US aims in Afghanistan ‘incredibly hard’ to achieve

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US aims in Afghanistan ‘incredibly hard’ to achieve

* UN official says coalition’s political campaign is very weak

LONDON: US goals in Afghanistan will be “incredibly hard” to achieve because of tough Taliban armed resistance and weaknesses in political reconciliation efforts, a UN official who monitors al Qaeda and the Taliban said.

In a Reuters interview, Richard Barrett added that Britain’s justification for deploying troops in Afghanistan on grounds of national security was “debatable”, as it was not clear that a post-war Taliban movement would bring back al Qaeda.

His comments add to a tide of scepticism about the coalition campaign following tougher-than-expected Taliban resistance in the southerly Marjah district, and a slower start to a long-awaited offensive in the Taliban’s birthplace of Kandahar.

Barrett, coordinator of the UN Taliban-al Qaeda Sanctions Monitoring Committee, predicted a stern Taliban response and suggested a way had to be found to engage the group politically.

“However many of them you kill, there’ll be more coming over the hill,” said Barrett.

“You’re not dealing with people who you punch hard and they run away. They’re not going to run away,” he added.

The US strategy hinges on pouring forces into southern Afghanistan before starting a gradual withdrawal in July 2011, conditions permitting.

Barrett said the Kandahar push had to be backed by a strong political campaign, but the resources available to US commanders were “essentially military, not political.

“The Afghans are in charge of the political side and there’s still a great weakness there,” he said. A June 4 meeting of Afghan tribal elders and religious leaders handed President Hamid Karzai a mandate to open negotiations with the insurgents. But the Taliban dismissed the jirga as a phoney American-inspired show. “I don’t believe that the strategy is wrong or the objectives are wrong. It’s just that the objectives are incredibly hard to achieve,” Barrett said.

If the coalition claimed it had evicted the Taliban from Kandahar, it only needed one suicide bombing to demonstrate that it remained.

Also, it would be difficult to determine who was or was not Taliban, and who “won’t be Taliban tomorrow,” Barrett said.

On Britain’s role, Barrett said its counter-terrorism strategy overall was “very good” and the West’s post-2001 goal of chasing al Qaeda from Afghanistan and ensuring it was unable to mount Sept 11-style attacks had been achieved.

“So why are we still in Afghanistan, the (official) answer is that if we left, the Taliban would come back and al Qaeda would come with them. That’s the bit I think is contentious,” he said. reuters

Daily Times - Leading News Resource of Pakistan

 

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Once the Taliban acquired surface-to-air missiles, the primarily advantage our military had was removed

The Afghanistan Quagmire​

By Alan Caruba Friday, June 18, 2010

The war in Afghanistan has been going on for more than eight years as of this writing. Over that period of time I have been against it, for it, against it, for it, and now I return to what my instincts and experience told me all along. It’s over.



That war is lost. Once the Taliban acquired surface-to-air missiles, the primarily advantage our military had was removed. In the past month, the Taliban have shot down two of our helicopters. Any low-flying aircraft will be vulnerable along with all our front-line forces.

This is a repeat of how the Soviets lost their war in Afghanistan. The Stinger missles the CIA began to provide the Afghan insurgents and the many Arabs that joined the battle—-including Osama bin Laden—-the war was over. Not many years later, the Soviet Union collapsed.

You cannot win a counterinsurgency with local forces if:

1.you don’t have a significant portion of the population on your side and
2.those forces do not want to fight.

Afghans don’t like anyone who is not an Afghan and, in many cases, they do not like other Afghans from other tribes. They didn’t even like the Arabs that joined them in the fight against the Soviets. They want to be left alone to raise poppies and make money the only way they can, via the drug trade.

The other factor that is a key to the situation is our “ally”, Pakistan. The U.S. has poured billions into Pakistan and they have been supporting the Taliban the whole time; more specifically, the Pakistan Inter-Services Intelligence Agency.

Let it be said that George W. Bush was right to chase al Qaeda out of Afghanistan after 9/11. Failure to take military action would have been seen as weakness and made the U.S. vulnerable to more attacks on the homeland. For eight years while he was in the White House, there were no further attacks.

Then Barack Hussein Obama got elected. He did so in part by claiming that Afghanistan was the “real” war to be won and that our war in Iraq was a mistake. Then, when he had to decide what to do there, he spent three months making up his mind, agreed to send 40,000 more troops, and announced the date when we would leave. You don’t win wars by telling the enemy when you’re going to leave.

While he’s been in office there have been two unsuccessful attacks, the Christmas underwear bomber and the Times Square bomber. The Fort Hood murders were swept under the rug after Obama took three days to think of something to say about them. He said we should not “jump to conclusions” about Major Hassan who shouted “Allahu akbar” while murdering his fellow soldiers.

Debka File, an Israeli news agency is saying what the U.S. press is disinclined to say. “America’s longest war is about to end.” Drawing on its military and intelligence sources, it said the US-led NATO forces will have no victory and must settle “at best in a draw or at worst in a win for the Taliban, al Qaeda’s extremist partner.”

Pakistan puppet masters guide the Taliban killer

An article in the UK’s Times was picked up by the Washington Post on June 14. The Times article was headlined “Pakistan puppet masters guide the Taliban killers.” It reported that “Pakistan’s own intelligence agency, the ISI, is said to be represented on the Taliban’s war council, the Quetta shura. Up to seven of the 15-man shura are believed to be ISI agents.”

The former head of Afghanistan’s intelligence agency, Amrullah Salah, recently resigned. He concluded that Afghan forces of the government under Hamid Karzai, the US hand-picked president of Afghanistan, would not and could not prevail. Afghanistan has never been a nation by any standard definition. It has always been a nation of tribes.

The Afghanistan conflict has cost the West billions and hundreds of lives. NATO, an institution put together during the long Cold War with the then-Soviet Union, has never had much support among its European members, none of whom have had much heart for a fight following World War Two.

The United Kingdom has been our most steadfast partner in NATO and in our two invasions of Iraq, after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, and in wake of the widespread belief he had weapons of mass destruction. Almost from the day he first stepped into the Oval Office, President Obama has engaged in every way possible to offend the British and his latest fulminations about the BP oil spill have only worsened relations.

Obama’s “rules of engagement” in Afghanistan

When word leaked about Obama’s “rules of engagement” in Afghanistan that essentially put every one of our soldiers and marines at risk, the die was cast.

The combined US-UK force failed to loosen the Taliban’s grip on Marjah, the most recent military engagement. The Afghan forces refused to fight much of the time. The Taliban continue to control the whole of southern Afghanistan.

The Kandahar offensive has been postponed. It was to be waged by American, British, Canadian, and Afghan forces. If that doesn’t tell you that the war in Afghanistan is over, nothing will.

If there is no will to wage war vigorously to bring about victory, nothing can be done for now. This is not to say we will not have to return at some time, but as long as President Obama is in office, that is not an option.

© Alan Caruba, 2010


The Afghanistan Quagmire

 

[Fighter488]

By AIJAZ ZAKA SYED | ARAB NEWS

Who owns Afghanistan's riches?​

He has strange ways of balancing His creation. Look around and you can't miss the delicate equilibrium in nature all around you, even if you choose not to believe in Him.

From our own bodies to the awesome, infinite universe that hosts us, there's a fine balance that seems to govern, maintain and sustain it all.

If the nature has blessed one country with abundant resources, it has gifted another people with something else. If the Arabs have had to struggle with an incredibly hostile landscape throughout their history, they have been compensated for it by the liquid gold called oil.

Trust me, dear readers, this is not a discussion on the origins of universe, nor am I trying to take on the delusional arguments of Richard Dawkins.

My rambling is inspired by the latest New York Times report that confirms what many have long suspected: That Afghanistan, like Iraq, is sitting on the vast reserves of rich mineral resources and precious metals and that the invasion and occupation of the country has nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks or Osama Bin Laden.

The untapped mineral deposits that include huge quantities of iron, gold, copper, cobalt and critical industrial metals such as lithium are said to be so huge and so rich that the war- plagued and long-exploited Afghanistan could change forever, emerging as one of the most important and affluent mining centers in the world.

So much so an internal Pentagon memo suggests that the Central Asian country could become the "Saudi Arabia of lithium," a precious raw material used in the making of batteries for laptops and mobile phones.

The findings are based on a survey carried out by the US Geological Survey, Pentagon and the Afghan government. However, it is not the US that has discovered this limitless treasure that Gen. David Petraeus, commander of the US Central Command, agrees offers "stunning potential."

The survey was carried out on the basis of some old charts and data collected by Afghan engineers and Soviet mining experts.

Clearly, the Russians had been aware all along of the mineral jackpot that the dirt poor, underdeveloped Afghanistan had been sitting on when they invaded the country in 1979.

The Russian bear, however, had to beat it after years of disastrous occupation and a debilitating war. They not just had to fly by night with all their plans to plunder Afghanistan but the disaster changed Russia forever.

It's a great irony of history that it is not America's military might, its fancy weapons or its state-of the-art "star wars" program but the rudimentary, rustic weapons and legendary bravery of the Afghans that brought down the Soviet giant, changing the course of history forever.

And it's an even greater irony that the US has drawn no lessons from the fate of the "evil empire", as Ronald Reagan would call the Soviet Union. Uncle Sam has rushed headlong, eyes wide shut, to dig himself deep into the Afghan quagmire not long after the humiliating retreat of the Russian bear.

After the 9/11 strikes when our friend George W. Bush was preparing to "shock and awe" Afghanistan, promising a "new crusade" of "With us or against us" slogan, some solitary voices around the world dared to suggest Afghanistan was being invaded because of its rich natural resources.

Some of them went to the extent of questioning the official version of the 9/11 attacks, implying they had been part of a vast conspiracy involving US intelligence agencies, neocons and Zionists to invade and take over the resources of Muslim countries.

At the time, those conspiracy theories sounded like the loony tunes of a feverish, overactive imagination even to me. Given the shocking poverty and backwardness of Afghanistan, the idea sounded totally bizarre.

I am not so sure any more, though. Especially after the absurd lengths to which the US has gone and the kind of outlandish excuses it invented to invade Iraq, the world's largest oil producer after Saudi Arabia.

And remember, before Iraq it was Iran. If the Iranians, one of the most cultured and civilized people anywhere, distrust and despise the Americans, British and virtually all of the West from the depths of their hearts, there are enough reasons for it.

In fact, there's a long history of conspiracies, manipulation and old-fashioned exploitation by big powers against Iran.

From playing petty games with the last Shah of Iran to deposing his defiant father to sending mercenaries to bring down Prime Minister Dr. Mosaddeq, the Middle East's first elected leader, they have tried every trick in the book to cheat Iranian people out of the rich resources God has gifted them.

The fun hasn't stopped even with the fall of Shah and the Islamic Revolution of 1979. The continuing UN sanctions and the talk of "action" against Tehran, driven by you know who, only rub salt into the deep wounds on Iranian psyche. No wonder the nuclear program has become an issue of national prestige for Iranians, even to those ostensibly opposed to the ayatollahs.

Of course, this long saga of colonial exploitation has not been limited to the Middle East. This game is as old as the history of Western colonialism itself.

From Africa to India to the Far East, it's the same story of exploitation everywhere. It'd be no exaggeration to suggest that the West's breathtaking march to industrial and scientific progress has been fueled and driven by the riches of the so-called Third World.

It's become fashionable for Western wonks to rile against crushing poverty, endemic corruption and misrule in much of Africa. But who created this mess in the first place in a continent that is a vast, big mine of incredible riches? Who colonized, ruled and exploited Africa at gunpoint for over four centuries? In fact, who has ruled and exploited much of the world over the past few centuries, plundering it to fill their own coffers?

India, the jewel in the crown, was denuded and robbed of all its beauty and brilliance by the time the last British viceroy flew into the empire's sunset. Kohinoor, the legendary diamond in Queen Elizabeth's crown mined from Golconda, is the ultimate testament to our colonial masters' insatiable craving.

You would forgive and forget it all if it had been a mere page from a hoary, long forgotten history. But it's not. This game of exploitation is still a living, breathing reality. Western colonialism may be dead but the mindset is very much alive in one form or the other. Players may have changed but policies haven't. Yesterday, it was the East India Company. Today, it's Uncle Sam's trigger-happy boys or mighty multinational corporations.

However, if the Yanks think they will succeed where the Russians failed, they'd better think again. If the irrepressible Afghan can beat one mighty empire with his sticks and stones, he can beat another mighty empire too. The Americans may have the deadliest arms known to man and infinite resources at their disposal. History, geography and time, however, are on the other side. This is a war Afghans have never lost. Not in the past, not now. Especially not now when they have to protect their national resources. Afghanistan's riches belong to its people, not to the coalition of the willing. It's a reward from God for all the suffering Afghan people have put up with for centuries with a smile.

- Aijaz Zaka Syed is a Dubai-based commentator. Write to him at mailaijaz@aol.com


Who owns Afghanistan's riches? - Arab News