Afghanistan: The war that the US-NATO can't win

The president of the United States, Barack Obama, who as a candidate promised to pull his country’s troops out of Afghanistan, and, consequently, those of his allies from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and from other nations, has changed his objectives in the course of just over a year and now insists on the defeat of the Taliban and Al-Qaida as conditions for initiating the pull-out process. Obama says that he is seeking a regional solution that includes Russia, China, India and even Iran, in spite of the bad relations between Washington and Teheran; but the irrefutable facts show that the US troops in Afghan territory amount to 55,000 and the total number of foreign soldiers are in excess of 100,000.

According to the most recent report from the International Council on Security and Development (ICOS), Afghanistan has fallen prey to extreme poverty, the tribal and cacique powers, drug trafficking and corruption. This is the breeding ground that has enabled the Taliban to gain ground: their power has increased considerably in the last year and they now have permanent presence in 72% of Afghanistan.

The president imposed by the United States, Hamid Karzai, can hardly govern any farther than Kabul, the capital; and some foreign observers affirm that his power barely goes beyond the presidential palace. This situation was analyzed by the Latin American Circle of International Studies (LACIS) in 2001, directly in Afghanistan, during an exhaustive field trip coinciding with the invasion by the US and NATO. Even then the LACIS confirmed that the Taliban dominated the greater part of the country; and its information in that respect is permanently updated.

The United States is acting as if it seeks the permanent presence of its troops and those of its allies. From the beginning of the war operations in Afghan territory, the Americans set up 19 multifunctional Pentagon bases, thanks to which they have a real possibility of exerting pressure on China, Iran and Russia. Due to the negligence demonstrated by the US military and politicians -and maybe with their complicity- the Taliban are destabilizing Central Asia and the regions of China with a Muslim population. For this they can count on full collaboration from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), whose founder and principal military leader, Youma Namangani, who died towards the end of 2001, was Osama bin Laden’s second-in-command in the Central Asian area and the Caucasus; and also from the Uighur separatists.

The instability in Central Asia is a direct consequence of the foreign military presence in Afghanistan, but, in a perfect vicious circle, it turns out to be the best justification for Obama the president to maintain -and increase- the troops there that Obama the candidate promised to withdraw. This focus of tensions goes way beyond regional boundaries and has become a problem that affects the whole world.

While the United States seeks allies for its “antiterrorist coalition” and the flow of drugs from Afghanistan grows exponentially, in the shadow of the foreign occupation the NATO high command ignores the proposals from the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) -- Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan - -, about the need to organize cooperation and the joint fight against the threat of drug traffic coming from Afghan territory.

It is inevitable to question NATO’s true objectives in Afghanistan, since the main drug producers operate in the British and US areas of responsibility. Well-founded suspicions have been raised, according to reliable eyewitnesses, that the US bases could be being used as transit points for drug traffic to Europe. The refusal by NATO and the US to collaborate with the CSTO in a joint strategy reinforces this perception.

According to the specialists’ calculations, with the financial resources assigned to the occupation of Afghanistan and the military operations in the border zone with Pakistan it would be possible to create an important industrial plant in both nations; but NATO prefers an environment of war.

For example, the humanitarian aid destined to this country is distributed by the foreign troops, which has led to strong, repeated protests from the international civil society organizations working in the region, such as Oxfam, CARE, Action Aid, Save the Children and others. The CSOs demand that NATO suspend the so-called “civil-military initiatives” immediately and allow the strict separation of humanitarian aid from the military operations.

The International Coordinating Committee of the No to War, No to NATO Network, of which the LACIS is a member, upholds that conflicts are never solved by wars and that the debate about Afghanistan and Pakistan has reached a critical point. Public opinion in countries all over the world is fully aware of the war escalation and opposes it, even though there has been an attempt to disguise it as a “new strategy”.

Wolfgang Gehrcke, the foreign policy spokesman for the Left Party in the federal Parliament (Bundestag) of Germany – a country where resistance to sending more troops to Afghanistan is on the rise- summed up the position of those who oppose the so-called new strategy in this way: “We don’t want any more excuses. Peace is possible. In the face of the line approved at the London conference and repeated in Munich, to send more troops, more modern weapons, impose martial law and the enforced militarization of the civilian population, we uphold that the best alternative is the withdrawal of the foreign troops,  the support of national reconciliation and the strict separation of humanitarian aid and military assistance of any kind".

The ICC and the LACIS agree that an end to the war requires the immediate withdrawal of the NATO troops from Afghanistan. In the global scenario, the break-up and dismantling of NATO are essential, in order to contribute to international security. This is what we are working for. NATO only means more wars. It has never been, nor will it be, an organization for protection and security. After nearly nine years of presence in Afghanistan, the situation today reflects what NATO really is: a military alliance created to impose the will of the western elites.

We need political and social answers for the Afghanistan and Pakistan crisis. The decisions of the Afghan people must be respected and a regional solution must be found that involves all of the neighboring countries. These answers must include a non-military program, headed by the United Nations, which would replace the mandate of the ISAF (International Security Assistance Force, constituted by NATO).

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