The US Has Lost in Afghanistan — We Have to Come to Grips with What That Means, AlterNet, August 16, 2010, by Conn Hallinan of Foreign Policy in Focus, photo by Steve Evans, quoted verbatim:

There never was a goal set by NATO and Afghanistan that was achievable; because their blood and capital are finite.

Wars are rarely lost in a single encounter; Defeat is almost always more complex than that. The United States and its North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies have lost the war in Afghanistan, but not just because they failed in the battle for Marjah or decided that discretion was the better part of valor in Kandahar. They lost the war because they should never have invaded in the first place; because they never had a goal that was achievable; because their blood and capital are finite.

The face of that defeat was everywhere this past month.

According to the Afghanistan Rights Monitor, “In terms of insecurity, 2010 has been the worst year since the demise of the Taliban regime in late 2001.”

A recent U.S. government audit found that despite $27 billion spent on training, fewer than 12 percent of Afghan security forces were capable of operating on their own.

Some 58 percent of the American public think the war is “a lost cause,” and 60 percent think the United States should begin to withdraw in July 2011. Only Republican votes in Congress saved the Obama administration’s request for $33 billion to fuel the war in the coming fiscal year. The war is currently hemorrhaging money at a rate of $7 billion a month.

The British public — the United Kingdom is the second largest armed contingent in Afghanistan — opposes the war by 72 percent, and other coalition forces are quickly abandoning the effort in the war-torn Central Asian nation. Poland announced it would withdraw its 2,600 troops in 2012. The Dutch will be out this August. The Canadians in 2011. The Australians, along with the rest of the NATO allies, declined a plea in July to send more combat troops.

In a sign of the dire circumstances of the war effort, twice in this past month, Afghan soldiers turned their guns on NATO soldiers.

A poll by the International Council on Security and Development reaffirms that the NATO alliance is failing to win over Afghan civilians, a cornerstone of success in the current strategy employed in Afghanistan. The poll found that in the two provinces currently at the center of the war — Helmand and Kandahar — 75 percent of Afghans believe foreigners disrespect their religion and traditions; 74 percent think working for foreign forces is wrong; 68 percent believe NATO will not protect them; and 65 percent think Taliban leader Mullah Muhammad Omar should be part of the government.

The Arithmetic of Defeat

So does one calculate the arithmetic of defeat. But “defeat” does not mean the war is over. Indeed, the moment when it becomes obvious that victory is no longer an option can be the most dangerous time in a conflict’s history. The losers may double down, as the French and the United States did in Vietnam. They may lash out in a frenzy of destruction, as the United States did in Laos and Cambodia. Or they may poison the well for generations to come by dividing people on the basis of ethnicity, religion and tribe, as the British did when their empire began to disintegrate.

Faced with rising opposition at home, increased casualties on the battlefield, and growing isolation from its allies, the United States is casting about for a way to salvage the Afghan disaster, and coming up with schemes that may end up destabilizing not only Afghanistan, but much of Central and South Asia.

The most radical of these schemes is being floated by the former U.S. ambassador to India, Robert Blackwell, a neoconservative mainstay and currently a lobbyist for India. Blackwell proposes partitioning Afghanistan into two countries: an independent, Pashtun-dominated south, and a northern and western section where Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Hazaras make up the majority. According to the scheme, “Pashtunistan” would be kept in line by armed drones and 30,000 to 40,000 U.S. Special Forces.

Such an independent country would almost certainly destabilize Pakistan’s Northern Frontier and Tribal areas, where 40 million Pashtuns currently reside. Many of those Pashtuns have never accepted the 1893 Durand Line that the British used to divide Afghanistan from what was then India.

Pashtunistan would also be a template for an independent Baluchistan, further dismembering Afghanistan — certainly something the Indian Army would be delighted with — and serve as a rallying cry for marginalized ethnic groups all over the region, including those in Kashmir, China, Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Iraq, Russia, and areas in northern India.

It is not clear how much support the partition plan has, given the deep opposition of countries like Pakistan and China, but Blackwell has sprung the genie, and getting it back into the lamp will not be easy.

A second proposal — to create an army of local militias to fight the Taliban — is already underway, in spite of the disastrous experience with similar armed groups during the Soviet occupation. Those militias turned into warlord armies, which shook down local residents, protected the growing drug trade, and fought over tribal turf.

U.S. commander, Gen. David Petraeus insists that the armed groups will not be “militia,” but more like police — uniformed, armed, and paid by the government of President Hamid Karzai. But given that the Kabul government has virtually no presence outside the capital, how these groups will be controlled is not obvious. Furthermore, if for some reason these militias do confront the Taliban, they will be outgunned by more experienced guerilla fighters.

A June 9 incident in Kandahar is a case in point. The Taliban attacked a local militia that had gathered to celebrate a wedding, killing 40 and wounding 87. The unit had been recruited by U.S. Special Forces, which promised weapons and ammunition. But according to the New York Times, when militia commander, Mohammed Nabi Kako went to the Special Forces, the commander fobbed him off to the Karzi regime, which turned down his request — whether from fear of forming independent militias, or plain old corruption is not clear. When the Taliban attacked, the militia couldn’t defend itself.

The United States has a long track record of recruiting local people to fight and then abandoning them. The Montagnards in Vietnam’s highlands and the Hmong in Laos come to mind.

The model that has the most parallels with the situation in Afghanistan, however, is Guatemala, where the United States helped the military dictatorship create village militias to fight insurgents. If the militias did not fight the guerillas, the Guatemalan Army slaughtered the villagers. If the militias did fight, the villagers became targets in the long-running civil war.

Indeed, an argument can be made that the very idea of militias violates the Geneva Conventions against using civilians to fight in a war, although the United States could finesse that argument by claiming the militia members are “uniformed.” What is certain is that entire villages will be pulled into the war by making them targets for retaliation by a more experienced and better-armed Taliban.

However, the most obvious use for the militias will be to protect the vast drug trade that has made Afghanistan the source of 90 percent of the world’s opium. It is a trade that corrupts not only Afghans, but the police and military of surrounding countries. Indeed, it is a poisonous chain that leads into the heart of Europe, leaving dead and maimed in its path. More than 30,000 addicts die of heroin overdoses each year in Russia alone.

Arbitrary partitions and local militias will not salvage the war for the United States and NATO. The only way out is to cut a deal with the people we are fighting. That will not be easy. The Taliban offered a reasonable peace plan in 2007, and it was turned down. Given the obvious collapse of the allied effort, why should the Taliban want to negotiate? But the Pakistanis say the deal is doable, and of all the counties in the region, Islamabad has the closest ties to the mélange of groups waging war in Afghanistan.

We have lost the war. It is time to recognize reality and start talking.

Conn Hallinan is a Foreign Policy In Focus columnist. He also writes the blog, Distpatches from the Edge.

UPDATE: See Karzai: Private contractors ‘looting and stealing,’ working with terrorists, The Raw Story, August 22, 2010, by Daniel Tencer, excerpt quoted verbatim:

Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Sunday defended his decision to ban private security contractors from operating in public in Afghanistan, saying many of the organizations tasked with providing security are engaging in terrorist activities, working with “Mafia-like” organizations and “looting and stealing from the Afghan people.”

Karzai also speculated that some groups may be acting as security contractors during the day and as terrorist groups “at nighttime.”

Last week, Karzai gave security contractors working in Afghanistan four months to cease operations In an interview with Christiane Amanpour on ABC’s This Week, the Afghan president said the move was necessary because the for-profit contractors were destabilizing the country’s fight against militants.

UPDATE: See As public sours on war, GOP senator backs Afghan pullout deadline, The Raw Story, August 22, 2010, by David Edwards.

See Opposition to Afghanistan conflict not just a liberal issue anymore, The Hill, August 20, 2010, by Sean J. Hill, excerpt quoted verbatim:

A majority of voters want the conflict to end quickly — no matter their party affiliation, according to recent polls.

…SNIP….

North Carolina Senate candidate Elaine Marshall (D) opposed the surge of troops to Afghanistan and wants American forces to withdraw from the country in an orderly fashion.

“We’re spending billions to train a corrupt police force there, and here at home we’re laying off policemen and firefighters,” she said in a statement. “We’re hiring teachers over there, and here we’re sending teachers to the unemployment lines. If there’s a country we need to rebuild, it’s America.”

Democratic strategist Jim Spencer, who has consulted for Marshall, said her position is no longer considered liberal or left-wing. “It’s a very mainstream message, it’s not a left-wing message at all,” he said.

See The Great Myth: Counterinsurgency, Dispatches from the Edge, July 25, 2010, by Conn Hallinan.

See Petraeus’ risky militia maneuver for Afghanistan, Los Angeles Times, July 19, 2010, Editorial.

See FACTBOX-Security developments in Afghanistan, Aug 22, Reuters, August 22, 2010, by Andrew Hammond and Sayed Salahuddin.

See NATO not winning Afghan hearts and minds: poll, Reuters, July 17, 2010, by Adrian Croft.

See Plan B for Afghanistan.

See Review: The Most Dangerous Place, Financial Times, July 18, 2010, Editorial. On the northwestern tribal provinces of Pakistan.

Visit ReThinkAfghanistan.com, and see the new videos.

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Greenpeace has many publications about climate change and our energy future. Here we discuss four such news releases specifically about energy – fossil fuels versus clean energy sources – and discuss specifically carbon sequestration and so-called clean coal, on which a major press release and .pdf report has been released today. Here we start by discussing the Gulf Oil Spill and offshore drilling; the United States energy future, and two .pdf informational releases, which we will make available for immediate download here on Evans Liberal Politics. The two .pdf documents are the product of extensive research and concern two matters which are crucial to the United States’ future, not just in energy, but in terms of the well-being of all our citizens. That is because our future in terms of energy production will impact us strongly in terms of climate, sustainability and our entire populations’ quality of life. Also, if we embrace the clean energy technologies available at the present time, we can avert the inevitable global conflicts over fossil fuel resources, which threaten global conflict and endless war in the middle east and perhaps Africa or South America. In other words our energy future is inseparably linked to the kind of future life we want our children to have and what sort of quality of life might be possible for us for the future.

BP Deepwater Disaster and Gulf Oil Spill

Press Release of May 28th, 2010 from Greenpeace:

United States — The Deepwater Horizon accident and oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is a disaster unfolding before our eyes. Eleven lives were lost in the initial explosion, and that incalculable loss is compounded daily as oil continues to flow.

Greenpeace welcomed President Obama’s sensible and encouraging first step in ensuring that the BP oil spill disaster can never happen again – but the “never” will only last for the next six months while his commission reaches a conclusion.

The President’s six month suspension of new drilling (is) a welcome reprieve for the communities and animals that rely on those pristine waters, but we need a permanent ban on all new offshore drilling, not just in the Arctic but in all US waters. A ban on all new oil drilling is the only way to avoid another spill disaster.

Comment by Evans Liberal Politics owner Paul Evans: The only path to a sustainable future for our children lies in massive investments in solar and wind power, modernizing the energy grid, and energy conservation measures. Without this, we will continue our reliance on fossil fuels and head towards a future of huge CO2 driven global warming, rising energy costs, and a global competition for energy resources which is likely to spiral out of control.

From the Press Release of May 27, Industry out of US Energy Future:

"As long as we continue to let oil companies like BP and Shell bully politicians, write our energy laws and bribe regulators, we will remain addicted to their dirty and dangerous fossil fuels. President Obama should cut the polluter lobbyists out of the debate so we can finally move toward a clean energy revolution that is good for the country, not just for corporations,” said John Hocevar, Greenpeace oceans campaign director."

New Report – Just Released
An Energy [R]evolution

The Greenpeace .pdf "’Energy [R]evolution – a Sustainable Energy Outlook,’ June, 9, 2010, has just been released today and details how to cut global CO2 emissions in half by 2050, using existing technology and still providing affordable energy and economic growth. In short – a revolution in energy policy and an evolution in how we use energy." We let Greenpeace’s own summary speak for itself. Please download and read this important contribution, hosted on Evans Liberal Politics.

Every day, millions of people whose stories you won’t hear are suffering the direct effects of our addiction to fossil fuels. Asthma, cancer, mutilated ecosystems, devastated communities — these are the hidden costs of our backward energy system, and we’re paying those costs right now, whether we know it or not.

Unfortunately, the worst is yet to come. According to the Nobel prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, we must peak global warming pollution by 2015 and nearly eliminate it by mid-century.

The threat of climate change demands nothing short of an Energy Revolution — a transformation that has already started, as renewable energy markets exhibit huge and steady growth. At the core of this revolution will be a change in the way that energy is produced, distributed and consumed. The five key principles behind this shift will be to:

• Implement renewable solutions, especially through decentralized energy systems
• Respect the natural limits of the environment
• Phase out dirty, unsustainable energy sources
• Create greater equity in the use of resources
• Decouple economic growth from the consumption of fossil fuels

Download PDF

"’Energy [R]evolution,’ details how to cut global CO2 emissions in half by 2050, using existing technology and still providing affordable energy and economic growth. In short – a revolution in energy policy and an evolution in how we use energy."

Carbon Sequestration

Finally, the Obama administration seems committed to an energy future which includes so-called "clean coal" as a major energy source, with the expansion of new coal plants and retrofitting of old ones. We also seem committed to a new technology for making that coal cleaner, by capturing the resultant CO2 in a process called "carbon sequestration" or "carbon capture and storage". Greenpeace has made a major study on "CCS" called "False Hope: Why Carbon Capture and Storage Won’t Save the Climate," which we summarize here:

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) aims to reduce the climate impact of burning fossil fuels by capturing carbon dioxide (CO2) from power station smokestacks and disposing of it underground. Its future development has been widely promoted by the coal industry as a justification for the construction of new coal-fired power plants. However, the technology is largely unproven and will not be ready in time to save the climate.

This report, based on peer-reviewed independent scientific research shows that: CCS cannot deliver in time to avoid dangerous climate change. The earliest possibility for deployment of CCS at utility scale is not expected before 2030.1 To avoid the worst impacts of climate change, global greenhouse gas emissions have to start falling after 2015, just seven years away.

CCS wastes energy. The technology uses between 10 and 40% of the energy produced by a power station. Wide scale adoption of CCS is expected to erase the efficiency gains of the last 50 years, and increase resource consumption by one third.

Storing carbon underground is risky. Safe and permanent storage of CO2 cannot be guaranteed. Even very low leakage rates could undermine any climate mitigation efforts.

CCS is expensive. It could lead to a doubling of plant costs, and an electricity price increase of 21-91%. Money spent on CCS will divert investments away from sustainable solutions to climate change.

CCS carries significant liability risks. It poses a threat to health, ecosystems and the climate. It is unclear how severe these risks will be.

The climate crisis requires urgent action. Climate scientists warn that to avoid the worst effects, global greenhouse gas emissions must peak by 2015 and then start falling by at least 50% by 2050, compared to 1990 levels. Coal is the most polluting of all fossil fuels, and the single greatest threat to the climate. If current plans to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in coal plants are realised, CO2 emissions from coal could increase 60% by 2030. Concerns about the feasibility, costs, safety, and liability of CCS make it a dangerous gamble. A survey of 1000 “climate decision-makers and influencers” around the world reveals substantial doubt in the ability of CCS to deliver. Just 34% were confident that retrofitting ‘clean coal technology’ to existing power plants could reduce CO2 emissions over the next 25 years without unacceptable side effects, and only 36% were confident in its ability to deliver low-carbon energy from new power
stations.

The real solutions to stopping dangerous climate change lie in renewable energy and energy efficiency that can start protecting the climate today. Huge reductions in energy demand are possible with efficiency measures that save more money than they cost to implement. Technically accessible renewable energy sources – such as wind, wave and solar- are capable of providing six times more energy than the world currently consumes – forever.

See the Press Release: New Report: Greenpeace Energy Blueprint Shows How Existing Alternatives to Fossil Fuels Will Revolutionize a Broken Energy Economy, Greenpeace, June 9, 2010:

Washington — In the midst of the intractable crisis caused by the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, it is time to stop investing in a broken energy economy and seize the opportunity to invest in a sustainable energy future, according to the environmental group Greenpeace. The way forward is illustrated in “Energy [R]evolution: A Sustainable USA Energy Outlook,” one of the most comprehensive plans for future production and distribution of sustainable energy systems launched today by Greenpeace and the European Renewable Energy Council (EREC).

If you are new to the question of global warming and climate change, please feel encouraged to read the Wikipedia article on global warming.

See the White House Issues page on Energy and Environment.

Watch the video at and read the White House page A New Foundation for Energy and the Environment.

Go to the United States Global Change Research Program page on Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States.

Go to the National Science Foundation’s page on Climate Change. Read their .pdf report, SOLVING THE PUZZLE: Researching the Impacts of Climate Change Around the World, hosted here at Evans Liberal Politics.

Read Time’s Special Climate-Change Report: From Bad to Worse, June 17, 2009, by Bryan Walsh.

Download and read Greenpeace: "Energy [R]evolution – a Sustainable Energy Outlook," hosted here.

Download and read Greenpeace: "False Hope: Why Carbon Capture and Storage Won’t Save the Climate," hosted here.

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Have You Listened to Us Lately?

Seymour Hersh on Obama Being “Dominated” by the U.S. Military, Michael Moore.com, May 8, 2010, by Seymour Hersch, quoted verbatim:

Seymour Hersh spoke at the Global Investigative Journalism Conference in Geneva on April 24, 2010:

REPORTER: You didn’t include Obama in your list of liar presidents. I’m wondering if you would include him also?

HERSH: To use a basketball or a football analogy, American football, fourth quarter – he may have a game plan. At this point he’s in real trouble. Because the military are dominating him on the important issues of the world: Iraq, Iran, Afghan and Pakistan. And he’s following the policies of Bush and Cheney almost to a fare-thee-well. He talks differently. And he’s much brighter, he’s much more of the world. So one only hopes he has a game plan that will include doing something, but he’s in real trouble, in terms of – he’s in real trouble.

In Iraq I don’t have to tell anybody the prospects – in the American press they never mention Moqtada Sadr, but look out. He’s going to be the kingmaker of that country. He’s now studying in Iran. And he’s going to be the next ayatollah-to-be. I don’t know how he’ll work it out with Sistani. But he’s going to be the force, the Shia. And so this is going to be very complicated for us because the two men we talk about, Allawi and Maliki, have about as much to do with the average Iraqi – they’re both ex-pats. Allawi, let’s see, he was certainly an American agent and a British agent, the MI-6, the CIA, the Jordanians ran him probably for Mossad. I’m not telling you anything that is not a fact. So who knows?

So Iraq is very problematical. There’s going to be much more violence. Whether it’s civil war or not it’s going to be much more violence.

He’s never going to win, whatever that means, in Afghanistan. The only solution in Afghanistan is a settlement with the Taliban. And the only person to settle with is Mullah Omar, and he’s become another Hitler to the American public. So how we’re going to do that and survive politically?

And the same in Pakistan. He’s got the wrong policy there. So it is – and again for Obama, Iran’s not resolved, in terms of, the Iranians have come out of this crisis stronger than ever. We don’t want to believe that.

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(Reuters) – Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said on Sunday that relations with the United States had been “seriously disrupted,” after a rise in friction between the two big powers.

“The responsibility does not lie with China,” said Yang, speaking at a news conference on the sidelines of the annual session of China’s parliament.

Beijing and Washington have recently gone through a rough patch, with quarrels in January and February over Chinese Internet censorship, trade disputes, U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, and President Barack Obama’s meeting with the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan leader.

The United States “must respect China’s core interests” on Taiwan and Tibet, Yang added. “I believe the United States understands very well China’s core interests and major concerns.

“China has always attached importance to its relationship with the United States,” he said. “Resolutely adhering to one’s principled stance is not the same thing as being hardline.”

But the two big trade partners appear to want to lower the temperature of the disputes as they also grapple with how to deal with how to deal with Iran and North Korea.

Beijing has not yet acted on its threat to sanction U.S. companies involved in the arms sales to Taiwan, the self-ruled island that Beijing claims as part of its territory.

Last weekend, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said he wanted trade friction with the United States to ease.

Comment by Evans Liberal Politics owner Paul Evans: Ever since Newsweek came out with the magazine cover article announcing the 21st century as belonging to China, I’m sure the U.S. has been keeping a wary eye on their erstwhile rival. Let’s hope we can make the 21st century a partnership, as it should be with a nation so rich in population, culture and economic strength. Perhaps we had better take their wishes a little more into consideration, logically.

Visit Reuters, for the latest and best in breaking news.

See Obama to nominate retired Army general for TSA: source, Reuters, March 7, 2010, by Reporting by Chris Buckley; (Writing by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Bill Tarrant):

(Reuters) – President Barack Obama plans to nominate retired Army Major Gen. Robert Harding to head the Transportation Security Administration after his first pick withdrew under political pressure, an administration official said Sunday.

…Before retiring from the military, Harding was deputy to the Army’s chief of intelligence and previously served as director for operations in the Defense Intelligence Agency.

See Iran’s Ahmadinejad calls Sept 11 “big fabrication”, Reuters, March 6, 2010, by Ramin Mostafavi and Hashem Kalantari; (writing by Fredrik Dahl; editing by Noah Barkin): so is I’maNutJob this insane, or is he this evil — and isn’t this sort of evil really simply various forms of insanity: aren’t they the same thing??? I don’t mean that all insanity is evil; many poor struggling sufferers have no real fault of their own. I mean that all evil, real evil, is insane. Or at least, sure doesn’t “get it”.