[Peace-discuss] End the war in Pakistan (more)

[C. G. Estabrook]

"This is basically an undeclared war, which is one of the reasons why the 
incoming chairman of the House Armed Services Committee wants to update the 
congressional authorization on taking military action ... the U.S.’ top military 
officer visited Islamabad to warn of America’s 'strategic impatience' with the 
Pakistanis ... the 'frail and reversible' progress in Afghanistan ... is said to 
set the stage for starting to draw down NATO combat forces from 2011 to 2014. 
And that doesn’t mean an end to the war. The summary explicitly points to 
'NATO’s enduring commitment beyond 2014' ... But Afghanistan is the sideshow now 
... the fight in Afghanistan has become more like the fight in Pakistan, with 
air strikes tripled ... Special Operations raids are at a new high, 
surface-to-surface missiles are in use in Kandahar, and Marine tanks are rolling 
through Helmand."


Obama: Never Mind Afghanistan, It’s All About The Drones
By Spencer Ackerman December 16, 2010 | 9:42 am | Categories: Af/Pak

One year and 30,000 new troops later, Afghanistan is peripheral to the 
Afghanistan war. According to the Obama administration’s review of its strategy, 
it’s official: this a U.S. drone war in Pakistan with a big, big U.S. troop 
component next door.

Sure, the troop surge is working, according to a summary of the long-anticipated 
review that the administration released today. But that assessment, reminiscent 
of years of Bush administration statements about Iraq during that war’s darkest 
days, is conditional and said to be fragile. Taliban “momentum has been arrested 
in much of the country” and “reversed in some key areas.” The goal for 2010 was 
to break the Taliban’s momentum.

But in any event, that’s the goal for Afghanistan, which the review doesn’t even 
address until the end. The aim of the wider campaign, reiterated in the summary, 
is to crush al-Qaeda across the border in Pakistan’s tribal areas, defined as 
taking away their bases and the “elimination of the group’s remaining leadership 
cadre.” In other words: whacking moles, all through massively stepped-up CIA 
drone strikes, despite years of warnings that they won’t lead to victory. 
“Significant progress” has been made in killing al-Qaeda leaders, the summary 
says, but there isn’t any real attempt to connect any of that to what U.S. 
troops are doing in Afghanistan.

And since the CIA drone program is technically secret, the review’s public 
summary asserts nebulously that Pakistani forces and some U.S. effort 
contributed to that progress. What’s that effort actually been? One hundred and 
ten drone strikes, supported by CIA’s teams of Pashtun spotters recruited in 
Afghanistan, double the number of strikes in 2009, which was a big increase from 
2008. This is basically an undeclared war, which is one of the reasons why the 
incoming chairman of the House Armed Services Committee wants to update the 
congressional authorization on taking military action against al-Qaeda.

In the summary, American officials hug Pakistan tightly, giving big praise to 
the Pakistani military and patting itself on the back for strengthening 
diplomatic ties to Islamabad. But recent U.S. intelligence reports give dim 
prospects for Pakistani troops actually eliminating al-Qaeda’s safe havens. Just 
this morning, Pakistan’s defense minister brushed the U.S. back further on the 
save-haven question, saying, “We can ‘do more’ only whenever we can. We have to 
see to our interests first.” That comes the day after the U.S.’ top military 
officer visited Islamabad to warn of America’s “strategic impatience” with the 
Pakistanis.

Then there’s another problem. Over the past year, al-Qaeda’s Yemen-based 
affiliate has attempted repeatedly to strike the U.S., through near-misses at 
blowing up passenger and cargo aircraft, and to inspire U.S. Muslims to pull off 
homegrown terrorist attacks. One of the tools of provocation, according to 
would-be Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad: The U.S. wars in Afghanistan and 
Pakistan, including the drone strikes. The summary has to concede that killing 
al-Qaeda in Pakistan “will not completely eliminate the terrorist threat to U.S. 
interests.”

Obama’s summary doesn’t address how to mitigate the provocative effects of the 
war. Its assessment of the war in Afghanistan is cautious and vague — although, 
to be sure, this is just the unclassified version of a longer, secret report, so 
perhaps there’s more detail in the secret version. But the “frail and 
reversible” progress in Afghanistan — giving the Taliban a bloody nose in 
Kandahar, training Afghan soldiers and cops — is said to set the stage for 
starting to draw down NATO combat forces from 2011 to 2014. And that doesn’t 
mean an end to the war. The summary explicitly points to “NATO’s enduring 
commitment beyond 2014.” What effect that will have on future Faisal Shahzads 
goes unaddressed.

But Afghanistan is the sideshow now. If anything, to show progress in time for 
the strategy review, the fight in Afghanistan has become more like the fight in 
Pakistan, with air strikes tripled. What’s more, Special Operations raids are at 
a new high, surface-to-surface missiles are in use in Kandahar, and Marine tanks 
are rolling through Helmand. “The emphasis is shifting,” General “Hoss” 
Cartwright, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently remarked, 
away from counterinsurgency and toward counterterrorism.

It’s ironic. Along with Vice President Biden, Cartwright was skeptical of a 
troop surge and counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan, arguing for a 
Pakistan-based counterterrorism strategy. Judging from the summary today, they 
lost the internal debate — and won the argument.