The Long Crisis

Posts Tagged ‘Afghanistan war’

Wikileaks proves beyond a doubt that the truth about the war in Afghanistan is totally unwelcome by Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, every general in the war theater and throughout the military, as well as President Obama.

Actually, Wikileaks has revealed very little if any new information about conditions in Afghanistan. Most of the approximately 77,000 documents released thus far are low-level accounts of incidents and tactical situations that have been previously reported or are minor events. The only information that may be classified as new is that the Taliban have on occasion used heat seeking missiles as offensive weapons against US and NATO aircraft. Even that information should not come as a surprise as it was the US that introduced the Stinger missiles into Afghanistan that were used by the Afghans against the Soviets with effective results.

The information that seem to be so disturbing to the American war leadership was that Pakistan has been double dealing in the fight against the Taliban. However, this information is not new. It has been surmised since 2004 that the Taliban has received and is still receiving assistance from the Pakistani ISI, their version of the US CIA. The Taliban was created by the ISI, with assistance from the United States CIA, during the Soviet-Afghanistan war which ended in 1989.

Rather than be bent out of shape that this old information is once again in the news the US should acknowledge that politics in Pakistan are extremely complicated and that the power of the central government is limited. The military has long had an important position of power within Pakistan and military objectives, especially in the Interservice Intelligence unit (ISI), often are not the same as the publicly announced objectives of the Pakistani government. Pakistan does not want a government in Afghanistan that is in any way friendly with their old foe India. The United States faces extreme challenges in working through a sensible relationship with Pakistan, Afghanistan, and India.

The statement by Sec. of Defense Robert Gates that “blood is on the hands of Wikileaks” seems to me to be one of extreme hypocrisy. It would seem to me that blood is on the hands of Robert Gates, and President George Bush and President Obama administration’s for pursuing a ridiculous war that has killed thousands of Afghan civilians as well as over 1100 US servicemen during what is now a nine year effort in futility. The Taliban will still be in Afghanistan long after the US and Nato forces have pulled out. After all they are residents there.

Wikileaks has been and undoubtably will continue to be attacked by the present administration as well as by the military as the messenger that brings further confirmation as to how badly the war in Afghanistan has been managed by US and NATO forces. It seems that the truth is the last thing that the Obama administration wishes to reveal to the American public. This fact is a huge disappointment to those who believed that President Obama was serious about his desire to bring transparency to government as promised during his presidential campaign.

I strongly believe that this disappointment will make itself known during the November midterm elections although the war will likely be a minor political factor compared to the sorry state of the US economy.

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US General Stanley McChrystal has a tough assignment as the commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan. He has been tasked with winning a war that is not winnable in the sense of restoring order and political stability in a country that is totally corrupt, and which is located in a totally corrupt part of the world.

A good example of the difficulties confronting Gen. McChrystal is in controlling the considerable truck traffic traveling the border crossing points between Pakistan and Afghanistan. U.S. forces are not allowed near the teeming border when it is open, so they have never seen quite how Colonel Abdul Razziq, the young looking but tough and savvy Afghan border police boss in the Spin Boldak region, single-handedly rules over billions in international trade. While relying upon Col. Razziq and his 7000 strong force of Afghan border policeman to keep supplies required by the US military and NATO forces moving from Pakistan into Afghanistan, Gen. McChrystal knows full well that the man that he is relying upon, Col. Razziq is totally corrupt and is skimming millions of dollars per year from border crossing fees paid by the trucking companies to the Afghanistan government.

The Afghan government collects about $40 million per year in border crossing fees. This sum is estimated to be about 1/5 of the fees that are actually collected by the border police and which past through Col. Razziq’s hands. This estimate would generate revenues of about $160 million per year for Col. Razziq’s border crossing rip off business. The sum of money actually collected by Col. Razzig is probably far more than $160 million per year. Here’s why.

In addition to border crossing fees the trucking companies must pay protection fees to prevent their shipments from being attacked by the Taliban. Some of the protection money is then passed along to the Taliban for their forbearance in not attacking the trucks carrying shipments of mostly supplies required by coalition forces. Of course, the increased fees that must be paid by the trucking companies are passed along to the shippers. Since the shippers are mostly the United States and NATO military the coalition forces are actually funding the Taliban’s war efforts as well as enriching Col. Razziq and his men.

President Obama’s escalation of the war in Afghanistan will be a tremendous boost to the income of the corrupt Col. Razziq and his cohorts. The addition of 35,000 additional American fighting men will require a corresponding increase in the supplies required by the men and the escalated war effort. Since Afghanistan is a landlocked nation, and American air lifting capacity is already strained to the limit, almost all of the necessary increase in supplies will be trucked in across the border from Pakistan.

This means that Col. Razzig and his border policeman will be collecting far more in border crossing fees as well as additional millions in convoy protection fees. That also means that the Taliban will be receiving additional funding for their part in protecting the convoys carrying equipment and supplies to the coalition forces against attack from the same Taliban that is receiving the payoffs. Yes, I know that sounds strange, but America has taken up arms in a world as alien to American cultural understanding as the world of Pandora in the movie Avatar.

Corruption is a deeply ingrained way of life in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In an area of the world where the majority of the population lives in grinding poverty and public service people, such as policemen are poorly paid, any opportunity to receive extra income is seldom passed up. From the highest levels of government to the lowest levels of public service and private businesses that provide services to the public corruption is a way of life. Americans at all levels, for some reason, just don’t seem to grasp the level of corruption in these countries and how deeply it is ingrained in the cultures.

Even Gen. Stanley McChrystal, with his experience in Iraq and Afghanistan, likely doesn’t really understand what he is up against in fighting the forces of corruption. Of course, the military power of the US and NATO forces will prevail in any toe to toe battles against the Taliban. However, the Taliban are smart enough to know this and will therefore fight a low intensity guerrilla war against the coalition forces. Even Gen. McChrystal deep down inside must realize that a low-level guerrilla war against a totally dedicated and fanatical Taliban force will be impossible to win in the conventional military sense of the word win. Gen. McChrystal himself has stated that the war cannot be won militarily, but that a political solution must be arrived at for Afghanistan to achieve any real sense of long-term stability.

However, how can you achieve a fair political solution when the Afghanistan government at the highest levels is corrupt and the corruption extends all the way through almost every government agency, especially in the national police and border patrol? There is another problem that Gen. McChrystal and the Obama administration face in trying to prevail in Afghanistan by establishing a democratic, stable, and corruption free government. The fact is, many high-ranking Afghanistan government officials, warlords, and characters such as Col. Razziq, as well as contractors, Western consultants, Western companies who supply war supplies and materials, and in general war profiteers, have become extremely wealthy due to the war in Afghanistan. These people would likely be pleased should the war drag on for another 100 years.

In time, even Gen. Stanley McChrystal will likely realize that he is on a fools error in that the war in Afghanistan is not winnable. The cultural differences, especially the culture of corruption, are just too large to overcome. Even in America, American style democracy is not working very well at the moment, and it is impossible to export the American style of governing to one of the poorest and most corrupt countries in the world. The big question is whether the good general will be able to convince his commander-in-chief of that fact. President Obama has made a huge policy error in escalating a war that can not be won. The culture of total corruption will see to that.

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Until last night I stlll had a little hope that President Obama would be a different kind of President. A thoughtful President capable of setting a new course for an America that has become the most militarized nation on earth. A nation that seems determined to be always at war. A nation that has lost it’s once inspiring luster as a home for freedom and liberty and become a nation intend on imposing its will on the rest of the world.

If you doubt our nations militarism then answer one question. Why would we at great expense have over 700 military bases , many of them huge, in over 150 countries around the world? We are so insecure with all of that far flung security that we spend as much on national defense as the rest of the world combined. It seems that some kind of sickness has infected our leaders in Washington, D.C. and that newly elected officials immediately catch an incurable form of it.

As a Vietnam War veteran I can tell you in all honesty that many years ago I’ve heard all of this nonsense about a “focused strategy” . The names may be different but the BS is the same. I’m very certain that Obama’s war will end in tragedy.

I cried like a baby when I saw the TV images of the US evacuating Saigon in a panic in helicopters full of scared shitless US military and a few lucky Vietnamese civilians who were able to get onboard. I fear I will be watching a similar scene a few years from now as American helicopters evacuate the American Embassy in Kabul. It will not be a pretty sight.

Mr. President you really do need to rethink Afghanistan. Here is a little personal on the ground insight. I lived in Lahore, Pakistan for 30 months in the early 90′s and had many Pakistani friends, some of them at high levels in the government. I can assure you that the culture in that region of the world is extremely different from our own. I lived in a lovely part of Lahore and had at the everyday life level fantastic neighbors.

But the cultural differences were profound. My “friends” hoped to gain some advantage from knowing me and were very upfront about it, even if it were a little thing like a drink of Johnny Walker Black scotch now and then. Things that Americans would call corruption and vice were considered perfectly normal and the way you do business.

Pakistan is not Afghanistan nor is Afghanistan the same as Vietnam. However, the culture of corruption is very similar. Many high level Afghanistan officials are playing us. They are getting rich off of our money and our efforts in their country. They would be happy to see us pour in money and blood into the country forever. There is no way we are going to change the culture of corruption in that part of the world.

With all due respect to VP Joe Biden and to President Barack Obama we need to rethink Afghanistan. Don’t let American hubris get in the way of sound policy. We need to get our military out of that country ASAP.

And please President Obama don’t give me this total BS about the Taliban being a clear and present danger to the security of the United States. What they want is for us to be out of their country. The most powerful nation on this planet has little to fear from the Taliban, except in the extreme terrain of their own country. The Taliban have no air force, no tanks, no heavy transport vehicles, only light weapons, and total at most only a few thousand fighters. Most of them would be happy to return to farming once the foreigners, mostly Americans, have returned to their own homeland. Or to fight the neighboring tribe.

If we fear the Taliban shame on us. Except in trying to occupy their own nation. Then they are transformed into a fierce enemy. No American would be less of a fighter if we once again were fighting on our own soil. The Taliban are mostly Pashtuns, some of the most independent, fierce when the occasion calls for it, and tribal people on earth. There are Russian generals who know their fighting capabilities well. The Russia generals and 115,000 Soviet soldiers withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989 after nine brutal years of combat.

Perhaps a few Russian generals of the Soviet era in Afghanistan should be invited to Washington for a briefing. I expect that they would be more honest in their comments and more upfront as to their views on our prospects for a favorable outcome to Obama’s War than our own always optimistic generals.

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