Iraq then, Afghanistan now--What's the difference?

[tekisui]

Increasingly, the arguments for escalation in Afghanistan are ambiguous and shift with the political winds. There is a blind hypocrisy in those who have railed against the Iraq War, since its conception, yet support the escalation, now, in Afghanistan.

This is not about the perceived legitimacy of the initial invasion of Afghanistan. This is about the current arguments for escalation. The reasoning is eerily similar to the reasoning on the Iraq invasion. Disrupting terrorist camps, supporting (ahem)democracy, preventing weapons of mass destruction from falling into terrorists hands and ending a country's practice of violating human rights.

Is the sole difference that we are already there? That doesn't make sense. We are already in Iraq. Civilian casualties are on the rise. The government has become targets of insurgent attacks. Why aren't those defending staying the course or upping the ante in Afghanistan saying the same about Iraq?

Below is the Obama Administration's objectives in Afghanistan. It reads much like the initial objectives of the Iraq invasion. Yet, now, we are stuck defending a dictator in Afghanistan.


http://www.whitehouse.gov/assets/documents/afghanistan_pakistan_white_paper_final.pdf

Therefore, the core goal of the U.S. must be to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda and its safe havens in Pakistan, and to prevent their return to Pakistan or Afghanistan.

The ability of extremists in Pakistan to undermine Afghanistan is proven, while insurgency in Afghanistan feeds instability in Pakistan. The threat that al Qaeda poses to the United States and
our allies in Pakistan - including the possibility of extremists obtaining fissile material - is all too real. Without more effective action against these groups in Pakistan, Afghanistan will face
continuing instability.

Objectives

Achieving our core goal is vital to U.S. national security. It requires, first of all, realistic and achievable objectives. These include:

• Disrupting terrorist networks in Afghanistan and especially Pakistan to degrade any ability they have to plan and launch international terrorist attacks.

• Promoting a more capable, accountable, and effective government in Afghanistan that serves the Afghan people and can eventually function, especially regarding internal security, with limited international support.

• Developing increasingly self-reliant Afghan security forces that can lead the counterinsurgency and counterterrorism fight with reduced U.S. assistance.

• Assisting efforts to enhance civilian control and stable constitutional government in Pakistan and a vibrant economy that provides opportunity for the people of Pakistan.

• Involving the international community to actively assist in addressing these objectives for Afghanistan and Pakistan, with an important leadership role for the UN.

[unhappycamper]

1. IIRC, the Pakistian ISI set up the Taliban.

Perhaps Pakistan is the problem? Just asking.

[TwilightGardener]

2. Sorry, it's intellectually lazy and dishonest to say that Afghanistan = Iraq.

I know that people here want to lump them together now into Iraqistan or whatever, but they are different, with different origins, rationales and consequences.

[tekisui]

3. How is an escalation, now, any more justified than Iraq's invasion?

[TwilightGardener]

4. I don't know if the amount of soldiers Obama wants to send will

equal escalation (BROADENING the scope of the war) or reinforcement, because our soldiers are under increasingly heavy attack--remember, we had far, far fewer soldiers in Afghanistan for 8 years than in Iraq--there's still only about half of Iraq's biggest buildup numbers in Afghanistan. It was understaffed until the end of Bush's term. Nonetheless, the reasons for having invaded Afghanistan in the first place haven't disappeared, unless you believe there's no terror threat to the US from that region.

[tekisui]

5. There is no threat to the US from that region.

No attacks in the West have occurred through planning in that region since 2002.

The threats we face now are the homegrown radicals. Police work, not war, is the proper approach.

[TwilightGardener]

6. OK, so says you. I'm sure you have the intel to back that up.

[tekisui]

7. Here:

First, the claim that fighting a war in Afghanistan protects the streets of New York and London from terrorist attack. The crux of Dr Sageman's argument, and empirical research, is that, since 2002, there has not been a single terrorist plot in the west that can be traced back to Afghanistan. "The few that have any link to a transnational neo-jihadi terrorist group are linked to Pakistan," he told me. These include the 7/7 attacks and the more recent liquid bomb plot – in fact, as Gordon Brown himself conceded in December 2008, three-quarters of the terrorist plots investigated by British authorities can be traced back to Pakistan – and not Afghanistan.

Second, the claim that a resurgent Taliban poses a threat to the west. Dr Sageman is adamant that the prospect of "deeply divided" Taliban forces retaking Kabul and returning to power in Afghanistan is "not a sure thing". Nor would a Taliban return to power "mean an automatic new sanctuary for al-Qaida." The relationship between the two organisations, he says, "has always been strained … indeed, al-Qaida has so far not returned to Taliban controlled areas in Afghanistan." It is a view shared, incidentally, by a senior member of the Obama administration, the national security adviser, General James Jones, who told CNN that "the al-Qaida presence is very diminished. The maximum estimate is less than 100 operating in the country. No bases. No ability to launch attacks on either us or our allies."

Third, the claim that Afghanistan will benefit from an Iraq-style "surge" of western troops. This was Sageman's testimony on Capitol Hill:

Let me answer that with an old Middle Eastern proverb. 'It's me and my brother against my cousin. But it's me and my cousin against a foreigner.' So if we send 40,000 Americans ... that will coalesce every local rivalry; they will put their local rivalry aside to actually shoot the foreigners and then they'll resume their own internecine fight ... Sending troops with weapons just will unify everybody against those troops, unfortunately.

Dr Sageman is keen for policymakers in the west, who promote falsehoods and myths about Afghanistan while sitting "several thousand miles from the war zone", to acknowledge the futility of escalation, instead of recognising the success in ridding Afghanistan of al-Qaida, as long ago as 2002, and now switching the focus to Pakistan.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/oct/26/afghanistan-al-qaida

[TwilightGardener]

8. I don't think anyone disputes that what remains of AQ is probably

over the border in Pakistan. And I agree that we don't need to conquer the Taliban, or even "stabilize" the country. I support a narrowing of the mission to counterterrorism and that's it. That said, you're now acknowledging that Iraq and Afghanistan are two different cases, and must be solved on their own terms. There really WAS a threat from Afghanistan, and it has shifted to Pakistan because of our presence. There was never, ever any threat from Iraq, it was totally bogus. Even the gentleman you cite says we must now focus on Pakistan--no different from what Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden say--which makes it unlikely that we can leave the immediate Afghanistan border region anytime soon, unfortunately--to conduct counterterror operations and intelligence. As far as sending 40,000 more troops--it doesn't look likely to happen. I think Obama will change the mission somewhat, and send less troops than requested.

[timeforpeace]

9. Thank you for a brilliant thread and for exposing the "blind hypocrisy" as you succinctly put it.

The dearth of responses speaks loudly.