Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) likes to tout his experience as a former military lawyer. Graham apparently thinks this makes him sound more convincing when he goes around advocating military trials for all suspected terrorists, as he's been doing lately. Graham's now trying to get that idea signed into law in a bill he's introduced in the Senate. A similar provision is likely headed to a vote today in the House of Representatives.
By a variety of measures, U.S. military policies in the Afghanistan war are failing.
You probably haven't heard much about this, in part because of the justified media focus on Haiti, but a confluence of very bad indicators point to failure even by the military's avowed yardsticks. The civilian casualty rate in Afghanistan rose significantly in 2009. War-related violence is at its peak since 2001. The armed resistance to the Kabul government is spreading rapidly and can now "sustain itself indefinitely" according to the top military intelligence officer in the region. Efforts to build the Afghan National Army are flailing, as are pro-government efforts to rebuild infrastructure. In short, despite the happy talk from General Stanley McChrystal and Admiral James Stavridis, a great many signs indicate that the U.S.-led pro-government coalition is headed for failure.
If Matthew Hoh could tell you one thing to help you understand the U.S.'s predicament in Afghanistan, he'd tell you:
The presence of our ground combat troops is not doing anything to defeat al-Qaida.
Think about that for a moment. We are paying roughly $1 million per troop, per year in Afghanistan. That's roughly twice the per-troop cost in Iraq. We've suffered well more than 800 deaths in Afghanistan. And yet here is the former top civilian official in Afghanistan's Zabul province, a former Marine who served in Anbar province in Iraq, telling us that the presence of our ground forces does nothing to defeat the organization that's supposedly the target of our operations in that country.
So, if we're not going about the business of defeating al-Qaida in Afghanistan, what are we doing?
We're involved in a civil war in Afghanistan. We're only taking one side in that civil war. And, our presence there is only encouraging the civil war to go on.
Kerry proceeds from a nonsensical definition of success:
I define success as the ability to empower and transfer responsibility to Afghans as rapidly as possible and achieve a sufficient level of stability to ensure that we can leave behind an Afghanistan that is not controlled by Al Qaeda or the Taliban.
Having the "ability" to do something is not success. Saying you're going to do something "as rapidly as possible" tells you nothing about how quickly you will do it. What, you think there's a plausible future where the president tells the American people that he screwed around a bit instead of getting Afghanistan done as "rapidly as possible?" Sloppy definitions make poor policy, and that's what we get from the rest of the speech. For example, take this goofy piece of self-contradiction:
Second, we simply don't have enough troops or resources to launch a broad, nationwide counterinsurgency campaign. But importantly, nor do we need to.
We all see the appeal of a limited counterterrorism mission- and no doubt it is part of the endgame. But I don't think we're there yet. A narrow mission that cedes half the country to the Taliban could lead to civil war and put Pakistan at risk.
What a mess. We don't have enough troop "for a broad, nationwide counterinsurgency," but we can't cede "half the country to the Taliban" without risking civil war. Following his warning about the dangers of ceding "half the country," Kerry calls for "narrowly focused" counterinsurgency operations in less than 40 percent of the country.
American success in Afghanistan should be measured by “the number of Afghans shielded from violence,” not the number of enemy fighters killed, he said.
McChrystal is now running around demanding more troops for Afghanistan so he can increase "the number of Afghans shielded from violence."
Yeah, about that:
Check, please.
Warning: The following video contains graphic images.
Welcome to Derreck Crowe, who will be blogging for us on Afghanistan--Chris
When the history of the Afghanistan war is written, the week of August 16-22 may be remembered as the week the counterinsurgency trap closed on the United States.
For most of the following, I'll discuss counterinsurgency on its own terms to show how U.S. decision-makers have walked themselves into a trap that should cause us to reconsider our involvement in Afghanistan even if we grant their bad strategic assumption that COIN was the proper paradigm from which to plan an end to al-Qaida.
Counterinsurgency, as defined by the U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual, is a fancy word for jumping into a foreign civil conflict on the side of a purported legitimate government in a fight against other factions. The prize is the consent of the governed/occupied.
At its core, COIN is a struggle for the population's support. The protection, welfare, and support of the people are vital to success...Both insurgents and counterinsurgents are fighting for the support of the populace...Popular support allows counterinsurgents to develop the intelligence necessary to identify and defeat insurgents.
Demonstrations of the legitimacy of the government backed by counterinsurgents are essential to this strategy. The COIN manual goes so far as to call a legitimate host nation government the "north star." The corollary of this requirement is that the counterinsurgent must work as hard as possible to create the perception of legitimacy for their allies. Elections become enormously important for this purpose. A healthy, widespread voter turnout in an election relatively free of fraud can purchase legitimacy for the government. Massive fraud and spotty turnout, especially among populations from which insurgents draw recruits, can rob the government of a significant portion of the legitimacy it has. If a foreigncounterinsurgent planned to stay in-country for a wider purpose than simply keeping a government intact-- to fight al Qaida, for instance--the counterinsurgent can be strongly tempted to try to spin questionable election results as legitimate to validate their presence in the country.
Worse, if a foreign power undertakes counterinsurgency in an "enemy of my enemy is my friend" manner, they risk not only failure of the strategy but culpability in the actions of an illegitimate government--which increases the chances of terrorism.
The United States has made both of these mistakes in Afghanistan.
