Fixing AfPak: Inability to define Exit strategy spells inevitable US military catastrophy in Kabul

Posted on 01 March 2009. Tags: Kabul, Karzai, Missing Exit stratagy in Afghanistan, Pakistan, USA

A ware like everything has a beginning and an end. Some of the lessons from Vietnam for a successful ware were “defined objectives” and “realistic goals” and a clear “exit strategy. We have none of the above in Afghanistan. The US administration has meandered from eliminating Al-Qaeda, to remaking the Middle East, to Liberating the Afghans, to making Kabul the thriving capital of Jeffersonian democracy, waging a global war on terror, to surrounding Iran, to taking over Central Asia, to preventing Russia from resurrecting its empire in Central Asia to preventing attacks on the homeland. Which one is it?

Hope is not a strategy, wishes are not goals, and prayers are not objective. Good speeches win elections not wars. Eloquence can convince voters but cannot change the realities on the ground. Simply knowing the name of Afghan towns does not make one an expert on Kabuli affairs. Blaming other countries for the defeat in Afghanistan is counterproductive to the venture. Brute force solves nothing.

The rhetoric from the White House is soothing, but the actions on the ground do not show any change of policy. the drones continue to bomb targets in Pakistan and there is much talk of war, arms and extermination of evil from the state that once used to be called the Kushans.

There is much fanfare about a change in policy, but the CIA operations continue in Pakistan concealed under the secrecy of the night and the sealed lips of the Vice President Biden who refused to divulge the nature of the covert Marine, Command and CIA operations across the Durand Line. Like General Hamid Gul said recently, the CIA operatives do not come to Pakistan to play marbles.

“We’ve been thinking very militarily, but we haven’t been as effective in thinking diplomatically, we haven’t been thinking effectively around the development side of the equation,” Obama

“Obviously, we haven’t been thinking regionally, recognizing that Afghanistan is actually an Afghanistan-Pakistan problem, because right now the militants… are often times coming over the border from Pakistan. Obama

“We should start by empowering the new civilian government in Islamabad to defeat radicalism with greater support for development, health and education,” McCain

There has been a epiphany in the White House which goes something like this “Afghanistan is linked to Pakistan, and we have to solve Pakistan first”. Duh! A Fifth grader in Islamabad could have told you that a decade ago. It took an $80 Think Tank industry and a change in administration to come up with this truth that has been self evident for several centuries. Lord Curzon learned his lesson and disengaged. Will Obama who has recently heard about the linkages between the Kabul River and the Indus learn the the same lessons? When will he become wise and hang it all up like Lord Curzon who withdrew his forces back to the Indus?

Many in the Democratic party that that by restarting the war in the Tora Bora, the will solve all problems of Afghanistan. Senator Kerry made this a launchpad of his campaign and lost the election and a chance to turn the ship of state away from economic catastrophe and military defeat in the Hindu Kush.

Some in the Republican Party think that the only answer to crushing the evil ones in The Pamirs is the American Charge of the Light Brigade into Pakistan. Unable to grasp the complexities of the poltergeist of they Khyber they are ready to risk a fire from the Nile to the Ganges. Using a page from the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) they want to move massive armies to solve police problems. Listening to the Mossad, they want to unplug the insurgency by sabotage, craftiness, covert operations and overt threats and by use of brute force.

Some in the present administration are under the impression that by simply “focusing” on the Indus, the problems will simply disappear. The “Surgers” are like the republicans who want to carry Kipling’s White Man’s Burden and save the Pakistanis and the Afghans from themselves.

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WASHINGTON (AFP) – After setting a deadline to pull US forces from Iraq, President Barack Obama is shifting gears quickly to Afghanistan and Pakistan as he lays out a broad, regional approach to fighting extremism.

The Obama administration held three days of talks last week with the foreign ministers of Afghanistan and Pakistan and said it would turn it into a regular dialogue to chart a new course in the “war on terror.”

Obama has vowed to put a top priority on bringing stability to the lawless and rugged terrain between the South Asian neighbors — the home base for Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants including, most presume, Osama bin Laden.

Obama, who Friday announced a timeline to end the Iraq mission, is sending 17,000 more US troops to Afghanistan. But he said the United States needed an effort broader than just hunting and killing militants.

“We’ve been thinking very militarily, but we haven’t been as effective in thinking diplomatically, we haven’t been thinking effectively around the development side of the equation,” Obama said Friday on PBS television.

“Obviously, we haven’t been thinking regionally, recognizing that Afghanistan is actually an Afghanistan-Pakistan problem, because right now the militants… are often times coming over the border from Pakistan,” he said.

All three sides hailed the openness of the Washington talks, with Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi saying that the new administration compared with president George W. Bush’s is “really willing to listen to us.”

But disputes are simmering just under the surface.

US and Afghan policymakers accuse elements of the Pakistani military and intelligence services of turning a blind or even sympathetic eye to the Taliban — whose regime ousted in 2001 had been allied with Islamabad.

Pakistan, in turn, is angered by US unmanned drone attacks on its territory which have killed high-level militants but also civilians — inflaming local opinion.

Pakistan has urged, so far unsuccessfully, the new Obama administration to halt the attacks and hand over the drones to them.

Madeleine Albright, the former US secretary of state from Obama’s Democratic Party, predicted a long haul to sort out problems in the region.

“I think this is a very large challenge and unfortunately it got bigger because the previous administration had focused so much on Iraq and not Afghanistan and Pakistan,” she said on MSNBC television.

The Obama team’s calls for a regional approach come as relations sharply improve between Islamabad and Kabul after Pakistan’s civilian president, Asif Ali Zardari, took over last year from military ruler Pervez Musharraf.

But Zardari is under intense pressure. Thousands of demonstrators recently took to the street in support of his nemesis, Nawaz Sharif, after the Supreme Court banned the former prime minister from running for office. AFP: Obama team lays out new Afghan-Pakistan approach

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Many of Obama’s advisers want to wish away the reality of the Taliban and deal with only those that they like–converting the poppy capital of the world into a spitting image of America–a thriving pro-Western Democracy that thinks and behaves like England.

President Barack Obama seems to think that by thinking regionally, he can solve all the problems of West Asia and bring peace to the world.

This is only a sample of the various points of view. There are many others. Of course each think tanks in America has its own axe to grind and justify its own consulting expertise. The entire $80 Billion industry that mimics and phote copies any new idea–many of which border insanity.

Paid writers and lobbyists also get prime space in the newspapers of the land of the free. For an ad and a donation one can get an opinion published and a story run on the front page of any daily in the world. Each page has a price.

One often wonders who planned the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? Was it the three stooges? Didn’t the policy makers ever heard of SMART decisions– Strategic, Achievable, Measurable, Realistic, Targeted decision. Didn’t the policy makers with supercomputers, satellites and F-22s think this through? Didn’t they know that a supply line is the most crucial part of any war? Didn’t they know that the USSR lost the war in Afghanistan because the Supply Line of the Soviets was repeatedly cut by the insurgents? Doesn’t anyone read history in Washington anymore? Didn’t the administration that has be thrown out and the administration that is in office know that Afghanistan is a land locked country and that the only route to Kabul is through Pakistan. Didn’t the geniuses in the CIA comprehend the simple fact that if you antagonize your ally in Pakistan, the supply lines will be interrupted and the war would be lost. Didn’t the whizkid in the Pentagon know that if you bomb the Taliban they will move over to safer areas with their kinsmen and blood brothers? Didn’t the dozen or so intelligent agencies that report to Homeland security know that when you bomb an area the push theory kicks in–and the targets run to safer areas–deeper and deeper into a nuclear armed Pakistan.

Didn’t the Ivy League Honor Roll giants know that Pakistan have more than 48 nuclear bombs, and that the 150 others are hidden away from prying US eyes?

India has also been demanding more action from Pakistan and accused its powerful spy agency of helping plot November’s attacks by Islamic militants in Mumbai that killed 165 people.

Senator John McCain, Obama’s rival for the presidency last year, said that Washington must stop looking at Pakistan just through the lens of the Afghan conflict and treat the nuclear-armed country as important in its own right.

“We should start by empowering the new civilian government in Islamabad to defeat radicalism with greater support for development, health and education,” McCain said.

John Dempsey of the United States Institute of Peace said the Obama administration and its new special envoy to South Asia, Richard Holbrooke, would try to find ways the countries could work together, saying all sought less terrorism and more trade.

“They do have common interests in certain areas that you should try to promote,” said Dempsey, who heads the institute’s Kabul office.

“Pakistan, for all the criticism it gets, has been suffering from the scourge of terrorism as much as anyone,” he said. AFP: Obama team lays out new Afghan-Pakistan approach

Does anyone in Washington has the moral courage to look at the problem straight in the eye and face it down? Does anyone in the White House comprehend that the real issue between the Indus and the Oxus is the US occupation? Does anyone in the Congress open his eyes and see the destruction that the US occupation has caused across the Himalayas? Does anyone in the Murdockized press show the reality of the defeat in Afghanistan? The Obama Administration understands that the problem is Afghanistan is not Karzia or Pakistan or the Taliban or FATA or Swat–the problem in Afghanistan is the occupation– there will be no peace for anyone.

This is the time to clearly enunciate an exit strategy from Kabul. Everything else is rearranging the chairs on the deck of the Titanic.

Pakistan needs $100 Billion to build its infrastructure, its roads, bridges, schools and hospitals. It needs free trade with the USA and Europe so that its exporters can earn money free from government corruption. Pakistan needs six new dams, 1000 hospitals and 10,000 world class schools. It needs 12 massive world class universities that are the envy of Asia. It does not need peanuts. If you send more peanuts to Islamabad you will get more monkeys.

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