America has been at war in Afghanistan since shortly after the attacks on the U.S. on September 11, 2001. Our goal was to obliterate al-Qaeda, responsible for the attacks, and the Taliban, who was harboring them. Nine years on, al-Qaeda has scattered and is mostly hiding out in Pakistan, and the Taliban is regrouping in different areas throughout Afghanistan. Casualties of the war have almost doubled during the last two years (icasualties.org, July 30, 2010) and Afghanistan’s government is weak and ineffectual. The method currently being employed by the US Military is known as Counterinsurgency (aka COIN) but there are serious doubts as to its effectiveness. Can we afford to stay with this conflict for several more decades, which is what COIN would seemingly take? At this stage, is this conflict still the United States’ problem or should we get out and let the Afghan people fight their own civil war? Considering the fact that Afghanistan is the world’s fifth poorest country – the poorest outside the African continent – is this even a problem that can be fixed by military force?
On December 1, 2009, President Obama addressed the nation from West Point, New York. He announced his intention of sending 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan and listed the following as his objectives in the war there:
“We must deny al-Qaeda a safe haven. We must reverse the Taliban’s momentum and deny it the ability to overthrow the government. And we must strengthen the capacity of Afghanistan’s security forces and government so that they can take lead responsibility for Afghanistan’s future.”
There can be no doubt that these are laudable and desirable goals. And though it is true that the Taliban’s regime has been overthrown, there are still large (and growing) pockets of Afghanistan where the Taliban is regaining its foothold. In some spots (namely Helmand province and Kandahar) the Taliban never lost its hold. So when disputes arise between villages, farmers or tribes, it is the Taliban who finds swift (and often deadly) resolutions. Therein lies the problem. Although we may want the Afghan government to be stable and secure, this is not something that is just going to happen. But until it does, we will keep losing life after life and we will keep pouring money into this bottomless pit that is the war on Afghanistan. If we don’t fix the economy, there is really not much we can do to make this country more secure. Just look at the unrest our own country is experiencing in the face of economic crisis. And our troubles are peanuts compared to Afghanistan’s. Our military is being asked to do the impossible. How can they singlehandedly rebuild – or more accurately, build from the ground up – an economy that has subsisted for years on opium crops?
It is a sad fact that the United States’ war on Iraq was seriously detrimental to the war on Afghanistan. At one point there were 167,000 troops in Iraq while there were only about 30,000 in Afghanistan. Since Barack Obama took over the presidency he has had several opportunities to reassess U.S. goals and interests in Afghanistan, and in each instance he has chosen to escalate (Richard N. Haass, 2010). But he cannot turn back the clock. These escalations should have taken place years ago. They should have taken place instead of the invasion of Iraq. And now the U.S. is supporting a corrupt and weak government in its fight against the Taliban. While this government remains fragile the people of Afghanistan cannot feel safe. At the same time we are dealing with a serious economic crisis in the U.S. and it is hard to justify spending $100 billion a year for a war that is going nowhere fast. However, if we withdraw without further ado we will almost certainly be guaranteeing a Taliban recapture of most of the country. An idea put forward by Richard Haass, president of the Council of Foreign Relations and former State Department coordinator under President Bush, is one of decentralization, an option that would work with and not against the Afghan tradition of a weak ruling center and strong periphery. In essence it is as follows:
“…the United States would provide arms and training to local Afghan leaders throughout the country who reject al-Qaeda and who do not seek to undermine Pakistan. Economic aid could be provided to increase respect for human rights and to decrease poppy cultivation. There would be less emphasis on building up a national Army and police force.”
This approach would place a lot more power in the hands of the Afghan people itself and would seem like a much more effective way to spend our money, if spend it there we must. The current alternative, of trying to make the Afghan government strong enough to bring security to its own people, just doesn’t seem feasible.
We must remember, however, that not all of the news out of Afghanistan is doom and gloom. In a country that used to have about 2 hours a day of electricity it is a happy fact that most places now have power 24 hours a day. There exists a free press; 10 million mobile phones instead of 80,000 7 years ago; a healthcare system for two-thirds of the population and an education system which instead of 90,000 all male students (under the Taliban) now boasts 6 million, 2 million of whom are girls (U.S. Department of State, 2010). The U.S. and NATO forces are not seen as an occupying force by most Afghans. But largely due to the unpopularity of the Iraq war, the U.S has not had a lot of support or help from the rest of the world. If more countries were involved in the nation-building needed in Afghanistan the chance of success would be a lot higher. And there is no doubt that the Afghans need help. Their obvious quandary, apart from the Taliban, is that the country’s economy depends on an illegal substance. A survey carried out by the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime reported in September 2009 that opium cultivation had dropped by 22% and production fell by 10%. The number of people involved in opium crops dropped by a third and 20 provinces are opium-free. Some products that the Afghan people have been able to export more successfully in recent years include handcrafts, fresh and dry fruit, minerals, leather products, cotton and precious stones (Robichaud, 2007). Another fact perceived as a success by the administration in Washington is that Afghan troops are taking the lead in joint operations in ever increasing numbers. And the importance of this should not be underestimated. But the success of the counterinsurgency endeavor, which is intended to protect the people first needs to win the support of the people. And therein lays the crux of the matter: we cannot hope to gain support from people by military means. We must maintain our financial support (which, even if it is extremely generous, will still be less than $100 billion a year) as well as our moral support. Ideally Pakistan should play a much larger role in the stabilization of Afghanistan – it is in their own best interests. They would like to play a larger role in their neighboring country, there is no doubt, but for Pakistan to co-operate more fully with the U.S. effort in the region, we may have to take a step back from our close relationship with India. And it is not clear how willing the U.S. would be to do that. So again we encounter a problem that has nothing to do with military might.
In the president’s speech at West Point he brings up the fact that many people are likening the Afghanistan war to the Vietnam War and this is what he says: “I believe this argument depends on a false reading of history. Unlike Vietnam, we are joined by a broad coalition of 43 nations that recognizes the legitimacy of our action. Unlike Vietnam, we are not facing a broad-based popular insurgency. And most importantly, unlike Vietnam, the American people were viciously attacked from Afghanistan, and remain a target for those same extremists who are plotting along its border.” (Obama, 2010). Granted, but we were not attacked by Afghans as such. Afghanistan did not rise up as a nation against us. In fact, the Taliban, who made it possible for al-Qaeda to attack the U.S., was repressing and attacking the Afghan people at the same time. We have achieved what we set out to do: we have overthrown the Taliban regime and pushed al-Qaeda out of Afghanistan. It is perfectly possible that al-Qaeda will regroup in Pakistan and launch another attack on us. I don’t see that any effort we make in Afghanistan that would change that. But what we are left with in Afghanistan is like the war on drugs: it is a war on a concept, and that means it is one that we cannot fight with guns but must fight with diplomacy, tact and a lot of hard work. This is a war that can longer be won in a military sense, so to keep putting our soldiers in harm’s way is a waste of lives and a waste of treasure.
References
Council on Foreign Relations (2010) www.cfr.org
Embassy of the United States, Belgium (2010) www.uspolicy.be
Haass, Richard N. (2010, July 18). We’re Not Winning. It’s Not Worth It. Newsweek
iCasualties (2010, July 30) www.icasualties.org
Jones, Seth G. (2010) In the Graveyard of Empires. W.W. Norton
Robichaud, Carl. (2007, October 24). Afghanistan Watch. www.afghanistanwatch.org
U.S Department of State (2010, May 11) www.state.gov
