Endgame in Afghanistan - Real Life Look at Troops in War

In his piece "Endgame in Afghanistan", British reporter Sean Smith provides a rare glimpse of the raw reality of the war in Afghanistan for American troops.

I initially supported the idea of a surge in troops for Afghanistan because it was sold as part of a comprehensive strategy to make sure that the U.S. would get out or reduce its presence in a reasonable amount of time. But as I have read more, and observed the situation...it is becoming clear that this is not the case. So, for me, the pendulum is swinging the other way. I actually had doubts about Afghanistan as far back as 2005, when it became clear that it was becoming a misguided quagmire. Without a comprehensive approach and not enough troops, the situation was allowed to get out of control under the Bush Administration. Without addressing the economic situation, the dire poverty of the people, education, the poppy farming (a huge problem), failing to win the support of the people, and not having enough troops to hold ground... it was bound to turn into an ugly stalemate. But I also understood from the beginning - a belief that is now reaffirmed- that trying to build a nation out of a part of the world where the ingredients for such a task simply don't exist in any practical sense. In Afghanistan there is generally no sense of nationalism, a fractious & heterogeneous population with verious different tribal and ethnic groups, life being driven at the local level, and thus no sense of collective national pride to motivate men to want to stand up an Army and fight for their own Country. In other words, the whole mission is built on a false premise.

It is clear that corruption is strangling efforts there. Furthermore, it is clear that the Afghans are not taking responsibility for their own security... at least the enthusiasm just doesn't seem to be there. So if they aren't willing to fight... we certainly shouldn't have our soldiers fighting and dying there. In order to gain control of Afghanistan, it would require at least 500,000 American/NATO troops. I (and others) have said that for years. There is no way that the U.S. or its NATO allies will ever send that many troops into this war. Hell, the U.S., with its military stretched so thin...and with its hunger to maintain some sort of empire with troops all over the world, doesn't have the troops to send. So what are we doing? Furthermore, we have to consider the fact that the nation is broke. We can't afford it. With no clear definition of what success is...what winning is.... and no clear, achievable goals... this war (with an initial attack that I believed was warranted back in 2002, although dubious) has changed over the last 9 years into something that no longer makes sense. So my view of this war has changed quite a bit, especially over the last 18 months.

But it is clear that the Obama Administration has no plans to get out of Afghanistan anytime soon. Americans were sold fools gold with the promise of a troop drawdown...as I suspected. President Obama can't leave & is planning to have our troops there for a number of years down the road (I will go into that a little more in a separate commentary). Although I think the crap about terrorists attacking us from Afghanistan...and it will be doomsday if we leave... we must stay there so they don't hit us at home...is all a bunch of BS.

We are looking at 3-5 more years of this madness (at a minimum). Hard to understand...and getting harder everyday. I will write more on that in a future post.

From The Guardian:

As the war in Afghanistan enters its final chapter, Sean Smith's brutal, uncompromising film from the Helmand frontline shows the horrific chaos of a stalemate that is taking its toll in blood. Warning: contains distressing scenes and strong language

The Wounded Platoon - New Documentary on Mental Casualties of War

PBS Documentary on the often forgotten and often hidden casualties of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.



On November 30, 2007, 24-year-old Kevin Shields went out drinking with three Army buddies from Fort Carson, Colo., a base on the outskirts of Colorado Springs. A few hours later, he was dead -- shot twice in the head at close range and left by the side of the road by his fellow soldiers. Shields' murder punctuated a string of violent attacks committed by the three, who are now serving time in prison for this and other crimes, and it contributed to a startling statistic: Since the Iraq war began, a total of 17 soldiers from Fort Carson have been charged with or convicted of murder, manslaughter or attempted murder committed at home in the United States, and 36 have committed suicide.

Read more

New Documentary: Behind Taliban Lines

New documentary from PBS Frontline "Behind Taliban Lines" shows the challenges faced by the U.S. in Afghanistan. Najibullah Quraishi, an Afghan journalist, was able to infiltrate the Taliban and get a glimpse of life in Afghanistan in areas outside of the control of U.S. troops. The U.S. is losing the battle for hearts in minds in some parts of the Country, although the West has tribal support in others... but in many areas not physically held by U.S. troops & where the Taliban has found shelter, such as in Southern Afghanistan, the U.S. faces an almost impossible situation.

There is a reason why they call Karzi the Mayor of Kabul... because that is the only place where the Afghan government has effective control. The central leadership is poor due to corruption, tribalism, the lack of resources, and the ongoing insurgency. Outside of the Capital, the federal governments presence is spotty. Even in areas where the Karzi government has a presence... officials have been either compromised, corrupted or killed.

Luckily the U.S. is now on the offensive... but the hearts and minds battle is still a problem. The film raises questions about Afghanistan's future and its ability to stand on its own. It would probably require a strong NATO commitment of 5-7 more years (minimum), and billions more in American tax dollars. With all the other challenges faced by the U.S., I don't know if this kind of commitment is sustainable.

Excellent Week In Review Discussion from NPR

Hear On Point's week in review discussion from this weekend. Panel included Trudy Rubin, Clarence Page, and Jack Beatty.

They covered just about everything... including Obama's falling support, the death of Healthcare Reform, the gridlocked and completely dysfunctional Congress, and the public's misplaced anger. They didn't go far enough though...they seemed scared to say that the Country is screwed. With voters set to return Republicans to power, America's decline will continue.

Republican Party Spokesman Calls for the Death of Captured American Soldier

On Faux News over the weekend, Right Wing mouthpiece Ralph Peters called for the Taliban to execute captured Army Pfc. Bowe Bergdahl. I have seen a lot of nonsense by the Right...but this made my heart skip a few beats (not for any good reasons either). I thought I was imagining things... that maybe Rachel Maddow (who pointed this out on her program) was somehow playing tricks on me... but I went online and retrieved the video and replayed it just to make sure that I didn't lose my mind.



Peters has jumped to a lot of conclusions....mainly assuming that Pfc. Bergdahl abandoned his post. The latest reports that I have read have suggested that this soldier may have been drinking and may have wandered off too far.

Here is what was reported by the Taliban on one of its own websites, from July 6th:

"Five days ago, a drunken American soldier who had come out of his garrison named Malakh was captured by mujahedeen. ... He is still with mujahedeen," said the report. The short Web message did not elaborate on his whereabouts....

Either way.... Ralph Peters is out of line.

1. No matter what the circumstances are... this is an American. Period. The U.S. should do all it can to find him and bring him home alive.

2. This young man is/was the responsibility of his senior enlisted comrades (NCO's) and his commanders...regardless of the circumstances. It was their job to take care of him....especially if he was under the influence or for some other reason was not making good decisions for himself. He's a Pfc. for crying out loud! Even if he did something worthy of disciplinary action... he's still the responsibility of his NCO's and commanders. It is their job to make sure he gets home to his family. The same is true for any soldier. Even if they are under the supervision of MP's... They should still be brought home to their families.....and to face disciplinary action if appropriate.

3. It is way out of line for a pundit, a reporter, and especially a Right wing mouthpiece to call for the death of an American soldier being held captive. Especially when the family is panicked about their loved one. Isn't Ralph Peters, with the help of Faux News, collaborating with enemies of the United States by asking them to kill an American soldier? What Lt. Col. Peters did is sickening. His retirement status should be reviewed IMO.

General Patraeus Contradicts McCain About Talking To Enemies - Shares Obama's View

One of the big criticisms that McCain has used to attack Barack Obama has to do with Obama's willingness to talk with America's enemies. They believe that it's naive for Obama to talk to an enemy without a long list of demands that the adversary must agree to before even sitting down at the table (you would think that the reason for talking would be to negotiate many of the contentious issues, so how can you make a laundry list of demands before negotiations even start?). The McCain/Republican Party philosophy is to not talk to enemies at all if they don't have to.... but to attack them instead. One of the major figures that McCain likes to throw in Obama's face every chance he gets is General David Petraeus, as if Patraeus is one of their puppets.

But this week, General Patraeus smacked down the McCain argument, saying instead that the U.S. should talk to its enemies. He mentioned that the U.S. should be open to talking to the Taliban in particular. This completely undercuts what McCain has been saying for the past 2 months on the campaign trail and it pretty much wrecks his entire line of criticism of Obama on that issue. Patraeus, The new commander of Centcom and former top General in Iraq, is responsible for formulating a plan for turning Afghanistan around.

Meanwhile, a new National Intelligence Estimate (or NIE) indicates that the situation in Afghanistan continues to deteriorate. In fact, the situation there is now described as a "downward spiral". NATO and the U.S. in particular, doesn't have the manpower needed to fulfill the mission. The drug trade (poppy farming) makes up at least 50% of the Afghan economy. I have been warning on this blog for the past two years that the problem with the drug trade would undercut other efforts in Afghanistan. The U.S., Europe and the UN failed to establish an alternative Afghan economy after the fall of the Taliban. They failed to create jobs and investment there. This led to a situation where people fell back to what they were doing before to survive- Poppy farming, and the criminal activity surrounding it (warlords earning protection money, smuggling, bribery, intimidation, government corruption, etc). The money generated by the drug trade funds the Talibans activities.

Is The U.S. Winning The War On Terrorism?

Hear a great discussion on how well the U.S. is doing in the war on terrorism.

I have stated many times that troops, tanks, warplanes, missiles, and ships cannot defeat terrorism. Conventional war and occupation cannot defeat an ideology. Conventional military power cannot stop a group of individuals from obtaining Visa's with false ID, getting onto a jetliner and entering the U.S. or crossing the open Mexican or Canadian border to do God knows what. Military power can't stop that kind of threat. It's like using a shotgun or sledgehammer to kill a fly. In fact, war only creates the conditions that make it easier for groups like Al Qaeda to recruit.

Listen To Discussion Here

I wish Bruce Hoffman and Stephen Van Evera, and analysts like Stephen Cohen could work in an Obama Cabinet. (Are The Obama folks even listening to these brilliant men?). They would make great advisors, because they "get it".

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Related Posts

Discussion with Neoconservative Pro-war McCain Advisor Neal Podhoretz

The Miserable Failure of Cowboy Diplomacy

Wars Increased Terrorism

Intelligence Community Reports that Wars are Complicating War On Terrorism

The War On Terrorism Explained

U.S. Failures in Afghanistan

Resurgence of the Taliban

How the War In Iraq Has Impacted Ordinary Iraqis

Army Rules Ciara Durkin Death a Suicide

Somehow I am not surprised by the CID's findings.

An Interview With Ahmed Rashid - On U.S. Failures In Afghanistan

Pakistani writer Ahmed Rashid talks about his book Descent into Chaos: The US and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia. Hear how U.S. taxpayer dollars are being diverted to the Taliban, and how Pakistan has become an obstacle to progress.

The U.S. failed to follow through with promised economic development and reconstruction in Afghanistan. Therefore, efforts to get farmers to stop using their land to grow opium failed. The money that the farmers were being offered did not come close to the amount of money that they could get from growing the poppy plant. And since there were no jobs being created, farmers resumed growing their old crop. Much of the revenue from the opium trade goes toward funding the Taliban.

Hear/Watch Interview

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Previous Related Blog Entries

Return of the Taliban

Chaos in Afghanistan

Progress slipping in Afghanistan

Pakistan assisting anti-U.S. militias in Afghanistan

NPR and Other National Media Outlets Continue To Ignore The Lavena Johnson Case

An Open Letter To NPR: A Tale Of Two Soldiers

The following is a letter that I sent to NPR last week, regarding the disparity in the news coverage received by Ciara Durkin & Lavena Johnson. While Durkin received a considerable amount of national and international media coverage (almost immediately), Lavena Johnson has received no national media coverage....and her case has been dragging on for 2 years.

What makes Jessica Lynch, Pat Tillman, or Ciara Durkin more important stories to cover? Why do they garner so much media coverage when stories equally as worthy (if not more so) are ignored?

The purpose of the letter was not to downplay the loss of Durkin or any other soldier... On the contrary, I simply wanted to encourage equal coverage for Johnson's case. I directed the note to NPR's All Things Considered program.

The response that I received from NPR's Ombudsman about 5 days later was less than impressive.

NPR's Response:

Something to the effect... we received your letter and thank you for contacting us. However, we don't have any plans to use this (I assume Lavena) as a story topic. We don't guarantee that we will use story ideas sent in by the public.

It almost appeared to be a generic form letter response... probably not written by staff at all. But that was their response nonetheless.

The letter

To the hosts and executive producers of NPR’s All Things Considered

I am writing to you about your coverage of Ciara Durkin, The Army National Guard soldier who was recently killed in Afghanistan. It is great that NPR and other national media outlets are covering this story. It’s especially important to be vigilant on cases like this one.

However, I have noticed a glaring disparity between the way the media is covering the Durkin case and the way that other similar cases have been covered. The Durkin case immediately hit national news…from ABC, CBS, NPR, etc. In fact, I first learned about this case from an ABC report.

However, the national media, including NPR, never covered the case of Army Pvt. Lavena Johnson. Ciara Durkin had not even been buried yet when the National media jumped all over her story. But Lavena Johnson was brutally killed in Iraq in the Summer of 2005 under very similar circumstances, yet her case has received no national media interest at all. Bloggers have been raising the issue of Lavena Johnson for 2 years. Where was NPR? The Durkin family is calling for answers about Ciara, and rightfully so. And my heart goes out to them. But what about the Johnson family? After 2 years, they are still waiting for the truth about how their daughter was killed and who is responsible for her death.

Why the disparity in the coverage? Yes…the NPR program News and Notes only recently (within the past month or so) mentioned Lavena Johnson and it was a very brief mention during a roundtable discussion… News and Notes is not exactly a top national program on NPR. The fact is, there has been no segment dedicated to her via NPR or any other national news organization. Why haven’t any of the top NPR programs like All Things Considered done any serious reporting on the Lavena Johnson case? It has been one of the biggest stories out of Iraq that has never been covered. Not really the Elephant in the room…but more like the Blue Whale in the room. The ramifications of the Johnson case dwarfs Tillman, Richard Davis, and Jessica Lynch (and a bunch of other stories) all put together.

I would hate to think that race is a contributing factor here. But the major media does have a track record of ignoring the plight of African American women. Durkin gets immediate national news coverage even before she is buried and the family has paid its last respects. Yet Lavena Johnson (no less of an American hero and no less a Patriot) gets zero national news coverage after 2 years? Something is wrong here.

I am not asking NPR to curtail coverage of the Durkin case. These stories need to be brought into the national spotlight. However, I am asking that the producers & hosts of All Things Considered provide the same coverage for the Lavena Johnson story. Lavena and her family deserve the same care, concern and attention as any other soldier or military family. And Mr. & Mrs. Johnson deserve to know the truth about how their daughter died.

Because of the Army’s recent history of cover-ups and of mishandling cases, I am not very confident that it can police itself (via Army Criminal Investigators). In my opinion, the FBI should be the agency handling these types of cases.

Related Posting

The Death of Ciara Durkin

To learn more about the Lavena Johnson case, you can visit the following links:

PREVIOUS POSTS ON LAVENA JOHNSON

Who Murdered Pvt. Lavena Johnson?

Why is Tillman getting all the attention? (And why is the Tillman case always brought up and compared with these other cases of women being murdered? Tillman wasn't murdered.... Tillman's case was friendly fire, which happens all the time, although there was a cover-up effort afterwards. Beyond that, there are few similarities).

More on Tillman

The Experience of Women in the Military

America's Forgotten Soldier

Dr. John Johnson Speaks About His Daughter

Recalling Lavena Johnson

Another Bloggers post on Lavena

Lavena's Body exhumed for new autopsy

New Developments in the Lavena Johnson case

LavenaJohnson.com for News and Petition

See Youtube Video Page

Another Mysterious Death of a Soldier Overseas

This time it is Ciara Durkin, who was stationed at Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan. See video from ABC.

Report from CBS.

I can't help but notice at least one major difference between how the media is handling this case and how it handled the murder of Lavena Johnson. In this case, the story goes directly to national news right away....while in the case of Lavena Johnson, it took about 2 years before the national media paid any attention, and even then, Lavena's story was treated as a 20 second blurb. I won't speculate about why there is this obvious difference in coverage, but we all should know by now that the national media covers people differently based on their backgrounds, etc.

The national media continues to ignore the Lavena Johnson story and it frustrates me to no end.

But I won't let that distract from the bigger picture. Perhaps the Durkin case will help shine light on the murder of Lavena Johnson.
The circumstances seem eerily similar. How did Ciara Durkin get shot in the head on a secure military facility? (Ms. Johnson died the same way).

In the ABC video regarding the Durkin story, it was mentioned that the Pentagon was working around the clock on an investigation. But I would venture to say that the Pentagon is working around the clock on a cover-up plan, just like they did with Pat Tillman, and just like they did with the brutal murder of Lavena Johnson. I can already tell you what they are probably planning to say regarding Durkin.... she shot herself in the head. (but I bet they won't allow a private autopsy or a second pathologist to look at the case). Based on what is known about the Johnson case, I suspect that the Army will stall as long as possible, hide evidence from the family, destroy evidence, plant their own "evidence" and simply ignore evidence. I'm afraid that the family of Ms. Durkin may never know what really happened to their daughter. The criminal(s) will likely never face justice in this case, or the Johnson case.

Additional Blog Post on this Case


PREVIOUS POSTS ON LEVANA JOHNSON

Who Murdered Pvt. Lavena Johnson?

Why is Tillman getting all the attention? (And why is the Tillman case always brought up and compared with these other cases of women being murdered? Tillman wasn't murdered.... Tillman's case was friendly fire, which happens all the time, although there was a cover-up effort afterwards. Beyond that, there are few similarities).

More on Tillman

The Experience of Women in the Military

America's Forgotten Soldier

Dr. John Johnson Speaks About His Daughter

Recalling Lavena Johnson

Another Bloggers post on Lavena

Lavena's Body exhumed for new autopsy

New Developments in the Lavena Johnson case

Addictive harvest grips a nation

This is one of those stories that just makes me sad. Just reading it depresses me.

Addictive harvest grips a nation

In a land where more opium and heroin are produced than the entire world consumes, Afghans are increasingly hooked
By Kim Barker Tribune foreign correspondent
September 6, 2007

KABUL, Afghanistan - Sabera came to the new treatment center for female drug addicts with a plan. In five days, she would check in along with her daughter, and this time she would leave heroin forever.

And then Sabera went home. Within minutes she started smoking the brown powder on a small canoe-shaped piece of foil. So did her two children. Her son, Zaher, is 14. Her daughter, Gulpari, is 12. The family slumped on cushions against a wall. Zaher barely held his eyes open, rubbed his stomach and muttered, "God, God." Gulpari cuddled against her mother. Their fingers were black with tar.

"I feel very sad about it," said Sabera, who has no last name, like many Afghans, and guesses she is about 45. "It's my fault they're addicted. It's my fault they can't quit."

In this land where more opium and heroin are produced than the entire world consumes, Afghans are increasingly hooked on their own product. And now, Afghan doctors say, more and more women are using the drug, desperate to escape depression or pain. The women suck on pea-sized pieces of opium beneath their tongues, chew it or drink it with tea. Like Sabera, some have started to smoke heroin, which is more refined than opium and considered much more addictive.

Often, mothers take their children with them. They give the skin of the addictive poppy fruit to hungry babies to make them feel full, the mothers say. They blow smoke in the mouths of crying toddlers to quiet them -- a practice that public-service warnings try to discourage. Or, as Sabera says she did two years ago, they say yes to children who wonder what their mother is doing and want to try it.

In July, responding to the capital's growing problem, a new drug treatment center opened for women in Kabul. It is the city's eighth treatment center to open since the fall of the Taliban, which largely banned poppies, and is the first in-patient clinic that treats only women.

"There are families where the whole family is using heroin," said Dr. Shaista, the coordinator of the government-run Sanga Amaj Drug Treatment Center, which keeps patients for a month and then gives follow-up treatment.

"Nobody stops it. Nobody bans it. The police are there, but they do nothing. In every corner of the city, people are selling heroin," Shaista said.

For generations Afghans have grown poppies in the country's arid climate, but they traditionally didn't use heroin. Instead, raw opium was exported and refined into heroin for sale in the West.

Since the Taliban was toppled in 2001, poppies have threatened to carpet much of Afghanistan's agricultural land, especially in the south. And increasingly, heroin is being processed inside the country, according to the United Nations and local authorities.

The annual poppy survey by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, released last week, showed yet another record-breaking year for poppies in Afghanistan, which now is nearly the world's exclusive supplier of heroin. No other country has produced narcotics on such a scale since China in the 19th Century.

Rest of story here:


If you've known anyone in the throws of a drug addiction, this story has to hurt the heart. Is this one of those unintended consequences of the ' War on Terror'?