Archive for the ‘Abdoulah’ Category
Thursday, March 14th, 2013
Recent News and Opinion
Alyssa J. Rubin, News Analysis: Karzai Bets on Vilifying U.S. to Shed His Image as a Lackey,” New York Times, March 12, 2013
Alyssa J. Rubin and Rod Norland, “U.S. General Puts Troops on Security Alert After Karzai Remarks,” New York Times, March 13, 2013
Leslie H. Gelb, “To Hell With Karzai,” The Daily Beast, March 12, 2013 (4:45 AM ET)
Ewen MacAskill (in Washington), “White House: claims of US collusion with Taliban ‘categorically false’; Obama spokesman rejects Karzai’s criticism of US as Afghan in police uniform kills seven including two American troops,” The Guardian, March 11, 2013 (15.51 ET)
Analysis
The United States has tolerated Hamid Karzai’s scurrilous attacks on the U.S. over the years, reacting with “understanding” that, e.g., Karzai is speaking to a domestic audience, or is acting crazy again.
But the U.S. has never reacted to these outrageous attacks with any understanding of their impact in a culture based on honor, and as a result has suffered the double humiliation of being attacked falsely and of being viewed as not having the courage to defend one’s honor.
Such attacks have worked for Karzai in the past, due to the American insistence that its envoys and military commanders get along with the green-caped magician. Karzai has proven far more adept than his allies at manipulating the other party or parties in an alliance which has kept him and the country’s corrupt political elite in power at the cost of U.S. and allied soldiers’ and civilians’ lives, and billions of dollars funneled into the coffers of government officials in what Dexter Filkins has quite aptly termed “Corruptistan”.
In 2009, the U.S. and NATO had a chance to bring Karzai to heel when decisions were being made on whether to insist that a second round in the presidential elections in Afghanistan actually be held, following the first-round elections held on August 20. Karzai’s fraud was so immense, that even the International Elections Commission, which found electoral corruption sufficient to require a second-round run-off, barely touched the surface of the real fraud, due to the highly selective criteria it used to sample precincts for voting abuses.
The United States blinked, and backed Karzai instead of the democratic project the elections had been intended to further.
In view of the American backing of Karzai and the latter’s failure to guarantee that the second-round election would be fairly conducted, Abdullah Abdullah, the candidate who came in second with backing from the Northern Alliance and others, withdrew.
In any event, it had been obvious for some time that Karzai was the favored candidate of the U.S., for reasons which may have included his brother’s involvement in Kandahar with the CIA as well as that of many other high government officials who were on the CIA payroll. While there is no public evidence of direct involvement of Hamid Karzai with the CIA, such a relationship now or in the past seems quite plausible given the CIA’s penetration of the highest ranks of the Afghan government, and therefore cannot be ruled out.
For whatever reasons, America could not break with Karzai.
As a result, without improvement of governance in the country to keep pace with military gains, Afghanistan now faces a period of growing instability in which it is fairly likely that the Taliban will achieve increasing control of the countryside as U.S. and ISAF forces draw down and essentially withdraw from the country.
Obama’s decisions in 2009 relating to the presidential elections constituted one of his worst foreign policy failures since assuming office.
The fact that the elections and decisions regarding the holding of the second-round election were not addressed within Obama’s much-touted Afghanistan policy review group revealed either the president’s incompetence in the foreign policy arena, or the fact that he and the CIA had decided issues relating to Karzai outside of the Afghan policy review process, or both of the above. The fact that then CIA Director Leon Panetta did not attend the last sessions of the policy review group lend support to the second hypothesis.
As for Karzai, Thomas Friedman predicted with unerring accuracy the following in an op-ed piece in March, 2010:
We have thousands of U.S. troops on the ground in Afghanistan and more heading there. Love it or hate it, we’re now deep in it, so you have to want our engagement there to build something that is both decent and self-sustaining — so we can get out. But I still fear that Karzai is ready to fight to the last U.S. soldier. And once we clear, hold and build Afghanistan for him, he is going to break our hearts.
–Thomas L. Friedman, “This Time We Really Mean It,” New York Times, March 30, 2010
As long as Karzai is calling the shots, the chances for the kinds of improvements in governance that are required for the government to remain in power and hold off the Taliban after the draw-down and departure of U.S. and ISAF troops do not appear great.
The Trenchant Observer
For (numerous) previous articles on Afghanistan by the Trenchant Observer, use the Search box in the upper right-hand corner of the home page.
Tags: alyssa j. rubin, corruptistan, Ewen MacAskill, Hamid Karzai's scurrilous attacks, Karzai is going to break our hearts, Karzai the green-caped magician, Leslie H. Gelb, not having the courage to defend one's honor, Rod Norland, Sexter Filkins, The green-caped magician, The Guardian, Thomas L. Friedman, to hell with karzai
Posted in Abdoulah, Abdullah, Afghanistan, Barack Obama, CIA, corruption, elections, Hamid Karzai, Intelligence, Taliban, U.S. Military, United States, use of force | No Comments »
Sunday, August 19th, 2012
See Jennifer Rowland, “NATO under-reporting green-on-blue violence,” Foreign Policy, May 1, 2012.
Editorial, “The Enemy Within,” New York Times, August 20, 2012.
REPRISE
First published on May 18, 2012
The Observer has often been struck by the manner in which the U.S. military in Afghanistan, and the U.S. government, basically plan policy in Afghanistan–and not only in Afghanistan–by reasoning from conclusions. For years, we have all heard that the strategy of the U.S. is to “stand up” strong Afghan military and police forces that can take on the Taliban, and to “stand up” a competent government that can enlist the loyalties of the Afghan people. Because these steps are necessary, we have reasoned for many years, they represent goals that will be achieved as a result of our military and civilian efforts, and those of our allies, in Afghanistan.
A striking illustration of this mode of thinking is provided by Michael Hastings in his fascinating book, The Operators, published by Penguin earlier this year. Describing general Stanley McChrystal’s approach to “communication strategy”, Hastings summarizes the corresponding mental operations as follows:
Dave…arranged logistics for the general’s travel and played a key role in shaping McChrystal’s communication strategy. He spoke in quick and compact bursts, compressing complex ideas into an insanely efficient militarized syntax. One of his jobs was to handle the Sync Matrix, or as Dave explained it, “to map out what the general is trying to accomplish, then put that on a time chart and functionally organize what we’re doing by his end states and objectives at certain dates and times, and then identify what events are missing based on his goals, plug those events in, and then leverage existing events as the forums we use to articulate our message.
–Michael Hastings, The Operators (New York, The Penguin Group, 2011), p. 40.
(Hasting is the author of “The Runaway General,” Rolling Stone, June 22, 2011. The article’s revelations led to General Stanley McChrystal’s dismissal by President Obama.)
This approach to not only justifying military policy in Afghanistan, but also developing and implementing it, seems to have been endemic in U.S. involvement in the country for a number of years. It explains, perhaps, the wide gap between military assessments of the situation in Afghanistan and those of U.S. intelligence agencies, whose mandate includes providing a dose of skepticism and critical judgment.
Reasoning from conclusions, and the consequences of this approach, are worth thinking about.
As we wrote in 2009,
Catastrophic Failure
One overriding fact remains. Our diplomacy in Afghanistan has not been successful. It has failed. It has failed in a catastrophic way.
The bad decisions are becoming evident, with no sign they will not be followed by even more bad decisions. They include:
1) Failure to understand that the NATO and UN templates from Bosnia and Kosovo were utterly unsuited to the realities of Afghanistan, where fresh analysis and program development was required.
2) Failure to change an electoral law that makes the development of national political parties almost impossible.
3) Agreeing to Afghan elections conducted by a Karzai-appointed commission, instead of sticking with the UN-conducted elections that worked so well in 2004 and 2005.
4) Not insisting, as (Peter) Galbraith wanted, that the fraud being prepared by the Karzai government be stopped.
5) Acquiescing in the election fraud, and the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) looking the other way while the fraud occurred.
6) Failing to insist on a correct vote tally and a second round of voting, as required by Afghan law, thus showing Afghans what we, NATO and the UN really believe about democracy in their country.
7) More broadly, throwing out the whole democratic rationale for being in Afghanistan by going along with the election fraud.
Legitimacy–First Things First
The failure in Afghanistan has been a diplomatic and political failure, not just a military failure. Military strategy will falter if diplomatic and political strategy does not keep pace. We cannot succeed in Afghanistan by proceeding on the naive belief that we can “stand up” a legitimate government born of fraud, or that we can “stand up” an Afghan army both capable of defeating the Taliban and loyal to a government lacking in legitimacy and losing public support. Legitimacy is the key to developing both a more effective government and a more capable army and police. Without legitimacy, both possibilities appear to be but chimeras in the desert sand.
–The Trenchant Observer, “More Troops, or Better Diplomacy? Diplomatic and Political Failures in Afghanistan, October 6th, 2009
The utter fiasco of the “government in a box” concept in the Marja campaign in February, 2010 was a sure sign of how difficult it could be to establish “good governance”. So the United States decided to back Hamid Karzai to the hilt, and to more or less forget about the corruption problem. Moreover, the further assumption has been made, or reaffirmed, because it is necessary for the model to work out, that the trained and expanded Afghan military and police forces will remain loyal to the central government of Hamid Karzai.
The growing number of attacks on ISAF soldiers by Afghan military, the very people we are training to hand the country over to, points to the underlying issue of the loyalties of Afghan soldiers once the Americans are removed from combat and have a much lower profile in the country. The Americans, living in their military compounds, are not exposed to the intimidation and reprisals Afghan soldiers and their families face. Once they are gone, or their numbers greatly reduced, a drastic change in the dynamic in the country could occur.
There are no easy solutions here. We are now condemned to suffer the consequences of earlier bad decisions. We can hope for the best.
But even at this remove, reasoning from conclusions is not going to help us.
The Trenchant Observer
observer@trenchantobserver.com
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For links to other articles on Afghanistan by The Trenchant Observer, click on the title at the top of this page to go to the home page, and then type in “Afghanistan” in the search box.
Tags: Afghanistan, attacks on ISAF soldiers, by Afghan military, dismissal of McChrystal, green on blue, green on blue attacks, green on blue violence, Hamid Karzai, Jennifer Rowland, Kandahar, loyalties of Afghan army, loyalties of Afghan police, marja campaign, michael hastings, national government, NATO, New York Times Editorial, Obama, Penguin, reasoning from conclusions, Rolling Stone, stand up the Afghan government, stand up the Afghan police, stanf up the Afghan miloitary, Stanley McChrystal, struggle for democracy in Afghanistan, The Operators, The Runaway General, the Sync Matrix
Posted in Abdoulah, Abdullah, Afghanistan, Barack Obama, corruption, Hamid Karzai, human rights, human rights reports, Intelligence, internal supporters of human rights, State Department, Taliban, targeted assassinations, targeted killings, U.S. Intervention, U.S. Military, United States | 2 Comments »
Sunday, October 24th, 2010
Continuing Reflections on “the Smartest Person in the Room”
In a previous article, we offered some observations on the report that President Obama always considers himself to be the smartest person in any room.
See “Is Obama the Smartest Person in the Room?” October 22, 2010
This is a theme worth pursuing, for it touches on the issue of the hubris of the Obama administration, which grates even on some of the president’s strongest supporters.
Some 35 years ago, Richard C. Holbrooke, currently President Obama’s Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, offered a few insights into the issue of “the smartest person in the room.”
See Richard C. Holbrooke, “The smartest man in the room,” Harper’s Magazine, June, 1975.
Wrote Holbrooke,
In a similar instance, reported by Stewart Alsop, a senior CIA official who regularly briefed Defense Secretary McNamara on Indochina, using all the statistics and data compiled by the Pentagon, suddenly asked McNamara if he could offer a personal observation. When McNamara agreed, according to Alsop, the official said that he had spent much of his life working on Southeast Asia and, yes, he knew that the statistics showed that we were winning but that somehow, deep down in his bones, he just didn’t feel comfortable with all those signs of progress. Deep down he felt that things were rotten. McNamara asked for reasons, data, empirical evidence. The official couldn’t give any, he said; it was just a feeling, McNamara thanked him for his comments, dismissed him, and asked the CIA to send over another briefer.
Briefing someone that smart could be very difficult…People who had important things to say were cut off in mid-thought because they were not articulate enough to frame their thoughts in the precise, logical, bright way that was desired, if not required.
But sometimes the slower-speaking, less smart person was right; sometimes the smart ones were wrong. So finally it started to become clear: the smartest man in the room is not always right.
Worth noting is that Holbrooke is apparently not among the president’s favorite advisers.
Bob Woodward in Obama’s Wars reports, ” It wasn’t until well into the Obama presidency that Holbrooke learned definitively how much the president didn’t care for him.” Woodward recounts how Holbrooke had asked hiim to call him “Richard” instead of ” Dick”, which Obama told others he found “unusual” and even “strange”. (p. 211) One might equally note that mortifying a key adviser is a bit unusual and strange as well.
Earlier in the book Woodward quotes Vice-President Joe Biden as telling Obama, “He’s the most egotistical bastard I’ve ever met, but maybe the right guy for the job.” (p. 72)
Reading Obama’s Wars, one comes away with the impression that the strategic review of Afghanistan policy was managed by a president who thought he was the smartest person in the room, and who conducted the meetings he attended in a tense and formal manner which did not encourage genuine debate.
Weeks were spent discussing whether the mission of the allies and the additional forces requested by General Stanley McChrystal was to be to “defeat” the Taliban, or to “degrade” the Taliban so they couldn’t overthrow the government in Kabul. The practical significance of this distinction, on the ground, appears to be at best dubious.
Very little attention, according to Woodward, was paid to the question of what was likely to happen in Afghanistan after the U.S. drew down its forces, and just what a negotiated settlement with the Taliban would lead to after ISAF forces had withdrawn.
This was not Bobby Kennedy leading the sessions of the Ex-Com set up by President John Kennedy to advise him during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. Reading Woodward’s book, one is struck by the lack of discussion of how to handle the election fraud underway in Afghanistan, and of the full implications of sticking with Karzai. By not discussing this critical issue, and not having CIA Director Panetta or Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Dennis Blair present at the last meetings, a critical opportunity to change the dynamics of the governance game in Kabul was lost. This opportunity was right under their noses, so to speak, but–at least according to Woodward–not directly discussed.
Ambassador Eikenberry was absolutely rignt in pointing out in his cables that the Afghanistan policy review had a very narrow focus, and did not adequately take a wide range of considerations into account.
The way this policy review was managed by the president is troubling, and requires further reflection.
The Trenchant Observer
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Tags: Abdullah Abdullah, Afghan elections, Afghanistan, Afghanistan policy review, Ambassador, Barack Obama, Bobby Kennedy, CIA, Cuban Missile Crisis, David Petraeus, Dennis Blair, DNI, Eikenberry cables, Ex-Com, General, Harper's Magazine, hubris, Karl Eikenberry, Karzai, Leon Panetta, McNamara, Obama, Obama and Eikenberry, Obama and Holbrooke, Obama policy review, Obama's Wars, President, Richard C. Holbrooke, Robert F. Kennedy, Stanley McChrystal, Stewart Alsop, the smartest man in the room
Posted in Abdoulah, Abdullah, Afghanistan, Barack Obama, CIA, Hamid Karzai, Intelligence, NATO, United States | No Comments »
Saturday, September 18th, 2010
Some time is likely to pass before the results of Saturday’s National Assembly elections in Afghanistan become known, and are officially announced.
In the meantime, it is useful to reflect on the more fundamental issues facing the United States, NATO and other allied countries engaged in the effort to secure the country from the Taliban–or at least arrange a departure that does not lead to the rapid collapse of the Afghan government.
As we get caught up in the details provided to our reporters by U.S. military and civilian officials in Afghanistan and Washington, and also those of allied nations, we tend to forget several fundamental facts about the country.
First, Afghanistan is a narco-state, where drug money and drug lords hold inordinate sway.
Second, the country is the second most corrupt country in the world, according to Transparency International which ranks it 179th, with only the anarchic state of Somalia ranking lower at 180th.
Third, while the United States has supported the development of institutions necessary for good governance over the course of the nine-year war, as have the United Nations and other allied nations, its Central Intelligence Agency has at the same time been paying many high-ranking Afghan officials either as assets or to provide specific information and services, on a long-term and continuing basis. Many of these officials have been known to be corrupt.
Fourth, the United States has been unable to break free from its support of president Hamid Karzai, even when the presidential elections held in August 2009 gave it an opportunity to do so through adherence to the Afghan constitution and the electoral machinery that had been set up in accordance with Afghan legislation. Despite a massive vote against Karzai and for Abdullah that, even after a portion of the votes produced by corruption had been discounted, required that a second-round runoff election be held, the U.S. stood by Karzai.
The massive corruption of the electoral process, apparently orchestrated by Karzai, was corrected in part only by the Electoral Complaints Commission that at that time had a majority of three international members. Lost in the news reporting was the critical fact that the ECC had only examined the results of the voting stations where the most egregious fraud had occurred. The actual extent of the fraud was in all likelihood far greater than that examined and found by the ECC, and it is quite possible that Abdulllah Abdullah, who came in second, could have won a free and fair second round election.
The U.S., instead of facing down Karzai, turned to Pakistan and apparently struck a deal to gain the cooperation of the Pakistani military in negotiating with the Taliban, in exchange for ceasing its pressure on Karzai to either actually hold a second-round election or form a national unity government with Abdullah. In the face of Karzai’s refusal to meet Abdullah’s demand that the members of the Independent Electoral Commission who had orchestrated the fraud be replaced, the latter withdrew from the race.
As Thomas Friedman observed in the New York Times in his March 31 op-ed column,
When you can steal an election, you can steal anything. How will we get this guy to curb corruption when his whole election, and previous tour in office, were built on corruption? How can we be operating a clear, build-and-hold strategy that depends on us bringing good governance to Afghans when the head of the government is so duplicitous?
See also The Trenchant Observer, “Thomas L. Friedman on Karzai; Hard Options,” March 31, 2010.
Fifth, when U.S. anti-corruption efforts collide with the pervasive corruption at the top of the Afghan government, which reportedly has many high-ranking officials on the CIA payroll, those efforts seem to always be sacrificed as the intelligence agencies weigh in to protect their assets.
See, e.g., Dexter Filkins and Mark Mazzetti, “Karzai Aide in Corruption Inquiry Is Tied to C.I.A.,” New York Times, August 25, 2010
Recently, Karzai blocked the efforts of two U.S. supported Afghan anti-corruption bodies when they sought to arrest officials close to Karzai widely reputed to be corrupt. Karzai then fired Deputy Attorney General Fazel Ahmad Faqiryar, who had been in charge of these anti-corruption efforts. The New York Times, in an editorial on August 25, 2010, noted,
A report in Thursday’s Times that the aide, Mohammed Zia Salehi, is a paid agent of the C.I.A. shows, once again, the seamy complications of this war.
In late July, Mr. Salehi, a top national security adviser to Mr. Karzai, was arrested after being accused of soliciting bribes to help block an investigation of the New Ansari Exchange. New Ansari, a financial firm based in Kabul, is suspected of helping move billions of dollars out of Afghanistan.
The two anticorruption agencies, the Major Crimes Task Force and the Sensitive Investigations Unit, were established by the Afghan government last year with encouragement from the United States. They are independent, with broad powers to arrest, detain and try suspects, and they receive technical and other help from the F.B.I. and the Drug Enforcement Administration.
–Editorial, “Mr. Karzai’s Promises,” New York Times, August 25, 2010
The Central Dilemma Facing the U.S. in Afghanistan
The central dilemma facing the U.S. and its allies in Afghanistan is that good governance is required for the Taliban to be checked, both according to U.S. counterinsurgency (COIN) doctrine (as enunciated in the Army manual drafted by Petraeus), and under the specific conditions on the ground in Afghanistan. Yet good governance cannot be built, or governance strengthened, without law and the framework of law that such governance requires.
In a word, the U.S. and its allies are not likely to succeed in stabilizing Afghanistan, or in reducing the likelihood of destabilization of Pakistan as a result of failure in Afghanistan, without clearly setting out as its objective the establishment and consolidation of a constitutional or rule-of-law state.
That does not mean that the United States must maintain large military forces in Afghanistan until such a state is firmly in place, but it does mean that U.S. and allied efforts in the country must be oriented toward that goal, and not undermine it.
A long-term commitment from the U.S. and its allies on the civilian side, to assist in building and strengthening such a rule-of-law state, may be required. Such a commitment, however, would reassure Afghan partners dedicated to such an enterprise, and potential adherents, that the Umited States will not simply withdraw its troops and leave the country to warlords, drug lords, and the Taliban.
Two must-read articles lay out the depths of the pervasive corruption that exists in Afghanistan, and the inherent contradictions–as well as the strange if not delusional thinking–involved in current U.S. policymaking discussions on the subject of how to fight this corruption. See
Dexter Filkins, “Inside Corrupt-istan, a Loss of Faith in Leaders,” The New York Times, September 4, 2010; and
Mark Mazzetti and Rod Norland, “U.S. Debates Karzai’s Place in Fighting Corruption,” New York Times, September 14, 2010
Filkins writes,
It’s not as if the Americans and their NATO partners don’t know who the corrupt Afghans are. American officers and anti-corruption teams have drawn up intricate charts outlining the criminal syndicates that entwine the Afghan business and political elites. They’ve even given the charts a name: “Malign Actor Networks.” A k a MAN.
Looking at some of these charts—with their crisscrossed lines connecting politicians, drug traffickers and insurgents — it’s easy to conclude that this country is ruled neither by the government, nor NATO, nor the Taliban, but by the MAN.
It turns out, of course, that some of the same “malign actors” the diplomats and officers are railing against are on the payroll of the C.I.A. At least until recently, American officials say, one of them was Ahmed Wali Karzai, the president’s brother. Mr. Karzai has long been suspected of facilitating the country’s booming drug trade.
President Obama’s Response
How has president Obama reacted to Karzai’s interventions to block anti-corruption efforts in Afghanistan and his firing of Deputy Attorney General Fazel Ahmad Faqiryar?
On Monday, September 14, Mazzetti and Norland report, the president met with his senior advisors to address the problem:
The Obama administration is debating whether to make Afghanistan’s president, Hamid Karzai, a more central player in efforts to root out corruption in his own government, including giving him more oversight of graft investigators and notifying him before any arrests, according to senior American officials.
…
The corruption issue was at the center of a two-hour White House meeting on Monday, with President Obama and senior aides agreeing that efforts to tackle corruption should be balanced against the need to maintain ties with the Afghan government.
“The discussion on corruption, in essence, is really a discussion about our relationship with Karzai,” said one senior Obama administration official, who like several others interviewed for this article spoke only on condition of anonymity.
Officials cautioned that no firm decisions had been made about whether President Karzai should have any veto power over anticorruption efforts. They said that Mr. Obama told his advisers on Monday to come up with a more “sophisticated” policy toward Afghan corruption.
Mr. Obama, the officials said, directed government agencies — including the Pentagon, the State Department, the Justice Department and the C.I.A. — to develop guidelines that could isolate the corruption that fuels anger among Afghans and drives many into the ranks of the insurgency, as opposed to the more routine kickbacks and bribes that grease the Afghan political system.
“The corruption we need to combat is the corruption that undermines the fight against the Taliban,” said a second American official. “That means going after officials who abuse ordinary Afghans and drive them to the other side — a plundering landlord or a brutal, thieving cop.”
In other words, the idea is to pursue some corruption, but not the corruption at the top of the Afghan government. In the president’s words, the challenge is to come up with a more “sophisticated” policy toward fighting Afghan corruption.
Perhaps more importantly, Obama’s call for more “sophisticated” options for fighting corruption in Afghanistan reflects Karzai’s continued ability to “roll” the president, who every time he hits a brick wall seems to call for more analysis.
There is room for some doubt as to whether these “sophisticated” intellectual distinctions and options, if found and implemented, will ever gain traction in the second most corrupt country in the world, Corrupt-istan.
To the Observer, the idea of trying to make Karzai a more central player in efforts to root out corruption in his own government sounds like giving Al Capone a more central role in cleaning up Chicago.
In the meantime, anti-corruption efforts in Afghanistan are “paused”. See Rod Nordland and Alissa J. Rubin, “New Afghan Corruption Inquiries Frozen,” New York Times, September 14, 2010.
The Trenchant Observer
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Tags: Abdullah, Abdullah Abdullah, Ahmed Karzai, Ahmed Wa;i karzai, Al Capone, Alissa J. Rubin, Alissa Rubin, August 2009 elections, C.I.A., Chicago, CIA, CIA payments, cleaning up Chicago, COIN, constitutional state, corruption, counterinsurgency doctrine, counterinsurgency handbook, counterinsurgency manual, David Petraeus, delusion, delusional, Dexter Filkins, Drug Enforcement Administration, Electoral Complaints Commission, F.B.I., Fazel Ahmad Faqiryar, first round, framework of law, good governance, Hamid Karzai, Independent Electoral Commission, Major Crimes Task Force, Mark Mazzetti, Mohamed Zia Salehi, Mohammed Zia Salehi, narco-state, national assembly elections, National Security Council, New Ansari Exchange, New York Times, Pakistan, Pakistani military, presidential election, Rod Norland, rule of law state, second round, Sensitive Investigations Unit, September 18 elections, Taliban, Thomas Friedman, Thomas L. Friedman, Tom Friedman, Wali Karzai
Posted in Abdoulah, Abdullah, Afghanistan, Barack Obama, CIA, Dictatorship, elections, Hamid Karzai, human rights, Intelligence, internal supporters of human rights, International Law, Justice Department, NATO, Pakistan, Pakistan military, State Department, Taliban, U.S. Military, United States | No Comments »
Thursday, August 19th, 2010
Senator John Kerry (D-MA) traveled to Kabul on August 17 to deliver the Obama administration’s warning to Hamid Karzai that he must clean up corruption in his government if he wants the United States to continue sending its treasure and troops to Afghanistan.
News reports recall that Kerry traveled to Kabul in November, 2009 to urge him to respect the findings of the Electoral Complaints Commission that Karzai had not won a majority of the votes in the first-round elections for president on August 20, and that consequently a second-round election should be held.
Karzai acceded to this immediate request. However he refused to respond to the demand of his rival in the presidential runoff, Abdullah Abdullah, that the Independent Electoral Commission’s members be replaced in order for there to be a real chance for a fair second-round election. The Independent Electoral Commission had been deeply involved in the massive fraud in Karzai’s favor in the first-round elections, and had officially sanctioned that fraud. Only the Electoral Complaints Commission, which at that time had a majority of “international” members, prevented that fraud from being directly consummated, by ruling that Karzai had not achieved a majority of the votes.
In view of Karzai’s failure to replace members of the Independent Electoral Commission who had sanctioned the fraud, Abdullah withdrew from the second-round elections before they could be scheduled to be held. Under the electoral law, the candidate who finished third should have advanced to the second-round runoff. This did not occur.
From these facts, news organizations began to repeat the canard that Senator Kerry had, through his personal “rapport” with Karzai, succeeded in persuading the Afghan president to honor the official results of the first-round election, accepting that a second round would have to be held.
In an apparent bow to the demands of Pakistan’s military and as part of the price of a deal for their help in negotiating with the Taliban, the U.S. stopped pressuring Karzai to enter a national unity government in talks with Abdullah, effectively pulling the rug out from under the latter.
Given Karzai’s failure to respond to his demands and the likelihood of massive fraud in the second-round elections, Abdullah withdrew from the elections. The United States immediately accepted this outcome, and began trumpeting to the world that Karzai was the legitimate and democratically-elected president of Afghanistan.
Senator Kerry’s Fundamental Conflict of Interest
Senator Kerry, as Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has a duty to oversee the actions of the executive branch in conducting the foreign policy of the United States. He and his Committee are responsible for advising the Senate as to the wisdom and coherence of that foreign policy, and whether to approve legislation to finance its implementation.
Yet by acting in an executive branch capacity to directly assist the President in his achievement of foreign policy objectives, Kerry has entered—perhaps unintentionally and with the best of motives—into a realm where his efforts on behalf of the executive involve a direct conflict of interest with his responsibilities as Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. For he cannot be expected to exercise the independent judgment required in conducting Senate oversight responsibilities of foreign policy actions in which he himself has directly taken part.
Senator Kerry may indeed have important diplomatic skills that might be employed in service to the nation. If Hillary Clinton were to resign, he would certainly be a strong candidate to become Secretary of State.
But he cannot undertake executive functions and responsibilities without entering into a fundamental conflict of interest with his legislative mandate and duties as Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Only the Executive, under our constitution, can conduct the foreign policy of the United States. Statements by Senator Kerry that he is in Kabul in his capacity as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee should be dismissed as the fig leaf that they are. It appears beyond doubt that, as a result of Karzai’s interference with the work of anti-corruption bodies established in Afghanistan, the Obama administration found itself in an impasse with Karzai and called upon Kerry to help break it.
This is implementing foreign policy, not gathering information that might be useful in making legislative judgments. However well-intentioned such conduct may be, it is constitutionally inappropriate.
We need Senator Kerry in his constitutional role as Senator and Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, delivering absolutely independent, objective, and critical judgments on the wisdom and conduct of U.S. foreign policy in Afghanistan.
Given the importance of the position he holds in the Senate, his judgment must at all times avoid even the appearance of impropriety. In the ninth year of the war in Afghanistan, we need his independent and critical judgment more than ever.
The Trenchant Observer
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Tags: 2009, Abdullah, Abdullah Abdullah, Afghan, Afghanistan, anti-corruption body, August 20 elections, Barack Obama, bodies, chairman, conflict of interest, constitutional duty, corruption, David Petraeus, Dion Nissenbaum, Electoral Complaints Comission, electoral law, first-round elections, Hamid Karzai, Hillary Clinton, impasse, Independent Electoral Commission, international members, internationals, John Kerry, Joshua Partlow, Karl Eikenberry, Karzai, McClatchey Newspapers, presidential elections, rapport with Karzai, second round elections, Secretary of State, senate foreign relations committee, Senator, Washington Post
Posted in Abdoulah, Abdullah, Afghanistan, elections, Hamid Karzai, Pakistan, Pakistan military, State Department, U.S. news coverage, United States | Comments Off
Thursday, July 22nd, 2010
Once again the Magician has waived his green cape and dazzled the international donors who are paying for the war they are waging in Afghanistan to keep him in power. A donors conference was held in Kabul on July 20, 2010, launching “the Kabul process”.
See Nipa Banerjee, “Too many conferences, too few results in Afghanistan,” The Ottowa Citizen, July 22, 2010; and
Editorial, The Salt Lake Tribune, July 22, 2010
The last time the donors met was at the London conference in January, where after committing massive corruption in the first round presidential elections in August 2009, and refusing to replace the members of the Independent Electoral Commission who were directly responsible for certifying that fraud, the Magician dazzled the internationals with his talk of re-integration of the Taliban.
Exactly nothing, or at least nothing desirable, has come of that talk of re-integration. But because the U.S. and its allies can see no way out of Afghanistan, they long for a magical ending.
In London, the Magician succeeded in changing the subject, with the question of free and fair elections receding to something like the 25th goal in the final communiqué of the conference.
One has to marvel at such legerdemain, even if the objects of manipulation are incredibly easy targets. Among them all there does not seem to be more than six months of collective memory. None of them seem to recall the nine years of empty promises the Magician has plied them with, telling each of them exactly what they wanted to hear at exactly the right moment.
While the Magician promised to clean up the corruption in his government, the level of corruption doubled between 2007 and 2010.
While the Magician promised to build up good governance and the national police, he recently replaced Hamid Atmar, the Minister of the Interior in charge of the national police, one of a handful of Afghan ministers the U.S. and its allies believed to be highly competent. Another, Amrullah Saleh, the head of Afghan intelligence, was fired at the same time. Both were former officials of the Northern Alliance, and were apparently fired to satisfy Pakistani demands.
Nonetheless, year in, year out, the internationals are enthralled by the latest spell cast upon them by the Magician, for it contains exactly what they want to hear.
The magic is powerful. Its spell enables the internationals to believe that they can negotiate a victory with the Taliban and other insurgent groups, precisely when the latter have the momentum, and believe they must only wait for the Americans and their allies to withdraw to claim victory.
The Magician’s powers of persuasion are so great that he even convinced the donors to channel 50% of their financial support directly to him and the central government. Given his government’s record of corruption, that was a magical achievement in and of itself, of stupendous proportions.
Let us hope there is a magical ending in Afghanistan that allows NATO troops to withdraw. For otherwise, with more waves of the Magician’s green cape and whatever promises the allies may wish or need to hear, it looks like a long, hard slog, with neither good governance nor victory in sight.
The Trenchant Observer
www.trenchantobserver.com
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E-mail: observer@trenchantobserver.com
Comments are invited. Please add to the discussion and tell the Observer why he is wrong. Or right. Or some of one and some of the other.
Tags: 2010, Abdallah, Abdullah, Afghanistan, Afghanistan donors conference, Amrullah Saleh, Barack Obama, Carl Levin, Chibli Mallat, civil war, commencement speech, David Petraeus, democratic path, democratic road, Hamid Atmar, Hamid Karzai, Haqqani network, Hillary Clinton, Kabul donors confrerence, Kabul process, Laura King, list, Mark Landler, May 22, moral clarity, moral compass, moral purpose, orther Alliance, Pakistan, Pashtun, reintegrationn of the talliban, Richard Holbrooke, Taliban, terrorist organizations, Thom Shanker, West Point, women
Posted in Abdoulah, Abdullah, Afghanistan, Barack Obama, elections, Hamid Karzai, NATO, Pakistan, Pakistan military, Taliban, U.S. Military | Comments Off
Wednesday, July 14th, 2010
Updated
To find our way in Afghanistan, we need to find our compass.
Our moral compass.
General David Petraeus, according to reports, is pushing for the Obama administration to add the Haqqani network to the terrorist organizations list. They are one of the principal groups who are blowing up everyone in suicide attacks in Afghanistan. Senator Carl Levin (D.-Michigan) made a similar suggestion upon returning to Washington from a trip to Afghanistan last week.
See Mark Landler and Thom Shanker, “U.S. May Label Pakistan Militants as Terrorists,” New York Times, July 13, 2010 (July 14 print edition).
Petraeus’ inclination, as reported, provides a ray of light, a ray of hope. A hint of moral clarity.
With that clarity, perhaps there is another road in Afghanistan other than turning its people over to warlords and terrorists like the Haqqani network. Perhaps there is another path other than striking deals with Pakistani generals and shady Pakistani intelligence elements who have been backing the Taliban. Perhaps we can find another way to leave the country without abandoning its women, or surrendering hegemony over the South to Pakistan acting through its ties to Afghan insurgent groups, planting the seeds for future civil war between the North and the South.
The huge question is, of course, “Why wasn’t the Haqqani network already on the terrorist organizations list?
Not only was it not on the list, but we have gone aong with Karzai’s efforts to remove a large number of names of Taliban leaders from the U.N. sanctions list.
What are the reasons for omitting the Haqqani network from the terrorist organizations list, for seeking removal of Taliban leaders from the U.N. sanctions list, and for negotiating with Pakistan to get them to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table?
The administration needs to be candid with the American people about the kind of Afghanistan it is prepared to negotiate with Karzai, the Haqqani network, and the Taliban.
What we get out of Washington are platitudes about these groups accepting the Afghan constitution, and laying down their arms. What does this mean, what does this look like when you flesh it out?
The reasons we have heard so far to justify these actions, which appear to be based both on dubious assumptions and on dubious moral propositions, need to be subjected to intense and continuing scrutiny–in the full light of day.
What President Obama has apparently failed to grasp is that without a moral compass, the U.S. and NATO can neither achieve their essential goals in Afghanistan nor exit on terms short of catastrophic defeat.
Viewed from afar, at the present the White House’s only goal seems to be to help Karzai solidify his grip on power so we can beat a hasty retreat. This is a harsh judgment but one, it is submitted, that is supported by the facts.
It is a view, moreover, that is shared by many in the region, who look more to American actions than to the finely-tuned policy pronouncements that emanate from Washington.
Hopefully, Petraeus can bring moral clarity to his job and to the president’s thinking about Afghanistan.
The moral compass Obama must find and use is an American one. The American people will not support a war without moral purpose for an indefinite period of time.
A democratic path?
It is time for President Obama, with Petraeus’ assistance and experience building the institutions of democracy in Iraq, to reconsider the now-jettisoned democratic project in Afghanistan.
That project foundered on the rock of U.S. passivity in the face of Karzai’s massive fraud in the presidential elections last August, and its unwillingness to open up the political process by forcing Karzai to fix the electoral machinery so a fair second round election for president could be held.
Karzai may be the obstacle on the democratic path.
See Chibli Mallat, “Law, war and the Petraeus doctrine: How to take democracy seriously in Iraq and the AfPak theater,” The Daily Star (Beirut), June 24, 2010. Interestingly, Mallat suggests Karzai be persuaded to leave or removed from office, with arresting him for the election fraud being one option.
Yet the democratic path may be the only alternative that gives Afghan soldiers and police a vision of the future that is worth fighting for.
As President Obama noted at his West Point commencement speech on May 22, 2010,
(P)reparing for today, I turned to…the words of Oliver Wendell Holmes. And reflecting on his Civil War experience, he said, and I quote, “To fight out a war you must believe in something and want something with all your might. So must you do to carry anything else to an end worth reaching.” Holmes went on, “More than that, you must be willing to commit yourself to a course, perhaps a long and hard one, without being able to foresee exactly where you will come out.”
Our challenge in Afghanistan, also in a civil war setting, is quite similar. We must help the Afghan soldier and policeman find and have something to believe in and something to want with all of his or her might. Only then will an Afghan army and an Afghan police force be able to take over from the ISAF forces and defend their country against the Taliban.
The Taliban have such a belief, anchored in part in their religious faith.
What can the United States and NATO offer an Afghan soldier or policeman that can counter that?
This is perhaps the most critical question in Afghanistan, and one whose answer will largely determine the success of our counterinsurgency strategy there.
Free and fair elections and representative government, however crude? The rule of law, at least as a roadmap to be followed? Some form of democracy?
This was the path we followed in Iraq. It is time to reconsider the democratic project in Afghanistan. With all options open for consideration.
The democratic road may be the only one by which we can get to where we want to go, period. Moreover, it may be the only road that can maintain the support of the American people, and the support of the peoples of the other democracies with whom we are allied, for a war that will surely continue for quite some time.
Let us consider a central fact. America’s greatest weapon in the world is not its drone aircraft or its special operations forces, however useful these may be at the right moment and in the right place.
America’s greatest weapon is its story and the vision it has pursued for over two centuries. This vision is a vision of democracy, of respect for law and individual rights, and of the security and prosperity that are possible in a democratic society governed by law.
It is parochial to assume that our vision and our values have no appeal to the people of Afghanistan, or that our vision and values are weaker than and cannot triumph over the those of the Taliban.
To ask America to fight in Afghanistan without this vision and without these values, is to ask the country to fight with one arm tied behind its back, in a long and grinding struggle which ultimately it cannot win.
To engage the people of Afghanistan in a common struggle, not for warlordism or a coalition with the Taliban and the Haqqani network, but for the achievement of commonly shared values, and for the security that can be achieved through a government based on the consent of the governed and the rule of law, would be to commit to the democratic road.
As suggested above, the democratic road in Afghanistan may be the only one that gets us where we want to go. Petraeus, with his intellectual grasp of the critical importance of governance in counterinsurgency doctrine and his direct experience in Iraq, must already sense this.
Where would Iraq be today if it were not for steadfast U.S. support for the development of democratic institutions, and for adherence to the rule of law? It’s worth thinking about.
It’s worth thinking about now. The September 18 National Assembly elections are barely two months away. Yet instead of focusing on building a democratic process starting with those elections, Secretary of State Clinton is off to Pakistan to see what kind of a deal we can make with the Pakistanis on Afghanistan.
It was on just such a trip in November, it will be recalled, that we reportedly struck a deal with the Pakistanis the outlines of which we seem to be following. It resulted in our abandoning negotiations in Kabul to form a national unity government with Abdullah and Karzai, or to proceed to replace those in the electoral commission behind Karzai’s fraud so that a fair second round election could be held.
Why we are playing Karzai’s game, instead of the democratic game in Kabul, is a question which calls out for a full and complete answer to the American people from the President of the United States.
The Trenchant Observer
www.trenchantobserver.com
Twitter: www.twitter.com/trenchantobserv
E-mail: observer@trenchantobserver.com
Comments are invited. Please add to the discussion and tell the Observer why he is wrong. Or right. Or some of one and some of the other.
Tags: 2010, Abdallah, Abdullah, Afghanistan, Barack Obama, Carl Levin, Chibli Mallat, civil war, commencement speech, David Petraeus, democratic path, democratic road, Hamid Karzai, Haqqani network, Hillary Clinton, Laura King, list, Mark Landler, May 22, moral clarity, moral compass, moral purpose, orther Alliance, Pakistan, Pashtun, reintegrationn of the talliban, Richard Holbrooke, Taliban, terrorist organizations, Thom Shanker, West Point, women
Posted in Abdoulah, Abdullah, Afghanistan, elections, Hamid Karzai, human rights, Taliban, U.S. Military | Comments Off
Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010
The newspapers will be filled for days with information and views regarding Obama’s June 23 firing of General Stanley McChrystal and his replacement by General David Petraeus as commander of U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan.
McChrystal’s negative comments about his colleagues as reported in Rolling Stone magazine reflected very poor judgment, as McChrystal himself and also Secretary of Defense Robert Gates admitted. There were also previous instances of very poor judgment by McChrystal since he assumed command in Afghanistan.
A number of questions arose which Obama may have taken into account in reaching his decision to replace McChrystal.
One of the most important was the question of how McChrystal could be an effective team member on a team about whose members he or members of his entourage had spoken in such disparaging terms.
How could he lead the ISAF coalition, or keep France on board with the coalition? Did McChrystal bear any responsibility for the fact that some of our closest allies (e.g., Canada) are withdrawing their forces from Afghanistan?
Even more fundamental questions were raised, however, which now will have to be considered anew and with fresh eyes by Petraeus, Obama, and the new team.
Perhaps the most important is what the strategy of the United States and coalition forces is going to be going forward, after the abject failure of the current strategy led by McChrystal.
The official U.S. counterinsurgency strategy for Afghanistan is to secure and protect the population rather than focus on killing the enemy. The real policy as it is currently being implemented is one that focuses on killing leaders of the Taliban through predator drone strikes and assassination by special operations forces.
The lack of progress in Marja reveals that the much-touted concept of a “government in a box” to be installed following the military’s flushing out of the Taliban is a cruel illusion.
It is not going to happen, not under the government of Hamid Karzai.
The real policy is one of beating down the enemy through the use of the U.S. killing machine that couples real-time intelligence with the capabilities of drone aircraft and special operations forces on the ground. Reports that half the U.S. forces being deployed to Afghanistan are special ops and similar troops underlines this point.
The real policy, led by McChrystal, has not worked. The situation in Afghanistan has not improved since he assumed command. To the contrary, there are many indications that it has continued to deteriorate.
As for our counter-insurgency strategy, the strategy laid out by David Petraeus and his colleagues in the U.S. Army Counterinsurgency Manual in December 2006, it is submitted, requires the presence of troops on the ground in numbers that far exceed the number of troops now in Afghanistan, even after the so-called “surge”. Should the U.S. begin to withdraw troops in mid-2011, as promised, the idea that we are implementing Petraeus’ counter-insurgency strategy as enunciated in U.S. military doctrine would become even more divorced from reality than it is today.
To be sure, the 2011 date for “the commencement” of a process of withdrawal, subject to conditions on the ground, was never more than a political fiction used to make the increase in American troops politically palatable back home in the U.S.
Now, things are going really badly in Afghanistan.
The principal men that permitted the U.S. to have some independence from Ahmed Karzai’s control of intelligence provided to the U.S. military in the South, Amrullah Saleh, the former Afghan intelligence chief, with longstanding and close ties to the CIA, and Hanif Atmar, Minister of the Interior, are gone. Saleh was fired by Karzai several weeks ago, when the Minister of the Interior in charge of the police was also sacked. These were two men viewed by U.S. officials as able counterparts.
The end result of their dismissal was that Ahmed Wali Karzai, President Karzai’s half-brother, has an even firmer grip on the flow of intelligence shared with the Americans and the allies in Kandahar and the South. Without that intelligence, it is likely that U.S. forces would be operating largely in the dark, at least in strategic terms.
The Karzai brothers had, in effect, “rolled” McChrystal, which may help to explain why Hamid Karzai came out so strongly in support of McChrystal, the “best” U.S. commander Afghanistan has ever had, in his view. One need hardly ask who he thinks the worst has been (hint: he has a German name).
General McChrystal had earned a new assignment. The stress had obviously gotten to him, or he would not have been making colossal errors in judgment. If he made these poor judgments in speaking about his colleagues and allowing those around him to speak about his colleagues in a disparaging manner, what other errors of judgment might he have made?
His judgments affected the lives of thousands of U.S. and allied troops.
It is clear now, if it wasn’t last fall, that President Obama made a deeply flawed decision when he handed control over our policy in Afghanistan to the military in general and McChrystal in particular.
The much-touted policy review on Afghanistan represented no more than a delaying tactic designed to generate political support and gain time, for what in the end was an approval of McChrystal’s planned “surge” of 40,000 men. Obama authorized “30,000” which with logistical and other support became a much larger number, and with 10,000 additional promised allied troops, McChrystal’s demand was essentially satisfied.
Our nation’s strategy in Afghanistan has become twisted and distorted beyond recognition. We say we are implementing Petraeus’ counterinsurgency doctrine, when in point of fact half of the forces we are sending to the country are Special Ops and similar forces, to assist in the project of decapitating the Taliban while proving our killing machine is more effective than theirs.
We have abandoned the democratic project which the U.S., allied governments and the U.N. had as their stated objective for eight years, leaving Afghan police and military and ordinary Afghan citizens with no ideal to fight for.
The war has become about how to get the U.S. forces out, even if this means returning the people of Afghanistan to the power of the warlords, and the women of Afghanistan to the warlords and the repression and abuse of a very backward traditional and tribal society.
Instead of leading the people of Afghanistan into the 21st century, we have decided that it is sufficient for our exit purposes to allow them to return to the 19th (or 13th) century.
Nonetheless, Obama now has an opportunity to begin to correct the bad decisions he has made in the past on Afghanistan.
He should immediately reconstitute his circle of advisers to ensure that his Afghanistan team includes sufficient civilians of sufficient experience and stature to counterbalance the strong concentration of military advisers in his inner circle. These should include top U.S. diplomats with experience working in the region.
The first task of this reconstituted group should be to reread Karl Eikenberry’s cables from last November, and to devise a strategy for going forward.
That strategy must recognize that Hamid Karzai is not, and never will be, a reliable partner.
It must focus on ensuring to the maximum extent possible that the elections to the National Assembly to be held on September 18, 2010 are free and fair elections.
We must reconsider the democratic project in Afghanistan, so quickly abandoned by Obama, but which may alone contain the seeds of motivation that could one day lead to an effective national Afghan army and police force.
It must address the urgent need to prevent the further alienation of present and former members of the Northern Alliance, including Abdullah Abdullah, Amrullah Saleh, and others. Little will be gained if a reconciliation between Karzai and the Taliban in the South (should it ever occur) leads to renewed hostilities between the North and the South.
Presumably, Petraeus and Obama, with input from Eikenberry, Holbrooke, and others, can take steps to improve the types of and deployment of troops going to Afghanistan, in view of the limited force levels available from the U.S. and other allies.
It will be important for Obama, Gates and Petraeus to lead a process of reshaping our strategy in Afghanistan that reflects Petraeus’ own, fresh understanding and vision, and that of other key team members including in particular Karl Eikenberry, instead of simply trying to continue to implement the current strategy.
This reexamination should be done as soon as possible. In particular, McChrystal’s accommodations with the Karzai brothers with respect to the Kandahar campaign should be revisited.
The decisions faced by Obama are much bigger than the decision of whether or not to fire McChrystal. The deeper questions include the following:
When will the United States reconcile the total contradiction between the facts on the ground in Afghanistan and our real strategy there, with the requirements of official U.S. counterinsurgency strategy as enunciated by David Petraeus and the U.S. military?
When will the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan shift from trying to out-kill the Taliban with our incredible killing machine to a more nuanced, informed and broad-gauged strategy?
When will the United States have a military and civilian team in place in and for Afghanistan that can work effectively with each other, and with our allies?
When will President Obama pay enough sustained attention to Afghanistan to get it right?
What is needed now is not eight afternoons over a number of months, but two weeks at Camp David with a small group of advisers.
Obama could also spend a day a week working alone, without aides, on getting his own thinking straight on Afghanistan.
The United States and the world need his leadership, not his acquiescence in the failed policies of the past.
The Trenchant Observer
observer@trenchantobserver.com
Follow “trenchantobserv” on Twitter.com
Comments are invited.
Tags: 60 minutes, Abdullah, Abdullah Abdullah, Afghan intelligence service, Afghanistan, Ahmad Karzai, Ahmed Karzai, ahmed wali karzai, Al Qaeda, allegiace of the people, Amrullah Saleh, attacks, baer, Barack Obama, Brian Ross, Canada, changing personalities, CIA, CIA base, CIA-Afghan intelligence cooperation, COIN, conduct of military operations, coordination of attacks, counterinsurgency strategy, David Petraeus, dependance of U.S. decision-makers, Dexter Filkins, diplomatic failure, domestic support, drone, Eikenberry cables, elected, elections, electoral fraud, first round, Flynn Report, foreign occupation, France, General McChrystal, governance, Hamid Karzai, Hanif Atmar, Henry Crompton, Hillary Clinton, honor, independent, Independent Electoral Commission, insult, insulting, Intelligence, intelligence capabilities in Afghanistan, intelligence service, ISAF, Kabul, Kandahar, Karl Eikenberry, Karzai, Khost province, legitimacy, legitimate, McChrystal, members, michael hastings, military intelligence, murky power relationships, no clothes, op-ed, Pakistan, Pakistani intelligence service, parliament, Petraeus, physical and social space, predator, President, rebellion, resistance, Robert Gates, Rolling Stone, second round, second round elections, selection of targets, Stanley McChrystal, Stanley McCrystal, Taliban, the Karzai brothers, U.S. military in Afghanistan, U.S. military strategy, U.S.-Afghan rift, video, Wali Karzai, Washington
Posted in Abdoulah, Abdullah, Afghanistan, Barack Obama, Canada, CIA, elections, France, Hamid Karzai, Intelligence, internal supporters of human rights, NATO, State Department, Taliban, targeted killings, U.S. Military | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010
The newspapers will be filled for days with information and views regarding Obama’s meeting with Stanley McChrystal and his Afghanistan team on Wednesday, June 23, in Washington.
McChrystal’s negative comments about his colleagues as reported in Rolling Stone magazine reflect very poor judgment, as McChrystal himself and also Secretary of Defense Robert Gates have admitted. There have been previous instances of very poor judgment by McChrystal since he assumed command in Afghanistan.
A number of questions arise.
One of the most important is the question of how McChrystal can be an effective team member on a team about whose members he or members of his entourage have spoken in such disparaging terms.
How can he lead the ISAF coalition, or keep France on board with the coalition? Does McChrystal bear any responsibility for the fact that some of our closest allies (e.g., Canada) are withdrawing their forces from Afghanistan? Could our disregard for international law with our policy of targeted killings have had some negative impact in this regard?
Even more fundamental questions are raised, however.
Perhaps the most important is what the strategy of the United States and coalition forces is going to be going forward, after the abject failure of the current strategy led by McChrystal.
The official U.S. counterinsurgency strategy for Afghanistan is to secure and protect the population rather than focus on killing the enemy. The real policy as it is currently being implemented is one that focuses on killing leaders of the Taliban through predator drone strikes and assassination by special operations forces.
The lack of progress in Marja reveals that the much-touted concept of a “government in a box” to be installed following the military’s flushing out of the Taliban is a cruel illusion.
It is not going to happen, not under the government of Hamid Karzai.
The real policy is one of beating down the enemy through the use of the U.S. killing machine that couples real-time intelligence with the capabilities of drone aircraft and special operations forces on the ground.
The real policy, led by McChrystal, has not worked. The situation in Afghanistan has not improved since he assumed command. To the contrary, there are many indications that it has continued to deteriorate.
As for our counter-insurgency strategy, the strategy laid out by David Petraeus and his colleagues requires the presence of troops on the ground in numbers that far exceed the numbers now in Afghanistan, even after the so-called “surge”. Should the U.S. begin to withdraw troops in mid-2011, as promised, the idea that we are implementing Petraeus’ counter-insurgency strategy as enunciated in U.S. military doctrine would become even more delusional than it is today.
To be sure, the 2011 date for “the commencement” of a process of withdrawal, subject to conditions on the ground, was never more than a political fiction used to make the increase in American troops politically palatable back home in the U.S.
Now, things are going really badly in Afghanistan.
The principal men that permitted the U.S. to have some independence from Ahmed Karzai’s control of intelligence provided to the U.S. military in the South, Amrullah Saleh, the former Afghan intelligence chief, with longstanding and close ties to the CIA, and Hanif Atmar, Minister of the Interior, are gone. Saleh was fired by Karzai several weeks ago, when the Minister of the Interior in charge of the police was also sacked. These were two men viewed by U.S. officials as able counterparts.
The end result of their dismissal was that Ahmed Karzai has an even firmer grip on the flow of intelligence shared with the Americans and the allies in Kandahar and the South. Without that intelligence, U.S. forces would be operating largely in the dark.
The Karzai brothers have, in effect, “rolled” McChrystal, which may help to explain why Hanid Karzai has come out so strongly in support of McChrystal, the “best” U.S. commander Afghanistan has ever had, in his view. One need hardly ask who he thinks the worst has been, but I would wager he has a German name.
General McChrystal has earned a new assignment. The stress has obviously gotten to him, or he would not be making colossal errors in judgment. If he has made these poor judgments in speaking about his colleagues and allowing those around him to speak about his colleagues in a disparaging manner, what other errors of judgment may he have made?
His judgments affect the lives of thousands of U.S. and allied troops.
It is clear now, if it wasn’t last fall, that President Obama made a fatally flawed decision when he handed control over our policy in Afghanistan to the military in general and McChrystal and Petraeus in particular.
The much-touted policy review on Afghanistan represented no more than a delaying tactic designed to generate political support and gain time, for what in the end was an approval of McChrystal’s planned “surge” of 40,000 men. Obama authorized “30,000” which with logistical and other support became a much larger number, and with 10,000 additional promised allied troops, McChrystal’s demand was essentially satisfied.
Our nation’s strategy in Afghanistan is twisted and distorted beyond recognition. We say we are implementing Petraeus’ counterinsurgency doctrine, when in point of fact half of the forces we are sending to the country are Special Ops and similar forces, to assist in the project of decapitating the Taliban while proving our killing machine is more effective than theirs.
We have abandoned the democratic project which the U.S., allied governments and the U.N. had as their stated objective for eight years, leaving Afghan police and military and ordinary Afghan citizens with no ideal to fight for.
The war has become about how to get the U.S. forces out, even if this means returning the people of Afghanistan to the power of the warlords, and the women of Afghanistan to the warlords and the repression and abuse of a very backward traditional and tribal society.
Instead of leading the people of Afghanistan into the 21st century, we have decided that it is sufficient for our exit purposes to allow them to return to the 19th (or 13th) century.
Nonetheless, Obama now has an opportunity to begin to correct the bad decisions he has made in the past on Afghanistan.
Regardless of when McChrystal leaves, Obama should immediately reconstitute his circle of advisers to ensure that his Afghanistan team includes civilians to counterbalance the strong concentration of military advisers in his inner circle. These should include the top U.S. diplomats working in the region. The first task of this reconstituted group should be to reread Karl Eikenberry’s cables from last November, and to devise a strategy for going forward.
That strategy must recognize that Hamid Karzai is not, and never will be, a reliable partner.
It must focus on ensuring to the maximum extent possible that the elections to the National Assembly to be held on September 18, 2010 are free and fair elections. We must reconsider the democratic project in Afghanistan, so quickly abandoned by Obama, but which may alone contain the seeds of motivation that could one day lead to an effective national army and police force.
It must address the urgent need to prevent the further alienation of present and former members of the Northern Alliance, including Abdullah Abdullah, Amrullah Saleh, and others. Little will be gained if a reconciliation between Karzai and the Taliban in the South (should it ever occur) leads to renewed hostilities between the North and the South.
Should McChrystal go?
The question is not if, but when.
When will the United States reconcile the total contradiction between the facts on the ground in Afghanistan and our real strategy there, with the requirements of official U.S. counterinsurgency strategy as enunciated by David Petraeus and the U.S. military?
When will the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan shift from trying to out-kill the Taliban with our incredible killing machine to a more nuanced, informed and broad-gauged strategy?
When will the United States have a military and civilian team in place in and for Afghanistan that can work effectively with each other, and with our allies?
When will President Obama pay enough sustained attention to Afghanistan to get it right?
What is needed is not eight afternoons over a number of months, but two weeks at Camp David with a small group of advisers.
Obama could also spend a day a week working alone, without aides, on getting his own thinking straight on Afghanistan.
The United States and the world need his leadership, not his acquiescence in the failed policies of the past.
The Trenchant Observer
observer@trenchantobserver.com
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Posted in Abdoulah, Abdullah, Afghanistan, Barack Obama, CIA, elections, France, Hamid Karzai, Intelligence, International Law, NATO, Pakistan, Pakistan military, State Department, Taliban, targeted killings, U.S. Military | Comments Off
Monday, April 5th, 2010
Farsical But Sinister
Robert H. Reid of AP summarizes the farsical but sinister events of the last week in the ever stranger opera buffa of Hamid Karzai:
Karzai has long chaffed under what he considers excessive international pressure. Those complaints escalated Thursday when he lashed out against the U.N. and the international community, accusing them of perpetrating a “vast fraud” in last year’s presidential polls as part of a conspiracy to deny him re-election or tarnish his victory – accusations the U.S. and the United Nations have denied.
Two days later, Karzai told a group of parliament members that if foreign interference in his government continues, the Taliban would become a legitimate resistance – one that he might even join, according to several lawmakers present.
“He said that ‘if I come under foreign pressure, I might join the Taliban,’” said Farooq Marenai, who represents the eastern province of Nangarhar. “He said rebellion” against a legitimate Afghan government “would change to resistance” against foreign occupation.
Two other parliament members gave the same account but asked that their names not be published to avoid problems with Karzai.
Robert H. Reid, “AP Analysis: Karzai remarks risk US-Afghan rift,” Associated Press, April 5, 2010
Defense of Honor
When will someone stand up and shout, “The emperor has no clothes!”
It could do U.S.-Afghan relations a lot of good if Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, or President Obama himself, were to take Karzai’s wild assertions, and rebut each of them with well-documented facts, point by point.
Washington needs to understand the cultural meaning and context in Afghanistan of what Karzai is doing to the United States.
Obama might start, closer to home, by studying Michael Dukakis’ 1988 response to a question about what he would do if his wife was raped and murdered, and the impact on his candidacy of his cold and analytical response.
In Afghanistan, what Karzai has said about the United States and its allies is shameful. To pretend otherwise, to be reasonable in understanding his “idiosyncracies”, to accept the canard that he needs to strengthen his domestic support, to brush it off with diplomatic language, risks losing the hard-won respect we have earned among the population over nine hard years of war.
In a word, when attacked in a shameful way by Karzai, the United States needs to defend its honor, at least in words if not in deeds.
For excerpts and descriptions of Karzai’s remarks, see the following:
Mandy Clark, CBS News broadcast story, April 2, 2010
Jonathan Partow, “White House troubled by Afghan leader’s remarks,” Washington Post, April 5, 2010
Plan B
It is time, long past time in fact, to start developing Plan B. As unpalatable as that conclusion may be, the alternatives are going to be much worse.
It is useful to recall that Karzai did not win the first round in the presidential elections held on August 20, 2009, and that Abdullah, his opponent, withdrew from the second round only in the face of a refusal by Karzai to take meaningful measures to avoid a repetition of the fraud in the runoff.
Karzai is not the legitimate, elected president of Afghanistan, and the U.S. saying that he is–while ignoring the imminent fraud in the second round–does not make him the legitimate, elected president of Afghanistan.
As The Observer wrote on March 30,
U.S. officials need to carefully review the history of their interaction with Karzai over the last eight years, and reread what Ambassador Karl Eikenberry had to say about him and his government in his cables of November 6 and November 9, 2009.
For only when the Americans and their allies have disabused themselves of their last illusions about Karzai, and stifled their last unjustified hopes that he might reform, will they begin to have the clarity of vision that they will need to extricate themselves from their present predicament.
We cannot get to the goal of a legitimate government accepted by the population, which can defeat the Taliban or even avoid defeat at their hands, with the Karzai brothers.
We had better start thinking through the implications that flow from that one simple and brutal fact, and the adjustments to strategy and operations that will be required.
In the past, when our analysis led us to an inescapable but “unacceptable” conclusion, we have resorted to further analysis, allowing things to drift and to deteriorate further.
We must not repeat that mistake. The hour is late, and much more can still be lost.
The Trenchant Observer
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Posted in Abdoulah, Abdullah, Afghanistan, Barack Obama, Culture and Communication, elections, Hamid Karzai, Taliban, U.S. Military | 1 Comment »