Graveyard of Empires: AfPak-TurkTaj-UzbKaz-AzKyr -istan. With all that has happened in the Urals, the Obama Administration probably feels like it was all dressed up with no where to go. It was like Greek week on campus where every nook and corner of the university is abalze with hedonistic activity and the Non-Greeks just simply try to ignore it as best as they can. The US was not invited to the parties. AfPak countercurrents beyond the Oxus to AfPakAzUzbKazTurkKyr-istan

We have repeatedly written that President Barack Obama has two years to show some dramatic gains in Afghanistan.  Tick Tock Tick Tock-2011: Obama’s shrinking Afghan timeline. President Obama has several constraints in the Pamirs. The British and the Canadians are leaving in 2011. Several Democrats like David Obey, the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee have given the President a year to show results.

The administration is also very aware of the looming deadline of the first Monday in November 2012. By 2011 all the Republicans and possibly a couple of Democrats will be in the fray. The Iraq war would have be “wrapped up” at least in the public’s mind. because of the media’s attention in Iran and Pakistan, for many the war in Mesopotamia is already over. Pakistan the ECO, the SCO and Central Asia

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There are few journalists on the planet are remain objective. Peter Arnett seems to have lost interest in journalism, or we cant find him. Robert Fisk of the Independent still writes.

Stewart Nusbaumer a freelance journalist in Afghanistan has written a prodigious article titled “The Clock Is Ticking for Afghanistan”. Nusbaumer is prolific in his description and effulgent in his content. He is one of the few free lancers who actually ventures out of Kabul. In our mind he has credability.

Kabul, Afghanistan – Everything takes twice as long in Afghanistan. Security concerns, infrastructure disruptions, cultural sluggishness, epidemic corruption all converge to make life extremely cautious and the pace excruciating slow. So, what I promised to do in two weeks, write a follow-up blog, has taken me four weeks. I blame it on the war and on Afghans.

In my last blog, “What I Learned In Afghanistan,” I wrote that the evolving Obama Administration’s strategy was changing the central mission of U.S. troops from killing the enemy to training the troops. Having been in Afghanistan for two months, I wrote that “I’m more optimistic than when I left my home in New York.” Then I ran out of gas and didn’t explain why I was more optimistic.

Nothing has changed for me, except I have been in Afghanistan for three months. I still believe that the U.S. is turning a major corner in understanding how to use its power in the world. Not everyone, of course, but many, including many in our government and the military are finally realizing guns and bombs are of limited utility in winning modern wars.

When I wrote my earlier blog, I had already spent time with a Marine Embedded Training Team working with an Afghan Army unit, and U.S. infantry troops training Afghan National Policemen. In the last month, I have embedded with a Marine Special Operations unit and with US Air Force mentors of the Afghan Air Corps, this country’s air force.

Although encouraged by what I have witnessed, everything is certainly not peachy in the U.S. embedded world. I learned that young Americans make lousy mentors, and can do more damage than good. Most of them don’t grasp what I call the “essential 3 P’s” for mentoring and training: patience, presence, and persistence. Yet, Marines and soldiers and airmen and airwomen with some maturity, who have been screened and given specialized training are generally excellent mentors and advisers. Watching them up close is what made me optimistic, cautiously optimistic that Afghanistan will not turn out to be another Vietnam.

Right now, the US singleminded foreign policy venture is Afghanistan. The North Koreans already have missiles and nuclear bombs on ships and have directly threatened the US. The South Korean face Nuclear annhilation. Japan may not exit if the North Koreans really carry out their threat. Pyongyong has actually calculated the death scenario of a thermonuclar attack on a US nuclear facilities on the West and the East Coast. Not only have they researched this, they have also published their findings and have repeatedly threatened Tokyo, Washington and Seoul repeatedly. However Ms. Hillary Clinton continues her banal blathering against a 50 year old ally called Pakistan. Of course the obsequious White House press corp toes the line of their favorite candidate.

It is now over seven years that the occupation forces are in battle with the rag-tag Taliban and al-QaedainAfghanistan but despite best efforts they have been unable to defeat them. This is in spite of the fact that the US and allied forces have applied massive military force without caring for human and material losses particularly the innocent civilians. Massive funds have also flowed in to carry out development works, human resource development and uplift of education sector to bolster the Afghan regime led by Hamid Karzai and to solidify US military base on permanent footing. The Stateman.The US is losing war in Afghanistan, Asif Haroon Raja, The writer is an independent security, defence and political analyst. Email:ah.raja@yahoo.com

The US media fails to comprehend the simple fact that even if the Durand Line was hermetically sealed and not a single solder cross the Hindukush, the USA, NATO and ISAF would still face the same defeat that they face today. US has to treat Pakistan as a power with inalienable interests in Afghanisatan

The rising decibel of American officials against the Pakistani ISI is a reflection of the frustrations of defeat and hard deadlines. With its power, electronics and power, the Generals of the American Army stand naked in front of the world. The bottom line is that the satellites, the drones and the daisycutters did not eliminate the resistance in Afghanistan. It must be frustrating that all the kings horses and the all the kings men could not put Afghanistan back together. The aggravation of the Generals in Afghanistan can be gauged by their inability to find alternate routes to Kabul, and their failure to impose their own will–like they did in Germany and Japan. The American War College teaches them to wish for toys, but doesn’tto show them how to win friends and influence people. Perhaps all of them need Steve Covey seminar and Miss Manner workshops. Ural Sunrise: Russian wants full-fledged bilateral relationship with Pakistan

The Historical Failure

In Vietnam, the U.S. military attempted to counter guerrilla tactics with traditional military tactics and after failing the North Vietnamese rolled over South Vietnam. End of story. Well, not really. The collapse of South Vietnam shook the American mind hard, and vibrations are still being felt today.

The old American arrogance has receded — regardless of the Neocons recent stranglehold on U.S. reign policy — and new ideas have crawled into prominence. Slowly, incrementally, reluctantly, haltingly a different thinking on how to fight modern wars has gained acceptance. These new ideas existed in Vietnam, but General Westmoreland ran the show, and he adhered to the old thinking rooted in World War II. But in Afghanistan, much of the U.S. military understands 3rd World illiterate peasants attired in Western-looking pajamas and subsisting on rice and mud cakes can be one formidable opponent. Not the least because the rag-tags have a solid, tested strategy for modern warfare.

So the Taliban engages in asymmetrical warfare using well-proven guerrilla tactics. They prick the weak spots of the U.S. military leviathan, placing bombs on roads and concealing themselves in rugged terrain to ambush. They slip away and melt into sympathetic populations, denying U.S. firepower easy targets, or deceiving the handlers of U.S. firepower to blow away civilians. The insurgents control the pace of the war, ensuring they do not lose and therefore the war continues until the American public becomes disheartened. This has become a well known movie on the world stage.

Their game plan, however, should not be called irregular warfare, or unconventional warfare. Because today this type of war is rather regular — especially against the U.S. military with its vastly superior firepower and humongous advantage in war-fighting technology. In terms of traditional military power, the U.S. military is in a category by itself. Those who challenge it, then, avoid frontal attacks. They use concealment to evade and to surprise, and are quick to negate the lethal power of the U.S. leviathan. From Southeast Asia to the Middle East to Central Asia this strategy has been used effectively. But first, and most effectively, it was used in Vietnam.

Of course the lessons of Vietnam and  Korea are lost. The Pakistan Army is disparaged as having trained in conventional warfare only. No army on the planet trains for guerilla warfare and insurgency waiting for the militancy to happen. All armies of the world are trained and equipped in warfare. Then then adapt to the insurgency.

When Freedom fighters turn terrorist

Justifying the Banality of a brutalOccupation in Iraq and Afghanistan: The Thinktanksattempt to complete the circle of complicity between a sycophantic press, and a non-inquisitive servile public. The nation is forced to accept the only argument that it is being repeatedly inundated with . In the year, 2011, the Brits and the Canadians will leave Afghanistan. The challenge for General Mullin, General Patraeus, and President Obama is to use the 20,000 additional troops to retake 80% of Afghanistan. But wait, President Obama has already abandoned that the greater goal of making Afghanistan as a democracy–euphemism for “taking back Afghanistan and placing it under Mr. Karzai’s control”.

Can the US carry on the battle without the Britishers helping them out. It is possible but not probable. The Britishers work in tandem withthe Americans on most international issues. However they work a bit differently. The Britishers know that they have lost the battle in Afghanistan. The “nation of shopkeepers” understands that they have been licked, so they have announced a date for withdrawal. This gives them the fig leaf that they need to get out of the “graveyard of empires“. Mr. Obama should have followed suit, but he could not, perhaps because of domestic pressures. Mr. Obama possibly did not want to be blamed as the President who lost the war in Afghanistan. He probably did not want to be known as the President when the policy to “Cut and Run” was imposed. It is exactly this type of thinking that perpetuates perpetual mimetic war. Obama’s new strategy as confused as Bush’s was inept

A Hopeful Future?

In Afghanistan, the World War II movie is dead. In fact, last week on a U.S. military base near Kabul they showed MASH, a movie that used the forgotten Korean War to show the absurdity of the killing in the Vietnam War. Many of the Marines here talk about their fathers and uncles fighting in Vietnam, but they never mention the defeat. But you hear “defeat” in what they don’t say. For them World War II is ancient history. And, it seems, the World War II and Vietnam doctrine that put a premium on killing the enemy.

The U.S. military has never been so serious about what it calls “the full-spectrum of counterinsurgency,” and never has the emphasis been so heavily tilted toward the non-kinetic, mentoring and training local security forces. Yes, the U.S. is providing services to villagers; a few of our construction projects somehow avoid channeling all the funds into foreign bank accounts; we’re winning a few “hearts and minds,” but never enough to win this war. The US military has never been good at winning the hearts and minds of villagers. The core of this new strategy, which is not new except to the degree it’s being implemented, is training and equipping the Afghan military and police.

Of course the killing continues — in fact, Taliban attacks and U.S. combat operations are on the rise, and the number of deaths. But the central focus for the U.S. military now is “Afghanization” of the war. The exit strategy is not winning the war but the Afghans winning the war. If the U.S. military and NATO troops are successful in bringing a degree of peace and prosperity to Afghanistan, this will become the West’s new model for these types of wars.

Yet, journalists remain mostly clueless , which is not unusual of course. They rush from battlefield to battlefield — from the Korengal Valley in the east to the Helmand desert down south to the Warkad mountains outside of Kabul — hardly covering the more important battle. They don’t understand the frontline has moved from the shooting war to the training war, the strategy has shifted from focusing on killing the insurgents to training the Afghan security forces.

But will this new strategy work? I don’t know. I do know the clock is ticking, and ticking fast. We’re already eight years into this war. Admiral Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — following the lead of Robert Gates, the Secretary of Defense — has been saying there must be solid signs of progress that this new strategy to strengthen Afghan security forces is working. And he even gives a timetable. In 12 to 18 months!

“This problem will not be over in 18 months. This problem will not be over in two years. This is a long-term commitment that we are involved in Afghanistan, if we are to ultimately be successful…. I think what we are saying, simply, is that we think that the strategy needs to show some signs that it’s working, not that it has been totally successful a year or 18 months from now.”

But the US and NATO are poorly organized. The Afghan government remains corrupt, the economy is dismal except for the drug economy, the Taliban knows time is on its side, so it will slow everything down. And the Afghan security forces are under-trained, under-financed, and under-equipped. Finally, the Afghan people are cynical and don’t believe foreigners will do anything good for their country. This won’t be easy, then.

And everything runs excruciatingly slow in Afghanistan. But the political clock in America is ticking faster and faster. The 2012 presidential campaign is speeding toward us … the Republicans are preparing to tear into “Barack Obama’s failed Afghanistan War” … the Democrats are starting to scream we “must leave.”

Suddenly, I’m somewhat less optimistic. After all, everything in Afghanistan takes twice as long. Except the bad. Huffington Post. The Clock Is Ticking for Afghanistan. Stewart Nusbaumer

Selective Amnesia of Americans: Pakistan is the most mistreated friend in the world. There is much to learn about the the attitude of the Americans with ref. to Afghanistan and the ISI. It was pedagogical to note the statements by General Mullen who wanted the ISI not to worry about India or Afghanistan. It is this type of stupidity coming from American officials that creates mistrust and Anti-Americanism in Pakistan. This Anti-Americanism then translates into frustration which is responsible for much the militancy.

15 Minutes of a biased news report that blames Pakistan. October 2008. 60 Minutes says that the safe havens are in Pakistan, whereas the soldiers themselves admit that they are surrounded y enemies and that 80% of Afghanistan is in the hands of the insurgents. They also identified Gulbaddin Hikmatyar as Al-Qaeda. he is not. He in an independent fighter in Afghanistan whose legal part the Hizb e Islami holds 40 seats in the Afghan parliament.

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AfPak countercurrents beyond the Oxus to AfPakAzUzbKazTurkKyr-istan

Why are Pakistani peace deals considered capitulation and US peace deals in Faluja & Kabul considered diplomacy?

Afghanistan defeat: British Failures of “the White Man’s burden”

Concerted Police Action, without a failed war, can solve Afghan terror

US AfPak policy review results mimic Chinese demads given to Hillary Force is all-conquering, but its victories are short-lived. ~Abraham Lincoln In 1821 The Taliban was a construct of the CIA and was armed by the CIA:–Congressman Dana RohrabacherObama’s Vietnam & Cambodiazation of the Afghan war Solutions to “Obama’s Vietnam” Kabul: The Final Spring Offensive? End of NATO? Afghanistan: The writing is on the wall. Can Obama read it? UK Brig. Smith: “We’re not going to win this [Afghan] war”
Failure and Defeat in Afghanistan: Inevitable Frustration & misdirected Payback for ally Pakistan US Charge of the Light Brigade into Pakistan is a US failure and has to stop

Pakistan’s do more list for the USA Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan & Swat run by Taliban Huge Migraine for India

Facing the Khyber poltergeist & Ganges hobgoblin NATO war: UK 1880 defeats in Afghanistan

The folly of the UKs “Charge of the Light Brigade” in Afghanistan AGAIN reminds us of Britian’s previous defeat in Afghainstan. Unfortunately the lessons of the unmitigated disaster of “Auckland’s Folly”, (First Anglo-Afghan War 1838–42) have not been taught to the Oxbridge students.

Bin Laden used Reagan’s USSR strategy to Destroy US Capitalism? Cambodiazation of the Afghan war Rescueing the Pashtuns of Afghania from Afghanistan

Unite! Erase the Durand LineSolution: Fixing “AfPak” expedites the inevitable union between Pakistan & Afghanistan The emerging “Leave Pakistan to Afghanistan” strategy goes mainstream–Extricating the US from the Lost in the Khyber

End of US Exceptionalism & Crisis of Profilgacy: An exit strategy defines the limits of US power in the Hindukush