In Afghanistan, war trumps elections
By Frida Berrigan
The official results of Afghanistan's presidential elections won't be known for
weeks. The ballots cast around the country need to be brought to Kabul - some
by donkey and helicopter - and counted.
Nevertheless, United States officials have rushed to celebrate the process, and
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) secretary general Anders Fogh
Rasmussen heralded the elections as "a testimony to the determination of the
Afghan people to build democracy". This despite more than 75 reported incidents
of
violence throughout the country, an estimated 26 civilians and security forces
dead, reports of more than a handful of districts where no one voted and
complaints about impermanent ink, intimidation and other irregularities.
As we continue to watch and wait for the final results, this focus on
Afghanistan should provoke a reconsideration of means and ends in what the
world is now calling "Obama's War". The military won't defeat al-Qaeda and the
Taliban. Nor will elections in an occupied country solve this problem. We have
to start looking at different solutions.
Can't get there from here
In a prime time speech before the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) in Arizona
last week, President Barack Obama recommitted himself to the war in
Afghanistan, saying that "this is a war of necessity" that is "fundamental to
the defense of our people". And repeated what he characterized as a "new
strategy" with a "clear mission" and "defined goals", namely to "disrupt,
dismantle and defeat al-Qaeda and its extremist allies".
This strategy does sound less grandiose than president George W Bush's
articulation of the US commitment to Afghanistan from 2002. "We know that true
peace will only be achieved when we give the Afghan people the means to achieve
their own aspirations," Bush said. "Peace - peace will be achieved by helping
Afghanistan develop its own stable government. Peace will be achieved by
helping Afghanistan train and develop its own national army. And peace will be
achieved through an education system for boys and girls which works." After
enumerating the ills of the Taliban, Bush concluded, "By helping to build an
Afghanistan that is free from this evil and is a better place in which to live,
we are working in the best of traditions of George Marshall," referring to the
US general noted for his role in the Allied victory in World War II and his
subsequent reconstruction efforts.
But whether the goal is an Afghan Marshall Plan that turns Herat into
Heidelberg or Obama's more limited but still sweeping goal, the fact of the
matter is - as they say in Maine - you can't get there from here.
In his VFW speech, Obama did acknowledge that "military power alone will not
win this war" and he has dispensed with the Bush-moniker "global war on
terror". But he continues to rely on slightly upgraded (and very costly)
versions of the same set of tools used by the Bush administration - troops on
the ground, military training for Afghan security forces, and technology
(especially drone strikes in Pakistan) - to "win" in Afghanistan.
Defining success
Defining what success looks like is proving just as difficult in the 44th White
House as it was in the 43rd. As AfPak special representative Richard Holbrooke
said, "We'll know it when we see it." That is not an acceptable matrix for
success - not when the price tag is US$177.5 billion and counting. Historic
elections or not, Obama finds himself just as lost as any other would-be
conqueror.
On Monday, the top US commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal,
suggested a revamp of military strategy in the country, the Guardian reported.
McChrystal "portrayed the strategy of Western forces as the equivalent of a
lumbering bull attacking a matador's cape, gradually tiring and finally being
killed off", the paper reported.
Disrupting, dismantling and irrevocably defeating al-Qaeda and the Taliban
cannot be done with remote-controlled drones, counter-insurgency forces, NATO
troops and private contractors training the Afghan security forces. It cannot
be accomplished through increasing the number of doctors, dentists and
nutritionists in the country, or sending more city planners, engineers and
communication experts - all during an occupation and a war.
Democracy, education for girls, development - none of these laudable and
critical goals can be achieved through military operations or external efforts
protected by military operations. They can be temporarily delivered. Elections
can be held, schools can be built, and girls can be protected on the way to
school. But this no more than photo-op, fleeting kind of change.
Rick Reyes, a retired US Marine Corps corporal who served as an infantryman in
Iraq and Afghanistan, recently wrote in Roll Call magazine, "As a corporal in
the US Marines - who served in both Afghanistan and Iraq and who remains
willing to give my life for this country - let me say from experience that our
current strategy will not bring security to Afghanistan or to America."
United States military efforts, he continued, had created "too many civilian
casualties, too many children without food and women without husbands, too many
innocent Afghans becoming anti-American because of our action".
Being effective means beginning from a different position. We need to start by
saying that the Taliban and al-Qaeda do not represent an existential threat to
the United States. They are not large, they are not powerful, and they are not
unified in anything except their opposition to the intervention of the US and
NATO. These adversaries need to be isolated, delegitimized and undermined, not
confronted as an equal on the battlefield.
"Al-Qaeda consists of a few hundred people running around Pakistan, seeking to
avoid detection and helping the Taliban when possible. It also has a disjointed
network of fellow travelers around the globe who communicate over the
Internet," writes John Mueller, a professor at Ohio State University and author
of Overblown.
"No convincing evidence has been offered publicly to show that al-Qaeda Central
has put together a single full operation anywhere in the world since 9/11. And,
outside of war zones, the violence perpetrated by al-Qaeda affiliates, wannabes
and lookalikes combined has resulted in the deaths of some 200 to 300 people
per year and may be declining. That is 200 to 300 too many, of course, but is
scarcely suggests that 'the safety of the people around the world is at stake',
as Obama dramatically puts it."
Effective counter-insurgency paradigms advise a 20-80 balance of military to
political tools. In Afghanistan - even after Obama's promised civilian surge -
the ratio is more like 90% military, 10% political.
Defeating terror
Military force has rarely led to the defeat of a terrorist group. That's the
conclusion of a 2008 Rand study of 648 terrorist groups operating between 1968
and 2006. Most terrorist groups end because they join the political process or
because "local police and intelligence agencies arrested or killed key
members." (Emphasis added).
Ten percent of the terrorist groups in the study ended operations because they
achieved their goals, and "military force led to an end of terrorist groups in
seven percent of the cases". Seven percent is not very high. "Military force is
usually too blunt an instrument," the report authors continue. "Even precision
weapons have limited use against terrorist groups. The use of substantial US
military power against terrorist groups also runs a significant risk of turning
the local population against the government by killing civilians."
Abdul Wahid Baghrani is an influential tribal leader in Afghanistan. After
siding with the Taliban, he was convinced to support the Hamid Karzai
government in 2005. He told the New York Times last week that a negotiated
peace is possible - even with the Taliban: "They are Afghans. The reason they
have been fighting is because they are not getting the opportunity to make
peace."
Empty ballot boxes (or even full ones) will not make peace. Nor will purple
fingers and billions of dollars in economic assistance. But real negotiations
with real opportunities offer that possibility. The fighting has gone on long
enough. It's time to sit down and negotiate an end to the war that Bush started
and Obama has inherited.
Foreign Policy In Focus columnist Frida Berrigan is a senior program
associate at The New America Foundation's Arms and Security Initiative.
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