Tom Hayden

In this edition:

• Plan to Block Obama's Iraq Withdrawal
• NATO Fractures Over Dutch Pullout from Afghanistan
• Marja Offensive Designed for US Public Opinion
• American Soldier Suicides Reach 1,000
  

By Tom Hayden

Threat to Iraq Withdrawal Plan
 
Was it too good to be true? In February at Camp Lejeune, our new President Barack Obama surprised all observers by pledging to withdraw all US troops from Iraq by 2012, in accord with a pact secretly negotiated at the end of the Bush era. Previously, Obama was promising to withdraw all combat troops, leaving a "residual force" dominating Iraq for years.
 
Obama has restated his commitment to the full withdrawal on several occasions. But heavy pressure is building to make the president drop his commitment.
 
The most ominous sign of the gathering campaign to make Obama cave in came in an Feb. 24 op-ed piece in the New York Times by Thomas Ricks, the pre-eminent mainstream historian of the war. Given the political gridlock and growing turbulence in Iraq, Ricks says that breaking his campaign promise is the "best course" for Obama to pursue.
 
Ricks says "it would be best to let [read: pressure] Iraqi leaders to make the first public move to re-open the status of forces agreement" under which US combat troops will soon be departing.
 
"As a longtime critic of the American invasion of Iraq, I am not happy about advocating a continued military presence there", Ricks writes. Perhaps he is forgetting his 2009 book celebrating Gen. David Petraeus, The Gamble, in which Ricks predicted that Obama would have to break his vow to remove all combat troops to avoid "abandoning Iraq." Or his prediction in the same book that the US is only "halfway through" the Iraq War.
 
Ricks' epilogue was titled "The Long War", making him one of the earliest warrror-journalists to embrace the notion of a 50-80 year war projected by top counterinsurgency advisers to Petraeus and the Pentagon.
 
Everyone including Ricks agrees that the American public is completely soured on the Iraq War. Just this week a federal agency noted that the $53 billion spent on Iraq reconstruction, the largest aid effort since the Marshall Plan, has been squandered. [NYT, Feb. 22, 2010]
 
That doesn't phase our ideological fanatics who believe in permanent war until all their ideological fanatics are dead.

No matter that both Iraq and Afghanistan are trillion-dollar wars and, according the latest federal budget analysis, there is "virtually no room for domestic initiatives for Mr. Obama or his successors." The neo-conservative stealth strategy of destroying government programs by "strangling the baby in the bathtub" [the phrase of Grover Norquist] is working.  
 
The reason US military combat may continue in Iraq is that the Pentagon has not won the war. On the one hand, the US has installed a brutal authoritarian Shiite-dominated coalition in power in Baghdad, one closely aligned with the Pentagon's strategic enemies in Iran. That's not a victory. That same Shiite coalition has used its power to purge the minority Sunni candidates from running in the elections scheduled for next month. Gen. Ray Odierno recently stated the obvious, that the key Iraqi politicians purging the Sunni candidates "clearly are influenced by Iran." [NYT, Feb. 17, 2010]
 
Not surprisingly, the top Iraqi blocking Sunni participation, according to Gen. Odiorno, is the same Ahmed Chalabi who conspired with the neo-cons to pass along false information leading to the 2003 invasion.
 
These events may drive the Sunni community to revive its insurgency, which was contained by US funding of the "Awakening" movement and promises of protection. The return of insurgency would mean civil war. The alternative may be more likely, a demand from the Sunnis that their former enemies, the Americans, stay in Iraq to protect them from the Shiites. This scenario would be in accord with the doctrine advocated by Petraeus advisor Stephen Biddle [see Foreign Affairs, Mar.-April 2006]. Divide and conquer may succeed.
 
What are the chances Obama will keep to his commitment? At this point, the most likely withdrawal we can expect from the President is not from Iraq but from his previous commitment. How can he politically succeed in withdrawing against warnings from all sides that chaos and bloodshed will be the result? The Long War advocates have him where they want him.
 
The peace movement may protest, and public opinion may be unenthusiastic, but cannot be counted on to stop this Long War plan for Iraq if Obama caves.  Last month there were only five American deaths in Iraq; for 2009, the count was 149 [compared to 822 in 2006].
 
If renewed American intervention cannot be stopped, neither can a reckoning down the road, however. The cost of occupation is more than a fiscal one. A permanent American occupation of Iraq will be like a giant breeder reactor generating deadly and unpredictable opposition from Iraqi nationalism and Islamic fundamentalism for years to come.
 
Dutch Pullout Intensifies Crisis in NATO Over Afghanistan
 
The latest evidence that anti-war pressures are making NATO the weak link in the Long War in Afghanistan came this week with the collapse of the Dutch government due to internal wrangling over the war.
 
Defense Secretary Robert Gates immediately warned of the "danger in Europe's anti-military views", according to a New York Times headline. [Feb. 24] Gates attacked "the demilitarization of Europe - where large swaths of the general public and political class are averse to military force and the risks that go with it." The European peace sentiment, he contended, is "an impediment to achieving real security and lasting peace."
 
The Times' news account on Feb. 21 reported that President Obama's popularity in Europe has not materialized in more troop commitments as previously expected. Under Obama's pressure, the Dutch prime minister agreed to extend the Dutch military commitment beyond this year. When the Labor Party balked, the government fell.
 
NATO recently pledged 7,000 troops, but 2,000 consist of units already sent to Afghanistan for the presidential election. The pressure will intensify at a NATO "force generation" meeting this week.
 
The Afghanistan commitment is the only glue which holds NATO together, according to national security elites like Gen. James Jones, Obama's current national security adviser and former NATO commander.

US Offensive in Marja a Repeat of 2007 Iraq Surge, But Will It Work?

The heavily-publicized US military offensive in Marja, a center of the Taliban and poppy fields in southern Afghanistan, is intended to yield "a large and loud victory...to convince the American public that they deserve more time to demonstrate that extra troops and new tactics can yield better results on the battlefield", according to a Washington Post story Feb. 22.  

Like the 2007 military surge in Iraq, the Pentagon strategy is to slow down the American clock [regarding a troop withdrawal] by speeding up the Afghan one [winning a battle against the enemy]. Both surges were the brainchildren of Gen. David Petraeus.

The critical difference between Iraq in 2007 and Afghanistan today, however, is that the US already had funded and built an army of well over 600,000 security forces, largely sectarian, to protect the American ally in Baghdad. The Afghan army by contrast is much smaller, and the police force dysfunctional, though Afghanistan is larger in space and population. [See the New York Times' military analysis by C.J. Chivers, "Afghan Army Lags in Battle, In Marja, Marines Do the Heavy Lifting", Feb. 21, or the LA Times account, "Marja Mission a Test of Afghan Troops' Abilities", Feb. 13]. In addition, the dominant Shiite bloc in Iraq represents a 60 percent majority, while the Kabul regime in Afghanistan rests on fractious warlords, drug lords, and remnants of the old Northern Alliance.

According to Gen. Stanley McChrystal, after the Marines clear and hold Marja, the building of the new society from the rubble will be done by "a government in a box" which will be dropped in behind the US lines. But it is a delusional risk that the Americans can deliver a new Afghan government in Helmand to replace the Taliban. The "government in a box" is more likely to be a transplant that will not take, leaving no reliable Afghan partner to "hand off" power to. It's the making of a quagmire.

Even worse, the success of the US in capturing Taliban leaders sheltered in Pakistan may undermine any prospect of negotiating a cease-fire with the Taliban followed by all-party talks. The number-two Taliban official now being held and interrogated, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, has been the key Taliban leader urging peace negotiations with the United States. "And now the Taliban will have no reason to negotiate with us; they will not believe anything we will offer or say", according to an American intelligence official. [NYT, Feb. 17]. According to the Times' Carlotta Gall, "the Taliban are in a fierce internal debate about whether to negotiate for peace or fight on." The Special Operations campaign targeting their leaders can be expected to harden the Taliban's distrust of any peace offers.  

The recent suicide bombings in Pakistan, Kabul and even at a top-secret CIA base in Afghanistan also shows that the Taliban can strike elsewhere across the region as the US becomes bogged down in the marshlands of Helmand Province. And it may be only a matter of time before militants strike in Europe or North America against the overextended American troops.

For now, however, the Pentagon plan is simply to achieve to gain Congressional, media and public support for the new surge. Then they will come back to the White House with an expedited request to delay the troop withdrawal now scheduled to "begin" in the summer of 2011, and perhaps lay the groundwork for yet another troop increase as the presidential election nears.

 
THE SORROWS OF WAR
Over 1,000 American Troop Suicides

More American soldiers are dying from suicide than dying in either the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Last year's American suicide body count of 334 exceeded the toll of 316 killed in Afghanistan and 149 in Iraq. The suicide numbers have been undercounted and underreported.

The figures are difficult to obtain and have rarely been tabulated cumulatively, for reasons not apparent. But these are the numbers as extracted from US Army data, a 2009 NYT article, and recent Congressional Quarterly figures. 

This article orginally appeared in The Nation. 

Editor's correction: The original version of this article states a "57 percent spike" in violence.  That figure has been corrected to 10 percent.

 

NATO countries are poised to add 7,000 soldiers to the 30,000-troop US escalation in Afghanistan, providing a cover of multilateralism for the Obama administration and the NATO commander, US General Stanley McChrystal. The NATO decision is expected to be ratified January 28 at a conference called by the United Kingdom, Germany, France, the Karzai administration and the United Nations Afghan Mission (UNAM).

To assuage European public hesitation, McChrystal is describing the troop surge for the first time as a step towards negotiating a political settlement with the Taliban. The London paper points out that "the prospect that an eight-year war could end with some Taliban leaders in power represents a remarkable turnaround" in US and NATO policy.

While NATO escalates its troop commitment, the London conference is billed as a display of "soft power" that will stabilize Afghanistan. One of the conference sponsors, the discredited Afghan president Hamid Karzai, will ask the conference for a $1 billion commitment to lure Taliban fighters onto the Kabul regime's payroll, a replica of the payments to 99,000 Sunni insurgents during the Iraq surge of 2007-8.

Afghanistan and Iraq are not identical conflicts, however. Iraq's Sunnis were a 20 percent minority fighting a majority Shi'a government and army, which the United States installed in power. In Afghanistan, the Taliban are powerful among the 45 percent Pashtun population, and cannot be defeated by Karzai's dysfunctional government or the northern Hazara, Tajik or Uzbek minorities. The situation resembles an ethnic-based stalemate, which Secretary of Defense Robert Gates acknowledged this week , in saying the Taliban are woven into the "political fabric" of Afghanistan.

One reason for the dovish hints is that European and Canadian public opinion strongly oppose the escalation. In Germany 71 percent are opposed, and in the UK 56 percent . In France, 82 percent are against increased troop commitments. Canada is committed to withdrawing troops in 2011, and pressure is building for other NATO nations to follow.

Obama's escalation is causing increased US and NATO casualties, a toll that is sure to increase rapidly as more troops arrive. In January, twenty-five Americans and twelve Europeans and Canadians have died, compared to twenty-four Americans and nine Europeans and Canadians during the same month last year. The 10 percent spike shows that the Afghan "fighting season" is becoming year-around rather than concentrated in the summer months.

Twenty-five deaths may seem a small number in the so-called war on terror, but the toll accumulates. The American dead in the war so far number 972, and will pass the 1,000 mark in the coming weeks. At that rate, an additional 1,000 Americans will die before the Obama administration's planned date for beginning withdrawals, in summer 2011. The numbers of American wounded leaped to 350 per month last summer. The cumulative European and Canadian death number is 617, doubling in a single year.

The cost of the eight-year war so far is $250 billion, and roughly $1 million per US soldier. It will become another trillion-dollar war by the end of Obama's second term. Along the way, the budget costs are likely to capsize Obama's domestic agenda and intensify inflationary pressures.

In keeping with the new tone of the escalation, the UK's Gordon Brown describes the London plan as "fully aligning military and civilian resources behind an Afghan-led political strategy," an echo of McChrystal's recent strategic plan. Brown promises that Afghan troops will begin replacing NATO units as early as this year. But beneath the rhetoric, Brown is pledging 500 additional British troops, bringing the number up to 9,500.

The London-based Stop the War Coalition is calling for mass protests in London this week, at both the conference and Friday's so-called Chilcott inquiry, an official investigation of the deceptions British and American officials employed in launching the Iraq War. Former Prime Minister Tony Blair is expected to testify Friday. Protests in several other European capitals are being organized as well.

Germany is particularly conflicted because both constitution and custom forbid the deployment of troops in war zones for aggressive purposes. Yet a German commander ordered the September 4, 2009, airstrike that killed some 142 Afghan civilians. The civilian deaths were denied at first, then acknowledged, then defended, resulting in the German official's resignation and widespread German debate. This week the Angela Merkel government is expected to send 500 more German troops, raising the total to 5,000. And Germany will train another 30,000 Afghan police and soldiers, doubling its current commitment.

The Karzai government recently raised alarms by predicting that NATO will remain in Afghanistan until 2024, to train and protect the still-weak Afghan security forces.

The current "talk about talks" runs counter to the neoconservative espousal of the "long war" doctrine, but there is no reason to believe that peace is at hand. Instead, the Obama/Pentagon plan is for brutal combat, including an emphasis on drones and special operations, for eighteen to twenty-four months, in the belief that the Taliban can be pounded into accepting an American-imposed peace settlement, and to permit Karzai's Afghan army time to grow into an effective force.

The sides are far apart. The Taliban, the Karzai government, some Europeans and the peace movement all agree that the United States and NATO must set a deadline for ultimate withdrawal of its forces, to be replaced by nonaligned peacekeeping troops. Further, negotiations must include the Taliban leadership, particularly Mullah Omar, who currently are headquartered in the Pakistan state of Baluchistan, over the Afghan border. They demand a lifting of the UN's so-called blacklist, which classifies 144 Taliban leaders as criminals and bars them from travel. Until the blacklist is suspended, no direct talks will be possible. Peace advocates also demand that 750 detainees be granted due process to avoid another Guantánamo. As an incentive towards peace, the Taliban have implied in recent statements that they may separate themselves from any Al Qaeda agenda in exchange for a power-sharing role in the future Afghanistan.

The United States and many in NATO, on the other hand, refuse so far to set a deadline for withdrawal, although Obama has announced a timeline to begin withdrawing. Nor will they negotiate with the Taliban leadership, viewing Omar as an ally of Al Qaeda. The United States has demanded that Pakistan "eliminate" Omar and the Taliban leadership in Baluchistan, or permit it to launch a military assault there. Recent statements by Gates and other US officials insist that the Taliban is linked irrevocably to Al Qaeda. Any US offer to negotiate at present is aimed at lower-echelon Taliban fighters in Afghanistan's villages. Although the United States has promised to identify the 750 detainees, any semblance of the rule of law is at best a work in progress in occupied Afghanistan.

The present quagmire is likely to result in bloodshed through 2011, reaching a crisis point when Obama is scheduled to begin the withdrawal of US troops. The Europeans and Canadians will be packed and ready to go by that point, and likely will linger no later. But the Pentagon, and the domestic hawks, could be predicting catastrophe if the United States departs, leaving Obama and the Democrats to choose between a deeper stalemate and the politics of strategic disengagement as the 2012 elections approach.

Research for this article was contributed by Emily Walker, of the Peace and Justice Resource Center.





American Deaths in Afghanistan Will Reach 1,000 in January Casualty Rates American - November, 2009: 18; December, 2009: 18 Coalition - November, 2009: 32, including US; December, 2009: 35, including US. Total - Afghanistan/Pakistan: unknown            US: 956 (2001 - present)            Canada: 138 (2001 - present) In this report: - Crisis in Iraq, by Raed Jarrar - Showdown Looming in Canada, by Colleen Fuller Crisis in Iraq by Raed Jarrar Ban of Sunni Political Leader Threatens Iraq Chaos Editor's note: In an unexpected resurgence of sectarian power politics, the Shi'a-led al-Maliki regime installed by the United States has banned the Sunni political leader, Saleh al-Mutlaq, from parliamentary elections scheduled for March. While the ban may be overturned, it is another sign that the US occupation has brought to power a regime determined to marginalize Sunnis, seriously complicating the planned US withdrawal of 50,000 more troops this year and complete withdrawal by late 2011. A delegation of American peace activists met al-Mutlaq, then an elected parliamentarian, and a cross-section of Iraqi leaders at an Amman conference in 2006. On January 1, 2007, American and Iraqi forces stormed his Baghdad house, killing six, while he was attempting to put a peace coalition in power. The following report is by Raed Jarrar, formerly from Iraq and now a senior fellow at the Peace Action Education Fund in Washington DC. The controversial announcement regarding banning Dr. Saleh Al-Mutlaq is not official yet, because the committee that announced it is not recognized by the Iraqi laws anymore. When Paul Bremer ruled Iraq, he created the infamous "de-baathefication" committee with the help of Ahmad Al-Chalabi. That committee was disbanded and replaced by another committee called the Truth and Justice Committee a couple of years ago, but the government never submitted any nominations for the new committee to be confirmed by the parliament. So what ended up happening is that the old committee just changed its title and claimed it can continue to do its work under the new name. But the parliament rejected this argument and never recognized the same old appointees to be confirmed for the new committee. But when the committee announced that Al-Mutlaq is banned from the upcoming elections because he supports and defends Baathist ideas, there was an outrage against the announcement not only because of the legitimacy of the committee, but because Dr. Al-Mutlaq has been a prominent member of the Iraqi political system since 2003. He's not only a head of one of the most important parliamentary blocs, but he also sits on the Iraqi Political Council for National Security. The move was seen as a cheep attempt to take down Dr. Al-Mutlaq by his political opponents from the current ruling parties. The way the Iraqi public sees it is that Dr. Al-Mutlaq, after uniting with Dr. Allawi and others, might end up winning the upcoming elections. So the ruling parties are trying to bring him down. If the Iraqi Supreme Court confirms Mr. Al-Lami's recommendations and bans Dr. Al-Mutlaq, his partners will withdraw their bid. This means that Dr. Allawi, Dr. Al-Hashemi, and others will not run in the upcoming elections. This will be a disaster that will destroy what little legitimacy the Iraqi political system has left, and it will definitely decrease the Iraqi public's participation in the upcoming elections.     The March elections have a lot of threats: they might be further delayed by the ruling parties fearing to lose, they might be stolen by the ruling parties with the lack of international observers, and they might be seen as illegitimate if Mutlaq and others were excluded in politically persecuted. What is more dangerous is that the Obama administration and Pentagon have been linking the US withdrawal to conditions on the ground, taking us back to the Bush days of "we'll stand down when the Iraqis stand up". There are 2 upcoming deadlines for US troops withdrawals: combat forces withdrawal that should take place between April and August of this year bringing the total number of US troops in Iraq down from 128,000 to 50,000, and the number of US contractors from 150,000 to 75,000. The second deadline is the end of the SOFA agreement when ALL US troops (combat+non-combat) must withdraw, ALL US contractors must withdaw, and ALL US bases must be closed ot handed over to the Iraqi side. The current deadline for the SOFA is Dec. 31st 2011, but that might shift a bit earlier in case Iraqis vote "NO" on a public referendum over the agreement triggering the one year cancellation clause. The next few months will be very important for Iraq and for the US withdrawal. The most important three things to watch: 1- If the Obama Administration falls in the slippery slope of "conditions-based withdrawal," that will take us to square one. If Obama succeeds in implementing the "time-based withdrawal" plan, things will be moving in the right direction.        2- The Obama Administration should encourage US NGOs to send international monitors to the March elections, and allocate emergency funds to cover their expenses. Otherwise, we have a possibility for claims of fraud to cause an Iran-style unrest. 3- The Obama Administration can pressure the Iraqi government (both the Cabinet and Presidential council) to create an inclusive environment that allows more Iraqis to participate in the political process, rather than persecute and alienate those who are willing to work with the system. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Showdown Looming in Canada by Colleen Fuller Canada's initial involvement in Afghanistan began shortly after 9/11, when the Liberal government agreed to send a small number of soldiers to assist and support the US invasion. Most Canadians believed the framing of their participation as part of the country's longstanding commitment to peacekeeping, efforts that reflected their strong support for alternatives to war and destruction after WWII and the Korean War. But the first blow to public support occurred after four Canadians were killed, and another eight were wounded, in a so-called "friendly fire" attack by US military forces. A year later, in 2003, 1800 troops comprised Canada's commitment to the International Security Assistance Force. Within a year, as people began to realise that the fight was far from the peacekeeping efforts of yesterday, and that the risks to Canadian soldiers were very high, criticism began mounting. Soon it became clear that the main reason Canadians were fighting in Afghanistan was because we were not fighting in Iraq. It has become a costly and unpopular mea culpa.   Canada's participation in the US-led invasion of Afghanistan has never garnered support among a majority of Canadians. Disapproval for "the mission" (as it is now called) has hovered at about 56% in public opinion polls, compared to 41% who approve of Canada's involvement. Recently the issue has become intertwined with questions about the depth of democracy in our own country and whether or not the fight for these principles should be taking place on Canadian rather than Afghan soil. In addition, the war has had an overall negative impact on the culture of the country, with growth in military spending at the expense of other needed social programs such as health care and post-secondary education. The military has come to dominate and reshape our collective historical memory: no longer are literacy, lower mortality rates and improved quality of life our greatest achievement; rather the glories of battlefields past and present increasingly represent the essential character of the nation.   Since 2007, Amnesty International and the BC Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA) have been pursuing charges against General Rick Hillier, Canada's chief of defence staff (and a dead ringer for Colonel Miles Quaritch in Avatar), the Minister of Defence, Peter McKay, and the Minister of Justice, Rob Nicholson. The two groups have also launched an international application for a judicial review of the transfer of prisoners detained by Canadian forces to Afghan authorities since 2005, charging that inadequate safeguards were in place to protect detainees from torture.  The BCCLA argues that "transfers of these detainees violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and Canada's international human rights obligations not to transfer detainees when there is a high probability of torture or ill treatment."   In November 2009, Richard Colvin, the former second in command at the Canadian Embassy in Kabul, was called before a Parliamentary committee to answer questions about the detainee issue. Colvin's explosive testimony before MPs described how he had warned Canadian officials, including top-ranking military officers and ministry staff, in 2006-07 that Afghan detainees handed over to Afghans were subsequently being tortured. Peter McKay, the defence minister, dismissed his testimony, saying Colvin was a "Taliban dupe." Prime Minister Stephen Harper who leads the right wing Conservative government, has adopted the harsh rhetoric of Dick Cheney, George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld to denounce critics of the war, calling them "Taliban sympathizers" and "unpatriotic". The all-party committee has demanded that the government turn over documents referenced by Colvin, but Harper has refused - just as he has refused an unprecedented order by Parliament to release unredacted documents about the Afghan detainees to the committee.   Rick Hillier, along with two retired generals (who were given access to documents, unlike the Parliamentary committee), was put before the committee by the government to refute Colvin's claims that he had been ordered to stop reporting on the detainee issue. As things heated up during the holidays, Richard Colvin provided a 16-page rebuttal of his own which outlined the sources of his information about the torture of Afghan prisoners. His letter said that "embassy staffers were told that they should not report information, however accurate, that conflicted with the government's public messaging.". On December 3, 23 former diplomats (described as "models of discretion") wrote a letter expressing deep concern over the government's personal attack on Colvin, and within days the number of signatures had grown to 71. By the end of December, 132 had put their names to the letter and major newspapers began calling for the resignation of the defence minister. A Parliamentary vote supported a judicial enquiry in to the detainee issue and there is now a Facebook page demanding that an inquiry take place.   Amidst claims by the government that the Afghan detainee issue is "old news" and not even news that Canadians care about, the normally polite and reserved public is registering some concern about the direction their government has taken. A majority - 51% - told pollsters they believed Colvin's testimony, while only 25% said they believed the government.  The government's response to the political and constitutional crisis was to prorogue Parliament - on December 30th, a day when relatively few would be following the news. This is the second time in less than a year it has done so, the last time to avoid a non-confidence vote by the Opposition parties in Parliament. In an unusual front-page editorial the country's main national newspaper, the Globe and Mail said that by putting Parliament "on ice", Stephen Harper was allowing his government to "elude the detainee issue, a move that undermines the democratic rights of the people."   It is likely there will be a national election either in the Spring or Fall of 2010 - definitely not before the Winter Olympics. Whether the Opposition parties can keep the issue of war or peace at the front of people's minds will depend on a number of factors, including whether the news media will want to hold the Harper government's feet to the fire. On December 30th the same day that Harper suspended Parliament, four more Canadian soldiers and one well-known and respected journalist were killed by a roadside bomb. The death toll, and the internal crises that the war has contributed to - the lack of democracy and accountability, the redirection of taxpayer dollars to fund the military rather needed social programs, the crude and "un-Canadian" vitriol that now characterizes the federal government - will have to be political issues that progressive liberals and the left put on the public agenda. Colleen Fuller is an author and a researcher in health and pharmaceutical policy based in Vancouver.



The White House and Pentagon are lobbying hard for an increased NATO troop commitment for the Afghanistan escalation, as public opinion in America, Canada and Europe - and Afghanistan - is increasingly skeptical.
 
Placing pressure on the US and NATO governments from the bottom up, country by country, will be necessary to reverse the unsustainable dynamic towards militarism and empire.
 
-       In Afghanistan itself, "nearly everyone agrees that the Afghan government must negotiate with the insurgents", according to the New York Times [11/6/09]. Even the discredited Afghan president Hamid Karzhai complains that the US is blocking his efforts to talk with the Taliban [see my earlier post in the LA Times], and continues to condemn US-inflicted civilian casualties. In Pakistan, a powerful 64 percent regards the US as their enemy and 72 percent want the American forces out Afghanistan (here). In the United States, President Obama is competing with his critics to win back his Democratic base. So far he has succeeded in winning back about ten percent, but still depends on Republicans to support his escalation. An AP Dec. 10-14 poll showed 57 percent of Americans opposed overall, while an NBC-Wall Street Journal poll also in mid-December (11-14) found 41 percent against the current Afghanistan approach, and with 44 percent in favor.
-       In Europe and Canada, opposition to the escalation runs highest, with 69 percent of Germans opposed, 66 percent of Canadians, 58 percent of Italians, and 56 percent in the United Kingdom.
-       Troop withdrawals currently are scheduled in Canada [2,830 troops by 2011], the Netherlands [2,160 troops by 2010], while Switzerland has already pulled their 31 troops.
 
In summary, there are three political battlegrounds of public opinion in addition to the secretive military ones being invaded by foreign troops, Special Ops and drones. The fight against the war is also a fight for  democracy and majority rule against the elite global planning for a Long War. [see Hayden on Kilcullen in The Nation]
 
The Obama administration's diplomatic offensive to cement greater NATO support is being under-reported. The British and German governments are planning a late January European conference to "set a timetable for transferring security responsibilities to Afghan forces" at a date uncertain. [Reuters, Nov. 16, 2009 ]

Like Obama's two-pronged approach to escalation/de-escalation, the British-German formula is likely to result in short-term escalation of at least 7,000 troops combined with an ambiguous timetable for departure, enough to placate restive public opinion.
 
In response, the UK's Stop the War Coalition is sponsoring an anti-war demonstration in London on January 28.

Already the Obama lobbying effort is being hampered by the pressure of public opinion. The US is seeking a commitment of 7,000 new troops from the Europeans, but it appears that 1,500 are those sent to Afghanistan to guard the presidential election this year, and who will not be withdrawn. The five thousand scheduled by Canada and the Netherlands for withdrawal in the next two years may leave the net numbers approximately the same, but barely increased. The likely increases are from Britain [500], Poland [1000], Italy [600], Spain [400], and smaller nations. Pressure is being applied to Germany and France for another 3,500 [NYT, Dec. 17, 2009]
 
The logic behind British support for Afghan escalation was expressed recently by the British defense minister, Robert Ainsworth, who offered a domino theory, as follows: "If Afghanistan is not secure, then Pakistan is not secure, and if Pakistan is not secure, Britain is not secure." [NYT, Nov. 5] Many European security experts, like Peter Neumann of the Center for Defense Studies at King's College, claim a "broad agreement" that Europe is a "nerve center for the global jihad." [Kilcullen, The Accidental Guerrilla, p. 247] Europe and Canada's human rights laws, they say, create "legislative safe havens" for terrorists to plot and strike.
 
This argument may gain currency with this week's anxiety over the successful penetration of Western defenses by a 23-year old Nigerian, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who attempted to blow up an airliner flying through Amsterdam to Detroit.
 
But instead of arguing that bombing Afghanistan and Pakistan, and restricting human rights laws, will make Westerners safe, homeland security officials need to examine once again the institutional incompetence that in this case permitted travel by someone whose own father, a top Nigerian banker, warned American officials that his son had taken a violent and dangerous turn.
 
After Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano claimed that "the system worked" in the airline bombing attempt, saying the passengers had played an "important" and "appropriate" role, she could have been forced to resign. Napolitano, a captive of her bureaucracy, was repeating the infamous role of Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice who denied the relevance of a CIA memo warning of al Qaeda attacks shortly before September 11, 2001. As a result, the Obama White House was put on the defensive by the Republican hawks responsible for loopholes in airline security made possible by either incompetence or an ideological commitment to air travel.
 
There is another explanation for the zealous American lobbying to keep NATO in Afghanistan which is never mentioned. Afghanistan and Pakistan are the glue that holds NATO and the "Western alliance" together and create incentives for increased militarization in countries like Canada, Germany, and even non-NATO nations like Sweden and Japan. Why, after all, is an armed entity called the North Atlantic Treaty Organization invading and occupying South Asia? The reason was given by Obama's national security adviser, Gen. James Jones, in 2007 when he previously commanded NATO forces:
 
    "In committing the alliance to sustained ground combat operations in Afghanistan...NATO has bet its future. If NATO were to fail, alliance cohesion would be at grave risk. A moribund or unraveled NATO would have a profoundly negative geostrategic impact." [in Ahmed Rashid, Descent into Chaos, p. 373]
 
Approvingly, the influential Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid, writes that in Afghanistan NATO "would find meaning for its continued existence and recreate the unity that Western Europe showed during the Cold War." [Rashid, ibid., 372]

This same alarm is voiced by Zbigniew Brzezinski in the current [Jan.-Feb. 2010] issue of Foreign Affairs:

    “Nothing would be worse for NATO if one part of the alliance [Western Europe] left the other part [the United States] alone in Afghanistan. Such a fissure over NATO’s first campaign initially based on Article 5, the collective defense provision, would probably spell the end of the alliance.”

Democracy and domestic priorities will be the casualties in the United States, Canada and Europe if the US-NATO military expansion holds sway.

United States troop commitment (Afghanistan): 100,000 [by 2010]; contractors (global): 68-71,000 [LAT, Aug 13, 2009]
 
Costs:
Total, 2001-2009: $300 billion [CRS Report, "The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other Global War on Terror Operations Since 9/11," Sept. 28, 2009]
Request for 2010: $73 billion for Afghanistan [70 percent increase over 2008, see CRS Report]
Cost of 30,000 more troops : $25-30 billion/year [NYT, Nov. 14, 2009]
Cost per US soldier: $1 million per year. [NYT, Nov. 14, 2009]
Cost of contractors: $6 - 10 billion, 2003-2007 [LAT, Aug. 13, 2009]
Cost to double Afghan army and police: $50 billion over 5 years. [NYT, Nov. 14, 2009]
 [The cost] will "devour virtually any other priorities that the president or anyone in Congress had" - Rep. David Obey, chair, House Appropriations Committee
 
American Casualties:
Death toll 2001-2009: 949 (as of Jan. 2, 2010, see www.icasualties.org)
Death toll 2009: 319
Wounded: total 2001-2009: 4,434
See also: "US Combat Injuries Rise Sharply", W. Post, Oct. 31, 2009. 350 American troops wounded each month since doubling of US troops in 2009.

Europe and Canada (in Afghanistan):
Costs are in U.S. dollars

United Kingdom - 9,000 troops; $1.6 billion; 245 killed

Germany - 4,050 troops; $767.8 million; 34 killed

France - 3,160 troops; $124.2 million; 36 killed

Canada - 2,800 troops; $12.36 billion; 138 killed

Italy - 2,795 troops; $424.4 million; 22 killed

Poland - 2,000 troops; $1.1 million; 16 killed

Netherlands - 1,770 troops; $403.7 million; 21 killed

Romania - 1,025 troops; cost unknown; 11 killed

Spain - 780 troops; $25.6 million; 26 killed

Turkey - 730 troops; cost unknown; 2 killed

Denmark - 700 troops; $214.5 million; 30 killed

Belgium - 510 troops; $48.9 million; 1 killed

Norway - 485 troops; $349.8 million; 4 killed

Bulgaria - 470 troops; cost unknown

Sweden - 430 troops; $265.53 million; 2 killed

Czech Republic - 340 troops; cost unknown; 3 killed

Hungary - 310 troops; cost unknown; 2 killed

Croatia - 295 troops; cost unknown

Slovakia - 230 troops; cost unknown

Lithuania - 200 troops; cost unknown; 1 killed

Latvia - 165 troops; cost unknown; 3 killed

Macedonia - 165 troops; cost unknown

Estonia - 150 troops; cost unknown; 7 killed

Greece - 145 troops; $260,000

Albania - 140 troops; cost unknown

Finland - 110 troops; $81.6 million; 1 killed

Portugal - 90 troops; $1.4 million; 2 killed

Slovenia - 80 troops; cost unknown

Ukraine - 10 troops; cost unkown

Luxembourg - 9 troops; cost unknown

Ireland - 7 troops; $8.8 million

Austria - 3 troops; $750,000

Iceland - 8 troops; cost unknown

Bosnia and Herzegovina - 2 troops; cost unknown


For information on costs, click here and here.

For troop levels, click here.

For comprehensive information on global public opinion polls, click here.