The War That Will Not End - The New York Times
TomDispatch
For
the New York Times, Andrew Bacevich has reviewed Steve Coll's massive
new book on the Afghan war (which I assume I'll read sooner or later),
on, that is, a war of never-ending hopelessly, emphasis on the never-ending. Here's the first half. Tom
"Steve Coll has written a book of surpassing excellence that is almost
certainly destined for irrelevance. The topic is important, the
treatment compelling, the conclusions persuasive. Just don’t expect
anything to change as a consequence.
"The dean of Columbia’s
Graduate School of Journalism, Coll is a seasoned and accomplished
reporter. In 2004, “Ghost Wars,” his account of conflict in Afghanistan
from the 1979 Soviet invasion to the eve of 9/11, earned him a Pulitzer
Prize, his second. “Directorate S” — the title refers to the arm of
Pakistani intelligence that covertly supports the Afghan Taliban — is a
sequel to that volume, carrying the story up to 2016.
"That story
is a dispiriting one, abounding in promises from on high, short on
concrete results. In December 2001, with Operation Enduring Freedom
barely underway, President George W. Bush declared it America’s purpose
“to lift up the people of Afghanistan.” Bush vowed that American forces
would stay until they finished the job. In December 2017, during a brief
visit to Kabul — unannounced because of security concerns — Vice
President Mike Pence affirmed that commitment. “We’re here to stay,” he
told a gathering of troops, “until freedom wins.”
"Yet mission
accomplishment remains nowhere in sight. Over the past year, the Taliban
have increased the amount of territory they control. Opium production
has reached an all-time high. And corruption continues to plague an
Afghan government of doubtful legitimacy and effectiveness. For a war
now in its 17th year, the United States has precious little to show,
despite having lost over 2,400 of its own soldiers and expending an
estimated trillion dollars.
"After 9/11, “the United States and
its allies went barreling into Afghanistan,” Coll writes, “because they
felt that they had no alternative.” Once in, they were soon plunged into
a quagmire. Rarely has a great power undertaken a major military
campaign with such a flawed understanding of the challenges ahead. Yet
first Bush and then Barack Obama concluded that the United States had no
choice but to persist, a view that Donald Trump has now seemingly
endorsed.
"Drawing on some 550 interviews, Coll describes in
granular detail how senior officials, intelligence operatives, diplomats
and military officers struggled to comprehend the problem at hand and
to devise a solution. A never-ending cycle of policy reviews, surveys
and reassessments, along with efforts to find common ground with Afghan
and Pakistani counterparts, produced one new strategy after another.
None lived up to expectations; in falling short, each created a
rationale for trying something a bit different, the Trump
administration’s recently announced escalation — a few more troops and
lots more bombing — offering the latest example.
"In each chapter
of this very long but engrossing book, Coll takes a deep dive into some
particular facet of the conflict. Readers will eavesdrop on contentious
policy debates conducted at the highest levels in Washington. They will
also accompany soldiers and spooks in the field.
Photo
"Yet
among policymakers and operators alike, the sense of futility is
palpable. If “Directorate S” has a unifying thread, it’s this: Policies
formulated on the basis of trial and error aren’t likely to work as long
as they fail to take critical factors into account. In Coll’s telling,
two such factors in particular stand out.
"The first is an
absence of trust between Washington and Kabul. The longer the Americans
stayed the more difficult it became to persuade Afghans that their
presence was helpful and their purposes benign. Over time, Hamid Karzai,
the West’s chosen leader of “liberated” Afghanistan, came to see the
United States as an occupying power — part of the problem, rather than
part of the solution. Karzai believed, not without reason, that United
States officials paid lip service to his concerns, were willing to cut
deals behind his back and on occasion plotted to replace him with
someone more accommodating...."
https://www.nytimes.com/…/rev…/steve-coll-directorate-s.html
Members of the United States
Army meet with an Afghan Army sergeant, right, in the village of
Tieranon, Kandahar Province, in 2013.
Credit
Bryan Denton for The New York Times
