Katrina vanden Heuvel: Criticism of Afghan War is on Rise in Britain

Criticism of Afghan War is on Rise in Britain
posted by Katrina vanden Heuvel on 07/12/2009 @ 9:30pm

In a brilliant essay in a recent issue of the London Review of Books ("The Irresistible Illusion, July 9), Rory Stewart, the Director of the Carr Center on Human Rights Policy at Harvard, writes that "Afghanistan..is the graveyard of predictions." I'd add that is is also the graveyard of empires. Stewart is critical of President Obama's "new policy," which he explains" has a very narrow focus--counter-terrorism--and a very broad definition of how to achieve it: no less than the fixing of the Afghan state."

Alternatives, for the moment, have been excluded. Yet, too few are asking the tough questions that need to be asked about how we might better provide security--- in the region and for the US-- through a non-military regional strategy to stabilize Afghanistan? Why are too few pointing out that it is crazy to pour billions into a war whose mission we're still unable to clearly define when the U.S. economy is in crisis and millions (here and globally) face joblessness?

While the newly arrived top commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McCrystal , champions a 21st century counterinsurgency (COIN) strategy, few in Congress have bothered to question the Administration about the fact that while this COIN strategy calls for a ratio of 80 percent political and 20 percent military, 90 percent of the recent war supplemental goes towards military expenses. And just last week, according to the Washington Post, McCrystal concluded that Afghan security forces will have to expand far beyond currently planned levels. Such an expansion would require additional billions beyond the $7.5 billion the administration has budgeted annually to build up the Afghan army and police over the next several years; it will also mean the deployment of 1000s of more US troops as trainers and advisers.

Obama has so far committed to building an Afghan army of 134,000 and a police force of 82,000. McCrystal now appears to be pushing for what some US generals have earlier spoken about wanting: a combined Afghan army -police-security apparatus of 450,000 soldiers. Such a force would cost $2 or $ 3 billion a year to maintain; As Rory Stewart points out, the annual revenue of the Afghan government is just $600 million. "We criticize developing countries for spending 30 percent of their budget on defense," Stewart notes, and "we are encouraging Afghanistan to spend 500 percent of its budget."

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What has also led to criticism in Britain are the grim images that have led the nightly television news. According to the New York Times, the news has shown " slate-gray transport aircraft carrying coffins landing at a military airbase in Wiltshire and being driven slowly in hearses past crowds lining the high street in Wootton Bassett, a nearby town. When live coffins passed down the street on Friday, on their way to a mortuary in Oxford, women wailed."

Where is the US nightly television (broadcast and cable) coverage of our servicepeople returning in coffins? Where are the brutal and honest images of Afghanistan--of Afghan women and children killed, of US soldiers in the hell of combat. Where is the coverage of the staggering increase of post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, traumatic brain injuries and suicides among the many 1000s of service members who've already paid a price for Iraq and Afghanistan? Have the networks and cable channels spent so much of their budgets covering Michael Jackson's untimely death and star-studded memorial, Sarah Palin's ramblings and Mark Sanford's personal and political derelictions that they can't give us the real news we need if we're to be a democracy informed about what our country is doing in our name?

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http://www.thenation.com/blogs/edcut/451033/criticism_of_afghan_war_is_on_rise_in_britain

nt

To increase the power of the Afghan Army enough to put the whole country under a military dictatorship controlled by the US, a vassal state which gives the US Powers-That-Be better geopolitical positioning and control over more of the natural resources of the planet. Just like Vietnam. And even less likely to "succeed." These sick mass murderers believe that since there is no USSR to oppose them the people in other parts of this planet will just roll over and submit if brutalized enough.

The only reason that we need to train the Afghan Army, though, is because we need our soldiers to move into Pakistan next. We're going to need more folks on the ground to back up those air strikes in Pakistan soon. And who is going to protect those mega-embassies we're building in Peshawar, Baghdad, and Islamabad?