An Afghanistan study group report written by Matthew Hoh, the Tufts-educated former Marine who resigned from the Foreign Service over Afghanistan policy last year, has generated significant controversy in the past week.
The report, signed by some 50 former officials, scholars and policy analysts, savages the US war policy in Afghanistan, saying that it does nothing to hamper Al Qaeda and in fact strengthens the insurgency, driving Islamic groups to unite against the US, and complaining of the huge cost of the war for little or no gain.
But while the study group’s criticisms of the war echo those made by the peace movement, its solutions do not. The task force calls for reducing US troop levels to 30,000 by 2012, saying that these forces should be used to “help train Afghan security forces, prevent massive human rights atrocities, resist an expansion of Taliban control beyond the Pashtun south, and engage in robust counter-terrorism operations as needed”. The US troop presence should be reviewed in 2012 to see if it is “contributing to our broader strategic objectives” and phased out if not.
The recommendations do not follow from the analysis. The report, and Hoh’s followup piece in the Huffington Post this past Monday, offers no explanation of why an occupation force of 30,000 would be any more acceptable to Afghans than the current 100,000, or what business the US military has in Afghanistan in the first place, given its dismissal of the war on terrorism as a justification.
Either the report authors felt that de-escalating to 30,000 was as far as they could go in the current Washington climate without being laughed out of the Beltway, or they are still prisoners of an imperial mindset which assumes that it’s the US’ business to manage the affairs of every country in the world, and are merely asking how to do this at somewhat lesser cost.
If the first calculation underlies their reticence to call for an immediate end to the US war, they are very mistaken. The war is lost, and those policy analysts who say so will be the ones remembered by history. When the US sets an unconditional date for withdrawal of its military forces, Afghans will begin the political process to settle their differences and the healing will begin.
As for the second case, Tom Hayden writes, “the report does not excoriate the US for fostering a regime of blatant corruption. It says little of civilian casualties. It is as if the war and occupation might be worthwhile if only they were cheap and winnable.”
Despite its failure to call for an end to the war, the study group report is a useful development. It targets the catastrophe of the current policy and has the potential to generate controversy within the national security establishment as the Administration prepares for its scheduled re-evaluation this December. It is a call for a “change in course”, in the words of Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of The Nation — and a change in course towards de-escalation would be an important turning point in the Administration’s Afghanistan policy.
– Cole Harrison