Former State Department Officer Matt Sherman Accurately States that Afghanistan’s Population Is Not at the Desperation Point that Motivated Iraq’s (at Least Temporary) Turn Around — but He Avoids Drawing the Necessary Conclusion

© 2011 Peter Free

 

27 June 2011

 

 

Why clear thinking about Afghanistan is necessary — the President’s inertia is not working in our nation’s favor

 

Having endorsed a troop surge in Afghanistan for almost certainly purely political reasons, President Obama is now playing the withdrawal game with the same motivation.

 

The Commander in Chief gets away with these facile manipulations of public opinion because too few of us have thought thoroughly about the implications of American strategy.

 

In some respects, I have been more critical of President Obama than President Bush simply because President Obama’s militaristic posturing has been divorced from any apparently real belief that the Afghanistan intervention could have succeeded.

 

Though both men predictably proved to be strategically wrong in their willingness to commit to an unwinnable large-scale military intervention in Afghanistan, President Bush began the occupation for reasons that inarguably went beyond personal political benefit.

 

President Obama, on the other hand, appears to have let his political ambitions overcome what I would characterize as a Commander in Chief’s ethical obligations to our troops and the national interest.

 

In President Obama’s defense, he can make a very strong argument that political manipulation was the only means left to him as a way of uniting the country behind the only workable solution — withdrawal.  The President could even argue that his troop surge was required in order to demonstrate the futility of increasing American presence in that tumultuous place.

 

Indeed, President Obama may ultimately prove to have been far more politically prescient than I have been.

 

What I continue to object to, however — even in recognizing the merit of his strong politically-based argument — is his expediency-based disregard for the loss of life that he probably considered necessary to achieve the withdrawal-is-necessary threshold of public insight.

 

In my (perhaps too critical) view, honorable destiny requires that leaders sometimes defy political expedience, instead electing to tell the truth in a convincing and determined way.

 

President Obama has not once put himself in the position of a courageous truth-teller and decisively ethical leader.

 

Were people not regularly dying as a result of his mistaken policies, the failure to step up to presidential greatness might be tolerable.  Given the regularity and strategic futility of our war deaths, I think it is not.

 

So — given the public’s apathy and the Congress’ uselessness, who is going to provide a truth-telling function in regard to Afghanistan?

 

 

Former State Department officer, Matt Sherman, made an attempt to say something honest last week

 

One problem with American democracy these days is that people who are insightful and capable are not in positions of leadership power.  Given also our American penchant for listening only to celebrities, it has been difficult for people opposed to the failing status quo to get their expertise listened to.

 

Take one example.  According to the Washington Post, Matt Sherman recently completed a two year mission embedded with American troops in Afghanistan.  Prior to that (2004-2007), he was a political advisor to the Iraq government and U.S. military there.  Knowledgeable he should be.

 

Two days ago, the Washington Post published Sherman’s thoughts about the difference between Afghanistan and Iraq.  Though what he said should be obvious, far too few people have admitted it.

 

Sherman observed that Iraq and Afghanistan are different.  The Iraq troop surge in 2007 succeeded because Sunnis, Shiites, and Americans were desperate to bring an end to the daily deluge of deaths.

 

The varying players’ desperation, acting as a motivator, outweighed the previously argued importance of troop levels and varying military strategies.

 

Desperation resulted in cooperation.  Cooperation turned a deadly situation around.  (I am not as persuaded as Sherman is that this turn-around is permanent.)

 

Sherman continued in regard to Afghanistan:

 

The dynamics in Afghanistan are starkly different.

 

Unlike in Iraq, this war is rural and dispersed. In Kabul and other major cities across the country, the images and daily experience of war are not as vivid as they were in the streets of Baghdad.

 

Many current fighters are simply rural Afghans who have taken up arms out of a sense of honor or nationalism, or because of economic incentives, or because they have relatives who have been killed or injured.

 

The more we understand this, the more we will realize that many of those we call the enemy do not have the will or the capacity to carry out transnational attacks against the United States or our allies.

 

 

Though the country may appear in dire straits to Western eyes, it has not reached despair. Many Afghans have experienced far worse: all-out civil war, most recently after the withdrawal of Soviet troops in 1989.

 

Ultimately, the only force that can change Afghanistan will be the collective desire of Afghans for an end to war.

 

© 2011 Matthew Sherman, What the Afghan war is missing: A sense of desperation, Washington Post (24 June 2011) (extracts, paragraphs split)

 

Sherman concludes that, “There will be no Afghan Awakening — at least not while we are there.”

 

 

Capable people’s rationality is often defeated by an emotional or politically-inspired reluctance to admit sadly necessary conclusions

 

Sherman indicates that the various Afghan peoples are not ready to simulate a Western-style, West-oriented democracy.

 

Nor, I think, will they become capable of defeating the various groups American soldiers and marines are struggling against today.  No matter how long American troops stay.

 

The desperate motivation that fueled inter-group cooperation in Iraq is lacking in Afghanistan.

 

Sherman implies that the American presence in Afghanistan contributes to the anti-American feeling that gets people killed and continues to fuel discord.

 

In sum, the mixture of insufficient Afghani motivation, combined with the escalating anti-American hostility inadvertently fueled by our continued presence in Afghanistan, is a recipe for American self-defeat.

 

Though Sherman avoids saying so, continuing to waste American and Afghani lives in pursuit of an illusory American success, however vaguely defined, is (on balance) ethically indefensible.

 

 

A reasonably safe retreat from a bad tactical and strategic position does not have to be a slow one

 

One of the biggest stupidities we hear repeatedly from our political and military leaders is that a safe withdrawal from Afghanistan has to be a slow one, easily reversed as “conditions on the ground” change.

 

That’s nonsense.

 

You will not find a genuinely competent commander who thinks that a slow dribbling retreat from an untenable strategic or tactical position is to be favored over a fast, well-coordinated one, especially when the unnecessary loss of lives and troop strength is imminent.

 

The “go slow” argument is a politically-motivated distortion fostered by our leaders in hopes that the American public is too ignorant of history and military tactics/strategy to detect the bald-faced nonsense that underlies it.

 

The reality is that Afghanistan is not going to work out in the way we wished.  And there really is no bright side to that result.  Some strategic mistakes can’t be rectified.  No matter how long we seek to avoid confronting the inevitable.

 

 

Why our leaders lie

 

Our leaders deceive because the majority of them benefit from the inertia of the status quo.  Power corrupts vision, common sense, and personal honor.

 

The losers?  Our troops, their families, and America’s reputation for sanity and ethical integrity around the world.

 

 

Let’s pay attention

 

Matt Sherman’s analysis is worth evaluating.

 

Then consider the implications of what he wrote for American foreign and military policy.