The Coming Catastrophe: the American War in Afghanistan and Pakistan

By Richard Tanter

Summary
By virtually every measure, the war in Afghanistan is getting much worse for both the western coalition and for the Afghan civilian population. The strategic benefits are minimal to non-existent, the risks of a widening war alarming, and the moral and humanitarian consequences appalling. Strategic confusion, institutional inertia and self-interest provide most of the answer as to why the US remains in Afghanistan. Australia’s commitment shares the same strategic confusion, mixed with a diffuse paternalistic enthusiasm not too far distant from a nineteenth century imperialist ideal of civilising the natives. The US, and its allies, will leave, without any definable or honourable victory. The Afghans will stay. If the current logic of expansion of the war engulfs Pakistan, withdrawal and defeat will take place eventually, but later, and after an infinitely more catastrophic and dangerous war. Could a new US administration transform these outcomes?

Introduction
On September 22, the UN Security Council unanimously passed Resolution 1833 (2008) extending the authorization of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan for a further year until 13 October 2009.[1] Yet the matter was barely mentioned in the Australian press, and no peace organisation put its head above ramparts to note the legal extension of the war. This resolution and its predecessors, invoking Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter, binding on all member states, provide the legal basis for the deployment of Australian military forces in Afghanistan, and those of its partner countries operating as part of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) or in the parallel United States-commanded Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF). This overwhelmingly western military coalition now fields 52,000 soldiers in Afghanistan, up from 36,000 at the beginning of 2007, including almost 1,100 from Australia.[2]

Defence officials of Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, Germany, Britain and the United States regularly cite three reasons why their troops are still fighting and dying in Afghanistan, in increasing numbers and with increasing numbers of civilian casualties.[3] Two of those reasons are essentially arguments about strategic interest: preventing the return of safe havens for international terrorist networks in Afghanistan, and ensuring that country does not become a narco-state. In the language of UNSC 1833, like that of both the Howard and Rudd governments, coalition forces are mandated to combat the increased violent and terrorist activities by the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, illegally armed groups, criminals and those involved in the narcotics trade, and the increasingly strong links between terrorism activities and illicit drugs.

The third rationale for the continuing western presence in Afghanistan, seven years after the destruction of the Al Qaeda bases and overthrow of the Taliban government, is based less on strategic interests than a claim of moral or humanitarian responsibility for Afghan democracy and protection of human rights. This now amounts to unquestioning support for the Karzai government in Kabul, elected under UN auspices in 2004.

By virtually every yardstick, the war in Afghanistan is getting much worse for both the western coalition and for the Afghan civilian population.[4] The number of districts under Taliban influence[5], the number of “security incidents”[6], the number of suicide attacks[7], the number of regions that are “No Go zones” for UN and aid workers[8], the number of coalition dead[9], the number of civilian dead and wounded[10], the number of insurgent attacks on civilians[11], the number of coalition air strikes[12], the number of insurgent roadside bombs attacks[13], the number of insurgent attacks on government officials, especially police, the size of the opium crop[14], the number of households involved in opium production[15], the size and sophistication of transnational heroin production and export networks[16] – all have increased or worsened markedly in the past two years.

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