Edited by Joanne Hanrahan
Afghanistan: A Goalless, Endless Quagmire for Obama
Published in Le Monde
(France) on 1 December 2009
by Jean-Marcel Bouguereau (link to original)
(France) on 1 December 2009
by Jean-Marcel Bouguereau (link to original)
Translated from
by Kathryn Sanderson.
Edited by .
After hesitating for a long time — too long — Obama has made a firm decision on Afghanistan. Last night he announced his decision to increase U.S. forces in Afghanistan by 30,000 extra troops, yielding almost completely to the allied commander in Kabul, who was asking for 40,000 more men, in addition to the 70,000 already on the ground. It was an admission of failure after eight years of combat, confirmed by the entire state of affairs: the farce of an electoral process that led to the reelection of a powerless, corrupt Karzai who diverts Western aid funds; the multiplication of deadly blunders that cause civilian fatalities; the monetary and human costs of a war with no end in sight, with soldiers who are more and more reluctant to be deployed to the front, while the Taliban controls more than half the territory.
You’d need 20 to 25 soldiers for every thousand inhabitants, that is, 640,000 soldiers in Afghanistan, to carry out an effective campaign!
All the military strategists have said it over and over: “This war is not winnable.” There’s no better proof than General Petraeus’ recommendations, entitled COIN (Counterinsurgency Field Manual). According to Petraeus, a ratio of 20 to 25 soldiers to one thousand inhabitants, or 640,000 soldiers in Afghanistan, would be needed to carry out an effective campaign! This guarantees a new morass. Even Colin Powell met with Obama to plead the case for the parallels between Viet Nam and Afghanistan. And yet, Obama ceded to the generals he should have mistrusted. According to the famous journalist Seymour Hersh of “The New Yorker,” Stanley McChrystal, who commands NATO forces, is a brutal man, close to the “neoconservatives,” the very people that led America to its adventure in Iraq.
Waging two wars when unemployment has just passed the 10% mark
What’s more, with the unemployment in United States topping 10 percent, each extra soldier will cost $1 million per year, or $30 billion for 30,000 soldiers. More and more Americans, as well as the press, are wondering if fighting two wars is incompatible with the health of the country’s economy. “Unless the president revises his thinking and defines the enemy correctly, all we can do in Afghanistan is engage in another fruitless adventure... Moreover, the Taliban...isn’t just in Afghanistan, [but also in Pakistan],” says the conservative weekly “Human Events.”
Pakistan’s two-faced game: the army and the secret service
In fact, the United States is facing a dilemma not limited to Afghanistan. The Taliban slips through the porous border with Pakistan to regroup there. That’s where the real danger lies: the United States tolerates the fact that certain elements of the Pakistani army and intelligence services are supporting the insurgents’ operations in neighboring Afghanistan. And there’s reason to fear that Obama’s proposed strategic partnership with Pakistan won’t really solve the problem.
Nicolas Sarkozy won’t go to war
For now, [French president] Nicolas Sarkozy has, fortunately, taken a prudent position. When asked about the Americans’ request for 1500 additional troops, Pierre Lellouche, Sarkozy’s special envoy to Afghanistan, replied, “You know the president’s answer: it’s no.” For Sarkozy, training Afghan troops is still France’s priority, and a way of vetoing the escalation of a goalless, endless war.
You’d need 20 to 25 soldiers for every thousand inhabitants, that is, 640,000 soldiers in Afghanistan, to carry out an effective campaign!
All the military strategists have said it over and over: “This war is not winnable.” There’s no better proof than General Petraeus’ recommendations, entitled COIN (Counterinsurgency Field Manual). According to Petraeus, a ratio of 20 to 25 soldiers to one thousand inhabitants, or 640,000 soldiers in Afghanistan, would be needed to carry out an effective campaign! This guarantees a new morass. Even Colin Powell met with Obama to plead the case for the parallels between Viet Nam and Afghanistan. And yet, Obama ceded to the generals he should have mistrusted. According to the famous journalist Seymour Hersh of “The New Yorker,” Stanley McChrystal, who commands NATO forces, is a brutal man, close to the “neoconservatives,” the very people that led America to its adventure in Iraq.
Waging two wars when unemployment has just passed the 10% mark
What’s more, with the unemployment in United States topping 10 percent, each extra soldier will cost $1 million per year, or $30 billion for 30,000 soldiers. More and more Americans, as well as the press, are wondering if fighting two wars is incompatible with the health of the country’s economy. “Unless the president revises his thinking and defines the enemy correctly, all we can do in Afghanistan is engage in another fruitless adventure... Moreover, the Taliban...isn’t just in Afghanistan, [but also in Pakistan],” says the conservative weekly “Human Events.”
Pakistan’s two-faced game: the army and the secret service
In fact, the United States is facing a dilemma not limited to Afghanistan. The Taliban slips through the porous border with Pakistan to regroup there. That’s where the real danger lies: the United States tolerates the fact that certain elements of the Pakistani army and intelligence services are supporting the insurgents’ operations in neighboring Afghanistan. And there’s reason to fear that Obama’s proposed strategic partnership with Pakistan won’t really solve the problem.
Nicolas Sarkozy won’t go to war
For now, [French president] Nicolas Sarkozy has, fortunately, taken a prudent position. When asked about the Americans’ request for 1500 additional troops, Pierre Lellouche, Sarkozy’s special envoy to Afghanistan, replied, “You know the president’s answer: it’s no.” For Sarkozy, training Afghan troops is still France’s priority, and a way of vetoing the escalation of a goalless, endless war.
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