Of Stalemates and Petri Dishes:

Is US Departure from Afghanistan Inevitable?

Rasa - US officials are now revealing details of a tense, multi-hour meeting on July 19, during which President Donald Trump complained that the US is losing the war in Afghanistan, and expressed frustration with his advisers, who have been urging an escalation to try to slow the rate of loss.

News ID: 431430

Date: 03 August 2017 - 23:54

RNA - Trump has been resistant to the escalation calls, skeptical that they will do anything to change the tide of the war, but also appears to be increasingly frustrated with Gen. John Nicholson Jr., the 17th commander of the US occupation of Afghanistan since the 2001 invasion. He repeatedly suggested during the meeting that Nicholson should be fired “because he is not winning” the conflict.

Whether this is just the latest shuffling of the leadership to give the illusion of forward motion remains to be seen, but some reports have suggested that some in the White House are pushing for an outright withdrawal from Afghanistan instead of continuing to drag out the failed conflict. This was all expected:

- US lost the protracted war on Afghanistan many years ago. And this has nothing to do with Washington’s claims that “the Afghan government is a failed state, incapable of effectively governing or defending its citizens.” Foreign aid, specifically those coming from Saudi Arabia, funds terrorist groups like ISIL and Al-Qaeda. US officials know Saudi cash is a serious threat, but they never bother to stop its flow.

- Sixteen years ago, some UN member States argued that an attempt to remake Afghanistan and Iraq in “American image” was utopian folly, almost certain, given the history and culture of the entire region, to fail. Yet America plunged in. In 2001, it was Afghanistan. In 2003, the US invaded and occupied Iraq. Then it helped its allies attack Libya and ousted Gadhafi. Then it intervened in Syria. Then it backed the Saudi war on Yemen. Given the trillions sunk and lost, and the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, dead, it is hard to argue these terrible wars benefited the Americans, or the nations they invaded.

- The departure of the United States from the Middle East is inevitable. It is coming. Just as the British, French and Soviet empires had to depart, it will likely do lasting damage to the American pride. They have no one to blame but themselves for this utopian folly. If the US could not defeat the Taliban with 100,000 troops in 2011, the US is not going to defeat a stronger Taliban with a US force one-seventh of that size.

- A few additional thousand troops can never change the facts on the ground; it will be nothing more than a continuation of the ineffectual status quo. Speaking before the Senate Armed Services Committee on May 23, Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats said as much: The intelligence community assesses that the political and security situation in Afghanistan will almost certainly deteriorate through 2018 even with a modest increase in military assistance by the United States and its partners.

- The fire that’s consuming this corner of the globe isn’t the heart of the problem; it’s the underbrush fueling the fire – US meddling and occupation. The real challenge that the US occupying troops have to face is there’s an ideological battle going on here that says no to foreign occupation and terror. And what is the plan to confront that? Lieut. General Bob Otto, the Air Force’s top intelligence and surveillance officer, once famously said: This isn’t a military issue.

- If President Trump gives Gen. Nicholson the troops he wants - and then more of the same - he will merely be echoing the failed policies of his predecessors Obama and Bush, while prolonging a war that will prove endless as long as American forces continue to occupy Afghanistan. His will then be a fate foretold in a war in which Washington’s greatest foe has always been self-deception.

Reading history’s lessons also would have shown that there are several reasons why US folly in Afghanistan persists.  First, there’s national conviction that all wars must be won, else American credibility will be irreparably damaged.  Washington would rather persist in a losing cause than to admit defeat and withdraw. Second is the domestic political scene. Afghanistan is already being advertised as “Trump’s war.”  Do you think “winner” Trump wants to be seen as backing away from a fight?

Third is the men in charge of the fight and how they see the war. Trump’s generals and top advisers don’t see the Afghan war in terms of Afghanistan; they see it in terms of themselves and their Global War on Terror – read global war on Islam. They can’t be seen as “losing” in that global war, nor can they see themselves as lacking in toughness, so queue up more troop deployments and future mission creep.

Unless Trump halts these things, the endless conflict will continue. A humiliating US exit seems virtually certain one day. The time has come for war-party Washington to admit that the strategy to invade and occupy Afghanistan was terribly wrong - a lesson neocons infesting Washington never learn.

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