opinion: Losing hearts, minds and ground —Brian Cloughley

[fatman17]

opinion: Losing hearts, minds and ground —Brian Cloughley

The US and its allies went into Afghanistan without doing the basic arithmetic of numbers of troops to defined tasks. Unless there are enough troops to take and hold ground to ensure that aid projects work, there is no point in staying there

President Dwight Eisenhower inherited the Korean War from his predecessor and then negotiated a ceasefire. President Lyndon Johnson inherited the Vietnam War from his predecessor and committed his country to an eventual disastrous defeat. And almost fifty years later, President Barack Obama has inherited the Afghan war.

What happens now?

Last month, the US defence secretary, Robert Gates, an unusually pragmatic and sensible man for a Washington mechanic, said that “at a minimum, the mission is to prevent the Taliban from retaking power against [sic] a democratically elected government in Afghanistan and thus turning Afghanistan, potentially, again, into a haven for Al Qaeda and other extremist groups.”

Then General David Petraeus said that a surge like the one he ordered in Iraq would not work in Afghanistan, and that it is essential that Afghans not view foreign forces as conquerors. “You do need to tenaciously pursue the enemy and the extremists... But you also need to be building, and to develop, and...help and to partner.”

The problem is that so much damage has been done already by bumbling swaggering incompetent savages who think that kicking down doors and killing anything that moves is the way to succeed. As to partnership — does anyone believe that President Karzai is an equal partner of the “coalition” forces in his country? Does anyone imagine there is deference by foreign forces to the government of Afghanistan? Karzai complained about the cowboy airstrikes that have killed hundreds of his people but the only effect his protests have had is to make Afghans despise him for being feeble, and to have Washington even more determined to have him replaced.

Petraeus is right, in that development is essential, as pointed out in an excellent report last week by the International Crisis Group (whose representatives’ intellectual calibre is humbling). But it’s how to go about this that presents the greatest problem. The foreigners running Afghanistan do not have enough troops to control the country, and the Afghan army is nowhere near ready to conduct operations on its own. So there can’t be much development carried out (although billions of development dollars have vanished), simply because there is no stability. There is no point in building something if the nasties can promptly destroy it.

A long time ago, I served in the Australian Task Force in Vietnam. Apparently we were helping America defend South Vietnam from North Vietnam, and we didn’t worry too much about the moral aspects of the conflict — well, not until we’d seen first-hand some of the terrible things that were done in the name of ‘freedom’. We were supposed to “win hearts and minds” but, alas, lost them completely.

Both Vietnams, North and South, were run by dictators, but the fellow in the South was regarded as a ‘good dictator’ because he wasn’t a communist, and he convinced his mentors that any replacement for his corrupt chaotic rule would be even worse. (It was a bit like the Karzai capers nowadays.) And we had the same dewy-eyed view of ‘development’ that is evident among so many of the foreigners now trying to run Afghanistan.

We used to go round the villages building little windmills. Splendid contraptions they were, that pumped up water for fishponds and so forth. On the vanes of the propellers we stencilled little yellow kangaroos, announcing that Australia supported windmill democracy (or something). And a couple of days after we erected one of them, imagining ingenuously that we were winning the hearts and minds of the local people, along would come the Viet Cong (Insurgents? Freedom Fighters? Terrorists?) and blow it up.

Then the Viet Cong became a bit more savvy. They left the windmills alone — and told the villagers that the first person to make use of one would be killed. This had the effect of leaving standing monuments to the total impotence of the foreign soldiers. It was very effective psychological warfare. Even the 500,000 foreign troops in South Vietnam, a country (66,263 square miles) much smaller than Afghanistan (250,000 square miles), together with a Vietnamese army of 410,000 could not guarantee the existence of a few windmills.

We used to have a military principle that remains relevant: Take and Hold Ground. It comes down to this: If you can’t hold the ground you’ve taken, then what is the point in taking it? Why take ground, build a windmill (or whatever), and then go away and leave it to the mercy of the opposition that promptly takes back the ground after you leave?

In 1971, South Vietnam had 275 attack aircraft and 50 helicopter gunships, and the US 7th Air Force had 450 combat aircraft. They had no opposition whatsoever — just as now in Afghanistan. In addition to the army, there were 520,000 Vietnamese in the Regional and Popular Forces (who we cynics called the Ruffs and Puffs). Yet all this military might couldn’t protect a few windmills. Or much else, come to that.

It is all very well having lots of troops roaming around Afghanistan killing people, many of whom may be civilians (over 700 civilians were killed by foreign forces last year; imagine the hatred engendered by that, all over the country), but as in Vietnam, it is hearts and minds that matter. President Obama said that his country “needs a clear mission” in Afghanistan and that what must be avoided is “mission creep without clear parameters.” So he has some hard decisions to make.

The US and its allies went into Afghanistan without doing the basic arithmetic of numbers of troops to defined tasks. Now the price is being paid — by everyone. Unless there are enough troops to take and hold ground to ensure that aid projects work, there is no point in staying there.

Brian Cloughley’s book about the Pakistan army, War, Coups and Terror, has just been published by Pen & Sword Books (UK) and is distributed in Pakistan by Saeed Book Bank

Daily Times - Leading News Resource of Pakistan

 

[JK!]

Kinda backs up Ex-SAS commander Maj. Sebastian Morley who has stated:

"We hold tiny areas of ground in Helmand and we are kidding ourselves if we think our influence goes beyond 500 meters of our security bases,"