There Is No Need for Extra Troops to Afghanistan

By John V Kalulanga
London, UK

THE TROOPS SURGE

There is no need to send extra troops or escalate the surge of troops into Afghanistan by the coalition forces composed mainly by the USA and UK. There is probably more than the required number of troops on the ground to fight and win the war against the Taliban. What is needed in Afghanistan is just to work out new strategies aimed at shifting the focus of the western powers from aggression in Afghanistan to peace making including working side-by-side with Afghan people in hunting Al Qaeda, its leadership and to dismantle its cells as they may emerge to be the key to this debacle.

What is not needed now is to dig for every inch of Afghanistan territory but instead to win with the heart, minds, aspirations and hopes of the Afghan people. I believe that will also influence and attenuate the already shuttered and blinkered western attitudes towards weaker nations. There is also a need to avoid linking the Palestinian question with that of Afghanistan, because the Palestinian question has been with us since 1948. In addition the west should avoid thinking that the troop surge will work in Afghanistan because it worked in Iraq even though the circumstances there were radically different. Even in Iraq, the jury is still out, as witnessed by two deadly suicide bombings that killed so many people

We continue to see numerous deadly bombings, kidnappings and summary executions of innocent civilians ever since President Bush declared the end of hostilities. Afghan people never depended on their government in any case; they relied on their communities and cultural structures of governance to offer them protection and succour. In Iraq, an imposed centralised government of a totalitarian nature run by Saddam Hussein held sway for over 24 years. Afghanistan, up to now is controlled by clan warlords and by the Taliban. The society itself is feudal and it is a long while away to change it to western style democratic standards. This is also the case with Somalia.

The western powers need to remember that their mission there is not to organise elections or to build roads or choose who should govern Afghanistan. These questions, of road construction, organising elections, deciding the nature of the administration etc should be entirely the responsibility of the loya jirga and /or of the people of Afghanistan. The focus of the west should be entirely limited to work with whichever regime is in power and to intensify or escalate the search for Al Qaeda and its cells. This means working out a long-term strategy and mechanisms aimed at ensuring that Afghan territory will never again be used as a sanctuary or stepping stone for terrorism on other nations.

THE DILEMMAS OF THE AFGHAN WAR

The politicians on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean should be aware that no conventional weaponry can win a war in such volatile environment that is characterised by the following circumstances:

1) A war in a country where foreign troops are perceived as an occupying force;

2) Lack of local intelligence on functions and operational cells of the enemy;

3) Fighting a war without frontline and an enemy who has no uniform;

4) Fighting an enemy within and an enemy who has no conventional rules, boundaries and collective responsibility;

5) Lack of experience and capability of the infantry to sustain and maintain ground fire power without relying on air power support or air drone attack. A war can never be won with smart bombs;

6) Lack of local knowledge and experience of territory and terrain of the area and in an oriental country that has a long history of conflict and war with foreign invaders. The current USA led invasion does not have sufficient knowledge to enable it to overrun a very determined enemy in their terrain. This is the scenario as it was in Vietnam. The ex-Soviet Union learnt this lesson at a heavy cost and was eventually defeated by the local Afghan Mujaheddin fighters;

7) Lack of understanding of language, culture, custom and religion of the local people;

8) Fighting an enemy motivated by cultural and religious values;

9) Lack of coalition of cohesive and unified goals and objectives within the allied forces;

10) A war where the coalition forces don’t believe in what they are fighting for and let alone knowing what to achieve; and

11) A war which doesn’t have support at home. The Vietnam War was lost by the USA because of the collapse in public support and the determination of the Vietnamese people to resist both French and later American aggression. These are the same symptoms we are seeing today in Afghanistan.

In these circumstances, it is impossible to task the coalition forces to win the Afghan war militarily regardless of the size of troops and the highly sophisticated weaponry that are deployed there. The surge in Iraq for e.g. has not worked, if you consider the on going devastating suicide bombings that are claiming so many innocent precious lives.