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Marines push militants out of Taliban region

"...so you ain't shamed of calling it a fight against afghan men."

Certainly not those whom are armed combatants and using civilians as human shields after having fired upon U.S. Marines.

To even posture such a comment after my post made clear that is exactly as reported is silly. This event seems well-chronicled and nobody is remotely suggesting that armed combatants weren't present. Again, this is a deliberate suspension of reality or else you're simply not terribly bright.

Sorry but that facts can't seem more stark in the absence of suffering from either of the above. That's your problem, as previously mentioned.
 
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This aggression will not stand, man!" Jeff Lebowski
As the United States steps up its air war, civilian casualties have climbed steadily over the past two years. Nearly 700 were killed in the first three months of 2008, a major increase over last year. In a recent incident, 47 members of a wedding party were killed in Helmand Province. In a society where clan, tribe, and blood feuds are a part of daily life, that single act sowed a generation of enmity.

Anatol Lieven, a professor of war at King's College London, says that a major impetus behind the growing resistance is anger over the death of family members and neighbors.



Lieven says it is as if Afghanistan is "becoming a sort of surreal hunting estate, in which the U.S. and NATO breed the very terrorists they then track down."

Once a population turns against an occupation (or just decides to stay neutral), there are few places in the world where an occupier can win. Afghanistan, with its enormous size and daunting geography, is certainly not one of them.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/07/31/10726

To make matters worse, the US-backed anti-Pashtun warlords of the Northern Alliance are in an endless wrangle to keep a firm clout in Kabul, despite the fact that Mr Karzai expelled some of these militia leaders from his cabinet. Their clinging to power continues to derail the process of national reconciliation. The Pashtuns see Karzai as a masquerade for these predatory warlords. Like swashbuckling pirates who threaten anyone who stands in their way of illegal and sectarian campaigns. The militia of the Northern Alliance, propelled to power by the American led invasion, use the Western presence as an insurance policy for their subsequent sectarian agenda, prolonging their control of the loin share of the state bureaucracy. The minority-dominated government in Kabul helps the Taliban to manipulate the current Pashtun marginalisation and growing apathy that are mostly living in the south, east and west of Afghanistan. The equilibrium of political power is maintained by NATO and the American forces. This left most of the Pashtuns in the country side with no choice but to turn against the Americans and NATO.

The warlords of the Northern Alliance began overplaying their hands against Pashtuns in many ways, after they helped the fall of the Taliban. The 9/11 was a historical calamity for the Americans, but for the NA it was a God-sent. The mothly group of defeated and spent warlords entered once again the Afghan capital, Kabul with suitcases of American dollars. As Chalmers Johnson puts in his bestselling book The Sorrows of The Empire, “the primary strategy, however, was to reopen the Afghan civil war by having the CIA spread some $70 million in cash among the Tajik and Uzbek warlords that the Taliban had defeated.” This shows that the US got Afghanistan at a bargain-basement price, which is reminiscent of that Hindu Raja who sold one of the Indian states for a bottle of Whisky to the British invading soldiers in the nineteenth century.

The Pashtuns people comprise about 60 percent of the Afghan population who are brimming with despair and anger. They are disillusioned with the US and their imposing an unpopular regime in Kabul, which feeds into growing insurgency. This also offers the Taliban, though loathed by most Afghans for their draconian laws and an aberrant version of Islam, an opportunity for recruitments. Traditionally no government could ever have sustained its power in Kabul without the support of the Pashtuns.

Throughout Afghan history, Pashtun support has been the backbone and life-line of the central government in Kabul. Even governments with direct foreign military invasions, which were preoccupied usually with Afghan ethnic minorities, are also failing to survive for long. The Pashtuns heartland has been traditionally the graveyard of invading forces and their fantasies.
http://www.registan.net/index.php/2007/07/10/pashtun-genocide-in-afghanistan-and-how-to-stop-it/
 
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We Want to Protect Them From the Enemy"

Operation Khanjar Begins

By GARY LEUPP

Operation Khanjar or “Strike of the Sword” in Helmand province is the first major operation under President Obama’s strategy to “stabilize” Afghanistan as he adds 21,000 more U.S. troops. Marine spokesman Capt. Bill Pelletier explains with no apparent sense of irony that the operation aims to show “the Afghan people that when we come in we are going to stay long enough to set up their own institutions. We do not want people of Helmand province to see us as an enemy, we want to protect them from the enemy,” he adds.

The fact is, the Taliban so expeditiously toppled in 2001 were able to gradually reestablish their own institutions at the local level in much of the country where they are not necessarily seen as the enemy and where foreign soldiers are likely viewed at minimum with suspicion. “The US has totally lost control of all the east,” says Gilles Dorronsoro, a specialist on Afghanistan at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, adding that the Taliban already control the majority of the population in the south. President Hamid Karzai is often referred to as “the mayor of Kabul” while the west and north are run by Uzbek, Tajik and Hazara warlords of the Northern Alliance.

U.S. military officers, frustrated with lack of success, suggest that the war cannot be won by military means alone but by economic development and political reform. But the dirty little secret here is that to overthrow the Taliban the U.S. relied on those Northern Alliance warlords who had ripped the country apart during their era of misrule which lasted from the fall of the pro-Soviet regime in 1993 to the establishment of the Taliban regime in 1996. They don’t want political or social reform and their idea of economic development is opium and human trafficking. Karzai for his part has been obliged to wheel and deal with them and his own brother has been implicated in the narcotics trade. The Obama administration is not happy with him and would prefer another candidate win the upcoming presidential election but it looks as though Karzai may have it sewn up.

The economic development the generals talk about, including gas pipeline construction, requires stability. (Helmand is one of the provinces through which the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India gas pipeline is scheduled to run). But Afghanistan, like Iraq, was destabilized precisely by a U.S. attack and occupation in the first place. More ominously, Pakistan been destabilized by the invasion of the next-door country.

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Michael Mullen told Congress last month that successes against the Taliban in Afghanistan “may only push them deeper into Pakistan,” admitting, “we may end up further destabilizing Pakistan without providing substantial lasting improvements in Afghanistan.”

Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke, replying to a question from a reporter in Pakistan about a new influx of refugees from Afghanistan as a result of the surge of 21,000 new troops in that country, declared in early June: “I don’t want to be alarmist here, but I’m predicting some massive influx. There are concerns that there may be some spillover as there was in the past.” That these comments are made almost cavalierly in passing should cause alarm.

All that the “Coalition” campaign against the Afghan Taliban has accomplished in eight years, aside from reviving the Afghan opium trade, is to generate a second Taliban in Pakistan, knock off balance the world’s second most populous Muslim country, divert the Pakistani Army from the border with India as the U.S. consolidates its alliance with the emerging South Asian “superpower,” kill over 2000 Pakistani soldiers and 7000 Pakistani militants and produce over two million Pakistani refugees.

It has not destroyed al-Qaeda, which was a loose-knit anomalous outfit to begin with and has (apparently) merely found new hosts across the border. The real al-Qaeda operatives are laughing at the U.S. effort in “******” which simply boosts their case that the U.S. is waging war on Islam, especially the most simple and devout. The Osama bin Ladens and Ayman al-Zawahiris are far more sophisticated than the illiterate Mullah Omars and Baitullah Mehsuds; theirs is a global vision of a worldwide caliphate, while the latter are Sunni fundamentalist Pashtun nationalists more interested in imposing traditional norms locally than changing the world or confronting the U.S. globally.

The former know how to use both the latter and to provoke the U.S. leaders to achieve their general open-ended objective: to exacerbate the conflict between the U.S. and Muslims everywhere. In retrospect, whether as a result of brilliant planning or mere happenstance, the results of the 9-11 attacks can hardly have been more advantageous from the al-Qaeda point of view.

Bin Laden plotted 9-11 from Afghanistan, trusting that the Pashtunwali code of hospitality to guests would involve his hosts in the attack and make them targets of U.S. retaliation. This worked fine; Afghanistan was bombed, the Talibs toppled but still the strongest political force in the country, capable of regrouping and tying down the foreign occupying forces. Karzai has offered for many months to negotiate with Mullah Omar, who dismisses such gestures as admissions of weakness.

A critical mass of al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders was able to flee into Pakistan, enjoy hospitality and protection, and build local organization even as outrage at U.S. drone attacks bolstered such organizing efforts. There are now some 2000 Tehreek-e- Taliban fighters in South Waziristan alone, and a smaller force was able to take over the Swat Valley. It is as though the U.S. delivered Osama a new friend, Baitullah Mehsuh, on a golden platter.

It is as though pathologically anti-Muslim people in the State Department were imagining possible scenarios of inflicting pain on Muslim societies and cooperating with bin Laden in involving the U.S. in an ongoing Crusade. They opted for this one: provoke the Pashtuns, a nation of 40 million straddling Afghanistan and Pakistan, in one of the most backward, devoutly Muslim, and least governed regions of the planet---in other words, where conditions entirely favor local tribesmen and jihadis of all types while disadvantaging state forces and foreign troops. (The Pakistani Army has been badly bloodied, the Afghan National Army remains largely a concept.)

Retired CIA analyst Bruce O. Riedel, who chaired a special interagency committee to develop President Obama’s policies on Afghanistan and Pakistan, told the Council on Foreign Relations last month:

“In Pakistan, we face a growing coalescence of jihadist militant groups, not just in the tribal areas, but in the Punjab and in the major cities including Karachi. This is threatening the very survival of the Pakistani state as we have known it. It is not inevitable and it is not imminent, but there is a real possibility of a jihadist state emerging in Pakistan sometime in the future. And that has to be one of the worst nightmares American foreign policy could have to deal with.”

More and more frequently, in increasingly shrill tones, State Department and Pentagon officials have acknowledged “the existential threat” to Pakistan of “the continuing advances” of the Taliban in the country. But they act as though it were someone else’s fault.

In fact Washington can only blame itself. By sending off young men and women, brainwashed with the view that they are in Afghanistan to protect people from “enemies” and to help build “institutions” that the Afghans couldn’t build if left to their own devices; by imposing its simplistic buttheaded categories on the real world and failing to distinguish between simple ideologues and terrorists; by routinely bombing civilians; it has not only mired itself in another Vietnam (which was indeed the Soviets’ Vietnam) but provoked the possible Talibanization of a key ally of 173 million people.

It is hard to see the logic in this, even from a neocon point of view. If the objective is to create a jihadist state with nuclear weapons, which Israel would immediately define as its main “existential threat” and likely attack with its own nukes, thus provoking World War III, then the plan is perhaps on schedule. But I don’t think that’s Obama’s intention. The fact that Holbrooke is apparently pursuing negotiations with some rebel leaders; that Obama is wavering on further troop increases; and that Gen. David McKiernan was removed from his position as top commander suggest that policy is in flux and that there is division in the leadership about how to proceed in Afghanistan.

This “largest military operation since the fall of 2001” is perhaps a test to see whether current U.S. counterinsurgency strategy can diminish the Taliban’s strength in Helmand. So far the militants are avoiding combat and simply disappearing among the masses. According to AP:

Haji Akhtar Mohammad, from Gereshk village now living in Helmand’s capital of Lashkar Gah, said the U.S.-led force will not have community support in the region weary of any foreign interference.

“It is difficult to tell who is Taliban and who is civilians,” Mohammad said. “They all have the same face, same beard and same turban,” he said. “It is very difficult to defeat them.”

Let us say they are not defeated, either in Afghanistan or Pakistan, by current strategies---a likely bet. They may either maintain their local-regional focus or be won over increasingly to an al-Qaeda global jihadist agenda. None of this is happening in a vacuum. Most Pashtun peasants may be illiterate but they will hear about what is happening on the West Bank and in Gaza in the coming months, and they will hear about it if/when Israel or the U.S. attacks Iran. These larger matters may affect their perception of the foreign troops in their midst.

Capt. Bill Pelletier, who wants the people of Helmand to see him not as an enemy but someone protecting them from the enemy, someone who wants to help them build their institutions, may not be thinking about this broader picture. Few U.S. military officers understand why there is massive hatred for the U.S. government and military in the world and their training does not encourage critical thinking about this question. “…when we come in we are going to stay long enough to set up their own institutions.” The confusion there about what’s “theirs” and “ours” helps explain the indignation and hatred, and the failure in Afghanistan to date, and bodes an inglorious outlook for Operation Strike of the Sword
Gary Leupp: Operation Khanjar Begins
 
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Afghanistan: surge and stay



Saturday, July 11, 2009
M Saeed Khalid

The twin offensive launched by the US and British forces in the remote Helmand province has confirmed the trend towards intensification of the war in Afghanistan. The British had ventured out in Helmand from summer 2006, ending in a stalemate against the Taliban. The arrival of US marines to launch a parallel operation three years on fits into a larger picture where troops from countries like Canada and the Netherlands earlier joined fighting in the south. The seven-year-old Operation Enduring Freedom too has been stepped up through aerial US attacks in Pakistan's tribal areas, matched by Pakistani forces' operations against the militants. Troops from other coalition partners are either resisting the Taliban in some provinces or engaging in policing and reconstructing elsewhere. This patchwork gives a general idea of the 21st century's main battleground i.e. south-eastern Afghanistan and the adjoining tribal areas of Pakistan. Those thinking in terms of an early exit strategy should now focus their attention on a new paradigm, that of a long military campaign. Mr Obama has obviously approved those Pentagon plans which correspond to his election campaign arguments, blaming the Bush administration for having strayed from the real fight against terrorism in Afghanistan to an unnecessary and expensive war in Iraq.

President Obama has changed the American discourse on Iraq and Afghanistan from ideological to pragmatic, arguing that the two represent jobs at hand, which should be carried out efficiently. Rather than promising to deliver democracy and freedom to other societies, he would be content to preserve these values for the Americans. He has the advantage of not starting the wars but inheriting them from the previous administration. Obama must be hoping that he does not have to justify the wars to his people but merely to carry on till America can extricate honourably. All this makes sense from the American perspective. How the world, particularly the Muslim opinion, views this is another matter. Obama's address to the Muslim world was well received. His Middle East policy gives reasons for hope. So can his argument find favour with the people in Afghanistan and Pakistan and convince them that the marines are battling in the Afghan countryside and the US drones targeting homes in FATA because of Al Qaida? There are many who will continue to claim that the US-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq form part of America's plan to dominate the Muslim world and control its strategically important energy sources.

The debate on America's motives is not new and can go on. The important point is that while the Muslim world only showed disdain for the reasoning advanced by the neo-cons, they are already interested in what Obama is saying. Viewed from a Pakistani angle, Obama seems to be making sense because the state of Pakistan and its armed forces have picked the gauntlet thrown by the self-styled jihadis and the war for territory as well as hearts and minds is very much underway. The current year could very well become the year of an important power shift in the war on the Taliban and Al Qaida. Since the beginning of this year, US drones have been hitting targets in FATA with greater intensity. The civil/military leadership of Pakistan came round to the US view that time for procrastination was over and a war had to be delivered on the Taliban. And with the US surge of combat force in Afghanistan, the Taliban are under greater pressure starting with Helmand. Another success has been registered by Obama by reaching agreement with the Russians to use their land routes and airspace to ferry military supplies to Afghanistan creating an alternative to the transit through Pakistan, the Gulf or Central Asia.

President Obama has reasons to be satisfied with the power balance moving against the jihadis. But we need to realistically assess how far the recent developments are going to change the course of war in Afghanistan. The war in Helmand is different from the operations in Malakand or Waziristan because foreign forces are trying to take control of the Afghan territory. Nothing is going to change that reality. Nor can anyone change the bigger reality, that the Taliban were dislodged from power by the Americans with the help of the Northern Alliance and they are honour-bound to fight the occupation force. The character of the war in Afghanistan will not change. Mr Obama and his allies may be influenced by electoral considerations and timeframes in their respective countries. The Taliban are not constrained by any deadlines. They can retreat when overwhelmed and wait to fight another day.

President Obama is mindful of Washington's need for steadfast allies to strengthen its position. Beyond the coalition assembled in Afghanistan, Pakistan's participation is of critical importance. But cooperation or comprehension in varying degrees from Russia, China, CARs, India and Iran is needed too. The full commitment of Saudi Arabia is required in more than one ways. The idea of creating a special office for Afghanistan and Pakistan also serves to create a coordination mechanism with other international players as well. Mr Obama has moved to mend fences with Russia. He has given his own touch to the way the US has been dealing with Russia under Mr Bush. Instead of pushing for NATO's eastward expansion which led to Russia's military intervention in Georgia, the Democrats are reaching out to Moscow to work together in the years ahead.

Medvedev-Obama summit has resulted in a new roadmap of US-Russia cooperation with direct implications for the conflict in Afghanistan. The two leaders reached agreement for the transit of military supplies for US troops in Afghanistan. Currently, only non-lethal goods are sent by rail across Russia/CARs. Under the new accord, a dozen heavy transport planes could be overflying Russia daily en route for Afghanistan. This new agreement has been described as reflecting the common challenges and threats the two countries face. We can thus see a shift from the emphasis under Bush to bring in countries like Georgia and Ukraine into NATO's fold provoking the Russians, to a new entente to defeat Islamist insurgencies in Central Asia.

While analysing the prospects of America's success through increased force levels, it is pertinent to keep in view her core objective in Afghanistan. It is to prevent the Taliban from retaking power and deny Al Qaida the opportunity to revive its bases in Afghanistan. This objective is partially achieved if populations in the areas with large Taliban presence realise that the US and allies accompanied by Afghan security forces will keep up pressure on the Taliban for as long as it takes. Taliban's rigid ideas on social behaviour backed by repressive and violent methods have taken their toll in terms of loss of local support. On the Pakistan side too, the Taliban and their jihadi cohorts have lost their appeal. Those who feared them as potential rulers will not have great difficulty in switching loyalty to the state. We can see Taliban's dwindling support on both sides of the Pakistan-Afghan border. But there is a good deal of battle left in the Afghan Taliban and little sign of their abandoning the fight. They are likely to survive even after their supporters in Pakistan have retreated. The surge will not be a short-cut to exit.




The writer is a former ambassador. Email: saeed.saeedk@gmail.com
 
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