U.S. Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Brian Barker leads a group of Marines in a dash during an interdiction operation against insurgents near a bazaar in the Nad Ali district of Helmand province, Afghanistan, Dec. 4, 2013. Baker is assigned to 1st Battalion, 9th Marine Regiment. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Paul Peterson
Unraveling Afghanistan -- Pauline Baker, American Interest
Having spun an artificial Afghan state into existence, we can’t leave without it crashing into the ground.
Many Americans think that President Barack Obama’s decision to withdraw most if not all U.S. combat forces from Afghanistan by the end of this year will end the U.S. role in that country’s travails. To the extent they think about Afghanistan at all, most Americans seem to assume that when the last combat soldier has departed from what has been the longest war in American history, the United States (and its International Security Assistance Force [ISAF] allies) can close the book on Afghanistan with a mixed record of accomplishment. Indeed, if we listen to U.S. military commanders in country, we hear a generally upbeat assessment of the capabilities of the Afghan military and police to manage after we have left—as if that is the key, or even the only, factor impinging on the Afghan future. The more attentive public knows that Hamid Karzai is nearing the end of his legal tenure as national leader; most assume that the exit of this irascible personality is probably to the good, as well.
But is any of this true? Regrettably, no. Over the past dozen years, ISAF has created a virtual state within a state that will shrink dramatically once combat forces depart. This will leave a much weakened, highly militarized and deeply corrupt narco-state that could descend into outright civil war and, possibly, partition. The central question is not whether the Western-trained, supplied and financed Afghan security forces will be able to contain the Taliban insurgency, as is commonly thought. Even if they can, the more critical question is whether the state itself will hold together once Western life support is removed.
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My Comment: The paragraph that caught my attention was this one ....
.... Taliban attacks have become more brazen and frequent. In the first quarter of 2013, insurgents launched 2,331 attacks compared to 1,581 during the same period in the previous year, an increase of 47 percent, according to the independent Afghanistan NGO Safety Office. As the UN reported, during the first six months of 2013, civilian casualties were up 23 percent compared to the same period in 2012. Of the 1,319 deaths, 74 percent were attributed to anti-government forces. The fighting is likely to intensify as Western troops go home, peace feelers continue, and political jockeying intensifies in the run-up to the Afghanistan election due in April.
In short .... the Afghan war is intensifying.
2 comments:
Of course they would be with this Administration's strategy. We are retreating and they are hurrying us on our way and grabbing as much territory they can with out much of a fight.
Whenever and wherever the nexus of US-NATO-Jew-Sunni-Marx goes there is only one thing happening: A Consolidation of the 1% into a highly militarized State-within-a-State and an unraveling of the 99% into utterly failed civilization.
Afghanistan, Syria, Congo-, Niger- River Valleys and South Sudan are the latest underage fashion models to be gang-raped for resource porn.
The exiting colonialism did exactly the same in the 20th century.
I am yet to see one single country out of the 200-odd listed in the UN charter deserving of its national boundaries and identity. Not One. And they are all getting highly militarized State-within-a-State in a state of sheer terror.
That's why the mud-huts brought down the skyscrapers. It is a spatial problem only an architect can begin to understand.
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