Are we making any headway in Afghanistan?The Obama surge is in progress.
The campaign to reverse Taliban territorial gains and influence on the ground began in Marjah last February.
Kandahar, the historical capital and stronghold of the Taliban, is our next target, and the offensive should be launched shortly.
General McChrystal’s counterinsurgency plan, endorsed last December by President Obama, is conditioned on retaking Taliban strongholds, promoting sound and effective government in the liberated areas, limiting civilian casualties as much as possible, the ultimate goal being winning the hearts and minds of the Afghan people in order to defeat the Taliban not only militarily but politically as well.
How are we doing?
Though General McChrystal’s emphasis on limiting casualties by a more discriminate use of force has had some positive results, too many Afghan civilians continue to die needlessly at the hands of the forces he commands.
Furthermore, in some cases, the disastrous public relations effects of such casualties have been compounded by NATO’s petty attempts to evade responsibility and conceal its involvement in these tragic deaths.
Case in point, on February 12, 2010, a US raid in a village in the province of Paktia near Gardez led to the deaths of five civilians.
The US claimed at the time that its troops had responded when fired upon by insurgents, several insurgents engaged the joint force in a firefight and were killed, a NATO statement said. Inside a compound, US soldiers found the bodies of three women who had been tied up, gagged and killed, it added, presumably the victims of honor killings, a gruesome Afghan tradition. The bodies of two men were also discovered.
The Pentagon’s version of the events was relayed as such by major US media outlets such as CNN and the NYT as Glenn Greenwald deftly demonstrated in a recent post. NATO had seen in the grizzly death of the women a further manifestation of the Taliban’s cruelty and contempt for human life.
ISAF continually works with our Afghan partners to fight criminals and terrorists who do not care about the life of civilians, Brig. Gen. Eric Tremblay, a NATO spokesman said at the time (ISAF is the official name of the US and NATO dominated mission in Afghanistan).
Yet, Afghan witnesses present at the scene recounted an altogether different story, scarcely heard in the West.
In fact, US Special Forces surrounded a house where a party was taking place, in honor of the birth of the son of one of the revelers, Dawood. The latter, an intelligence official who had gone outside to see what was happening, was shot dead by US forces. His bother Saranwhal Samir, a prosecutor who had followed him outside, suffered a similar fate. Both were armed with Kalashnikovs.
According to witnesses, three women were also killed during the same assault, two of which were pregnant, Bibi Saleha, 37, a mother of ten; Bibi Shirin, 22, who had six children; the third victim, Gulalai, was 18. Zahir shouted, ‘don’t fire, we work for the Government’. But while he was talking they fired again. I saw him fall down. I turned around and saw my daughter-in-law and the other women were dead, Dawood’s mother, Bibi Sabsparie, told The Times of London.
Needless to say, the Afghans were furious. Last night, the Americans conducted an operation in a house and killed five innocent people, including three women. The people are so angry… We strongly condemn this, Shahyesta Jan Ahadi, a deputy provincial council member told AP.
The US later offered a compensation of $2000 per victim to the families of the deceased. There’s no value on human life. They killed our family, then they came and brought us money. Money won’t bring our family back, concluded Bibi Sabsparie.
The Pentagon continued to espouse its version of the events even though an article by Jerome Starkey of The Times of London published in March questioned its accuracy.
Last Sunday however, the US military finally admitted that US forces had killed the three women during the raid. Coincidentally, or not, an Afghan report also issued on Sunday claimed the bodies at the scene of the killings had been tampered with. According to the report, quoted by the NYT, US forces had not only, dug bullets out of their victims’ bodies in the bloody aftermath, but also washed the wounds with alcohol before lying to their superiors about what happened.
In addition, bullets were removed from the walls behind the fallen victims…
The US however, denied that any evidence had been tampered with, and that any attempted cover up took place. We have discovered no evidence in our investigation that any of our forces did anything to manipulate the evidence at the scene or the bodies, Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, Gen. McChrystal’s deputy chief of staff of communications told the NYT.
Incidentally, on Monday, Wikileaks released a video of a similar incident involving the killing of civilians (including an AP photographer) by the military, this time in Iraq in 2007.
A botched night raid in a compound full of civilians; the killing of innocent civilians; a deliberately misleading account of the facts; and potentially explosive allegations concerning a cover up of the murder of civilians: is this the method by which MM. Obama and McChrystal hope to capture the hearts and minds of the Afghan people?
War always engenders tragic errors of this nature, yet they grievously undermine our campaign and hopes for success in Afghanistan, a country wracked by violence for over thirty years. We deeply regret the outcome of this operation, accept responsibility for our actions that night, and know that this loss will be felt forever by the families, Brig. Gen. Eric Tremblay said on Sunday, the very same spokesman so quick to blame the Taliban for the ghastly deed last February.
Afghan civilian deaths, US regrets, yet again bestowed in no way enhance our prospects in Afghanistan. The Taliban can only be pleased; they gained a resounding propaganda victory without having to fire one round…
Similarly, since the beginning of the year, US and NATO troops have killed thirty civilians and wounded a further eighty in convoy and checkpoint shootings.
As McChrystal himself conceded, these casualties served no useful purpose and instead only further battered NATO’s reputation in Afghanistan. We've shot an amazing number of people and killed a number and, to my knowledge, none has proven to have been a real threat to the force, he said last month.
Lastly, for we shall leave our litany of woes at that, Taliban fighters killed three German troops on Good Friday. A German unit sent to rescue their fellow colleagues that had been ambushed killed six Afghan soldiers when they mistakenly fired upon an Afghan army convoy…
Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, promptly called President Karzai to apologize for this unfortunate friendly fire mishap, another apology after yet another blunder. How many times shall we have to apologize?
How long will the Afghans continue to listen and accept them?
As a result, we should not be surprised if Hamid Karzai no longer seems willing to countenance Western admonitions concerning his style of governing, and is in no mood for concessions. The West has been urging him to pass election law reforms and vigorously fight against corruption.
In a speech delivered last week, he accused the West and its media of resorting to dubious means in order to deny him a clear election victory in last August’s presidential poll. The West committed electoral fraud, President Karzai claimed, not he.
Every day my dignity as a president of this country is being attacked. The New York Times and their papers, though, they know the election was right, but on a daily basis they call me a fraudulent president in order to pressure me and put mental pressure on me, he said
Furthermore, he claimed that Western forces were on the verge of being considered as invaders, in this situation there is a thin curtain between invasion and cooperation-assistance… There was a real danger, in this context, that the Taliban could become a national resistance, he added.
Two days later, he told parliamentarians that if you and the international community pressure me more, I swear that I am going to join the Taliban.
That extraordinary statement clearly seemed intended to rattle his Western patrons, and urge them not to push him too far.
Mr. Karzai is obviously seething, for the following reasons: he is not afforded the respect he thinks he deserves on the part of the West. He is reminding them that he is not some obscure satrap at their beck and call, but the president of a proud and ancient nation…
Secondly, his desire to be the sole authority with the power to designate the five members of the Electoral Complaints Commission, a key body that investigates accusations of electoral fraud, and that deprived him of an outright victory last August, has been thwarted. Parliamentary elections (financed by the West) are to take place in September and those who control the Commission will, in all likelihood, once again determine the outcome of the elections. Currently, three out of five members are selected by the UN.
Even pro-Karzai parliamentarians however, did not support the President on this issue, and voted against the bill granting him the sole power to nominate the commissioners.
US lobbying efforts to ensure the bill would be rejected were clearly interpreted by Karzai as a hostile action.
Consequently, the West’s relations with Mr. Karzai are strained, and this state of affairs can only further complicate our counterinsurgency campaign.
As one official told McClatchy, the President decided to break with us in a major way. All this is not easily patched (up).
For the moment, Mr. Karzai is no longer listening to the West. As such, he cannot be counted upon to launch a serious and effective anti-corruption campaign. Neither is it obvious that he has any interest in heeding our advice on the need to promote sound and efficient governance.
Where does this leave our counterinsurgency campaign?
There is no point in having troops in a mission that cannot be accomplished. The mission might be important, but if it can't be achieved, there is no point in sending these troops into battle. Part of the problem is that counterinsurgency requires a credible local partner, Peter Galbraith, former UN deputy special representative for Afghanistan, who was fired due to his alleged hostility towards Karzai, told the NYT.
Indeed, it is far from clear that we in fact do have a reliable partner in Mr. Karzai.
As a result, should we be devoting such extraordinary resources to a project the foundations of which are not sound?
Initially, the operation in Marjah went smoothly, mainly due to the fact that the Taliban faded away as US-Afghan troops progressed.
This is a good operation. If we continue this way, we will have great success, Afghan Lt. Col. Ghullam Dastagir told USA TODAY.
According to the newspaper, civilian aid convoys for reconstruction of roads and markets are idling outside the battlefield, waiting to swoop in.
The theory goes that if the US and Afghans are able to clear the area of all Taliban forces, and prevent them from returning, the reconstruction can begin, basic services provided and the state can once again exert its authority and gain the allegiance of the local population through effective and benign governance.
The transition to the Afghan forces, the governance part, the economic part, that will be the question mark that will determine how permanent this is, Brig. Gen. David Berger, director of operations at Headquarters Marine Corps, told USA TODAY. Much depends on the ability of the Afghans themselves to manage their own affairs, once a modicum of security has been restored…
Yet, almost two months after the start of the operation (officially known as Operation Moshtarak, the latter being a Dari word for together; one would have thought that a word in Pashto would have been chosen instead, the language of Afghanistan‘s largest ethnic group, the Pashtun, to which the Taliban belong) the Taliban have not been defeated by any means, nor have they, in fact, withdrawn…
They have reseized control and the momentum in a lot of ways. We have to change tactics to get the locals back on our side, Maj. James Coffman, a Marines civil affairs leader, told Richard Oppel of the NYT.
A tribal elder confirmed this assessment, every day we are hearing that they kill people, and we are finding their dead bodies. The Taliban are everywhere, he said Reconstruction projects have been postponed, for the Afghans in charge of leading them have been beaten and intimidated. Shops that had been reopened following the offensive are now closing once again, they have completely paralyzed all the folks here, Major Coffman said
According to the NYT, the First Battalion Sixth Marines still distributes about $150,000 in cash per week designed to finance projects and provide jobs to Afghans.
As a result, the US military may be financing, albeit unwittingly, Taliban operations in the area, you shake hands with them, but you don’t know they are Taliban. They have the same clothes, and the same style. And they are using the money against the Marines. They are buying I.E.D.’s and buying ammunition, everything, an Afghan National police commander told the NYT.
Hence, the Marjah offensive may be over, from the strict military standpoint, yet the area, some eighty square miles of rural districts and small villages, is still under Taliban domination…
Hence, what exactly, have we accomplished there?
A much more difficult operation, the retaking of Kandahar, awaits NATO forces. The offensive should start soon, so as to be concluded before the holy month of Ramadan, which begins in August.
By July, the US should have 100,000 troops in Afghanistan, up from the current 87,000.
President Karzai, accompanied by Gen. McChrystal, addressed a gathering of tribal elders in Kandahar on Sunday. There will be no military operation without your cooperation and consultation, he reassured them.
It is highly unlikely that either the elders or Mr. Karzai will have much of a say in the matter. Judging from the precarious results obtained in Marjah, it is far from certain that the US and NATO will succeed in retaking Kandahar, a city of some 468,000 people, from the Taliban.
To conclude, what are our options?
Do we have any viable ones?
Should we adopt what one observer called the nuclear option, and simply withdraw from Afghanistan if our campaign does not decisively undermine the Taliban, and Karzai proves unable to govern effectively ?
Our effort there is currently in a parlous state.
We are steadily losing the support and respect of the Afghans, alienated by our blunders, callousness, ignorance, disingenuousness and inability to protect them.
We claim to be bringing democracy and justice to a war-torn land, but have bestowed mostly death and destruction instead.
Why quite simply should the Afghans still believe in, and have faith in us?
Our credibility is wearing thin, so thin that even our man in Kabul no longer wants to have anything to do with us…
Can we really afford to wait until December to reassess our perilous Afghan mission?
Perhaps only a Kandahar offensive that ends in failure will enable us to draw the only lucid conclusion: it is time to withdraw and let the Afghans run their own affairs…
(the photograph above is by Goran Tomasevic)
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