Coming Full Circle In Afghanistan

Alternate title: Afghanistan - What Was It For, Again?

Recent developments with regards to the Afghanistan quagmire illustrate the sheer inanity of this "mission" while at the same time exposing the so-called Global War on Terror(TM) for the duplicitous scam that it has been from the very beginning.

In essence, the core-reasons for going into Afghanistan are now being disavowed in order to embark on a political salvage operation of appearances - with the price continuing to be exacted with the lives of N.A.T.O. soldiers and Afghan civilians.


Remember the mantra "we do not negotiate with terrorists"?

We heard it again back in August when South Korea made a deal with the Taliban in order to free South Korean Christian aid workers who were held hostage by Taliban militants.

Indeed, not only did U.S. President George W. Bush and Afghan President Hamid Karzai chanted the mantra, but likewise did Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier - who went as far as to add the corollary "such negotiations only lead to further acts of terrorism".

What a difference a couple of months make: over the last two weeks or so, President Karzai has been calling for negotiations between his government and the Taliban, going as far as to offer Taliban positions in the government. All with the nod of approval from the U.S. and Canada.

In order to fully appreciate the ludicrous enormity of it all, let us first go back to the core-reasons for the Afghanistan War:

At the time, President Bush justified the launching of the Afghanistan War as a response to 9-11 and the failure of the Taliban to meet his demands concerning terrorists, including delivering Osama bin Laden. Following the trauma and outrage brought by 9-11, an overwhelming majority of Americans supported the War in Afghanistan - and President Bush was believed at face value when he claimed that the replacement of the Taliban regime was a requirement for keeping the U.S.A. safe from another al-Qaeda attack.

However, and despite President Bush's "convictions", a lot did not sit well with his invasion of Afghanistan (emphasis added):

(...) there was a rather meek international support for such justifications initially, especially since: 1) the U.S.A. had turned a convenient blind eye when the backward, fundamentalist Taliban regime seized power in 1996 (after all, the U.S.A. had supported the Taliban); 2) although the Taliban was indeed characterized by its parochial, fundamentalist and theocratic-driven ruthless rule, it was never a terrorist organization to begin with; 3) the Taliban was certainly not involved in 9-11; 4) the Taliban had agreed to extradite bin Laden to Pakistan for trial (10/01/2001, but Pakistan refused); 5) the Taliban then offered to try bin Laden themselves (10/07/2001, but the offer was rejected by Bush); and 6) the Taliban thereafter offered to hand him over to the U.S., provided that proof was shown that bin Laden was responsible for 9-11 (10/14/2001, but this offer was likewise flatly rejected by Bush).

Hence, the Taliban regime was not a terrorist organization and had made a significant number of overtures to deliver Osama bin Laden - however, all such overtures were rejected.

Why? Because of the expedient desire to go to war - which happened on 10/07/2001, when American and British forces undertook an aerial bombing campaign targeting Taliban forces and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan - thus marking the beginning of the Afghanistan War.

Other U.S. allies, namely Australia and Canada, also joined in this war. By the summer of 2002, the Taliban had been removed from power and its remnants, like those of al-Qaeda, had gone into hiding. By the end of spring 2003, then-still U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld declared major combat operations over. However, the Taliban and al-Qaeda, by then fully allied by necessity, had already regrouped along the Afghani-Pakistani border, recruiting heavily while training in guerrilla warfare tactics - thanks to consistent funding seemingly transiting through Pakistan. Then, the Taliban insurgency followed - which has been lasting to this day.

We all know how this has been turning out so far:

(...) faced with the reality of this war and seeking to salvage the most out of it humanitarian-wise, the United Nations Security Council authorized an International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) for Afghanistan on 12/20/2001, which not only included N.A.T.O. forces but was also to be lead by N.A.T.O. itself. The ISAF's original peacekeeping mandate was for a duration of six months - however, partly because of the Taliban insurgency and partly because the U.S. has been "too busy" with its Iraq War since it began in 03/2003, the ISAF's mandate was thereafter extended in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, and then extended anew until 03/2008 ... with talks already in the works for a further twelve month-extension beyond this date. In between, N.A.T.O. expanded its Afghanistan mission by increasing its forces in 2005 and in 2006 (including Canadian ones) - because its peacekeeping mission had transformed into a counter-insurgency one.

(...)

Although having been successfully pushed out of power, the Taliban insurgency rages on in spite of the wishful thinking that it is weakening.

(...)

Osama bin Laden got away and is still in hiding, along with most of the al-Qaeda leadership - even if he and his organization were the prime justification for going into Afghanistan in the first place.

In other words: due to the incompetence of Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz et al. (especially by their demonstrated incapacity to keep focused on the Afghan mission at hand and complete it soundly before moving on), N.A.T.O. had to change its peacekeeping/reconstruction mandate to full combat operations - because the Taliban and al-Qaeda were back in force (after being essentially allowed to flee to Pakistan in order to regroup), and enough to enact a significant insurgence at that. So in effect, N.A.T.O. ends up trying to finish the job the Bush administration should have completed to begin with, but instead botched - i.e. N.A.T.O. is trying to make up for the ludicrous mistakes of the demonstrated incompetence of Bush and Co..

How so? The Powell Doctrine was already established and demonstrated after Desert Storm. But then the resident incompetents in the White House (Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz et al.) tossed it aside when they went into Afghanistan - especially because, as it has been revealed, they already had their sights on Iraq. So, they went in Afghanistan without massive deployments, made those stupid deals with the Afghan Warlords and their militias, contented themselves with routing the Taliban and al-Qaeda away from Khabul (and for the life of me, I never understood why no one figured out that the remnants of al-Qaeda and the Taliban would run into Pakistan and, consequently, take strategic steps to block off the border in order to prevent this - then again, they never had enough boots on the grounds to enact such a basic strategy to begin with - but I digress), and then they asked for U.N./N.A.T.O. help because they had begun occupying themselves with Iraq.

In short: their shoddy pre-war and post-war planning, as well as their desire to rush into war with Iraq, constitute the root-cause as to why Afghanistan is a quagmire - granted, not a big one like Iraq or Vietnam, but one nonetheless.

And through it all, of course, the commanders, generals and leaders keep seeing only progress in Afghanistan.

Yes - there is progress in Afghanistan, or so we keep on hearing again and again and again. It is apparently a big success.

I want to believe this - I really do, if only because it would mean that all those U.S., Canadian and British soldiers who have died there so far, as well as all those innocent Afghan civilians, did not die for nothing.

But it is very hard for me to believe there is significant progress in Afghanistan when violence there keeps increasing significantly, when we have difficulties in winning the hearts and minds of Afghanis, when the Karzai government is mired in corruption, when Warlords keep using brute force to gain power, when not much has changed for most Afghani women with regards to equality and all that jazz, when opium/heroin Khans easily buy free passes from arrest and prosecution, when Afghan forces are unable to hold villages that have been secured against the Taliban, and so on and so forth.

It is indeed very hard for me to "believe" there is progress when Canada's Harper government will go as far as to do everything it can to discourage, belay, hamper (or even ridicule) members of the opposition from going to Afghanistan and see for themselves what progress there is. Why such blatant politicking of the Afghan War on the part of the Harper government if there is indeed significant progress there? What is there to fear from independent verification of facts, other than the potential full exposure of the harsh, not-so-rosy reality, perhaps?

A year ago, senior British military officers estimated that it would require 15 to 20 years to fully achieve success in Afghanistan. Now they are speaking of a 30-year "marathon mission" against the Taliban. Meanwhile Canada is still struggling with the question of leaving in 2009 once its "tour of duty" is done or continue on, at the same time seeking more involvement from actual U.N. peacekeeping troops.

I doubt there will be much "success" there, however poignantly convincing the arguments may be, especially when considering that Afghanistan is indeed a quagmire. One further case in point: Japan will be pulling out of the mission soon.

(Who knows? Perhaps if "blue helmets" were seen instead of U.S., Canadian or British flags, the "mission" might become more palatable to the Afghanis in general? But I digress ...)

Through it all, the Taliban and al-Qaeda have been conflated together as terrorists, especially since Taliban militants are using the same road-side bombing and suicide bombing tactics as their allies of necessity.

Consequently, six years after the beginning of the Afghan War, we have come full circle with those calls for negotiating with the "terrorist" Taliban.

Something that was rejected by the Bush administration initially. Something that has been decried over and over again: we do not negotiate with terrorists.

And yet, here we are today.

As someone else puts it:

I applaud Karzai for his attempts to end Afghanistan's nightmare through negotiation. Ultimately, a political solution is the only way out.

But at the same time, I wonder how the parents and husbands and wives and girlfriends and boyfriends of (...) soldiers killed in Afghanistan will feel if he succeeds – if (Taliban leader) Mullah Omar becomes Karzai's prime minister; if, as part of a coalition deal, more severe forms of sharia law are imposed on women; if the very few gains Afghanistan has made in the field of human rights are reversed.

Won't they wonder if the whole thing was a waste of time? Won't they suspect their lovers and sons and daughters died for nothing?

And this is not considering the fact that Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda are still at large (no thanks in good part to Pakistan).

In essence, the core-reasons for going into Afghanistan are now being disavowed in order to embark on a political salvage operation of appearances - with the price continuing to be exacted with the lives of N.A.T.O. soldiers and Afghan civilians in the meantime.

There is indeed only one conclusion that can be drawn here: people and soldiers have been dying over the last six year for nothing more than what in the end has amounted to a needless political exercize on the part of incompetent "deciders".

Thus, to the question "Afghanistan - what was it for, again?", the blunt answer is "A big fat nothing, all across the board".

Global War on Terror(TM) my ass ...


(Cross-posted from APOV)