Afghanistan, the Impossible War

[unhappycamper]

Afghanistan, the Impossible War
El País, Spain
By Georgina Higueras
Translated By Miken Trogdon
8 October 2010
Edited by Piotr Bielinski

Nine years after intervening with U.N. approval in order to end the Taliban regime, the United States and its allies are now looking for a way to leave the country.

Pakistan’s decision to close the Khyber Pass to the U.N. (through which arrive a good part of the supplies necessary for the 152,000 soldiers and military units against whom they maintain a continued conflict) reveals the growing difficulties facing troops in this central Asian country. Nine years have passed since the war began in Afghanistan, and the White House doesn’t have an exit plan for its troops, nor one that can guarantee governance of the country. In the middle of this chaos, neither Washington nor its allies seem to have come to the conclusion that they are facing a much greater problem: the extension of the conflict into Pakistan, which has 175 million inhabitants and is the only Muslim state with nuclear weapons. The war in Afghanistan has come to be known as the Af-Pak conflict, and it has enormous consequences for world security.

The Afghan President Hamid Karzai inaugurated the Peace Council yesterday, composed of government officials and tribal chiefs, in order to legitimize negotiations with the Taliban that were directly and secretly initiated this summer. Many of the 70 constituents of this council are old members of the Taliban or commanders from that guerilla war. Contact between the government and the most responsible Taliban members has grown in recent months, which in the White House has solidified the belief that Afghanistan is an impossible war, from which they can exit only through negotiation.

Experts point out that officials have reached this conclusion because the insurgency has changed the conflict into a war of exhaustion, in which time has no value for the guerillas who are driven by the ultimate goal of forcing the foreign troops to leave. In the overthrow of the Taliban and up to the end of 2001, 12 allied soldiers died. But you line their pockets with drug money, re-armament and the effective capture of out-of-work youths for the war, and the attacks against the allied troops have reached unbearable levels. So far this year, 563 soldiers have died in Afghanistan (most of them American), although other countries like the U.K. and Canada have also paid a high price. Both have already announced their withdrawal: Ottawa in 2011 and London in 2015.

Barack Obama’s strategy of increasing troops levels in Afghanistan by 30,000, with the objective of reducing the insurgency, “arrived too late,” according to many experts. The insurgency had grown to exponential proportions while Washington “was distracted” with the campaign in Iraq.

[mdmc]

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