open Democracy News Analysis - Afghanistan: state of siege, Paul Rogers - Comments

cherif.rifaat on "Afghanistan: state of siege"

cherif.rifaat — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 14:51:08 +0000

I would like the United States to behave itself and manifest its fabled self-correcting qualities, not to decline further or collapse a la Soviet union. There are ominous signs of military and economic difficulties.

It is currently pursuing 19th century style colonial wars which will fail because the colonial era has pased.

For those do not believe Afghanistan is a colonial war, consider:

- The "porous border" which is destroying any chance for "victory" by ISAF is not a border at all. It is an imaginary concept through the mountains called the Durand Line, invended by a British colonial civil servant, certainly not to help the Afghan people. It divides the Pashtun. They just ignore it and help each other any way the see fit.

- ISAF is protecting a corrupt government run by a former (some say also current) oil executive and employee of Vice President Cheney. If he were really democratically elected, then it is a coincidence verging on the miraculous that such a person who had been out of afghanistan for years should be chosen by the Afghan people.

jdubow on "Afghanistan: state of siege"

jdubow — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 23:27:50 +0000

The key issue in Afghanistan is hot pursuit of Taliban/Al Queda into Pakistan.

While this is called a non-starter in Roger's article, it is the only way to reduce the strength of the Taliban. Numerous studies have shown that a safe haven an outside supply for external armies makes them virtually undefeatable. Pakistan is suspected of both. Rogers writes as if Pakistani reactions would be so negative as to deter US actions on the border. If a liberal administration rules in DC that may well be the case. If a conservative administration or a centrist administration with educated and historically conscious senior officials gets elected other considerations may come to the fore.

Amongst the options include hot pursuit of Taliban/Al Queda into the areas of Pakistan that are not fully controlled by the government anyway. While this will fuel anti-US sentiment and mainstream media outrage, the real question for Pakistan will come down to whether they hate US strikes in border areas more than they would hate US support for India in the simmering conflict between the two nations. After all, Pakistan has already contributed to nuclear proliferation , refused to take on the Taliban/Al Queda in their own nation, and indeed may be supplying and aiding their growth. If they won't control their own border and won't let the US look out for the substantial investment in stability in Afghanistan that it has made, then what good are they as an ally?

While it may be politically incorrect to suggest that the Pakistani opinions about America are secondary to US opinions and interests regards to US policy it is also likely a logical suggestion. Moreover, a shift to India by the US would have substantial benefits to the US in the area and in the war on Terror. Unfortunately, political correctness constrains the terms of debate in most media and academic circles. At this sorry time the military and intelligence communities are the amongst the only places truly open debates between open minds can occur.

alfredo.bremont on "Afghanistan: state of siege"

alfredo.bremont — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 11:50:39 +0000

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The main problem in
Afghanistan is ethical and a moral problem.

The war is an impose
aggression by Washington towards another nation under the idea that only
Washington knows best and the American way of life is the key to happiness.
This is a happiness closely linked to the capitalist system and its consumerism
laws and regulations. Therefore, the battle is mainly for petrol, the
surrounding of china and Iran and eventually Russia in order to control the
prices and use of the energy resources, which the simplest way to control
Europe. Russia A nation that has well reacted to Washington’s aggression in
this respect. Washington insists it knows best on how to promote culture and
civilization. It seems is simply the geometrical bourgeois reasoning of the elites,
the one that is guiding western civilization now, however, this reasoning has
reached its limits and it is no longer applicable. The result is a system that
will undoubtedly collapse. The Americanization of Afghanistan, Iraq, or any of
the other Middle Eastern nations will never be achieved. The coming war on Iran
will create more tension, hatred and discontent. Further repression towards the
common citizens, a psychological oppression via the main media to continue
these illogical and counterproductive ventures. The world has no other choice
but to modify it’s reasoning accept the evolving globalization and abolish the
irrelevant borders between nations. It is no longer the survival of the fittest
but rather the survival of the planet that is at stake.

Humans should become more
honest among them and realize that it is our own planet that now needs a lot
more respect care and understanding than is actually getting. A global
harmonization and the passage to a new social democratic system based on newer
and just rules are unavoidable. Otherwise, the future holds nothing more than
disaster isolation hatred and ultimately the destruction of the human race.

Afghanistan: state of siege, Paul Rogers

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 10:07:52 +0000

On 7 July 2008 a suicide-bomber detonated a large car-bomb at the gates of the Indian embassy in Kabul, killing fifty-four people and injuring more than 140. The embassy stands in one of the most secure parts of Afghanistan's capital, yet this did not protect it from what security forces described as the worst bombing in the city since the termination of the Taliban regime in November 2001. Taliban sources denied that the movement was responsible, while Afghan sources implied (albeit without supporting evidence) a Pakistani intelligence connection. The high death-toll is in part attributable to the fact that many people were queuing at the embassy at the time; this may be a factor too in the Taliban reaction, for it has been a regular practice of the group to deny responsibility for attacks where large numbers of civilians are killed.

Whoever was responsible, the Indian embassy attack came at a time of escalating violence in Afghanistan marked by a number of high-profile paramilitary actions. These include an assassination attempt against President Hamid Karzai at a military parade on 27 April 2008), and the dramatic raid on Sarpoza prison in Kandahar which freed dozens of Taliban prisoners and which was followed by the seizure of several villages close to the city (see "Afghanistan in an amorphous war", 19 June 2008). A day after the embassy attack, a bomb was found on a bus carrying Indian workers in the province of Nimroz (where many Indian projects, including the strategic Zarang-Delaram highway project, are centred).

A pattern of killing

The seriousness of the situation in Afghanistan has led to the United States navy's redeployment of a carrier battle-group led by the aircraft-carrier USS Abraham Lincoln from the Persian Gulf to the Arabian Sea; this will enable US strike aircraft to provide further air-power in Afghanistan.

The problem with this response is the danger it carries of continuing the pattern of inflicting civilian deaths in misdirected air-strikes, which in turn provokes affected communities to turn against the coalition forces. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) estimates that in the period of 2-7 July 2008 alone, paramilitary violence and coalition military action together killed at least 250 civilians, and that deaths caused by US air power being a particular source of tension on the ground (see ICRC, "Civilians in the line of fire", 9 July 2008).

The question of deaths as a result of missile-strikes is a source of great controversy. In two recent incidents, for example, there is dispute over the identity of the dead Afghans. Local Afghan officials claimed that the fifteen people who died in a US missile attack in Kunar province on 4 July were civilians, while American spokespersons insisted that only militants were killed; Afghan officials were equally adamant that the at least twenty-seven victims of a missile-attack on 6 July included nineteen women and children, reportedly members of a group of around eighty or so people in a wedding party who were taking a rest while walking to the groom's house.

Whatever the true circumstances of these and other cases, the killing of civilians by coalition forces is deeply unsettling and has added to the anti-western mood in many parts of the country already hard-pressed by problems such as growing food insecurity. The pattern of civilian deaths also comes at a time when coalition sources are beginning to admit to the seriousness of the strategic predicament they face in Afghanistan.

Paul Rogers is professor of peace studies at Bradford University, northern England. He has been writing a weekly column on global security on openDemocracy since 26 September 2001

A chain of influence

Each year since the Taliban regime was ended, foreign troop numbers in the country have risen; the single greatest increase has been since early 2007, with 20,000 additional troops arriving to take the overall total to around 66,000 (see the editorial, "Afghan Escalation", Washington Post, 6 July 2008). Despite this, the intensity of Taliban activity has also increased. Much of it is seasonal, with less fighting during the severe winter months, but even here there has been a change. In recent years, suicide-attacks in cities such as Kabul and Kandahar have increased overall, but they have also continued through the winter months.

For the US forces, the biggest surprise has been the growth in Taliban activity in the eastern part of the country. This region, close to the Pakistan border, has been garrisoned by US forces operating independently of Nato, and there have been frequent claims of progress over the past two years. The US forces and spokespersons have made pointed references to the contrast between their "success" and the difficulties experienced by British troops in Helmand province and the Canadians in Kandahar.

Now, though, the US claims are sounding less assured. The newly-appointed US military commander for eastern Afghanistan, Major-General Jeffrey J Schloesser, has highlighted the increased sophistication of the methods used by the insurgents as a factor in the rising violence. This has led to a near-doubling of the number of US troops killed in the country in the first six months of 2008 compared with the similar period in 2007. What has become particularly noticeable has been the more widespread use of roadside bombs, with tactics developed in Iraq being deployed in Afghanistan (see Peter Spiegel & Julian E Barnes, "Afghan Attacks Rise, U.S. Says", Los Angeles Times, 25 June 2008).

The escalation of violence in Afghanistan has two other elements. The first is a loss of support for the war in a number of Nato member-states that have committed troops. A Pew Global Attitudes Project survey conducted in a number of Nato countries in April 2008 (even before the violence intensified in the following two months) found majority support for the withdrawal of Nato forces - ranging from 54% to 72% in countries including France, Germany, Spain, Poland and Turkey (see Jim Lobe, "Afghanistan Moves Back Into the Limelight", Inter Press Service, 3 July 2008).

In addition to his weekly openDemocracy column, Paul Rogers writes an international security monthly briefing for the Oxford Research Group; for details, click here

Paul Rogers's most recent book is Why We're Losing the War on Terror (Polity, 2007) - an analysis of the strategic misjudgments of the post-9/11 era and why a new security paradigm is needed

The second element is the steady rise in power of Taliban and al-Qaida paramilitaries in western Pakistan. The Pakistan-based Taliban militias now have considerable influence in many of the border districts of Pakistan, including parts of the Federally Administered Tribal Agencies, and North Waziristan and South Waziristan.

This influence in turn has two effects. The first is that Taliban groups fighting in Afghanistan have safe havens across the border; but if US forces mount raids into western Pakistan this simply stirs up more anti-American feelings across the country.

The second effect, and just as significant from a US perspective, is that the Taliban control has allowed al-Qaida to regenerate. An informed assessment is that there are as many as two thousand paramilitaries established in training camps in western Pakistan, up from several hundred three years ago (see Mark Mazzetti & David Rohde, "Amid Policy Disputes, Qaeda Grows in Pakistan", New York Times, 30 June 2008). The issue has been complicated by differences of opinion within the United States over the need for US forces, whether CIA, special forces or regular military, to operate within Pakistan. This remains unresolved but has become even more complicated by the uncertainties of politics within Pakistan itself (see Gary Thomas, "Instability, Uncertainty, Fuel Pakistan, Afghan Attacks", Voice of America, 8 July 2008).

A "winning fight"

Pervez Musharraf remains president, though his diminishing influence means that his markedly pro-American outlook carries less weight. The coalition government remains in some disarray over the president and other issues, but its overall mood - reflecting an even stronger popular feeling - is unwillingness to allow greater US military involvement in the border districts. The bottom line, which is keenly recognised within the higher echelons of the Pakistani civil service, is that the population as a whole will simply not accept more US involvement. It has become a political non-starter.

The consequences for the US military are thoroughly negative. The senior Nato commander in Afghanistan, General David McKiernan, states:

"The porous border has allowed insurgent militant groups a greater freedom of movement across that border, as well as a greater freedom to resupply, to allow leadership to sustain stronger sanctuaries and to provide fighters across that border" (see Eric Schmitt, "Pakistan is said to be attracting insurgents", International Herald Tribune, 10 July 2008).

American military and intelligence sources are reporting a marked increase in the involvement of foreign fighters with Taliban militias in western Pakistan. These include young men from Chechnya, Uzbekistan and the Gulf states; since March 2008 the numbers have increased (according to an unnamed Pentagon official) "from a trickle to a steady stream". This is part of a trend in which Pakistan and Afghanistan are now the focus of attention for paramilitaries intent on fighting western forces.

The International Herald Tribune report on this phenomenon is worth quoting at length:

"The American officials say the influx (of foreign fighters), which could be in the dozens but also could be higher, shows a further strengthening of the position of the forces of Al Qaeda in the tribal areas, increasingly seen as an important base of support for the Taliban, whose forces in Afghanistan have become more aggressive in their campaign against American-led troops.

...American intelligence officials say that some jihadist Web sites have been encouraging foreign militants to go to Pakistan and Afghanistan, which is considered a ‘winning fight', compared with the insurgency in Iraq, which has suffered sharp setbacks recently.

Four senior military officials said that Al Qaeda was strengthening its increasingly close operational ties in the tribal areas with the Taliban and other various militant groups - financing, training recruits and facilitating attacks into Afghanistan, though not necessarily conducting attacks themselves."

A decisive year

The accumulating result of these trends is a deteriorating security situation across much of southern and eastern Afghanistan, made worse by the Taliban/al-Qaida revival across the border. A forceful United States government might have insisted on taking the war to Pakistan, even against the overwhelming opinion against this within that country. But the George W Bush administration is nearing the end of its term and is, in any case, far more preoccupied with Iran (see "Iraq task, Iran risk", 3 July 2008).

In April 2008 a number of analysts were suggesting that 2008 would be a decisive year for the seven-year war: either the Taliban would succumb to the overwhelming weaponry available to Nato and US forces, or the movement would increase its power. At the midpoint of the year, the latter view looks more accurate - so much so that Afghanistan might even exceed Iraq as an issue at the heart of the American presidential campaign.

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