Jane Mayer: The Risks Of A Remote-Controlled War : NPR
Jane Mayer, a political journalist based in Washington, D.C., is a staff writer for The New Yorker, where she covers politics for the weekly magazine. In the October 26 issue, Mayer examines the ethics and controversies surrounding the CIA's covert drone program, in which remotely controlled, unmanned planes target terror suspects in Pakistan and elsewhere.
Mayer writes that unlike the military's publicly acknowledged drone program in Afghanistan and Iraq — both official war zones — the CIA's campaign doesn't operate in support of U.S. troops on the ground. Instead it's a secret program, run partly by private contractors, that amounts to "targeted international killings by the state," in the words of one human-rights lawyer. Because of its covert status, there's "no visible system of accountability in place," Mayer writes, and a sharp increase in the number of reported drone strikes has raised questions about whether the moral costs and the political consequences have been adequately considered.
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How to Get Out
By Robert Dreyfuss
This article appeared in the November 9, 2009 edition of The Nation.
October 21, 2009
"There is no likelihood that the current US war in Afghanistan can achieve its aims (a narrower goal, the elimination of Al Qaeda, has for the most part already been accomplished). The corrupt government of President Karzai and his cronies is no longer sustainable, whether or not there is a second round in the fraud-marred election. A new government in Kabul must emerge, in the process accommodating Pashtun nationalists, the Taliban and other insurgents. Those latter groups, along with tribal and ethnic leaders, various warlords and representatives of Afghanistan's myriad political factions, will need international support to underwrite a new national compact. That national accord will probably not be a strong central government but rather a decentralized federal system in which provinces and districts retain a significant degree of autonomy. To secure international support, the United States must defer to the United Nations to convene a conference in which Afghans themselves hammer out the new way forward. The world community must pledge its support of Afghanistan financially for years to come. And this must occur against the backdrop of an unconditional withdrawal of US and NATO forces."
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New tactic for U.S., NATO in Afghanistan: say sorry Reuters:
Fri Apr 17, 2009 4:00pm BST
By Peter Graff
KABUL (Reuters) - After years of alienating Afghans by being slow to acknowledge killing civilians, U.S. troops are trying a new tactic: say sorry fast.
Commanders acknowledge that soaring civilian death tolls from U.S. and NATO strikes over the past year have cost them the vital support of ordinary Afghans -- and a perception that they were reluctant to take responsibility made the situation worse.In an effort to blunt the damage, they have put in place new drills in recent months -- responding more quickly, coordinating their investigations with Afghan authorities, apologizing publicly and offering compensation.
But with civilian casualties still mounting as fighting increases, it remains to be seen whether the new approach will blunt the fury of an Afghan public wary of foreign troops...Read rest of article
Afghan President calls on NATO general to explain civilian deaths World Deutsche Welle 19.04.2009:
"For the second time in three days, Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai has called on the country's top NATO general to explain civilian casualties caused by international forces."
"...In the past week, international forces have already been forced to apologize for the killings of Afghans in the Khost and Kunar provinces. In both cases, the military initially said they had been targeting militants. Within days, they had confessed to killing civilians and issued public
apologies."
...[In] an unprecedented move, a group of influential aid agencies joined hands to urge for an immediate halt to some of the specific civilian-military policies. In all, 11 organizations called for a de-linking of aid delivery from military goals, changes in the operational strategies of the international military forces, phasing out the strategy of distributing aid through the PRTs and halting two specific new security policies that they say will put Afghan communities at greater risk.
While humanitarian and development agencies have expressed concern about the civilian population from time to time, this concern previously tended to be expressed in general terms. Never before have NGOs gotten so specific. The NGOs who have come together to formulate a common position are all widely respected and with long-term track records in Afghanistan, including Oxfam, Care, Action Aid and Save the Children...
...Among the military measures that these organizations are wary of are the Afghan Social Outreach Program (ASOP) and the Afghan Public Protection Force (APPF), both sometimes referred to as "empowerment programs..."
A Regional Approach to Afghanistan
Barnett Rubin, Director of Studies and a Senior Fellow at the Center on International Cooperation at New York University (Feb 23, 2009 at Princeton University, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs
Peace Action West's Groundswell blog has developed five articles responding to common arguments from thoughtful Democrats and progressives who are unsure about opposing President Obama's plan for Afghanistan.
Part one about whether more troops create more security is here.
Part two on women's rights is here.
Part three on the terrorist threat is here.
Part four on supporting President Obama is here.
Part five on the
Ten Things You Can Do to Oppose the War in Afghanistan:
from The Nation 4/8/09
"The war in Afghanistan is a quagmire bordering on a catastrophe. With a current price tag of $2 billion a month, this drawn-out conflict took the lives of 155 American soldiers and 2,118 Afghan civilians last year--the bloodiest year of the war to date. Western airstrikes alone killed 522 civilians, fueling hostility toward the United States and causing more Afghans to join and support the Taliban insurgency that has spread into Pakistan. President Obama has escalated our military presence by committing an additional 17,000 US troops and 4,000 trainers to work with Afghan security forces. Where is the public outcry? The Nation and Z.P. Heller, editorial director of Brave New Films, have put together a list of things you can do to oppose the war."
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From the Dreyfuss Report, The Nation:
"Having spent a while reading about Afghanistan, I've collected some resources for anyone who'd like to learn a little more about that godforsaken country and about what various strategists think ought to be done. Pretty much everything I've listed below is useful to read, even if you don't agree with all of the conclusions that analysts come up with."
"A good place to start is The Forgotten Front, published more than a year ago by the Center for American Progress. Written by Caroline P. Wadhams, an extremely bright young analyst, and Lawrence Korb, a veteran defense expert, it's a primer about the war. Many progressives won't like their conclusion that the United States needs to send more troops. (At the time, when the US had 25,000 troops in country, CAP recommended adding 20,000 more. Currently, there are 36,000 US forces, and President Obama has ordered the deployment of 17,000 more.) And CAP puts too much emphasis on NATO, saying, "A failure in Afghanistan would throw NATO's relevance into doubt" -- as if the war were about NATO, not Afghanistan. But "The Forgotten Front," even though it is somewhat overtaken by events, is a very useful guide to the issues in the war, complete with maps, charts and graphs."
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The Press and Human Terrain Systems: Counterinsurgency's Free Ride by David Price, Counterpunch, April 7, 2009
Like a mad scientist’s slime monster that will not die in a 1950s B Movie, the Human Terrain System’s counterinsurgency teams not only somehow remains alive in the face of extensive devastating criticism, but the program’s existence remains firmly publicly boosted by a seemingly endless series of uncritical mainstream news and features stories that frame the program as America’s last best hope to win the hearts and minds of the occupied peoples of Iraq and increasingly Afghanistan...
The Human Terrain program embeds social scientists, such as anthropologists, with troops operating in battle theatre settings as members of Human Terrain Teams. These teams are part of counterinsurgency operations designed provide military personnel with cultural information that will help inform troop activities in areas of occupation.
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Afghan War Rationale Questioned by Some Key Strategists:
"A few influential strategists here have been arguing, however, that this official rationale misstates the al Qaeda problem and ignores the serious risk that an escalating U.S. war poses to Pakistan.
Those strategists doubt that al Qaeda would seek to move into Afghanistan as long as they are ensconced in Pakistan and argue that escalating U.S. drone airstrikes or Special Operations raids on Taliban targets in Pakistan will actually strengthen radical jihadi groups in the country and weaken the Pakistani government’s ability to resist them..."
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Tom Hayden: Progressive Think Tank Tells Obama to Escalate
Huffington Post
The Center for American Progress has positioned itself as a "progressive" Washington think tank, especially suited to channel new thinking and expertise into the Obama administration. It therefore is deeply disappointing that CAP has issued a call for a ten-year war in Afghanistan, including an immediate military escalation, just as President Obama prepares to unveil his Afghanistan/Pakistan policies to the American public and NATO this week.
It is likely that Obama will follow most of CAP's strategic advice, assuming the think tank to be the progressive wing of what's possible within the Beltway. That means a long counter-insurgency war ahead, with everything from massive incarcerations and detention to Predator strikes that amass increasing civilian casualties...
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Reuters 2/21/09: U.S. forces kill 13 Afghan civilians in air strike:
"U.S. forces in Afghanistan killed 13 civilians, as well as three militants, in an air strike in western Afghanistan this week, the U.S. military said on Saturday after an investigation into the incident.
"The mistaken killing of civilians by foreign forces is a major source of tension between the Afghan government and its Western backers and has also caused a steady drop in public support for the presence of some 70,000 international troops"
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Jonathan Steele: Nato is deeper in its Afghan mire than Russia ever was Comment is free The Guardian:
"Nato is deeper in its Afghan mire than Russia ever wasTwo decades after the Soviet withdrawal, ever more resources are being poured into a war with scant chance of success"
"...Nato is in a cleft stick and the idea that, unlike Iraq, Afghanistan is the "right war" is a self-deluding trap. A military "surge", the favoured Obama policy, may produce short-term local advances but no sustainable improvement, and as yesterday's Guardian reported, it will cost the US and Britain enormous sums. Pouring in aid will take too long to win hearts and minds, and if normal practice is followed, the money will mainly go to foreign consultants and corrupt officials. Talking to the Taliban makes sense under Najibullah-style national reconciliation. But the Taliban themselves are disunited, with a host of local leaders and generational divisions between "new" and "old" Taliban. Worse still, since the war spilt into Pakistan's frontier regions, there are now Pakistani Taliban...."
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Gwynne Dyer: Afghanistan: Obama’s Vietnam?:
Thursday, 05 February 2009 16:30
YOU aren’t really the US president until you’ve ordered an air-strike on somebody, so Barack Obama is certainly president now: two in his first week in office.
But now that he has been blooded, can we talk a little about this expanded war he’s planning to fight in Afghanistan?
Does that sound harsh? Well, so is killing people, and all the more so because Obama must know that these remote-controlled Predator strikes usually kill not just the “bad guy”, whoever he is, but also the entire family he has taken shelter with. It also annoys Pakistan, whose territory the US violated in order to carry out the killings.
It’s not a question of whether the intelligence on which the attacks were based was accurate (although sometimes it isn’t.) The question is: do these killings actually serve any useful purpose? And the same question applies to the entire US war in Afghanistan...
The two questions [Obama] needs to ask himself are first: did Osama bin Laden want the US to invade Afghanistan in response to 9/11? The answer to that one is: Yes, of course he did. And second: of all the tens of thousands of people whom the US has killed in Afghanistan and Iraq, would a single one have turned up in the US to do harm if not killed? Answer: probably not...."
Afghanistan: US Investigation of Airstrike Deaths ‘Deeply Flawed’ Human Rights Watch:
"(New York, January 15, 2009) - The US military's investigation into deadly and controversial airstrikes in Azizabad in Afghanistan in August 2008 was deeply flawed, Human Rights Watch said today in a letter to US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.
On October 1, 2008, the Department of Defense published a summary of a report by Brig. Gen. Michael Callan of its investigations into US airstrikes on the village of Azizabad in Herat province on August 21-22, 2008. Since that time, Human Rights Watch has conducted additional research into the events surrounding the Azizabad airstrikes, reviewed the facts presented in the summary, and analyzed the Callan investigation's methodology.
'The weaknesses in the Callan investigation call into question the Defense Department's commitment to avoid civilian casualties,' said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. 'Unless the new Obama administration urgently addresses the US military's airstrike practices in Afghanistan, more unnecessary civilian deaths and injuries will result.'.."
Great piece on the larger regional context of the Afghanistan conflict...
Pakistan in Peril - The New York Review of Books:
"Pakistan in Peril
By William Dalrymple
The relative calm in Iraq in recent months, combined with the drama of the US elections, has managed to distract attention from the catastrophe that is rapidly overwhelming Western interests in the part of the world that always should have been the focus of America's response to September 11: the al-Qaeda and Taliban heartlands on either side of the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The situation here could hardly be more grim..."
Broader Approach Needed to Resolve Afghanistan Crisis - Council on Foreign Relations:
"Barnett R. Rubin, a leading expert on Afghanistan, says to spur a political settlement there the United States should reach out to other parties such as Pakistan, Russia, India, and Iran and even support dialogue with Taliban insurgents willing to cut ties with al-Qaeda.
As to dealing with the Taliban, Rubin says, 'I think what you have now is some dialogue, mostly indirect and a little bit direct, between the Afghan government, some foreign governments, and the various forms of leadership of the insurgency, which is not a negotiation.'"
EU voters oppose troop surge: poll:
"Any attempt by Barack Obama to get European Union members to contribute more troops to the fight in Afghanistan is likely to face popular opposition, a new poll suggests.
Ahead of Obama's inauguration as the United States' first African-American president, the Financial Times on Tuesday published a poll suggesting the majority of people in Britain, Germany, France and Italy oppose deploying further troops.
About 60 per cent of the respondents in Germany said they would not wish their government to send more troops under any circumstances.
In Britain, the second largest contributor to NATO's mission in Afghanistan, 57 per cent said they did not want to send any more troops."
Pakistan: Suspected U.S. missile strike kills 10 in Pakistan - Los Angeles Times:
"Pakistani news reports cited security officials as saying that at least five of those killed in Friday's strikes in the North and South Waziristan tribal agencies -- long known as a haven for Al Qaeda and the Taliban -- were militants. Dozens of such raids have been carried out in the last six months by the Bush administration, killing several important Al Qaeda-linked figures. But scores of Pakistani civilians, including women and children, also have died, according to local officials..."
Afghanistan: Villagers say 22 noncombatants killed by American raid - Los Angeles Times:
"Angry Afghan villagers say raid left civilians dead
U.S. military officials say all 15 killed in the incident were Taliban fighters.
By M. Karim Faiez and Laura King
7:20 AM PST, January 24, 2009
Reporting from Kabul and Islamabad -- A fierce new dispute erupted today over civilian deaths in Afghanistan, with village elders asserting that 22 noncombatants were killed in an American-led raid and U.S. military officials insisting that all 15 dead in the incident, including a woman, were Taliban fighters..."
