I've been going back lately to look at the early months of the Afghan War. But that war is far from over. The American intervention supporting the Northern Alliance group of warlords (which was also the legitimate government of Afghanistan as recognized by the US and most of the world) succeeded quickly in overturning the Taliban government in Kabul.
But Osama bin Laden and many of the most experienced Al Qaeda cadres escaped. And fighting is still going on. Reports of American troop levels vary. But the number seems to have been growing. The most recent figure I saw was 20,000 American troops, which would constitute the highest US troop levels there so far.
A NATO force is supporting the Karzai government in Kabul and in a limited amount of territory outside of the capital city. This year, NATO has agreed to replace some number of American troops involved in active counterinsurgency operations with NATO forces, mostly British. The remainder of the new forces are to come from the Netherlands and Canada. This will allow the US to withdraw some experienced forces from Afghanistan for redeployment to Iraq.
I'm looking at this war now with a kind of double-vision. One view is of the war as a defined historical experience, which would essentially be the period of the last quarter of 2001 and the first half of 2002. The other view is the ongoing and very real conflict there.
American military strategies have been mining the early months of the Afghan War for lessons to apply in the present and future. But Rumsfeld and the neoconsrvatives were quick to claim that war as validation of their favored version of "military transformation".
Richard Drayton in the Guardian recently wrote in Shock, awe and Hobbes have backfired on America's neocons: Iraq has shown the hubris of a geostrategy that welds the philosophy of the Leviathan to military and technological power 12/28/05. Drayton's piece deals with the Petagon's seemingly unbounded faith in its military technology. And he gives an accurate picture of how the Afghan War (at least its early months!) was seen by Pentagon planners and neocon enthusiasts as a new paradigm for American warfare:
The Afghanistan war of 2001 taught the wrong lessons. The US assumed this was the model of how a small, special forces-dominated campaign, using local proxies and calling in gunships or airstrikes, would sweep away opposition. But all Afghanistan showed was how an outside power could intervene in a finely balanced civil war. The one-eyed Mullah Omar's great escape on his motorbike was a warning that the God's-eye view can miss the human detail.
The experiences and lessons of the Afghan War have been relatively little discussed in the public discourse in the United States. But there is reason to think that some important weakness in the Rumsfeld approach to warfare were already on display in the intial phase of the Afghan War, which ended with the fall of the Taliban government, or at the latest with the Battle of Tora Bora.
In a "leader" (editorial) of 12/29/05, the Times of London discussed the current situation in Afghanistan: The Taleban challenge: The West must do more to stop Afghanistan slipping back into anarchy. And the Times editiorialists remind us of the immediate reason in 2001 for the US war in Afghanistan:
Unlike the war in Iraq, the US-led attack on the Taleban regime in Afghanistan had almost unanimous international approval. Kabul was sheltering Osama bin Laden, mastermind of the attacks on September 11, 2001. The Taleban had set up a regime of medieval cruelty and the barbaric repression of Afghanistan's women. The United Nations authorised the use of force, and the US achieved a surprisingly swift victory.
"Taleban", by the way, is the British spelling for "Taliban".
Recalling past problems that outside powers have experienced in Afghanistan, they state a conceptual framework for the British participation which is planned to be boosted in 2006 in order to allow for a drawdown of American troops:
Nato therefore needs to deploy its forces swiftly and in strength outside Kabul. And it must not shackle them with absurd rules of engagement intended to reassure nervous public opinion in Europe. The German ban on night-flying sends an unmistakable message of Western half-heartedness to Taleban commanders.
Nato must also insist on more robust action against opium production. The danger here cannot be overstated. Afghanistan is already, by almost any definition, a narco-state, and drugs are virtually the only source of income in the stuttering economy. Tougher action should be taken against warlords who flout central authority or attack and kidnap Western aid personnel. And there must be a much accelerated programme to train and equip a competent Afghan national army.
This does not sound like an encouraging picture, four years now after the ousting of the Taliban regime. This is, after all, a country that the Bush administration continually holds up as an example of how American military force liberated an oppressed people and created a thriving democracy.
Michael Smith also reported for the Times of London on 01/01/06 that the British Military fears big Afghan losses. He writes:
British troops set to deploy to southern Afghanistan this spring could sustain losses on a scale not seen since the Falklands war, military intelligence officers have warned.
They say insurgent forces in the south are preparing for a large offensive by Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, backed by sophisticated weapons and training from Iran.
The warnings follow an increase in fighting in southern Afghanistan over the past year. Several thousand people, including about 100 US soldiers, have been killed. (my emphasis)
Given the record of the Bush and Blair administration and their claims about Iraq's "weapons of mass destruction", anyone who doesn't just want to be snookered needs to treat claims about Iranian aid to Al Qaeda with skepticism. I'm not saying I postively disbelieve it; it may well be true. But the current British and American administrations have proven themselves to be less than reliable sources when it comes to such things.
The following is a particularly interesting part of Smith's report:
The insurgents regard the withdrawal of 2,000 US troops as a key victory and are expected to press home their advantage against the British-led Nato force. (my emphasis)
The relates very much to the Republicans' testosterone theory of war, in whichany sign of retreat are backing down is proof to the other side that his God is bigger than our God.
Of course, Al Qaeda and other insurgents in Afghanistan will take any claim of progress or victory that they can reasonably gin up. But it would be foolish in the extreme for the United States or Britain or any other country to let that be a major factor in deciding whether particular military operations are necessary or desirable at a given time.
Let's put it another way: The Bush administration is withdrawing troops from Afghanistan in the face of what is reported to be a pending Al Qaeda/Taliban offensive. "The Terrorists" are claiming this as a victory, an instance where the US is pulling out under fire, as a weakening of the American Will.
How many blowhard white guys on Republican radio are blasting the cowardice and fecklessness of the Bush administration for its decision to "cut and run" in Afghanistan? Are commentators on FOX News querying their guests on the consequences of the Bush administration's decision to give aid and comfort to the enemy in Afghanistan? Inquiring minds want to know.
Just to be clear: I hope that such decisions are not being discussed in that way. It's just an illustration of how foolish such talk can be when applied to the Iraq War or any other. What the radical Salafists of Al Qaeda, who deal in dreams and omens and portents, are bragging about is just not much of a basis on which to hang any American policies.
The able Helen Cobban has some thoughts on how the experience in Afghanistan was processed by the national security establishment: Powell Doctrine to be reinstated? Just World News blog 01/02/06.
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