CAN AMERICA STAY THE COURSE IN AFGHANISTAN?

By R. A. Pearson

On September 11, 2009, America solemnly remembered the eighth anniversary of the horrible terrorist attacks of 2001. Shortly after those attacks the Unites States armed forces intervened in the ongoing Civil War in Afghanistan on the side of the Northern Alliance and helped overthrow the Taliban leadership of the country. The U.S. also helped establish a government based on western democratic principals, began to help train and equip an Afghan police force and armed forces, and American military personnel stayed to fight both the Taliban and al-Qaeda in the country. The war has gone on now for eight years.

The initial success of the Afghan War was negated when the Bush administration elected to switch American war strategy from Afghanistan to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, leaving the War in Afghanistan a backwater or more or less forgotten war in the theater. Over a period of time the Taliban recovered and has presented itself a much more formable enemy than the one which appeared to have been defeated in 2003. In 2009, as the U.S. forces scale down their involvement in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan has become the major front in what was once called “The War On Terror;” however, the terrain, people, government, and history of the country itself make the Afghanistan countryside a difficult place to fight a war.

President Obama has assumed ownership of the war. Labeling it a “war of necessity,” the president has hand picked his own commander, Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, and backed the commander with an additional 21,000 U.S. forces being sent to Afghanistan already this year. The U.S. will soon have a total of 68,000 military personnel in the country. On September 21, the White House leaked a report from Gen. McChrystal indicating the need for a future increase in the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan to insure victory. Pentagon watchers, news media talking heads, and most of the public informed about the war believe the commanders in the field will ask or may have already asked for another 40 to 55 thousand troops in the weeks and months to come. According to the General David Petraeus, Commander of U.S. Central Command, and author of the Army’s anti-insurrection guide, it requires a one to 20 ratio of military personnel to quell an insurrection in a country. Even with the NATO forces in the count, the number of coalition forces in Afghanistan do not come close to the required one to 20. By mid-September the situation in the Afghan war had really taken a bad turn for the Americans. The situation was described by Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff, as “seriously deteriorating.” The Taliban now holds and controls one-third of Afghanistan. 51 U. S. service personnel were killed in August making August the deadliest month of the war. Many of the NATO allies are getting war weary fighting in the mountainous terrain, and the apparent fraudulent election, which reelected President Hamid Karzai, has created doubt about the real chance to establish any type of democratic government in Afghanistan. Finally, a poll taken in mid-September showed 60% of the American public feeling that America should not be fighting in Afghanistan. If one looks at the Democrats in that survey a full 75% indicated the U.S. should not be in the fight.

Around Labor Day a group of neoconservative leaders joined by several political leaders, including Sarah Palin, sent a letter to Pres. Obama encouraging him to continue the Afghan War. However, during the same time period conservative columnist George Will wrote and editorial calling for an American exit in the war. Will stated the U.S. strategy of “clear, hold and build” in the country was not workable and America needed to withdraw and strike from a distance at Taliban and al-Qaeda bases “using intelligence, drones, cruise missiles, air strikes and small, potent Special Forces units, concentrating on the porous 1,500-mile border with Pakistan, a nation that actually matters.” If the war has lost George Will, what other conservatives has it lost?

The fraudulent presidential election held in August only proved to America and the world the unwillingness of the Karzai government to move toward democracy. The Karzai government is often seen as corrupt, full of nepotism, and whose writ does not extend very far beyond the city limits of Kabul. Yet, the U.S. government persists on backing this fraudulent and corrupt president and his government with millions of dollars and the lives American troops.

In the Afghan countryside, local warlords control the provinces, and the people are loyal to tribal and clan leaders. Village leaders indicate they need three things for their people: security from the Taliban, ability to trade (move crops and goods to market), and education for the young people in the village. The part of the Petraeus playbook in Afghanistan providing this type of aid to the Afghan people is called the Human Terrain System. This program enlists engineers, anthropologists, and people of many skills to go into the villages and develop the irrigation ditches, the roads, and schools needed to meet the needs of the villagers. Of course, the number one need, security, is proving the hardest need to meet and keep.

In terms of American politics, the Democratic Party is leaning more and more away from the Afghan War, while the Republicans tend to support President Obama’s continued pursuit of the war. Senator Carl Levin (D-Mich.), the Senate Armed Services Chairman, indicated an objection to another major increase in troop strength in Afghanistan on September 11. With public opinion deserting the war and casualities mounting, more and more Democrats will eventually do the same.

What will it take to keep American hearts in the war? The first thing Gen. Petraeus and McChrystal must do is to get the causalities down. Americans are not willing to take these types of causalities in a war that was supposed to be winding down. The second thing Pres. Obama must do is define the Afghan mission and identify the circumstances for victory in the country. Finally the U.S. needs a clear exit strategy; however, as Iraq proved, the more troops there are in a country, the harder it is to exit that country.

Our leaders, both civilian and military, tell us the U.S. forces need to train Afghanistan’s army and police to stand up to the Taliban. America has been at war in Afghanistan for eight years. It takes eight years to train a doctor. With all due respect to the fine policemen and members of our armed forces, their training periods are a whole lot less.

Can America stay the course in Afghanistan? It can only if Pres. Obama is willing to take a lot of heat from his own party, get the causalities down, define the mission, victory, and exit strategy, and begin to move the Afghan government toward helping the people in the countryside rather than helping themselves to power. Afghanistan has swallowed up many empires including the Greek, British, and Soviet. Let’s hope America is not next on the list.