yolland said:
Can we not talk about other posters in the third person as if they weren't reading this, please...
Musharraf is in a very fragile place at the moment, with the Chaudhry crisis and the violent Jamia Hafsa demonstrations in Islamabad and the attack on the Pakistani Army in Punjab and now the Taliban expanding into new areas of the northwest, despite some recent infighting between Uzbek militants and Taliban Pashtun tribal leaders in South Waziristan. More than 750 Pakistani soldiers died in the army's fruitless post-2001 attempts to gain control of that one small province prior to last September's 'peace' agreement with local maliks, more than 200 pro-government tribal leaders have been executed as the Taliban shored up power in the area, and it's clear to anyone who reads the Pakistani papers that Islamabad is--to put it generously--unclear on the details of the extremely complex, constantly shifting alliances in the region. And there's been one report after another from civilians fleeing the fighting that foreign militants from Iraqis to Chechens are attending training camps scattered throughout the area as cross-border attacks in Afghanistan quadrupled during the last year. The notion that al-Qaeda are not really a threat to the region just because they're not synonymous with the Taliban would be comical were the situation not so dangerous, and the signs that their alliances with Islamist groups in the rest of Pakistan are increasing so alarming. Unfortunately Musharraf's longstanding divide-and-conquer tactics with the political opposition will make it very hard for him to find much of a mandate for notching up operations in the northwest, if indeed the Army is even capable of effectively doing so. It's true that an increased US/NATO presence in Afghanistan wouldn't by itself resolve the situation, but the fact that we remain militarily focused on Iraq (which as everyone pointed out, has had the effect of attracting al-Qaeda there and giving them an unprecedented opportunity to hone their skills in a country they previously had little to no presence in) is indeed encouraging an extremely dangerous situation to fester in long-poorly-controlled regions of Central Asia where al-Qaeda and its allies have a long-established local support base.
ETA: It should be noted however that the US isn't the only country which ought to be focusing more on Afghanistan, and in particular the southern region, where the actual fighting is--a quick glance at NATO's ISAF key stats (.pdf) shows that.
So...what do we do about it?
In addition to ISAF there is also "Operation Enduring Freedom" which has the following countries and troop levels:
United States 11,300
Canada 35
Czech Republic 120
Denmark 1
France 220
Italy 8
South Korea 208
Netherlands 6
New Zealand 133
Poland 87
Romania 112
Combining ISAF and "Operation Enduring Freedom", there are 48,980 coalition troops in Afghanistan.
In Iraq, unlike Afghanistan, Al Quada is active on the ground and engaged in operations against coalition forces, the Iraqi government and Iraqi's. While Taliban attacks increased in Afghanistan in 2006 with a total of 4,000 people being killed in violence, Taliban insurgents account for more than half of the figure. Not exactly the sign of a successful insurgency. The United States has suffered 191 deaths from hostile fire since October 2001 in Afghanistan, a relatively small number compared to the 12,900 Soviet troops killed in the 1980s in Afghanistan as well as current US casualties in Iraq. Combined coalition deaths from hostile fire in Afghanistan so far in 2007 is, 12. Lets also remember that Afghanistan is two to three times the size of Iraq and has a population equal in size.
While the Taliban insurgency is a threat, it is no where near as serious a threat to stability in Afghanistan as Al Quada, Sunni insurgents and other anti-Iraqi government forces are in Iraq. Iraq's location, resources, development, demographics as well as being the main area of Al Quada operations make the development of a stable non-hostile government in Iraq a much higher priority than the same process being undertaken in Afghanistan. Iraq trumps Afghanistan in its importance to longterm US security interest, fighting Al Quada, as well as the seriousness of the threat from anti-coalition forces.
Since Iraq is the more important and more difficult task, forces devoted there should not be withdrawn in order to increase the effort in Afghanistan. The only way the United States could get extra US troops for Afghanistan would be to reverse the current policy on the use of National Guard Brigades which limit them to one deployment in any 5 year period. This is being pushed by number of US Generals but its unknown when or if the current policy will be reversed.
Another option is of course to get NATO countries to increase their troop levels in Afghanistan, especially NATO countries that will not deploy their troops to Iraq under any conditions like France and Germany. Its amazing that the Netherlands has deployed nearly twice as many troops to Afghanistan than the French given that the Netherlands military is only 1/5 the size of France. France by the way has the third largest military in NATO with 255,000. Their total troop commitment to Afghanistan is 1,220. France is one of the few NATO countries that can deploy its total military force anywhere in the world without the aid of the United States.
Real Change in Pakistan will only come when the Pakistan/India stand off cools and Pakistan changes its policy on dealing with Islamic militants who claim they do not support Al Quada. The cooling of the competition and conflicts between India and Pakistan could free up limited resources to fight the Islamic militants as well as potentially bring much needed investment in education( I believe 65% of the country is illiterate) and other area's that would benefit the economy. Of course there is the complications of Pakistan's current military dicatorship and the possibility of a return to democracy.
Dreadsox
