From Norway to Afghanistan, And Hopefully Home Again
by John Weckerle
In a recent column at Gadabout-Blogalot.com, blog associate Bob Steiner takes apparent issue with President Barak Obama’s receipt of the 2009 Nobel Prize for Peace, and provides some suggestions with respect to how we should seek success in Afghanistan. Today we examine a few of the issues raised in Mr. Steiner’s article.
To start, we’d like to note that we were as surprised as anybody to see Mr. Obama receive the award. However, we consider the subject of whether he deserves the award rather moot, since the committee that decides who deserves the award decided that Mr. Obama deserved it. Mr. Obama himself stated that he did not feel he deserved it. Mr. Steiner states that Mr. Obama has achieved little in the peace arena, but “he has expended a lot of effort (and jet fuel in Air Force One) trying to lessen international tension and trying to bring hostile parties together.” This is pretty much the effort that the committee cited in its announcement, and they must have felt fairly strongly about it; the committee has only given the award to two sitting American presidents – Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. Regardless, we congratulate the winner and hope he lives up to the “call to action” that it represents in his case. It will probably be a tough act to follow.
Mr. Steiner questions Mr. Obama’s use of the military, and his consideration of sending additional troops to Afghanistan, in light of his having “campaigned as a peace advocate.” Mr. Obama certainly did campaign on the issue of peace; however, he also made a very strong commitment to pursuing success in Afghanistan during his campaign. This, as much as the commitment to peace, is likely to come back to haunt him when his deliberations are complete and his decision made. With fellow Democrats opposed to a troop surge, and Republicans in favor, it is a rocky road to say the least. We should understand, however, that he is currently considering recommendations made his military advisors, most notably General Stanley McChrystal. It seems a little premature to predict which way this will go and criticize Mr. Obama in advance – especially since he will likely be honoring at least one campaign promise regardless of which way he goes.
Mr. Steiner considers sending additional troops to be a “bad idea” unless the troops are moved as follows: from Germany, 10,000; from France, 10,000; from India, 10,000; and from Afghanistan, 10,000. We have to ask the question: Afghanistan? How do we go about sending troops from Afghanistan to Afghanistan and calling it a troop increase? Also, why would troops from those specific locations be more effective than those sent from Iraq, for example, or from U.S. or other deployments? What functions are those troops currently performing, and how would the overall global military strategy of the U.S. be affected, and what adjustments to that strategy would have to be made?
Mr. Steiner further states: “I would further insist that the Karzai government implement an immediate draft of all males 17 to 25 years old, as a pre-condition to our remaining in that country. I think that these people need to protect their own country.” This appears a severe oversimplification of a very complex issue. The Karzai administration is not in control of the country, nor does it command the loyalty of all its people. Some of this has to do with ethnic considerations. Mr. Karzai is of Pashtun descent. The Pashtun ethnic group is the largest in Afghanistan, amounting to about 40% of the population, and is the group from which the Taliban arose. However, the majority of the powerful positions in the Karzai government are occupied by Tajiks, Afghanistan’s second largest ethnic group, at about 33-34% of the population. Tajik officials are especially prominent in the ranks of military officers, and as a result Pashtuns have shown reluctance to join the military – and are openly suspicious of the Karzai government. Much of the country’s population is outside the geographical region of the central government’s influence. In short, Mr. Karzai has neither the power nor the “moral influence” (per Sun Tzu’s The Art of War) to institute a draft of any kind. Therefore, institution of such a draft would be useless as a prerequisite to continued support.
The question also arises: from whom would this army be protecting the country? The Taliban and other insurgent groups in Afghanistan – as opposed to al Qaeda – are largely citizens of Afghanistan rather than outsiders, regardless of how we may view them. This, in the case of Afghanistan, is particularly important. The country we know as Afghanistan has, throughout its history, had very little success with attempts at unification and centralized government with the very notable exception of one condition: when foreign powers are seen to have invaded the country. Under such circumstances, the various competing factions band together to drive out the interlopers – and then usually, and almost immediately, go back to being conflicting factions. Even if Mr. Steiner’s proposed draft could be implemented, it seems likely that any related success would be short-lived.
Mr. Steiner also states: “If we were really serious, I would think we would be employing Napalm bombs on Talaban (sic) concentrations and on the Poppy fields to bring the drug problem under control. Napalm was quite successful in Vietnam.” There are a number of problems inherent in this approach. While the Taliban do have military strongholds, a substantial number of the insurgents are collocated with the general population. Using napalm in such situations would amount to war crimes, and probably crimes against humanity. Because the Taliban do not wear uniforms, and because it is therefore difficult to distinguish them from the common citizenry, we would run the very real risk of killing substantial numbers of civilians – the act by al Qaeda that precipitated our attack in the first place. It would also likely generate outrage among the populace, and strengthen resolve against a government that is widely perceived in much of the country as a corrupt puppet of an invading power. Further, Afghanistan is technically a sovereign nation, and we do not have the authority to race about the country napalming the countryside, regardless of how we may wish to cut off the economic strength of the insurgency. As for the success of napalm in Vietnam – it was not successful enough to win the war.