Loosing the war in Afghanistan
Almost five years ago, an international coalition, led by the USA, started an air-war on Afghanistan. They successfully toppled the Taliban regime and occupied the country. With the help of local warlords and others, they set up a regime and supplied troops to ensure the security in the country and help with the rebuilding of Afghanistan.
That was five years ago, but things have not really improved on the ground. After the initial relief (mainly in Kabul) that the oppressive Taliban regime had disappeared, dissatisfaction grew. Furthermore, it turned out that the Taliban were not really defeated. They continued to fight a guerilla war. The US and its allies tried to use their armies to combine two difficult tasks. On the one hand to win the 'hearts and minds' of local citizens and on the other to quell the insurgents and defeat the Taliban and other (mostly drugs-related) militias once and for all.
It looks like this ambitious project is failing now. Not only have the Taliban, who after all come from the Pashtun -- the largest ethnic group in the East and South of Afghanistan (and the West of neighboring) Pakistan, become more and more active each month, the rebuilding of Afghanistan is going far too slow. Even James Jones, the NATO commander in Afghanistan acknowledged this too reporters. He also asked for more troups to fight the guerillas.
It is a terrible dilemma that the NATO is facing. In order to fight the insurgents, they have to commit military power. Because no NATO commander is willing to put the lives of their men on the line, air power is used. The unfortunate result of this is that civilians get killed since air-to-ground missiles are not very subtle and tend to take out anybody in the vicinity. You can avoid a lot of civilian casualties by committing troups on the ground. But then you can be sure that a lot of them will be injured or killed, so the preference is for air power. The Afghanis on the other hand want peace and security more than anything else (this explains why they were so enthusiastic supporters of the Taliban in the late eighties when these fought the local warlords after the Russians had left.) They don't see the foreigners delivering these, so they start yearning for the old days and secretly supporting the Taliban. This creates a more dangerous situation for NATO troups there and increases the emphasis on the fight against the Taliban at the expense of efforts to rebuild the country.
The Dutch in Uruzgan are taking an alternative. They have dug in themselves and do not leave the compounds unless absolutely necessary. This way they avoid casualties to themselves. They avoid the outrage of the locals for killing innocent civilians, but they don't do a damn for what they were sent there for: fighting and building.
Also, it does not help that most of the funds promised for the rebuilding of that country never actually were released. Nor does it help that the NATO troops, by their own admission, until recently did not understand the local situation at all.
With the security situation in Afghanistan rapidly deterioiriating, the USA, NATO and all other allies are loosing in Afghanistan. I predict that the coalition will leave Afghanistan within three years, roughly the same time as the USA are leaving Iraq, leaving behind them the ruined remains of their attempt to bring peace, stability and democracy to the region.
What a depressing start of the week...
That was five years ago, but things have not really improved on the ground. After the initial relief (mainly in Kabul) that the oppressive Taliban regime had disappeared, dissatisfaction grew. Furthermore, it turned out that the Taliban were not really defeated. They continued to fight a guerilla war. The US and its allies tried to use their armies to combine two difficult tasks. On the one hand to win the 'hearts and minds' of local citizens and on the other to quell the insurgents and defeat the Taliban and other (mostly drugs-related) militias once and for all.
It looks like this ambitious project is failing now. Not only have the Taliban, who after all come from the Pashtun -- the largest ethnic group in the East and South of Afghanistan (and the West of neighboring) Pakistan, become more and more active each month, the rebuilding of Afghanistan is going far too slow. Even James Jones, the NATO commander in Afghanistan acknowledged this too reporters. He also asked for more troups to fight the guerillas.
It is a terrible dilemma that the NATO is facing. In order to fight the insurgents, they have to commit military power. Because no NATO commander is willing to put the lives of their men on the line, air power is used. The unfortunate result of this is that civilians get killed since air-to-ground missiles are not very subtle and tend to take out anybody in the vicinity. You can avoid a lot of civilian casualties by committing troups on the ground. But then you can be sure that a lot of them will be injured or killed, so the preference is for air power. The Afghanis on the other hand want peace and security more than anything else (this explains why they were so enthusiastic supporters of the Taliban in the late eighties when these fought the local warlords after the Russians had left.) They don't see the foreigners delivering these, so they start yearning for the old days and secretly supporting the Taliban. This creates a more dangerous situation for NATO troups there and increases the emphasis on the fight against the Taliban at the expense of efforts to rebuild the country.
The Dutch in Uruzgan are taking an alternative. They have dug in themselves and do not leave the compounds unless absolutely necessary. This way they avoid casualties to themselves. They avoid the outrage of the locals for killing innocent civilians, but they don't do a damn for what they were sent there for: fighting and building.
Also, it does not help that most of the funds promised for the rebuilding of that country never actually were released. Nor does it help that the NATO troops, by their own admission, until recently did not understand the local situation at all.
With the security situation in Afghanistan rapidly deterioiriating, the USA, NATO and all other allies are loosing in Afghanistan. I predict that the coalition will leave Afghanistan within three years, roughly the same time as the USA are leaving Iraq, leaving behind them the ruined remains of their attempt to bring peace, stability and democracy to the region.
What a depressing start of the week...
posted by Bruno at Monday, October 30, 2006
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