Afghanistan: The Danger of Washington's "Experts" on Intervention

On the eve of President Obama's announcement on the next steps for the US in Afghanistan --- expect a public escalation of 30,000 more troops and a lot of rhetoric about non-military programmes and the necessity for the Afghan Government to be free from corruption and to take responsibility for security --- The Security Crank offers a loud, troubling polemic against so-called "expertise" in Washington.

It’s settled: the discussion about Afghanistan is no longer about Afghanistan. It is, instead, now a contest of who can write the most ridiculous article demonstrating their ignorance of the country. This isn’t a small deal: most of the people we’ll highlight below hold positions of great influence, including on General McChrystal’s review team this past summer. But they are all, pro- and anti-war, morons.

Afghanistan-Pakistan Video & Text: US Envoy Holbrooke Briefing (23 November)

It’s important to note that these opinion-mongers are not operating in a vacuum—they have willing accomplices in the media, most of which is utterly subservient to the U.S. military. In a lot of cases, this change is recent: Dexter Filkins, for example, used to write hard-hitting, critical pieces about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now, he writes this:

The Pashtuns, who form the core of the Taliban, make up a largely tribal society, with families connected to one another by kinship and led by groups of elders. Over the years, the Pashtun tribes have been substantially weakened, with elders singled out by three groups: Taliban fighters, the rebels who fought the former Soviet Union and the soldiers of the former Soviet Union itself. The decimation of the tribes has left Afghan society largely atomized.

Afghan and American officials hope that the plan to make peace with groups of Taliban fighters will complement an American-led effort to set up anti-Taliban militias in many parts of the country: the Pashtun tribes will help fight the Taliban, and they will make deals with the Taliban. And, by so doing, Afghan tribal society can be reinvigorated.

The Afghan reconciliation plan is intended to duplicate the Awakening movement in Iraq, where Sunni tribal leaders, many of them insurgents, agreed to stop fighting and in many cases were paid to do so. The Awakening contributed to the remarkable decline in violence in Iraq.

I didn’t realize the Taliban were led by a group of tribal elders. Yuck. This reads almost like a press release from ISAF [International Security Assistance Force]: demonstrate one’s understanding of a SAMS course on Afghanistan, then talk about how it’s America’s job to reshape Afghan society into what we think our image of it should have been before the Soviets ruined everything. The arrogance the first pair of paragraphs requires—starting with the assertion that Pashtuns are tribal and form solidarity through kinship and ending with the assumption that we can repeat the Awakening movement in Afghanistan—is really just… wow.

These assertions have been discussed at length in a paper prepared by the Human Terrain System, which practically begs the Army to stop trying to repeat the Sunni Awakening in Afghanistan. “The desire for “tribal engagement” in Afghanistan, executed along the lines of the recent “Surge” strategy in Iraq,” it says, “is based on an erroneous understanding of the human terrain.” The reasoning is that tribes in both countries are structured fundamentally differently, and that Afghans, even Pashtuns do not primarily organize around tribal lines. (More on the tribal militia idea-that-just-won’t-die is here.)

The military has largely ignored this paper—why is that, do you think? Do they not like having their assumptions about a neat tribal solution to all of Afghanistan’s problems challenged? Like this former Taliban official says, no one in the West has done their homework. Well, no one in charge, I should say. To bring up our old theme: they just don’t care.

But it’s not just reporters losing their clinical distance who have been dumbing down the public understanding of Afghanistan. Below are some key concepts the willfully ignorant propagate in order to push whatever pet issue they have, which also happens to either obscure or twist a much broader, more fundamental issue—a children’s treasury of ridiculous assumptions and pet issues.

Pretending the War is Ethnic

Selig S. Harrison is by far the worst offender of the bunch. Without any evidence, and with a history that jumps from Alexander the Great (326 BC) to the British Army (1842) to the Soviets (1979), he says that all Pashtuns are xenophobic zombies who will unite against all outsiders and always win. Harrison supplements this argument by saying that this time, the Taliban’s xenophobia is being driven by a hatred of the Tajik minority lording itself over the Armed Forces, police, and government agencies. Needless to say, his argument is confusing and contradictory, starting with his apparent belief that Hamid Karzai, a Pashtun, is a Tajik puppet.

Gareth Porter makes a similar argument: Tajiks are disproportionally more prevalent in the Army, so therefore Pashtuns are culturally compelled to resist the government. Missing in both kinds of argument is a realization that their ideas of what constitutes appropriate and inappropriate ethnic ratios are 100% arbitrary, utterly dependent on which native informant happened to be whispering in their ear at that time. Neither demonstrates any understanding of ethnic relations (the original Taliban wasn’t xenophobic but kafiphobic—mistrustful of all non-Muslims), or why the Taliban actually gains social market share. But the neo-Taliban are a pan-Islamist resistance movement: they reject tribal and ethnic distinctions so long as everyone follows their version of Islam. There’s nothing ethnic about it.

Assuming arbitrary troop numbers will fix things

One of the key offenders here is Leslie Gelb, an otherwise respectable foreign policy scholar. The fact that anyone with his background—that is, with almost no academic or policy experience in Afghanistan of Central/South Asia—would say he’d prefer 15,000 trainers over the 34,000 foot soldiers President Obama is due to approve speaks volumes to the astounding ignorance of our pundit-class. Why would he know? Gelb has argued elsewhere that the troops in Afghanistan are being misused: how could adding more troops into that mix correct that?

SUUUUUUURGE!

You have to love the Kagans [Frederick and Kimberly]. They helped create the Surge in Iraq, which funneled troops into an area already in open revolt against AQIM [Al Qa'eda in Mesopotamia]. And of course, they blame themselves for it working, and not the thousands of Sunni Iraqis who decided to reject the insurgents operating in their neighborhoods half a year before the first surge troop arrived. It wasn’t those dirty browns we’re trying to rule, it was us and our surging, that saved the day!

Anyway, so they’ve been writing weekly op-eds in major newspapers about how badly we need more troops in Afghanistan ever since they realized their impassioned pleas in 2006 for America to ignore Afghanistan in favor of surging into Iraq was in fact a bad idea that needed to be reversed, even though they refuse to acknowledge they were one of the main drivers of said strategic inattention, but still this time their advice is super correct because they clearly got Iraq right because the country is peaceful and everyone really likes living there.

Their latest op-ed is a real gem, however: in a thousand-word explication on the necessity of using troops for political leverage, a lamentation of how the debate has ignored force levels (when in reality the debate has been dominated by a discussion of troop numbers), they can’t bring themselves to mention the Taliban once. I mean, even ignoring the ridiculous assertion that more troops will improve governance, development, education, law enforcement, health care, and whatever else… even ignoring all of that, they say troop numbers will fix Afghanistan but don’t mention why we need troops in the first place.

Somehow, these people are taken seriously. Do you get it?

Healthcare!

I don’t even know what to say: in a world of limited resources, the Obama administration is choosing to emphasize physical security over additional health care spending. This is a tragedy for the Afghans who won’t get health care, to be sure… but is it really undermining the government and the war?

Pee-yew. This is exhausting. I’m sure you get the idea. It is damned tough to find knowledgable people writing about the wars these days. For some reasons, the opinion pages seem dominated by ignorant celebrity-pundits, who of course tell us that we are good and never do wrong and always on the side of Right. Of course we want to believe them—who wouldn’t? But listening to these people both within and outside the government will, quite literally, result in the deaths of thousands of innocent people. They are making life and death arguments, and doing so without even basic diligence. I think we owe everyone—ourselves and the world—a tiny bit more effort than that.

Afghanistan: CIA Trying to Set Up Talks with Taliban?

An interesting item from an Afghanistan news site. The article, while shaky at points (Central Investigation Agency?), intersects with other stories pointing to a quiet US effort to get Taliban to the negotiating table as well as President Hamid Karzai's public declarations, and has been picked up by analysts such as Juan Cole:

The US proposal to hold talks with the Afghan Taliban leadership, with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia playing the role of mediators, has fallen apart.

The US Central Investigation Agency had been working to hold secret talks with the Taliban leadership, with the help of the Saudi leadership and the General Intelligence Directorate of Saudi Arabia and the Pakistani leadership and the Inter Services Intelligence.

But with the Taliban hell-bent upon fighting the US-led international forces, the initiatives have failed to yield any desired result.

The News has quoted sources as saying the massive trust deficit between the two sides plus Taliban’s obstinacy had rendered the talks useless.

The US recently said it would not be opposed to the idea of holding talks with the Taliban to establish peace in the Afghanistan region.

Of late, the US intelligence services have been attempting to encourage the Taliban to discontinue their ties with Al-Qaeda.

However, sources privy to the issue, have said only middle rank Taliban leaders had agreed to talks, and any decision made by these leaders would not have made any major impact on Afghan insurgency.

Inside Line on Hamas & Hezbollah: Their Thoughts on Obama, Unity Governments, & Oprah

Middle East Inside Line: Hezbollah Leader Blasts Obama

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Sharmine Narwani, writing for The Huffington Post, talks to Hamas and Hezbollah leaders about their countries, US foreign policy, and TV programmes:

In early August and late October, I met with Hamas' Osama Hamdan and Hezbollah's Ammar Mousawi, chiefs of their respective organizations' foreign relations portfolios....So where do things stand on rapprochement? What do they think of Obama? Do they have "hope" that US policy will "change?" What do they think of the peace process? Extremist groups in the Mideast - who are the worst offenders? Do they find inspiration in Americans and who might these figures be? Hamdan and Mousawi had plenty to say.

On Obama...

Ammar Mousawi: There is no doubt that we find certain traits that are distinguished in the character of Obama -- that he is no repetition of former US presidents. When we listen to his speeches, we certainly note something new. However, the political forces that make policy in the US allow any exceptional steps to be only limited. There is no doubt that there is a change in tone, but it is doubtful that there will be a change in policy. If change were to take place, it would not be in Cairo University -- it would have to be in the US Congress.

We know that Obama is experiencing political difficulties from his opponents. He is being besieged in domestic policy challenges and internal issues - healthcare reform, issues of his roots. So when he declared his ambitious approach for his solutions for the Mideast, they sent him the Israel lobby to put him in a corner.

Osama Hamdan: I think there has been no change since Obama became president. In fact, I believe we faced a great failure last month (when the US administration caved on the issue of an Israeli settlement freeze in the West Bank). It was a minor failure, but a failure nonetheless. Brings me as a Palestinian to ask why Palestinians should accept any conditions when Israel doesn't. I liked Obama's Cairo speech, but we have to see what happens on the ground.

The US is putting itself in a corner by thinking it is their responsibility to protect Israel in the region when Israel is doing the attacking. Someone has to be courageous enough - there must be conditions for Israel. If you have a child that doesn't have to follow rules, he will be spoilt. Israel is the US's spoilt child.

The US has to say to the Israeli government "That's it." They can do that. It is not so simple, but it is not too difficult either. Who in the world will support Israel against the US? Fifty percent of Europeans identified Israel as the biggest threat to peace and stability in the world -- not in the Middle East -- but in the world.

I understand that Obama is facing internal and external problems and pressures. But his priorities are not clear to us -- he seems confused. Palestinians will not wait forever.

On Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu:

Osama Hamdan: Netanyahu has always been against a genuine peace process. We had experience with him when he was prime minister from 1996-98 -- he undermined the Oslo Agreements, he divided the issues - there is a very bad experience with him. Adding to this is his foreign minister is Avigdor Lieberman -- the worst political figure in all the world. Add to that Ehud Barak. We are facing a government formed of extremists. Netanyahu, Lieberman and Barak? The worst combination in Israeli history.

Ammar Mousawi: One of the unfortunate aspects of Obama's term as president is that it is coupled with Netanyahu's. Netanyahu is not ready to even have an "apparent" flexibility toward peace.

On being called "terrorists":

Ammar Mousawi: The War on Terror's objective was to corner legitimate resistance and prevent it from achieving its mission. The West still resists differentiating between resistance and terrorism -- and that is done on purpose. Resistance is defined as a legal fight against occupation as opposed to terrorism, which is defined as systematically killing innocent people. We are interested in having a dialog with the West because we would like to make them aware of our point of view. Resistance is part of world history -- it is not an uncommon thing. All these negative positions taken by the West are because of their support for Israel and unwillingness to see that the people of this region have the right to exist in peace. After the failure of all their attempts to destroy these resistance groups through military and political means, they concluded that they must now know more about us, how we operate. And so the dialogue begins.

(Hezbollah has been on the US terrorism list since 1999. Only the US, Israel and Canada recognize Hezbollah as a terrorist organization.)

Osama Hamdan: We were listed on the US terrorism list in 1993 just because Israel asked for it -- before that we had direct contacts with the Americans. We even sent a letter to then Secretary of State Madeleine Albright asking why. They know that they are wrong in this. They know that anyone who supports rights and justice supports the Palestinians. We want them to accept Hamas as the choice of the Palestinian people - they must respect the fact that Palestinians are committed to their rights. They will talk with us eventually. We are not in a hurry for that.

In the West, they try to shape you before dealing with you. This is the Palestinian experience. They've done this with Fatah. Hamas' position is to say what we are, what we stand for - clearly - and we can defend our rights best that way.

On Extremist Islamic Groups:

Osama Hamdan: All Islamists should want the good of their people. The most important point is how they deal with their own communities. In my belief, you have to be a good man to your own people - not push them hard or kill them if they don't accept your point of view. In Rafah, Gaza this August, we had clashes with a minority group which started killing Palestinians just because they had different ideas, by putting bombs in internet cafes, beauty salons and wedding parties.

We are against groups like Al Qa'eda and the Taliban for this reason. We condemned the attacks of 9-11, the explosions in London, the Madrid bombing when it was clear to us that these were not accidents.

Ammar Mousawi: We try to promote a positive image of Islam that is open to dialogue between people and cultures. We are not responsible for the actions of groups that present a different picture of Islam. We do not agree with the behavior of these groups -- they give a negative view of Islam. But the question is who created and supported these extremists?

What gives life to these entities is the policies of the West: unlimited support for Israel will cause this extremism. All the wars in Afghanistan will feed this extremism. We are in a situation where we will have wars with no end. Sovereignty, development, mutual respect, the right to determine your own destiny -- these issues need dialog, not wars.

Hezbollah condemns the deliberate killing of innocent people -- it promotes in us a sense of sadness as happened with 9-11, London, Madrid. And if there are some differences between us and the US, this is not the way to sort out our problems -- these acts are not excusable.

Mr. Mousawi, what is the status of efforts to form a Lebanese unity government -- and what are the chances of such a government being successful in overcoming the deadlocks and disagreements of the past?

We believe there are currently good chances for the formation of a national unity government, having overcome the most serious obstacles. We have finally reached agreement on the inclusion of Jubran Basil as a member of the cabinet, and General Michel Aoun has been granted the Telecommunications Ministry, both issues having been points of contention for the opposition.

As for the issue over various ministries, we are still deliberating the cabinet posts that will go to the opposition, but we are hopeful that things will go smoothly.

Mr. Hamdan, what is the status of efforts to form a Palestinian Unity agreement between Hamas and Fatah? How will this impact the holding of elections in 2010?

I have to say that we are still committed to the Palestinian reconciliation and we are willing to have this reconciliation for the benefit of the Palestinian people and the Palestinian cause. I believe that Mahmoud Abbas' move to hold elections on January 24, 2010 has undermined these efforts, but we are still working with the Egyptians to overcome this problem. However, I believe that no elections will take place without reconciliation between the two parties. On this same issue, a few days ago, Abu Mazen [Abbas] declared a clear failure in the peace process, saying that he will not be a candidate in the upcoming election. I think that was supposed to be a helpful step to go back to the Palestinian dialogue, because when you feel there is a failure in the process, you have to go back to the people. I think Abu Mazen was saying there is a failure in the political track, and he invited all the people to support national unity, to face the Israeli threat. This may help Palestinian unity.

No one can trust that there will be real elections without Palestinian unity and so it will be a waste of time and a new complication in the Palestinian cause if there is an election without this unity.

There must be a change in the Israeli mentality because they must understand that without ending the occupation, there will be no peace.

Outside of your own bloc, name a Middle Eastern leader you admire and tell us why:

Ammar Mousawi: I admire the Emir of Qatar who made something of his country -- it is small, but he has made it into a country of influence. They've helped us in rebuilding what Israel destroyed in its 2006 attack on Lebanon. The Emir was the first and only Arab head of state to come to the suburbs of Beirut to witness the horrifying destruction of the Israeli aggression. And we thank him for this because it motivated our own Prime Minister Fouad Siniora to come himself. Imagine the prime minister of all Lebanon didn't see the urgency to visit this area that had taken heavy bombardment and destruction? We are embarrassed in one sense, and angry on the other hand.

Your thoughts on US Middle East policy?

Ammar Mousawi: America is a great nation -- to get to this place has taken some great people, and a certain individuality that is renowned through history. We have no issues with the American people, we share many concerns with them on their government's policies. We have in the Middle East paid a heavy price for US policy. There are many Americans paying for these failed policies of previous administrations. Bush's ratings in the US dropped into the 20s. Therefore, can anybody be surprised if we say we object to aspects of US foreign policy?

We would like to say to Americans that they are subjecting themselves to a double standard - on one hand talking about values and on the other hand resisting and undermining these very values through their unconditional support of Israel's actions. The way they have received and treated the Goldstone Report has caused an uproar here.

I tell you this - America will not find anyone to assist it to come out of its Mideast crisis other than this bloc of nations that Hezbollah belongs to. If we count today the total US crises - in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, even Pakistan, what does the supposed Arab "moderate" bloc have and what does our group have in terms of cards to help the US. The strength is in the hands of our resistance bloc.

Osama Hamdan: The US administration has to realize that Israel is occupying Palestinian lands, not the other way around. But they are sending weapons to be used against Palestinians every day -- at least $2 billion worth is sent to Israel annually. They have to put these basic facts on the table before pointing a finger at Hamas' rockets. We have said before we are ready to engage in a prolonged ceasefire if there is a complete Israeli withdrawal from occupied Palestinian lands -- they did not even try to respond to this offer.

There is a peace process. Hamas opposes that peace process, not because we like to be against it, but because we believe there is no real peace. The Israelis and the sponsors of the process, mainly the US administration, were not creating peace through negotiations, they were dismantling the Palestinian cause. If you go through the Oslo Agreement, you discover that this agreement pushed aside the main issues that created the conflict -the status of Jerusalem, the land, sovereignty of a future Palestinian state, the right of return for refugees, and our natural resources. They said all of these have to be negotiated afterward!

We have an Arab saying that goes: the one who is safe from punishment will act badly. Israel feels it is totally protected, that it can do anything -- it feels it is a country above the law when the US uses its veto to protect Israel at every turn. If the Arabs work to protect their own interests, talk to the Americans about their mutual interests, I think the Americans will see the value of re-balancing their strategic interests in the region.

At the moment, nobody in the region can view the US as an honest broker of peace. That is because of the history of American foreign policy. The US has to make a major change - they have to show that they are balanced on the Palestinian issue and not just following the line of the Israeli lobby in the US.

Mr. Hamdan, are there any US presidents you admire, and why?

George Washington, because he led his people to independence. And John F. Kennedy, because he tried to make a change for the better.

Mr. Mousawi, do you watch any American television shows? Any particular programs you admire?

My wife likes the Oprah show, and I watch it with her sometimes -- Oprah seems to cover some interesting topics of social value.

Afghanistan: A US-Pakistan Deal? Karzai Stays, Talks with the Taliban

The US in Afghanistan: “The Long War” Still Waits for a Strategy

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Syed Saleem Shahzad, using Pakistani sources, has written an article with dramatic allegations in the Asia Times. Shahzad claims that the US, through Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and the Pakistan military cut a deal to "resolve" the post-election Afghanistan situation: challenger Abdullah Abdullah would withdraw, allowing Hamid Karzai to serve another term, and negotiations would begin with the Taliban:

Abdullah Abdullah, who this week withdrew from the presidential election runoff in Afghanistan, thereby handing victory to the incumbent, Hamid Karzai, did so under pressure from the United States, Asia Times Online has learned.

In exchange for the pullout of the non-Pashtun Abdullah, Pakistan's military has agreed to actively mediate between Washington and the Taliban over a reconciliation plan that will allow the US to exit from Afghanistan, as it is doing in Iraq, with a semblance of success.

A senior Pakistani diplomat involved in backchannel negotiations on Pakistan, Afghanistan and US relations told Asia Times Online on the condition of anonymity that the deal over Abdullah, whom Islamabad considers to be pro-India, was made during the three-day visit to Pakistan last week of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.



Apart from other senior officials, Clinton met with the chief of army staff, General Ashfaq Parvez Kiani, and the director general of Inter-Services Intelligence, Lieutenant General Ahmad Shuja Pasha. It was agreed that all US-led negotiations with Abdullah, which included offering him the position of chief executive officer of Afghanistan, would stop, and Karzai would get full backing for a second five-year term.

It was also acknowledged that Washington's political leadership, like the Pentagon, now accepts that the Taliban-led insurgency in Afghanistan is best tackled with contact between the Pakistan armed forces and the Taliban, and not by the political governments of the region.

Clinton's visit came at a crucial time as Pakistan is engaged in a battle against the Pakistani Taliban and other militants; if it fails, there will be a cascading effect in the whole region and a sure defeat of American interests in Afghanistan.

In this context, Clinton supported Pakistan's vision of Afghanistan, that Abdullah's participation as a major player in the government would be detrimental to the cause of dialogue with the Taliban. Clinton also played a major role in India's decision to pull out its forces from the Pakistan-India border near Kashmir. This allows the Pakistan army to concentrate on its fight against al-Qaeda in the Pakistani tribal areas. The army assured Clinton it would broaden this fight in the coming months.

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