Afghanistan could be Obama’s Vietnam’

[batmannow]

Afghanistan could be Obama’s Vietnam’

By Our Special Correspondent

LONDON, Feb 11: Unless the insurgents’ advance is halted, Afghanistan will become President Barack Obama’s Vietnam, fears Col John Nagl, a consultant.

A Daily Telegraph report (War against Taliban ‘will be lost by autumn’ unless strategy changes) datelined Washington and published on Wednesday quoted Col Nagl, an Iraq veteran who helped devise the strategy, as saying that gains made by the Taliban needed to be reversed by the end of the fighting season, around late September or early October, or else the Taliban would establish a durable base that would make a sustained Western military presence futile.

“Counter-insurgency campaigns have momentum, like a football game when the crowd senses something before it happens. Right now the Taliban has that momentum,” said Col Nagl.

In his campaign Mr Obama committed to sending extra resources to Afghanistan and was bullish about the chances of success. But at a press conference this week, he played down expectations of ushering in a Western-style democracy and instead set a goal of preventing the country from becoming a haven for terrorists.

The president’s spokesman on Tuesday announced that he had asked Bruce Riedel, a former CIA agent and academic, to head an inter-agency review that would include civilian and military affairs in Afghanistan and the region, indicating that the so-called ‘surge’ might not be ordered by the president.

The leaking of Col Nagl’s assessment report to the media at this juncture is regarded by some diplomatic circles here as a desperate attempt by the supporters of the ‘surge’ idea in Pentagon to force President Obama’s hand.

The Telegraph report cleverly juxtaposed Col Nagl’s assessment with a statement by Adm Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in which he had said that he expected to announce the deployment of a further 30,000 US troops soon, even though President Obama’s administration was waiting to evaluate the reviews.

 

[muse]

Will the US accept the deal Pakistan is offering it?


U.S. intelligence chief issues a bleak outlook on Afghanistan
By Mark Mazzetti Published: February 12, 2009


WASHINGTON: The new director of national intelligence warned Thursday that Afghanistan's weak and corrupt government is failing to halt the spread of Taliban control and said that public support for the Taliban and local warlords was increasing.

The assessment underscored in stark terms the obstacles facing the Obama administration as it vows to focus more American troops and attention on the deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan. The intelligence chief, Dennis Blair, described the American-backed government of Hamid Karzai as increasingly ineffective and unpopular.

Blair delivered his assessment in written testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee, offering the government's first public accounting of the national security challenges facing the new administration. Blair also repeated that no improvement in Afghanistan was possible without Pakistan taking control of its border region, but he said that the Pakistani government was losing authority over that territory and that even more developed parts of Pakistan were coming under the sway of Islamic radicalism.

Blair did say that a top echelon of Al Qaeda's leadership hiding in the Pakistani mountains has been battered in recent months - the result of a barrage of strikes by drone aircraft operated by the CIA.

But American intelligence officials have long said that dismantling Al Qaeda's safe haven in Pakistan would take more than a campaign of airstrikes against the group's leadership. It would also need a sustained effort by Islamabad to develop and govern the semi-autonomous tribal lands.

Blair's written testimony was made public as he prepared to appear in person before the intelligence committee Thursday afternoon. For the first time since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the annual threat report did not list Al Qaeda as the most immediate threat facing the United States. Instead, Blair devoted the beginning of his testimony to the implications of the economic crisis and the "likelihood of serious damage to U.S. strategic interests."

The crisis spawned by American markets, the report read, "has increased questioning of U.S. stewardship of the global economy and the international financial structure."

Blair also cited growing concern among American spies that North Korea could be using a covert uranium enrichment program to produce fissile material for its small arsenal of nuclear weapons.

In a departure from previous years, when the heads of several intelligence agencies joined the director of national intelligence to deliver the threat testimony, Blair on Thursday was facing the committee alone. The message was clear: that the Obama administration plans for Blair to exert greater control over American spy agencies and for him to take on a more public role at the top of the intelligence pyramid

 

[S-2]

It may be too late for both nations.

David Kilcullen has said exactly the same. Even were brigades identified today for Afghanistan, it's likely that we couldn't deploy them, orient, and usefully impact the elections this August, much less pre-registration.

The elections, IMHO, are critical for Afghanistan. There's no doubt that they'll be heavily scrutinized and, likely, scrupulously managed. There's no lacking of responsible talent available to see to that. The question is whether the system can be pushed sufficiently far out among the villages to create a true electoral consensus.

Everybody generally but America in particular are way late to this planning "game". I'm disappointed that we need an additional two and one-half months to develop and exercise a workable policy for this administration. Both Obama and Biden sat on the foreign affairs committee. So too Clinton. The issues have long been clear. I really wish more had been done during the transition.

I also essentially believe that Mr. Holbrooke's trip was superfluous. He knows the score and the people that he saw here are already on his speed-dial so they're intimate.

Had he came and spoke with Pakistani citizens, soldiers, officers, rangers, policemen and caught a greater sense of the street, maybe.

More likely, though, he'd have been vilified so best not. That so, why come at all? Waste of time to talk some more with the only guys you ever talk to anyway.

The carpet's worn with Mullen, Petraeus, Holbrooke, Biden, Clinton, Gates, Rice, etc coming through in the last six months. Enough!!

Time to do something and damn near anybody anywhere can rattle off a series of superb points of departure.

Where we end, who knows? Let's get started. "Perfect" is the enemy of "good enough".

 

[muse]

MR. Mazzetti signals; See if you can read a departure from the usual -- the usual is do the job or we will do it for you - now read this quote:

American intelligence officials have long said that dismantling Al Qaeda's safe haven in Pakistan would take more than a campaign of airstrikes against the group's leadership. It would also need a sustained effort by Islamabad to develop and govern the semi-autonomous tribal lands.

A role for islamabad? yes, on uncle's dime, but it is a significant departure from the Bush admin line.

Now lets see if the Pakistani have the capablity to absorb the offer.

in a related note:

Six ‘Taliban’ arrested near Quetta
By Saleem Shahid

QUETTA, Feb 11: Security personnel raided a house on the outskirts of Quetta on Wednesday and arrested six suspected Taliban, officials said.

A security official said that the raid on the rented house in Pashtoonabad had been carried out on a tip-off. The area people said they saw security personnel barging into the house and whisking away some people.

The identity of the arrested people could not be ascertained.

Security forces arrested 20 Afghan nationals, including some women, in the Shells Bagh area of Chaman for illegally entering Pakistan.

“They have been booked under the Foreigners Act,” official sources said, adding that the Afghans had crossed into Pakistan without proper documents.

GAS SUPPLY: Gas supply was suspended in some parts of the Sariab area when unidentified assailants blew up a pipeline on Wednesday night while a house was attacked with a hand-grenade.

Police said the assailants planted the explosive device under the pipeline in the Killi Mengalabad area and blew it up, disrupting gas supply to several areas on the outskirts of Quetta.


Is it just me or does it seem that very focused attention is being given this issue, compare this assessment with the preceding, how much publicity it got.

And I hope this did not escape the attention of readers:

,

the annual threat report did not list Al Qaeda as the most immediate threat facing the United States. Instead, Blair devoted the beginning of his testimony to the implications of the economic crisis and the "likelihood of serious damage to U.S. strategic interests."

The crisis spawned by American markets, the report read, "has increased questioning of U.S. stewardship of the global economy and the international financial structure."

 

[S-2]

So noted.

Thanks.

 

[fatman17]

Last Russian general warns US on Afghanistan

By JIM HEINTZ, Associated Press Writer Jim Heintz, Associated Press Writer

Fri Feb 13, 10:17 am ET Play Video ABC News – U.S. Losing Afghan Support

MOSCOW – Twenty years after Red Army troops pulled out of Afghanistan, the last general to command them says the Soviets' devastating experience is a dismal omen for U.S. plans to build up troops there.

On Friday, the anniversary of the Soviet departure from the Afghan capital, the Russian parliament's lower house adopted a resolution honoring the soldiers who "were faithful to the warrior's duty, who displayed heroism, bravery and patriotism."

In retired Gen. Boris Gromov's view, the valor was shown in an unwinnable battle.

"Afghanistan taught us an invaluable lesson ... It has been and always will be impossible to solve political problems using force," said Gromov, the last soldier to leave Afghanistan two days after the Kabul pullout.

He told reporters that U.S. plans to send thousands of new troops to Afghanistan would make no difference against a resurgent Taliban, who came to power in 1996 in the chaos after the Soviet withdrawal.

"One can increase the forces or not — it won't lead to anything but a negative result," Gromov said.

The parliament resolution credited the Red Army with the "repulsion of international terrorism and narcotics trade" and "averting a breeding ground for a new war" on Russia's border.

That appeared to blame Afghanistan's current fighting and soaring opium trade on the U.S.-led military operation launched in 2001 against the Taliban. Russia's envoy to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, has made the same suggestion recently, saying the alliance has repeated the Soviet Union's mistakes in Afghanistan and added its own.

The Soviet Union lost some 15,000 soldiers in the war, which began when Moscow sent in troops to battle guerrillas who were fighting a Soviet-supported government. The invasion brought international opprobrium on the Soviet Union — including a boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow by countries including the United States, China and Japan.

It also shocked millions of Soviets who had been taught their massive military was the world's most potent, but saw their heavy equipment and powerful weaponry overwhelmed by ragged, Western-backed insurgents.

"I don't see any sense in that war," veteran Oleg Samoilov told Associated Press Television News. "What did we do, what did we achieve? Practically nothing. There were only dead people left, our dead comrades, their mothers and widows — and that's it."

Russia has given nominal support to the international anti-terrorism campaign in Afghanistan, but did not send troops, and there are mixed signals on how fully it backs the operation.

This month, Moscow authorized a $2.15 billion package of aid to Kyrgyzstan that is widely seen as the key factor in the Kyrgyz president's announcement that a U.S. base will be closed. The base is an important transit point for coalition troops and cargo for Afghanistan and is the home to tanker planes that refuel warplanes over Afghanistan.

But Russia has granted some coalition countries permission to ship Afghanistan-bound military supplies through its territory; Germany even has permission to ship weaponry.

Washington and Moscow are negotiating a deal for the United States to use Russian territory to send supplies to Afghanistan through Russia; news reports this week cited Foreign Ministry officials as saying only some minor details remain to be worked out.

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov this week suggested such cooperation could be expanded to allow weapons shipments if the United States shows good faith — presumably an indication that Russia would press Washington hard for concessions on sensitive issues such as NATO expansion and the controversial proposal to put U.S. missile defense elements in Eastern Europe.

Associated Press Television producer Olga Tregubova in Moscow

 

[S-2]

"Russia's envoy to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, has made the same suggestion recently, saying the alliance has repeated the Soviet Union's mistakes in Afghanistan and added its own."

Too convenient. They lost 15,000 KIA (at least). We haven't come close. They killed 900,000-3,000,000 afghans. We haven't come remotely close. The militants don't have the same lineup of nations in open support that the mujahideen once had. There wasn't forty one other nations and a U.N. mandate to the Soviet incursion.

The armies involved are different in their professionalism. That's reflected in both the modest casualties suffered by both the afghan civilians and the ISAF forces relative to either the Afghan civil war or the Afghan-Soviet war.

The advice of serious Russian analysts is valuable. They've unquestionably insights to offer on the CAR leaderships and the N.A. Their input here, gross generalizations founded upon SOVIET history, is not a serious analysis.

There ARE parallels which are being played out. Sadly, they're not pointed to here. Lester Grau, of the U.S. Army Foreign Military Studies Office had to BUY and PRINT a Soviet General Staff study of Afghanistan which had lay unprinted for general dissemination within the Russian army following the war. These reports are widely read in our army and have lended great tactical insight to taliban operations now based upon mujahideen tactics then.

The manuscript was offered to us on the cheap well after the fact. I'm unsure, based on the reports we're seeing now about Russian operations in Georgia that they've fully absorbed all their own lessons about military preparations.

I take these specific comments about Afghanistan with a huge grain of salt.

 

[roadrunner]

You can't do a comparison like that.

The insurgency in Afghanistan took longer to take off than against the Soviets.

You can see the signs of it now. This is the way in Afghanistan.

There was also more Soviet troops, more targets on the ground earlier, a better armed Mujahideen, and more unity amongst the Afghanis at a much earlier time. The Soviets were brutal in their own way, the Americans perhaps in other ways. Either way, this is a war of occupation for the common Afghan now.

General Gromov is a good source btw. He was in charge of the Soviet 40th Army.