Continuing bad news for US/NATO in Afghanistan
Actually, perhaps trending pretty rapidly toward the truly catastrophic?
Joshua Fost of Registan blogged earlier today that "Ghazni Province is falling to the Taliban." (Map and basic info on Ghazni are here.)
Later in Foust's post, seems to backtrack a bit, writing,
There's no way to know if that's what is going on in Ghazni. There is almost no media presence there... and non-essential [US/NATO] units are starting to avoid the area (one friend told me the special forces there are advising non-SOF groups to stay away because of the danger). Without more information, we don't know for certain how things are shaping up in the province as a whole, but given how many districts had zero voting during the elections (reportedly 11), it's pretty clear the Taliban are claiming the province bit by bit.
The problems reported there regarding the recent election are part of the even broader crisis of governance and legitimacy that is facing the US/NATO presence in the country.
Today, too, the UN-backed Electoral Complaints Commission "annulled ballots from dozens of polling stations in Afghanistan's presidential election... kicking off a lengthy fraud investigation that could keep Afghans locked in political uncertainty for months."
Interestingly, Ghaszni was one of the three provinces described by the ECC with the most fraud identified in its reported election results.
On ABC TV news tonight, I heard US special envoy Richard Holbrooke expressing what seemed like a first attempt to fudge on the sanctity of the Afghan elections. He was arguing something like, "Oh, here are problems in elections everywhere... "
Perhaps, Richard. But not problems on the order of the problems the ECC is uncovering.
Meanwhile, additional indications of the extent of the Taliban/insurgent influence in the country come from the series of maps at this website for the NGO International Council on Security and Development (though I don't think the main there is completely probative.)
But also from this account by recently released NYT journo Steve Farrell of the four days he spent as a captive of Taliban in northern Kunduz province.
He wrote,
There was no doubting the absolute force of their writ in the area southwest of Kunduz, which we traversed time and again, in an area of cornfields, rice plantations, mud brick villages, waterways and other farmlands, measuring perhaps eight miles long by three or four miles wide. They drove down lanes, through villages, stopping at will and talking to residents, boasting about how the people provided a willing intelligence service to them. The extent of volition was impossible to determine, but the Taliban were the only armed presence I saw there for four days.Interestingly, they paid when they needed gas for the car, instead of just commandeering it, which they could have easily done. Some villagers appeared very friendly, others more wary and formally polite.
Motorists unfailingly gave way as soon as they saw a Taliban car coming in the other direction, and snapped to a smile and an Islamic greeting. Whether through consent or fear was impossible to read on the faces of villages who were rarely allowed glimpses of us, except at favored stops and safe houses...
All this makes me hope that the US and NATO militaries have well-developed "Emergency Plans" for the consolidation and subsequent evacuation of the units that have been spread so broadly throughout the whole of craggy Afghanistan over recent months. (Not least, because they were busy preparing for the election.)
But even more, I hope the Obama administration and its NATO allies have a political "Emergency Plan" for how they will ask the world's non-NATO big powers and Afghanistan's neighbors to help extricate them from this mess.
Of course, it will be quite normal for these other powers to require some kind of significant political quid pro quo for this.
Read more at Just World News with Helena Cobban
you have a fascination for wars! bad hobby?
September 11, 2009 3:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Quid pro quos from whom? China? Pakistan? Iran? Russia?
The mind reels.
September 11, 2009 5:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
While Bush and his Foxhounds spent our children's school lunch money chasing after Saddam, the Taliban were ignored to the point of "enablement."
We had every opportunity after 9-11 to clean out the snake-pit. But Bush backed off Afghanistan to get Saddam for Daddy and his Oil buddies, and while he spent a trillion tax warbucks, mostly on his no-bid bubbas, the Taliban reconstituted, gained resources, and moved east, crossing international borders that exist only on paper, and have never been real.
Now Obama's stuck with that reality, and I hope and pray he takes his guidance from better patriots than W did.
Here's a thought; lets offer Americans a chance to volunteer for Afghanistan, and send as many men and women as choose to go.
Pay them twice what we pay now, vet them out so the trigger-happy merc-types aren't inducted with the real patriots.
Then, if enough volunteers apply to accomplish the job, go for it, all out, finish the hard job we started in Afghanistan before the Bush Junta shoved their their easy war down our throats.
If there's not enough volunteers, then get the hell out, because there obviously aren't enough Americans who believe in the cause enough to risk their lives for it.
September 11, 2009 5:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Since the Tora Bora setback and the massive diversion of resources caused by chickenhawks' idiotic pottery breaking misadventure in Iraq, the news has pretty much always been bad from Afghanistan. Rather than "bad news" it would be better termed same old "bad olds." Among the many deficiencies of the kneejerk feel-good "antiwar movement" is its inability to focus on more than one "war" at a time. Seven years later, heads are being pulled out of the sand, waking them up to the reality that hearts and minds have been lost, the Powell doctrine was once again forgotten, and that Obama will not succeed in doing what the British and Soviet empires failed to do. Prepare for the long diplomatic-fig-leaf-sewing to cover up cut and run.
September 11, 2009 5:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
What happened at Tora Bora, anyway ?
One of the really smelly mysteries among all the other inexplicable things that have happened in the last eight years. The bad guy rode out of there on a horse ? Then he bragged about the battle online ...
Remember when Bin Laden's relatives in the USA were all loaded onto special planes and whisked out of here, while the commercial air lines were grounded ? Oh Yeah ... no one mentions that any more.
Then we saw President Knucklehead hold hands with and kissing the king of Saudi Arabia - the home country of the guys who flew the planes into the buildings ...
Some sort of stinking deal was made ? Impossible ? But the story we are told to believe is unbelievable. We have been told a completely horse crap story, friends.
September 11, 2009 9:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Whew - too complicated ! The public are bored with this war already. Too complicated, too protracted ... change the channel.
The people demand something sexy - such as another war.
A new war, that will start with ever-popular aerial bombardment. Americans love to see their jets swooping in to bomb the crap out of whatever the target is. American civilians have not been bombed from the air so they think it is fun.
A veteran of WWII assured me aerial bombardment is the most horrible experience ever - but let's ignore that.
The next war : Bomb Iran ! Finally, this long-term scheme is reaching the kick-off point. Even BBC TV is running propaganda pieces for the effort. Iran may have some Uranium, you know, along with oil and gas and holy men with great big beards. Lots of targets !
But do not worry - not a single oil or gas field or pipeline or tanker terminal will be touched - anyone want to bet ?
American pundits are hurrying us into the new war by pooh-pooh-ing the effort in Afghanistan. Pundits are very wise, and they know a good thing, and this new war is going to be all the rage.
The REAL REASON for attacking Iran : hush hush ! Mr and Mrs Dopey American Consumer do not need to know why Iran has to be bombed. The public is being fed a fake reason as usual. The fake reason does well in focus groups.
Why does the USA go around starting wars ? To stop the other guys before they start a war. The guy that starts the war usually loses the war, but, you know, Mr and Mrs American Consumer are too dense to know that.
Eight years it has taken to NOT-FIND Bin Laden. The new administration, mysteriously, goes along with whatever the scheme was in the previous administration. The public remain dumb as a box o' rocks, believing the now very long impossible nonsense story they have been told ...
September 11, 2009 9:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, but many of the same little boys who cried wolf! (mushroom cloud!) last time are at it again this time. Recall what Abe Lincoln said about fooling all the people all the time.
A bit of aerial bombardment now and then is the gunboat diplomacy of the recent era. All in a day's work. Remember Bill Clinton's pill factory in Sudan? But a new war, or even a new "war"? With no direct provocation to justify it? That takes more than vague conspiracy theories to conjure up. People are not going to believe that they are "supporting the troops" by putting their brains on standby and going shopping, especially when they are too busy looking for jobs and paying off credit cards to go off frivolously shopping in the first place.
September 12, 2009 11:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
We face a daunting challenge in Pakistan-Afghanistan, but the danger of premature withdrawal from this "nation", with its instabilites and nuclear weapons, is so overwhelming that I doubt withdrawal would be considered seriously by anyone aware of the strategic implications. In the preceding sentence, I placed "nation" in quotation marks to signify that technically, Pakistan and Afghanistan are separate countries, but in a practical context involving international threats, they are equivalent to separate regions of the same country. It would be impossible to ensure the stability of the Pakistan part, and the security of its nuclear aresenal, in the presence of an unrestrained Taliban/Al Qaeda insurgency in the Afghanistan portion.
For this reason, one can characterize the U.S./NATO presence as a "war of necessity" rather than a war of choice, but it would be more appropriate to call it a "struggle of necessity" in order to emphasize the need for more than an outside military effort. In essence, the question is not whether we should persist, but how.
Undoubtedly, the answer will be complex. Its military component will increasingly require indigenous security force to complement and then replace outsiders, but even more than a military effort, reasonable stability will require a balance among conflicting tribal factions that provide each with a stake in stability and in avoiding the dominance of any single faction. Given that the Taliban are enormously unpopular within Afghanistan, alliances designed to prevent their dominance should be feasible. Balances of this type have always been a feature of the Afghanistan way of life, and do not require the imposition of new cultural norms from outside. They may require some further effort to reduce the impact of opium cultivation as a financial resource for the Taliban, but should not require the imposition of a western style democracy on a region ill-suited by history and custom to that form of government. The evidence that the recent election was fraud-ridden should remind us that if our goals are to be realized, they cannot depend too heavily on western standards, just as they cannot depend on inflicting a military defeat on our enemies. The goal is reasonable stability, not victory.
A recent Newsweek piece on this issue by Fareed Zakaria is informative:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/215318
September 12, 2009 4:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
From the Zakaria article:
"The best strategy would be to see if we can get Karzai to work with his leading opponent, Abdullah Abdullah, in some kind of coalition."
Well, sure. That's what we tried when we brought in Benazir Bhutto to work with Musharraf.
As Zakaria essentially admits, the Pakistani military and the Taliban would ally themselves openly if we left Afghanistan. We are driving the Taliban into Pakistan where the Pakistanis are fighting these Talibs, who are threatening their own sovereignty,(but assuredly, are playing a double game with them as well), and they are also fighting them to impress us, so they can get us to share our drone technology with them (and we are also paying them huge sums of money for their 'cooperation'). In fact we are buying off the Pakistanis already- why not buy off the Taliban, too? It would be a good idea, if it could work.
I can't wholly blame Obama, since he inherited this impossible situation. But there is no excuse for strategic incoherence:
http://www.registan.net/index.php/2009/09/13/strategic-incoherence-watch/
September 13, 2009 3:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fred.
Best not to rely on MSM interpreters such as Farid Zahkaria when attempting to get a handle on the unfathomable mess that is Afghanistan. Unless the journo in question has a "serious" background in the region, one is likely to get stuff recycled from the media pool of conventional wisdom.
Col Pat Lang's blog has ongoing discussions of the situation among folks who often know the score. They are light on the military jargon and acronyms that can make the more focused discussions among military theorists, practitionors and advocates unpenetrable to those of us who aren't up to speed on the code.
Your assumptions that the Taliban IS Afghanistan is not accurate. There are estimates that they do control 40% of the country but no one really knows. The claim that they are universally "unpopular" is also false. There are Talibans then there are Talibans...no monolith.
Steve Farrell's experience quoted in the original post should be read again. We Westerners often assume that the enemy du jour can't possibly be welcomed by the locals because we project our own cultural presumptions upon populations we know little about. We refuse to understand or accept that the Taliban (or Hezbollah) frequently ARE the locals and not some foreign entity infection needing an antibiotic course of American "smart" power.
Shiite Hezbollah provides an example of 3+ decades of integration into the local polity of Lebanon. Today's Taliban are attempting to follow in their footsteps but their propensity for religiousity enforced by extreme violence may prove counterproductive in the long run. Lebanon's long history of factionalism and bloody civil wars were lessons well learned as Hezbollah gained strength among dispossesed Shiites. Their (Hassan Nasrallah's) light touch in imposing sharia doctrine was a deliberate strategy that still holds true despite their unquestioned dominance of the regions they control.
This excerpt from a " us gov white paper" gives a sketch of the overall picture:
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2009/09/counterinsurgency-operations-strategy-versus-tactics-adam-silverman.html
September 13, 2009 9:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fred, are the AfghaniPakistanis killing babies in the clinics? Do those folks have huge hoards of the deadliest germ warfare weapons ever devised by man? Have they approached an African country to buy yellowcake? And, of course, I must ask, have they converted their camels to flying bombs?
Come on now, everyone knows there is no conceivable way to "win" a "war" in that area of the world. The reason the Taliban is so indestructible is because the Taliban is the Moslem population in that area of the world. Do we seriously contemplate killing off all of the Moslems there?
Finally, how would we know if we were, through some miracle, to "win" in that conflict? What event would occur to make that outcome evident?
Obama revealed his lack of experience and poor judgment when he went along with the neocon desire to maintain a war somewhere in the world, primarily to keep up the flow of money to their backers. Our only hope is that Obama is a fast learner.
September 12, 2009 10:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Helena.
Your contributions to the rightwing zionist smear machine jihad against Marc Garlasco have, for this former fan, resulted in a closer look at your own biases and character. Your rigid and irrational hatred of all things military coupled with your pompous self-righteousness and insufferable ego have shown you to be just as unreliable an "analyst" as your new friend Gerald Steinberg of NGO Watch.
Thank you for the heads up.
In addition, I am heartened to see that your despicable actions in this witch hunt have damaged your credibility among many of your former comrades.
Quakers are not immune from hubris and your enthusiastic participation in the lynching of Human Rights Watch military advisor Marc Garlasco should cause HRW to reconsider your participation on their advisory board.
September 15, 2009 2:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks you for sharing. This information is very useful.
Best regards, Katya, CEO of facebook, iscsi initiator vista
March 25, 2011 5:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
Si vous etes interesses par le dossier, ou desirez en savoir plus, contactez-moi par mail, et je vous mettrai en contact.
Best regards,Jane, CEO of windows high availability
April 27, 2011 5:52 AM | Reply | Permalink