Like what you've read?

On Line Opinion is the only Australian site where you get all sides of the story. We don't
charge, but we need your support. Here�s how you can help.

  • Advertise

    We have a monthly audience of 70,000 and advertising packages from $200 a month.

  • Volunteer

    We always need commissioning editors and sub-editors.

  • Contribute

    Got something to say? Submit an essay.


 The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
On Line Opinion logo ON LINE OPINION - Australia's e-journal of social and political debate

Subscribe!
Subscribe





On Line Opinion is a not-for-profit publication and relies on the generosity of its sponsors, editors and contributors. If you would like to help, contact us.
___________

Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

Obama's Afghan surge is neither right nor wise

By Marko Beljac - posted Monday, 14 December 2009


After what appeared to be a long debate within the Obama administration, the White House has announced the dispatching of 30,000 extra troops to Afghanistan and a new strategic roadmap for both Afghanistan and Pakistan or AfPak as it nowadays is called.

Whatever we might think about the strategic wisdom behind the surge, we must ensure that ethical considerations are front and centre in analysis.

Over the past few months countless words have been written in the West about the conflict in Afghanistan and the future of that most unfortunate country. Perhaps only a Martian might notice something very odd here. Surely it is odd that nobody seems to have bothered to ask the Afghan people, especially the Pashtun population of the South who will be most affected by the Obama surge, what they think about an escalation of combat operations in Afghanistan.

Advertisement

It is their opinion that counts; not mine, yours, Barack Obama's, Maxine McKew's or Felicity Hampel's.

I submit that it is not just to wage war in another country, supposedly in order to defend the population of that country, if the people themselves do not provide their sanction for that war nor are even asked to provide it. We are told that the US is to now wage a classical "counterinsurgency" campaign directed at protecting the Afghan population.

But nobody has bothered asking Afghans, especially the Pashtunis, whether they want such protection. We might take the fact that Karzai found reason enough to rig the recent presidential elections, especially in the South, as a sort of proxy expression of popular opinion on this matter.

Historically counterinsurgency warfare has been a type of warfare directed against populations, not their protection. Tariq Ali has argued that the problem in Afghanistan is the western state building project itself, which is now widely regarded as a foreign imposition and thereby a type of occupation. Escalating a war in order to cement a political and social project engineered by foreign powers is not moral.

Consider the ethical question from another point of view, that of the western soldier in the field. Since the latter part of 2008 and up until the recently held elections most military operations in Afghanistan could be described as "pre-election shaping battles". This is the phrase given to describe the early battles in Iraq, such as Najaf, Tal Afar, first Fallujah and so on, following the ousting of Saddam Hussein.

The purpose is to clear the ground for the conduct of elections.

Advertisement

We know that the elections in Afghanistan were fraudulent. We even know that the alleged leading figure behind these rigged elections, the brother of Hamid Karzai, is on the CIA payroll. US military intelligence surely has an extensive network in Afghanistan. It is likely that Washington, and perhaps also Canberra, knew that these elections were going to be fixed before they were held. Could such extensive vote rigging have been hidden from western intelligence?

If not, pause to consider. Our political leaders would have sent our soldiers to fight and die in battles designed to prop up elections which they might have known were going to be rigged. If this be true, great would be our leaders’ sin. At least think about the possibility next time you see Obama and Rudd out on a photo op with the troops.

We might make an additional point. During President Bush's second term Hamid Karzai requested that the US sign a Status of Forces Agreement with Afghanistan much like Washington eventually did with Iraq. The purpose was to place some limit on what the US military could do in Afghanistan. Karzai did so in order to appeal to domestic disquiet about the wanton use of military firepower in Afghanistan. Washington flatly rejected this entreaty. The US reserves the right to do as it pleases in Afghanistan.

That is not just.

Perhaps these questions are not the right ones to ask. Instead of asking the people of southern Afghanistan whether they want our protection we might consider whether the Pashtun population of the region would like the citizens of the western democracies to act to protect them from our governments. That is a legitimate question to consider, but is totally unthinkable.

Another argument that has been made about the war in Afghanistan is that the administration in Kabul needs to be reinforced lest the Taliban once again take power. This is argued on two grounds. First, that the Taliban are fundamentalist despots. Second, al-Qaida would again use Afghanistan as a terrorist sanctuary if the Taliban retake power.

However, we all know that the administration in Kabul is hardly one worth defending let alone killing for. Is it right that scores of children be almost routinely blown apart so that we may prop up the Karzai government? Sure the Taliban are "bad guys", but the alternative regime that is being defended must itself be legitimate.

The administration of Hamid Karzai is no more legitimate than the administration of Mohammad Najibullah that the Soviets propped up after their withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1988. Like Najibullah, Karzai's rule is dependent not upon the consent of his people but rather upon the overwhelming power of a foreign state.

If it was unjust for Moscow to prop up an illegitimate regime from the likes of Hekmatyar, Haqqani and Mullar Omar then it is wrong for Washington to do the same now. We might try and avoid an application of moral rationality here by invoking the threat of terrorism. Things are different for us now because Afghanistan would be used as a terrorist sanctuary by al-Qaida should Karzai fall. However, the Afghan mujahedin did launch terrorist attacks into the Soviet Union and they did so with the support of the United States and then senior CIA official, Robert Gates. Yuri Andropov was reputed to have stated in Politburo meetings that it was better to fight Islamists in Kabul than in the USSR.

The big argument at this point is the argument due to "the war of necessity". We must prevent al-Qaida from once again using Afghanistan as a terrorist base. To do this requires beating the Taliban on the battlefield or at least preventing them from accruing further gains. Here we must be careful. It is at this point necessary to conjoin pragmatic and moral arguments to reach a full ethical evaluation. In so far as the latter goes even if we assume that the Taliban and al-Qaida have retained a tight relationship, this does not mean we have the right to kill as we see fit and for as long as we see fit.

It is also by no means obvious that the best way to prevent al-Qaida "raids", as jihadi terrorists call them, against the West is by escalating the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan. All options short of escalation should be exhausted. War, for it to be just, must always be a last resort. The Obama argument assumes by fiat that it is the only resort.

In the present situation we might try and explore whether an Afghan unity government could be fashioned composing elements of the Taliban's constituency in the South alongside more moderate elements within the broader insurgency. This could include peacekeepers from neutral states overlooking security. Such an administration would be the prelude to a genuine act of Afghani self determination, which may well take the bite out of the insurgency and isolate al-Qaida even further.

One might argue that this approach would not be feasible. Perhaps so. However, this must be demonstrated by testing its feasibility empirically. It would not be proper to simply dismiss it a priori and to therein base a policy of military escalation upon such dismissal.

That is what Obama, effectively, is now doing.

What of the pragmatic side of things? The Afghan surge strategy reportedly is based on the purported success of the Iraq surge. It is dangerous to base a military strategy on faulty assumptions.

The relative stability in Iraq is not just simply the result of the US surge in 2007. For instance, one reason for the advent of relative stability is that ethnic cleansing in Iraq came to a successful conclusion at that time and the Shiites basically won the Iraqi civil war. In Iraq the administration of Prime Minister Nuri al Maliki enjoys a good measure of legitimacy with the majority Shiite population. The situation with Karzai is the exact opposite.

According to the chief of US military intelligence in Afghanistan al-Qaida has only about 100 fighters inside Afghanistan. The strategic relationship between the Taliban and al-Qaida is not as it was prior to 9-11. The Taliban does not need al-Qaida tactical, let alone strategic, assistance. Al-Qaida appears to be more like a terrorist movement than a centralised terrorist organisation.

Obama seems to be fighting yesterday's war.

Obama's AfPak strategy actually appears to be working at cross purposes, assuming that terrorism is indeed the number one priority. Currently Pakistan is engaged in an offensive in South Waziristan. The US would like Pakistan to expand this offensive into other border areas, engaging not just the Pakistani Taliban but also the Taliban proper, and for Islamabad to allow expanded US air attacks inside Pakistan, especially in Baluchistan. Pakistan fought an insurgency in Baluchistan in the 1970s.

All these actions threaten to further destabilise Pakistan. Indeed, it would appear that the current offensive is doing more to destabilise Pakistan than anything else. Despite the death of their leader the Pakistani Taliban have delivered on their promise to conduct terrorist attacks throughout Pakistan. In the western press their ability to do so was initially dismissed.

Pakistan is caught up in an escalating cycle of violence. Will further escalation by Islamabad and the US stabilise Pakistan? Bruce Riedel, who drew up Obama's March White Paper on AfPak, has argued that such actions will in fact destabilise Pakistan.

It's pretty clear that Pakistan will play an important role in the Obama strategy. But notice that the US is also helping to augment India's military power. The Bush-Singh nuclear deal, which will enable India to produce more fuel for nuclear weapons, is reaching culmination. Earlier this year Hillary Clinton signed an agreement with Delhi clearing the path for the sale of sophisticated conventional weaponry to India. This will enhance India's capability to wage large scale combined arms operations.

This means Pakistan will maintain a strategic interest in ensuring that Afghanistan gives it strategic depth, that Islamic militants continue to be used asymmetrically against Delhi and that the bulk of the Pakistan army remains focused on India and heavily engaged in domestic society.

This demonstrates that Obama does not have an integrated strategy for South Asia that puts priority on combating terrorism, even of the narrowly defined type. The Obama strategy in fact works at cross purposes. This suggests an hypothesis.

Perhaps Obama does have an integrated strategy, only combating terrorism isn't necessarily its essence. The former National Security Adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, dubbed Central Asia as "the Eurasian Balkans". He stated, "the Eurasian Balkans, astride the inevitably emerging transportation network meant to link more directly Eurasia's richest and most industrious western and eastern extremities, are also geopolitically significant." They also, potentially, have an "enormous concentration of natural gas and oil reserves". The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, which includes Russia and China, threatens to exclude the US from the region.

If energy security will be a critical structural issue underlying global security in the 21st century then surely the Eurasian Balkans will be a central arena for great power rivalry. Perhaps that is what is at issue and viewing AfPak in this way might give US strategy its integrated rational basis.

This is stated as a hypothesis, not a fact. But it's a reasonable one to draw. Or, perhaps, the Obama strategy is irrational. Either way, it has no moral basis. That's what counts.

  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. All


Discuss in our Forums

See what other readers are saying about this article!

Click here to read & post comments.

9 posts so far.

Share this:
reddit this reddit thisbookmark with del.icio.us Del.icio.usdigg thisseed newsvineSeed NewsvineStumbleUpon StumbleUponsubmit to propellerkwoff it

About the Author

Mark Beljac teaches at Swinburne University of Technology, is a board member of the New International Bookshop, and is involved with the Industrial Workers of the World, National Tertiary Education Union, National Union of Workers (community) and Friends of the Earth.

Other articles by this Author

All articles by Marko Beljac

Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Photo of Marko Beljac
Article Tools
Comment 9 comments
Print Printable version
Subscribe Subscribe
Email Email a friend
Advertisement

About Us Search Discuss Feedback Legals Privacy