UK Brig. Smith: “We’re not going to win this [Afghan] war”

Posted on 09 October 2008. Tags: Afghan, Brig. Mark Carleton-Smith, UK, USA

The servile US media run by six corporations hid the truth from the American public. Several months ago Gary Leupp wrote about what the obsequious mainstream media would not admit to. A lot of water has gone down the Kabul River since Gary Luepp wrote this article. Before the November elections, the Bush Administration tried to put a positive spin on the lost war in Afghanistan. Since then most of the leaders of NATO, ISAF and the EU have admitted to the fact that the US was facing defeat in Afghanistan. President Obama himself admitted to the fact that things were not going well. The admisison of defeat is simply an admission of the facts. The implications of a US defeat in Afghanistan are more profound and deep.

“We’re Not Going to Win This War”

In Afghanistan, on the other hand, al-Qaeda is largely defeated. Syed Saleem Shahzad, writing in the Asia Times, estimates there were only about 75 Arab fighters in Afghanistan as of April (many more Uzbek jihadis, however), and recent U.S. intelligence reports allude to al-Qaeda in Afghanistan only in passing. They depict Iraq as the most active al-Qaeda theater, and even there, the so-called “al-Qaeda in Iraq” is a homegrown copy-cat operation likely lacking operational ties to any international headquarters. It is a creation of the U.S. invasion, and in any case, on the decline for months.

The Taliban has regained control of much of the Pashtun south, and gets ever more sophisticated in its guerrilla tactics against the U.S. and NATO forces. ISAF and U.S. deaths have risen from 130 in 2005 to 191 in 2006 to 232 last year. This year’s toll, already at 236, sets a new record. (More U.S. troops—134—have died than in any prior year in Afghanistan.)

This year Taliban fighters bombed Kabul’s only five-star hotel, killing six; opened fire on an Independence Day observance in Kandahar, killing three; attacked a prison in Kandahar, freeing 400 inmates; unsuccessfully attacked Camp Salerno, one of the largest U.S. bases in Afghanistan; and killed or wounded 31 French special forces near Kabul. According to RAND analyst Seth Jones, “It is generally accepted now across all [U.S.] government agencies that the situation in Afghanistan has significantly worsened and has become quite dire.” Joint Chief of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen told Congress recently, “I’m not convinced we’re winning it in Afghanistan.” That’s despite an increase in U.S. troop strength from 21,000 in 2006 to 31,000 today.

In a recent New York Timesinterview, newly appointed CENTCOM commander Gen. David H. Petraeus stated, “Obviously the trends in Afghanistan have been in the wrong direction, and I think everyone is rightly concerned about them…Certainly in Afghanistan, wresting control of certain areas from the British officials present an even bleaker picture. Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, British ambassador to Afghanistan, reportedly told the duputy French ambassador to Kabul François Fitou last month, “The foreign forces are ensuring the survival of a regime which would collapse without them . . . They are slowing down and complicating an eventual exit from the crisis, which will probably be dramatic… In the short term we should dissuade the American presidential candidates from getting more bogged down in Afghanistan . . . The American strategy is doomed to fail.” These are observations by a top diplomat of the nation most deeply invested alongside the U.S. in the Afghan War. He proposes replacing Karzai with “an acceptable dictator.” The top British military commander in Afghanistan agrees; Brig. Mark Carleton-Smith stated last week, “We’re not going to win this war.”

A recently completed National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Afghanistan is apparently so grim its contents won’t be made public.

Gary Leupp is Professor of History at Tufts University, and Adjunct Professor of Religion. He is the author of

Servants, Shophands and Laborers in in the Cities of Tokugawa Japan; Male Colors: The Construction of Homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan; and Interracial Intimacy in Japan: Western Men and Japanese Women, 1543-1900. He is also a contributor to CounterPunch’s merciless chronicle of the wars on Iraq, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia, Imperial Crusades.
He can be reached at: gleupp@granite.tufts.edu