Gen McChrystal's Plan Only Viable One on the Table
Gen. Stanley McChrystal, commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, is right when he says that more troops and more civilian reconstruction involvement are necessary if the Taliban are to be defeated.
It’s sort of what Canadian Prime Minister Stephan Harper says, though he’s pulling Canadian combat troops out by 2011 (which will lead to another sort of crisis).
It’s what Canada's former ambassador to Afghanistan and Special Envoy of the UN Secretary General, Chris Alexander has been saying for years – and he probably has a better “feel” for the country than all the other experts combined.
Military force or civilian humanitarianism? To some, it’s a chicken and egg dilemma – but it isn’t. Clearly without military protection (which in realistic terms means fighting the Taliban), humanitarian reconstruction is doomed. The Taliban don’t want it, and Afghans (so far) can’t defend or guarantee it.
Which brings us back to Gen. McChrystal’s plea to President Barack Obama in a 66-page memo for some 30,000 more troops to bolster the 60,000 U.S. forces already in Afghanistan, and the 40,000 troops from 42 countries, including all 28 NATO countries that mostly have boycotted any fighting role.
Up to now, Americans, Britons, Canadians, Dutch and Danes have done most of the “fighting” – an indictment on the rest of NATO. “More troops, or we lose,” McChrystal has warned Obama (who is still pondering the issue).
A contrary view is that we should be after the real terrorists (al-Qaeda, based in Pakistan) not the regional tyrants (the Taliban, also based in Pakistan). The U.S. is urged by some to use unmanned, missile-armed drone planes to attack al-Qaeda sites - and too bad about inevitable civilian casualties in the process.
None of these options is mutually exclusive. The U.S. is quite capable of fighting in Afghanistan as well as waging a more subversive war in Pakistan (assuming the Pakistanis okay such help, while publicly condemning it).
The U.S. managed to simultaneously fight Germans, Japanese and Italians pretty effectively in WWII. Pakistan has its own problems with al-Qaeda and the Taliban, and cooperation is not as difficult and precarious today as it once was.
Most Afghans don’t want the Taliban.
The eventual solution, of course, is a functioning Afghan National Army (ANA) and Afghan National Police (ANP). That has to be a priority for our side to train. But until Taliban aggression can be blunted and controlled, there can be no security.
Gen. McChrystal needs more American troops, so foot soldiers can be based in small villages to provide constant security, and to get to know the people, and to win their confidence. This is what Canadian soldiers were doing in Kandahar in the early days, before it became the battleground it is today.
With 2,500 soldiers spread too thin in Afghanistan, Canada has run out of replacements and equipment. Afghanistan is now a war of roadside bombs, not direct combat, which our guys win with relative ease and few casualties.
All things considered, it’s hard to see Gen. McChrystal’s request for more troops being refused, since his plan seems the only viable one on the table that might result in victory. And “might,” is the operative word. No guarantees.
After seven years of being in Afghanistan, it would be a disservice to those who’ve been killed, not to do whatever is possible to ensure their sacrifice has not been in vain. And that applies to Afghans as well as to our soldiers.