Half-Hearted Engagement

A German troop surge in Afghanistan is political smoke and mirrors

It took the Pentagon a long time to realize that Afghanistan was in a continuous downward spiral. Now, the American intelligence agencies are suddenly sounding the alarm and presenting a dismal picture of the situation in the Hindu Kush.

In Germany, on the other hand, parliament is ignoring the fact that the situation in Afghanistan isn’t improving but becoming increasingly worse day by day – so much worse that the conflict is beginning to spill over the border into Pakistan.

The fighting is escalating and 2008 promises to be a year of record losses for the allied forces there. And neither is the allied strategy succeeding.

“We’re not going to win this war.”

The ten French paratroopers killed by the Taliban in August, along with the twenty they wounded, belonged to an elite fighting force, but they made mistakes typical of the Afghan operation. They were operating in terrain accessible only by foot and not suitable for armored vehicles. They underestimated their enemy.

They failed to adequately reconnoiter the area and were betrayed and abandoned by the Afghan troops who accompanied them. When air support arrived, the insurgents – who have learned a lot about battle tactics – advanced closer to the French. So close that air support was no longer possible due to the possibility of casualties through “friendly fire.”

Armored vehicles like the German Army’s “Dingo” and “Wolf” can’t operate effectively in the Hindu Kush. The situation for the allies is messy. A way out of it has yet to be found. Respect, then, for the clear pronouncement of the ranking British commander in Afghanistan, Air Force Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith when he said, “We’re not going to win this war.”

Obama and McCain both want to shift the focus to Afghanistan

Just as many are coming to the conclusion that there’s nothing to be won in Afghanistan, Berlin has succeeded in pushing through a 1,000 man troop increase in Afghanistan, plus a 14-month tour of duty extension with ISAF. A wise decision?

It’s more an attempt to show solidarity with the United States, where the nation is in the midst of a presidential election campaign and has suddenly decided that Afghanistan is more important than Iraq. Both Barack Obama and John McCain seem to be less interested in Iraq than they are in shifting the focus of importance to Afghanistan. Germany can hardly interfere in this by abandoning the ISAF war during a time of political transition in America.

But an increase of German troops will do nothing to alter the situation there. Of the troops already in place, more than 80 percent have never gone outside their fortified areas. The portion of the 1,000 additional troops who will actually engage the enemy will also be proportionally smaller. At a maximum, then, there’ll only be about 200 more soldiers available to patrol outside the perimeter.

Germany remains cautious

Germany remains extremely cautious and would rather discuss withdrawing their Special Operations anti-terrorism units from “Operation Enduring Freedom” (OEF). The engagement of German Special Operations (KSK) troops in Afghanistan has been typically more than just bizarre. Reputed to have never taken part in any military actions, despite the fact that they’re considered a highly trained and effective force, they are relegated to the thankless task of guarding the controversial U.S. prisoner of war compound in Kandahar.

The clamor for increased German engagement in civil reconstruction and police training is equally bizarre. The discussion about reconstruction is nothing more than an illusion. Figures are trotted out that obviously emanated from someone’s imagination. Hardly a single Non-Governmental Organization (NGO), hardly a single United Nations aid worker dares go beyond Kabul. Who can help? The German Army? The probable outcome would be the exact opposite.

The Afghan police force is more of an untrustworthy brigade

The German organization GTZ (Trans. note: GTZ is the German counterpart to the Agency for International Development [AID] in the United States) that has operated successfully in Afghanistan even when it was under Taliban rule doesn’t relish being associated with the German military. In their opinion, many people have the totally wrong idea that the presence of the military affords protection for the reconstruction activities. Instead, they draw fire where they would otherwise be tolerated. When humanitarian assistance shows up in the company of heavily armed soldiers – who look like inter-galactic robots anyway – it does little to engender trust among the people. The highly praised German training of the Afghan police has also shown little success over the years.

The Afghan police force is more of an untrustworthy, often predatory brigade. The Afghan National Army is an improvement over the police, but is divided by tribal loyalties. Personally, I would place my trust neither in the police force nor the army. We saw their “efficiency” with the attempted assassination of President Karzai last May. The entire force ran about in all directions.

That doesn’t mean they were cowards, but they were certainly conscious of the fact that, in the eyes of their countrymen, they were fighting for the wrong side.