by Kennedy Graham
Afghanistan gets progressively worse. The US President is caught in a vice-like grip between personal judgment and political constraint. Having characterised Afghanistan as a war of necessity to escape a war of choice (Iraq), he cannot exit early. Yet a late exit becomes a quagmire. He thus equivocates over the military’s request for another surge, shedding political capital in a downward spiral of indecision.
No other NATO country has stomach for the future there, and certainly not Britain with five fewer soldiers this week.
The UN is reduced to a cipher that acknowledges through Security Council resolutions what NATO decides to do, which is what Washington decides to do. We witness unilateral hegemony masked in regional alliance diplomacy masked in an illusion of global legitimacy. Everybody’s nightmare. Especially the Afghanis.
The Afghanistan intervention began in the name of self-defence, post-9/11. That was the first mistake – by the UN. Terrorism has to be seen as an international crime, for an effective jurisdictional reach. It is not a matter of war between states, even if you are harbouring them.
Issuing the Manichean ultimatum of ‘for or against’ us in the ill-described ‘war on terror’ was the second mistake – by the US. Getting sucked into that false choice was the third – by New Zealand.
In ’01, the Taliban were an extremist regime, unrecognized at the UN. They should have, could have, been handled differently, through tough sanctions that would have eventually brought them around or down, as happened with others (Rhodesia, Libya). Inter-state invasions and air-strikes on wedding celebrants tend to glorify the extremists. The diplomatic battle lines harden along with the military, to the point of sclerosis.
Now the situation is redolent of Vietnam, with the West, not the UN, fighting an extremist regime of a fundamentally different culture. There is no win-win to these, not in the Middle East, not in South Asia. The Viet Cong are today’s Taliban. The Vietnamese won, then stabilized, then reconciled, then became a respected member of the international community. The US lost, then stabilized, then reconciled, yet fails to learn the searing lessons of global leadership.
The US claims, with continually less conviction and credibility, that the conflict in Afghanistan is about self-defence. If it is US self-defence, let them state it clearly and fight it alone. If it is NATO self-defence, the same goes. If it is the self-defence of the West, how do we prove that New Zealand is threatened by the Taliban?
I do not feel threatened by the Taliban. I find some of their policies odious. That is not the basis for self-defence. Al Qaeda is different. They are a terrorist organization and should be subject to criminal jurisdiction. But you need to separate the two out. The previous US administration policy of deliberately conflating them has sown an impenetrable policy thicket from which it is not easy to emerge.
Afghanistan is no longer about self-defence, it is about nation-building. You do not do nation-building from Washington. You do it from New York– through genuine plans drawn up by the Secretariat and put forward to the Security Council. You do not receive reports from NATO. The only non-UN official inside the UN Secretariat building is a NATO liaison officer.
Until the West agrees to an equal input into Security Council policy-making by China and Russia, the strategic skew will always undermine crisis management and nation-building.
The counter-terrorism operation in Afghanistan never had a sound legal basis. Now OEF has been conflated into ISAF, the stabilization force. While that force is legal, it has lost its political credibility, because the premise on which it rests (legitimate representative government) has collapsed. Time the Security Council terminated its mandate.
The NZ-SAS, having been attacked already, stand to be attacked again. Our troops are capable and tough. All the more reason to make sure they are legal and properly deployed. They are there, we’re told, to prove we can play our part. But in what?
Are we confined simply to numerical additionality of vanishingly modest proportion, or are we capable of thinking for ourselves? We tend to lump our SAS in with the All Blacks. The SAS is different. If you fight and kill, you must make sure it is legal and it is politically wise. Karzai’s Afghanistan is neither, with or without Abdullah.
It is time to bring the SAS home.
Published in Justice & Democracy by Kennedy Graham on Fri, November 6th, 2009
Tags: afghanistan, Barack Obama, NZSAS
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on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
Well said, Kennedy.
There disturbing parallels to US policy in Vietnam. Initial action in both cases was based on US myths and outright lies. US military response was massive, expensive but ultimately ineffective. After years of bloody conflict, US and allied support for corrupt and incompetent regimes eventually foundered.
NZ and the world generally hold a huge reservoir of respect and goodwill for the US, its policies and its institutions. But sometimes it simply does not deserve it.
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“The NZ-SAS, having been attacked already, stand to be attacked again.”
Wasn’t it the PRT that was attacked? Or have I missed something?
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They should have, could have, been handled differently, through tough sanctions that would have eventually brought them around or down, as happened with others (Rhodesia, Libya)
Didn’t the face that the US agreed that Gadaffi stepping down/handing himself over was unnecessary like what happened with Saddam have just a BIT to do with them stopping the WMD program too?
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The problem of going and the Taleban returning leaves us back at square one.
Would they not allow al Qaeda to remain? And how does one actually gain jurisdiction to deal with the “criminal matter” in relation to the Taleban doing that?
Complicating this further is an obvious al Qaeda and Taleban association with Islamist rebellion in Pakistan, which could be seen by them as an act of war. The UN is obligated to provide collective security to members – whatever their own power to deal with it themselves.
Why leave, when the need to go back in is so likely.
And if a continuing engagement is required, why leave it to others?
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That’s a big IF. Your assumption that US involvement is well-intentioned and/or having a positive effect is astronomically far from obvious.
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Life wasn’t too positive under the taliban either Valis. The fact is pulling out is no longer an option, the surge tactics worked well in Iraq and it is really Obamas only option now. They have got to do this as efficiently as possible and the SAS can help them do it.
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Valis
I have a bias towards internationalism in the matter of supporting democratic secular society – in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, I think there is a case for seeing the liberation of women in such countries as one of the causes of this century. As Churchill once said about who he would ally with to defeat Hitler – and I too would accept “American” help in a good cause.
And lets guess our development aid would not continue if the Taleban were in power and refugees would end up back in Pakistan and then via camps to where exactly?
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SPC, just because the US always talks about “supporting democratic secular society”, doesn’t mean that is their motivation. They didn’t care how bad the Taliban were when there was an oil pipeline on offer. And that wasn’t even under Bush, but Clinton. Comparing the situation to defeating Hitler is just a tad naive.
The US will eventually leave Afghanistan like it left Viet Nam. All they are doing is delaying the day the locals can start sorting things on their own. First they will combine together to eject the invader before fighting again amongst themselves.
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This seems relevant:
By Garrison Keillor
The former Marine officer Matthew Hoh, who resigned his Foreign Service post in Afghanistan because he feels the war is pointless and not worth dying for, deserves all the attention he’s gotten and more. The Obama administration faces hard decisions there, and the man made a good case against deeper American involvement. He says that our presence among the Pashtun people, the rural, religious people, is only aggravating a civil war between them and the urban, secular (and, it seems, fraudulent) government of Kabul, and the role of the Taliban and al-Qaida is not central—the real issues are tribal and cultural.
American families, Hoh said, “must be reassured their dead have sacrificed for a purpose worthy of futures lost, love vanished, and promised dreams unkept. I have lost confidence such assurances can be made any more.”
It is rare that a high-level official—he was the senior State Department guy in Zabul province—resigns in protest, and in all the to-do about his four-page resignation letter, nobody had a single bad thing to say about Matthew Hoh.
The American people tend not to admire quitters, which is maybe why protest resignations are so rare. You can get up on your high horse and talk about your principles, but we suspect that you’re just another slacker looking for an easy way out. Your old football coach told you that when the going gets tough, the tough get going, and by “get going” he didn’t mean “write a four-page letter about your disillusionment with his coaching and the split-T offense in general”—he meant, Toughen Up, Assume the Three-Point Stance, Hit ‘Em Hard, Eat Some Turf, Get Up and Hit ‘Em Again.
On the other hand, you don’t want to be the last man to believe in the mission after everyone else has seen the light and gone home. Sunday in San Francisco, they set out to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Woodstock by gathering 3,000 guitarists in Golden Gate Park to play Jimi Hendrix’s “Purple Haze” and 50 showed up and some of them were playing ukeleles. The Sixties are over. Time to move on.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20091029_when_the_tough_should_get _going/
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Valis
Don’t evade my point and then attempt to belittle by falsely implying I was comparing the fight to the war on the Nazis.
My point was clear enough – you just chose to evade it. You were the one invoking the Americans are bad line, I just chose to note that what Churchill said (and we both know he did not care for the Russians but welcomed them as allies), so even if the Americans were as bad as you make out to justify your position, it is irrelevant.
Even bad guys, such as Stalin, are sometimes on the right side of history.
And you also evade responsibility for all the people who will be at risk as soon as foreign forces leave, leave them to sort it out … you mean the slaughter of those not Islamist in their politics who don’t have a warlords protection.
And how many years of sorting it out and will anyone offer them aid afterwards if its simply the Taleban who prevail once again? Euphemisms for accepting cruelty provided it’s done by locals to each other and no Americans are involved. It’s too simplistic a foreign policy for my taste.
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This is not the first time the West has been “Nation” building in Afghanistan SPC.
This was all tried in the 1950’s. I would suggest SPC that you look into the history of Helmand province.
I remember some years ago watching a British Officer standing in Helmand province telling the reporters that they were going to modernise the province. I fell out my seat laughing talk about history repeating.
Why is the world so full SPC’s who think that they are superior to everyone else and that their belief and value systems should be imposed everywhere.
Democracy can not be imposed on an uneducated population and if you decide to western educate that population you wont get democracy you will get communism.
The above is exactly what we got in Afghanistan last time we followed SPC’s advise. I would think since you got it wrong last time SPC that at least this time you would try something different. Wait isn’t that the definition of stupidity.
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Said it before:
This place has been gang-banged for going on a century, and Kipling’s wail about the jezail still echoes.
The only thing to do now that so many people have made so many mistakes is to take the situation in hand another way. The West will leave when the Afghans and Pakistanis turn over the militant Al-Quaeda (including Osama Bin-Forgotten or his remains). This must be accompanied by a program that allows evacuation of western-educated and other western sympathizing refugees to countries that participated in the foolishness. We made the mess, we get to clean up after.
That leaves the Taleban in control but removes the criminals from their protection. That’s the best option I can think of, and while it sucks from the perspective of wanting people to be enlightened and educated and empowered, it is the case that radical Islam is a cause that has gained much of its power from our own clewless religions false sense of superiority.
BJ
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I don’t think I evaded your point. I’m just saying that it can’t be applied in all situations.
Even bad guys, such as Stalin, are sometimes on the right side of history.
This isn’t one of them.
And you also evade responsibility for all the people who will be at risk as soon as foreign forces leave, leave them to sort it out
Not at all. I’m saying if we care about those people, we need a fundamentally different approach as continuing on the same course will make things worse, not better. Here’s a link discussing the plight of women there, noting that even woman’s groups aren’t sure what to do in this terrible situation. http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20091104_what_option_for_afghan_wo men/
And how many years of sorting it out and will anyone offer them aid afterwards if its simply the Taleban who prevail once again? Euphemisms for accepting cruelty provided it’s done by locals to each other and no Americans are involved.
You clearly care very deeply and that makes you want to act, which is laudable. But there are many situations where acting, particularly via Western military interference, can only make things worse, regardless of good intentions, which true, I don’t believe the US has. And that makes your goals even less likely to be realised.
Its an aside to the main point here, but why hasn’t the US sorted out Mugabe? Why does it support regimes in the mid-east that are at least as bad as the Taliban? Answer: realpolitik self interest. If women or anyone else benefit, fine and good propaganda too, but that is not part of their calculations.
It’s too simplistic a foreign policy for my taste.
I know it’s not simple. Its just that we seem have this argument in some form every few weeks on this blog and its frustrating to have to rehash the whole thing over and over. In fact, it is an incredibly complicated situation, particularly as our military involvement has made things so much more difficult. I do not advocate washing our hands of Afghanistan. We have too much responsibility for breaking it (more than it already was). That doesn’t mean we stay on the same path. If the engagement remains primarily of a military nature, none of the things you hope to achieve will happen, despite rising death tolls on both sides. To me that is the simple part. The rest is a mess, but hard to even debate so long as we approach every situation as a war.
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Oh turnip, your need to personify me as/with the guilty man in the history of Afghanistan/western leadership etc speaks volumes. So anyone who has another point of view in what our responsibilities are in Afghanistan has to be categorised in your own version of an us and them manicheanism.
Given the consequences of leaving and that Afghanistan is now writ large on the domestic stability of a nuclear armed neighbour, I don’t see that the West has much choice but to stay on and do what can be done.
These consequences range from the humanitarian (note refugees returned to Afghanistan, whereas in Iraq people are still leaving) to the admission of failure in the attempt to bring the terrorists to justice.
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Valis, I favour a certain idealistic internationalism in foreign policy -keeping the promise to provide foreign aid to .7% of GDP, the promotion of human rights within nations and bringing labour and environment standards into trade between nations. I also favour collective security, so that would be regional bullies (and or terrorists) know they will be contained.
(I don’t care if thats dismissed as some western democratic colonialism by some).
The mission in Afghanistan is consistent with some of these goals, so I will remain sympathetic to it, despite difficulties consequent on being sidetracked in Iraq. The question facing Obama is as to what strategy would work best and what resources would be required to achieve it. In my opinion he is probably tempted to try an option that would require less input – despite a greater risk of failure – this on the basis that capability could be better applied to America’s advantage (he may agree with critics because thats their new national real-politic) elsewhere.
In the past, the security imperative in the war against terrorism built up to support the regime change in Iraq – which is where Americans had real interest (while they were in oil import economy global superpower mode). My fear is that Afghanistan may be abandoned because they could not get their way in Iraq (as per the oil fields), and that a new Afghanistan will occur in Pakistan once the Americans leave. And not only that, but the whole fiasco (perception of American decline) will deepen the problem over the self-identity of Iran as a legitimate regional power amongst their establishment elite. Ultimately this goes much further than just this region IMO and involves how we intend (or even if we intend) to regulate regional power agression in a world without a superpower (for Americas days in this role are numbered). That scenario in a world facing the economic problems consequent from global warming and peak oil, water depletion etc gives me enough concern to generally support international endeavour where it is now occuring.
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bj
Sure the intevention was made on the basis of the Taleban not handing over al Qaeda (standing in the way of international crime fighting), so that would offer a basis for talks over a withdrawal (and the Taleban ending links with Pakistani Islamists fighting the Pakistani government).
I am not sure that this would involve handing Kabul back to the Taleban, or the north and west of the country. But sure withdrawal of foreign forces from the south and re-inclusion of the Taleban to their homeland etc.
Maybe a self governing north and south (that would leave the Islamist Taleban and others to co-operate in the south), with a federal government in Kabul would be their best option.
Problem is the Taleban are not moderates looking for compromise, or if they are, they are not very good at it (so barring some of the very occasional American brilliance in diplomacy) …
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Valis, I favour a certain idealistic internationalism in foreign policy -keeping the promise to provide foreign aid to .7% of GDP, the promotion of human rights within nations and bringing labour and environment standards into trade between nations.
Totally with you on these points.
I also favour collective security, so that would be regional bullies (and or terrorists) know they will be contained.
OK conceptually, except that we’re the regional bully in this case and that is a fatal flaw. Idealism is fine until it clouds practical judgment and causes disasters. After that, we’re no better than anyone else.
(I don’t care if thats dismissed as some western democratic colonialism by some).
“Democratic colonialism”? LOL, I think I am starting to understand you.
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Yes sure, there are problems consequent with any intevention, coz those doing so own the problems they cause – the occupying power “burden”. So sure practicalities are important and the points critics make about past history are relevant to this point.
But to determine that because of this, western democratic idealism is somehow some new colonialism is IMO not a useful argument.
It’s like saying that even if a democratic government has a mandate, it might use that to change things in a way that caused problems – so the whole concept of using the democratic process to enable government corrupted the idealism of democracy and made the people subjects of an neo-colonial occupying power doing them harm.
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As for “western democratic idealism”, that is not something those with the real power of life and death are bothered with at all, except as a tool for keeping the public from complaining about the crimes done in their name.
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I know I’ll be accused of being a conspiracy theory nut for this post but nevertheless here goes – We all seem to generally agree that Afganistan is a mess & we ( the UN, Nato, Coalition of the willing)find ourselves between a rock & a hard place. Historically, probably from the time of Alexander, foreign forces have found it impossible to impose ‘order’ on Afganistan.
Irrespective of the motive, even where it can be identified, tribal & cultural opposing forces within the country have succeeded in repelling invaders & more or less reverting to their own idea of an indiginous culture, often diametrically opposed to that of the invading force. It seems to me therefore that it’s extemely unlikely that ‘winning’ can be a realistic outcome. No one can even seem to define what winning actually means, apart from the distopian view of ‘a Western Type Democracy’ being ‘imposed’ there.
Even if winning was possible, in the classic Irish words, “I wouldn’t start from here”.
Once you understand the real motives & Modus Operendi of the Americans/British under the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Blair Criminal Conspiracy, you immediately see the impossiility of a successful outcome.
Therefore, what to do?
I believe this reasoning is behind Obama’s seemingly hesitant approach. In other words, he too doesn’t wish to ‘ start from here’.
My belief is that a fundamentally different approach is imperative.
1st – start playing Hardball with the Pakistani’s & cease supporting those who play fast & loose with us, supporting an ememy stronghold in the Tribal Areas. Bush & his mob actively supported a duplicitous Pakistani military Dictatorship who were in bed with the so-called Pakistani Taliban/Al Quaida (the real root of the current problem). This is belatedly happening, but far too late.
2nd – attack the Drug situation head-on. i.e. decriminalise Heroin, Cocaine, Cannabis, & start buying up Afgani drugs (burning them ). Set up a scheme whereby the money generated within the Afgani economy goes to the local level directly, not through Warlords or the corrupt Karzi regime. A difficult task, but no more so than the current fiasco.
3rd – stop supplying Pakistan with arms period. Instead support them financially to an equal degree, insisting the cash goes to primary education for all.
4th – instigate programs both in Afanistan & Pakistan to educate women & provide them with Micro Finance to establish small commerce at village level. The funds could be easily found by diverting money from arms programs.
5th – open up records of past Western wrongdoing (post 2000, Bush’s first rigged election & post Sept 11 2001)& punish through the Courts, those who decieved us & drew us into this morass. You know who I mean !
I could go on but those measures would be a good start.
Impossible I hear you cry, but no more so that the prospect of ‘winning’ in Afganistan/Pakistan by the current business as usual approach. Other than an increasingly bloody fiasco which is bound to end in many tears.
Only my humble opinion.
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“In ’01, the Taliban were an extremist regime, unrecognized at the UN. They should have, could have, been handled differently, through tough sanctions that *would have eventually brought them around or down*, as happened with others (Rhodesia, Libya). Inter-state invasions and air-strikes on wedding celebrants tend to glorify the extremists. The diplomatic battle lines harden along with the military, to the point of sclerosis.”
do we have any evidence to support that. Afghanistan isn’t under one dictator (with oil exports at stake) nor is it a Rhodesia?
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You have a point jh – Afghanistan’s major export appears to be an “illegal” (their imports funded by the drug traffic and would have been smuggled in via Pakistan). There was then little aid coming in and there were many exiles living in refugee camps in Pakistan.
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PS Some Green MP’s, such as the former one Ms Bradford would have simply argued that a policy of non violence means it’s not simply a matter of tactics, strategy or legality, but one of ethics/morality.
We have traditionally taken a multi-lateral line and supported collective action through the UN, perhaps some thought should be given how to reconcile the Green Party ethical position (non violence) and this tradition in practice – given we cannot easily change the option which others choose to take.
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I think post of this nature should be more in depth with more reference such as drawing on analysis from various sources such as George Friedmans Stratfor.
http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20091014_pakistan_south_waziristan_migr ation?utm_source=SWeeklyS&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=091014&utm_con tent=SecTitle
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It looks like western forces are backing corrupt local elites – gangsters, warlords, tribal leaders of dubious legitimacy – both through a certain naivety, and a perception that such people are at least preferable to the Taliban. Unfortunately, rhetoric aside, these are much the same as those whose corrupt and self-serving rule lead Afghans to welcome the Taliban in the first place.
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With the US as our allies we don’t need any enemies as Bigblue pointed out how credible was George Bushes election?
Ever since Abraham Lincoln the Republicans never really believed in democracy, what they are really pushing is an imperialist oligarchy and we , back in 2000 should have told them to go and get stuffed!!!!!
Did Britain under Harold Wilson get involved in the Vietnam war in the late sixties? NO.
The US government is the auther of it’s own problems by backing terrorist and racist regimes as Israel since 1948, so naturally the Taliban (regardless of what one thinks of their regime) have a deep loyalty to their muslim brothers the Palestinians.
The US simply interferes in other peoples business and if that results in a tangle of snakes then they should sort it out.
We should stay right out of Afghanistan and any other oil induced imperialist war of the USA!!!!!!
The people to be best dealing with the excesses of the Taliban are the Afghanistan people.
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“Afghanistan’s major export appears to be an “illegal”…”
Worth pointing out that the Taliban did stop the production of drugs in their controlled areas, a feat that has yet to be repeated by any of the so-called good guys…
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The world should take their guns and go on home….send tourists.
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Sam Buchley; Before her death Mrs B. Bhutto wrote her biography about her exile and imprisonment in Pakistan and ever since the overthrow of her father by general Zia (1969).
Pakistan then was really loyal to the Wadi Party of Saudi Arabia and of course the Taliban while at the same time getting money out of the yanks for ‘defeating terrorism’.
How duplicitous is that?
As Mark says ‘Lets take our guns and go home’.
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