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November 2008: ICOS releases a map showing Taliban presence in Afghanistan, with a "permanent" presence found in 72 percent of the country:
January 2009: Carnegie Institute for International Peace’s Giles Dorronsoro:
The mere presence of foreign soldiers fighting a war in Afghanistan is probably the single most important factor in the resurgence of the Taliban.
February 2009: President Obama orders a major escalation of U.S. military presence in Afghanistan:
WASHINGTON — President Obama said Tuesday that he would send an additional 17,000 American troops to Afghanistan this spring and summer, putting his stamp firmly on a war that he has long complained is going in the wrong direction.
July 2009: Troops sent to Afghanistan as part of President Obama’s escalation make their move:
Thousands of US Marines stormed into an Afghan river valley by helicopter and land early today, launching the first major military offensive of Barack Obama’s presidency with an assault deep into Taleban-held territory.
August 2009: UK’s Department for International Development compiles a study of radicalization in Afghanistan that finds that the presence of foreign forces is one of the key motivators for joining the Taliban:
Religious motivation is only one of several reason for joining or supporting the Taliban or Hizb-i Islami. A religious message does resonate with the majority but this is mainly because it is couched in terms of two keenly felt pragmatic grievances: the corruption of government and the presence of foreign forces.
September 2009: ICOS releases a new map of the Taliban/insurgent presence in Afghanistan, with a "permanent" presence in 80 percent of the country and a significant presence in 97 percent of the country:
I’ll have more on this later, but the short version is: troop increases have failed to arrest the spread of the Taliban in Afghanistan; in fact, they are a key factor in growing the insurgency.
Note: Derrick Crowe is the Afghanistan blog fellow for Brave New Foundation / The Seminal. You can learn more about the dangers posed to U.S. national security by the war in Afghanistan by watching Rethink Afghanistan (Part Six): Security, or by visiting http://rethinkafghanistan.com/blog.
20 Comments
Thank you, Derrick, for this clear picture of how the escalation is not working.
As an American I was fortunately able to raise my 5 children to adulthood in freedom from fear. If I were a mother in Afghanistan today, I would join forces against those who rain bombs down on my children. For me it’s that simple and that does not require literacy to understand.
Admiral Mullen tried to tell the presidents that Afghanistan cannot be won militarily. So, they kicked him to the curb, not because he was wrong, but because they did not want to hear the truth. As long as the weapons manufacturers call the shots and brutes like McCrystal are willing to carry them out, Afghanistan will continue to be another Vietnam.
According to Gate’s interview..I’d guess that the US is never leaving Afghanistan. Increased insurgency is good for those who want perpetual war. If you look at it that way, the escalation is working remarkably well.
http://english.aljazeera.net/n…..32522.html
feature, not a bug?
I agree. Nobody should live under those conditions. It is shameful that America has done this. There are other ways, better ways to deal with takeovers. Besides, the Taliban has become the new enemy in an ever changing enemy role. Al Queada, Bin Laden, Mushroom Clouds, it just never ends.
No wonder the world thinks we are stupid!
Ever changing is right; Netanyahoo is building the mushroom fearmongering about Iran again.
I see no “recommend” button; nor is this diary on the general index or in the central “recommended” box. What gives?
Diaries that are in the left hand column at The Seminal lose their recommend button and are not listed in the right hand columns.
A promotion if you will.
Thanks, dakine01. IMHO, the “latest diaries” (I call index) column on the right has plenty of space to extend the listing to include such fine posts as this one. [grouse, grouse…]
Derrick.
You do a good job.
Some here probably hate you and wish you would go away.
I applaud Jane Hamsher.
She allows this place to be rascally.
Gasp! Pearl clutch!
Thanks for the kind words, all.
Pelosi today: “little support for more troops to Afghanistan
Oh come on now, Derrick. If we just wait one more Friedman Unit everything will be fine. Just watch.
/snark
Two or three more, actually, according to Gates and others. :(
The insanity of this is that Obama was waiting for McChrystal to conduct a policy review. WTF is up with that? Policy is supposed to be Obama’s responsibility not McChrystal’s. Now apparently McChrystal has completed his review and the delays in releasing it are evidently due to the White House having problems with it. The process itself is back-assward.
If Obama can’t come up with a compelling reason for us to be in Afghanistan, then we should get out. It is like everyone in government has gone stupid. I run into the same problems when I blog on economic issues. No one, it seems, in government or the media has heard about fundamentals. The result is these weird and disconnected discussions where even the most basic questions have yet to be asked, let alone answered. So our elites end up discussing the best way to stay in Afghanistan or wherever without first talking about whether we should be there at all.
Smart diary, smart comments. Think I’ll be a regular visitor.
Derrick, could you clarify the numbers a bit for me? Do these graphics indicate that the number of terrorist incidents are increasing or that they are happening in more diverse locations?
Would you expect that terrorist activity would increase when we go into the areas where they’ve been unchallenged and in control and start to kick them out? Would you expect that they would respond by staging attacks in other areas to draw our attention elsewhere?
Finally, do the graphics give any indication that the absolute number of terrorists in Afghanistan is increasing or could it be that more people are willing to report Taliban activity or is there not enough evidence to answer this?
Sure, I’ll try.
Here’s the methodology from ICOS:
It’s a little hard to answer the question without the raw data, because of the “one or more attack per week as the designator for a permanent presence. One area could have one attack, and another could have 1,000, and you’d still get the same shading. However, the quote from the ICOS press release indicates that it’s not just the distribution, but the rate, that’s increasing:
I think the displacement of insurgents caused by push into Helmand et. al. is necessary to explain what is happening, but not sufficient. I don’t have any doubt that some of the deterioration in the north is due to a push into the south. That’s the “squeezing the balloon” effect to some extent. However, when you pair it with the DFID study linked above, it’s clear that Taliban recruits are first motivated by the presence of foreign troops and their own corrupt government; religious radicalization comes after that. The more you add, the more you drive recruitment all over the country. And, of course, now you’ve dispersed more “mentors” all over the country via the displacement in the south.
I don’t think I can answer your final question.
Hope that helps.
As always, thanks. It helps a bit.
I certainly am with you in thinking that our presence is resented and our errors intensify the resentment.
It’s just a good thing for us that our opponents are so utterly charmless that they’ll alienate people at a greater rate than we will as they feel the pressure of opposition.
You didn’t think that they’re going be making friends while they blow people’s asses up and lose to us, did you?
You talk about the bunch of people we mistakenly blew up, but fail to mention the civilians who were driving those tank trucks when they were hijacked. Those guys were found without heads. At about the same time they were happy about blowing up 20 innocents to get one government guy.
If we are pushing them around, those tactics of theirs aren’t going to do much for them, are they?
Certainly not. But, the question for the Afghans isn’t:
a) Foreign troops and their warlord/narco-allies; or
b) Government constituted solely of Taliban/insurgents
Rather, it’s:
a) Foreign troops and their warlord/narco-allies; or
b) Taliban/insurgents; or
c) Neither; or
d) Political solution that pulls a) and b) together in a single government.
The DFID report I linked above shows that in insurgency prone areas, d) is the preferred option. Take a look and let me know what you think…it’s interesting reading.
It looked perfectly fine to me, Derrick.
It kind of makes me think that they interviewed people with a reasonable outlook and fair understanding of what to expect.
Reading the Findings Related to the Hypos leads me to believe that the population is willing to go with whichever group governs effectively and with decency, foreigners excluded, and non-believers excluded more, but there seems to be enough awareness of the moral shortfall of the assorted Talibanis.
Seems pretty much as though no one is really scoring at present.
He’s 56 now, but next July 20, on his birthday, Friedman should be able to confirm that we’re definitely making progress toward starting to be able to say that we’re well on the way to getting a handle on this.