Afghanistan Dilemma: US doesn’t know how to fix it by Shamsa Ishfaq

Not so surprisingly but once again Pakistan has been accused of failing to help bring peace in Afghanistan and that certain circles were prolonging war and funding an insurgency plaguing both countries.

Afghan President’s spokesman, Waheed Omer, told reporters, “The terrorism that has been raging in Afghanistan from more than nine years was likely to continue unless Pakistan joined the world to stop it. The stance of afghan government has always been that Pakistan can play a very effective role in bringing peace to Afghanistan, the region and Pakistan itself. But unfortunately it has not yet played that very effective role”.

It is an amazing reality that in the nine-year war in Afghanistan nothing has been more consistent than accusations on Pakistan of whipping up insurgency/ terrorism in Afghanistan. On the contrary, the war in Afghanistan has not only ruined that country but has badly Pakistan of all its neighbours and the world at large. Pakistan has suffered beyond its capability and that too without any gains in return. Its losses in terms of men and material are far more than those of the US and NATO. Its economy is nose-diving and is now dependent mainly on foreign help. Foreign investment has reduced to a stop and capital outflow is on the rise. Inflation is sky-rocketing, corruption rampant, institutions stand destroyed and accountability is a closed chapter. And yet trust deficit with the west is widening.

By and large, Pakistan is doing more than its capacity to restore peace by quelling insurgency in Afghanistan out of its own interest. Because Pakistan knows and understands that a peaceful Afghanistan is in the best interest of Pakistan more than any other country in the world.

However, oft repeated allegations of Pakistan funding insurgency etc are actually driving out of the growing realization among the international partners that the war is no more winnable militarily. In this context, it is easy to hide the US and Afghan government’s own failures by shouting at the top of voices that Pakistan is a dishonest partner, unwilling or unable to stop giving clandestine aid, weapons and money to the Afghan Taliban. Obviously, it is far too difficult for them to justify the futile presence of US-led NATO’s large fleet of men and machines for the last nine-years costing an arm and a leg to every country party to the war.

What has actually gone wrong with the war is the fact that the Afghan war is not an unreported war in the media but it is largely unreported war in terms of correct, useful and unclassified reporting by Afghan government, US and NATO/ISAF sources. Unlike the Iraq war, there is no Department Defence Quarterly report on the progress of the war and efforts to create effective Afghan security, governance and development. There is no equivalent to the state department weekly status report. The reporting that is available also decouples the fighting in Afghanistan from that in Pakistan. Whereas the growing incidents of terrorism in Pakistan are wrongly labeled as home-grown as they are an extension of intensified militancy in recent years in Afghanistan.

According to the public official reporting on the growing intensity of the war since 2006 ignores one of the most critical aspects of the conflict that US and NATO/ISAF’ axiomatically unrealistic solutions to Afghan problem along with a refusal to look at the consequences of current and earlier actions had actually tarnished the US’ image as reliable partner.

Further more US impatience has resulted in a generic view of conflict in Afghanistan which is totally different from the reality. Due to this narrow view no progress has been made in the effort to stabilize and unify Afghanistan while at the same time the conduct of the war in Afghanistan has created an enormous potential for instability in Pakistan. Not realizing that stirring problem in Afghanistan actually caused problems to flow into Pakistan, the US and Western media reporting portrayed the problems faced by ISAF as coming from Pakistan. However the reality is the reverse of this.

Aram Roston wrote in his article ‘how the US funds the Taliban’, “welcome to the wartime contracting bazaar in Afghanistan. It is carnival of improbable characters and shady connections, with former CIA officials and ex-military officers joining hands with former Taliban and Mujahideen to collect US government funds in the name of war effort. It is an accepted fact that the US government funds the very forces American troops are fighting. And it is deadly irony, because these funds add up to a huge amount of money for the Taliban’.

Besides this, RAW has also been actively involved in been found funding suicide bomb attacks in Pakistan. There are evidences that India has funneled Rs 680 million through its links with Afghan Secret Agency. Media sources have revealed that Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is supported and financed by Indian agency to carry out subversive activities in Pakistan. On 13 August 2009, three persons of militant gang TTP had been arrested red-handed while they were on prowl for a target. The accused confessed that their trainer known as ‘Ustad’ is an expert of making bombs. Being Indian, Ustad works with vengeance against Pakistan and also leads suicide bombers to the marked site of the blast. They also disclosed that TTP manages funds for the splinter groups from RAW which works in collusion with RAM. RAW’s involvement in terrorist acts in Pakistan including supply weapons like Kalashnikovs, PRG-7s, land mines and hand grenades to Bugti and Mari sardars to destabilize Pakistan through RAW agents based in Afghanistan had been reported in past as well.

As a matter of fact the US-led military adventure in Afghanistan is about expanding influence over the oil-rich and strategically important regions of the middle east and central Asia, not promoting democracy and development, nor combating terrorism and drug trafficking. According to Anatol Lieven, a professor of war at King’s College London, ‘Afghanistan is becoming a sort of surreal hunting estate, in which the U.S. and NATO breed the very terrorists they then track down.

According to the Reto Stocken of the Red Cross, large areas of south, the southeast, the east and also growing parts of the west are in an emergency situation, which means continual insecurity and an absence of basic services. And once a population turns against an occupation there are few places in the world where an occupier is going to come out on the winning side. Afghanistan, with its enormous size and daunting geography, is certainly not one of them. Under such circumstances it is comforting for US, ISAF, Afghan government and even Indian analysts and journalists to have a scapegoat for the frustrations of the Afghan conflict and conditions conducive for the double game foreign forces are playing in Afghanistan to achieve their own objectives.

For that matter, the US, NATO/ISAF and Afghan government have never provided reliable breakouts of Afghan causalities, no reliable central chronology, no detailed description of NATO/ISAF or Afghan army and police activity and out comes. No meaningful maps are provided of either the pattern of conflict or the shifts in Taliban influence. In last few years, the vigorously done job by the coalition forces and Indian media is the publication of reports proving Pakistan and its intelligence agencies’ links with militants. These misleading and factually incorrect reports are in fact based on propaganda to create doubts and suspicion in the minds of the Afghan government, its masses and international opinion makers about Pakistan’s role in supporting the coalition forces in Afghanistan. The Indians are instrumental in convincing and colouring US perceptions about ISI and are keen to make it impotent. While Coalition forces in Afghanistan are active in hiding their own strategic mistakes and fake faces in pursuance of their own vested interests.

As the situation continues to deteriorate, US administration’s policy for expanding the war in Pakistan would not only be disastrous but lead directly to the genocide in the region. By any measure military victory in Afghanistan is simply not possible. It is high time that the US and NATO led-ISAF review their strategic objectives vis-à-vis Afghanistan and to redefine success.