DTN News - OBAMA IN AFGHANISTAN: Obama’s Afghanistan Plan - Echoes of Vietnam In The U.S. Exit Strategy

Defense War News Updates: DTN News - OBAMA IN AFGHANISTAN: Obama’s Afghanistan Plan - Echoes of Vietnam In The U.S. Exit Strategy
Source: DTN News - - This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources By Tony Karon - Time (Blog)
(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - May 2, 2012: To understand the historical significance of President Barack Obama’s visit to Afghanistan on Tuesday, imagine that President Richard Nixon had, in the spring of 1972, flown to Saigon to signal American voters that the Vietnam war was coming to an end — and to ink a deal with President Nguyen Van Thieu codifying a long-term U.S. relationship with the Republic of South Vietnam, which would shortly be left responsible for its own security. 

“Today, I signed a historic agreement between the United States and Afghanistan that defines a new kind of relationship between our countries – a future in which Afghans are responsible for the security of their nation, and we build an equal partnership between two sovereign states; a future in which the war ends, and a new chapter begins,” Obama said Tuesday.  Nixon might have said something similar on that imaginary 1972 visit. Except, of course, everyone knew that Vietnam’s future would not be defined by an agreement between Washington and Thieu, as much as by the one signed in Paris, two months after Nixon’s reelection, between Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho, representing the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (a.k.a. “North Vietnam”). Even that deal collapsed, of course, with the DRV and its supporters in the south finishing off the Thieu regime 19 months after U.S. troops withdrew.

Any deal between Presidents Obama and Karzai premised on the ability of the current political order in Kabul to protect itself independently of foreign troops is hardly likely to be the last word, pleasing as the spectacle may be for presidential campaign purposes. The key — but by no means the only — conversation shaping Afghanistan’s future will be the one conducted on the battlefield, and at the negotiating table, between the U.S., its Afghan interlocutors and the Taliban. That point seemed to be underscored by a Taliban car bomb attack near U.S. bases in Kabul just hours after Obama’s departure, which served as a counterpoint to the President’s insistence in his speech that the insurgents’ momentum has been broken. 

Sure, the U.S. has made important tactical gains against the Taliban in designated operational areas in southwestern Afghanistan, but tactical gains in an expeditionary counterinsurgency war tend to be just that; the insurgents know that, as Henry Kissinger famously put it, guerrilla armies win by not losing. They know that the civilian population has little faith in Western forces or in the government those forces protect, and they know the U.S. and its allies are seeking an expeditious exit from Afghanistan. The brutal truth of the Afghanistan equation is that time is still on the side of the Taliban.

The U.S. plans to drawn down troop levels from the current 90,000 to less than 20,000 by the end of 2014, while helping Afghan security forces “surge” to an anticipated 352,000 troops this year. The new agreements seemed to signal a ten-year commitment to maintain an unspecified number of troops for training, intelligence and logistics purposes, and to conduct operations against al-Qaeda. (More importantly, the U.S., as well as other NATO countries, will commit later this month to a decade-long financial package to the government in Kabul worth over $4 billion a year, a sum some say Karzai considers insufficient.)

“We will not build permanent bases in this country, nor will we be patrolling in cities and mountains,” Obama said. “That will be the job of the Afghan people.” But so narrow is the political base of the Karzai regime, which was elected by a small minority of Afghans and whose corruption is endemic, that its ability to lead a credible counterinsurgency fight against the Taliban remains seriously in doubt. The problem is not simply that the Afghan forces lack sufficient training, or that the Afghan government can’t afford to pay for the indigenous army that NATO has created to keep it alive; the problem is fundamentally one of motivation. How many Afghan troops are really ready to fight and die to keep President Karzai in power? One troubling indicator might be the by-now routine incidence of Afghan friendlies turning their weapons on their U.S. and other Western mentors — an incidence the AP claims the military is systematically underreporting.

President Obama did, of course, acknowledge that negotiations with the insurgency were underway. “My Administration has been in direct discussions with the Taliban,” he said. “We have made it clear they can be part of this future if they break with al-Qaida, renounce violence and abide by Afghan laws.” The Taliban may negotiate, and they may not — for a range of reasons ranging from mistrust of the U.S. to the fact that they feel the wind at their backs and because they know the Americans will leave, and also because the Taliban is no longer a single hierarchical entity, but a series of networks, with many of the younger commanders who have replaced those killed by U.S. forces in recent years adopting an even more militant and intractable position. The longer the fighting rages on, analysts of the Taliban warn, the less likely it becomes that those more inclined to negotiate a compromise are able to prevail in the movement’s internal debates over those who believe they will win a bigger victory by fighting on.

Still, even if the Taliban was willing to negotiate a political settlement, it’s a relative certainty that the insurgents won’t accept the terms laid down by President Obama: Even if the Taliban was willing to commit to preventing Afghan territory being used to stage international terror attacks, it’s unlikely to accept Afghan laws and a constitution adopted on the back of a Western invasion. Afghanistan had been engaged in a civil war for a decade before the U.S.-led invasion prompted by the 9/11 attacks, and the invasion didn’t change that; it simply tipped the balance in that civil war against the Pakistan-backed and predominantly Pashtun Taliban and in favor of the Northern Alliance, dominated by ethnic Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras, and backed by India, Iran and Russia. It is the Northern Alliance that forms the basis of the current order in Kabul, but take Western troops out of the equation, and the equation changes. The Taliban would only be likely to accept the Karzai order in Kabul if it had lost the war; right now, that’s not happening, meaning that a political solution is unlikely without a substantial renegotiation of the distribution of power. The likelihood that the Taliban will reconcile itself to a lesser role in the Karzai order is about as remote as those of the North Vietnamese being willing to accept Thieu’s authority.

Nor is it simply a case of Karzai reaching an accommodation with the Taliban: Key elements in the Northern Alliance are deeply mistrustful of any deals with the Taliban, and mistrust Karzai — and what they see as his effort to juggle the interests of competing warlords. His regime is brittle, at best, and could easily collapse — particularly because 2014 is also the year in which his tenure expires

Then again, right now the insurgents may be more likely to wait out 2014 and test the proposition that the Karzai regime will be able to defend itself without U.S. forces making the decisive difference — just like the Vietcong did in the period between the Paris agreement and the fall of Saigon.

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*Link for This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources By Tony Karon - Time (Blog)
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DTN News - AFGHAN WAR NEWS: Koran Burning In NATO Error Incites Afghans

Defense War News Updates: DTN News - AFGHAN WAR NEWS: Koran Burning In NATO Error Incites Afghans
Source: DTN News - - This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources By Alissa J Rubin, Sangar Rahimi also Sharifullah Sahak and Jawad Sukhanyar contributed reporting -  New York Times 
(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada / BAGRAM, Afghanistan - February 22, 2012: Word that NATO personnel had burned an undisclosed number of Korans and were preparing to dispose of many more by incineration set off an angry protest here on Tuesday. NATO officials rushed to apologize publicly and profusely, trying to head off what they feared could be a nationwide outburst of violence as news of the burning was gradually broadcast across the country.

About 2,000 Afghans descended on the largest American air base in their country in the bitter cold to protest what is generally regarded as one of the most offensive acts in the Muslim world.

“I offer my sincere apologies for any offense this may have caused, to the president of Afghanistan, the government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and, most importantly, to the noble people of Afghanistan,” the NATO commanding general, John R. Allen, said in a statement that was recorded and sent to local television and radio networks here, explaining that the burnings had been unintentional.

Within a few hours of learning about the episode, General Allen ordered an investigation, and by day’s end he issued an order for every coalition soldier in Afghanistan to complete training in the next 10 days in “the proper handling of religious materials.”

But 10 years into the Afghan war, foreign officials and Afghans alike were shocked that any member of the foreign forces in Afghanistan did not know just how offensive desecrating the Muslim holy book could be, or recognize the potential for violence it could unleash in a country where news of the burning of a single Koran — by a preacher in Florida — provoked mobs to ransack a United Nations office and kill 12 people in April.

Because Afghans are fiercely protective of the sanctity of their Islamic faith, the Afghan authorities moved quickly to try to control the protest at one of the gates of Bagram Air Base. The local police and government officials also persuaded the crowd at a large demonstration in nearby Kapisa Province to disperse peacefully.

According to Afghan workers who witnessed the events, around 10 or 11 p.m. on Monday a dump truck escorted by a military vehicle drove up to the landfill at Bagram Air Base, where 20 or so Afghans work. Two uniformed NATO personnel, a man and a woman, began unloading bags of books from the back of the truck and throwing them into a pit for incineration. NATO officials said it was not yet clear if the two people were troops or civilians. Some civilians also wear military uniforms and can easily be mistaken for soldiers. The Afghan workers described the pair as Americans.

Accounts from some of the workers at the landfill suggested that the two people were oblivious to the significance of what they were doing. They made no attempt to hide the books, instead appearing to be routinely carrying out their duties.

“When we saw these soldiers burning books, we moved closer to see what was going on, and one of the boys said, ‘It is Holy Koran,’ ” said one of the laborers, Zabiullah, 22. “And we attacked them with our yellow helmets, and tried to stop them. We rushed towards them, and we threw our helmets at the vehicles.”

Abdul Wahid, 25, another of the laborers, said he and two friends had shouted at the two people: “Don’t burn our holy book! We will give it to our mullahs!”

The two NATO personnel drew back, but two bags of books they had already thrown into the pit had begun to burn.

“We tried to put out the fire with bottles of water, and then we pulled back the bags, and the boys also pulled out the half-burned books,” said Zabiullah, referring to his co-workers.

Protests began hours later, as Afghan workers who had witnessed the burning emerged from the base, one or two of them carrying damaged Korans hidden in their clothes. Protests swelled through the morning and became violent as hundreds of infuriated Afghans set tires on fire and burned an external checkpoint at one of the entrances to the air base.

Shouting “Death to America” and “We don’t want them anymore,” they closed the district government building and stopped people trying to go to the center of the town, witnesses said. Some in the crowd sang Taliban songs, and several Urdu speakers, described as Pakistanis, made speeches.

In his apology, General Allen confirmed the burnings, but portrayed them as absolutely unintentional.

“When we learned of these actions, we immediately intervened and stopped them,” his written statement said. “The materials recovered will be properly handled by appropriate religious authorities.”

“We are thoroughly investigating the incident, and we are taking steps to ensure this does not ever happen again. I assure you ... I promise you ... this was NOT intentional in any way.”

While General Allen and his recent predecessors have tried to improve soldiers’ cultural training and, according to many Afghans, have succeeded in some measure, events like the one late Monday threaten to seriously undermine those gains. Previous complaints about the behavior of foreign forces have involved their actions in night raids, in detention facilities and in day-to-day relations with Afghans.

“They have burned our Holy Korans,” said Mohammed Asif, 30, who was demonstrating in front of the gates of Bagram Air Base. “We are Muslims and we are created by God and the Koran is our God’s book; we have to defend it. This means they burned our faith, our honor and our lives. The person who did this must stand trial.”

The number of burned Korans appeared to have been around 10 to 15, said Farid Ahad Shafaq, a member of the provincial council in Parwan who went into Bagram Air Base to meet with NATO officials. “We saw the burned copies,” he said. “Some were burned completely, and some were burned a little bit, and some were just exposed to heat.”

Still unclear was how many Korans NATO had planned to burn, said Mr. Shafaq, adding that he and others had not been told exactly where the Korans in the detention center’s library had originally come from. He said military officers had said that “we have gathered all these Korans and holy books during our operations and night raids and house searches, and some have been given to the military personnel as gifts by Afghans working with Americans on the base.”

That did not make sense to Mr. Shafaq, however, because all the copies that the officers showed him were new, he said. “I mean they looked absolutely unused,” Mr. Shafaq said.

The Taliban condemned the American action, calling it a “wild act” of disrespect to the Muslim Afghan people. Anti-Americanism already runs strong here, and after previous desecrations, military leaders have denounced them for putting foreigners’ lives at risk.

 
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*Link for This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources By Alissa J Rubin, Sangar Rahimi also Sharifullah Sahak and Jawad Sukhanyar contributed reporting -  New York Times 
*Speaking Image - Creation of DTN News ~ Defense Technology News 
*This article is being posted from Toronto, Canada By DTN News ~ Defense-Technology News Contact:dtnnews@ymail.com 
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