A War Is Not Over Till It’s Over
Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan’s president, has refused to sign a security deal with the United States that could keep about 8,000 to 12,000 U.S. forces in Afghanistan after "combat operations" end at the end of 2014. These forces would train still-pathetic Afghan security forces in the field (after 13 years of US training), conduct counterterrorism raids, and guard military bases in eastern Afghanistan from which drone attacks against militants in Pakistan and monitoring of Pakistani nuclear weapons arsenal are conducted. Curiously, all of these residual missions resemble "combat."
Karzai is falsifying civilian casualties of American drone strikes in Afghanistan (make no mistake, there have been real ones) to make nice with Taliban insurgents, who he fears will be resurgent after the United States withdraws the bulk of its troops. Yet at the same time, he is trying to extract the last ounce of flesh from the United States in negotiations over the residual American force. And the US military and intelligence agencies are doing their best to help him. After emphasizing that Afghanistan will fall apart – like Iraq – if all US forces leave that country, the American security services leaked to the New York Times new arguments that a complete withdrawal from that country would also undermine both their drone attacks and nuclear monitoring in Pakistan. Good.
Perhaps monitoring the Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal would not be so critical if the United States had not destabilized Pakistan with anti-militant drone attacks that occasionally kill Pakistani civilians. The US 13-year nation-building war in neighboring Afghanistan and drone attacks into Pakistan actually helped create the Pakistani Taliban, which attacks the Pakistani government and is now plotting attacks on US soil (the attempted bombing in Times Square in 2010). Continuing to destabilize Pakistan in order to bounce rubble to hit a largely decimated al Qaeda central group there seems like a bad trade off.
As for the other residual missions in Afghanistan – training Afghan forces and using raids to hit al Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan – they are either hopeless or unnecessary. If the Afghan forces remain lousy after 13 years of training by sizable numbers of US and NATO forces, they are unlikely to become better by being trained by far fewer such foreign forces. Also, US intelligence admits that only a small number of al Qaeda remain in Afghanistan. Potential terrorists in other countries are a bigger threat (although this should not be exaggerated either), and remaining in Afghanistan saps resources from countering them in other places.
America’s ungrateful, anti-U.S. ally in Afghanistan should have to face the music of his own making. Any substantial threat to the United States that emanates from Afghanistan or Pakistan can be dealt with from outside either country by America’s global intelligence and military capabilities. Thus, the United States should unilaterally withdraw all of its forces from Afghanistan and force Karzai to face the Taliban. If the Taliban reasserts control over part or all of Afghanistan, the United States should accept that fact but warn the group that again harboring anti-U.S. terrorists on Afghan soil would bring swift and overwhelming retaliation from the air on any Taliban regime. The Taliban should be capable of learning from their previous mistake of harboring anti-U.S. attackers on 9/11.
Read more by Ivan Eland
- When Foreign Leaders Feelings Matter More than Constitutional Rights – January 28th, 2014
- Gates’ Memoir Illustrates How Militaristic US Society Has Become – January 21st, 2014
- Obama Should Be Careful of the Slippery Slope Back Into Iraq – January 14th, 2014
- Stop Allowing the Army To Copy the Marines’ Missions – January 7th, 2014
- Ignore Saudi and Israel Goading for Mideast Warmongering – December 31st, 2013
A War Is Not Over Till It’s OverNot Just The News | Not Just The News
February 4th, 2014 at 10:05 pm
[…] Antiwar.com Original 0 likesIn WarIt'sOverTill […]
eric siverson
February 4th, 2014 at 11:48 pm
W used to Support the Iraq Sunni than we supported the Sheits and disenfranchised the Sunni . Now to be honest don't you think it is about time we switch back and support Sunnis again and work for the Sheits destruction for a while
Bruce Richardson
February 5th, 2014 at 8:11 am
With Afghanistan the ancient adage that "to many cooks spoil the broth" certainly applies. The Taliban, lest we forget were our steadfast allies during our anti-Soviet appendages. In addition and in contrast to the wishes of the majority/Pashtuns, the US took the Northern Alliance to its foreign policy bosom. The Northern Alliance were Soviet collaborators and were decidedly anti-Pashtun using the Soviet 40th Army and the US-led ISAF in combat roles.to destroy their enemies. For the US to ally with the minority Northern Alliance, seen as collaborators/traitors by the majority, does not add up for a foreign policy success. Pakistan's role must be carefully considered as well, having inducted a number of war lords to their interests. Many engaged in Afghanistan research have concluded that the US war is predicated more on successful Trans-Afghan-Pipeline (TAP) negotiations than on making the world a safer place. Hence the coining or establishing of the term "Pipelineistan." The TAP negotiations were not going well for the US firm UNOCAL which called for regime change to favor the US firm over the Argentine-concern Bridas. It can therefore be argued that the pipeline was responsible for the US invasion and subsequent occupation whereas the US hand-picked their replacement for Afghan leadership. Another mitigating factor is that the Taliban offered to extradict Osama and others of his entourage to the US but were ignored? This war may hide behind the mantle of "the war on terrorism" but there are those who are in opposition to this as legitimate cause for war, and their number is growing.
charles caruso
February 5th, 2014 at 10:26 am
Karzai may soon go the way of Diem.
tom mauel
February 5th, 2014 at 12:08 pm
U.S. drone strikes "occasionally" kill civilians? Wrong, U.S. drone strikes seldom kill upper level al Quaida operatives and U.S. drone strikes almost always kill civilians. Some studies have found 90 to 95% of drone strike victims are civilians. Which makes me wonder why Ivan Eland prints such compromised statistics in his compromised drone article.
What evidence do you have that Karzai is falsifying civilian drone casualties? It is the U.S. press including enablers like Evan Eland who continuously falsify the genocidal level of civilian casualties caused by reckless U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, and Somalia.