In the midst of the Taliban attacks in central Kabul on Sunday, a journalist called the British embassy for a comment. “I really don’t know why they are doing this,” said the exasperated diplomat who answered the phone. “We’ll be out of here in two years’ time. All they have to do is wait.”
The official line is that by two years from now, when U.S. and NATO forces leave Afghanistan, the regime they installed will be able to stay in power without foreign support. The British diplomat clearly didn’t believe that, and neither do most other foreign observers.
However, Gen. John Allen, commander of the International Security Assistance Force, predictably said that he was “enormously proud” of the response of the Afghan security forces, and various other senior commanders said that it showed that all the foreign training was paying off. You have to admire their cheek: multiple simultaneous attacks in Kabul and three other Afghan cities prove that the Western strategy is working.
The Taliban’s attacks in the Afghan capital on Sunday targeted the national parliament, NATO’s headquarters and the German, British, Japanese and Russian embassies. About a hundred people were killed or wounded, and the fighting lasted for 18 hours. There was a similar attack in the center of the Afghan capital only last September. If this were the Vietnam War, we would now have reached about 1971.
The U.S. government has already declared its intention to withdraw from Afghanistan in two years’ time, just as it did in Vietnam back in 1971. Richard Nixon wanted his second-term presidential election out of the way before he pulled the plug, just as Barack Obama does now.
The Taliban are obviously winning the war in Afghanistan now, just as North Vietnam’s troops were winning in South Vietnam then. The American strategy at that time was satirized as “declare a victory and leave,” and it hasn’t changed one whit in 40 years. Neither have the lies that cover it up.
The U.S. puppet government in South Vietnam only survived for two years after U.S. forces left in 1973. The puppet government in Kabul may not even last that long after the last American troops leave Afghanistan in 2014.
“It’s like I see in slow motion men dying for nothing and I can’t stop it,” said Lt. Col. Daniel Davis, a U.S. Army officer who spent two tours in Afghanistan. He returned home last year consumed by outrage at the yawning gulf between the promises of success routinely issued by American senior commanders and the real situation on the ground.
To be fair, none of those generals was asked whether invading Afghanistan was a good idea. That was decided 10 years ago, when most of them were just colonels. But if they read the intelligence reports, they know that they cannot win this war. If they go on making upbeat predictions anyway, they are responsible for the lives that are wasted.
“It is consuming me from inside,” explained Davis, and he wrote two reports on the situation in Afghanistan, one classified and one for public consumption. The unclassified one began: “Senior ranking U.S. military leaders have so distorted the truth when communicating with the U.S. Congress and the American people as regards to conditions on the ground in Afghanistan that the truth has become unrecognizable.”
Davis gave his first interview to the New York Times in early February, and sent copies of the classified version to selected senators and representatives in Congress. But no member of Congress is going to touch the issue in an election year, for fear of being labelled “unpatriotic.” So American, British and other Western soldiers will continue to die, as will thousands of Afghans, in order to postpone the inevitable outcome for a few more years.
It’s not necessarily even an outcome that threatens American security, for there was always a big difference between the Taliban and their ungrateful guests, al-Qaida. The Taliban were and are big local players in the Afghan political game, but they never showed any interest in attacking the United States.
Wait a little longer, spread a few million dollars around in bribes, and the United States could probably have had a victory over al-Qaida without a war in Afghanistan.
It’s much too late for that now, but al-Qaida survives more as an ideology than as an organization, and most Afghans (including the Taliban) remain profoundly uninterested in affairs beyond their own borders. Whatever political system emerges in Afghanistan after the foreigners go home, it is unlikely to want to attack the United States. Pity about all the people who will be killed between now and then.
Gwynne Dyer is a London-based independent journalist whose articles are published in 45 countries.
There was no choice in invading Afghanistan. They were harboring Bin Laden and providing training camps for Al Quaida. We were right to do what we did. We should pull out now with the proviso that if we have to come back there again we will turn the place into a radioactive glass parking lot.
I’m sure Gwynne Dyer would agree. He doesn’t hate America or anything like that.
I’m a liberal Democrat who always supported President Bush’s decision to go after the Taliban and bin Laden in Afghanistan. I agree with you that it was the right decision — in the beginning.
But Bush quickly lost his focus. Afghanistan is always a very difficult place for any invading army, from Alexander the Great to the British to the Soviet Union. In order to do things right, Bush needed to keep his focus on Afghanistan. Instead, he launched a totally unnecessary war in Iraq, taking troops, money, and that focus that he should have used to do things right in Afghanistan.
There were UN weapons inspectors on the ground in Iraq, but Bush wouldn’t let them do their job. He was so sure that there were imaginary WMDs hiding somewhere, and somehow those weapons inspectors just couldn’t find those WMDs. V.P. Cheney said, “Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, and we know where they are!” If Cheney knew, why didn’t he tell the weapons inspectors where to look? They had access to Iraqi military bases, presidential palaces, scientists — Saddam Hussein gave in to every one of our demands (except the demand that he step down). But Bush wanted to bite off more than he could chew, so he launched a second war, the War in Iraq. And because of Rumsfeld and Cheney, that unnecessary war became a total mess.
If Bush was going to go to war, he should have done one war right. Instead, he did two wars badly. The result was that Bush neglected Afghanistan, the one war that made sense. And we are still paying the price for his blunder.
Gwynne Dyer is a Canadian who lives in London. It’s good to get his perspective — his columns on foreign issues are always thought-provoking.
But now we know Bin Laden was in Pakistan, and they also have schools which teach hate and violence, so why is Pakistan our ally?
No vote, No war. it’s in the Constitution.
I agree that we should go back to what the Constitution says — Congress shall have the power to declare war.
We know that bin Laden was in Afghanistan at the time we intervened in their civil war on the side of the Northern Alliance. The Taliban government of Afghanistan acknowledged that they were giving him sanctuary there.
Yes, he escaped us in Afghanistan, and was later in Pakistan. Did the government of Pakistan know he was there? They claim they didn’t know. Certainly he was careful to keep a low profile, but he was a half-mile from Pakistan’s equivalent of our West Point! Hiding in plain sight? Maybe it was very clever of him, being in a place no one would suspect.
So we are not happy about the possiblity that some in the Pakistan military might have known all along where he was. We can’t be certain about what they may have known, or who may have known it, or whether they were merely ignorant.
Pakistan is a complicated country, with many factions, many tribes — and many secrets. Is it better to try to keep them as our not-so-trustworthy allies, or see what happens if we let them become our open enemies? If we suddenly drop them like a hot potato, what will the unintended consequences be? It’s an unknown unknown.
But that argument disintegrates when you look at our history of alliances. We trained Saddam Husein, and armed him to fight as our proxy against Iran. We armed Bin Laden and the Taliban when they were fighting The U.S.S.R. Our history is chocked full of stupid alliances sure to come back and bite us.
George the father said: “AVOID ENTANGLING ALLIANCES” We ignored him.
You refer to “that argument” you seem to think I made, when — other than agreeing with you that Congress alone has the power to declare war — I actually posed a number of questions. My conclusion was, “it’s an unknown unknown.” I left things open-ended. You are free to argue against the points you imagine I made, I guess. Just make something up and attribute it to me.
By the way, Washington was a great president — and the world has changed at least a little since his time. Did he spell that in all caps?
Responding to this “argument” presented by you. You asked a question… I answered to the best of my ability.
Pakistan is a complicated country, with many factions, many tribes —
and many secrets. Is it better to try to keep them as our
not-so-trustworthy allies, or see what happens if we let them become our
open enemies? If we suddenly drop them like a hot potato, what will
the unintended consequences be? It’s an unknown unknown.
No… as near as I can tell George did not write in caps….as you say the world has changed.
I realize that many people come to this forum to have an argument. But what you refer to as the “argument” I was making was actually more like pondering — that’s why I was posing questions. And that’s why I said they were unknowns. Consider them to be rhetorical questions. No anwer is necessary. They’re just something to think about — what will the unintended consequences be?
Congress authorized the war in Afghanistan and Iraq. The reason we have not declared war is because to do so puts us in a box. If we actually declared war on a country, the people would expect the gloves to come off. Let’s keep the declaration of war for a worthy opponent (hopefully there never is one)
Good point.
Ever since we stopped “declaring war” since congress abandoned its responsibility to vet a conflict, we have been in wars which won nothing. We stalemated Korea, lost Vietnam, Lost Nicaragua, Crapped out in Lebanon, Left Iraq open to takeover by Iran, and now are in the same place as the Soviets in Afghanistan.
Congress needs to VOTE a war. No majority vote, no war… simple stuff really, all they have to do is follow the law as outlined in the Constitution.
Good point.
It seems that we as a nation have lost the will to go to all out war and end it quickly.
We were attacked by a group of terrorists that were using Afghnaistan as their base of operations. We politely asked that these terrorists and their leader be turned over. We were told that they would not turn them over. That act of denial, IMO, was the same as a declaration of war. At that point we should have started the systematic carpet bombing of every exit out of that country and worked our way inland. It would have lasted no longer than the ‘Blitz’ that Germany did to Poland. We would have gained our objective and been out of there within a year.
As it stands now and has for 10 years. We really don’t have a plan or clear objective. At least one that my small brain can comprehend. bin Ladden is dead. His organization has scattered to the 4 corners of the earth. To what end are we going in Afghanistan?
These people obviously have no desire to join the 21st century. They have no desire to form a democracy or, as previously demonstrated, a communist state. It seems they are quite content to remain a representation of the ‘Dark Ages’. They have no Navy, Air Force, Army, or any means of using what they have to attack the rest of the world with any force that would cause the collapse of the free world.
As Kenny Rogers said in song ‘you have to know when to hold them and know when to fold them.’
Yes, we were attacked from Afghanistan, and I agree that we had a moral right to go in and go after Al Qaida. I supported President Bush’s decision to go into Afghanistan.
Bush would have done better if he had stuck with that one difficult war. But then he launched a second war — and much later he admitted that Iraq had noting to do with 9/11. Taking resources that could have been used in Afghanistan, and throwing us incredibly into debt, he invaded Iraq on the pretext that they had WMDs. However, there were already UN weapons inspectors on the ground in Iraq, and they had access to Saddam Hussein’s military bases, presidential palaces, etc. Bush could have let them do their jobs. But he told them to get out so we could invade Iraq — and drain our resources and focus away from the War in Afghanistan.
Now, because Bush did two wars badly instead of doing one war well, we are paying the price. Obama is now stuck with Bush’s mess, and there are very few, if any, good options.