What do Obama’s First 100 Days Mean to Common Afghans?

What do Obama’s First 100 Days Mean to Common Afghans?
By Marc W. Herold


The first 100 days of a new administration in Washington is always a time for comment and speculation about the future. (1) It is an American tradition dating back to Franklin Roosevelt's tenure in 1933 during the Great Depression. But my focus here is upon what has the arrival of the Obama administration meant not within the United States, but rather for the everyday life of common Afghans. Naturally, a qualification need be noted insofar as this is a very short time span and changes might only be revealed in the years to come. On the other hand, some things have changed, as for example in the execution of the Afghan war which increasingly is becoming America’s war. (2) Many commonly used old words and phrases which described things related to the Afghan conflict have been jettisoned by the Obama group in what Jon Stewart aptly called “Operation Redefinition.” The high-visibility Guantanamo prison will gradually be closed to be replaced by Obama’s Guantanamo at Bagram Air Base. (3) Neo-conservative Bill Kristol declares “All Hail Obama.” (4) And under Commander-in-Chief Obama, Americans will now apologize to Afghan families for killing their relatives – a U.S. Special Forces Lt. Col. who killed a father’s three sons in a fire fight, went to the father’s house to apologize, to tug at the old man’s beard and caress his face. (5)

An excellent concise summary of the tactics of Obama’s “new” Afghanistan strategy was provided by Gideon Rachman, the chief foreign affairs columnist of The Financial Times,

Obama’s new Afghanistan … is much as expected: more troops, more training for the Afghan army and police, more reconstruction and more of a focus on terrorism and Pakistan, with less emphasis on democracy-building. The whole exercise suggests that the distinctions between the Bush and the Obama approaches to foreign policy may be less hard-and-fast than we thought. In the caricature version, it was Bush who was obsessed with the “global war on terror”, while Obama pushed idealistic ideas about democracy and human-rights. But here we have Obama ramping up the emphasis on terrorism and downplaying the liberal nation-building. (6)

A couple other pieces of the Obama plan include reconciliation (finding the “moderate” Taliban, or splitting off the”accidental guerrillas” from the committed jihadists (7)) and the usual paeans to improving “Afghan governance.”

The Obama plan’s priority is clearly upon the military dimension and the strategic aim is now identical to that of George W. Bush in 2001 before he converted to “nation-building.” (8) That aim was and is to disrupt Al Qaeda and prevent its return to Afghanistan. But never mind that that has already been accomplished as Al Qaeda has long dispersed to Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, etc.

Obama’s plan is a counterterrorism plan couched in the language of counterinsurgency.

(9)

Table 1. The ‘Democratization of Death’ for Afghan Civilians under President Obama, Jan 20- April 30, 2009

Person’s status Date Killed- Location killed- Killed by
A grandparent- 3 A.M. Jan. 24th- Laghman U.S close air support
Nomads- 4 A.M. Feb 16th- Herat- A U.S air strike
A cook- 3:30 A.M. March 22nd- Kunduz- U.S Special Forces
Mother- 8 P.M. April 17- Helmand- A helicopter attack
Father- P.M. Feb 20th- Logar- U.S ground forces
An un-born fetus- 0:30 AM April 9th- Khost- U.S ground forces
Two farmer- P.M. March 24- Khost- U.S ground forces’ fire
A little girl- March 2009- Helmand- Danish soldiers
A tribal elder- Jan 31st- Paktika- U.S forces’ ground fire
A middle school principle- P.M. Feb 6- Khost- U.S forces’ ground fire
Male motorcyclist- Feb 3rd- Helmand- NATO ground fire
Shop keepers- April 8th- Pakistan- A CIA drone’s missiles
Four sons- 2:30 A.M. March 14th- Logar- U.S. Special Operations troops
A government employee- 0:30 AM April 9th- Khost- U.S ground forces
A driver- 8 P.M. April 17- Helmand- A helicopter attack

Source: Marc W. Herold, The Afghan Victim Memorial Project data base

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http://www.rawa.org/temp/runews/2009/04/30/what-do-obamas-first-100-days-mean-to-common-afghans.html

Just wondering.

k&r