"With home-bred hordes the hillsides teem The troopships bring us one by one, At vast expense of time and steam To slay Afridis where they run The 'captives of the bow and spear' Are cheap alas! as we are clear."
Criticism of American Afghanistan policy can best be characterized as reflexive reactions based on obsolete worldviews combined with juvenile demands for instantaneous success. If it is not successful by now, it therefore must be a failure. Some examples: When describing necessarily violent activities undertaken by American-supported anti-Taliban factions, anti-American journalist Robert Fisk in the Independent (UK) uses phrases like "This is just how the Americans began in Vietnam," and asserts that "Afghanistan is on the brink of another disaster." Of course, in this view, America is to blame. (2) Analyst Jim Lobe penned an article entitled "Afghanistan Quagmire," in which he shrilly stated that "Afghanistan is beginning to look like a quagmire rather than a victory, with echoes of the confusion and uncertainty and persistent blood-shedding of Vietnam." (3)American policy in Afghanistan is at a crossroads, or so it appears. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld suggested in May 2003 that the war on terror in Afghanistan was in "cleanup" or "mop up" phase. (1) Overshadowed by the swift American military victory in Iraq, the images of airmobile troops and special operations forces rooting out al Qaeda in remote Afghanistan mountains took a back seat to images of M1A1 Abrams tanks sweeping through the desert destroying Iraq's Republican Guard. Indeed, by the end of 2003, the problematic aspects of the American-led reconstruction effort in Iraq continued to dominate discourse.At the same time, critics darkly hinted that Afghanistan was "another Vietnam" when aspects of the ongoing but low-level Taliban terrorist activities popped up in the media in the fall of 2003. Those seeking to attack American reconstruction policy in Iraq point to Afghanistan and claim that it is somehow a failed prototype, that the credibility of the American reconstruction effort in Iraq is somehow linked to the credibility of the American-led effort in Afghanistan. These are dangerous and simplistic arguments. Afghanistan is a complex place in its own right: it has a unique ethnic makeup, geography, social structure, economics, and military factors. It is by no means analogous to Iraq in any way. Imprecise perceptions, some deliberately constructed, could distort the reality of the situation in Afghanistan and where the United States stands after two years of operations there. If we are not clear about what the issues are, we may create unrealizable expectations about what can be accomplished, with the kind of subsequent media backlash which is extant in Iraq.In other cases, organizations with specific interests in the Afghanistan situation have raised criticisms to bolster their proposed policies (and perhaps potential involvement) without taking into account the wider view necessary to take in the magnitude of the problems in Afghanistan. Human Rights Watch demands that the UN-mandated but now NATO-led Kabul stabilization mission, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), (4) should be expanded into other urban centers to provide "greater security" for reconstruction, the protection of women's rights, the return of refugees, and to reign in "regional warlords." (5) Josh Pollack in DFI International's Current Defense Analyses argues that heavy weapons must be stored, and combatants must be demobilized and then be reintegrated into society. ISAF, therefore, should be expanded and provided with the capability to "stop any Afghan faction from playing a spoiler role" while at the same time building up "a capable, centralized, and balanced indigenous military force." (6)The Unfolding StrategyThere are two distinctly conflicting visions of Afghanistan, once the Vietnam faux-analogists' unhelpful assertions are discarded. The "ideal" vision of Afghanistan held by numerous Western observers consists of something which resembles a semi-modernized quasi-European state with a prosperous economy, where there is little or no political violence and everybody's human rights are protected by a strong central government which can project power throughout the territorial confines of what we call Afghanistan.The CriticsThe International Crisis Group, like the others, argues that the "international community" must increase ISAF to 25,000 to 30,000 troops and expand it to other population centers to "monitor potential disputes" which could disrupt the political process. The development of a legal system and a human rights monitoring mechanism could then be introduced. (7) Indeed, after consulting some refugees in Iran, the Program on Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research at Harvard University is more than willing to provide detailed if unsolicited advice on how Afghans should run their country, with suggestions like "the new administration should prevent discrimination against any ethnic or political group" and "disarm everybody throughout the country." The implications of these arguments are that some international force should run the show in Afghanistan, not American-led forces or even the Afghans. (8)This vision is tempered by two realities. The first is the impact of events that the United States put in motion in Afghanistan after 11 September 2001, given the circumstances of Taliban control over the territory of Afghanistan and al Qaeda's presence in it, leading to the collapse of the regime. The second reality relates to what the current power brokers in Afghanistan will allow in the wake of all of this. These two realities will not be altered all of a sudden by the pronouncements of the pundits and the demands of the NGOs. Perhaps they should not be radically altered. If we are going to formulate a future American policy and strategy for Afghanistan, we have to operate in the realm of the possible, keeping in mind that mid-course corrections are not always achievable or even desirable.--Rudyard Kipling, "Arithmetic on the Frontier"The Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) campaign in Afghanistan, in fact, is the complete antithesis of American involvement in Vietnam in the 1960s. The first phase (12) of the war in Afghanistan lasted from approximately 7 October 2001 to 6 or 7 December 2001. In those two months, the first American objective was achieved with a combination of special operations forces, anti-Taliban proxy armies, and selective use of airpower to support both. The irony is that the Taliban regime collapsed far ahead of schedule. Mazari Sharif, for example, was expected to hold out well into 2002, as were other urban locations like Herat. US Central Command (CENTCOM) plans originally conceived the first phase as a shaping campaign pending the introduction of large-scale conventional forces to reduce these strong points alongside the indigenous proxy forces. In early 2002, the equivalent of an airmobile brigade group was deployed, but this formation was much smaller than the unneeded but planned-for division or corps-sized options. (13)
The Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) campaign in Afghanistan, in fact, is the complete antithesis of American involvement in Vietnam in the 1960s. The first phase (12) of the war in Afghanistan lasted from approximately 7 October 2001 to 6 or 7 December 2001. In those two months, the first American objective was achieved with a combination of special operations forces, anti-Taliban proxy armies, and selective use of airpower to support both. The irony is that the Taliban regime collapsed far ahead of schedule. Mazari Sharif, for example, was expected to hold out well into 2002, as were other urban locations like Herat. US Central Command (CENTCOM) plans originally conceived the first phase as a shaping campaign pending the introduction of large-scale conventional forces to reduce these strong points alongside the indigenous proxy forces. In early 2002, the equivalent of an airmobile brigade group was deployed, but this formation was much smaller than the unneeded but planned-for division or corps-sized options. (13)
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