[Peace-discuss] Matthew Hoh's resignation & USG goals in AfPak

[C. G. Estabrook]

"Matthew Hoh, a former Marine officer, resigned from his current State 
Department post in Afghanistan, saying he no longer believes the war is worth 
American lives." [CSM]

Hoh's letter of resignation is below.  He explains that he doesn't understand or 
trust "the strategic purposes of the United States’ presence in Afghanistan." 
His objections are not to "how we are pursuing this war, but why."  But he 
doesn't suggest why.

He knows that "our stated strategy of securing Afghanistan to prevent al-Qaeda 
resurgence" is false, but he fails to see that it's a necessary propaganda cover 
for the real geopolitical reasons that the US has for dominating the region. (He 
does recognize that the propaganda cover "would require us to additionally 
invade and occupy western Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, etc." -- as we are 
doing, because the real reason requires that, too.)

For those real goals, the chosen means are appropriate -- vicious, but 
appropriate.  And American planners understand what they're doing.  They should 
not so much be better informed as opposed.  --CGE


================
September 10, 2009

Ambassador Nancy J. Powell
Director General of the Foreign Service and Director of Human Resources
U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, D.C. 20520

Dear Ambassador Powell,

It is with great regret and disappointment I submit my resignation from my 
appointment as a Political Officer in the Foreign Service and my post as the 
Senior Civilian Representative for the U.S. Government in Zabul Province. I have 
served six of the previous ten years in service to our country overseas, to 
include deployment as a U.S. Marine ofticer and Department of Defense civilian 
in the Euphrates and Tigris River Valleys of Iraq in 2004-2005 and 2006-2007. I 
did not enter into this position lightly or with any undue expectations nor did 
I believe my assignment would be without sacrifice hardship or difficulty. 
However, in the course of my five months of service in Afghanistan, in both 
Regional Commands East and South, I have lost understanding of and confidence in 
the strategic purposes of the United States’ presence in Afghanistan. I have 
doubts and reservations about our current strategy and planned future strategy, 
but my resignation is based not upon how we are pursuing this war, but why and 
to what end. To put simply: I fail to see the value or the worth in continued 
U.S. casualties or expenditures or resources in support of the Afghan government 
in what is, truly, a 35-year old civil war.

This fall will mark the eighth year of U.S. combat, governance and development 
operations within Afghanistan. Next fall, the United States’ occupation will 
equal in length the Soviet Union’s own physical involvement in Afghanistan. Like 
the Soviets, we continue to secure and bolster a failing state, while 
encouraging an ideology and system of government unknown and unwanted by its people.

If the history or Afghanistan is one great stage play, the United States is no 
more than a supporting actor, among several previously, in a tragedy that not 
only pits tribes, valleys, clans, villages and families against one another, 
but, from at least the end of King Zahir Shah’s reign, has violently and 
savagely pitted the urban, secular, educated and modem of Afghanistan against 
the rural, religious, illiterate and traditional. It is this latter group that 
composes and supports the Pashtun insurgency. The Pashtun insurgency, which is 
composed of multiple, seemingly infinite, local groups, is fed by what is 
perceived by the Pashtun people as a continued and sustained assault, going back 
centuries, on Pashtun land, culture, traditions and religion by internal and 
external enemies. The U.S. and NATO presence and operations in Pashtun valleys 
and villages, as well as Afghan army and police units that are led and composed 
of non-Pashtun soldiers and police, provide an occupation force against which 
the insurgency is justified. In both RC East and South, I have observed that the 
bulk of the insurgency fights not for the white banner of the Taliban, but 
rather against the presence of foreign soldiers and taxes imposed by an 
unrepresentative government in Kabul.

The United States military presence in Afghanistan greatly contributes to the 
legitimacy and strategic message of the Pashtun insurgency. In a like manner our 
backing of the Afghan government in its current form continues to distance the 
government from the people. The Afghan government’s failings, particularly when 
weighed against the sacrifice of American lives and dollars, appear legion and 
metastatic:

• Glaring corruption and unabashed graft;
• A President whose confidants and chief advisers comprise drug lords and war 
crimes villains, who mock our own rule of law and counternarcotics efforts;
• A system of provincial and district leaders constituted of local power 
brokers, opportunists and strongmen allied to the United States solely for, and 
limited by, the value of our USAID and CERP contracts and whose own political 
and economic interests stand nothing to gain from any positive or genuine 
attempts at reconciliation; and
• The recent election process dominated by fraud and discredited by low voter 
turnout, which has created an enormous victory for our enemy who now claims a 
popular boycott and will call into question worldwide our government’s military, 
economic and diplomatic support for an invalid and illegitimate Afghan government.

Our support for this kind of government, coupled with a misunderstanding of the 
insurgency’s true nature, reminds me horribly of our involvement with South 
Vietnam; an unpopular and corrupt government we backed at the expense of our 
Nation’s own internal peace, against an insurgency whose nationalism we 
arrogantly and ignorantly mistook as a rival to our own Cold War ideology.

I find specious the reasons we ask for bloodshed and sacrifice from our young 
men and women in Afghanistan. If honest, our stated strategy of securing 
Afghanistan to prevent al-Qaeda resurgence or regrouping would require us to 
additionally invade and occupy western Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, etc. Our 
presence in Afghanistan has only increased destabilization and insurgency in 
Pakistan where we rightly fear a toppled or weakened Pakistani government may 
lose control of nuclear weapons. However, again, to follow the logic of our 
stated goals we should garrison Pakistan, not Afghanistan. More so, the 
September 11th attacks, as well as the Madrid and London bombings, were 
primarily planned and organized in Western Europe; a point that highlights the 
threat is not one tied to traditional geographic or political boundaries. 
Finally, if our concern is for a failed state crippled by corruption and poverty 
and under assault from criminal and drug lords, then if we bear our military and 
financial contributions to Afghanistan, we must reevaluate our commitment to and 
involvement in Mexico.

Eight years into war, no nation has ever known a more dedicated, well trained, 
experienced and disciplined military as the U.S. Armed Forces. I do not believe 
any military force has ever been tasked with such a complex, opaque and 
Sisyphean mission as the U.S. military has received in Afghanistan. The tactical 
proficiency and performance of our Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines is 
unmatched and unquestioned. However, this is not the European or Pacific 
theaters of World War II, but rather is a war war for which our leaders, 
uniformed, civilian and elected, have inadequately prepared and resourced our 
men and women. Our forces, devoted and faithful, have committed to conflict in 
an indefinite and unplanned manner that has become a cavalier, politically 
expedient and Pollyannaish misadventure. Similarly, the United States has a 
dedicated and talented cadre of civilians, both U.S. government employees and 
contractors, who believe in and sacrifice for their mission, but have been 
ineffectually trained and led with guidance and intent shaped more by the 
political climate in Washington, D.C. than in Afghan cities, villages, mountains 
and valleys.

“We are spending ourselves into oblivion” a very talented and intelligent 
commander, one of America’s best, briefs every visitor, staff delegation and 
senior officer. We are mortgaging our Nation’s economy on a war, which, even 
with increased commitment, will remain a draw for years to come. Success and 
victory, whatever they may be, will be realized not in years, after billions 
more spent, but in decades and generations. The United States does not enjoy a 
national treasury for such success and victory.

I realize the emotion and tone of my letter and ask you excuse any ill temper. I 
trust you understand the nature of this war and the sacrifices made by so many 
thousands of families who have been separated from loved ones deployed in 
defense of our Nation and whose homes bear the fractures, upheavals and scars of 
multiple and compounded deployments. Thousands of our men and women have 
returned home with physical and mental wounds, some that will never heal or will 
only worsen with time. The dead return only in bodily form to be received by 
families who must be reassured their dead have sacrificed for a purpose worthy 
of futures lost, love vanished, and promised dreams unkept. I have lost 
confidence such assurances can anymore be made. As such, l submit my resignation.

Sincerely,

/s/ Matthew P. Hoh
Senior Civilian Representative
Zabul Province, Afghanistan

cc:
Mr. Frank Ruggiero
Ms. Dawn Liberi
Ambassador Anthony Wayne
Ambassador Karl Eikenberry

http://warincontext.org/2009/10/27/a-letter-from-afghanistan-that-every-american-must-read/