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SHOULD THE UNITED STATES REASSESS IT’S POLICY AND ROLE IN AFGHANISTAN?
Tyler Brown
Dr. Holzhauer
American Foreign Policy
November 11, 2008
The United States has been occupying Afghanistan and conducting military operations in the area since 2001. These military actions will have cost the U.S. a total of $173 billion by FY2009 as reported by www.fas.org. This coupled with the fact that the U.S. has roughly 48,000 soldiers in Afghanistan, has made this conflict in Afghanistan the most costly financially and the highest recipient of U.S. manpower than any other country save Iraq. Yet, despite this massive allocation of U.S. resources there has been an exponential increase in attacks by the Taliban since 2003 making the situation within Afghanistan dire for the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), and Hamid Karzai’s government.
Intervention in Afghanistan by the U.S. began in the 1980’s when the U.S. covertly sent money and weaponry to the mujahedeen, holy warriors, to fight the invading Soviets. Upon the departure of the Soviets in 1989 a civil war broke out between the mujahedeen and the communist regime of Afghanistan. The communists were expelled in April of 1992 when the mujahedeen captured Kabul. A general peace was agreed to in 1993 in which a temporary government was created. By 1994 a new militant group had arisen from the south and southeastern portions of Afghanistan which was named the Taliban. The Taliban was nearly exclusively Pashtun and had a consolidated position around the cities of Kandahar and Charasiab. On September 27, 1996, the Taliban captured Kabul and established “a new government for Afghanistan based on Islamic law.” (Gohari 9) The continuation of civil war in Afghanistan persisted primarily between the Taliban and the United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan (Northern Alliance). By September 11, 2001, the Taliban were virtually in control of all of Afghanistan, except for 5-10% in the North still controlled by the Alliance, and two days prior had the good fortune of having the Alliance’s leader, Ahmed Shah Massoud, assassinated by al Qaeda.
However, due to the attacks perpetrated by al Qaeda on the World Trade Centers in New York City the Taliban’s dominance of Afghanistan would be short-lived. As a result of the attacks on the WTC on 11 September, President Bush demanded certain provisions from the Taliban government. As Osama bin Laden was suspected to be the mastermind of the operation, President Bush demanded among other things the handing over of al Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan, the closure of terrorist training camps, and the deliverance of all known terrorists within Afghanistan. Due to the refusal of the demands by Mullah Omar, the leader of the Taliban government, the U.S. prepared for war, and Operation Enduring Freedom was launched on October 7, 2001.
The defeat and scattering of al Qaeda that resulted in late 2001 and early 2002 was accomplished primarily by a combination of a few hundred coalition Special Forces units, the remnants of the Northern Alliance, and massive amounts of air support from British and American aircraft. The first objective of the operation was to establish communication with three most powerful generals of the Northern Alliance, “Generals Abdur Rashid Dostum, Millah Daoud, and Fahim Kahn.” (Stewart 10) According to Dr. Richard Stewart in his pamphlet, The United States Army in Afghanistan: Operation Enduring Freedom, October 2001-March 2002,
The concept of the operation in Afghanistan was to land teams first into the Mazar-e Sharif and Bagram-Kabul areas, followed almost simultaneously by insertions into the Kondoz-Taloqan region. Once these areas were secured, the plan was to move teams to liberate Kandahar, the center of the Taliban movement. Then the focus would shift to a likely area of enemy concentration in the Tora Bora Mountains.
Thus the Special Forces teams landed in Northwest Afghanistan and established contact with General Dostum with whom the SF launched an offensive on Mazar-e Sharif. This action culminated with the capture of the city by NA forces on 10 November, and led to a NA and SF offensive onto Kabul. The NA forces under Massoud’s successor, General Khan, entered Kabul on 14 November after nearly 4 weeks of coalition air strikes on the Taliban positions. Simultaneously with the NA and SF drives in the north of Afghanistan, U.S. Ranger units raided Kandahar under Operation Rhino and, “Although the tactical results of the raid were mixed the Taliban was shown that U.S. forces could strike anywhere and anytime and that no location in Afghanistan was a safe haven any longer.” (Stewart 14) By 23 November General Daoud and SF forces had successfully captured the cities of Taloqan, Khanabad, and Kondoz after massive airstrikes and skillful use of diplomacy. Thus northern Afghanistan was completely in control of the NA, and NA and SF units began to move in force on Kandahar, the Taliban central command. U.S. SF units had made contact with Hamid Karzai, an anti-Taliban Pashtun leader, with whom they quickly began training the men under his command to fight the Taliban. Another anti-Taliban leader in the area, Gul Sharzai, also linked up with Karzai and the SF forces and together these forces began a series of attacks and negotiations with the Taliban around Kandahar from 18 November until 7 December. The fighting around Kandahar proved to be the stiffest resistance yet scene by the SF and NA forces conducting the attacks since the beginning of operations. By 7 December however, the Taliban had evacuated Kandahar. Thus with the urban centers of Taliban control taken over by NA and American forces, the retreating Taliban and al Qaeda forces had moved onto the Tora Bora stronghold on the Pakistan border where a defensive position was prepared. U.S. SF units under the name “Task Force Dagger” would guide and instruct anti-Taliban afghan militias against the insurgents at Tora Bora, and provide air support once a position of vision in the mountains had been established. The two week battle resulted in the majority of al Qaeda fighters either being killed or escaping into Pakistan. Another significant aspect of this battle is that Osama bin Laden and some portions of the al Qaeda high command were thought to be with the insurgents at Tora Bora, however it is believed he escaped into Pakistan before the battle had ended. The next significant offensive taken by U.S. and Afghan forces would be Operation Anaconda which would take place in the Shahi Kowt valley on the Pakistan border from 2 to 19 March 2002. The U.S. special forces and Afghan militia’s priority was to isolate the valley which was believed to have as many as 1000 insurgents in it, and slowly tighten the circle via land units while pounding the enemy with airstrikes through the duration of the battle. By 19 March the operation had been declared over and a success. Hundreds of al Qaeda militants were believed to have been killed and the valley rid of all insurgents. This battle proved to be the end of the first portion of OEF.
Some criticism is leveled on the American handling of the battles of Tora Bora and Shahi Kowt perhaps most notably by Michael Scheuer, the former head of the CIA’s bin Laden unit. In his 2004 book Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror, Dr. Scheuer criticizes the Bush administration for acting too slowly and with too little force. The latter criticism would prove to be detrimental to the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan especially given the size of the undefeated Taliban and the longevity of the battles of Tora Bora and Shahi Kowt. In his book Scheuer asserts,
The two major battles fought by al Qaeda at Tora Bora and Shahi Kowt, moreover, may also have been delaying actions meant to let other fighters leave Afghanistan. The Tora Bora fighting, for example, gave insurgents south of Nangarhar Province about three weeks to cross unmolested into Pakistan, while the March 2002 Shahi Kowt battle—also about three weeks—let fighters along almost all of Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan to scoot unmolested and undetected.
Since the “formal” defeat of the Taliban in Afghanistan Karzai has been appointed leader of the transitional government in 2002 and elected President of Afghanistan in 2004, the Taliban has reconstituted itself in Pakistan and in the southern provinces of Afghanistan, and there has been a near exponential growth in the number of attacks by Taliban militants since 2003. The Bush administration has been currently criticized for “taking its eye off the ball” by many who feel the 2003 Iraq incursion has allowed the situation in Afghanistan to deteriorate. According to icasualties.org, the number of U.S. troop fatalities has progressed by year as such: 12 in 2001, 49 in 2002, 48 in 2003, 52 in 2004, 99 in 2005, 98 in 2006, 117 in 2007, and 151 in 2008. These 626 fatalities coupled with 2,581 U.S. personnel wounded in Afghanistan, as reported by cnn.com, makes Afghanistan the second deadliest theatre in the “War on Terror.” In recent months the number of U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan has surpassed that of Iraq, as foreign fighters enter the country and fight with the Taliban. The continually tenacious Taliban has gone on the offensive in many provinces using ambushes, roadside IEDs, and fighting near civilian populations that usually result in the killing of civilians in airstrikes. That last point has been a major factor in the great dissatisfaction of the Karzai government and much of the population as civilian casualties has risen greatly in the past year.
Many of the above stated elements of the current situation in Afghanistan have caused many to speak out about a reevaluation of our policy in Afghanistan.
Some have called for an Iraq style “surge” in the country that would involve transferring as many as 10,000 troops from Iraq to Afghanistan in order to increase security. Another portion of the surge was the “Sunni-awakening” which was the virtual payment of Sunni militia’s in Al Anbar province, and the insurance that U.S. troops wouldn’t leave the militias to combat al Qaeda in Iraq alone.
Another possible policy change would be one of unilateralism against insurgents, terrorists, or militants hiding along the Afghan-Pakistan border or in the mountains of Pakistan. In recent months there has been a visibly increased use of unmanned Predator drones to cross the Pakistan border and attack suspected whereabouts of al Qaeda and Taliban fighters. This policy would consist of even more increased use of unmanned drones in bombing runs as well as conventional bombing by military aircraft, and even the landing of troops within Pakistan to extricate militants before they can cross the border into Afghanistan.
A final policy alternative could be one of limited objectives and negotiations. Objectives being that of the capture or death of Osama bin Laden and al-Zawahiri. Negotiations would take place with the Taliban regarding power structure within the new government, withdrawing foreign troops, and separating foreign fighters and al Qaeda from the Taliban.
The final policy seems to be the most practical one of the three. The first policy regarding a surge of the Iraq model into Afghanistan isn’t feasible or practical. To increase troop numbers this late in the war will only provide more targets for militants and expose more troops to militants. This has a possibly detrimental result in that more airstrikes will be called which will result in more civilian deaths and thus leading to further popular discontent among Pashtuns, and will push them to aid the Taliban even further. The added troops may also be seen by the Afghanis as a never ending incoming of occupying soldiers to supplement those already there. The geographical differences between Iraq and Afghanistan are also far too different to implement an increasing of troops. Iraq is primarily urban allowing for easy concentration of forces. Afghanistan on the other hand is very rural and mountainous making a 10,000 troop increase or even a 50,000 troop increase seem trivial. The Taliban doesn’t draw its strength from its power in Kabul or Kandahar, but from its ability to ambush in the countryside. The idea of paying the traditionally xenophobic Pashtun tribesmen to do the U.S.’s bidding also doesn’t hold much water according to this quote from Scheuer’s book,
In the late 1980’s, it is said, a senior U.S. diplomat—speaking for a government that was donating billions of dollars to the mujahedeen—met Hisbi Islami chief Yunis Khalis, a recipient of American largesse, and told him that because Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was seriously considering the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan, the insurgents should encourage Moscow by slowing combat activity. Khalis is said to have quietly responded: “No we will kill them until they go.”
The second policy alternative given seems just as easily flawed. To continue and even accelerate such visible military action within Pakistan would only unite Pakistan against the U.S., and be used as a powerful recruiting tool for the Pakistani Taliban and al Qaeda. The possibility of achieving any success from this policy seems dwarfed compared to the long term consequences that could result from its implementation.
As stated before the final policy seems the most feasible, and the one that could yield the most for the smallest price. To begin negotiations with the Afghan Taliban in order to determine if a peaceful end can be achieved while still accomplishing the goals of the policy seems the only solution. If the goals of our “War on Terror” are to bring to justice the acts of 11 September, it only seems feasible that we go after those who perpetrated it, al Qaeda. The retraining and vast expansion of Special Forces and clandestine services such as the CIA in order to combat al Qaeda will achieve much more than the use of conventional mass firepower. Covert operations and surgical strikes should be the tool to combat this war. Not nation building in an attempt to make a puppet state to aid us. Police, government, and army corruption is massive in the area which shows how little the tribal nature of Afghanistan cares for a Western-style democracy at this point. Playing off of the xenophobic nature of the Pashtuns in order to give up the Arab al Qaeda may be an option in the negotiations. The capacity for massive blowback, both financially and militarily, in Afghanistan is immense so it seems that the way forward for the U.S. is to begin plans for a withdrawal and to begin negotiations with the Taliban to dodge the quagmire which has begot every other invader of the country since Alexander.
Works Cited
CNN World. 11 Nov. 2008. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. 10 November 2008 http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2004/oef.casualties/.
Federation of American Scientists. 15 Oct. 2008. Federation of American Scientists. 10 November 2008 http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL33110.pdf
Gohari, M. J. The Taliban: Ascent to Power. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.
iCasualties.org: Operation Enduring Freedom. 11 Nov. 2008. iCasualties.org. 11 November 2008 < http://www.icasualties.org/oef/>.
Scheuer, Michael. Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror. Washington D.C.: Potomac Books, Inc, 2004.
Stewart, Richard W. The United States Army in Afghanistan: Operation Enduring Freedom, October 2001-March 2002. Washington D.C.: Histories Division of the Center of Military History, 2004.
Tyler Brown
Dr. Holzhauer
American Foreign Policy
November 11, 2008
The United States has been occupying Afghanistan and conducting military operations in the area since 2001. These military actions will have cost the U.S. a total of $173 billion by FY2009 as reported by www.fas.org. This coupled with the fact that the U.S. has roughly 48,000 soldiers in Afghanistan, has made this conflict in Afghanistan the most costly financially and the highest recipient of U.S. manpower than any other country save Iraq. Yet, despite this massive allocation of U.S. resources there has been an exponential increase in attacks by the Taliban since 2003 making the situation within Afghanistan dire for the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), and Hamid Karzai’s government.
Intervention in Afghanistan by the U.S. began in the 1980’s when the U.S. covertly sent money and weaponry to the mujahedeen, holy warriors, to fight the invading Soviets. Upon the departure of the Soviets in 1989 a civil war broke out between the mujahedeen and the communist regime of Afghanistan. The communists were expelled in April of 1992 when the mujahedeen captured Kabul. A general peace was agreed to in 1993 in which a temporary government was created. By 1994 a new militant group had arisen from the south and southeastern portions of Afghanistan which was named the Taliban. The Taliban was nearly exclusively Pashtun and had a consolidated position around the cities of Kandahar and Charasiab. On September 27, 1996, the Taliban captured Kabul and established “a new government for Afghanistan based on Islamic law.” (Gohari 9) The continuation of civil war in Afghanistan persisted primarily between the Taliban and the United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan (Northern Alliance). By September 11, 2001, the Taliban were virtually in control of all of Afghanistan, except for 5-10% in the North still controlled by the Alliance, and two days prior had the good fortune of having the Alliance’s leader, Ahmed Shah Massoud, assassinated by al Qaeda.
However, due to the attacks perpetrated by al Qaeda on the World Trade Centers in New York City the Taliban’s dominance of Afghanistan would be short-lived. As a result of the attacks on the WTC on 11 September, President Bush demanded certain provisions from the Taliban government. As Osama bin Laden was suspected to be the mastermind of the operation, President Bush demanded among other things the handing over of al Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan, the closure of terrorist training camps, and the deliverance of all known terrorists within Afghanistan. Due to the refusal of the demands by Mullah Omar, the leader of the Taliban government, the U.S. prepared for war, and Operation Enduring Freedom was launched on October 7, 2001.
The defeat and scattering of al Qaeda that resulted in late 2001 and early 2002 was accomplished primarily by a combination of a few hundred coalition Special Forces units, the remnants of the Northern Alliance, and massive amounts of air support from British and American aircraft. The first objective of the operation was to establish communication with three most powerful generals of the Northern Alliance, “Generals Abdur Rashid Dostum, Millah Daoud, and Fahim Kahn.” (Stewart 10) According to Dr. Richard Stewart in his pamphlet, The United States Army in Afghanistan: Operation Enduring Freedom, October 2001-March 2002,
The concept of the operation in Afghanistan was to land teams first into the Mazar-e Sharif and Bagram-Kabul areas, followed almost simultaneously by insertions into the Kondoz-Taloqan region. Once these areas were secured, the plan was to move teams to liberate Kandahar, the center of the Taliban movement. Then the focus would shift to a likely area of enemy concentration in the Tora Bora Mountains.
Thus the Special Forces teams landed in Northwest Afghanistan and established contact with General Dostum with whom the SF launched an offensive on Mazar-e Sharif. This action culminated with the capture of the city by NA forces on 10 November, and led to a NA and SF offensive onto Kabul. The NA forces under Massoud’s successor, General Khan, entered Kabul on 14 November after nearly 4 weeks of coalition air strikes on the Taliban positions. Simultaneously with the NA and SF drives in the north of Afghanistan, U.S. Ranger units raided Kandahar under Operation Rhino and, “Although the tactical results of the raid were mixed the Taliban was shown that U.S. forces could strike anywhere and anytime and that no location in Afghanistan was a safe haven any longer.” (Stewart 14) By 23 November General Daoud and SF forces had successfully captured the cities of Taloqan, Khanabad, and Kondoz after massive airstrikes and skillful use of diplomacy. Thus northern Afghanistan was completely in control of the NA, and NA and SF units began to move in force on Kandahar, the Taliban central command. U.S. SF units had made contact with Hamid Karzai, an anti-Taliban Pashtun leader, with whom they quickly began training the men under his command to fight the Taliban. Another anti-Taliban leader in the area, Gul Sharzai, also linked up with Karzai and the SF forces and together these forces began a series of attacks and negotiations with the Taliban around Kandahar from 18 November until 7 December. The fighting around Kandahar proved to be the stiffest resistance yet scene by the SF and NA forces conducting the attacks since the beginning of operations. By 7 December however, the Taliban had evacuated Kandahar. Thus with the urban centers of Taliban control taken over by NA and American forces, the retreating Taliban and al Qaeda forces had moved onto the Tora Bora stronghold on the Pakistan border where a defensive position was prepared. U.S. SF units under the name “Task Force Dagger” would guide and instruct anti-Taliban afghan militias against the insurgents at Tora Bora, and provide air support once a position of vision in the mountains had been established. The two week battle resulted in the majority of al Qaeda fighters either being killed or escaping into Pakistan. Another significant aspect of this battle is that Osama bin Laden and some portions of the al Qaeda high command were thought to be with the insurgents at Tora Bora, however it is believed he escaped into Pakistan before the battle had ended. The next significant offensive taken by U.S. and Afghan forces would be Operation Anaconda which would take place in the Shahi Kowt valley on the Pakistan border from 2 to 19 March 2002. The U.S. special forces and Afghan militia’s priority was to isolate the valley which was believed to have as many as 1000 insurgents in it, and slowly tighten the circle via land units while pounding the enemy with airstrikes through the duration of the battle. By 19 March the operation had been declared over and a success. Hundreds of al Qaeda militants were believed to have been killed and the valley rid of all insurgents. This battle proved to be the end of the first portion of OEF.
Some criticism is leveled on the American handling of the battles of Tora Bora and Shahi Kowt perhaps most notably by Michael Scheuer, the former head of the CIA’s bin Laden unit. In his 2004 book Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror, Dr. Scheuer criticizes the Bush administration for acting too slowly and with too little force. The latter criticism would prove to be detrimental to the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan especially given the size of the undefeated Taliban and the longevity of the battles of Tora Bora and Shahi Kowt. In his book Scheuer asserts,
The two major battles fought by al Qaeda at Tora Bora and Shahi Kowt, moreover, may also have been delaying actions meant to let other fighters leave Afghanistan. The Tora Bora fighting, for example, gave insurgents south of Nangarhar Province about three weeks to cross unmolested into Pakistan, while the March 2002 Shahi Kowt battle—also about three weeks—let fighters along almost all of Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan to scoot unmolested and undetected.
Since the “formal” defeat of the Taliban in Afghanistan Karzai has been appointed leader of the transitional government in 2002 and elected President of Afghanistan in 2004, the Taliban has reconstituted itself in Pakistan and in the southern provinces of Afghanistan, and there has been a near exponential growth in the number of attacks by Taliban militants since 2003. The Bush administration has been currently criticized for “taking its eye off the ball” by many who feel the 2003 Iraq incursion has allowed the situation in Afghanistan to deteriorate. According to icasualties.org, the number of U.S. troop fatalities has progressed by year as such: 12 in 2001, 49 in 2002, 48 in 2003, 52 in 2004, 99 in 2005, 98 in 2006, 117 in 2007, and 151 in 2008. These 626 fatalities coupled with 2,581 U.S. personnel wounded in Afghanistan, as reported by cnn.com, makes Afghanistan the second deadliest theatre in the “War on Terror.” In recent months the number of U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan has surpassed that of Iraq, as foreign fighters enter the country and fight with the Taliban. The continually tenacious Taliban has gone on the offensive in many provinces using ambushes, roadside IEDs, and fighting near civilian populations that usually result in the killing of civilians in airstrikes. That last point has been a major factor in the great dissatisfaction of the Karzai government and much of the population as civilian casualties has risen greatly in the past year.
Many of the above stated elements of the current situation in Afghanistan have caused many to speak out about a reevaluation of our policy in Afghanistan.
Some have called for an Iraq style “surge” in the country that would involve transferring as many as 10,000 troops from Iraq to Afghanistan in order to increase security. Another portion of the surge was the “Sunni-awakening” which was the virtual payment of Sunni militia’s in Al Anbar province, and the insurance that U.S. troops wouldn’t leave the militias to combat al Qaeda in Iraq alone.
Another possible policy change would be one of unilateralism against insurgents, terrorists, or militants hiding along the Afghan-Pakistan border or in the mountains of Pakistan. In recent months there has been a visibly increased use of unmanned Predator drones to cross the Pakistan border and attack suspected whereabouts of al Qaeda and Taliban fighters. This policy would consist of even more increased use of unmanned drones in bombing runs as well as conventional bombing by military aircraft, and even the landing of troops within Pakistan to extricate militants before they can cross the border into Afghanistan.
A final policy alternative could be one of limited objectives and negotiations. Objectives being that of the capture or death of Osama bin Laden and al-Zawahiri. Negotiations would take place with the Taliban regarding power structure within the new government, withdrawing foreign troops, and separating foreign fighters and al Qaeda from the Taliban.
The final policy seems to be the most practical one of the three. The first policy regarding a surge of the Iraq model into Afghanistan isn’t feasible or practical. To increase troop numbers this late in the war will only provide more targets for militants and expose more troops to militants. This has a possibly detrimental result in that more airstrikes will be called which will result in more civilian deaths and thus leading to further popular discontent among Pashtuns, and will push them to aid the Taliban even further. The added troops may also be seen by the Afghanis as a never ending incoming of occupying soldiers to supplement those already there. The geographical differences between Iraq and Afghanistan are also far too different to implement an increasing of troops. Iraq is primarily urban allowing for easy concentration of forces. Afghanistan on the other hand is very rural and mountainous making a 10,000 troop increase or even a 50,000 troop increase seem trivial. The Taliban doesn’t draw its strength from its power in Kabul or Kandahar, but from its ability to ambush in the countryside. The idea of paying the traditionally xenophobic Pashtun tribesmen to do the U.S.’s bidding also doesn’t hold much water according to this quote from Scheuer’s book,
In the late 1980’s, it is said, a senior U.S. diplomat—speaking for a government that was donating billions of dollars to the mujahedeen—met Hisbi Islami chief Yunis Khalis, a recipient of American largesse, and told him that because Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was seriously considering the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan, the insurgents should encourage Moscow by slowing combat activity. Khalis is said to have quietly responded: “No we will kill them until they go.”
The second policy alternative given seems just as easily flawed. To continue and even accelerate such visible military action within Pakistan would only unite Pakistan against the U.S., and be used as a powerful recruiting tool for the Pakistani Taliban and al Qaeda. The possibility of achieving any success from this policy seems dwarfed compared to the long term consequences that could result from its implementation.
As stated before the final policy seems the most feasible, and the one that could yield the most for the smallest price. To begin negotiations with the Afghan Taliban in order to determine if a peaceful end can be achieved while still accomplishing the goals of the policy seems the only solution. If the goals of our “War on Terror” are to bring to justice the acts of 11 September, it only seems feasible that we go after those who perpetrated it, al Qaeda. The retraining and vast expansion of Special Forces and clandestine services such as the CIA in order to combat al Qaeda will achieve much more than the use of conventional mass firepower. Covert operations and surgical strikes should be the tool to combat this war. Not nation building in an attempt to make a puppet state to aid us. Police, government, and army corruption is massive in the area which shows how little the tribal nature of Afghanistan cares for a Western-style democracy at this point. Playing off of the xenophobic nature of the Pashtuns in order to give up the Arab al Qaeda may be an option in the negotiations. The capacity for massive blowback, both financially and militarily, in Afghanistan is immense so it seems that the way forward for the U.S. is to begin plans for a withdrawal and to begin negotiations with the Taliban to dodge the quagmire which has begot every other invader of the country since Alexander.
Works Cited
CNN World. 11 Nov. 2008. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. 10 November 2008 http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2004/oef.casualties/.
Federation of American Scientists. 15 Oct. 2008. Federation of American Scientists. 10 November 2008 http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL33110.pdf
Gohari, M. J. The Taliban: Ascent to Power. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.
iCasualties.org: Operation Enduring Freedom. 11 Nov. 2008. iCasualties.org. 11 November 2008 < http://www.icasualties.org/oef/>.
Scheuer, Michael. Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror. Washington D.C.: Potomac Books, Inc, 2004.
Stewart, Richard W. The United States Army in Afghanistan: Operation Enduring Freedom, October 2001-March 2002. Washington D.C.: Histories Division of the Center of Military History, 2004.
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