Thursday, April 03, 2014 8:33:41 PM
Hard Talk Aside, Little Desire by the West to Leave Afghanistan
By HELENE COOPER FEB. 26, 2014
BRUSSELS — Listening to the Western defense officials gathered at a NATO meeting here on Wednesday, it would be easy to think that the United States and the rest of the international military coalition in Afghanistan have shifted into a full-speed withdrawal from the country by year’s end.
After all, the statements from NATO officials all picked up where President Obama left off on Tuesday .. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/26/world/asia/obama-keeps-options-open-in-afghanistan.html . He abruptly announced that he had instructed the Pentagon to begin planning for a complete withdrawal because President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan was continuing his refusal to sign a bilateral security agreement that would allow Western troops to remain past 2014.
“We all know the facts,” the NATO secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, said. “If the bilateral security agreement between the United States and Afghanistan is not signed, there will be no NATO status of forces agreement with Afghanistan. And if there is no agreement, there will be no NATO troops in Afghanistan after 2014.”
But as all the withdrawal talk has hardened, another message can be read that may be a truer gauge of what Western officials really want to happen in Afghanistan.
Mr. Rasmussen sent that other message too, when, after warning about a full withdrawal, he quickly qualified it: “Let me stress, this is not our preferred option.”
And there, defense analysts say, lies the truth that makes the Western ultimatum to Mr. Karzai look more like posturing than policy.
Few of the interested parties — and especially not the Pentagon — really want to cut and run out of Afghanistan after 13 years of war in which almost 3,500 coalition troops, mostly American, have been killed; an untold but exponentially higher number of Afghan civilians have died or been wounded; and $700 billion has been spent.
The reason is simple: Military commanders and policy experts say that without a remaining core of Western troops to support the Afghan government and continue training the security forces, the chances are high that significant swaths of the country will fall back under Taliban control, just as they were before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
After the blood and sweat of the past 13 years of war, that potential return to old realities is seen as a particularly bitter pill.
“If we withdraw, and the international community withdraws its aid, you will see the potential for the Afghan government to collapse, the insurgency to gain momentum and territory, take over eastern Afghanistan, recreating a safe haven for terrorist elements that still harbor an anti-U.S. agenda,” said Michèle Flournoy, a former top Pentagon official in the Obama administration. “After all of this effort and all of this sacrifice and all of this progress, you’re back to a new safe haven for terrorists? It’s like, it just makes no sense.”
American intelligence officials have warned in classified assessments that insurgents could retake key areas of Afghanistan in the south and the east in as little as a year after American troops are fully withdrawn. The assessments also warn that Kabul, the capital, could quickly come under more serious attack than it has in recent years.
Such a turn could also lead to insecurity for India and Pakistan, foreign policy experts say, with each of the nuclear-armed South Asian nations entering a more aggressive proxy war in Afghanistan in a bid for regional influence and a trump card to play against the other.
“The neighboring countries, they all want us to stay,” said David Sedney, former deputy assistant secretary of defense for Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia. “If we were to leave, the consequences for Pakistan, for the Indians — these countries want a stable Afghanistan.”
American planners are thinking about what would happen if the United States is forced into a full and final troop withdrawal. Part of that contingency planning, officials say, will include looking to other countries — perhaps in Central Asia — for air bases that would allow continued drone operations in the region.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel alluded to that this month when he said at a news conference that the military was “constantly updating” where to put drone bases, “where the threats are most significant, where do you have allies that are willing to work with you.”
But military officials say that a complete pullout from Afghanistan, where the United States now has the luxury of the base at Bagram from which to provide support, would hurt the American counterterrorism effort.
Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said as much during a meeting with commanders in Afghanistan on Tuesday, urging them to keep pushing. “It is not an indication that we’re not committed to a mission beyond the end of 2014,” he said, “because we very much believe the Afghan security forces could use our help.”
General Dempsey said that Western threats to fully withdraw were weakening the Afghan forces’ resolve, and that the impasse over the security agreement was encouraging the Taliban to be more aggressive. “It is having an effect on the enemy, and in some ways I think encourages them, and intelligence supports that,” he said in an interview .. http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/dempsey-military-job-withdrawal-talk-22679198 .. with The Associated Press.
Many Afghan officials — including all 11 of the presidential candidates vying to succeed Mr. Karzai this spring — have said they want some American troops to stay. And on Wednesday, Mr. Karzai’s spokesman, Aimal Faizi, insisted that a security deal could eventually be reached.
“I would like to restate our position on this: There is no zero option,” he said, referring to the possibility of leaving no American troops in Afghanistan.
Other officials emphasized how critical international aid was to keeping any sort of stability in Afghanistan after 2014.
“I personally believe that Obama will not go with the zero option,” said Aryan Yoon, a member of the international relations committee in the Afghan Parliament. She added, “The Americans should know that the minute they pull out from Afghanistan without leaving a residual force, the country will plunge into a civil war and will go back to the ‘90s.”
Correction: February 27, 2014
An earlier version of this article referred incorrectly to a lawmaker in the Afghan Parliament. The lawmaker, Aryan Yoon, is a woman. The article also misstated her role on the Parliament’s international relations committee. She is a member of the panel, not its head.
Rod Nordland contributed reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/27/world/asia/hard-talk-aside-little-desire-by-west-to-leave-afghanistan.html?_r=0
====
.. they can't just say, ok, that it for us .. this one is old, but still makes a point, there must be
a viable peace plan before all foreign troops leave .. with consequences for those who abuse
it .. at least an honest attempt at one .. that much at least is owed to the Afghan people ..
Afghans want peace, but they are caught between forces they can't control
Britain and the US must establish a credible exit strategy or more innocent people will die in pointless acts of violence
Zarlasht Halaimzai
theguardian.com, Tuesday 25 September 2012 05.00 EDT
Jump to comments (42)
[see one of the comments expanded in reply]
Khorshid, who was killed in a suicide bomb blast in Kabul earlier this month. Photograph: Skateistan
On a visit to Afghanistan earlier this month, I spent an afternoon at Skateistan .. http://skateistan.org/content/our-story , a project in Kabul that offers some of the poorest children in the world a chance to be children. They come to Skateistan to play, skate and learn. What struck me about these kids was their display of both childish playfulness and a kind of maturity you can only get with years of experience.
Fourteen-year-old Khorshid embodied both of these qualities. When I met her – just a few days before she was killed by a suicide bomber .. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/sep/11/circle-childhood-friends-bomb-kabul – she approached me with a smile and asked if I could skate. When I said no, she immediately offered to show me how. As I tentatively got on the skateboard, propped up by Khorshid and Madina, her friend and fellow skater, she told me not to be scared.
This is the reality of people living in Afghanistan. Ordinary people tread the line between life and death every day. When they go out for work, or to buy groceries or to pick up their children from school there is a chance they will die on the way there or on the way back. Eleven years after international troops entered Afghanistan to "liberate" Afghans from the tyranny of the Taliban, Afghans still live in a state of war.
There are some things that have changed in the past decade. Returning to Afghanistan after 20 years living abroad, I was glad to see that Kabul, almost completely destroyed by two decades of war, is now rebuilt. The roads are paved and all around you see evidence of industry. Mobile phone companies are advertising their services on giant billboards on the side of the roads and posh supermarkets have sprung up all over Kabul to cater for its expat and foreign populations.
There is a bustling rhythm of life in Kabul. But all around there is also sinister evidence of violence. Security checkpoints sit every few hundred metres on streets. You can always hear the roar of military helicopters and planes and for me perhaps the most poignant sign of insecurity was that few women were out on the streets. They don't feel safe and you can't blame them. Suicide attacks, unheard of before 2001, have become a regular occurrence in Kabul. Attacks seem to be completely random and often it is just civilians who perish.
Despite this terrible fear and violence that people experience on a daily basis, there is an even greater worry that preoccupies Afghans now. Many believe that the departure of Isaf troops .. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Security_Assistance_Force .. will prompt another bloody civil war. No one is certain of his or her fate after 2014. Talking to Kabulis about the exit of international troops reminded me more of doomsday prophecies you might read about in cult literature than anything else. Even the children at Skateistan were talking about it. When I interviewed Madina, Khorshid's friend, about her life and her future, she talked about her hope for a peaceful Afghanistan where she could go to school and pursue skateboarding.
What became clear to me from my interactions there and with other ordinary Afghans is that there is no ideology or group that Afghans feel so strongly about as to warrant them to fight. In fact, many feel that there isn't a single party that represents them or caters for their everyday needs. There is a profound sense of fatigue that comes from being in the middle of powerful forces that they can't control.
After three decades of war the Afghan people I spoke to want peace. For this to happen, it is imperative that 2014 does not bring another gory conflict to Afghanistan. But it seems the British government is in danger of limiting its exit strategy to a public relations campaign. If there is going to be peace and stability in Afghanistan, the British and the US administrations must work to create a clear and robust framework for exiting Afghanistan. This must include a viable strategy for negotiating with the Taliban and clear terms for power sharing after the troops leave.
Afghanistan needs a credible plan for how to continue reconstruction and the building of its economy; and it must include a plan B: what would happen if parties didn't keep to their end of the bargain. If Afghanistan is left without a realistic plan for peace, it will further jeopardise an already unstable region, threaten our own security and more children like Khorshid will die in brutal and pointless acts of violence.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/sep/25/afghans-peace-britain-us-exit-strategy
By HELENE COOPER FEB. 26, 2014
BRUSSELS — Listening to the Western defense officials gathered at a NATO meeting here on Wednesday, it would be easy to think that the United States and the rest of the international military coalition in Afghanistan have shifted into a full-speed withdrawal from the country by year’s end.
After all, the statements from NATO officials all picked up where President Obama left off on Tuesday .. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/26/world/asia/obama-keeps-options-open-in-afghanistan.html . He abruptly announced that he had instructed the Pentagon to begin planning for a complete withdrawal because President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan was continuing his refusal to sign a bilateral security agreement that would allow Western troops to remain past 2014.
“We all know the facts,” the NATO secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, said. “If the bilateral security agreement between the United States and Afghanistan is not signed, there will be no NATO status of forces agreement with Afghanistan. And if there is no agreement, there will be no NATO troops in Afghanistan after 2014.”
But as all the withdrawal talk has hardened, another message can be read that may be a truer gauge of what Western officials really want to happen in Afghanistan.
Mr. Rasmussen sent that other message too, when, after warning about a full withdrawal, he quickly qualified it: “Let me stress, this is not our preferred option.”
And there, defense analysts say, lies the truth that makes the Western ultimatum to Mr. Karzai look more like posturing than policy.
Few of the interested parties — and especially not the Pentagon — really want to cut and run out of Afghanistan after 13 years of war in which almost 3,500 coalition troops, mostly American, have been killed; an untold but exponentially higher number of Afghan civilians have died or been wounded; and $700 billion has been spent.
The reason is simple: Military commanders and policy experts say that without a remaining core of Western troops to support the Afghan government and continue training the security forces, the chances are high that significant swaths of the country will fall back under Taliban control, just as they were before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
After the blood and sweat of the past 13 years of war, that potential return to old realities is seen as a particularly bitter pill.
“If we withdraw, and the international community withdraws its aid, you will see the potential for the Afghan government to collapse, the insurgency to gain momentum and territory, take over eastern Afghanistan, recreating a safe haven for terrorist elements that still harbor an anti-U.S. agenda,” said Michèle Flournoy, a former top Pentagon official in the Obama administration. “After all of this effort and all of this sacrifice and all of this progress, you’re back to a new safe haven for terrorists? It’s like, it just makes no sense.”
American intelligence officials have warned in classified assessments that insurgents could retake key areas of Afghanistan in the south and the east in as little as a year after American troops are fully withdrawn. The assessments also warn that Kabul, the capital, could quickly come under more serious attack than it has in recent years.
Such a turn could also lead to insecurity for India and Pakistan, foreign policy experts say, with each of the nuclear-armed South Asian nations entering a more aggressive proxy war in Afghanistan in a bid for regional influence and a trump card to play against the other.
“The neighboring countries, they all want us to stay,” said David Sedney, former deputy assistant secretary of defense for Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia. “If we were to leave, the consequences for Pakistan, for the Indians — these countries want a stable Afghanistan.”
American planners are thinking about what would happen if the United States is forced into a full and final troop withdrawal. Part of that contingency planning, officials say, will include looking to other countries — perhaps in Central Asia — for air bases that would allow continued drone operations in the region.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel alluded to that this month when he said at a news conference that the military was “constantly updating” where to put drone bases, “where the threats are most significant, where do you have allies that are willing to work with you.”
But military officials say that a complete pullout from Afghanistan, where the United States now has the luxury of the base at Bagram from which to provide support, would hurt the American counterterrorism effort.
Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said as much during a meeting with commanders in Afghanistan on Tuesday, urging them to keep pushing. “It is not an indication that we’re not committed to a mission beyond the end of 2014,” he said, “because we very much believe the Afghan security forces could use our help.”
General Dempsey said that Western threats to fully withdraw were weakening the Afghan forces’ resolve, and that the impasse over the security agreement was encouraging the Taliban to be more aggressive. “It is having an effect on the enemy, and in some ways I think encourages them, and intelligence supports that,” he said in an interview .. http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/dempsey-military-job-withdrawal-talk-22679198 .. with The Associated Press.
Many Afghan officials — including all 11 of the presidential candidates vying to succeed Mr. Karzai this spring — have said they want some American troops to stay. And on Wednesday, Mr. Karzai’s spokesman, Aimal Faizi, insisted that a security deal could eventually be reached.
“I would like to restate our position on this: There is no zero option,” he said, referring to the possibility of leaving no American troops in Afghanistan.
Other officials emphasized how critical international aid was to keeping any sort of stability in Afghanistan after 2014.
“I personally believe that Obama will not go with the zero option,” said Aryan Yoon, a member of the international relations committee in the Afghan Parliament. She added, “The Americans should know that the minute they pull out from Afghanistan without leaving a residual force, the country will plunge into a civil war and will go back to the ‘90s.”
Correction: February 27, 2014
An earlier version of this article referred incorrectly to a lawmaker in the Afghan Parliament. The lawmaker, Aryan Yoon, is a woman. The article also misstated her role on the Parliament’s international relations committee. She is a member of the panel, not its head.
Rod Nordland contributed reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/27/world/asia/hard-talk-aside-little-desire-by-west-to-leave-afghanistan.html?_r=0
====
.. they can't just say, ok, that it for us .. this one is old, but still makes a point, there must be
a viable peace plan before all foreign troops leave .. with consequences for those who abuse
it .. at least an honest attempt at one .. that much at least is owed to the Afghan people ..
Afghans want peace, but they are caught between forces they can't control
Britain and the US must establish a credible exit strategy or more innocent people will die in pointless acts of violence
Zarlasht Halaimzai
theguardian.com, Tuesday 25 September 2012 05.00 EDT
Jump to comments (42)
[see one of the comments expanded in reply]
Khorshid, who was killed in a suicide bomb blast in Kabul earlier this month. Photograph: Skateistan
On a visit to Afghanistan earlier this month, I spent an afternoon at Skateistan .. http://skateistan.org/content/our-story , a project in Kabul that offers some of the poorest children in the world a chance to be children. They come to Skateistan to play, skate and learn. What struck me about these kids was their display of both childish playfulness and a kind of maturity you can only get with years of experience.
Fourteen-year-old Khorshid embodied both of these qualities. When I met her – just a few days before she was killed by a suicide bomber .. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/sep/11/circle-childhood-friends-bomb-kabul – she approached me with a smile and asked if I could skate. When I said no, she immediately offered to show me how. As I tentatively got on the skateboard, propped up by Khorshid and Madina, her friend and fellow skater, she told me not to be scared.
This is the reality of people living in Afghanistan. Ordinary people tread the line between life and death every day. When they go out for work, or to buy groceries or to pick up their children from school there is a chance they will die on the way there or on the way back. Eleven years after international troops entered Afghanistan to "liberate" Afghans from the tyranny of the Taliban, Afghans still live in a state of war.
There are some things that have changed in the past decade. Returning to Afghanistan after 20 years living abroad, I was glad to see that Kabul, almost completely destroyed by two decades of war, is now rebuilt. The roads are paved and all around you see evidence of industry. Mobile phone companies are advertising their services on giant billboards on the side of the roads and posh supermarkets have sprung up all over Kabul to cater for its expat and foreign populations.
There is a bustling rhythm of life in Kabul. But all around there is also sinister evidence of violence. Security checkpoints sit every few hundred metres on streets. You can always hear the roar of military helicopters and planes and for me perhaps the most poignant sign of insecurity was that few women were out on the streets. They don't feel safe and you can't blame them. Suicide attacks, unheard of before 2001, have become a regular occurrence in Kabul. Attacks seem to be completely random and often it is just civilians who perish.
Despite this terrible fear and violence that people experience on a daily basis, there is an even greater worry that preoccupies Afghans now. Many believe that the departure of Isaf troops .. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Security_Assistance_Force .. will prompt another bloody civil war. No one is certain of his or her fate after 2014. Talking to Kabulis about the exit of international troops reminded me more of doomsday prophecies you might read about in cult literature than anything else. Even the children at Skateistan were talking about it. When I interviewed Madina, Khorshid's friend, about her life and her future, she talked about her hope for a peaceful Afghanistan where she could go to school and pursue skateboarding.
What became clear to me from my interactions there and with other ordinary Afghans is that there is no ideology or group that Afghans feel so strongly about as to warrant them to fight. In fact, many feel that there isn't a single party that represents them or caters for their everyday needs. There is a profound sense of fatigue that comes from being in the middle of powerful forces that they can't control.
After three decades of war the Afghan people I spoke to want peace. For this to happen, it is imperative that 2014 does not bring another gory conflict to Afghanistan. But it seems the British government is in danger of limiting its exit strategy to a public relations campaign. If there is going to be peace and stability in Afghanistan, the British and the US administrations must work to create a clear and robust framework for exiting Afghanistan. This must include a viable strategy for negotiating with the Taliban and clear terms for power sharing after the troops leave.
Afghanistan needs a credible plan for how to continue reconstruction and the building of its economy; and it must include a plan B: what would happen if parties didn't keep to their end of the bargain. If Afghanistan is left without a realistic plan for peace, it will further jeopardise an already unstable region, threaten our own security and more children like Khorshid will die in brutal and pointless acts of violence.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/sep/25/afghans-peace-britain-us-exit-strategy
It was Plato who said, “He, O men, is the wisest, who like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing”
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