Time Almanac 2010 [antikvár]

Year in Review The US in Afghanistan: The Longest War byAryn Baker, TIME/Afghanistan Seven and a half years after US troops arrived in Afghanistan following the attacks of September 11. 2001, the war there is more deadly-and more muddled-than ever. When American troops first went to Afghanistan, they did so to overthrow the Taliban regime, which then ruled the nation and provided a haven for al-Qaeda. In less than three months, the Taliban was defeated, and a US-supported administration. headed by Pres. Hamid Karzai. was installed in Kabul. Yet in 2009, the US is still fighting the Taliban, and al-Qaeda operatives are still plotting from Afghanistan. (Taliban, these days, no longer refers just to the Islamic extremist regime that once ruled the country; the word has become synonymous with any number of antigovernment forces.) And one part of the region's deadly muddle has gotten worse. In 2001 there were fears that the war in Afghanistan would destabilize Pakistan. (The Pash-tun ethnic group, which makes up a large part of the Taliban insurgency, straddles the border between the two countries.) Those fears are now reality; the Pakistani Taliban threatens nuclear-armed Pakistan's viability as a state even more than its cousins jeopardize Afghanistan's.' It is because the war in Afghanistan threatens to destabilize an entire region that it has become America's biggest foreign policy challenge. On 18 Feb 2009, President Obama committed an additional 17,000 troops to Afghanistan; when they all arrive, there will be about 55,000 troops there from the US, plus 37,000 from its allies. The latest Afghan war is now Obama's war. The administration has signaled that it is downsizing expectations about what can still be achieved: the principal goal now is to counter terrorism and bring a degree of stability to Afghanistan-not to turn a poor and fractious nation into a flourishing democratic state. When Obama laid out his new strategy, he made it clear that the mark of success would be the ability "to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al-Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan and to prevent their return to either country in the future." But accomplishing even that comparatively limited objective at this stage will require a massive and sustained US commitment-one that involves more than military boots on the ground. Al-Qaeda stilt thrives in the ungoverned tribal areas along the border between the two countries, and while many of its members have been killed, new recruits quickly take their place. US soldiers have learned that to deny al-Qaeda a foothold in Afghanistan will require the establishment of a government that Afghans can believe in, the security that allows them to support it, and jobs that provide an alternative to fighting. "We are not going to kill our way out of this war," says Lieut. Col. Brett Jenkinson, commander of the US battalion stationed in the Korengal valley. "What we need is a better recruiting pitch for disaffected youth. You can't build hope with military might. You build it through development and good governance." Other than leading by example, the military can do TOle to bolster faith in the state. As part of his plan, Obama has proposed a civilian surge-a phalanx of mentors for the Afghans. Much of the more than US$32 billion that the US government has spent in aid to Afghanistan since 2002 has gone through the military or its provincial reconstruction teams. The projects are designed to earn goodwill for foreign forces as much as for local governors, but they also have the unintended consequence of undermining the central government, which never gets a chance to take credit for providing basic services such as roads, electricity, and education. "We aren't here to win hearts and minds," says Jeremy Brenner, a US State Department adviser based in Jalalabad. "What we need is to engender hope and faith in the Afghan government." The experience of the Americans fighting in the nation's eastern Korengal Valley illustrates how difficult this war is. Over the period from July 2008 to April 2009. Bravo Company, a 150-strong unit of the 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment, lost seven men in the Korengal while trying to cool down a toxic cauldron of local insurgents, Taliban leaders, foreign ji-hadis, and al-Qaeda members. Here success cannot be measured in territory gained, schools built, or clinics opened. Irrigation pipes and water pumps are blown up by the insurgents as soon as they are built. Sometimes progress is so slow it feels like a stalemate, admits company commander Capt. James Howell. But, he says, "if we can reach a point where the villagers want to work with us and the Taliban are the only thing stopping them, that's success." A government in which people have hope would be one that offers them security. The US exit strategy for Afghanistan, according to Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is to strengthen the Afghan forces so they can protect the fragile advances of the government. To that end, Obama has pledged 4.000 trainers and mentors to help boost the Afghan National Army and police. But success in Afghanistan will mean nothing if fighters can find sanctuary in Pakistan.