Afghanistan and the Temptation of an Accelerated Retreat

In utmost secrecy sergeant Robert Bales was transferred Saturday March 17, in the night, to the prison of Fort Leavenworth in Kansas, where he was incarcerated after having been evacuated from Afghanistan via Kuwait. This non-commissioned U.S. officer is responsible for the carnage that, once again, places heavy uncertainties on the conditions in which the NATO forces will organize their retreat from Afghanistan, still set for 2014.

The crime of Sergeant Bales, arrested after having broken into several Afghan homes in the night and shooting on sight, killing 16 civilians, nine of whom were children, is tragically revealing of everything that makes this 10-year-old war unpopular in the United States as well as in Afghanistan. According to his lawyer, the non-commissioned officer was on his fourth deployment in a zone of combat. After three stays in Iraq where he had been injured, he had been promised that he would not be redeployed; in the end however, the decision was made from one day to the next to send him back to the front, this time in Afghanistan. In this case, where the accused risks the death penalty, the defense will obviously plead the excessively heavy pressure put on servicemen enlisted in wars that last too long.

On the Afghan side, one cannot help but understand the anger of the population, victim of or witness to multiple blunders by U.S. troops, from the burning of the Quran to the photos of soldiers urinating on the corpses of Taliban fighters. Furious that Sergeant Bales is not being tried in Afghanistan, President Karzai demanded that the NATO soldiers leave their outposts in the villages and above all cease night raids, which are very badly tolerated by the population, but which U.S. officials consider to be the most effective in their fight against the Taliban.

The U.S. ambassador in Kabul, Ryan Crocker, admitted Friday on American public television that things were dragging on. “It’s true,” he said, “that people in Afghanistan and people in America are tired. Look, I’m tired.” This “fatigue” is equally evident among certain other members of NATO, seduced by the idea of an anticipated retreat. But Mr. Crocker reminded everyone who has this temptation, particularly during the electoral period, to withdraw sooner than anticipated from this war in which 130, 000 NATO soldiers are still enlisted, of the initial issue: to make sure Afghanistan never again serves as a home for terrorists, since this had been the case for the perpetrators of the September 11 attacks.

This combat is not completely won. The Afghan forces, trained by NATO, are not ready to take charge of the security of their country. The dialogue with the Taliban in Qatar once again has been suspended. Some of the progress achieved thanks to the allied presence, like the improvement of women’s rights, is far from becoming consolidated. The goal of total retreat in 2014 was already very ambitious. Pushing forward the calendar would be to automatically renounce the fixed goals at the end of a war, so costly in terms of human lives.