Bush and John McCain. His calls for nuclear disarmament and diplomacy, and denunciation of torture, were stirring. One line struck me as practically a throwaway, however. He said that should terrorist cells form in Yemen or Somalia, we need to 'engage partnerships' or something to that effect. I still don't understand his rebuttal to Matthew Hoh. Why is Al Qaeda's presence in Afghanistan/Pakistan worthy of 100,000 troops, and their presence in Somalia worthy of an 'engaged partnership.' This anti-terrorism policy is not consistent or sustainable. I will add further thoughts later tonight, after more reflection.

Your comments are all appreciated.

MoveOn, a little late to the party?

2009-12-01T19:47:00.001-05:00

Today, MoveOn announced their opposition to the troop escalation.

I've always been befuddled at MoveOn's precise role in the movement. Perhaps its because of my unpleasant experience in 2004, when I was working in Las Vegas for America Coming Together, the sharpest Get Out the Vote operation the state had ever seen (yes, we lost). MoveOn came in late, tried to steal our volunteers, and was so disorganized that most of their organizers quit or were fired in a flurry of tears.

They seem to raise a fair amount of money, which they spend on television ads. That's not exactly the most grassroots use of campaign donations, though I suppose they are sometimes necessary. Anyway, today they "announced" their opposition to the troop escalation in Afghanistan. What that entails is asking its members to call the White House. When you visit their website, all of their prominent Afghanistan links just lead you to a page giving instructions on calling the White House (not even what to say). On their policy page, the Afghanistan policy hasn't been updated since President Obama's March announcement. My main question is, where have they been? Were they not concerned about escalation since it began in the first months of the Obama administration?

I know criticizing other members of the progressive coalition is an exercise of limited utility, but MoveOn has often tried to present itself as a progressive leader. If indeed it seeks such a role, it must be at the forefront on issues this important, not lagging until literally the day of the troop announcement. Even if every one of their alleged 5 million members called the White House today, it would be too late to change President Obama's policy speech.

The anti-war movement is in dire need of strong leadership, something that MoveOn's trivial announcement reminded me this afternoon.

Americans overwhelmingly against a troop surge on eve of speech

2009-12-01T13:53:00.000-05:00

The Washington Post may run a biased, pro-war op-ed page, but it can't hide damning poll numbers. A survey published on the eve of President Obama's speech reveal that only 24% of Americans support the McChrystal troop surge, versus 45% who want to decrease the number of troops in Afghanistan, with most of the remainder supporting keeping troop levels the same. Obama's support is collapsing among the people who worked their asses off to get him elected, with fewer than 20% of Democrats supporting the surge. But us liberals are not alone. A bare majority, 51% of all adults, say "the war is not worth fighting", up from 41% in March, when Obama's first troop surge began. In fact, 41% of Americans are "strongly opposed" to the continuation of the war. Hopefully some of them will step out of the woodwork and join us in the streets.
Let us be clear- if a poll showed these kind of numbers on any other issue, the media would be aglow with stories of "Americans rejecting" the policy. But because this is war, the media has presented this as Americans "being concerned", or having "reservations." Somehow, the American people haven't had enough evidence after eight plus years of war to decide for themselves.

Pro-War Bias from New York Times and Washington Post

2009-12-01T13:13:00.000-05:00

The New York Times and Washington Post have saturated their opinion pages with pro-war articles, according to the a study by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, whose findings were discussed on Democracy Now. The study evaluated the so-called "liberal" institutions from January through October of 2010, and found that of the 100 op-eds published, the number favoring the continuation of the war in Afghanistan outnumbered op-eds advocating a partial or immediate withdrawal at the New York Times by 5-1, and at the Washington Post by 10-1. In fact, nearly all of the anti-war op-eds at the New York Times were published by Bob Herbert, with virtually no guest op-eds opposing the war. Instead, the debate focused on whether we should fight with more boots on the ground or more planes in the sky. Democracy in America.

A Little Rant Before the Big Speech

2009-11-30T23:55:00.000-05:00

The theme of Karzai as an corrupt and ineffective leader promises to be highlighted in President Obama's address tomorrow. The line the White House is floating tonight is, "The era of the blank check for President Karzai is over." That is simply untrue, the first steps across a politically impossible tightrope. Tomorrow Obama will be making the case that this is a war of military necessity, with dire national security at stake. I disagree with him of course, but that's his pitch. He will then also try to warn Karzai that he needs to reform "or else." The real question, columnist David Corn asks, is "or else what?" If Obama is suggesting that he will withdraw troops, cut off funding for training Afghans or stop spending money on Afghan infrastructure, then the war can't possibly be as serious or necessary as he says it is, because Obama cannot stabilize Afghanistan while he does those things. That is why Obama is painting himself into such a dangerous corner.

Let's play this one out. It is December of 2011. Karzai has made little to no headway on the anti-corruption front. Every last member of Al-Qaeda is in the mountains of Pakistan. The Taliban have largely been routed by NATO troops, but in limited skirmishes the Afghan National Army seems unable to handle them without NATO support. Both supporters and opponents of the war can agree that this is a fairly plausible set of outcomes. Does that mean we can leave?

If we start drawing down, the Taliban will start fighting back. Maybe they'll take a few villages here and there, maybe mount an unsuccessful assault on a major city. Al-Qaeda hangs out on the Afghan-Pakistan border, depending on which side is being more aggressive. People still hate Karzai. His brother is still the biggest opium dealer in the country. A suicide bomb periodically blows up a Kabul market square. Do we keep drawing down? Do we re-surge? Do we keep troop levels the same? Where do we get these troops in the first place? Now it's 2012 and Republicans are running on the platform that Obama has lost Afghanistan.

You see, the situation in Afghanistan has always been fucked. It is a country where multiple generations have come of age knowing nothing but war and corruption. It is also a country with almost no infrastructure, limited roads, and a brutal winter that shuts large swaths of the country down for months. It is a country where we prop an anti-democratic corrupt figurehead surrounded by brutal warlords so that the country isn't overtaken by ruthless fundamentalist ruthless warlords. And we are in this country because it might potentially serve as a haven for a bunch of men in caves plotting terrorist strikes against the United States. I find it incredibly hard to believe that the leaders of Al Qaeda could not find another place in South Asia, the Middle East or Africa to sit on rugs and conjure up plots, if we were somehow able to make an impassible mountain range between Afghanistan and Pakistan more inhospitable for them than it is now (And while we're at it, let's please stop with the nonsense that Pakistan may become so destabilized by these fundamentalist hicks that they will lose control of their nuclear weapons, which will then be launched against the United States, or India, or Israel).

So what do I think we should do? I think we should get out, leaving behind some residual force in Kabul. We should keep funding local programs to develop Afghan infrastructure. We should continue intelligence operations and drone attacks against members of Al Qaeda in the mountains, however regretful due to the resulting civilian casualties. Instead of believing that any single political entity will ever control Afghanistan, we should cut deals with a series of regional governors and warlords rewarding them for cooperation against Al Qaeda. If the Taliban start to overrun the Karzai government, we should make it clear that any indication that they have allowed for Al Qaeda to reestablish themselves within Afghan borders will lead to a reprise of 2001's Operation Infinite Justice. Sure, it would be exhausting and expensive for us to pull that off, but having been driven from power once, do you think the Taliban will risk their power a second time to protect some Saudis and Egyptians who have brought them nothing but trouble this decade?

Of course, tomorrow night Obama will announce precisely the opposite of what I just suggested. He will use well worn cliches from the Bush administration, comforting Americans who don't want to think too deeply about this war. And to the 50% of Americans who oppose escalation, he will offer us the following, charming bit of reassurance:
"My fellow Americans, we will set certain benchmarks for 2011/2012, and then, having achieved them, we will withdraw."
The problem is, we won't meet them then, just like we've failed to meet almost every benchmark we've ever set in Iraq and Afghanistan. Then we'll be back here in two years, to hear President Obama once again call for patience, while Republicans gloat about what a failure he is, and what a better job they would have done sending more of our overburdened, exhausted, stressed out troops for a fifth and sixth deployments.

Scary times, folks. I'll be in Times Square at 6pm on Wednesday for the protest. See you there.

Holbrooke pushes for a SUPER envoy

2009-11-30T23:14:00.000-05:00

It seems like October's explosive scandal, in which U.N Deputy Ambassador, American Peter Gailbraith essentially accused his boss, Kai Eide, of collusion with the corrupt Karzai government, has not fully played itself out yet. U.S Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke, who has no love lost for President Karzai himself, is pushing for the appointment of a high-level foreign official to serve as "super-envoy" alongside Karzai. Basically a glorified babysitter to make sure Karzai is keeping honest on his pledge to crack down on corruption. Holbrooke is advocating such a strategy both because of its success in Bosnia, where he was one of the top brokers, and because he "believes the UN mission is ineffectual and soft on the Afghan government's alarming record of corruption." This has caused a fissure among NATO allies, with Canada and some European seeing this as a slight against Kai Eide, and Holbrooke responding, 'Yeah, dude, exactly.'
Meanwhile, Karzai is likely terrified of an American or Brit actually observing his corrupt government in action, but hopeful deep down that he could spin any such appointment as imperialistic meddling.

War Notes: November 29, 2009

2009-11-29T20:20:00.000-05:00

Afghanistan's lack of infrastructure will slow the implementation of President Obama's surge, and troops will be phased in over 12-18 months. Following Obama's Tuesday speech at West Point, 9,000 Marines will deploy to Helmand province in southern Afghanistan, where most of the action is taking place. They will be followed by 1,000 U.S Army trainers that will work with the Afghan National Army and the Afghan police. The remaining 20-25,000 troops will deploy over the course of 2010 and early 2011.
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Any hope for Representative David Obey's "war surtax" seemed to be dashed by Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) today.
"There should have been, as far as I'm concerned, tax increases for upper bracket folks who did so well during the Bush years - that's where the tax increases should have taken place. But that should have happened some time ago. But in the middle of this recession, I don't think you're going to be able successfully or fairly to add a tax burden to middle-income people. I think you could tax the upper brackets, $250,000 or more, but I don't think middle income America is in a position now where they could pay additional taxes because the economic stress is so great here."
Levin generally falls within the liberal half of the Democratic Party, so his reservations are not a good indicator of the bills likelihood. A surtax solely on the wealthy, while more politically feasible, would not cover the increased costs of the Obama troop surge. Raising taxes is an anathema to most politicians, especially in the Senate, where a number of Democrats will be facing competitive races in 2010.
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British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has laid out five benchmarks that NATO will ask the Karzai government to meet at an upcoming conference:

■ Within three months Kabul must identify additional troops to send to Helmand province for training.

■ Within six months there must be clear plans for police training.

■ Within nine months President Hamid Karzai must have appointed almost 400 provincial and district governors.

■ Within 12 months 5,000 additional Afghan troops will be trained by Britain in Helmand and thousands more in other parts of the country.

■ By the end of 2010 Afghan security forces must be taking the lead in five out of the country's 34 provinces. Control in one or two districts in Helmand will also be handed over.

While these benchmarks will probably not be met (I'd venture it won't even be close), it is worth documenting them. The ever-changing benchmarks and demands for patience are part of what made the war in Iraq under President Bush so infuriating.

War Notes: November 28, 2009

2009-11-28T19:20:00.000-05:00

Washington Post columnist Colbert King asks a perfectly reasonable question:
But what happens if, in the face of an U.S. escalation in Afghanistan, al-Qaeda moves its terrorist network to Pakistan or beyond? Will U.S. forces follow?

I suppose the short answer is that Blackwater is already there, and U.S intelligence is undoubtedly working with the Pakistani military. The question is whether our soon to be 100,000 troops will be fighting a single Al Qaeda operative six months from now. Some would call that a reason to claim victory and go home. If we get bogged down fighting the Taliban, along with related and completely unrelated insurgents, however, that war could last a lot longer.
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Quickly reviewing all major post World War II wars in the process, the New Yorker's Henrik Hertzberg also asks a series of tough questions he would like the president to answer on Tuesday:

Does it make sense, for example, to spend lives and treasure trying to eradicate “safe havens” in Afghanistan when Al Qaeda has so many other—well, options, from Sudan to Hamburg? Will a bigger, longer, and presumably bloodier occupation advance or retard the ultimate aim of discouraging Islamist terrorism? Will adding American troops—at a million dollars a year per soldier—encourage Afghans to fight for themselves or prompt them to leave the fighting to us? Can Afghanistan’s nominal government, with its President elected by fraud and its recent rating as the second most corrupt on earth, be finessed or somehow remade?

The sum we are already spending annually on Afghanistan is greater than its gross domestic product. Are there nonmilitary ways we could deploy that sum which would advance our goals as efficaciously? Would even forty thousand additional troops suffice for anything resembling the ambitious nation-building program that General Stanley McChrystal, the top military commander in Afghanistan, has proposed? (Counterinsurgency theory suggests that it would take more than ten times that many; would forty—or ten, or twenty—thousand be only a first installment?) Any counterinsurgency campaign, we’re told, requires a very long commitment. Is the voluntary association of democracies called NATO, organized to deter war more than to wage it, capable of sustaining a twenty or thirty years’ war? For that matter, does the United States—a decentralized populist democracy struggling with economic decline and political gridlock—have that capacity? And what about Pakistan?

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A graphic from the National Post, a Canadian paper, highlights the geographic hotspots where NATO forces have suffered their casualties. The Helmand and Kandahar provinces in southwestern Afghanistan lead the way, with 342 and 210 fatalities respectively. The charts also provide some visually jarring data of the increase in NATO deaths and deaths from IEDs from the relatively tranquil days of 2005 to the present.
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Reuters runs a speculative article quoting administration sources that believe the U.S will begin drawing down troops from Afghanistan beginning in 2013. Their logic is that by then the U.S will have concluded its training of the Afghan National Army and the Afghan police, such that they can help themselves. Other officials scoffed at the notion, calling it unrealistic. One truth we can be assured of is vague 'future withdrawal' rhetoric from the Obama administration, whether from his lips or in the form of 'secret leaks' to the press. This will be done to damper down opposition to the war. Rank and file Democrats will say, "I don't approve of this war, but I guess it will be over soon." We all know how this will go down. And yet we watch...

War Notes: November 27, 2009

2009-11-27T15:34:00.000-05:00

"No nation has ever benefited from a prolonged war."
- Sun Tzu, The Art of War

The political fallout in Germany continues following the revelation that the German military forces in Afghanistan covered up the death of civilians in an airstrike called by German generals on September 4th. The U.S air strikes ultimately killed over 140 people, at least 40 of whom were later found to be civilians. The German cover up went as far as up as the their top commander in Afghanistan, Colonel Georg Klein, and their Defense Minister, Franz Jung. Though this incident is likely to increase national opposition to the war, Chancellor Merkel is expected to continue Germany's commitment to the war. She is expected to 120 troop to the 4,300 already serving their, the third highest total behind the United States and Britain.

Canadians allowed the torture of captured Afghan insurgents, according to Canadian Senior Diplomat Richard Colvin, who was based in Afghanistan from 2006 to 2007. Colvin's testimony before the Canadian House of Commons that Canadian forces handed over captives to local Afghans knowing that they were going to be brutally tortured has led to a series of attacks on Colvin's character from government officials, rather than any proper investigation. Apparently the Canucks have learned well from their brothers to the south.

The Governor of Kandahar survived an assassination attempt yesterday when a bomb targeted his motorcade. Kandahar is the second largest city in Afghanistan after Kabul, and will be the destination for many of the Surgin' Americans. Shapoor Khan was not so lucky; the anti-Taliban leader victim to an assassination attempt this morning. Khan was a major tribal leader in northwest Pakistan who had been working with Pakistani authorities against the Taliban. His predecessor was killed by a suicide bomber last year. One hopes that an experienced Pakistani military will ultimately be able to prevail over the Taliban in their clashes along the border, but much of the Pakistani military training prepares soldiers for conventional war with India, rather than guerrilla warfare with insurgents.

War Notes: Thanksgiving Edition

2009-11-26T14:46:00.000-05:00

White House Spokesman Robert Gibbs has given all Americans something to be thankful for: An American military withdrawal from Afghanistan before 2017:
"We are in year nine of our efforts in Afghanistan. We are not going to be there another eight or nine years," Gibbs told reporters.
Gibbs added that the war was "very, very, very expensive", costing the U.S $6.7 billion in the month of June alone.

Family of suicide victims are seeking letters of condolences from the White House for their fallen children. While soldiers who commit suicide do receive the same death benefits as those who die in combat, it has been a policy since at least the Clinton administration not to send presidential letters of condolences. The families explain that the letters would be an important symbolic gesture from the president and the military that mental health problems are real, and need to be seriously addressed to prevent needless deaths.

McClatchy writer Steven Thomma points out that the Rep. Obey's war surtax is not without precedent. War surtaxes were levied by President Lincoln during the Civil War, President Roosevelt during World War II and President Johnson during the Vietnam War. The Obey tax would increase federal income tax by 1% on those making less than $150,000 and significantly more on those making over $150,000 a year.

This Thanksgiving, it is important to remember that 922 soldiers have died fighting in Afghanistan since Operation Enduring Freedom began in 2001. Operation Enduring Freedom was the second name, after the President Bush's first choice, Operation Infinite Justice, sounded too much like a throw back to the crusades.

War Notes: November 25, 2009

2009-11-25T14:48:00.001-05:00

President Obama will announce his latest greatest war plan at West Point on Tuesday night. The man who spoke of having the courage to tell auto makers to reform their ways in Detroit will make his troop escalation speech in front of a crowd professionally obligated to support the decision's of their Commander in Chief. Obama assured the press, "I feel very confident that when the American people hear a clear rationale for what we're doing there and how we intend to achieve our goals, that they will be supportive."
I wholeheartedly agree- if Obama can somehow explain these basic premises for the first time, I'll be sold too.

British PM Gordon Brown has promised that Obama will not being going it alone- pledging that NATO allies will add 5,000 troops, in addition to the 500 new British soldiers. Of course, Brown isn't sure where these troops will be coming from, though he posits there may be some troops from Slovakia, Georgia and maybe South Korea. Either way, NATO spokesman James Appathurai cautioned, "Nobody should expect that the day after President Obama makes his announcement that there will be a total troop figure added up ... by the other allies." Appathurai said a more realistic appraisal would be forthcoming after a January conference of NATO allies.

The Associated Press's Kathy Gannon paints a bleak picture of life and death in Kandahar. At 800,000 residents, it is Afghanistan's second largest city, and fighting between NATO forces and the Taliban for the city is fierce, with the local population often caught in the cross fire. There is an expectation that some of Obama's new troops will be sent there.

Unlikely War Tax Attracting Attention

2009-11-24T17:39:00.000-05:00

The media has surprisingly picked up on calls from Congressman David Obey (D-Wisconsin) to institute a "war surtax", particularly targeting the wealthy, in order to pay for the increased costs of the war in Afghanistan. Perhaps it is because as Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, Obey has a chance of putting a real bill out there.

Similar sentiments have been echoed from other prominent House Democrats like Barney Frank, John Murtha and Charlie Rangel. Murtha, Rangel and Cong. John Larson have proposed the "Share the Sacrifice Act", which would levy 1% income tax inceases on the middle class and higher tax increases on the wealthy. That would be a non-starter for President Obama and Senator Reid.
Some may recall Congressman Rangel's proposal to reinstate the draft during the early years of the war in Iraq, which was voted down something like 430-5.

Politicians in this country don't really believe in shared sacrifice, they believe in kicking the can down the road and burdening the middle class with subtlety and misdirection. At lease you can't doubt Obey's sincerity:
I went through the Vietnam years when the cost of that damn war drained away the ability to do anything else. I chair the committee that has to say no to effort after effort to rebuild economy.

Unlike Rangel, who is more a showhorse on an issue like this, Obey may actually pursue a war tax. It'll be an interesting story to pursue, because if he can actually get it to a hard vote, then he will put Republican hypocrisy formally on the line. Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats cannot claim to stand for low taxes, an expensive war, and a balanced budget, and hopefully, Obey will make them choose, ending their intellectual dishonesty.

On December 1, Obama Will Announce 34,000 New Troops

2009-11-24T11:37:00.000-05:00

Or so the media is reporting. Frankly, this is more like a parlor game. On November 9, we had ABC, among other news outlets, announcing a 34,000 troop increase, only to have the Obama administration deny it the next day. We then heard numbers ranging from 15,000 to 40,000, all a series of 'trial balloons' the administration floats into public opinion.

The McClatchy article claimed an amusing source:
The U.S. officials all spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to discuss the issue publicly and because, one official said, the White House is incensed by leaks on its Afghanistan policy that didn't originate in the White House.

Well, I'm sure if he was already incensed, he's gonna be even more pissed off now. This leaked announcement is going to spoil a lot of people's Thanksgivings. The date of the announcement itself, December 1, is less of a secret, and anti-war activities are being planned for December 2.

Karzai Livid At Corruption Arrest

2009-11-23T21:52:00.000-05:00

Looks like President Hamid Karzai's pledge to fight corruption hit a snag when Afghan intelligence arrested a police chief named "Commander S" smuggling four tons of pot. Wow. According to my very rough calculations, that's $30-35 million worth of marijuana. There was opium involved too, and that should have raised a flag, because it turns out the intelligence officers arrested a key cog in Ahmed Wali Karzai's drug operation, bringing down the wrath of the El Presidente.

President Karzai canceled the press conference announcing the arrest, and it is unclear if he will allow the Attorney General to bring charges. Karzai recently pardoned five convicted drug smugglers connected to his campaign manager. His brother Wali seemed to show little concern that any further investigation would come from the arrest:

“I am powerful because I am the President’s brother,” Ahmed Wali said last week. “This is a country ruled by kings. The king’s brothers, cousins, sons, are all powerful. This is Afghanistan. It will change, but it will not change overnight.”

Meanwhile, the rest of the anti-corruption operation is off to a similarly questionable start. Karzai has deposed his first minister, Sidiq Chakari, the acting Minister for Religious Affairs. The obscure minister was low on the American list, and it seems like his main offense may have been supporting the opposition party in the last election.

Today yielded another brutal article, this time in USA Today, documenting the omnipresence of bribery and corruption. Fact of the day: It costs $400 in bribes to register a vehicle in Afghanistan. That is equal to a year of annual wages for the average Afghan worker. Tough times. As is this story:

Ahmadi admits that "petty corruption is everywhere." He said he paid a bribe of about $400 to have electricity turned on in his home a year ago, right before he took his current job.At the time, he was a top Karzai adviser and warned the utility worker that he could have him disciplined for shaking down a customer. Ahmadi said the worker shrugged off the threat and demanded the money.

It will take more than a few sham arrests to change the culture of corruption in Kabul.

War Notes: November 22, 2009

2009-11-22T22:57:00.000-05:00

The Pakistani government is publicly pleading with the United States not to escalate. In direct opposition to the McChrystal report, Pakistan is urging NATO forces to focus on the Pakistani border, rather than cities, where McChrystal is withdrawing most forces too. There is no doubt Pakistan is motivated by self-interest, but their relationship with the Afghan Taliban is complex, as the Pakistani government sponsored them for many years.

Some Pakistani officials tout this relationship as a reason to step in and bring the U.S and the Taliban to the negotiating table, with one noting, "I'm not for a moment suggesting that it's an easy task, but otherwise you will be fighting these people for the next hundred years." Other officials concede, however, that the Taliban has little incentive to negotiate at the moment.
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In a related story, President Karzai is considering extending invitations to the third Loya Jirga to certain insurgents. The event is essentially a grand-scale community meeting, meant to foster peace and unity among the country's many factions. The first Jirga resulted in Karzai's appointment as interim leader, and the second ratified the Afghan constitution. The Taliban leadership has thus far categorically ruled out negotiating with a Karzai-led government. In addition to Pakistan (mentioned above), Saudi Arabia has been suggested as a possible peace broker. At least one political leader questioned the purpose of the Jirga now that the checkered presidential election is over, as he and others had pushed for the Jirga to displace the war-time election as the means for selecting Afghanistan's leader.
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The Newark-Star Ledger has a moving story on suicides in the military. Though this is hardly a story about numbers, it is worth grasping that 2,100 members of the military have taken their lives since the War on Terror began- almost triple the number of troops that have died in Afghanistan.
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The Minneapolis Star Tribune has come out strongly against the escalation of the war in Afghanistan, asking for a focus on Afghan training and follow the advice of Ambassador Eikenberry to focus on rebuilding the nation's civilian infrastructure. The Star Tribune, is of course, a small paper, but I've noticed over the past few months that every few days a different local paper comes out against the war. I don't have the time to go back and find each one, but from now one, as the editorials are published, I am posting them to the right hand corner of this page, under the anti-war articles by influential journalists. As far as I know, there is no central depository of all the editorials from newspapers that have come out against the war. Finally, just to clarify, this list will represent editorial board pieces, not editorials from individuals. Were that the case, the list would be too long to post.

War Notes: November 21, 2009

2009-11-21T19:48:00.000-05:00

Senator Carl Levin (D-Michigan) has proposed that the increased cost of the troop increases be paid by the wealthy. Levin proposes an upper bracket tax for those making more than $250,000 to shoulder the bill, rather than plunging the country further into debt. I am with him- in fact, this whole war should be paid for by spending cuts or tax increases, rather than the black hole deficit spending that so often accompanies war. There is no reason to treat this tragically meandering war differently than our disastrous healthcare system, yet in the case of the latter, the crocodile tears for the federal deficit have already stripped healthcare reform measures of their teeth.

"It's a sickness. Everybody is doing it." A local merchant thus described the corruption scene in Afghanistan. The LA Times has a great piece exploring how the culture of bribery affects people day to day. Did you know that the typical household has to spend about $100 on bribes just to get by? This goes to pay for things like business permits, police protection, and even passing high school exams. And $100 is no small chunk of change- more than half of Afghans survive on $1 a day or less. But I'm sure Karzai's "anti-corruption initiative" will fix all that.

The Associated Press takes on the corruption issue from a different angle. They tell the sad story of Khalid Khan, a road building entrepreneur kidnapped by Taliban-like criminals and held for a ransom sum that crippled his family. The story has a stinging depiction of the Chinese that Khan worked for, as well as the local government, and of course, the ruthless kidnappers, who may or may not be Taliban. A worthwhile read as well.

War Notes: November 20, 2009

2009-11-20T19:14:00.000-05:00

(I know the cartoon is about Iraq, but man, it was too good to pass up)

The military has apparently lifted it's Don't Ask Don't Tell policy. No, there has been no formal change, but when Bethany Smith, a lesbian soldier suffering from harassment over her sexuality ask for a discharge, she was sent to Afghanistan instead. The military's need for boots on the ground outweighed their treasured policy. Fearing for her safety after enduring threats from her fellow soldiers, Smith fled to Canada as a deserter. The Canadian court system is now determining whether or not to turn her over to the United States or accept her as a refugee. Smith said that she would fear for her life if she were returned to the military.

The Netherlands and Canada have scheduled their departures from Afghanistan. Netherlands will be peacing out next year, though Canada, with its relatively significant 2,800 troops, will stick around until 2011.

The friendly folks at the Associated Press, via the CIA World Handbook, thought fit to publish some statistics about Afghanistan today. It can't hurt to know:
Population: 28.4 million
Median Age: 17.6
Literacy: 28.1%
Life Expectancy: 44.6
Unemployment: 40%
Percentage living below poverty line: 53% (Not sure what this number means)
Ethnic composition: 42% Pashtun, 27% Tajik, 9% Hazara, 9% Uzbek, 13% other.
Religious compostion: 80% Sunni Muslim, 19% Shiite Muslim, 1% other.
Can you name the six countries that border Afghanistan? The answers are...
s Iran, Pakistan, China, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. If you knew all six, you are legit.

In the most depressing news of the day, the United Nations has ranked Afghanistan as the worst place on earth to be born. The report cites the endless war, the worst infant mortality rate in the world, the fact that only 30% of the country has access to clean drinking water and outbreaks of measles and polio as among the reasons for Afghanistan's ranking. For those who want to send more troops, just remember you are sending them to literally the worst place on earth. For those proud of all the good work we've done, just remember it's still the worst place on earth. For those who want to "rebuild" the country, the road ahead is long, when you are rebuilding the worst place on earth.

All of you have a great weekend!

McChrystal's Plan Would Leave Troop Levels Cashed

2009-11-19T10:28:00.001-05:00

Data from the U.S Army reveals that the U.S military is desperately short on available troops as it weighs whether or not to escalate in Afghanistan. The report shows that the U.S currently has 50,600 active military soldiers and 24,000 reservists who are not currently deployed abroad or at home on mandatory rest from their previous deployment. Should President Obama honor McChrystal's request to send 40,000 more troops to Afghanistan, particularly for an extended stay, he would either drop the number of available active duty soldiers in the United States to the low thousands, or he would deplete the National Guard to the point that many states would not be ready to handle local emergencies.

The Washington Independent should get tremendous credit for this story. It is obvious to anyone following the war in Afghanistan that our troops are hopelessly stretched, with many serving their third, fourth and fifth tours of duty. No one in the media is asking where the Obama administration plans to get these troops from, though some speculate that the recession will swell the new recruit numbers. Additionally, the Obama administration has talked about using the withdrawal from Iraq to provide troops to Afghanistan. However, that withdrawal is going slowly, and many of the soldiers coming back from Iraq will need to rest in the U.S before redeployment.

As much as right-wingers love to clamor about "America's security", does it not seem absolutely reckless to leave the United States with such few soldiers on its home soil? One final solution that came to mind was closing military bases around the world to provide soldiers for Afghanistan. I have not seen this idea posited by the administration, but it would be a nice silver lining to a troop surge.

China, Copper and Corruption in Afghanistan

2009-11-19T09:13:00.000-05:00

When the Afghan and Chinese government get together, you know something shady is probably going down. This morning, the Associated Press broke the news that Afghan Minister of Mines Muhammed Ibrahim Adel accepted $20 million in bribes from the Chinese government to award the lucrative Aynak Valley copper mining contract to China in 2007. The sources were American officials familiar with intelligence reports placing the transaction as going down in Dubai. The Chinese had beaten out fourteen international mining companies, including bids from the United States, Canada and India.

The China Metallurgical Group had spent $3 billion to acquire a 30-year lease to Aynak copper mines, which are said to hold 240 million tons of copper. The copper depository may be the second largest in the world, only to a mine in Peru that is also operated by the Chinese. The mines are said to hold over $40 billion worth of copper, with some projections as high as $88 billion. Nevertheless, the Afghan government was happy to sell low, even kickbacks aside. The mining is promising to create thousands of jobs for years to come, and we all know how great mining jobs are. China's notorious record of mineral development in Africa is a cause for concern, as a massive mining project will undoubtadly lead to environmental problems. The area is home to 90,000 people and Kabul's main water supply.

While corruption and environmental concerns are unlikely to hold up the project, security issues certainly could. Earlier this year, the U.S deployed 2,000 troops to protect a road into the Aynak Valley that China is paving. Afghanistan is also home a large supply of oil, natural gas, and assorted minerals, so this project could likely serve as a blueprint for future foreign investment, with the United States paying billions of dollars to protect the investment interests of China and Russia. At least in the good old imperialistic days, we would have been protecting our own Big Oil companies.

War Notes: November 18, 2009

2009-11-18T17:07:00.000-05:00

Transparency International, a German-based anti-corruption monitor, has declared Afghanistan the second most corrupt nation on Earth in its new rankings. The agency said major factors included rampant bribery for everything from basic services to high positions in government, along with Afghanistan's skyrocketing opium trade. The survey evaluated 180 countries, and placed Afghanistan 179th, just ahead of Somalia, down from 176th a year ago. Incidentally, the 176th place spot is now occupied by Iraq.

Despite widespread public opposition in both countries, Germany and the U.K will continue to provide military support to the war in Afghanistan. Chancellor Merkel will commit Germany's 4000 soldier force for at least another year. Notably, the leading German opposition party also supports keeping troops in Afghanistan to fulfill its international obligation, so this policy is unlikely to change soon. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Brown is defying 70% of of the British population, especially his Labor base, in not only committing Britain's 9000 troops for another year, but pledging the addition of 500 more soldiers. Easily the second most active NATO member in this war, Britain has paid the price with 97 deaths in Afghanistan in 2009 alone.

In an alternatingly tragic and enlightening poll, Afghans rated much of the last 20 years as significantly worse than the present. Of those polled, 38% named the Communist era as the worst in the nation's history, 33% cited the period of Taliban rule, 22% named the preceding civil war, and only 3% identified the present as the worst period of Afghan history. The numbers reveal what an awful history the Afghan people have endured, and reminds us that more than an entire generation has been born and raised in the backdrop of endless war. When asked why the present war was prolonging, 70% cited poverty and unemployment as a major factor. Indeed, the strength of the Taliban lies largely in their ability to deliver an $8 a day paycheck. A further 48% cited corruption as a major factor, while neither the Taliban (36%) nor NATO occupation (18%) were considered chiefly responsible for the continuation of the war. While we are pouring over poll numbers, a Quinnepiac poll shows only 48% of Americans feel continuing the war is the right thing to do, so anti-war protesters out there, know you are not alone.

Cast of The Wire Reunited in Afghanistan

2009-11-17T11:50:00.000-05:00

No, not actually. But it was with some amusement this morning that I read about President Karzai's "Saul of Tarsus" moment, when he discovered his opposition to corruption:

"President Hamid Karzai, after being re-elected for another five years, has dedicated his five years to fighting corruption," Interior Minister Hanif Atmar told a news conference.

Working under the country's Attorney General, there will be a new "Major Crimes Unit" that will tackle corruption and other major crimes among public officials. No matter how much money we pour into Afghanistan, there can be no better investment than bringing back the Major Crimes Unit from The Wire, perhaps the savviest police crew in modern memory. They would undoubtedly be reluctant at first, but as always, they could be persuaded by their stoic leader, Cedric Daniels (pictured center).

Walid Karzai and his warlords have had their way thus far, raking in drug money and spending it on guns to take out their rivals, but this is nothing our crew from Baltimore hasn't seen before. After all, these Afghans can't be tougher than the Barksdales and Marlo Stanfield. And the Justice Department, as we all know, will green-light just about any wiretap, even under new management.

You might argue that the Major Crimes Unit from Baltimore will lack effectiveness in Afghanistan, largely because they are fictional. I would counter, however, that a President Karzai-appointed Major Crimes Unit will be largely fictional anyway.

Plus, you know you've been dying for Season Six anyway.

Rejecting The "Training Afghans" Meme

2009-11-17T11:15:00.000-05:00

One of the central tenets of the Obama administration strategy, whether or not they go forward with the surge, is to accelerate the training of Afghan soldiers and policemen, so that they can fight the war against the Taliban for themselves. It's like the "Vietnamization" of Afghanistan.

Unfortunately, Time reports, things might not be going as smoothly as administration numbers suggest. The administration has recently been claiming that 94,000 Afghans trained to fight in the Afghan National Army (ANA). That number is misleading for several reasons. First, only half are "combat ready" by the U.S's own definition. Second, even those who are "combat ready" are only ready to fight alongside NATO leadership. They have certainly not proven their ability to engage the Taliban in combat on their own. Finally, the ANA currently has a desertion rate of 20%. Sometimes the desertions are dramatic and tragic, such as last month, when Taliban infiltrators at the police department killed an American soldier, but a 20% drop-out rate is pretty demoralizing, considering Afghanistan's vast unemployment problems.

We have seen this movie before, of course, most recently in Iraq, where the number of trained Iraqi soldiers was constantly inflated. The difference here is that training the soldiers presents a far greater logistical challenge. The largely illiterate Afghan population is extremely difficult to train. The military can't hand out manuals, so the training has to be oral, and that through a translator. Accelerating training will require more capable translators, somehow finding more military recruits (despite the high existing desertion rate) and accepting the added security risk that comes with shoddier training and more entry points for Taliban infiltrators. Good luck with that plan.

California Leads The Way

2009-11-16T17:52:00.000-05:00

The California Democratic Party overwhelming passed a resolution calling on President Obama to "End the U.S Occupation and Air War in Afghanistan." The resolution calls on the administration to:
1. Withdraw military personnel
2. End the use of military contractors
3. End the use of air strikes that cause heavy civilian casualties
4. Support multi-party talks in Afghanistan
5. Redirect funding to increase humanitarian and developmental aid

While the chances of the Obama administration adopting these demands in the near future hovers around zero, the California Democratic Party has taken a much needed step in organized opposition to the war. All state Democratic Parties should pass similar resolutions, even if they are more guardedly worded. The audience is two-fold. First, incumbent Democrats should get the message that their constituents oppose the reckless continuation of this war. Second, President Obama should get the message that if he wants to continue, let alone escalate this war, he is going to have to do so with Republican, not Democratic votes. And those Republican votes won't come cheap, I can promise you that.

Here is New York, most of our Congressional reps have been pretty strong on war and peace issues, particularly Brooklyn reps near my neighborhood (Clark and Townes). If the New York Democratic Party could join California, the idea could really gain steam as a national movement. This issue will be messy enough in the 2010 elections, as it will divide Democrats in the primaries, and make mobilizing behind certain incumbents difficult in the general. The key, however, is to get Barack Obama thinking clearly about this before 2012, because he does not want to head into his re-election with the base as pissed at him about this as they are not. I don't even want to think about how mad the base is going to get should he follow through on the 40,000 troop escalation.

The Mother Who Wouldn't Deploy

2009-11-16T17:33:00.000-05:00

This story broke over the weekend: Alexis Hutchinson was arrested on criminal charges and lost custody of her 11-month old son, Kamani, for refusing to deploy to Afghanistan on November 15th. Hutchinson, who is 21 years old, had originally planned to leave her son with her mother during her deployment, but her mother, overwhelmed with taking care of other ailing family members, soon notified Hutchinson that she would not be able to take care of Kamani. Hutchinson was then unable to find a relative to leave her son with before her mandated deadline of November 15.

Rather than abandon her son, Hutchinson, a cook, refused to report for duty on that day. After being arrested, the military took her son and placed him in foster care. Thankfully, her mother flew from California to Georgia to rescue the child from foster care, for the time being. The military is holding Hutchinson in custody while they "investigate the case." While it appears conceivable that this was simply a miscommunication between Hutchinson and her commanders, the right thing to do would be to release her immediately, as the conduct the investigation. Hutchinson's son is an infant, and should be with her mother until the military figures out the best way to send his mother to a combat zone thousands of miles away.

War Notes: November 16, 2009

2009-11-15T22:26:00.000-05:00

Troop morale in Afghanistan has sunk to an all-time low, according to an Army study. Only 5.7% of soldiers polled described their units as having "high morale", down from 10.2% two years ago. The study reasonably attributed the decline in morale to soldiers suffering from the anxiety of their third, four and fifth tours of duty, and noted that the Fort Hood killing were likely to lead to more long-term morale problems.
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In 2010, the cost of the war in Afghanistan is expected to surpass the cost of the war in Iraq for the first time since the latter began. If the Obama administration is able to execute its partial withdrawal strategy in Iraq, the 2010 costs of that war would drop from $86,500,000,000 to $61,000,000,000, while the cost of the war in Afghanistan is expected to rise from $47,000,000,000 to $64,500,000,000. It is important to note that these numbers do not include a possible escalation in troops, which the administration has admitted may cost as much as $40,000,000,000 more. No surprise that many members of the Democratic Caucus are suggesting that they will vote against funding such an escalation.
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The people of ("Old") York rallied behind Corporal Joe Glenton of the British military, who is charged with disobeying orders after leading an anti-war march last month. Glenton made waves in Britain by going AWOL for over two years after declaring the war in Afghanistan immoral and illegal in 2007. He turned himself in earlier this year, and has been very active in the anti-war movement at home. The U.S military has seen similar stories of soldiers refusing to serve, including one tragic story I'll be writing about tomorrow, but no individual soldier refusing to serve as caused an equivalent stir to Glenton over here.

"But we have to do something..."

2009-11-14T18:02:00.000-05:00

War Notes: November 14, 2009

2009-11-14T14:19:00.000-05:00

To the simplistic Washington creature, all victory in Afghanistan takes is a tougher president who will bomb harder and send more soldiers into battle. But those on the ground in Afghanistan have long advocated a more nuanced approach to victory, especially tempering expectations of what that victory might mean. In recent days, they finally are having their voices heard, in the guise of leaked memos and resignation letters.
Instead of a jingoistic approach to "winning" militarily, we should follow the lead of Ambassador Eikenberry and others in winning the trust of the Afghan people through non-military measures. Eikenberry should have his $2.5 billion request for non-mililtary infrastructure development granted. As the former commander of the U.S forces on the ground, his word should carry at least as much weight as McChrystal's.
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We learned last week that we are paying the Taliban not to shoot at us as we transport supplies through remote areas of Afghanistan. Instead, we should follow the advice of people on the ground and create a permanent security unit that will accompany military suppliers. Surely such a unit would be able to fend off insurgent attacks. If it cannot, then we should really consider the viability of any military victory. To continue to fund our enemies on a daily basis will lead us to ruin.
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The British government, according to leaked memos, is reevaluating which members of the Taliban are enemies. The memo suggests that Karzai target disillusioned young Taliban fighters and integrate them into the Afghan military. That would be followed by winning over select regional warlords affiliated with the Taliban. The article describing the memos provided scant suggestions on how this would actually work, but Prime Minister Gordon Brown is apparently quite certain that Karzai needs to begin some form of negotiating with some elements of the Taliban. Frankly, I don't know what either side brings to the table. At this point, the entire Afghan economy is centered around drugs and war. Maybe we should just offer young Taliban fighters $9 a day not to fight, a dollar more than their Taliban salary. Since there are only 25,000 or so insurgent fighters, we could buy off all the non-ideological insurgents for $200,000 a day, which is the approximate cost of paying one for one additional American soldier to serve for four months in Afganistan.
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Apparently concerned that their new Kabul-based beat reporter, Alyssa Rubin, is providing too real an account of conditions in Afghanistan, the New York Times commissioned a warm and fuzzy piece to run on Friday. The article covered a small village that has given up war for clean drinking water and schools, funding by microgrants that are handed directly to the village, rather than through the corrupt central government. I'm all for grants like this one. Even in praising the progress in the village, however, the article relays the teeth-pulling involved to get the village support for a girls school. Programs like this should be emulated, but since they explicitly circumvent the Karzai government, questions remain unanswered on what role we'd prefer the central government to play in Afghanistan.

How We Pay The Taliban Not To Shoot At Us

2009-11-12T21:39:00.000-05:00

In a dark and twisted revelation straight out of Joseph Heller's Catch-22, we now learn that the U.S military is currently paying millions of dollars a year to the Taliban and local warlords so that they don't shoot at the convoys we are using to supply our soldiers so we can shoot at them.

It's all pretty simple, really. First, we contract out all of our supply deliveries and impose rules preventing the supply delivery companies from arming themselves. In turn, the supply companies need to hire security escorts as they travel through Afghanistan, which they subcontract out, driving up the overall price of contracting. They then subcontract to Afghan security companies, which are run by shady relatives of the Karzai administration, who do one of two things. They could actually provide security to the supply convoys, but that is really tough, since they are only allowed to carry AK-47s, which do little in the face of rocket-propelled grenades.

Thus, the security firms end up paying local warlords and Taliban fighters fees in exchange for safe passage. The fees themselves are not staggering compared to other war costs- one truck can usually buy passage through a warlord's zone for about $1,600 (the cost of transporting four gallons of gas). But that money goes a long way in funding the Taliban. In fact, conservative estimates suggest that at least 10% of security transport money goes directly into the hands of the Taliban or other insurgents.

For the Taliban, this is a golden pipeline. Literally as long as the war continues, they will have a source of revenue. Arom Roston's article for The Nation focuses primarily on the Afghan security companies themselves, which took in $2.2 billion dollars last year from the Pentagon. For perspective, that is about 10% of Afghanistan's GDP, and roughly equal to Ambassador Eikenberry's rejected requested for non-military reconstruction aid. One of the main security firms, Watan Risk Management, is run by a pair of Afghan brothers convicted of heroin smuggling in the United States in the 1990s.

This site has listed the many reasons why the war in Afghanistan is wrong, and several reasons why it is unwinnable. This may be the most damning piece of evidence I've come across yet. Only someone with a dark, fatalistic humor would order the continuation, let alone, escalation, of a war in which supplying our own soldiers financially enables our enemies.

That's how you buy eggs for 7 cents in Malta, sell them in the mess halls for 5 and still make a profit.

Americans Solid In Opposition

2009-11-12T10:50:00.001-05:00

Here's a number you'd like to hear more in discussions about the war: 56% of Americans oppose the escalation of troops. Maybe that's because real Americans, unlike the Washington beltway crowd, actually deals with the reality of having people they know serve overseas (the exception, Vice President Biden, generally opposes escalation himself). The CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Poll also showed that only 40% of Americans currently support the war. It's too bad only the "fringe left" in the political system can hear the clamor of the American people.

This "Hand-picked General" Opposes Escalation

2009-11-12T10:32:00.000-05:00

While we hear a lot about Obama needing to heed to General McChrystal's wishes, since he is Obama's "hand-picked general", it turns out another important general has a different perspective. Retired four-star general Karl Eikenberry, currently serving as U.S Ambassador to Afghanistan, recently sent two private cables to the White House imploring them not to escalate the number of troops on the ground.

Eikenberry warned Obama of President Karzai's "erratic behavior", and questioned his ability to root corruption out of his government. The Ambassador also expressed frustration over the Obama administration's lack of non-military financial support. Eikenberry asked the administration to set aside $2.5 billion on non-military development in 2010, but his request has apparently not even been formally addressed yet. So whenever any of you tout the argument that we should be in Afghanistan, as long as we're focusing on building up the country, please remember, President Obama does not care about that. Whether or not we should be spending billions to build a country from scratch is a whole separate debate, but it's one that the Obama administration probably isn't even interested in having.

Finally, Eikenberry, who served as commander of U.S forces in Afghanistan from 06-07, and was in charge of the Afghan military training program prior to that, wrote in his cables that sending thousands of new U.S troops would "increase the Afghan government's dependence on U.S. support at a time when its own security forces should be taking on more responsibility for fighting." I hope the media really picks up on this guy, and puts him head to head with McChrystal. They are two different men with two different assignments, but they have equal credibility in this debate.

Happy Armistice Day

2009-11-11T12:50:00.001-05:00

Canadian soldier George Lawrence Prince was killed in battle at 10:58am, 11/11/1918, when Allied forces waited until 11am to declare the end of the Great War. For some, peace cannot come a minute too soon.

Obama unsatisfied with McChrystal plan?

2009-11-11T12:26:00.000-05:00

It's hard to know what to believe anymore. Two days after CBS News and other sources confirmed the Obama administration's internal decision to go forward with 40,000 troops, the New York Times reports that President Obama, Vice-President Biden and Chief of Staff Emanuel remain unconvinced. If the anti-war movement could pick any three people to be unconvinced, those three would probably go 1, 2 and 4 in the draft (we'd take Gates over Biden, but that's wishful thinking).

Apparently, Obama's main gripe is that he doesn't see how bringing in more soldiers will solve the problem of an incompetent, corrupt and uncooperative Afghan government. The bad news is that Obama is weighing four different strategies that at the minimum add 20,000 new troops, so it's not like he's allowing presentations by Rethink Afghanistan. We'll continue to update these rumors, even if they are just the product of skitish news rooms who want Obama to stop dithering so they can have something to write about.

Nevermind- 40 is the new 34!

2009-11-09T19:15:00.001-05:00

So much for my speculative post from earlier today. CBS News has just reported that President Obama will probably deliver General McChrystal substantially all of the 40,000 troops that constitute his "medium-risk" assessment. As I wrote earlier today, these troops will probably not fully arrive until the end of 2010. A proud day for the Nobel Peace Prize winner.

34K is the new Magic Number

2009-11-09T15:32:00.000-05:00

It amuses me that Republicans accuse Obama of "dithering" just because he and his cabinet have spent 2o hours (gasp!) in meetings evaluating war strategy. Anyone who has worked, well, anywhere, knows that 20 hours is about the number of hours you put into a hackneyed marketing campaign, let alone an escalating war across the globe.

Now the Obama administration has come up with 34,000 troops as the likely number of new troops sent to Afghanistan. This number represents a "medium-level risk" according to General McChrystal, who has comfortably positioned himself to take the credit for success if this plan works, but say "I told you so" if it fails.

The 34,000-figure seems to have the support of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, that wilely "swing voter" within the Obama team, which may be enough to convince Obama, according to the New York Times. Always good to know that after we all worked so hard to get President Obama and a Democratic Congress elected, the deciding vote on healthcare is held by Olympia Snowe and the deciding vote on the war is held by a Bush appointee.

A total of 23,000 soldiers from the Army and Marines will be sent bolster combat numbers, 7,000 will be sent to support a base in Kandahar, and 4,000 will be sent to train the Afghan military and police. One administration official explained why the decision, which seems to be a done deal internally, may take a while to roll out:

"Another reason for the president to hold off for a bit on ordering more troops to Afghanistan is that we can tell Karzai that if he doesn't act firmly now, there won't be any support for a troop increase. That has the added advantage of being true, and it's easier to hold off on sending more troops than it is to threaten to pull them out once they're there." Afghan officials have suggested that the Obama gave the Karzai administration a six-month deadline to start making serious reforms, but it is doubtful he will wait that long to start sending the new troops. Even if he signs off on the troop increase now, the 34,000 will probably not all be in place until the end of 2010.

Charting the political timeline- it seems that Obama will be able to brush off anti-war critics by claiming that we need to wait until all the troops arrive before we can really admit that the war in Afghanistan has failed. Meanwhile, Republicans will have difficulty critisizing Obama for not doing enough in Afghanistan in the lead up to the 2010 midterm elections, as by then he will have over 100,000 American boots on the ground. Then, if the war is still going really poorly, Obama can start drawing down before the 2012 election. So it goes.

The Other Costs of War

2009-11-09T14:50:00.000-05:00

We'll start off with an excerpt from the late, great George Carlin:

I don't like words that hide the truth. I don't words that conceal reality. I don't like euphemisms, or euphemistic language. And American English is loaded with euphemisms. Cause Americans have a lot of trouble dealing with reality. Americans have trouble facing the truth, so they invent the kind of a soft language to protest themselves from it, and it gets worse with every generation. For some reason, it just keeps getting worse. I'll give you an example of that. There's a condition in combat. Most people know about it. It's when a fighting person's nervous system has been stressed to it's absolute peak and maximum. Can't take anymore input. The nervous system has either (click) snapped or is about to snap. In the first world war, that condition was called shell shock. Simple, honest, direct language. Two syllables, shell shock. Almost sounds like the guns themselves. That was seventy years ago. Then a whole generation went by and the second world war came along and very same combat condition was called battle fatigue. Four syllables now. Takes a little longer to say. Doesn't seem to hurt as much. Fatigue is a nicer word than shock. Shell shock! Battle fatigue. Then we had the war in Korea, 1950. Madison avenue was riding high by that time, and the very same combat condition was called operational exhaustion. Hey, were up to eight syllables now! And the humanity has been squeezed completely out of the phrase. It's totally sterile now. Operational exhaustion. Sounds like something that might happen to your car. Then of course, came the war in Viet Nam, which has only been over for about sixteen or seventeen years, and thanks to the lies and deceits surrounding that war, I guess it's no surprise that the very same condition was called post-traumatic stress disorder. Still eight syllables, but we've added a hyphen! And the pain is completely buried under jargon. Post-traumatic stress disorder. I'll bet you if we'd of still been calling it shell shock, some of those Viet Nam veterans might have gotten the attention they needed at the time. I'll betcha. I'll betcha.

And that's how the term PTSD was born. The New York Times Week In Review covers the issue with respect to the Fort Hood killer, Major Nidal Hasan, as well as veterans returning from our two current wars. Below I have included some statistics on shell-shock from an article in the Philadephia Mental Health Examiner:

1. The U.S Department of Veterans Affairs reports that 6-11% of Afghanistan war veterans and 12-20% of Iraq war veterans suffer from shell-shock.

2. These numbers increase upon redeployment. As we have seen in DailyKos tribute posts, many soldiers today serve anywhere from three to five tours of duty. For those serving three deployments, the rate of shell-shock is 12-27%.

3. Veterans suffering from shell-shock are four times more likely to report suicidal thoughts than veterans not suffering from the condition.

4. Since the War on Terror began, there have been almost 700 suicides among active military personnel, double the rate of previous decades.

5. Fort Hood, the site of the ghastly shooting spree, has lost over 75 soldiers to suicide since the War on Terror began, including ten this year (second to Fort Campbell, which has lost 16 soldiers to suicide in 2009).

War Notes: November 9, 2009

2009-11-09T13:30:00.000-05:00

Richard Holbrooke On The Way Out?
Falling short of his life-long goal of becoming the U.S Secretary of State, special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke seems to have worn out his welcome. Holbrooke was criticized for his constant absence from Afghanistan in recent months, most notably when Senator Kerry had to be sent in to convince Hamid Karzai to participate in the run-off election, which, of course, did not happen. Holbrooke apparently has a very strained relationship with President Karzai, and their last conversation together ended in a shouting match. Insofar as Holbrooke's envoy position seems to have been a consolation prize, it will probably fade to black once Holbrooke resigns.

Name That Warlord!
Investigative reporter Gareth Porter sheds some light on who exactly the Obama and Brown administrations are referring to when they demand that President Karzai root out corruption. General McChrystal and others have specifically urged Karzai to crack down on his brother, drug-lord Ahmed Wali Karzai, former defence minister Muhammad Qasim Fahim and Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum. The odds of him cracking down on his own brother, especially when he's on the CIA payroll, is close to zero. The article also describes the disappointment of U.S officials over the "Compact on Afghanistan", a series of benchmarks for progress on human rights, anti-corruption measures and the rule of law that Karzai agreed to in 2006. Apparently Karzai has not only failed on most of his pledges, but his government is now achieving sub-2006 levels for many of these measurements.

Can Someone Define Impartiality?
In something of a bizarre rebuttal to demands from U.N envoy to Afghanistan, Kai Eide, that the Karzai administration crack down on corruption, Afghanistan's Foreign Minister declared that Eide "exceeded his authority as a representative of an impartial international organization." Apparently, the Afghan government does not believe that an impartial organization has the right to critisize, because doing so would violate its impartiality. All of this is particularly ironic given the accusations that have been levied against Eide for weeks of his partiality for Hamid Karzai during the election process.

Not So Fast- Brits Not Leaving Any Time Soon
Despite bold words from Prime Minister Gordon Brown in recent weeks, including a warning that President Karzai will "forfeit the right to international support" if he doesn't crack down on corruption, his own Ministry of Defence isn't getting ready for withdrawal any time soon. An internal document revealed an "assumption of a rolling three-year military commitment to Afghanistan." Interestingly, the document describes the need for military success in order to "secure the reputation and long-term future of the armed forces." At least they have revealed the obvious, that at this point the war in Afghanistan is being conducted largely as a matter of pride and saving face rather than for strategically sound reasons.

Out of Commission

2009-11-09T11:04:00.001-05:00

Folks, sorry for not posting over the last few days. I've been extremely unwell. But it's time to put the rally cap on, and hopefully Out of Afghanistan will be up and running again by the afternoon.

War Notes: November 5, 2009

2009-11-05T17:41:00.000-05:00

Major Jim Gant, a Green Beret decorated with a Silver Star for his service in Iraq, has published a 50-page manual, One Tribe at a Time. The radical, but perhaps brilliant hypothesis calls for U.S soldiers to embed themselves with Pashtun tribes that are hostile to both Karzai and the Taliban, and win them over. There are several obvious problems that come to mind, some of which Gant readily admits. First, embedding small units with remote tribes exposes them to danger, without hope of back-up. There will be casualties, some of them gruesome. Second, where does he expect to find soldiers who will live amongst these tribes for years at a time, as he proposes? I don't doubt that he would do so, but the assignment is about unenviable as it gets for a soldier on a government salary, away from his family. I will read the manual and give my analysis in a full post.

Apparently, the Pentagon is just not good at handling the funds. Reuters reports that despite the record-breaking $680 billion defense budget and the $130 billion supplement for Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon will need more money to fight the war in Afghanistan, and may ask Congress for an Emergency Supplement. The Pentagon is currently basing its need on a cost of $500,000 per soldier, which their spokesman called, "an extraordinarily rough guess." These people make your head spin. Stir the blood. No other agency or corporation would be permitted to blow a tenth of this money without serious repercussions.

Following the death of another British soldier, the 35% of all Brits now support an immediate withdrawal. A substantial majority have favored a gradual withdrawal for some time now, but the immediate withdrawal numbers are up 10% from just two weeks ago.

Quote Of The Day: Recent insurgent attacks in Afghanistan "probably show that Obama's policies are working well enough that caused the enemy to strike harder because they are losing."
Washington Think Tanker, Thomas Sanderson

War Notes: November 4, 2009

2009-11-04T19:15:00.000-05:00

Abdullah Abdullah brought closure to the 2009 Afghan presidential campaign, saying that despite the fraudulent August 20th election, "The process has completed itself with that final, illegal decision." Abdullah questioned Karzai's ability to lead the country, but sounded as if he would fade into the background in the coming months. If things get worse, cue his "I told you so" entrance."

In its continuing efforts to sound tough, Reuters reports that the United States is looking for Karzai to "arrest and prosecute corrupt government officials." The article itself does not attribute such a quote to anyone- it rather appears as an editorial lede. Indeed, there is a difference between forming an anti-corruption commission, which will be a farce, and actually prosecuting people. Given the corruption of the Afghan judicial system itself, and the tenuous grip Karzai has on the country, anydog and pony corruption prosecution to please Americans would undoubtadly target someone of minimal importance.

Russia is joining the war effort- by selling helicoptors for a profit to NATO forces. The website Defence Talk reports, "During its operations in Afghanistan, the alliance has faced an acute shortage of helicoptors. In Afghanistan's extremely harsh conditions, helicoptors often break down and need replacements even in non-combat situations." Is it really too much to ask for our $680,000,000,000 Pentagon budget to produce helicoptors we can use in combat, let alone, non-combat situations? Now we have to buy them from the Russians, the very people NATO was formed to create a security alliance against. This article makes the interesting observation that despite its regional interest in the conflict, Russia has largely been sitting on the sidelines. Should the Taliban, or a generally non-western group come to power, Russia wants to be able to tell them, "Look, we were just trying to make a quick buck selling helicoptors. You can work with us..." Then of course, there is the final irony that we are buying Russian helicoptors for their effectiveness after spending the 80s supplying the future Taliban with the surface to air rockets capable of taking their helicoptors down. And the beat goes on...

War Notes: November 3, 2009

2009-11-04T00:26:00.000-05:00

It has been hard to find news in recent days, as papers and news channels tout the obvious. I refuse to characterize Obama's request for Karzai to shape up as "news". If he wasn't asking Karzai to clean up before, there would be something seriously wrong. Here are a couple of today's "stories":

Pull The Plug On Afghanistan: KT McFarland declares that there is no logic to the war in Afghanistan. We drove Al Qaeda out of the country long ago, we now have no clear mission, Karzai is an unworkable partner, and we should be focusing on the mess in Pakistan. What makes this article interesting is that it is penned by a right-wing hack over at Fox News. Is Fox floating a trial balloon to see if its viewers are ready to abandon the war. No doubt their incentive is to bludgeon Obama, rather than any principle, but I suppose you take your allies where you can find them.

A Reformed Man: Blindsided by the non-election, the Obama administration is frantically generating a laundry list of ways Karzai can be less corrupt. They include forming an anti-corruption commission, which I'm sure will not be a corrupt collection of Karzai-appointees, merit-based appointments to administrative posts (ditto) and giving more authority to local leaders. Wait, what? Brutal local warlords seem to already have all the power they need and deserve. Karzai lording power of them doesn't seem to be the problem. Along those lines, the Obama administration wants to open up communication with the oxymoronic "moderate Taliban." Karzai has insisted on this before. I say go for it, what do we have to lose? These are probably loathsome people who we want nothing to do with, but if they can slow the bloodshed, we'll take it. The administration wants Karzai to promise to make these reforms on national tv, so he cannot renege on them. Because politicians never renege on promises they make on national tv (Hi universal healthcare!).

Afghans Exasperated By Five More Years of Karzai: You thought we were tired of this guy? As Reuters discovers in a thoroughly depressing news dispatch, people just hate this guy and the culture of corruption that has permeated all levels of Afghan culture. Government worker Ahmad Nazeer summed it up best: "Karzai and his team of warlords are not obviously the best choice, but we don't have an option at this time." The people of Afghanistan don't have much of a choice, but we do. Pull the hell out. Afghanistan is currently the 176th most corrupt nation in the world (out of 180). What do we really think we can accomplish there?

McChrystal Light

2009-11-02T18:18:00.000-05:00

According to those good old anonymous "U.S officials," President Obama is considering sending McChrystal more troops to pursue his dubious aims, though not as many as McChrystal has asked for. While usually an AP report without numbers or attributed sources wouldn't be much of a news story, the piece also claims that Defense Secretary Robert Gates, a George Bush appointee, is the swing vote on the decision within the Obama team. You know, just like Republican Senator Olympia Snowe is the swing vote on healthcare in the Democratic Senate.

Gates apparently does not like the Biden plan, but he also doesn't support a long, open-ended occupation. Like Obama, Gates seems to view splitting the baby as the best policy prescription. As much as I support the withdrawal of American troops from most parts of Afghanistan, I would prefer a massive escalation to a small one, which will only drag out the military conflict in its stalemate form. I imagine my more hawkish friends would agree with me that it's all in or all out at this point. Instead, what we will probably end up with is something like an additional 15,000 troops, the gross nutra-sweet taste of McChrystal Light. Finally, some food for thought for those who accuse Obama of dithering: he has already sent 21,000 additional troops to Afghanistan since taking office nine months ago. We don't have to ask if a surge will work, we already know it's not working.

Karzai Formally Declared Winner of 2009 Election

2009-11-02T08:45:00.001-05:00

Azizullah Lodin, the very person whose continued leadership of the Election Commission drove Abdullah Abdullah from the election run-off, formally declared Hamid Karzai the winner of the Afghan presidential elections. David Axelrod, Obama's faithful spinmeister, downplayed Abdullah's withdrawal by suggesting that polling showed Karzai way up anyway. They're going to have to do better than that, but it's only the morning after...
As for the many Afghans who did in fact vote for Karzai the first time, we'll see if this is like the 2004 American election, where voters woke up a month later to realize they had made a terrible mistake. We'll see you all at the polls in 2014...

War Notes: November 1, 2009

2009-11-01T21:10:00.001-05:00

Over 1,000 U.S soldiers have been injured during combat in the last three months fighting in Afghanistan. That is a quarter of all troops injured since the 2001 invasion, representing a massive spike. The military has attributed the high injury rate to increased military operations since the surge began earlier this year, and the increased insurgent use of roadside bombs.

It seems logical that in the aftermath of Abdullah's withdrawal, the presidential run-off election will be canceled. The only thing that could make this fiasco worse would be to actually go forward with the election and deliver Karzai a farcical 95% or 100% victory. Meanwhile, Peter Gailbraith, the whistleblowing U.N official who exposed the U.N's complicity in Karzai's election fraud, reports the following:
[Gailbraith] said that UN workers overseeing the latest poll run-off had contacted him in recent days to say that nothing had changed and that the second-round vote will again involve fraud on a grand scale.
"It's a sure thing,"Mr Galbraith said. "It is beyond blatant. This is in your face. It has become clear that Karzai has no intention of instituting reforms. He simply intends to repeat the same fraud. It is the same exercise as before."
Reuters is reporting, in contrast, that the Karzai team is pushing to ahead with the election. We will report on the final decision, which presumably should come soon.

In this Sunday's Week in Review, New York Times writer Alissa Rubin offers words of caution for those who look to stability in Iraq as a model for Afghanistan. Rubin spent years in Iraq covering the war, and is now being deployed to Afghanistan. She warns that the surge has not been as successful as advertised, with enormous ethnic tensions simmering below (or above the surface):
So the lesson I take away is never to underestimate hatred or history or the complexity of alien places...Terrible things happened in Iraq over the last six years, and I go to Afghanistan feeling that we owe it to everyone who has died in Iraq — Iraqi and American — not to forget, not to gloss over, not to think in terms of success and failure, or victory and defeat, but to see as best we can, through a glass darkly.

Abdullah says "peace out" to run-off elections

2009-10-31T15:46:00.001-04:00

Abdullah Abdullah has withdrawn from the November 7 run-off election against President Hamid Karzai after Karzai refused to fire the top election official who oversaw the August 20th voter fraud debacle. While the canceled election deeply undermines Hamid Karzai, it also saves the world the trouble of watching another violent, fraudulent and low turn-out contest.

While Senator John Kerry was being widely praised for recently convincing President Hamid Karzai to enter the run-off election, as Karzai was legally required to do, some started wondering, 'If Karzai cheated the first time, won't he just do it again, especially when the U.N is sending fewer election monitors?'

That question certainly crossed Abdullah's mind. Several days ago, Abdullah submitted his list of demands. Abdullah demanded the firing of Azizullah Lodin, the head of the amusingly-titled Independent Election Commission, along with two hundred of his staffers. It was a demand that Karzai was sure to reject, and frankly, it would have been incredibly difficult to replace two hundred election officials in less than two weeks and have any confidence that they would not be corrupt themselves. That is why Abdullah added a caveat that if his supporters could monitor poll locations and vote counting, he would remain in the race.

"These conditions are not that difficult, and I have thought about the lawful and legal issues of all conditions," Abdullah said at the time, submitting his request to both the Election Commission and the U.N.
Needless to say, his conditions were not met. The Election Commission will provide more polling locations, the U.N will send fewer monitors, and there will thus be more opportunities for fraud.

It will be hard for the Obama administration to spin this as good news. Secretary Clinton responded, "We see that happen in our own country where, for whatever combination of reasons, one of the candidates decides not to go forward. I don't think it has anything to do with the legitimacy of the election." Well, it could be "whatever combination of reasons", but concern about widespread fraud by the incumbent seems like a solid one. This pull-out makes Senator Kerry's work seem not only wasteful, but actually harmful, as he made Karzai look weak among the local population without making him seem more credible in return.

There is some speculation that Abdullah threatened to boycott the election to get a power-sharing arrangement out of Karzai. That doesn't make a great deal of sense to me, as he's denied interest in power-sharing before, and has already served as foreign minister in the Karzai administration before quitting in 2005. It seems clear he doesn't want to work with the man.

Obama probably doesn't want to work with him either, but you go to war with the corrupt dictator you have, not the corrupt dictator you want to have. That's why you should think hard about not going to war.

War Notes: October 30, 2009

2009-10-30T13:03:00.001-04:00

New York Times columnist Nicolas Kristof makes the classic books not bombs argument, introducing evidence that new schools have managed to largely stay open despite the ongoing war:
Greg Mortenson, author of “Three Cups of Tea,” has now built 39 schools in Afghanistan and 92 in Pakistan — and not one has been burned down or closed. The aid organization CARE has 295 schools educating 50,000 girls in Afghanistan, and not a single one has been closed or burned by the Taliban. The Afghan Institute of Learning, another aid group, has 32 schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan, with none closed by the Taliban (although local communities have temporarily suspended three for security reasons).
Kristof couples these success stories with analysis comparing money spent on education in Bangladesh, where there are now more girls in school than boys, with military spending in Pakistan, which is still is still highly unstable and uneducated. It is unsurprising that Kristof does not favor a massive military escalation, but this article is an optimistic reminder of how we can help the Afghan people even if we begin to withdraw troops.

The photo is of Greg Mortenson with a group of schoolkids, from the website Hearts and Minds.
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Earlier this week, Taliban insurgents raided a U.N compound in the heart of Kabul, killing eight people, including six foreign workers. A DailyKos writers pays a touching tribute to two of his friends and co-workers who died in that attack, Jossie Esto and Lydia Wonyene. These two women, working for the U.N as volunteers, were there to help run the presidential elections, and between them, they leave seven children behind. The attack has reminded people on the ground that even Kabul is unstable at the moment, and foreign workers have been told not to leave their homes.
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President Obama recently visited Dover Airforce Base to pay respects to 18 slain soldiers returning from Afghanistan, and met with their families. You can see moving video clips and photos here.
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Ahmed Wali Karzai amusingly denies having any connections to the CIA or drug cartels. Seems like a guy we can take at his word.

Cost Confusion: U.S government fails Accounting 101

2009-10-30T12:33:00.000-04:00

NPR reports that no one has any idea how much money we are spending fighting the war in Afghanistan. Senator John Kerry, Chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, has put the tab at $243 billion. The Congressional Research Service has put the figure at $227 billion, while the Pentagon, not surprisingly, has argued it has only cost $156 billion (though these are the people who according to their own admission do not know how many contractors they have on the payroll).

The former Pentagon Chief Financial Officer, Dov Zakheim, suggests it's easier to measure by cost per soldier, which he pits at $1 million per year, on top of salary and existing inventory. Such a cost, accepted by the Obama administration, puts a price tag on the McChrystal plan at an additional $40 billion per year.

In calculating the true costs of the war, however, Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes point out that future costs, especially medical and mental health treatment for veterans, are never included in war budget planning. That is the basis of their book, the Three Trillion Dollar War, which is largely about cost overruns in Iraq. It is also unhelpful to our calculations that the Pentagon auditor was recently sacked for serial incompetence. As long as we are following the 'out of crisis comes opportunity' meme, we might as well use the combination of an aimless war and a recession to start asking harder questions about how we are tracking spending for this quarter-trillion dollar conflict.

The Karzais, Drugs and the CIA

2009-10-29T12:16:00.000-04:00

It was common knowledge to everyone on the ground in Afghanistan except for Senator John Kerry that Ahmed Wali Karzai, President Karzai's brother, heads a massive, lucrative opium trafficking operation. Kerry said he had asked U.S intelligence agencies "for the smoking gun", and had not gotten "the hard and fast" evidence. A few days ago we found out why: the CIA has been keeping Brother Karzai on their payroll since 2001, turning a blind eye to his criminal operations in exchange for helping local contribute paramilitary forces to the NATO effort and acting as a go-between with the Taliban. The CIA is not exactly a saintly organization, and having A.W Karzai cooperating with the U.S is probably quite helpful, especially during his brother's presidency. Yet this is another example of hypocricy from an administration that demands "accountability" and "reform" from the Karzai administration while openly paying off one of its most vice-ridden figures.

War Notes: October 28, 2009

2009-10-28T21:13:00.000-04:00

In a sad story revealing the far reaches of the war in Afghanistan, eight Afghan refugees drowned when their raft sank en route to Greece from Turkey. Local officials believe the boat may have been part of a "clandestine human trafficking ring." The untold thousands who flee Afghanistan and Iraq as war refugees are easy fodder for sex and labor traffickers.

Jose Ramos-Horta, the president of East Timor and winner of the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize, pens a piece advocating the commencement of negotiations with the Taliban. Though generally an optimist on the future of Afghanistan, Ramos-Horta is a realistic on the current situation: "The Taliban is strong enough to make Afghanistan ungovernable for the U.S. indefinitely. Yet the U.S. is strong enough to keep the Taliban from ever cementing its hold on the country if Washington wants to do so." Ramos-Horta invokes the other unsavory people we negotiate with now- "Kim Jong Il of North Korea, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, Omar al-Bashir of Sudan or the military junta in Burma." I am all for negotiations, because like Ramos-Horta, I believe the Taliban would gladly take power back in exchange for turning on Al-Qaeda. My only concern is whether what we consider 'The Taliban' really speaks with one voice.

The U.S military clashed with Afghan government officials over the fight against drug trafficking. Fed up with drug cartels that act with virtual impunity, NATO forces have been given lists of traffickers to capture or kill. The Afghan government is not pleased with this arrangement, as it undermines their fledgling justice system. Afghanistan's Deputy Interior Minister, Mohammad Daud Daud noted, "They should respect our law, our constitution and our legal codes. We have a commitment to arrest these people on our own." Former Interior Minister Ali Jalali, added, "There is a constitutional problem here. A person is innocent unless proven guilty. If you go off to kill or capture them, how do you prove that they are really guilty in terms of legal process?" These conundrums demonstrate the difficulty, if not impossibility, of fighting a dangerous enemy and trying to create a civil society from scratch in the same place at the same time.

U.S Official Resigns Over War in Afghanistan

2009-10-28T20:43:00.000-04:00

Matthew Hoh, a State Department officer who was serving as Senior Civilian Representative for the U.S government in Zabul Province, recently tendered his resignation in dramatic fashion.
His literary resignation letter (it includes the word "Pollyannaish") lays out many of the reasons against the continuation of the current Afghanistan War policy that we have written about here, including the corruption of the Karzai adminsitration, the lack of a clear military mission, and a combat strategy that allows the Taliban to turn locals against the United States, all at an enormous financial and human cost. Hoh scoffs at the announced goal of staying in Afghanistan to fight Al-Qaeda, a strategy which would "require us to additionally invade and occupy western Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, etc."

Hoh, despite his admission that he wants his "fifteen minutes to be up", is highly eloquent in rebutting false presumptions being used to continue the war in an online session in which he answered questions from Washington Post readers. There are too many good answers to cpoy and paste them all here, but in response to one hackneyed set of questions about remembering 9/11 and the rights of Afghan women, Hoh responds, "I disagree and I think it is emotional arguments like this that keep us tied to Afghanistan and to a policy that fuels the insurgency as well as adds credence to calls for global Islamic jihad." I recommend folks read the whole session.

Abdullah threatens to pull out of run-off

2009-10-27T15:54:00.001-04:00

Presidential contender Abdullah Abdullah, whose second name may be the result of a press conference misunderstanding, slammed the Karzai-appointed Election Commission, and said fair elections could not be held with out significant changes. Abdullah said that unless the chief of the Election Commission, Azizullah Lodin, is sacked, along with 200 of his staffers, and unless Abdullah supporters can observe polls and vote counting, he will boycott the November 7th election.

"These conditions are not that difficult, and I have thought about the lawful and legal issues of all conditions,"Abdullah told a press conference. Abdullah has submitted his complaints to the Election Commission and to the U.N, giving the bodies till the end of the month to find a way to meet his demands. The U.N had previously considered sending fewer poll monitors than last election, in which Karzai racked up over a million fraudulent votes.

It bears mentioning that Karzai's campaign team was found to have committed election fraud as well, though not on nearly the same scale. Abdullah's lack of participation in the run-off would completely undermine President Karzai, so look for the U.S and U.N to work quickly to hatch out a last minute election rescue plan.

Karzai points the finger at US

2009-10-27T15:39:00.001-04:00

After facing weeks of criticism that perhaps he is not the right partner for the United States, President Hamid Karzai struck back, questioning whether the United States was the right partner for Afghanistan.

In a rambling interview with CNN, Karzai asked, "Is the United States a reliable partner with Afghanistan? Is the West a reliable partner with Afghanistan? Have we received the commitments that we were given? Have we been treated like a partner?"

Karzai said a true partnership takes plan "where the Afghan lives are respected, where Afghan property is respected, where the Afghan traditions are respected, where we know the direction we are moving to."

If he wants us to respect the Afghan tradition of bribery and corruption and local feuds orchestrated by bloodthirsty warlords, perhaps we should oblige him. From the videos I've watched our soldiers try very hard to respect Afghan property, well aware of the inflammatory consequences of not doing so. Unfortunately, language and religious barriers are enormous hurdles to overcome.

This comment may also be a bone Karzai is throwing to the irate mobs who believe the U.S military recently descreated a Koran.

Eight more die in Afghanistan

2009-10-27T11:15:00.001-04:00

The New York Times has reported the death of eight more soldiers, apart from the 14 killed over the weekend. These soldiers were the victims of "multiple, complex" bomb attacks. The number of U.S soldiers who have died in the month of October is now 55, surpassing this past August (51) as the deadliest month for our soldiers since the war began in 2001.

War Notes: October 26, 2009

2009-10-26T12:54:00.000-04:00

Obama was burned in effigy in the streets of Kabul by a mob of angry protesters accusing U.S soldiers of desecrating a Koran. Though the U.S military said the charges were baseless, after the Danish cartoon incident of a few years ago, it is not surprising that a rumor could spark widespread national protest.

Public support for the war is tanking in the U.K following PM Brown's announcement that he is sending 500 more troops. Only 6% believe NATO is winning the war, a further 36% said victory was eventually possible, and 48% said victory was not possible. Those numbers don't really add up to 100%, but it is Britain. Another question polled found 62% of Brits favoring an immediate or near-immediate withdrawal.

Also on the British front, U.K soldier Lance Corporal Joe Glenton has been court martialed for refusing to return to Afghanistan, and he's not keeping quiet about it. Glenton led an anti-war rally in London over the weekend, and said that after deploying proudly for his first tour of duty, he was repulsed by what he saw happening throughout Afghanistan. He now claims he is "bound by law and moral duty" to stop the war, which he calls "illegal." He is a fascinating character, and we will follow his story from across the pond.

Former U.N Envoy to Afghanistan gives his prescription

2009-10-26T09:31:00.000-04:00

The man who served as U.N envoy to Afghanistan from 2000 to 2008, Francesc Vendrell, has been much sought after as the nation unravels from war and corruption. The Spanish diplomat has laid out several remedies he believe can turn things around quickly:

1. Go ahead with the run-off election: "The more credible the new president is, the better -- the more credibility he has, first with the Afghan public and, secondly, of course, with the international community, who are so deeply involved, particularly in the Western countries and with Western public opinion."

2. Move towards the parlimentary election system that most South Asian nation use, perhaps with Karzai and Abdullah both serving in a temporary transition team:
"Simply replacing one person by another one and then giving him free rein for five years is not the right solution."

3. Begin an era of reform by clearing out the most corrupt Afghan officials:
"It would help Mr. Karzai enormously if, in one go, he got rid of 15 or 20 Afghan public figures who are notorious and disliked by most Afghans. It would help his image enormously."

Amidst all this discussion of military stragegy, it is refreshing to hear one of the top Afghanistan experts in the world discuss ways non-military ways that the struggling nation needs to move forward.

Tragedy in the air

2009-10-26T09:12:00.000-04:00

Americans in Afghanistan suffered one of their deadliest weekends of the war when fourteen soldiers and civilians died in two separate helicopter crashes. The first helicopter, which crashed without explanation from the U.S military, resulted in the death of seven soldiers and three civilians, with numerous other injuries. The second accident involved two smaller helicopters crashing into each other, resulting in the death of four more American soldiers. A fifteen died this weekend from an IED explosion, and a sixteenth died from an insurgent attack. There will be more information in the coming days about these brave men and women.