The War In Afghanistan Will End; But How?

Unmanned aerial assets are a real treat in the war on terror. They are cost efficient (roughly at $4 million respectively), stealthy and accurate at virtually no human costs on our end. They can survey from 6,000 to 20,000 feet easily (higher actually) all day long collecting vital information on insurgent activities and pattern of life behavior. Not only do they function as a tactical intelligence asset, they also serve as a sniper or long range artillery. Equipped with sensitive imagery and electronic collection tools along with hellfire missiles, the Predator and Reaper are both smart and lethal options for battlefield commanders. Contrary to foreign press reports, they are discrete in minimizing civilian casualties. Still that hasn’t prevented erroneous reports from being published citing a disproportionate amount of civilian casualties during insurgent strikes. This stems from field reports from al Qaeda and the Taliban given to the Muslim press, which in turn dutifully reports the false numbers with much satisfaction. And in doing so, influences Western media and press that in turn dutifully report the misinformation. Very similar to the same sort of propaganda the North Vietnamese used to control free press in the West. At any rate, see this list of notable successes from drone strikes.

In addition to killing over a dozen mid-level Taliban leaders, the strikes have taken out ten of al-Qaeda’s top twenty leaders.

• The drones’ greatest success was the August 2009 killing of Baitullah Mahsud, the former head of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Pakistan’s most wanted man. Baitullah was responsible for numerous suicide bombing outrages and was accused in the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

As impressive as this all is, however, the elephant in the room is asking if we are doing to the enemy what is tantamount to swatting at flies on a horse farm. It comes off as an infinite task.

It is the same sort of scenario our ground forces are facing. The proposed strategy of Clear, Hold and Transfer – a big piece to the COIN strategy – has actually turned into Clear, Hold, and Hold some more because there is an absence of leadership and ownership on the Afghan side of the house. If the war in Afghanistan was as simple as killing insurgents, the US military has the capability to do so on scale unprecedented in military history. They could do this, call it Pax Americana, and be out of the country inside of six weeks. However, that is not our mission as decided by our top policy makers. We opted instead in the two dreaded words: Nation Building. General McChrystal confirmed this in his population-centric strategy before his dismissal: “The ongoing insurgency must be met with a counterinsurgency campaign adapted to the unique conditions in each area that: protects the Afghan people, allowing them to choose a future they can be proud of; provides a secure environment allowing good government and economic development to undercut the causes and advocates of insurgency.”

Of course that strategy didn’t work in Vietnam and it has, so far as can be determined now, failed to live up to expectations in Afghanistan. Then again, the massive aerial bombings did not win the war in Vietnam either. It only allowed us to exit with an “honorable peace.” President Nixon’s Operations MENU and Line Backer (to name just two) certainly fulfilled their intended purposes, which were to bring Hanoi to the bargaining table, but only after Vietnamization was discarded. The bombing campaigns did not, however, change the nature of the enemy or cause democracy to spontaneously sprout up out of the ashes.

When we finally pulled our forces out of Vietnam, the West received a free education courtesy of the “Khmer Rouge,” and their Cambodian killing fields. Finally, it was revealed to everyone what kind of enemy we had faced. It was nothing less than an ideological demon capable of unparalleled ruthlessness. The North Vietnamese and their communist cohorts were not constrained by our morals and laws, and understood that these two American virtues served as our greatest weaknesses. They simply waited us out and let American politics run its course. There was something profoundly different about the enemy and it took wholesale slaughter to realize the point. Indeed a Khmer slogan directed at its victims said it best, ‘To spare you is no profit, to destroy you is no lost’. That all of course is all uneasy history now.

There isn’t a defeatist-bone in my body but like many, I am running out of optimism and charity. I haven’t lost faith in our military might. I’ve lost faith in the Afghan people and the strategy chosen to face a determined enemy networked throughout the Middle East and Pakistan. Our presence in Afghanistan isn’t likely to transform Afghan culture. Nor is the cumulative worth of our technology, blood and treasure likely to transplant a 9^th century tribal culture into a 21^st century functioning republic. New roads, schools, and hospitals are not going to fill the country with civic-minded, literate, freedom loving patriots. The successes and heroics of our nation’s military cannot solve the inconsistencies and backwardness of Afghan tribalism. American leadership cannot solve the problem of greed, corruption, and drug use that exists at every level of Afghan government. The Afghan government cannot prevent the dereliction of duty and corruption committed by Afghan police officers and military personnel. Brilliant performances by our commanders – and there have been many — cannot diminish the motivation the populace shows for harboring terrorists. Lastly, a war not defined by victory from its Commander in Chief is no war at all. It is a boondoggle.

All the militaries and treasuries in the world combined cannot solve the base issues afflicting Afghan culture. Absent of any real turn around – and that may not even be enough — makes one wonder if the war in Afghanistan, after 10 years of fighting and dying, will soon meet its political end here at home. If so, let’s just hope a better fate awaits those in Afghanistan than those of Cambodia and South Vietnam. If not, history should note that the Afghan people were given every chance at an alternative.