WhatFinger


The firing of General David McKiernan and increasing failure of the Obama Afghanistan-Pakistan plan should be disquieting to the American public.

Congress Must Investigate McKiernan Firing



Obama wrongly thought we could deal with the Taliban but instead now we find ourselves in the middle of a growing civil war in both countries. Today the announcement of the relief of Gen. David D. McKiernan, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, comes as the latest news in the flawed Obama strategy or perhaps best described as absence of strategy for Afghanistan-Pakistan. There has been growing controversy about whether U.S. military operations in the region have been stacking up unacceptable numbers of civilian casualties but is it fair to blame McKiernan?

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Just this week, Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton said she “deeply, deeply” regretted the loss of civilians in Western Afghanistan which the Red Cross counted as 120 from American military actions. Afghan President Hamid Karzai had called the deaths “unacceptable ” which occurred while he was in Washington DC meeting with President Obama. Gen. David McKiernan disagreed with President Karzai that these most recent deaths were the result of American military action. His staff said that American Marines were assisting Afghan forces who had been ambushed and blamed the civilian casualties on the Taliban. The Associated Press says two senior officials who wished to remain anonymous stated that a Taliban leader had ordered his men to use hand grenades on the civilians. In early March General McKiernan became controversial when he stated the the NATO military effort was not winning the Afghan War especially in southern regions of the country. Many European leaders including Prime Minister Gordon Brown of England were balking at increasing their investment of troops especially in combat in that region. Some critics have said that McKiernan’s statements that were also used by these leaders to bolster their decision to avoid further combat commitment. In late March CENTCOM chief, Gen. David Petraeus, transferred authority to General McKiernan from CENTCOM authority over the controversial drone attacks and raids performed by Special Operations. These attacks have been the subject of protest by Afghanistan President Karzai for many months. The United Nations reported in 2008 that they were the major cause of civilian casualties. The “ideal war” in American folklore was World War II were the civilian population. for example in France has been often portrayed as being totally devoted to the French underground and supportive of counterinsurgency measures by the Allied powers prior to the Normandy invasion. Unfortunately neither in that war or in the wars of Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and now Afghanistan-Pakistan have there ever been such clear cut delineations of loyalty, public will, or cooperation in dealing with civilian populations. Even if a majority supports American action it just takes a significant resistance to create trouble. Whenever the United States has mounted a counterinsurgency in a foreign country since World War II the situation has often been more complicated. Although these conflicts were usually depicted as an outside foreign influence such as communism or religious extremism developing outside the area of conflict and being imported into the region by another foreign influence this overly simplistic representation misses the important fact that internal (domestic) insurgents are usually involved to a significant degree. Internal or domestic insurgents who gain a significant hold (does not have to be a majority) of civilian support or even indifference can thwart the success of a counterinsurgency. When counterinsurgency is attempted in what is really a civil war the counterinsurgency can “backfire” severely as history has shown. Two recent academic studies of attitudes in the civilian populations of Pakistan and Afghanistan show that although there may not be a majority of the civilian population that is Anti-American or anti-government there is enough significant disapproval within the civilian community to give the insurgent Taliban and their Al Qaeda allies a strong foothold. In March the Aryana Institute for Regional Research and Advocacy, a think thank of moderate intellectuals from Pakistan, surveyed the population of the border regions with Afghanistan to determine if American drone attacks and military operations were driving the local population to support the Taliban. This study was released first in the International News and the Aryana website in response to Western journalists reports and skeptics of American military operations. Their significant findings were Do you see drone attacks bringing about fear and terror in the common people? (Yes 45%, No 55%) Do you think the drones are accurate in their strikes? (Yes 52%, No 48%) Do you think anti-American feelings in the area increased due to drone attacks recently? (Yes 42%, No 58%) Should Pakistan military carry out targeted strikes at the militant organizations? (Yes 70%, No 30%) Do the militant organizations get damaged due to drone attacks? (Yes 60%, No 40%) Although the writer, Farhat Taj, a research fellow at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Gender Research, University of Oslo and a member of Aryana Institute for Regional Research and Advocacy, says his group came to the conclusion The popular notion outside the Pakhtun belt that a large majority of the local population supports the Taliban movement lacks substance. The notion that anti-Americanism in the region has not increased due to drone attacks is rejected. The study supports the notion that a large majority of the people in the Pakhtun belt wants to be incorporated with the state and wants to integrate with the rest of the world. What he did not say is that a significant portion of the populace clearly do not support the government. This month the Brookings Institute reported studies on the happiness of the Afghanistan population which found significant mistrust of the government and public institutions. They found a curious anomaly in that in areas that were under some Taliban influence (they avoided testing areas under heavy Taliban control because they could not access them) people were less fearful of crime and corruption. The United States must be very careful not to create a sense of lawlessness or lack of order. The Taliban have smartly propagandized that they bring law and order to regions with sharia law in both countries while the “legitimate” governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan are corrupt and do not protect the people from crime. The United States now finds itself in both Afghanistan and Pakistan in the middle of a civil war were a significant population though not the majority is questioning their government. This is no longer a war where we are trying to drive out a foreign invader. The closeness of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda cannot be denied. The theory of Obama surrogate, Fareed Zakaria, that we could deal with Taliban has been clearly shown to be more than erroneous. The Obama administration has not yet presented to the American public what his goals and plan are for the “contingency overseas operation” in the Afghanistan-Pakistan theater. There is now a more than obvious rightful comparison between the Obama dilemma and that of President Johnson in Vietnam. No official reason for the dismissal of Gen. David McKiernan has so far been given but I am concerned that Sec. Clinton and Obama were quick to apologize for American wrongs without giving public credence to General McKiernan’s explanation. In late March CENTCOM chief Gen. David Petraeus transferred authority to General McKiernan from CENTCOM authority over the controversial drone attacks and raids performed by Special Operations. These attacks have been the subject of protest by Afghanistan President Karzai for many months. The United Nations reported in 2008 that they were the major cause of civilian casualties. However, reports in the Huffington Post , the New York Times, and the Inter Press News Service (IPS) report that that the command of these operations has been jumbled about somewhat since 2003. The previous Gen. David Barno for U.S. Forces in Afghanistan from 2003 to 2005 was reported to have controlled the daily operations of Special Forces and vetoed many “targeted” air strikes because he did not belief trying to kill Taliban leaders in this way would be effective. Gen. Karl Eikenberry, who became Barno’s successor, in 2005 and was named by President Obama to be the Ambassador to Afghanistan (thus clearly is still influencing Obama) initiated the program of drone attacks against Taliban leaders. Col. David W. Lamm, who served as chief of staff for Barno in Afghanistan, told the IPS that Special Operations and drone attacks then came under NATO control in 2006. As the Bush Presidency was coming to a close however, as reported by the New York Times ,Vice-Adm. William H. McRaven, the head of the Combined and Joint Special Operations Task Force-Afghanistan (CJSOTF-A), had ordered a dramatic reduction in the raids for two weeks beginning in mid-February. Obama after his inauguration however changed course once again becoming very aggressive in Special Operations attacks and drone attacks which invited criticism of the President Karzai. Was firing McKiernan response to Karzai’s recent complaints? Is he being made a scape goat? It is unclear who has really been in charge of Special Operations and drone attacks? Clearly President Obama has wanted to extend the war into Pakistan as far back as when he was Senator Obama. I worry when the American President who is also the Commander in Chief of our valiant and loyal military so quickly dismissed a General who was defending the honor of his troops. This cannot bode well for moral. The appropriate Defense committees in Congress should hold immediate hearings to get the bottom of the manner? The American people now must demand what is our plan because all it appears now is that we are being dragging deeply into civil war.


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Dr. Tony Magana -- Bio and Archives

Dr. Tony Magana was raised in McAllen Texas, attended Texas A&M;University, and holds a doctorate from Harvard University. He has served in the United States Army Reserve. He is a member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.


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