Why The U.S. & Its Allies Are Losing Afghanistan

This week the commanding general McCrystal's report was leaked to the press. I wrote the article below in March 09 and I felt it was time to review and re-post my article.

Naturally, since I am a patriot and a retired U.S. Army officer I want the United States and our allies to win in Afghanistan.

However, I am also a realist and I believe we are losing Afghanistan for several reasons.

First and most importantly we cannot win in Afghanistan unless a U.S. style constitution is implemented in Afghanistan. The Afghan people must have freedom of religion, free speech, freedom of the press, freedom for women and freedom of assembly. Islamic or Sharia law will never offer the Afghan people, especially women, true freedom because Islam is a forced upon people, it is not voluntary religion.

Second, Afghanistan is a different kettle of fish compared to Iraq. The geography is quite different from Iraq. The Iraqis, although they have tribes are more secular, business like and cosmopolitan. The Afghan people and tribes are more insulated from the world and most importantly, true believers in Islam.

Third, the security situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated steadily since 2001. Afghanistan is one third larger than Iraq and with its tough terrain and rugged mountains it poses a tough operational environment. General David McKiernan, commander in Afghanistan said he needs 30,000 more troops to stabilize the security situation, for a total of 60,000 boots on the ground. There are 30,000 NATO troops in Afghanistan and 1,000 Australian troops. President Obama is sending an additional 17,000 troops for a total of 47,000 U.S. troops. Counter-insurgency (COIN) type warfare requires more manpower than conventional warfare. It also takes an average of eight years to defeat an insurgency; we are in our eighth year in Afghanistan. We should be able to see some progress in Afghanistan and yet we don’t see any progress in some provinces. This war is part of what General Abizaid described as the “Long War,” a multi-generational conflict.

Fourth, the Soviets killed over one million Afghan people and lost in Afghanistan. Then the Afghan people fought a civil war after the Russians left. The Taliban imposed their harsh version of Islam and they continued killing the Afghan people who disagreed with them or violated Islamic law. At the time the United States intervened in 2001 the Taliban was fighting the Northern Alliance. Hence Afghanistan has not known peace for thirty years. One would have expected the Afghan people to become weary of war by now.

Fifth, unfortunately for Afghanistan and the West we lost the charismatic leader in Afghanistan, Ahmad Shah Massoud, the Lion of Panjshir on 9/9/01. An Al Qaeda (AQ) suicide squad assassinated him with a video camera bomb. Massoud played a leading role in driving the Soviet army out of Afghanistan. Massoud was the most pro-Western and popular of the anti-Soviet resistance leaders. Hamid Karzai simply is not the charismatic leader Massoud was.

Massoud's military organization was an effective compromise between the traditional Afghan method of warfare and the modern principles of guerrilla warfare that Massoud learned from studying Che Guevara. His forces were considered the most effective of all the various Afghan resistance movements.

Massoud created the Shura-ye-nazar (council of supervision), a military council that coordinated the actions of 130 mujaheddin commanders from seven provinces of northern Afghanistan. This council existed outside the fold of the Peshawar parties that were prone to rivalry and bickering, and served to smooth out political and ethnic differences between resistance groups. To put it succinctly, Massoud was a much better leader, fighter and organizer than Karzai.

Fifth, our European allies promised they would commit more troops to Afghanistan and they have not sent the number of troops they promised This is one of the main reasons we are losing some provinces. Vice President Biden tried to coax our European allies along during his recent visit to Europe. Biden told them we closed GTMO for you, we promised you we would not torture any more prisoners so please send your troops to Afghanistan. By and large, Biden’s pleas fell on deaf ears except for a promise by the Italians to increase their troops. President Obama needs to pressure the Europeans to keep their commitment or search elsewhere for more allied troops. Obama burned his bridges with the Czech Republic and Poland so he cannot go there.

Sixth, the Afghan people grow poppies and make heroin and they make huge amounts of money in that business. The Taliban clamped down on the drug trade when they were in power and virtually stopped the drug trade. Now the Taliban and other warlords use the drug trade to monetarily support their insurgency and their fiefdoms. In recent years Afghanistan has had bumper crops of poppies.

Seventh, when Obama was not looking our Russian friends cut off our supply line to Afghanistan from Kyrgyzstan. The Russians do not like our presence in their former Soviet republics in central Asia and they got the Kyrgyzstan government to terminate our presence in their country.

Our military has performed admirably in Afghanistan and will continue to do so despite the very difficult mission, long logistical lines, harsh, mountainous terrain, the need to implement COIN strategy, increased worldwide deployments. The worldwide deployed of the U.S. military places a huge strain this poses to our military.

Finally, the crux of the matter is President Obama is a rookie, socialist Utopian when it comes to foreign policy. Mr. President there are no moderate members of the Taliban. They want to impose a 7th century style theocracy on the Afghan people. They have a proven track record in that regard. They want to enslave women, keep children illiterate or uneducated and burn down schools. The Taliban will lie to us because Islam allows them to lie to infidels and apostates like us. Mr. President you are a member of the House of War, not the House of Islam.

President Obama and his administration do not seem to have a clue about good and evil, the current state of the world, or history. They do not seem to have read history and consequently are doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past. They think they can talk with our enemies and they will see the “light” through human reason and come to reasonable agreement with us. Yes, they will come to terms with us about one thing - our quick exit from Afghanistan on their terms. Mr. President, I am afraid you are going to find your phoney Taliban moderates, cut a deal with them and then the U.S. will exit Afghanistan with our tail between our legs. We will leave in place an emboldened enemy allied to a nuclear Pakistan and Iran. Then we will have another axis of evil to contend with.

This administration possesses a naive Jimmy Carter view of the world and this naive view does not work ala Iran, Afghanistan, North Korea and Venezuela. The thugs and bullies are coming out of the closet Mr. President, you better wake up! In the last few days Hugo announced he is allowing the Russians to land their long range Bear bombers on one of his Venezuelan islands, the South Korean army has been on alert because of a N. Korean missile preparation and threat. The Russians are rejuvenating their navy and signing huge weapons and nuclear deals in the Middle East. In short, our enemies are testing us while we are asleep at the wheel. Our world is a mean and nasty place and the Taliban, Iranian mullahs, AQ and others do not listen to human reason. Like Saddam Hussein they only understand blunt, brutal power. Our Islamic enemies in Afghanistan wear theological blinders and their religious view of the world has changed little since the Prophet’s time. The U.S. cannot reach a settlement with our foes in Afghanistan or Pakistan because they do not share our western views. The Taliban and warlords in Pakistan have violated every truce they agreed to with the Pakistani government. Afghanistan has been a failed feudal state for a long time. If we are going to be in Afghanistan long term let's demand a U.S. style constitution, after all, we and our allies did this with our vanquished enemies in World War II and it worked out well. Why should Afghanistan be different?