I've accepted an invitation to attend a Centre for European Reform (CER) forum in Brussels tonight to listen to speakers from London tackling the issue of Afghanistan... There will be Q&A... In anticipation of what's ahead in tonight's CER meet, I am taking this opportunity to blog my recent thoughts on the issue.
Fellow bloggers Vig of
Sozadee CA, Mike of
Madmikes'America, James of
An Average American Patriot and Tom of
Politics Plus have recently stepped up the drumbeat against the UN-mandated NATO peacekeeping operations in Afghanistan and have called for the withdrawal of US and NATO troops in the conflict-torn region.
Initially, I supported NATO's peace-keeping operations in Afganistan because of my ultimate belief that the Afghans needed help to re-build their nation and that to do this, the Talibans and the Al Qaeda had to be contained. However, operations have developed into a full-scale war of attrition pitting Taliban-Al Qaeda factions and NATO allies in a conflict without end, without a
'victory' in sight for the UN-mandated NATO alliance and the Afghan government in Kabul. Have we actually strayed from the initial purpose of the exercise?
In a Atlantic Community
discussion following British Defence Secretary John Hutton's criticism of NATO allies early this year, I pointed out that we seem to have forgotten that quashing terrorism, which remains the popular belief today why NATO is in Afghanistan, was not the principal aim --
it was a subsidiary aim. The main aim was to help Afghanistan achieve some sort of democratic rule whereby it could police its own state and become a member of the world community. This would imply much more than a military action by NATO.
All said, what is really making me re-think my own position is a report I've just read which now tells a different story but which, incidentally, seems to jibe with what I've always put forward, i.e., economics.
In an
Atlantic Forum discussion early this year, I wrote:
I think the idea that the US will spend 150M$ per year providing some 30,000 soldiers to Afghanistan, whereas the same money could provide ONE million Afghan soldiers has the kernel of the solution to the problem. Creating a one million man Afghan army could be the beginning of the defeat of terrorist recruitment in Afghanistan, i.e., on the very basic economic front alone, it certainly would help alleviate the economic problem facing the Afghan man and his family. As we all know, it is not with military force that we will win, but by creating prosperity so that people do not want to become fanatics or to risk their lives by being terrorists.
But the the story now involves a different number: billions of dollars being spent on Afghanistan
every month. In that story, John Kerry's message is we cannot win by force. That, for me, is dead on. It's time to spend the money differently.
In retrospect, had we simplified our participation from the onset, eg., invested in infrastructure what we have spent in defence, Afghanistan would have electricity everywhere, water everywhere, schools in every town, perhaps things wouldn't have been as bad.
In other words, while I wholeheartedly accept that we must ultimately let the Afghan people win the battle we, the West, must provide MASSIVE financial support to help [them] win that battle. My belief is that if UN-mandated NATO totally withdraws from the region without a clear plan B, it will spell victory for Islam fundamentalist extremists, a victory that could set Afghanistan back to stone age. I also fear that a victory by extremists in Afghanistan would realistically encourage Islamic
jihad against the West (but we can eventually live with that) and against the world at large which I'd like to think is a legitimate enough concern.
Perhaps, it's time we went back to the policy drawing board. Western involvement should now be just entirely UN-led -- not NATO and not the USA which are both seen as military occupation forces; perhaps, get Islamic nations on side, get Turkey or Indonesia to lead an all Muslim nation coalition rather than an American or NATO-led alliance, but I don't think it will be sensible to just run away from the problem in the hope that it will go away.
US spending $3.6 billion a montj in Afganistan according to CRS report
By Roxana Tiron - 10/14/09 04:08 PM ET
The U.S. spends about $3.6 billion a month in Afghanistan, according to data provided by the Congressional Research Service recently.
The average cost per month is calculated at an average 51,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, but that number likely will go higher with the 68,000 troops the Obama administration already is planning on having in that country, and could double if President Barack Obama backs a reported request from Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the commander in Afghanistan, to send as many as 40,000 more troops to the country.
The cost of sending one U.S. soldier in Afghanistan for one year is $1 million versus an estimated $12,000 for an Afghani soldier, according to Steve Daggett, a specialist with the Congressional Research Service. Those numbers fall within the calculations that the Obama administration has been using. The Obama administration is calculating $1 billion per 1,000 troops deployed to Afghanistan.
