Reality Off The Record

Governments of the NATO nations that supply troops for the International Security Protection Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan are busily engaged in developing a narrative highlighting their success. After a much-ballyhooed strategy change, the Afghan army and police force were beefed up. Now both are in a better position to take over responsibility for their own fight against the insurgency.

The Taliban and al-Qaeda have been dealt crushing blows. The narrative resulting from this billion-dollar “public diplomacy” and publicity offensive is intended to lay the groundwork for ISAF’s retreat from Afghanistan, while simultaneously claiming it completed its difficult mission with resounding success.

The only problem is the glimmer of reality that can occasionally be glimpsed behind this scenario. The fact that the United Nations has designated 2010 as the deadliest year for Afghan civilians since the U.S.-led military intervention against the Taliban tells a different story, namely one of escalating force.

That alone is evidence that, in contrast to NATO’s version of events, the massive increase in military pressure has failed to force the insurgents into a political solution; it just fits in all the better with their asymmetrical warfare doctrine.

All security analysts in the core areas of the insurgency in southern and southeastern Afghanistan — domestic as well as international — confirm that the basic numbers for successful anti-insurgency measures such as troops strength, geographic dispersion and the effectiveness of attacks against insurgents, are not developing positively. But because those in Washington and Brussels don’t want to believe that, these analysts are only willing to speak off the record.

It is becoming more and more evident that Afghanistan represents an abortive political intervention by an overly ambitious trans-Atlantic alliance. It enabled a regime that — in the eyes of many Afghans (especially women) —has given them even less in the way of daily security and human rights than the Taliban did. And little can be done to rectify that because President Karzai has liberated himself from his Western mentors and now skillfully uses their mistakes against them.

The Afghans don’t buy these NATO success stories. The sheer terror of being abandoned to the Taliban and Karzai’s corrupt trigger-happy warlords again dominates their daily lives.