Why is Afghanistan bubbling?

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

First, a wee bit of a warm-up to the topic:

US soldier kills Afghan civilians in Kandahar
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-17330205
A US soldier in Afghanistan has killed at least 16 civilians and wounded five after entering their homes in Kandahar province, senior local officials say.
...
Before Sunday's killings, relations between international forces and the Afghan people were already at an all-time low following the accidental burning of the Koran by US soldiers last month, our correspondent adds.
...
A senior Afghan intelligence official called the latest attack a "propaganda victory for the Taliban".


Now, straight to the point. I think I can understand the argument that the latest outburst of indignation of the masses in Afghanistan (and elsewhere) is evidence that the leadership of the US military has done a pretty poor job in the geographic and cultural preparation of its troops, I mean you can't just go into a country and rely that you'd be revered by everybody by default, without knowing or at least trying to learn something about the local customs. OK, the short-term military victory has guaranteed a long-term military presence in Afghanistan, which is more than 10 years old now, but there are signs that the military didn't even bother to create a more or less reliable mechanism to obtain even the most basic "literacy" of its troops on the matters of the local culture, which would've been quite helpful when you think of it. And now they're paying the price for that. But I don't think the problem is just in "ignorance", it may be going much deeper.

Seems like we're now witnessing an attempt of Khamid Karzai to show the US who's the boss in his house. Except it's not really his house, but you may not want to tell him that. It's really amazing, but the news of the burning of the Koran copies in the Bagram air base somehow magically spread throughout the whole Afghanistan just overnight, even in places where they don't have internet access or television. As if it had been done in front of the webcam in the center of Kabul. How did that even happen?

And even if there's no conspiracy here, the question is not just about the hurt feelings of the pious believers, no. That's just an excuse. Otherwise the whole Muslim world would've invaded the streets and squares by now, and stoned all the US embassies. But it didn't happen, did it? What we see here is that the turmoil has a totally local character, and Karzai is trying to emerge as the boss of the situation, taking a leading role and seizing the initiative, taking full benefit of the situation and turning it into a political issue rather than cultural of religious. A thing it was always meant to be anyway. Even the Taliban were kind of "late" to the party and reacted with a lot of delay. Although articles like the above might be on to something by saying that the Taliban are again the big winners from this fallout.

And the background of this story is pretty prosaic. The US made steps towards initiating negotiations with the Taliban, as it became evident that the Taliban weren't going to go away so easily. Suddenly "The Taliban are not really our enemy". In doing that, the US obviously chose to bypass any potential participation of their Afghan vassal Karzai, who, in case those negotiations are successful, would slip further away into irrelevancy. Just consider this. The Taliban are about to open an office in Qatar, under the very promising title "Islamic Empirate of Afghanistan". And they agreed to start negotiations with the official representatives of the White House in Kabul, in a serious bid to earn international re-recognition. The US even went as far as to promise to release five prominent leaders of the Taliban from Gitmo "in case of progress in the negotiations". And these are not just some common cut-throats, they're key figures in the Taliban ranks, such as Mohammad Fazl, the former deputy minister of defense in the Taliban government. And also Abdul Haq Wasig, the former deputy chairman of the Taliban intelligence. I should note however that the Taliban opted for a compromise and they dropped the condition for the complete withdrawal of the US troops from Afghanistan, and that was the first step that opened up the consultations.

And what about the official authorities in Kabul? "Our buddy" Karzai has found himself in a delicate situation where his sworn enemies are being tickled by his presumed allies. Apart from the fact that this is a pretty blatant bypassing of Karzai's authority and a chance for the Taliban to strengthen their positions and to recover their organizational structure, the release of these two guys will be taken very negatively by the Hazaras in West Afghanistan. But it shouldn't be a surprise that they're at the receiving end in this situation, since it was recently demonstrated here that they're usually regarded as Iran's primary tool of influence in Afghanistan. It's a long chess game with many players and many seemingly paradoxical moves, remember?

The Shia Hazaras have all reasons to hate the former deputy minister of defense because he's responsible for the death of several thousand of their kin. In this situation, in order to appease that minority, Karzai will probably be compelled to officially distance himself from these US actions, if of course he wants to keep the alliance at any cost and keep the support of the ethnic minorities in the remote areas where Kabul has practically no authority. Otherwise the country would fall apart pretty fast, and Iran is sure to feel happy about this.

The White House, as always, is stating very confusing motives for its current initiatives. The fact that the Taliban are opening offices abroad is apparently seen as something positive in the US, because that could allow them to get out of Pakistan's "orbit of influence" and open a new phase of "peace negotiations", which only became possible after the assassination of Rabbani. An argument that I frankly find kind of difficult to grasp, since the Taliban killed him exactly because he was trying to negotiate separately with the various Taliban warlords (and with the Pashto as a whole) on Karzai's behalf. He was openly undermining their influence in the border regions. And by the way that assassination came very "timely" because Rabbani had started directly punching holes in the united ranks of the Taliban, using a sort of fragmentation tactic from the bottoms up. He had good connections on a grassroots level, much better than the Taliban themselves in fact. So he was dangerous to their plans. All that said, the argument that the Taliban would somehow get out of Pakistan's "orbit" just because they're expanding their diplomatic presence in the region and seeking legitimization and talking with their enemies, sounds pretty amateurish.

The negotiations in Qatar happened exactly because that's what the Pakistani intelligence wanted, not the opposite. It was the Pakistani intelligence that asked the Qataris to guarantee Taliban presence at the negotiations, and they shaped the preliminary conditions of the meeting right from the start. So, if we drop these unsustainable arguments, the bottom line is this: The US is about to start talks with the Taliban to negotiate the terms of an "honorable surrender" and gradual withdrawal from Afghanistan, and handing the country over back to the Taliban, under some conditions. And Karzai, "our buddy", doesn't seem to have a place in that scheme. The US is now talking with their "sworn enemies", who were the very reason for the US starting that adventure in Afghanistan. How nice is that?

At the moment, 3 out of the 4 regional councils of the Taliban are led by people who openly identify themselves with Al Qaeda and who were considered among the closest supporters of Osama bin Laden (like Sheikh Muhammad Aminullah who's now leading the Taliban in Peshawar).

In this context I can't agree with those who say that the US position is "naive". I don't think it's naive at all, it's rather "involuntary". It looks like the only possible somewhat-beneficial scenario given the current circumstances. If after 10 years of constant war, as the Pentagon has admitted, it's still far from being able to fully rely on the Afghani "security forces" to do their job in securing peace and political stability in the country on their own - then there's just one word that could be used for that, no matter how hard we try to whitewash it: and that word is defeat. The Mission is far from Accomplished. And that's hardly a surprise, as both the British and the Russians might tell you.

In this situation, Karzai is desperately trying to show some teeth, because he doesn't have much left to lose. He's the losing card in this game, and his days seem to be numbered, unless he can strike a deal with the Taliban. But I'm afraid he's no longer in a position to dictate the conditions of such a deal. The question of his political (and even physical) survival is a question of compromise with the Taliban. And that's the reason for his desire to start negotiations with them in whatever capacity they deign to grant him. It's also why he's approaching Saudi Arabia for help. But the Saudis are rather cautious about picking a side in this game, because they don't want to make a major geopolitical gaffe that would come back at them later.

No doubt, the Saudis would gladly play along with Karzai for a while, at least initially. If not for any other purpose, at least to annoy their puppet pals the Qataris. And nothing more. And where do the "religious disturbances" come in this whole picture? Well, they're little more than a side sound effect and a mere expression of the dissatisfaction of the ordinary Afghanis with their unlikely Western "friends".

Comments

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

It was never going to "work", since it was entirely undertaken as a political campaign to keep Bush in office. The only "mission" wrt Afghanistan is keeping people paid and elected. The only "point" to Afghanistan was to seem like we "were doing something", and throw some 18 year old boys on the Barbies, and fry a couple innocents and act like we know what we're doing.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

Gee bru, it's almost like I'm hearing my own voice echo around my hollow skull!

[dukexmachismo.livejournal.com]

I agree with what you said, but you forgot to mention that war (especially one that can't be won) is the Ultimate Economic Stimulus Package.

[dwer.livejournal.com]

But the Saudis are rather cautious about picking a side in this game, because they don't want to make a major geopolitical gaffe that would come back at them later.

That concern never seems to stop the US...

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

American leaders have to worry about re-election more than they have to worry about the future.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

One of the upsides of a father-knows-best state!

[chessdev.livejournal.com]

This is a total tragedy.

It's also not just an issue of leadership -- put simply, those guys are out there too long and starting to break.

We have troops who are under their 4th, 5th and even 6th tour of combat duty out there. WAY too much.
Vietnam we had people coming back after 1 or 2 who were messed up.. there we have people 2-3 times as long.

You put people under that kind of pressure for extremely long periods of time and things like this are going to happen.
We need to pull those guys out of there now

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

And that's where the private contractors come in, right?

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

There's no comparing Vietnam to Afghanistan really.

[rimpala.livejournal.com]

Starting?

[madnecromancer.livejournal.com]

Can we really just blame emotional and physical fatigue to this sort of behaviour? I think its the years of training to be ruthless to your enemies and being injected with hate filled nationalist propaganda...and then being given firearms to use at your own discretion...its pretty clear that Iraqi/Afghani/Pakistani and other Muslim lives hold very little value to the U.S. army. To me its not just stress and hard situations but a very conscious hate and prejudice that drives these actions.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

The poor guy just snapped for some reason. I'm not in a position to judge on that. It may be symptomatic for something that's been discussed above, that's for sure.

[whoasksfinds.livejournal.com]

if your analysis was correct, don't you think this kind of thing would be more common?

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

Your weapons aren't exactly to be used at your own discretion.
You got a boss, and that boss tells you when to fire and when to hold your fire. (save the obvious: enemy pulls a gun, you dont gotta wait for boss to tell you to fire)

point being, dude had a superior and his indoctrination taught him to obey that. yet he didn't. no military higher up told him to do this.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

This alone does not lead to these excesses. It's when you put this with a complete collapse of military discipline and enforcement of the UCMJ that you start seeing more of this.

[luzribeiro.livejournal.com]

The US is about to start talks with the Taliban to negotiate the terms of an "honorable surrender" and gradual withdrawal from Afghanistan, and handing the country over back to the Taliban, under some conditions.

I see big trouble for Obama if that happens before November. Trouble that he could counter by starting another war in the same region.

[abomvubuso.livejournal.com]

A Wag The Dog (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wag_the_Dog) v.2.0 story, so to speak?

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Oh he's not worried about Republicans pushing him into war. He came out swinging in the most recent press conference telling everyone to cool their "war war war!" jets on the Republican side.

[terminator44.livejournal.com]

Trouble that he could counter by starting another war in the same region.

Or maybe another region altogether. The military is already shifting its focus to East Africa. (http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/01/battleground-africa/) After all, the War on Opponents of U.S. Interests is supposed to be global, right?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I think what he'd be more likely to do is give Israel the weapons, and then if he's really Nixonian, leak a story that they won't attack before the election and give them the greenlight to do precisely this, so that while conservatives froth at the mouth about his lack of support for Israel the real Obama's given them the tools they need to strike and ensure he undercuts the GOP at just the right time.

But that probably vastly overstates any capability of the US government for such scheming. If paranoid master statesman (relative to the idiots that came after him, not to any barometer of global statesmen) Nixon couldn't keep such schemes secret, this bunch-a jokers in the White House now can't do it any more so.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I think that the USA's campaign in Afghanistan will prove in hindsight to be on three levels an example of how not to fight a war. First, the USA marched right in, drove out the Taliban, and proceeded to forget about the Taliban for a few years that gave the Taliban time to regroup and improve what they were doing. War 101 is DO NOT DO THIS SHIT. But War 101 was Militarese to Rummy and company. Second, the USA's contributions have been rather detrimental in terms even of uniting all of Afghanistan against them (which after all still counts as unification of a sort), while worsening a second time the civil war in Afghanistan, which will ultimately prove detrimental to the USA. And three, this as with the removal of Saddam Hussein benefited Iran. Which is precisely why Iran will want this war to stretch out forever as it keeps the Taliban focused on the USA, and the USA bogged down forever in a Central Asian equivalent to Vietnam where winning all the battles will never win the war.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

Read it again please, but this time carefully. The indignation of the mases in Afghanistan (and elsewhere) (as linked btw) is in referrence to the scandal with burning of the Koran copies. Not the killing of 16 civilians.

The entire premise of this post (although it began with the case of the 16 murdered civilians as a warm-up,as also stated in the very first line), stems from the scandal with the Koran burning, and goes beyond - which is why the killings weren't mentioned or discussed anywhere beyond the first "warm-up" paragraph.

Context and nuance do matter.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Nazi Germany, where it would have earned an SS officer promotion.

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

The news article points out that the US is setting up negotiations between Karzai's people and the Taliban. How does this imply that Karzai is being cut out?

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

You need to read articles in their entirety, rather than picking pieces of them:

1) ...the White House has stressed that any real negotiations must take place directly between the Karzai government and the Taliban, with U.S. diplomats only playing a facilitating role.

2) Yet it is clear that in Washington, there is a growing willingness to engage directly with the Taliban as foreign troops edge closer towards the exit in Afghanistan.

(1) is what the US says.
(2) is what the US is planning, or willing to do.

The two paragraphs follow immediately after each other.