AFGHANISTAN: ONE PICTURE CAN SPOIL A THOUSAND WORDS

By Jerry D. Rose

Beware the ides of November. Be especially wary when the New York Times, on November 15 2010, after an election widely described as a “repudiation” of President Obama’s handling of national affairs, appears with an article about one of the sources of that public discontent. The article, by Peter Baker and Ron Nordlund, is titled “U.S. Plan Envisions Path to Ending Afghan Conflict.” Great! Finally the “vision thing” among our leaders, finally a “plan” to drag our country and our allies from the quagmire of a seemingly endless “conflict.” It’s finally light at the end of the tunnel time.

Those who use the New York Times for restful sleep at night by assuring themselves that all is well with the visions of our national officialdom (Congress and White House) had best doze on off to sleep rather than reading the Baker/Nordlund article or, what would be even worse, viewing the accompanying picture of “weapons training” among Afghan “security forces.”

Before the reader nods off into Hope and Change nirvana-land, let me review the Times’ version of the plan which “will reflect the most concrete vision for transition in Afghanistan assembled by civilian and military officials since President Barack Obama took office last year.” After 22 months in office, a “concrete vision.” I can’t wait!

Baker and Nordlund bend their article into a pretzel trying to justify this conclusion offered at the beginning of their piece. They construct their pretzel out of contradictory pieces of ground-reality in order to sustain this assertion of the innovative nature of this “vision.” President George W. Bush, not a “vision thing” delinquent like his father, articulated the formula for “ending the conflict” which is still operative in this “new” vision. It’s “we’ll stand down when they stand up.” We’ve already done that in Iraq, as John McCain says for this article; we have “stood down” as the Iraqis have developed their own security forces. (Oh well, we left 50,000 troops there and the country’s security situation is one of near-anarchy, but we accomplished the mission there after the 2007 Bush “surge” of U.S. forces there, and we can similarly accomplish that mission in Afghanistan after the 2009 Obama surge there.) We just must, as McCain accuses Obama’s “liberal base” (?) of denying, stay the same course in Afghanistan that worked so beautifully in Iraq.

The vaunted “standing up” of the Afghan government is belied by contradictory views attributed to President Hamid Karzai: he wants a reduction in “boots on the ground” in the country, especially a reduction in the “visibility and intrusiveness” of American “boots” and and was reported as saying that Americans should be “confining themselves to their bases,” but then of course “corrected” himself by saying that this “confinement” should not start until his announced date of 2014 as the year in which Afghan security forces will be ready to “stand up.” Meantime American boots willl remain on the ground (indeed, say U.S. military apologists for the faltering operation there, the “last of the surge” is just now arriving in the country, so it’s too early to tell whether the the surge is working to accomplish the same “victory” that was achieved in Iraq).

Now finally to the military “vision”: NATO (i.e., mostly U.S.) forces will continue “visible and intrusive” operations in pesky insurgency regions like Kandahar, “handing over” security arrangements to (whoever can be construed as government agents in that region) once local security forces are prepared to maintain order in that region, leaving behind (as in Iraq) NATO soldiers for peacekeeping and military consultation forces, with most of the “boots” moving on to other regions, but leaving those well-weaponed forces “over the horizon” of the boundaries of that region to be redeployed in case of need. That’s it, that’s the vision, that will work (we think, because we “officials” have convinced ourselves that exactly the same “plan” has worked in Iraq.) If only that damned “liberal base” wouldn’t keep pointing out that this emperor is basically buck naked.

If the history of quagmires in Iraq and Afghanistan were not enough to send these advanced civilian and military planners back for another couple of years of exercising their vision muscles, the photograph that the Times chose, inexplicably, to accompany the article, is bad news for the credibility of this “brand new” plan for Afghanistan’s future. Six Afghan men (three of them apparently actually boys) are depicted standing against a high wall and engaged in “weapons training.“

Trouble is, they have no weapons in their hands; if anything it seems that might be practicing karate moves, but even more telling are the attitudes they are expressing as their “weapons” instructor is apparently telling them how to hold their weapons. If they had toy guns and rubber bayonets, they could not be less serious about their training: not, I would think, because they are inherently un-macho and indifferent warriors, but because their “training” to “stand up” to an insurgency that they know cannot be contained by force of arms is simply a ludicrous exercise. Or were they posing as the “stand up” warriors of the Afghan future in order to get that $200 per month salary from occupation forces that “worked” so well in Iraq (until the funding for that ran out)? Of course these men/boys are standing in front of a massive wall and one can easily “envision” foreign security forces pouring over that wall (the “horizon”) when the men/boys find themselves out-gunned by the insurgency.

As I said in the title, “One Picture Can Spoil a Thousand Words,” and that’s about the number of words in the thoroughly spoiled Baker/Nordland article.