Why Iowans Should Care About Iraq War III

September 16, 2014, 4:30 p.m.

Note: Click here for an updated list of prior columns and blog essays about terrorism and war.

Why Do We Accept Words Like "Islam," "State," and "Caliphate"?

To say a military tactic is legal, or even effective, is not to say it is wise or moral in every instance. For the same human progress that gives us the technology to strike half a world away also demands the discipline to constrain that power -- or risk abusing it. And that’s why . . . clear guidelines, oversight and accountability [are] now codified in Presidential Policy Guidance that I signed yesterday.

In the Afghan war theater, we . . . will continue to take strikes against high value al Qaeda targets, but . . . the progress we’ve made against core al Qaeda will reduce the need for unmanned strikes.

Beyond the Afghan theater, we only target al Qaeda and its associated forces. . . .

America . . . take[s] strikes . . . against terrorists who pose a continuing and imminent threat to the American people . . .. [emphasis supplied]

-- President Barack Obama, "Remarks by the President at the National Defense University," Fort McNair Washington, D.C., May 23, 2013

"[T]he President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001 . . ..” [emphasis supplied]

-- "Authorization for Use of Military Force," September 14, 2001 ((Pub. L. 107-40, codified at 115 Stat. 224).

_______________
On September 12 I embedded a column in a blog essay titled, ""Whatever Is the Question, Is War the Best Answer?" -- with links to 10 prior, related blog essays. (Nicholas Johnson, "Is War the Best Answer?" Iowa City Press-Citizen, September 12, 2014, p. A7). That column pointed out that the intelligence community seems to have concluded there is presently little to no likelihood of what the White House calls ISIL conducting terrorist activity inside the United States, and it posed the questions, "Why is Iraq War III in our nation's best interests, and if so, what is our goal, our objective, and 'How would we know if we'd ever been successful?'"

But 600 words is not enough to pursue all the related issues, let alone keep up with unfolding events in this adventure. So there may well be even more blog essays to come over time. Here is today's.

It is personally disappointing that there is not more citizen debate on this war -- including within Iowa. There are many ways in which it impacts Iowans. Iowans are sent to war; some never return, some suffer physical and psychological damage that can last a lifetime, too many reduce their life span through suicide. Families are disrupted, with stress sometimes leading to divorce. Fighting wars on a credit card instead of a pay-as-you-go war tax means there is the financial opportunity cost of war -- the trillions already spent, and billions that continue to be spent, are funds that are unavailable for our roads and bridges, schools and libraries, clean water and flood control, early childhood education, financial support for ethanol production and wind energy, mental health and drug programs as an alternative to our use of prisons.

There is considerable evidence, and opinion within the intelligence community, that what we are doing in Iraq as I write this is increasing rather than decreasing the number of Iraq's terrorists both in Iraq and Syria and the likelihood that their anger at America will bring them to our shores.

A Rose By Any Other Name; Whom Are We Fighting in Iraq, and How Does That Affect the President's Authority? Does Our Current Military Strategy Make Even Military Sense?

Naming Rights

Names make a difference. As general semanticist Wendell Johnson once wrote,

A rose with onion for its name
Might never, never smell the same --
And canny is the nose that knows
An onion that is called a rose.

Why on earth would we want to go along with the words the new gang in Iraq want to use to describe themselves: "Islamic State," "caliphate," "ISIS," or "ISIL"? Those words are their efforts at a branding designed to increase their worldwide appeal to potential terrorists, and otherwise increase their status. Our relentless use of their words only increases their power, appeal, and potential threat to us.

They are not a "state" by any definition of the word. They are not recognized as such by the international community, they do not have the organization of a state, and they do not provide the services of a state. It's hard to justify calling something a duck that can neither quack, walk, nor swim like a duck.

Nor are they Islamic. Catholics associated with Catholic Charities are affiliated with the Catholic Church. Catholics associated with the Mafia are not. Alexander Stille, "The Pope Excommunicates the Mafia, Finally," The New Yorker, June 24, 2014. Muslims are entitled to the same distinctions.

Nor are they a branch of al-Qaeda, a distinction with serious consequences for the President's authority to go to war in Iraq -- for reasons explained immediately below. They can be thought of most accurately, and most favorably to our cause, as Qaeda Separatists in Iraq and Syria (QSIS).

Affiliation of QSIS with al Qaeda

Congress can certainly authorize the President's war in Iraq if it chooses. But it has not yet done so. The White House may be able to find authorization elsewhere; but I'm not convinced by its arguments so far. In any event, it is extraordinarily difficult to make the case that a war against QSIS is legal under the authority granted the President by the AUMF of 2001 (quoted above). It limits his power to fighting "those nations, organizations, or persons [the President] determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001."

There are a number of problems with relying on this document. Given its language and date (2001) it certainly does not appear to be focused on today's challenges in Iraq. Beyond that, for starters, those persons who “planned” or “committed” the 2001 attacks are, for the most part either dead or captured. It is even a stretch to use it as justification for continued pursuit of today's terrorists we consider “members of al-Qaeda.” It is a bigger stretch to say it authorizes using drones to attack “affiliates” of al-Qaeda in Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, and elsewhere. But there is seemingly no justification whatsoever for using it as authority for conducting war against an al-Qaeda separatist that is actually fighting al-Qaeda.

Congress may or may not want to provide the President an AUMF for what he has announced he is doing in Iraq. But if they do, whatever form that authorization may take, the one Congress approved on September 14, 2001 is not it.

The repudiation of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria came after the failure of repeated efforts by al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri to heal a dispute between ISIS and the officially anointed al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra that has erupted in fighting in parts of rebel-held northern Syria.

ISIS 'is not a branch of the al-Qaeda group . . . does not have an organizational relationship with it and [al-Qaeda] is not the group responsible for their actions,' al-Qaeda’s General Command said in a statement . . .. A U.S. counterterrorism official . . . said Zawahiri had been left with 'little choice but to announce a rupture that, for all intents and purposes, had already taken place.' But despite the weight the al-Qaeda brand still carries among jihadists worldwide, the official said, ISIS 'has never been dependent on AQ core for resources or direction, so the tangible impact of the decision may not be that significant.'”

Liz Sly, "Al-Qaeda disavows any ties with radical Islamist ISIS group in Syria, Iraq," Washington Post, February 3, 2014.

Mission Creep

Nor is the President's legal position helped by Monday's [Sept. 15] action: "The new campaign included a strike on Monday southwest of Baghdad . . .. The strikes, the Pentagon said, go beyond the United States’ initial mission announced last month of 'protecting our own people and humanitarian missions.'” Steve Kenny, "U.S. Airstrikes Hit Targets Near Baghdad Held by ISIS," New York Times, September 16, 2014, p. A11.

This is not the only evidence of what is more like "mission run" than "mission creep." Assume for a moment that, contrary to the last blog essay, war is the best answer. ["Whatever Is the Question, Is War the Best Answer?" Sept. 10.]

Does Iraq War III Make Military Sense?

"Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Congress on Tuesday that he would recommend deploying United States combat forces against Islamic extremists in specific operations if the current strategy of airstrikes was not successful, raising the possibility of the kind of escalation that President Obama has flatly ruled out. . . . [As] General Dempsey made it clear, [when] trying to dislodge militants from urban areas like Mosul, airstrikes are less effective because they can cause civilian casualties." Jeremy W. Peters and Mark Landler, "U.S. General to Seek Combat Troops if Airstrikes Can’t Stop ISIS," New York Times, Online September 16, 2014.

“Truly there is no military solution to ISIL,” he said, adding that it could be defeated only with a more comprehensive approach that includes diplomacy. “That may be a tough pill to swallow. But there is no military solution.” Ibid.

Even if there were a military solution, the current military approach -- airstrikes along with only marginal success at putting together a "coalition of the willing" Arab states -- is a long way from the element in the Powell Doctrine that calls for overwhelming force. ("Powell (and other military officers of his generation) believed that the United States should . . . use sufficient force to achieve decisive victory" -- and that only after his eight prior conditions were clearly met. Stephen M. Walt, "Applying the 8 Questions of the Powell Doctrine to Syria," Foreign Policy, September 3, 2013.) [General Colin Powell; photo credit: unknown.]

At the Dempsey hearing, Senator John McCain, not surprisingly, found the military response so far to be "inadequate." Senator Angus King said that airstrikes here and there from time to time struck him as something more resembling a game of "whack-a-mole" than a well-considered military strategy. Peters and Landler, above.

[As will develop over the days to come, and will ultimately be discussed in this blog, there are at least a couple of additional rather significant military obstacles to overcome. (a) Anti-aircraft defenses. Both QSIS and Syria have anti-aircraft capability. There are reports that either QSIS or the Syrian government shot down a plane over Syria just this week. So what? So (1) our bombing efforts cannot be as effective as we thought, (2) more significant, our air war is now, unambiguously, "combat," (3) manned fighter planes are not unmanned drones; there is now a real risk that U.S. pilots can be killed, and (4) if they aren't killed, but are shot down, or otherwise forced to land, General Dempsey has made clear that he will put "boots on the ground" to attempt their rescue. (b) Syria. It is even less clear now than it was a year ago how we can effectively participate in Syria -- with or without combat forces on the ground. Our presumed purpose in entering Syria in any way at this time is to "destroy" QSIS. In addition to the problems always associated with air bombardments in urban wars, and the likelihood of our planes being shot down, we will be fighting (with a goal of destroying) the Syrian government's most effective enemy at this time: QSIS. It is unlikely that we can train enough "moderate" resistance fighters to overwhelm QSIS, and even less likely that all the arms we would supply them would never be taken and used by QSIS forces. And if we were to be "successful" in this effort, which is unlikely, we would have simply aided the Syrian government in oppressing its people further. Thus, our participation in a war in Syria seems even more problematical than our participation in Iraq War III.]

It is, of course, too early to tell how Iraq War III will end -- indeed, whether it ever will. But it is not too early to predict, to sound a warning, and to hope that reason will ultimately prevail.

# # #

U.S. Trains Honduran Coup Officers

July 22, 2009, 8:05 a.m.

Heads We Win, Tails They Lose -- in Honduras
(brought to you by FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com*)
It turns out that President Obama and his Administration, while bemoaning the coup in Honduras -- backing, and insisting on the return of, President Manuel Zelaya -- have been training the very officers and soldiers who brought off the coup!

It's an example of the U.S.'s win-win foreign policy strategy: In public we back the ousted leader; in private we train the army officers that overthrow him.

The story, which I found in the National Catholic Reporter, is just one example of what we were missing while the world's media brought the laser-like focus of its video cameras on the death of Michael Jackson and little more.

James Hodge and Linda Cooper, "U.S. continues to train Honduran soldiers; Coup that ousted president, didn't stop U.S. engagement in Honduras," National Catholic Reporter, July 14, 2009. Here are excerpts from the Hodge and Cooper story:

A controversial facility at Ft. Benning, Ga. -- formerly known as the U.S. Army’s School of the Americas -- is still training Honduran officers despite claims by the Obama administration that it cut military ties to Honduras after its president was overthrown June 28, NCR has learned.

A day after an SOA-trained army general ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya at gunpoint, President Barack Obama stated that "the coup was not legal" and that Zelaya remained "the democratically elected president."

The Foreign Operations Appropriations Act requires that U.S. military aid and training be suspended when a country undergoes a military coup, and the Obama administration has indicated those steps have been taken.

However, Lee Rials, public affairs officer for the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, the successor of SOA, confirmed Monday that Honduran officers are still being trained at the school. . . .

Asked about the Obama administration's suspension of aid and training to Honduras, Rials said, "Well, all I know is they're here, and they're in class" . . . adding that it's possible that other U.S. military schools are training them too. "We're not the only place." . . .

The school trained 431 Honduran officers from 2001 to 2008, and some 88 were projected for this year, said Rials, who couldn't provide their names.

Since 2005, the Department of Defense has barred the release of their names after it was revealed that the school had enrolled well-known human rights abusers.

The general who overthrew Zelaya -- Romeo Orlando Vásquez Velásquez -- is a two-time graduate of SOA, which critics have nicknamed the "School of Coups" because it trained so many coup leaders, including two other Honduran graduates, Gen. Juan Melgar Castro and Gen. Policarpo Paz Garcia. . . .

The ongoing training of Hondurans at Ft. Benning is not the only evidence of unbroken U.S.-Honduran military ties since the coup.

Another piece was discovered by Maryknoll Father Roy Bourgeois, the founder of SOA Watch, while on fact-finding mission to Honduras last week. . . .

"Helicopters were flying all around, and we spoke with the U.S. official on duty, a Sgt. Reyes" about the U.S.-Honduran relationship, Bourgeois said. "We asked him if anything had changed since the coup and he said no, nothing."

The group later met with U.S. Ambassador Hugo Llorens, who claimed that he had no knowledge of ongoing U.S. military activity with the Hondurans, Bourgeois said. The ambassador also said that he himself has had no contact with the de facto government.

That has apparently changed. Christopher Webster, the director of the State Department's Office of Central American Affairs, said Monday that Llorens has in fact been in touch with the current coup government, according to Eric LeCompte, the national organizer for SOA Watch. . . .

Herrera Hernández, the lawyer with the Honduran attorney general's office, told Webster that the coup government has disseminated misinformation by claiming the coup was legal because the court had issued an arrest warrant for Zelaya for pushing ahead with a non-binding referendum on whether to change the Honduran constitution.

However, the order to arrest Zelaya came a day after the coup, he said. And contrary to coup propaganda, Zelaya never sought to extend his term in office, and even if the survey had been held, changing the constitution would have required action by the legislature, he said.

Whatever legal argument the coup leaders had against Zelaya, it fell apart when they flew him into exile rather than prosecuting him, the attorney said. The legal system has broken down, he added, for if this can happen to the president, who can't it happen to?

Looks like Iraq and Afghanistan aren't the only countries where our "peace through war" efforts are a little off track.
_____________

* Why do I put this blog ID at the top of the entry, when you know full well what blog you're reading? Because there are a number of Internet sites that, for whatever reason, simply take the blog entries of others and reproduce them as their own without crediting the source. I don't mind the flattering attention, but would appreciate acknowledgment as the source, even if I have to embed it myself. -- Nicholas Johnson

# # #

Listen to the Military

October 10, 2008, 7:30 a.m., 12:30 p.m.

Which Do You Want First, the Bad News
or the Bad News?
To help get your mind off of the coming global depression, let's take a look at Afghanistan. [Photo credit: European Pressphoto Agency; as reproduced in New York Times, October 9, 2008; "Zabiullah Majahid, front, of the Taliban, led his group in the mountains of Helmand Province."]

Once again we are learning that, as I put it to President Lyndon Johnson with regard to Vietnam, "You can't play basketball on a football field."

Once again we are learning why I am only half joking when I say we need "military control of the civilians, rather than a government in which civilians dictate to the military."

Once again we are learning that the bumper sticker's observation -- "whatever is the question, war is not the answer" -- while overly simplistic, is right more often than it is wrong.

There are many differences between Vietnam, and Iraq, and Afghanistan, and Pakistan. But as important as it may be to recognize and respond to those differences, it is equally important not to ignore their similarities.

It is very difficult to "play war" when:

o You are only the latest in a long line of outside invader/occupiers (most of whom have been no more successful than you are about to be)

o The "enemy" is not a "country" in the sense we normally think of it, but an area where borders are both porous and disputed and central governments may be corrupt, weak (or engaged in civil war)

o You don't understand the country -- its people, tribal loyalties, history, culture, geography, and most importantly, language

o There are no "front lines" or battlefields (in the WWII sense) -- territory gained at considerable cost can easily and quickly be lost

o The "enemy" refuses to wear easily identifiable uniforms, dresses and looks like your "allies" in the fight, and can easily fade into the local population

o The loyalty of your supporters is thin, and shifts with who's paying them and their (understandable) urgent sense of personal survival

o The resulting "collateral damage" (innocent civilian deaths and injuries) are counterproductive in "winning hearts and minds" and actually contribute to the increased recruitment of terrorists

o Genuine local economic and infrastructure needs -- roads, bridges, hospitals, schools, water and electricity -- go unattended, and are made worse, by military action and the resulting shift to a drug-based economy

These are but my instincts and observations. But they have often turned out to have been later echoed by military officers and others who really do have some credentials, experience, and on-the-scene observations.

That is now happening once again.

No, I am not singing "we ain't goin' to study war no more," or saying that there is no role for conventional military action, that we should become a neutral isolationist nation, or that we should eliminate the Defense Department's budget (although there is some evidence we could improve our national security by cutting it by about one-third, and certainly by replacing the Bush Doctrine with the Powell Doctrine. For an explanation of the Powell Doctrine see, Nicholas Johnson, "War in Iraq: The Military Objections," February 27, 2003.).

What I am saying, in passing, is that the McCain Campaign (and some in the media) are doing no one a favor by using the language of WWII to describe the challenges we confront in the Middle East -- "war," "surge," "victory," "winning," and "the white flag of surrender." "Send in the Marines," "these colors don't run," "let's kick some butt," and "nuke 'em" are the very dangerous and costly (in terms of lives, burden on taxpayers, and loss of international reputation) rhetorical chants of elected officials and candidates who are either (a) not very well informed, or (b) devoid of the ethical and moral restraints that might challenge their belief that "there is nothing worth losing an election for."

But what I am mostly saying is not "listen to me" but "listen to our military." Not "follow them blindly," just listen and reflect.

Senator McCain says he wants a "surge" in Afghanistan. He believes the one in Iraq "worked" -- even though it did not bring about (a) the political solutions it was designed to make possible, or even (b) a permanent reduction in insurgency and civilian deaths. The Washington Post reports that he has said, "the same strategy that [Sen. Barack Obama] condemned in Iraq, that's going to have to be employed in Afghanistan."

By contrast, the Post reports, General David D. McKiernan, who led the Iraq invasion and has for four months headed the NATO coalition in Afghanistan, has

stated emphatically that no Iraq-style 'surge' of forces will end the conflict there. . . . "The word I don't use for Afghanistan is 'surge,'" . . ..

"Afghanistan is not Iraq," . . .. [It is] "a far more complex environment than I ever found in Iraq." The country's mountainous terrain, rural population, poverty, illiteracy, 400 major tribal networks and history of civil war all make for unique challenges, he said.

McKiernan [says] what is required is a "sustained commitment" to a counterinsurgency effort that could last many years and would ultimately require a political, not military, solution. . . .

Another facet of the Iraq strategy that McKiernan doubts can be duplicated in Afghanistan is the U.S. military's programs to recruit tribes to oppose insurgents. . . .

Tribal engagement in Afghanistan is also vital, McKiernan said, but . . . "I don't want the military to be engaging the tribes," he said. Given Afghanistan's complicated system of rival tribes and ethnic groups and the recent history of civil war, allying with the wrong tribe risks rekindling internecine conflict, he said. "It wouldn't take much to go back to a civil war." . . .

[T]he violence is more intense than he had anticipated . . .. The U.S. military death toll has risen to . . . a new annual high since the war began in 2001.

Attacks into Afghanistan from Pakistan have escalated, . . .. An influx of foreign fighters across the border is bolstering the Taliban insurgency and has shown a "significant increase from what we saw this time last year," he said, pointing to intelligence that picked up fighters speaking Uzbek, Chechen, Arabic and other languages.

"We are in a very tough fight," he said. "The idea that it might get worse before it gets better is certainly a possibility."

Ann Scott Tyson, "Commander in Afghanistan Wants More Troops," Washington Post, October 2, 2008, p. A19; and see Eric Schmitt, "Joint Chiefs Chairman Is Gloomy on Afghanistan," New York Times, October 9, 2008 ("With security and economic conditions in Afghanistan already in dire straits, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said Thursday that the situation there would probably only worsen next year. 'The trends across the board are not going in the right direction,' the chairman, Adm. Mike Mullen, told reporters. 'I would anticipate next year would be a tougher year.'”).

And McKiernan was saying it two months ago

"There is no magic number of soldiers that are needed on the ground to win this campaign," McKiernan said. "What we need is security of the people. We need governance. We need reconstruction and development." . . . McKiernan said, "There is a clear linkage between 'narco' trafficking and financing of the insurgency."

Barbara Starr, "'Surge' May Not be Enough in Afghanistan," Commander Says," CNN, August 8, 2008, 1:35 p.m. ET.

British Commander Agrees: "Taleban will never be defeated;" it's "neither feasible nor supportable"

The departing commander of British forces in Afghanistan . . . Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith, the commander of 16 Air Assault Brigade, whose troops have suffered severe casualties after six months of tough fighting . . . says he believes the Taleban will never be defeated.

He told The Times that in his opinion, a military victory over the Taleban was “neither feasible nor supportable”. . . .

The brigadier’s grim prognosis follows a leaked cable by François Fitou, the deputy French Ambassador in Kabul, claiming that Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, the British Ambassador, had told him the strategy for Afghanistan was “doomed to failure” [and that] “the security situation is getting worse, so is corruption and the Government has lost all trust.” He said . . . “we should tell them [the U.S.] that we want to be part of a winning strategy, not a losing one. The American strategy is doomed to fail.” . . .

Brigadier Carleton-Smith . . . indicated that the only way forward was to find a political solution that would include the Taleban. . . . Efforts are being focused on the so-called “tier-two” and “tier-three” Taleban, who are perceived to be less ideologically intransigent.

The brigadier said that in the areas where the Government had no control, the Afghan population was “vulnerable to a shifting coalition of Taleban, mad mullahs and marauding militias.” . . .

He said that there had been a government vacuum for 30 years, . . ..

Tom Coghlan in Kabul and Michael Evans, "We can't defeat Taleban, says Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith," The [London] Times, October 6, 2008.

U.S. Army Literally Re-Writes the Book: Mission "Development, Reconstruction and Humanitarian"

The U.S. Army on Monday released a new field manual that for the first time gives nation-building the same top priority as major combat operations in conflicts involving fragile states.

The Stability Operations Field Manual, derived from the Army's experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan, provides commanders and other Army personnel with a guide for supporting broader U.S. government efforts to deliver development, reconstruction and humanitarian aid in war-torn nations.

Army officials described the document as a roadmap from conflict to peace. . . .

The manual mirrors a U.S. defense strategy released in July that says military operations should play a supporting role for "soft power" initiatives to undermine militancy by promoting economic, political and social development in vulnerable corners of the world.

"The greatest threats to our national security will not come from emerging ambitious states but from nations unable or unwilling to meet the basic needs and aspirations of their people," the new Army manual states. . . .

"Army issues new manual for nation-building," Reuters, October 6, 2008, 4:44 p.m. ET

Nor are these kinds of judgments limited to the military generals.

British ambassador in Kabul: "The presence -- especially the military presence -- of the coalition is part of the problem, not the solution."

The British ambassador in Kabul thinks the war in Afghanistan is as good as lost and that current US military and economic strategy there is destined to fail . . ..

Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, the UK diplomat involved, is also alleged to have said that the only practical long-term solution was for the West to support "an acceptable dictator" to unite the fractured country.

The diplomatic bombshell . . . came on the same day that the senior American military commander in Afghanistan called on NATO to provide more troops . . . in a counterinsurgency battle he said could get worse before it gets better.

The general's downbeat assessment also coincides with a fresh report by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who expressed dismay that attacks on aid workers have risen in 2008 despite the presence of more allied troops than at any time since the US-led invasion in 2001. . . .

Cowper-Coles [is quoted as saying]: "The current situation is bad. The security situation is getting worse. So is corruption and the government has lost all trust. . . .

"[T]he insurrection, while incapable of winning a military victory, nevertheless has the capacity to make life increasingly difficult, including in the capital.

"The presence -- especially the military presence -- of the coalition is part of the problem, not the solution. The foreign forces are ensuring the survival of a regime which would collapse without them. In doing so, they are slowing down and complicating an eventual exit from the crisis." . . .

Cowper-Coles, 53, was also quoted as saying that while Britain had no alternative to supporting the United States, the Americans should be told to change strategy.

Reinforcing the military presence against the Taliban insurrection would be counter-productive, he said, and allied governments should start preparing public opinion to accept that the only realistic solution for Afghanistan was to be ruled by "an acceptable dictator."

Ian Bruce, "War in Afghanistan Lost, Says UK Diplomat in Leaked Report," The [Glasgow, Scotland] Herald, October 2, 2008; and see Charles Bremner in Paris and Michael Evans, "British Envoy Says Mission in Afghanistan is Doomed, According to Leaked Memo," The [London] Times, October 2, 2008.

National Intelligence Estimate: Afghanistan in "Downward Spiral" Due to "Lack of Leadership" from Bush Administration

A draft report by American intelligence agencies concludes that Afghanistan is in a "downward spiral" and casts serious doubt on the ability of the Afghan government to stem the rise in the Taliban's influence there, according to American officials familiar with the document.

The classified report finds that the breakdown in central authority in Afghanistan has been accelerated by rampant corruption within the government of President Hamid Karzai and by an increase in violence from militants who have launched increasingly sophisticated attacks from havens in Pakistan. . . .

Its conclusions represent a harsh verdict on decision-making in the Bush administration, which in the months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States made Afghanistan the central focus of a global campaign against terrorism.

Beyond the cross-border attacks launched by militants in neighboring Pakistan, the intelligence report asserts that many of Afghanistan's most vexing problems are of the country's own making, the officials said. . . .

[I]t also laid out in stark terms what it described as the destabilizing impact of the booming heroin trade, which by some estimates accounts for 50 percent of Afghanistan's economy. . . .

Inside the government, reports issued by the Central Intelligence Agency for more than two years have chronicled the worsening violence and rampant corruption inside Afghanistan, and some in the agency say they believe that it has taken the White House too long to respond to the warnings . . . .a "lack of leadership" both at the White House and in European capitals where commitments to rebuild Afghanistan after 2001 have never been met. . . .

The assessment on Afghanistan is the first since the Taliban regained strength there beginning in 2006 and launched an offensive that has allowed them to seize large swaths of territory. . . .

Senior American commanders have recently been blunt in their assessment of the security trends in the country. "In large parts of Afghanistan, we don't see progress," General David McKiernan, the top American officer in Afghanistan, told reporters last week. "We're into a very tough counterinsurgency fight and will be for some time."

It is not just American officials who offer a grim prognosis. A French diplomatic cable leaked to a French newspaper last week quoted the British ambassador to Afghanistan as forecasting that the NATO-led mission there would fail.

"The current situation is bad, the security situation is getting worse, so is corruption, and the government has lost all trust," the British envoy, Sherard Cowper-Coles, was quoted as telling the French deputy ambassador to Kabul, who wrote the cable.

Mark Mazzetti and Eric Schmitt, "U.S. Report Warns of Crisis in Afghanistan," International Herald Tribune, October 9, 2008.

America's interests and role in the world involve a lot more than the overwhelming application of military force. The military itself knows this. Why don't the politicians?

It's time we learned from our wisest military leaders -- and then took up our own responsibilities to let our elected and other officials know how we feel.

What has been attributed to Ghandi is still true: "When the people will lead, their leaders will follow."

Let's lead.

# # #