Page 2 of 2 DISPATCHES FROM AMERICA Afghanistan as a bailout state
By Tom Engelhardt
Nonetheless, thanks to an endless series of high-level Washington leaks and
whispers, beginning more than a month ago with the leaking to the Washington
Post's Bob Woodward of Afghan war commander General Stanley McChrystal's report
to the president, we do know this: every option Obama is considering has the
word "more" (as in the Vietnam-era term "escalation") attached to it. There
isn't a "less" (a de-escalation) option in sight. Withdrawal of any sort has,
so press reports tell us, been officially taken off the table.
The most publicity has gone, of course, to the "counter-insurgency" or COIN
option put forward by McChrystal and it is clearly backed by Bush's favorite
Iraqi "surge" general and present
Central Command chief, David Petraeus. According to this option, the president
would significantly increase the number of American boots on the ground to
"protect" the Afghan people. The actual numbers of extra troops urged on Obama
have undergone a strange process of growth-by-leak over the past weeks.
Initially, as the New York Times reported, the general was supposedly
recommending three possibilities: a low figure of 10,000-15,000 ("a high-risk
option"), an in-between figure of 25,000 ("a medium-risk option"), and a top
figure of 45,000 ("a low-risk option"). More recently, it's been suggested that
McChrystal's three choices are: 10,000, 40,000 and 80,000 (or even possibly
44,000 and 85,000) - his preference, for now, reportedly being 40,000. These
new American troops would, of course, be over and above the approximately
70,000 already slated to be in-country by the end of 2009, more than a doubling
of the force in place when the Obama administration came into office. The
striking increase to almost 70,000 has, so far, led to a more intense but less
successful war effort.
In a recent grimly comic episode, a meeting of NATO defense ministers put its
stamp of approval on McChrystal's robust COIN option - despite the fact that
their governments seem unwilling to offer any extra soldiers in support of such
an American surge. (The only exception so far has been British Prime Minister
Gordon Brown, who agreed to send a paltry 500 more troops - with hedges and
escape clauses at that.)
Beyond McChrystal's ultimate "more" option, at least three other options are
reportedly being considered, all representing "less"; think of these as "less
more" options. They include:
An option to significantly bulk up the training of the Afghan army and police
force, so that we might hand our war off to them ASAP. This is, in reality,
another "more" option, since thousands of new US trainers and advisors would be
needed. It has reportedly been favored by Senator Carl Levin and other
Democrats in Congress fearful of major Vietnam-style troop escalations and the
ensuing fallout at home.
An option to leave troops numbers in Afghanistan roughly at their present level
and focus not on counter-insurgency, but on what's being called
"counter-terrorism-plus". This, in practical terms, means upping the use of US
drone aircraft and special forces teams, while focusing less on the Taliban in
the Afghan countryside and more on taking out al-Qaeda and possibly Taliban
operatives in the Pakistani tribal border regions.
This option is said to be favored by Vice President Joe Biden, who also
reportedly fears (perfectly reasonably) that a larger American "footprint" in
Afghanistan might only turn Afghans even more strongly against a foreign
occupation. This option is, in turn, often discussed by the US media as if it
were a de-escalatory approach and the next thing to an antiwar position. It,
too, however, represents more.
An option recently put forward by John Kerry, head of the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee, for what Jim Lobe of Inter Press Service has termed
"counter-insurgency lite". This would, according to the senator, involve more
training of Afghan troops and the commitment of perhaps 10,000-15,000
additional American troops immediately. (In his typical way, however, Kerry
managed to stop short of mentioning actual numbers.)
Meanwhile, we would wait for other factors considered crucial for a successful
counter-insurgency campaign to kick in: "enough reliable Afghan forces to
partner with American troops", "local leaders we can partner with" and "the
civilian side ready to follow swiftly with development aid that brings tangible
benefits to the local population". Wielding a classic image of imperial
control, the senator claims to want to put an "Afghan face" on the Afghan war -
that is, though no one ever says this, an Afghan mask over the American war.
(Since the crucial factors he lays out for a successful counterinsurgency
campaign are never likely to come into being, his, too, is a "less more"-style
option.)
Quagmires, then and now
It's quite possible that the president will choose a "hybrid strategy", mixing
and matching from this list. He might, for instance, up drone attacks in
Pakistan, raise troop levels "modestly" a la Kerry, and send in more US
trainers and advisors - a package that would surely be presented as part of a
plan to pave the way for our future departure. All we do know, based on the
last year, is that "more" in whatever form is likely to prove a nightmare, and
yet anything less than escalation of some sort is not in the cards. No one in
Washington is truly going to cut US losses anytime soon.
In the Vietnam era, there was a shorthand word for this: "quagmire". We were,
as the anti-war song then went, Waist deep in the Big Muddy and still
wading in. If Vietnam was, in fact, a quagmire, however, it was so only because
we made it so. Similarly, in changed circumstances, Afghanistan today has
become the AIG of American foreign policy and Obama's team so many foreign
policy equivalents of Bush Treasury secretary Hank Paulson. And as with the
economy, so with the expanding AfPak war: at the end of the day, it's the
American taxpayer who will be left holding the bag.
Let's think about what this means for a moment: According to the US
Congressional Research Service, the cost of keeping a single American soldier
in Afghanistan is $1.3 million per year. According to Greg Jaffe and Karen
DeYoung of the Washington Post, it costs the Pentagon about $1 billion per year
to station 1,000 US troops in that country. It's fair to assume that this
estimate doesn't include, among other things, long-term care for wounded
soldiers or the cost of replacing destroyed or overused equipment. Nor do these
figures include any civilian funds being spent on the war effort via the State
Department, nor undoubtedly the funds being spent by the Pentagon to upgrade
bases and facilities throughout the country. In other words, just about any
decision by the president, including one simply focused on training Afghan
soldiers and police, will involve an outlay of further multi-billions of
dollars. Whatever choice the president makes, the US will bleed money.
Let's say that he makes the Kerry choice - "just" perhaps 15,000 troops. That
means at least $15 billion for starters. And there's no reason to believe that
we're only talking a year here. The counter-insurgency types are talking five
to 10 years to "turn the tide" of the insurgency. Those who are actually
training the Afghan military and police, when quoted, don't believe they will
be capable of taking what's called "responsibility" in a major way for years to
come, if ever.
Throw in domestic politics where a Democratic president invariably feels safer
kicking the can down the road via escalation than being called "weak" - though
Obama is already being blasted by the right for "dithering" - and you have
about as toxic a brew as can be imagined.
If the Afghan war is already too big to fail, what in the world will it be
after the escalations to come? As with Vietnam, so now with Afghanistan, the
thick layers of mythology and fervent prediction and projection that pass for
realism in Washington make clear thinking on the war impossible. They prevent
the serious consideration of any options labeled "less" or "none." They inflate
projections of disaster based on withdrawal, even though similar lurid
predictions during the Vietnam era proved hopelessly off-base.
The United States lived through all the phases of escalation, withdrawal, and
defeat in Vietnam without suffering great post-war losses of any sort. This
time we may not be so lucky. The United States is itself no longer too big to
fail - and if we should do so, remind me: Who exactly will bail us out?
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