[HIMC] BTL Q&A: Stephen Kinzer - Obama Plan to Escalate Afghan War Criticized as a Grave Error

Sun Feb 1 20:55:31 PST 2009

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Obama Plan to Escalate Afghan War
Criticized as a Grave Error
http://www.btlonline.org/2008/btl010909.html

 RealAudio
 MP3

Interview with journalist and author Stephen Kinzer,
conducted by Scott Harris

As
2008 draws to a close, the U.S. has seen its deadliest year in
Afghanistan since President Bush ordered the American invasion of the
nation in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on New York and
Washington.

Over the past year, Taliban attacks against Afghan
government and NATO troops have increased in number and sophistication.
But as U.S. and NATO forces react with more air strikes and raids on
villages, a greater number of civilians are being killed and injured,
creating a backlash against foreign troops and increased support for
the Taliban among the Afghans.

During the presidential campaign,
President-elect Barack Obama pledged to reduce the number of American
forces in Iraq, while sending tens of thousands more U.S. troops to
Afghanistan, which he maintained should be the central focus in the war
against al-Qaeda. Top Pentagon officials, including Defense Secretary
Robert Gates -- who will continue in his job under the new
administration, said they plan to send 20,000 to 30,000 additional U.S.
troops to Afghanistan by next spring in addition to the roughly 32,000
there now.

Between
The Lines' Scott Harris spoke with award-winning former New York Times
foreign correspondent and author Stephen Kinzer, who recently wrote an
article titled, "The Reality of War in Afghanistan." In the piece,
Kinzer warns of the danger he sees in President-elect Barack Obama's
plan to send additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan.

STEPHEN
KINZER: When you face a military problem that you can't control with a
certain number of troops, it's logical to assume that maybe with more
troops you'd be able to deal with it. But that's only true if you're
facing a military problem. I think what we're facing in Afghanistan is
a problem that's much more than simply military and that's why sending
more troops may very well have the opposite effect than the effect that
we desire. 

Each
of these countries in which the United States becomes militarily
involved, and of course has a long tradition and a culture of its own.
Afghanistan has a very particular culture. There's probably no other
country in the world where people unite so readily and so completely
against a foreign military presence. Just doing that is something like
part of the Afghan DNA. Afghanistan is a very, very difficult country
to subdue, largely because of this. 

Now the United States is
essentially telling the Afghans, you should be on our side because the
kind of society that we want, the things that we favor, our ideology is
better, than that that's being offered by the other side.

But,
people in Afghanistan by and large, don't make their choices on that
basis. They're not thinking, well, which side is going to offer me the
kind of life or the ideological framework or the political and economic
system that I like. They have another question, their question is,
"Who's from here?" and "Who is representing a foreign power in a
military uniform inside my country?" They unite against outside
military presence. This is what the British learned in the 19th
century, it's what the Russians learned in the 20th century and if
we're not careful, we're going to wind up learning the same lesson they
did in the 21st century. 

BETWEEN
THE LINES: Stephen, I wanted to ask you a bit about the relationship
between the Taliban and al-Qaeda. I think in the minds of most
Americans, the Taliban and al-Qaeda are one and the same. And of
course, if you look at the Sept. 11 attacks, there's no way in hell,
most Americans would countenance negotiations with al-Qaeda or the
Taliban. But of course, the reality on the ground is quite difference
and more complex in Afghanistan. Tell us a little bit about that
complexity and why you advocate that there should be negotiations.

STEPHEN
KINZER: Negotiating with al-Qaeda not only would be pointless, but
morally repugnant. The Taliban, however, is something very different.
The Taliban is a homegrown movement inside Afghanistan. It's quite a
loose coalition. Our own American military has identified 14 groups
that we seem to be fighting against in Afghanistan, under the general
rubric "Taliban." Now the way warlord and clan politics works in
Afghanistan is not as simple as we might think. A clan leader, a
warlord, a village chieftain, any kind of an elder who's responsible
for a community shifts alliances according to what's best for the
people he's responsible for. A warlord might be on the Taliban side
today, he might not be a Taliban tomorrow. Maybe he could be with the
Taliban, but also not be anti-American. Not everybody allied with
Taliban leaders shares that reactionary ideology that we saw when the
old Taliban regime was in power before Sept. 11th. So this is a very
diffuse coalition. 

We
need to get down on the ground with people who know Afghanistan well,
including President (of Afghanistan Hamid) Karzai, and try to figure
out which elements of the Taliban might be amenable to some kind of a
solution.  But when we approach those groups, even indirectly, the
first thing they say is, "We've got to have American troops out of the
country, then we will negotiate." I think maybe the fallback compromise
position might be: "At least, let the Americans withdraw from the
aggressive combat roles that they've been taking recently." That might
calm the situation down enough, so that we might be able to find out if
there is a way to calm the situation in a nonmilitary way.  

BETWEEN
THE LINES: Stephen Kinzer, are there any advisors or Cabinet-level
people in the incoming Obama administration that you think will give
him similar warnings and advise him of the danger of unilateral
escalation here without a parallel diplomatic solution being sought. 

STEPHEN
KINZER: I don't see anyone in the inner circle around Obama who might
be making this argument, which I do think you're hearing increasingly
outside the Obama circles -- which is that our problem in Afghanistan
is just as serious as everybody says it is, it's really terribly
threatening -- but it cannot be resolved with an escalation of forces. 
Obama
is really facing something very serious here. Traditionally,
Afghanistan used to be called the graveyard of empires. Under certain
circumstances, it could become Obama's.

Stephen Kinzer's latest
book is titled, "A Thousand Hills: Rwanda's Rebirth and the Man Who
Dreamed It." Read Kinzer's Oct. 15 article, "The Reality of War in
Afghanistan," online at http://www.boston.com

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