As the Obama administration debates whether to send tens of thousands of extra troops to Afghanistan, an already overstretched military is increasingly struggling to meet its deployment numbers. Surprisingly, one place it seems to be targeting is military personnel who go absent without leave (AWOL) and then are caught or turn themselves in.

Hidden behind the gates of military bases across the U.S., troops facing AWOL and desertion charges regularly find themselves in the hands of a military that metes out informal, open-ended punishments by forcing them to wait months – sometimes more than a year – to face military justice. In the meantime, some of these soldiers are offered a free pass out of this legal limbo as long as they agree to deploy to Afghanistan or Iraq – even if they have been diagnosed with severe post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

In August 2008 at TomDispatch.com, we reported on the deplorable conditions at the 82nd Replacement Barracks at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. There, more than 50 members of Echo Platoon of the 82nd Airborne Division’s 82nd Replacement Detachment were being held while awaiting AWOL and desertion charges. Investigations launched since then – in part in response to our article – have revealed that the plight of members of Echo Platoon is not an isolated one. It is, in fact, disturbingly commonplace on other bases throughout the United States. And it is from these “holdover units,” filled with disgruntled soldiers who have gone AWOL, many of whom are struggling with PTSD from previous deployments in war zones, that the military is hoping to help meet its manpower needs for Afghanistan.

Nightmare in Echo Platoon

On Aug. 16, determined to put an end to unbearable mental and psychological pain, Pvt. Timothy Rich, while on 24-hour suicide watch, attempted to jump to his death from the roof of Echo Platoon’s barracks (where he had been held since being arrested for going AWOL). Prior to his suicide attempt, Rich had been offered amnesty by the military in exchange for agreeing to deploy to Afghanistan or Iraq.

He had already been through a hellish year awaiting a discharge and treatment for mental health problems. “I want to leave here very bad,” he explained. “For four months they have been telling me that I’ll get out next week. I didn’t see an end to it, so I figured I’d try and end it myself.”

He fell three stories, bouncing off a tree, before hitting the ground and cracking his spine. The military gave him a back brace, psychotropic drugs, and put him on a renewed, 24-hour suicide watch.

While he has recently been discharged from the military, Rich was not atypical of the soldiers of Echo Platoon, some forced to wait a year or more in legal limbo – in dilapidated buildings under the authority of abusive commanders – for legal proceedings to begin, and many struggling with mental illness or PTSD from previous deployments. As Spc. Dustin Stevens told us last August: “[It's] horrible here. We are treated like animals. Some of us are going crazy, some are sick. There are people here who should be in mental hospitals. And the way I see it, I did nothing wrong.”

Shortly after our story was published, Stevens told us that at least half a dozen soldiers in the platoon, including him, were suddenly given trial dates. Although he was likely to be found guilty and face punishment, Stevens claimed to be “relieved” to have an end in sight. Soon after, according to Echo Platoon informants, their barracks were condemned as a result of a military investigation of the site and, on Oct. 19, the platoon itself was disbanded.

Recently, due possibly to the attention his story drew to the mistreatment and indefinite detention soldiers were facing in Echo Platoon, Stevens was informed by the military he would be “chaptered out” – in other words, given an administrative discharge from the Army – and will not be forced to serve formal prison time.

James Branum, Stevens’ civilian lawyer, as well as the legal adviser to the G.I. Rights Hotline of Oklahoma and co-chair of the Military Law Task Force (MLTF), summed developments up this way: “After repeated complaints and congressional inquiry, Echo Platoon was shut down. The whole place was shut down. Everyone was scattered to other units. If your old unit still exists, they are sending you to your old unit. We know that at least one of the NCOs [non-commissioned officers] in charge of Echo Platoon was fired. I think this is a positive thing.”

Echoes of Echo

The troubling state of affairs in Echo Platoon may only have been the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Army holdover units. Evidence suggests that soldiers being held on other bases in the United States for AWOL and desertion face similar apathy or intentional neglect – and that they, too, are often left with the choice between living in legal limbo or agreeing to be sent to a war zone.

Scott Wildman, a former Army specialist, went AWOL in 2007 when he was unable to receive adequate help for severe PTSD sustained after a 15-month deployment to Iraq. In February 2009, he finally turned himself in at Fort Lewis in Washington state, only to find himself lost in a labyrinthine bureaucracy. For the first four months, he was not allowed to leave a confined area and was forbidden even to walk around by himself.

Here’s how he describes his experience: “I was flipping out. My wife had left me while I was over there. I hadn’t seen my kids in a couple years. I came home and tried to get help. At Fort Lewis, they do not care about you. I had been diagnosed by civilian and military doctors with severe depression, PTSD, and severe anxiety. When you are at the unit, they make fun of you. They crack PTSD jokes. They all have it too, but they’re too cool.”

During the eight months he has been held at Fort Lewis, Wildman claims he has suffered verbal abuse and substandard mental healthcare. “The command treated me like dirt. My commander ignored me for the first couple months until my roommate jumped me. They’ll make sure you’re in the room and call you a ‘bunch of PTSD pussies.’”

Four weeks ago, Wildman was informed that he would be court-martialed, but he was not given a trial date. Feeling he had no other choice, he went AWOL again and remains so today. “I’d been going to see some military counselors, but we weren’t making progress on the real problem…. They give us classes on calm and peacefulness, but they are right near the shooting ranges. There’s gunfire and explosions all around, people being screamed at all the time because it’s infantry. It’s not a good place for someone with [mental health] issues.”

At one point, despite a confidentiality protocol that should have prevented it, Wildman’s commanders went through his medical evaluations and found out that he had been involved in the accidental killing of two little girls in Iraq. They proceeded to needle him by threatening to write him up for war crimes.

Explaining why he once again went AWOL, Wildman says, “I didn’t know what was going to happen next. I had to remove myself from that situation.”

“Examples of how the military is treating soldiers, like the case of Wildman, are common,” comments Kathleen Gilberd, co-chair of the MLTF. She also points out that the Army, stretched thin by years of multiple deployments to two war zones, has taken to downplaying potentially severe medical conditions to keep soldiers eligible for service overseas. It is commonplace, she reports, for formerly AWOL soldiers to be “bribed” with offers of having all charges, or potential charges, dropped, as long as they accept deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan.

“A lot of folks who are under-diagnosed or misdiagnosed are being deployed second and third times,” she adds. “Barrier mechanisms that should prevent this from happening are being routinely ignored. … If someone is on psychotropic medication or is diagnosed with a fresh psychiatric condition, there should be a 90-day observation period and delay, under DOD [Department of Defense] policy.”

Remarkably, that sometimes-ignored 90-day hold period for military personnel on psychotropic medications does not always apply to soldiers who are diagnosed with traumatic brain injury (TBI) of a sort commonly caused by roadside bombs. According to an Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center analysis, reported in theDenver Post in August 2008, more than “43,000 service members – two-thirds of them in the Army or Army Reserve – were classified as nondeployable for medical reasons three months before they deployed” to Iraq. The process, if anything, only seems to be accelerating when it comes to Afghanistan.

Deploying the Undeployables

Not all soldiers go AWOL in order to save their minds and bodies. Some are trying to save their families. One soldier held in Bravo Platoon, a holdover unit of the 3rd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division at Fort Carson in Colorado Springs (who did not want his name made public) disclosed that, having returned from service in Iraq, he was told he would soon be redeployed there. Because his mother was ill, he refused and was threatened with a court martial.

“When I turned myself in, I submitted a binder with letters from my mom’s doctors and state officials that made clear that I needed to be home to take care of my mother. At that time, they had me on restriction and lockdown 24/7 to keep me from leaving again. Later they punished me. I was assigned extra duty and received a rank reduction from E3 to a private. I was treated like crap.”

He and the other soldiers in his holdover platoon were subjected to verbal abuse and made to do menial jobs. He claimed that he was threatened daily with being sent to the United States Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, the military’s maximum security correctional facility – and then was urged to agree to go back to Iraq instead. It made no difference that he had “no-go” orders from doctors at Fort Carson exempting him from overseas deployment.

His commander promised him a clean slate if he would redeploy to Iraq, insisting that the only alternative was a court-martial. Despite a regimen of humiliation, he stood his ground and was finally discharged for family hardship in September 2008. There were at least 11 other soldiers then in Bravo Platoon. Like their counterparts in Echo, most were told that their records would be wiped clean once they agreed to redeploy. The alternative was a non-judicial punishment, followed by a court-martial some months down the line.

As he tells it, Sgt. Heath Carter, originally based at Fort Polk, La., found himself torn between pressing family needs and an indifferent military command. On returning from the invasion of Iraq, he discovered his daughter living in what he believed to be an unsafe environment. Heath and his new wife started consulting attorneys in order to secure custody of the child. Precisely during this time, the military began changing Carter’s duty station. He was moved from Fort Polk to Fort Huachuca, Ariz., then on to Fort Stewart, Ga., reducing his chances of gaining custody.

Convinced that this was a crucial matter for his daughter, he requested compassionate reassignment to Fort Leavenworth, Mo., about two hours away from her. His appeals to the military command, to his chaplain, even to his congressman failed. In May 2007, having run out of options, he went AWOL from Fort Stewart, heading home to fight for custody, which he won.

This Jan. 25, however, he was arrested at his home by military police, who flew him back to Fort Stewart, where he has been awaiting charges for the past eight months. Being a sergeant, he is in a regular unit, not a holdover one. Initially, his commander assured him he would be sent home within a month and a half. Several months later, the same commander decided to court-martial him.

Carter feels frustrated. “If they had done that in the beginning, I would have been home by now. It’s taken this long for them to decide. Now I have to wait for the court-martial. If we had known it would take this long, my family could have moved down here. Every time I ask when I’ll have a trial, they say it’s only going to be another two weeks. I get the feeling they’re lying. They’ve messed with my pay. They’re trying to push me to do something wrong.”

His ordeal has forced Carter to reflect on America’s wars. Once, he admits, he was proud of his mission in Iraq. Now, he sees things differently. “I don’t think there is any reason for us to be there except for oil.”

His wife, who witnessed her husband’s callous treatment, says, “He’s been there [Iraq], done that, and seen horrible, terrible things, so of course he doesn’t want to go back.”

While the Obama administration decides how many thousands of troops to send to Afghanistan, service men and women are already facing repeated deployments, oftentimes while having already been diagnosed with medical conditions that should render them unfit for deployment.

Nothing has changed for these beleaguered troops, except the venue of their maltreatment and the desperation with which the military is now struggling to make the necessary deployment numbers as it continues to fight two endless wars.

Dahr Jamail, an independent journalist, is the author of The Will to Resist: Soldiers Who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan (Haymarket Books, 2009) and Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches From an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq(Haymarket Books, 2007). Jamail reported from occupied Iraq for nine months, as well as from Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Turkey over the last five years.

Sarah Lazare is the project coordinator for Courage to Resist, an organization that supports troops who refuse to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan. She is also a freelance writer.

Bhaswati Sengupta contributed to this report.

Copyright 2009 Dahr Jamail and Sarah Lazare

PROTEST IN THE STREETS THE DAY AFTER AN ANNOUNCEMENT IS MADE TO SEND MORE TROOPS INTO AFGHANISTAN

We in the anti-war movement have been tirelessly and endlessly calling upon the government to end the occupations. We want our troops out of the middle east, and an end to the drone bombings that are killing thousands of innocent civilians.

Letters have been written, petitions signed, arrests made but the wars drone on. And now we are grimly awaiting the announcement by the Obama Administration of an escalation of troop levels once again in Afghanistan.

It is impossible to predict when this announcement will come, but it will, and we must be ready. Everyone of conscience who can’t stand one more day or one more minute witnessing the death and destruction being wreaked upon countries and its people, under the guise of “bringing democracy” or “helping women” or “ending the poppy production” or “protecting civilians”, or the best yet, “fight the war on terror”, must join together, show unity, and strength against this scourge.

We must stop flying our own banners announcing our “affiliations” and fight our common enemy, those who chose to continue wars of aggression in our names, and we must fight cohesively and with one message, and in one voice: END THE WARS, ALL TROOPS HOME NOW!

Soon the announcement will be made to send more young men and women to die and to kill. We don’t want it, we have told those who have taken power that it must end. But slowly we have come to realize that our cries fall on deaf ears, and it is in our hands and our hands only to enter the belly of the beast and show them what the people can do united.

We must have a national day of resistance against these occupations, and when the announcement is made to send more troops to Afghanistan, it is time for ALL of us to get into the streets and stop business as usual.

It may mean going out in your community during the week! It may mean expressing our anger in the form of non-violent civil disobedience.

But if hundreds of people around the country picked a location where they live and formed alliances to make sure this happened, our message would be heard, loud and clear. We owe it to the troops and to the people of other countries who are looking to us for their salvation.

If Obama makes his announcement on a weekend, then we as a collective group of anti-war activists, with a plan in place, go to a pre-determined location the next business day at 5 PM and shut down the streets in the name of PEACE.

If we are truly determined to face our enemy then we must do it with resolve. We must be relentless, unafraid and staunch in our demands and demeanor.

It is way past time to join together and move forward to a more peaceful world. But without hundreds if not thousands out there around the country being arrested in the name of peace at the same time and on the same day, we will not move one inch from where we are now. It is a step forward, a small brave step, but if we do it in unison we will find strength in our numbers. The world is counting on us!

Eric Margolis is contributing foreign editor for Sun National Media Canada. He is the author of War at the Top of the World and the new book, American Raj: Liberation or Domination?: Resolving the Conflict Between the West and the Muslim World. See his website.

Copyright © 2009 Eric Margolis

LIES USED TO JUSTIFY THIS INCLUDE:

Afghanistan is a “good war” against the “real terrorists” who attacked Americans

Barack Obama referred to the war as the “the central front in our battle against terrorism.” According to our the new president, “I think one of the biggest mistakes we’ve made strategically after 9/11 was to fail to finish the job. …We got distracted by Iraq.”

The war in Afghanistan had nothing to do with responding to the 9/11 attacks. It was launched to defeat reactionary Islamic fundamentalist trends and groups that have posed obstacles to U.S power and to restructure the Middle East and Central Asian regions in order to deepen U.S. domination.

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Afghanistan is one front in this global war because of its strategic location. It was a U.S. target before 9/11. A Pakistani diplomat told the BBC that he was informed of the U.S. intent to attack Afghanistan in mid-July of 2001 (see U.S. ‘planned attack on Taleban’, September 18, 2001.)

When various Islamic fundamentalist forces were fighting the Soviet Union in Afghanistan they were funded and armed by the U.S. President Reagan called them “freedom fighters.” Today they are an impediment to U.S. goals and are now called “terrorists.” We are supposed to accept that this requires the people of the U.S. to support U.S. aggressive wars in order to protect “our safety,” regardless of how many lives are sacrificed in other nations.

The U.S. has freed the people of Afghanistan, particularly women, from oppressive rule

The Bush regime used concern for the women to justify slaughter of civilians, creating a situation where women were even more vulnerable to the Taliban, religious reactionary fundamentalists who oppress women, progressives, and the people of Afghanistan in general. Life under the Taliban was and is a living hell of reactionary religious strictures and suffocating social relations.

But during the years of Soviet occupation, the U.S. supported the Taliban in the hope that they could unite the various and fractious forces within the country, better enabling the U.S. to achieve its goals in the country.

 Even now, after the U.S. overthrow of the Taliban, both Obama and Biden have recently talked of negotiating with some “moderate” factions of the Taliban to get them to support the current Afghan government and U.S. goals. Since the U.S. invasion, the people of Afghanistan continue to be under the domination of reactionaries who are now in the service of the U.S.

The Karzai regime is a puppet government of the same hated landlords, militia heads, and feudal and tribal chieftains that have tormented the people of Afghanistan for decades. Corruption within the government is endemic. Opium production and trade makes up one-third of the country’s gross domestic product.

Women are still deeply and cruelly oppressed in Afghanistan. An Afghan woman dies during childbirth every 30 minutes; 87 percent of Afghan women are illiterate; only 30 percent of girls have access to education in Afghanistan; one-third of women experience physical, psychological, or sexual violence, including honor killings; and 70 to 80 percent of women, including many children, face forced marriages in Afghanistan.

“We broke it, now we must rebuild it”

The argument is that even though the initial invasion was wrong, the U.S. now owes it to the Afghan people to rebuild the country. Obama has promised increased economic aid.

But what little aid is delivered to the country evaporates into a cauldron of corruption and is used to support the reactionary rulers of the country. A recent poll conducted by the Afghan Center for Socio-Economic and Opinion Research indicates that the vast majority of the Afghan population views public corruption as a major problem, and wanted the United States military to leave.

Apologists for the U.S. occupation would argue that at least the U.S. is making people in Afghanistan more secure. But in the above poll, only 42% had confidence that the U.S. coalition forces could provide security in Their areas. One in six of those polled reported nearby bombing or shelling by U.S. forces in their area. One in five reported civilians being killed by U.S. coalition forces in the last year in the areas where they lived.

People continue to suffer. According to the United Nations Human Development Index, Afghanistan is the 174^th poorest nation. Afghanistan’s Independent Human Rights

Commission (AIHRC) in December 2008 reported that 37 percent or about ten million people in Afghanistan suffer from severe poverty, with millions earning less than $1 per day.

The U.S. State Department in 2008 stated the infant mortality rate is 154.67 deaths per 1,000 live births. The U.S. State Department admits that at least 3 million Afghans are refugees in other countries. Less than 1/4^th of the adult population is literate, with the U.S. State Department estimating that only 12 percent of females are literate. Life expectancy is only 43.1 years and the unemployment rate in 2008 was 40%.

More U.S. troops will only increase the death and destruction. The longer the U.S. and its allies remain, the longer the suffering will continue for the Afghan people.

If the U.S. and it allies leave, the Taliban will return to power and it will be even worse than before the invasion

Neither Taliban nor U.S. rule, through its puppet allies, is in the interests of the Afghan population. Two historically obsolete and reactionary forces are contending in the country: the Islamic fundamentalist forces led by the Taliban and the outmoded ruling strata of the imperialist system, led by the U.S. These two reactionary forces reinforce each other, even while opposing each other. But supporting the U.S. imperialists to defeat the Taliban will not advance the interests of the Afghan people. Our choices are not limited to supporting the Taliban or supporting the U.S. imperialists in the war.

We Demand U.S. Withdrawal of All Troops Now!

When Obama announced his escalation of the Afghanwar on February 17th he said, “I do it today mindful that the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan demands urgent attention and swift action.”

He is right that the situation is urgent and demands swift action, but not in the way he meant. We must demand the removal of all U.S. forces, including allied forces immediately. We must oppose the war and occupation and expose the crimes of the U.S. imperialists there. To do less will forsake the people of Afghanistan and enable the U.S. to continue its crimes in that country.

The current debate is focused entirely on the question of troop levels. How many more troops should be sent over in order to pursue the war? The administration has already approved an additional 21,000 American service men and women to be deployed by November, which will increase our troop levels to 68,000. Will another 40,000 do the job? Or should we eventually build up the levels to 100,000 in addition to that? Why not 500,000 – just to be “safe”? And how will public support be brought back around to supporting this war again when 58 percent are now against it?

I get quite annoyed at this very narrow line of questioning. I have other questions. We overthrew the Taliban government in 2001 with less than 10,000 American troops. Why does it now seem that the more troops we send, the worse things get? If the Soviets bankrupted themselves in Afghanistan with troop levels of 100,000 and were eventually forced to leave in humiliating defeat, why are we determined to follow their example? Most importantly, what is there to be gained from all this? We’ve invested billions of dollars and thousands of precious lives – for what?

The truth is it is no coincidence that the more troops we send the worse things get. Things are getting worse precisely because we are sending more troops and escalating the violence. We are hoping that good leadership wins out in Afghanistan, but the pool of potential honest leaders from which to draw have been fleeing the violence, leaving a tremendous power vacuum behind. War does not quell bad leaders. It creates them. And the more war we visit on this country, the more bad leaders we will inadvertently create.

Another thing that war does is create anger with its indiscriminate violence and injustice. How many innocent civilians have been harmed from clumsy bombings and mistakes that end up costing lives? People die from simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time in a war zone, but the killers never face consequences. Imagine the resentment and anger survivors must feel when a family member is killed and nothing is done about it. When there are no other jobs available because all the businesses have fled, what else is there to do, but join ranks with the resistance where there is a paycheck and also an opportunity for revenge? This is no justification for our enemies over there, but we have to accept that when we push people, they will push back.

The real question is why are we there at all? What do our efforts now have to do with the original authorization of the use of force? We are no longer dealing with anything or anyone involved in the attacks of 9/11. At this point we are only strengthening the resolve and the ranks of our enemies. We have nothing left to win. We are only there to save face, and in the end we will not even be able to do that.

Truth is war’s first casualty. The Afghan war’s biggest untruth is, “we’ve got to fight terrorists over there so we don’t have to fight them at home.”

Many North Americans still buy this lie because they believe the 9/11 attacks came directly from the Afghanistan-based al-Qaida and Taliban movements.

False. The 9/11 attacks were planned in Germany and Spain, and conducted mainly by U.S.-based Saudis to punish America for supporting Israel.

Taliban, a militant religious, anti-Communist movement of Pashtun tribesmen, was totally surprised by 9/11. Taliban received U.S. aid until May, 2001. The CIA was planning to use Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida to stir up Muslim Uighurs against Chinese rule, and Taliban against Russia’s Central Asian allies.

Al-Qaida only numbered 300 members. Most have been killed. A handful escaped to Pakistan. Only a few remain in Afghanistan. Yet President Barack Obama insists 68,000 or more U.S. troops must stay in Afghanistan to fight al-Qaida and prevent extremists from re-acquiring “terrorist training camps.”

This claim, like Saddam Hussein’s non-existent weapons of mass destruction, is a handy slogan to market war to the public. Today, half of Afghanistan is under Taliban control. Anti-American militants could more easily use Somalia, Indonesia, Bangladesh, North and West Africa, or Sudan. They don’t need remote Afghanistan. The 9/11 attacks were planned in apartments, not camps.

The United States should not be waging war on Taliban. However backwards and oafish its Pashtun tribesmen, they have no desire or interest in attacking America. Even less, Canada.

Taliban are the sons of the U.S.-backed mujahidin who defeated the Soviets in the 1980s. As I have been saying since 9/11, Taliban never was America’s enemy. Instead of invading Afghanistan in 2001, the U.S. should have paid Taliban to uproot al-Qaida.

The Pashtun tribes want to end foreign occupation and drive out the Afghan Communists, who now dominate the U.S.-installed Kabul regime. But the U.S. has blundered into a full-scale war not just with Taliban, but with most of Afghanistan’s fierce Pashtun tribes, who comprise over half the population.

Obama is wrestling with widening the war. After eight years of military operations costing $236 billion US, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan just warned of the threat of “failure,” a.k.a. defeat. Canada has so far wasted $16 billion Cdn. on the war. Western occupation forces will be doomed if the Afghan resistance ever gets modern anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles.

The U.S. is sinking ever deeper into the South Asian morass. Washington is trying to arm-twist Pakistan into being more obedient and widening the war against its own independent-minded Pashtun tribes — wrongly called “Taliban.”

Washington’s incredibly ham-handed efforts to use $7.5 billion US to bribe Pakistan’s feeble, corrupt government and army, take control of military promotions, and get a grip on Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, have Pakistan’s soldiers on the verge of revolt.

Obama has been under intense pressure from flag-waving Republicans, much of the media, and the hawkish national security establishment to expand the war. Israel’s supporters, including many Congressional Democrats, want to see the U.S. seize Pakistan’s nuclear arms and expand the Afghan war into Iran.

Obama should admit Taliban is not and never was a threat to the West; that the wildly exaggerated al-Qaida has been mostly eradicated; and that the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan is causing more damage to U.S. interests in the Muslim world — now 25% of all humanity — than Bin Laden and his few rag-tag allies. The bombing in Madrid and London, and conspiracy in Toronto, were all horribly wrongheaded protests by young Muslims against the Afghan war.

We are not going to change the way Afghans treat their women by waging war on them, or bring democracy through rigged elections.

I wish Obama would just declare victory in Afghanistan, withdraw western forces, and hand over security to a multi-national stabilization force from Muslim nations. Good presidents, like good generals, know when to retreat.

Eric Margolis is a columnist for the Toronto Sun. His web site is foreigncorrespondent.com.

In the private sector, there is always a test of success. The business must make a profit. It can sustain some losses but the clock is always running on those. At some point, after all cuts have been made and costs are trimmed to a minimum, the business has to close shop. The summer of losses must become the autumn of profits, or else it’s all over.

Not so in government. Failing projects can go on forever. There is no profit and loss test. There is no test at all, in fact. Agencies like the GAO can blast away at a particularly egregious case of government waste, but hardly anyone pays attention. Congress has no reason to scrap it. No one does. Taxpayers have no means to pull the plug, because the whole thing is run outside their purview.

Now, with an intro like that, you might think I’m about to talk about Medicare or public schools or the post office. It would be easy enough. But let us never forget that foreign policy constitutes another sector of government management, central planning, and bureaucratic-driven missions that are no more or less successful than anything else a government does.

The case in question here is the Afghan invasion and occupation. The top military commander there, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, has written a report (supposed to be secret but emailed to the Washington Post) that says unless more troops arrive soon, the entire operation will fail. They won’t be able to defeat the insurgency unless more force is applied. That’s a serious problem, since it is not unreasonable to define the current and would-be insurgency as the entire population of Afghanistan, perhaps excepting those directly on the US payroll.

How well do I recall that first American foray into Afghanistan following September 11, 2001. The US just had to kill someone and soon. The Islamic hardcores running that country made a good target, especially since the average American doubts that anyone in such a far-flung country, where people dress funny and believe crazy things, is up to any good at all. Let’s go get ‘em!

There was hardly any opposition. Oh sure, there were a few of us out there. But mostly, everyone went along, as if this were a case of dispensing justice and, after all, that’s what government is supposed to do, according to its own storyline. So far as I know, all D.C. think tanks got on board with that one. It was the least objectionable war of the modern period, the one that almost no one opposed.

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Despite assurances to the contrary in Washington and a major policy speech in London, one need not quibble with the obvious fact that the situation is deteriorating beyond repair in Afghanistan. Although international media is more concerned with what that means politically for United States President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, little attention is given to the browbeaten and war-weary people of that country.

One should know that public support for the war has greatly diminished, when conservative commentators like The Washington Post columnist George Will write: “US forces should be substantially reduced to serve a comprehensively revised policy. America should do only what can be done from offshore, using intelligence, drones, cruise missiles, air strikes and small, potent Special Forces units.”

Okay, so his narrative is still ultimately violent, but the fact remains that the war mood is changing. After all, Will’s 1 September article was entitled, “Time to Get Out of Afghanistan.”

Dan Senor and Peter Wehner responded with a peculiar diatribe in the New York Times, accusing Will of allowing his party allegiance to influence his views on the war. The two authors, senior fellows at major US think tanks, offered a bloody rationale wrapped in deceptive wording. They argued that historically Democrats opposed Republican wars and Republicans have done the same, and that must change. It was implied that pretty much every major war in recent decades was a war that served US national security interests; therefore, “Republicans should resist the reflex that all opposition parties have, which is to oppose the stands of a president of the other party because he is a member of the other party.” In other words, yes to war, whether by Democrats or Republicans.

The intellectual wrangling, of course, is not happening in a vacuum; it almost never does. Indeed, there is much politicking going on; intense deliberation in Washington, political debates in London; defensive French statements, and more. It seems that the war in Afghanistan is reaching a decisive point, militarily in Afghanistan itself, and politically in major Western capitals.

But why the sudden hoopla over Afghanistan? For after all, the bloody war has been grinding on for eight long years.

The Taliban and various groups opposing the Kabul government and their Western benefactors are gaining ground, not just in the southern and eastern parts of Afghanistan. Daring Taliban attacks are now taking place in the north as well, long seen as peaceful, thus requiring little attention. On 26 August a roadside bomb hit the car of the chief of the provincial Justice Department in the northern Kunduz province, killing him, and sending shock waves through Kabul. The bloody message was meant to echo as a political one: no one is safe, nowhere is safe. Another attack was reported in the province of Laghman, in the east, where 22 people, mostly civilians were killed. Among the dead were four Afghan officials including the deputy chief of the National Directorate of Security, Abdullah Laghmani. The irony is too obvious to state.

In Washington, London and Paris politicians wish us to believe that they are not unnerved by all of this. They exaggerated the significance of the recent Afghani elections, attempting to once again underscore that the “crucial” elections placed Afghanistan on a crossroads. Crossroads? What does that even mean, in any practical terms? George Will, although selective in his logic, was honest enough to mention that President Hamid Karzai’s “vice-presidential running mate is a drug trafficker.” Even US officials admit that the government they’ve created following the war is corrupt, to say the least.

Richard Holbrooke, among other foreign envoys “responsible for Afghanistan”, told reporters in Paris on 2 September that US officials have no preference among the candidates, nor are they particularly interested in runoff elections, but they wished to see a government that appoints “more efficient, less corrupt ministers”. It behooves those “responsible for Afghanistan” to remember that inefficiency and corruption were the outcome of the very policies they have so eagerly adopted in the country. No sympathy for Karzai here, but it’s unfair to point the finger at a feeble leader whenever a Western strategy fumbles, as it has repeatedly.

Speaking of strategies, what is the plan ahead? French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner promised that foreign troops will stay put in Afghanistan unless the country’s security was ensured, reported Xinhua. In practical terms, this means never, for how could security ever visit that region as long as the strategy is hostage to two equally destructive narratives — the Senor/Wehner troop surges vs Will’s “offshore” strategy?

Hubris aside, Washington and London are facing some difficult political and military decisions ahead. Top officials in both capitals are using grim and somber language. US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, responding to a call by the top US general in Afghanistan for a fresh approach to the conflict, is considering yet another troop increase as part of Obama’s new Afghan strategy.

The sense of urgency was invited by the detailed report of the newly appointed General Stanley McChrystal, who maintains that “success” was still possible, but a change of strategy is needed. The report resulted in intense deliberation in Washington, highlighted by grim press conferences involving the Pentagon’s heavyweights, including Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, over what to do about “Obama’s war”.

Speaking at the Pentagon, Gates equivocated: “I don’t believe that the war is slipping through the administration’s fingers. I absolutely do not think it is time to get out of Afghanistan (but there remains) limited time for us to show that this approach is working.”

The details of the new Obama strategy are still not very clear, but the commitment to the war is still unquestionable, as expressed in a “major” 4 September speech by Prime Minister Gordon Brown. “When the security of our country is at stake we cannot walk away,” said Brown, according to the BBC.

As Brown was solemnly speaking about British security, NATO air strikes on a pair of fuel tankers killed up to 90 people, according to Afghan authorities.

Indeed, the situation in Afghanistan requires a fresh approach, although not the one George Will had in mind.

That change may provide an American “success”, whatever that might mean, but at least it is a start toward disengagement in Afghanistan, an end to the American occupation, an end to the futile attempt to create a democratic and effective central government that Afghanistan has never had in its entire history.

George Will tells us that the Afghan government is corrupt, inept and predatory, the nominated Vice President is a drug trafficker, and that the people yearn for restoration of the warlords. In the current election, charges of ballot stuffing and fraud come from all sides.

U.S. forces are being increased to 68,000 bringing the coalition total to 110,000, a deceptive figure that does not include the 100,000 civilian contractors who do the logistical work for the troops. George Will writes that “Afghanistan would need hundreds of thousands of coalition troops, perhaps for a decade or more. That is inconceivable.”

President Obama insists that this is a war of necessity, to protect the U.S. homeland from another criminal attack like the tragedy of September 11 that killed about 3000 Americans. Yet those 19 criminals were armed only with box cutters and credit cards, learned to fly at U.S. airfields. None of the 19 were Afghan, 15 were Saudis. Osama bin Laden, if he is still alive, is hiding somewhere in Pakistan. The Al Qaeda organization is diminished to a criminal conspiracy without a base in Afghanistan.

It is hard to see how taking sides in the Afghan civil war by sending an American army would prevent a similar criminal act by 19 other criminals. Yes, we can defend ourselves by smart police work, by protecting our places of entry and our installations all over the world – and we have done so.

The war in Afghanistan is a waste of lives and money. Pulling out of Afghanistan will not damage U.S. power and prestige around the world any more than did our departure from Vietnam. And the enemy in Vietnam had potent allies: the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China, bristling with powerful armies and nuclear weapons. The Taliban and Al Qaeda are rebels with rifles and roadside bombs, without significant allies, hardly an existential threat to the United States.

Where are the sensible Americans who agitated for ending the Vietnam and Iraq Wars? Are they intimidated by the so-called war on terror that commits our country to intervene on behalf of dictatorial governments challenged by revolutionaries?

George Will is not intimidated. His conservative analysis says that America will be safer if we pull our troops out of Afghanistan. Thank you, George Will. You are half right, but your recommendation for offshore bombardment with the inevitable killing of civilians is hardly the way to capture the hearts and minds of the Afghans. But at least you are heading in the right direction.

Bravo. But I wish he had applied those sentiments to the United States invasion of Afghanistan.

The President has dramatically increased the number of U. S. military forces there, has promised even more next year, and has warned of a multi-year commitment to a war already almost 8 years in duration.

• Is this war “absolutely necessary?”
• Do we have a “strategy” for fighting it?
• Do we have “well defined” goals?
• Do we have an exit strategy?

As recently as May 10, Hamad Karzai, the elected head the Afghan government, said, “Al Qaeda is no longer in Afghanistan.” When this was relayed to General David Petraeus, the American and NATO military Commander, he replied,” I would agree with that.” Obama’s National Security Advisor Jim Jones said,” I am not sure if Osama bin Laden is alive or dead.” Prime Minister of Pakistan Zardari:, stated flatly,” Osama is dead.” On May 17, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates told Katie Couric of CBS that it will take at least two to four years before Afghan forces begin to take the lead in fighting, leaving unsaid when U.S. troops will leave.

Moreover, Karzai and Zardari have complained bitterly about U.S. military tactics, especially the use of air power resulting in the unnecessary killing of civilians and the consequent increase in anti-American sentiment in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

What is victory in Afghanistan? Will it prevent another brutal tragedy like September 11? We should remember that this attack was made by 19 people, not one of them Afghans, armed with credit cards and box cutters. It is difficult to understand how the conquest of Afghanistan could prevent another group of nineteen from performing a similar criminal act. Defense of the U.S. mainland begins at home with effective police and immigration procedures.

U.S. wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, even Pakistan, coupled with our all-out support for Israel, might motivate some Muslims and citizens of those countries to irrational revenge, what the CIA calls “Blowback”, the unintended consequences of military action and especially of foreign military occupation.

President Obama, give us the answers to our questions. If you don’t have them, at least separate yourself from the Afghan policies of George W. Bush and give us an exit strategy so that we can help these nations change their policies through diplomacy, economic help and our soft power while saving American lives and resources.