Tue 20 Jul 2010
Kabul coalition of the willing, or the deluded?
Posted by USA / Jeff under Balkers
[6] Comments
If you reached this Balkingpoints.com article by direct external link, stop by the front page for an incredible satellite view of the earth in rotation!
conference on Afghanistan on Tuesday in Kabul – length 1:14
Leaders Renew Vows of Support for Afghanistan
July 20, 2010
By ALISSA J. RUBIN, RICHARD A. OPPEL, Jr. and MARK LANDLER
Pool photo by Paul J. Richards
President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon during the international conference on Afghanistan on Tuesday in Kabul. Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki is at left in the second row and Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi is at right.
KABUL, Afghanistan — American, European and other foreign leaders met here Tuesday to pledge anew their support for Afghanistan as they committed to complete transition of security and budgeting responsibility to the Afghan government by 2014. They acknowledged that neither the people of their own countries nor those in Afghanistan had much patience left.
President Hamid Karzai promised to make concrete efforts to reduce corruption and find a way to end the fighting in his country — areas in which he has pledged improvement in the past. He painted a picture of a country that could flourish, lifting its “people from poverty to prosperity and from insecurity to stability.”
“Our vision is to be the peaceful meeting place of civilizations,” he said in an address. “Our location in the center of the new Silk Road makes us a convergence point of regional and global economic interests.”
Whether Afghanistan can get there without an enormous infusion of further foreign aid and the presence of a significant number of foreign troops seems doubtful — at least for the next few years. That point was underscored by the vague language around the timeline for handing over security responsibility.
The goal of a transition by 2014, which Mr. Karzai outlined last year, is nonbinding and essentially unenforceable. Much depends on how and when security responsibility will be transferred, for instance whether province by province or district by district. More specific plans will be developed later this year, according to the document.
Transition to Afghan control is the basis of the exit plan for NATO troops and member countries have differing senses of urgency. The western European democracies with the most troops in the country — Britain, France and Germany — are under great domestic pressure to reduce their contingents while the United States, which has by far the heaviest military presence, is somewhat more focused on how to give the best chance to its counter-insurgency strategy.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton acknowledged the unpopularity of the war in remarks to foreign leaders gathered in a large conference room at the Afghan Interior Ministry, saying that that winning popular support for the continued mission here, given the relatively limited progress so far, would be a challenge.
“We know the road ahead will not be easy,” Mrs. Clinton said. “Citizens of many nations represented here, including my own, wonder whether success is even possible — and if so, whether we all have the commitment to achieve it.”
She pledged to answer those doubts with actions. She also endeavored to reduce somewhat the significance of the July 2011 date, which President Obama set in his speech outlining his Afghan policy last fall as the date when he would begin to bring troops home.
“The July 2011 date captures both our sense of urgency and the strength of our resolve,” Mrs. Clinton said. “The transition process is too important to push off indefinitely. But this date is the start of a new phase, not the end of our involvement.”
Mrs. Clinton tried to dispel concerns about the transition, saying the Afghans had presented the most detailed plans yet for how to hand off control to Afghan security forces.
“Today was a real turning point,” Mrs. Clinton said.
However, the overall significance of the conference was hard to gauge because much of the final statement was a list of boards and commissions to be created, laws to be drafted and enforced and schedules to be fleshed out. The same themes, if not always the exact pledges, have been sounded many times before by Mr. Karzai’s government to little effect.
Mr. Karzai spoke only briefly about the reintegration and reconciliation with the Taliban although it is a major effort of his government and of considerable concern both to many Afghans and to NATO troops who are fighting here. The sparse commentary seemed to signal that there was still little agreement on exactly how to proceed after months of meetings and consultations both within the Afghan government and with American, United Nations and NATO allies.
In some respects, the most significant elements were in what was not said or what occurred during behind-the-scenes meetings. Mrs. Clinton met with Afghan women leaders before the conference began and heard their concerns that their interests would be left behind in the peace effort with the Taliban.
Fouzia Kofi, a former deputy speaker in the Afghan Parliament, said she was concerned by recent signals from Mr. Karzai’s government. If the reconciliation process is mishandled, she warned, it could “take the country back hundreds of years.”
“We need to make sure that not only we are protected, but also our children,” Ms. Kofi said.
Arezo Qani, who works with disadvantaged women in northern Afghanistan, expressed fears that rearming local militias, something the United States has pushed, would also threaten women. And she said women needed to be consulting in the drafting of new laws.
Mrs. Clinton said protecting women’s rights was a “personal commitment of mine.” While she said the United States was open to an Afghan-led reconciliation, “it can’t come at the cost of women’s lives,” she said.
The security transition timetable, though not the main focus of this meeting, is perhaps the most significant element for NATO leaders most of whom will face election challenges well before 2014. The European countries are looking for a more concrete withdrawal plan for their troops that they can advertise to their voters, while the United States military leadership, is hewing to a “conditions-based” approach that allows them to slow down in areas where the insurgency appears more tenacious or where Afghan troops and police appear to have inadequate capabilities.
The Iranian Foreign Minister used the conference as an opportunity to get in some digs at the foreign forces. The criticism came just a few weeks after the United Nations Security Council voted to enforce sanctions against Iran for failing to halt its nuclear program.
“The presence and increase in the number of foreign forces is one of the factors in the insecurity, violence and dissatisfaction of the public,” said Manouchehr Mottaki, Iran’s foreign minister.
A moment later the United Nations special representative to Afghanistan, Staffan de Mistura, interrupted and told him to get to the point. On Monday, the new American and NATO commander for Afghanistan, Gen. David H. Petraeus, and the NATO secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, traveled to the south of the country together.
According to one NATO official, they have had “frank discussions.”
“There are indications that the timeline and what constitutes the conditions for transition are possibly different in terms of what NATO is thinking and what Petraeus may be thinking as he settles into an understanding of what he is dealing with in this insurgency,” said the NATO official, who, like several other diplomats and officials interviewed on Monday, refused to be identified by name because of the delicacy of the issue.
But another official from the American-led NATO coalition insisted that General Petraeus and Mr. Rasmussen were not in disagreement. “They see eye to eye,” that official said, “and anyone who reports otherwise clearly has missed key conversations, which is understandable, because some have been one on one.”
A Western diplomat in Kabul praised what he described as General Petraeus’s effort to “bring a sense of realism” to the debate. “He’s being very careful, especially in the first month, to not give a sense of expectations and promises that he will then not be able to deliver,” the diplomat said.
An administration official added that the general was focusing on the evaluation of the Afghan war due at year’s end. “He’s got four and a half months until the review, and he’ll brook no dissent,” the official said.
Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company
Nice job Jeff. While most can understand the choice to keep military pressure on a proven global menace – or in this case the political entity that will harbor them (Taliban) – one does get a sense of this being yet another case, where Western / US leaders think they have the reach to affect everything.
I see some merits on both the stay & go sides of the question, so I realize what kind of a choice faced Obama last fall when he decided to go all in and try to stand up an Afghan democracy, one able to keep the Taliban out.
But let’s say you actually could pull that off. (And despite the leaping around by Media Inc. in the US that the “surge worked”, it’s by no means clear it was even accomplished in Iraq – a far more developed society at square one, than what is true in Afghanistan). Even if you pull it off, is this your approach for every nation with a weak central government, that may give rise to the next Taliban-related troublemaker? Does it relocate to Yemen? Somalia?
Given the vast areas of difficult terrain in Afghanistan, you’re more likely going to be able to keep Kabul stable, and after enough loss of life you might gain control of Kandahar. The ability of a Taliban to maintain a provincial rule in portions of the Afghan outback, may never be disrupted. In those places, why can’t they still harbor the terror camps? The entire stated purpose of the October 2001 invasion.
If you need some military pressure to help keep the civilized world safe from gihad lunatics, then you need to be the insurgent somehow. Not the occupier. Invest in covert operations, find the camps and munitions shipments and destroy those as you are able, leave the civilians out of it.
The defense against terrorist cells is at it’s essence, a globally-connected intel and police task. Maybe you can disrupt at the source here and there, and stop some asset transfers, but largely you need to do the police work that uncovers and stops the plots. The UK has done a good job over the last 10 years with that approach, and in the US some recent high-profile arrests have been made also.
That is the side the West should be pouring more money and people into, while having a simultaneous restoring of Constitutional protections that do not allow a heightened state of national alert, to morph any free nation into Police State. The correct balance must, and can, be found.
Simultaneous to that, you work diplomatically to address socio-economic conditions in places where gihad recruits have nothing better to say “yes” to. That’s not a fast solution, only a critical component that is also underfed, in the folly’d focus on trying to defeat this menace with armies.
It is evil to speculate with people’s lives to obtain monetary gains.
And this is what is happening in Afghanistan.
Munition manufacturers are making billions in disposing their products, and at the same time they are destroying, and polluting our planet which has devastating effects that concern all of us.
The fact is that no one has brought this Afghanistan problem at a conference table and discuss it intelligently to arrive at a peaceful solution.
But then on the other hand, no one wants to bite the hand that feeds him. Even if it means the continuously loss of many innocent lives each day, in exchange for profits that come from illegal wars.
I still believe that Afghanistan is not a producer of war related materials. But has an endless income through its opium industry to purchase arms from countries that produce them. And as long as this poppy production continues, this Afghanistan illegal war will not come to an end…Because the world’s arms manufacturers have found their “EUREKA” in Afghanistan. Always at the continuous loss of innocent human lives.
Sammy from Sicily
With the Tory return to power in the UK, PM Cameron would doubtless be ‘all in’ for the go as well. Fortunately, his hands are bound by steep opposition to it.
There can be no doubt that a stable democracy in Afghanistan is in the interests of nations affected by terrorism. But you must operate on probabilities, and the one of final military prevalence over this problem, is quite in doubt. When Hamid Karzai had to rig his own election last year, Obama should have changed the strategy to one held in more favour by westerners. He is quite simply, out on a limb.
I bet they are glad they scheduled that summit last week! This week it’s wikileaks
It should be a while still before the Wikileaks documents are really sorted out.
Some say it’s similar to the cover blown by the famous Pentagon Papers on the US war in Vietnam. Others say it’s information already known. In that case, I don’t know why it would be classified documents. The truth may lie in between; not exactly new information but definitely different than the sanitized reporting we get on Afghanistan. But, it shouldn’t take a documents leak to make the right decisions on the involvement that NATO nations have signed on for. I agree with Martin that Obama really did decide to go out on the limb. Other US presidents have made the same mistake but this one should know better.
Roy hit the nail on the head when he stated that you can’t be the occupying force in this situation.The solution will prove to be more elusive, obviously stopping the profits from opium production is key, but only one aspect. These farmers have been growing opium for generations, and there is no other crop they can grow that will garner as much profit.
That being said as long as the most profitable industry in the country is funding corruption and enabling the terrorists, success in other areas is going to be dearly bought and only temporary at best.
Part of the solution lies in Pakistan, which has it’s own, albeit similar problems. However if Pakistan can bring their own country under control, which is yet to be seen, then they will hold the most influence on rooting out the terrorists. I believe more international aid needs to be given to Pakistan before any solution will be possible in Afghanistan. However persuading a proud nation that what is in our best interests is also in their best interests may prove a daunting task. A truly global effort will be required to bring any of this about, and that should be diplomatic, not militarily. Attempting to be “the insurgents” is a lot trickier than being an occupying force, and I’m not quite sure how that would play out. One thing that is certain is that if the US attempted to actually finish the job they started in Afghanistan instead of getting duped into it’s faulty invasion of Iraq, we would be further toward our goal of eliminating the terrorists network.
And to Sammy, you are correct in your assessment of the ammunition manufacturers, however even if we pursue diplomatic ends, they will most likely sell their wares to the highest bidder. It is an unfortunate truth that there are profits to be made during wars, and peace remains a relatively not for profit endeavor.
The answers I feel will ultimately come from the Afghans themselves, as it stands now they are enjoying an influx of cash into their economy, and using it as they always have, in a corrupt manner. They probably assume that the Americans will either tire of the effort and go home as the Russians did, or as probably more likely tire of pouring cash at the problem. In the meantime they will try to hoard away as much as they can and wait to return to life as they’ve known it. When the local populations decide to join the rest of the world in behaving in a modern civilized manner, then they will bring about the necessary means to that end. I see no incentive for the common Afghan to believe any of that will happen anytime soon.
Perhaps the best chance of that occurring lies in large corporations investing in mining operations there, as that seems to be the only asset they possess, other than opium, that the world wants. If that were to happen it would be in the governments interest to provide a safe environment to facilitate the investments of the mining corporations.
It is a daunting task anyway you look at it, but if we fail to look at it, then the situation will remain as it has for centuries. The only difference in this age is that all people have a potential for global impact.