A US State Department employee, Mr. David Hoh, has resigned, stating in a letter that he has “lost understanding of and confidence in the strategic purposes of the United States’ presence in Afghanistan”.  This has caused quite a stir, getting the attention even of the White House.  However, it is not clear that the White House is hearing the real message.

He said that the insurgency in some parts of Afghanistan arrived only after the US troops did.

Mr Hoh’s position is that the US should be cutting combat troops; providing more support for Pakistan; developing better US communication and propaganda skills to match those of al-Qaeda; and putting more pressure on Afghan President Hamid Karzai to clean up government corruption. 

“We want to have some kind of governance there, and we have some obligation for it not to be a bloodbath,” Mr Hoh said.

Mr. Hoh is absolutely right.  These are the kinds of things that I have been pushing for some time. They are just as relevant to Canada as to the United States.  Unfortunately this advice is falling mostly on the deaf ears of the keepers of conventional wisdoms.

The current combat strategy with the Taliban is the 21^st century equivalent of the US cavalry chasing after the Sioux in the Northwest US frontier.  Nothing was achieved except the needless loss of courageous lives.  In the end the only solution was a settlement.  However, there the comparison ends.  In Afghanistan, in the face of attack the insurgents disappear into the wilderness, just like the Sioux, but they always return, planting bombs and explosives that kill the western forces when they travel back over the same territory.  Peace in the Northwest US only came after treaties were agreed to, followed by the occupation of and the moving of settlers onto the disputed lands.  In Afghanistan that is not an option. 

Only the Afghan people can provide the necessary basis for security, development and good governance.  The hot pursuit of the Taliban by the Canadian, US and British forces in Kandahar and neighbouring provinces, followed only by the return of the soldiers to their safe barracks, is a mad-cap strategy.  So too is the creation of safe “model villages”.  The hearts, minds and confidence of  the people of Aghanistan generally will never be secured this way.  Without that, nothing is gained.

The answers are just as Mr. Hoh suggests.  Listen up, Canada.  The hot pursuit out of secure bases in the south must come to an end.  The insurgent Taliban forces must be ousted from their basis of operation in Pakistan, and any shift of these bases to Afghanistan must be squelched early.  Otherwise the Taliban forces should be left alone unless it is to repel actual attacks on bases or civilian population centres.  The highly successful propaganda and information campaigns of the Taliban and al Queda must be met with equally persuasive responses. Taliban supporters not committed to armed struggle should be won over. A huge injection of aid must be mobilized to build infrastructure and housing, to generate and distribute gas and electricity, to provide health services, and to feed the people, with the jobs going to Afghanis not westerners.  The amounts spent on security for aid projects could then be drastically reduced, with the amounts saved spent on the projects.  The well developed trading, commercial and small business skills of the people must be embraced and markets and trade must be supported to support growth in economic activity.  Jobs have to be created for the huge unemployed and thus poor labour force.  Jobs from aid and economic development are the answer.

Just as physical and trade infrastucture is needed, so too is there a need to build effective government institutions.  Trained and honest police and conflict resolution processes must be supported and rewarded.  Corruption and government by intimidation must stop.  It has been a huge mistake to leave Karzai to pursue his corrupt and violent ways.  Warlords in government are unacceptable, as are large scale drug dealers.  If these continue the west should leave. The west must also be unequivocal in its demand that the November 7 election be free and fair.

Some think none of these things are possible.  If that is true, then it is time for Canada and its partners to leave. Not one more Canadian life should be lost in pursuit of the current losing strategy.

The White House has said a decision on a new strategy for Afghanistan will be made in the coming weeks.  Some like Dick Cheney say the process is taking too long, and all that is needed is more troops.  That is the wrong choice.  The President should take all the time it takes to get it right.  A new strategy is possible. A large majority of the Afghan people want the western presence to continue, doing the kind of things I suggest.  Poll after poll shows this to be true, as does any kind of contact with ordinary Afghanis. 

This is important because the people’s continued support is the most important condition of success and the most important contributor to success.  The rest is simply about strategy, money and commitment. 

It is time that Canada, the US and other countries stopped pretending that the current approach is working.  They need to stop listening to the old failed advice of the established politicians and academic and government advisors, and look to those like Mr. Hoh who have it right. The Afghan project can still succeed, but a whole new strategy and approach is needed. Prime Ministers and Presidents need to open their minds to new advice, to take the unusual risk that goes with change.  They have do pursue a different approach.  Otherwise, failure is certain, with consequences that will not be pretty for anyone.

South Asia is a part of the world that we should all learn a lot about fast.  There is going to be a lot of talk of war in the region over the next while.  The region includes India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, all  three of which maintain long standing conflicts in volatile border areas, and all three of which are prime targets of  Taliban, al Qaeda and Pakistani Islamic terrorists who have taken terrorism to an all new level.  Two have modern nuclear weapons.  All three are locked in a praying mantis style death embrace that could easily set off a conflagration that would mean the end of the world as we know it.  Then for good measure add in Iran, on the western border of both Pakistan and Afghanistan, which actively supports dissent in both countries and blames Pakistan for this weekend’s suicide bomber attack on senior military personnel.  

The situation in South Asia has none of the comforting game theory imperatives of the cold war contest.  It is altogether much more dangerous than the much feared bi-polar cold war, where more or less rational actors played out a fairly defined and known strategic struggle, admittedly with horrifying potential consequences.

India and  Pakistan have until now had neither  the will nor the capacity to find a stable equilibrium in the conflict over Kashmir; a dispute that goes back to independence and partition.  India refused then to acknowledge that Kashmir rightfully should be included in Pakistan, and has used its superior size and military might ever since to maintain its occupation of the area.  Pakistan on the other hand is unable to admit that it has lost the on the ground battle, and persists in hopeless attempts to drive India out of Kashmir.  Fundamentalist Islam is used by Pakistan to mobilize thousands of young men each year to train as Islamic fundamentalist jihadists, and when called to engage in cross border terrorism and insurgency attacks inside India.   They have been the mainstay in the fight in Kashmir, where outright war would result if Pakistan were to send in conventional armed forces.  The Pakistani military and intelligence services organize, direct, and use these militant and shadowy forces for other purposes as well, sending them into Afghanistan earlier to drive the Russians out of that country, in so doing developing close ties with the Taliban and many Afghan warlords.   Through time it has become impossible to distinguish the  Taliban and al Qaeda terrorists from the Pakistani Islamic fundamentalist jihadists – they are for all intents and purposes an integrated non-conventional army.

The conflict over Kashmir was the main factor in  India and Pakistan developing nuclear arms as a way of blocking possible success by the other in settling the conflict though insurgency or conventional war.  Now each can blow the other to eternity if one threatens to best the other, and there is little doubt that each would attempt just that if threatened with defeat.  And Pakistan’s  weapons would be a dangerous  wild card if it should come apart or fall to Islamic fundamentalists.  Imagine what the Taliban, al Qaeda, and Iran could do with that.

Close links between the Pakistani army and intelligence services on the one hand and the Taliban and al Qaeda on the other has resulted in Pakistan becoming a safe base and sanctuary for Taliban and al Qaeda forces.  They have concentrated their bases in North and South Waziristan, remote and hard to access mountainous territories that have been controlled by the Taliban for a number of years, with the consent for quite a long time of  former Pakistani President Musharaff.  North Waziristan is a base largely for attacks in Afghanistan, while South Waziristan  supports attacks in Afghanistan, India and Pakistan.

The long developing South Asian cauldron of danger and intrigue has now arrived at the top of the news cycle in the western media.  This weekend the Pakistan army started a campaign to take back South Waziristan from the Taliban.   There have been many casualties already.  It will be along and difficult fight.  The move into Waziristan is a result of immense US pressure.  The US knows that the attacks in Afghanistan are sustained by Taliban bases in Pakistan, and in particualar Waziristan.  The Bush administration was ineffective in convincing Musharaff  to clean out the bases.  Musharaff and the army had no interest in destroying forces essential to their fight with India, and Bush was convinced he needed a dictator in charge and so heeded Musharaff’s warnings that he might be overthrown if he took strong action.  So Waziristan was left alone as Taliban controlled territory. 

That has changed.  Musharaff is gone.  Obama knows that if the US is to break the back of the Taliban and al Qaeda, he cannot let them continue to train, arm, operate and and find sanctuary in Pakistan.  Pakistan’s elected President is secular and no friend of the Taliban, so the political alignment in Pakistan is now supportive of the fight with the Taliban.  If nothing else, the defeat of Musharaff and the election of Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan Peoples Party (recall she was murdered by shadowy forces associated with both the Taliban  and the Pakistani intelligence services) has meant that the Pakistan Government now supports taking the fight to the Taliban and its safe havens in Pakistan.

There are still doubts about how effective the army will be in prosecuting the fight.  The army is questionable as a fighting force.  Further, there are still many links between the Pakistani security services and the Taliban.   But a serious attempt is being made by the Pakistani Government to separate the Pakistani army from the insurgents, and to bring an end to the use of Pakistan as the Taliban home base.  This could be a large step in breaking up the  close embrace of the Taliban, the al Qaeda,  the Afghan insurgents, and the fighters in Kashmir.  This association must be broken if there is any hope to end the fighting in Afghanistan, bring peace between Indian and Pakistan and end the danger of Taliban destablization of Pakistan.  Until these things are achieved there is a very real threat of things going from bad to worse, including a nuclear conflagration.

The mobilization of the Pakistani army against the Taliban inside Pakistan is the first meaningful shots in a very big game.  The stakes are very high.  Westerners should hope and pray that it will lead to a break up of the shadowy  alliance between the Taliban, al Qaeda, the Pakistani militants, the Pakistani intelligence services and the Pakistani army.  Until that happens, the dangers for the whole world are very real.  It is unlikely that Iran and India will do anything to worsen the situation in the near future, but Iran is a wild card that can’t be entirely predicted.

It is by no means certain that the Pakistan army will succeed against the Taliban.  Only time will tell.  But if it does not, the situation will just get a whole lot worse.  A Taliban defeat of the Pakistan army could lead to a Taliban-Islamic fundamentalist – army coalition of some sort attempting to forcefully taking over Pakistan.   The big prize would be Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal.  Imagine what the Taliban and al Qaeda would be capable of then.  Imagine the reaction of India, with its finger on the nuclear trigger.  And imagine the US and its allies attempting to stop any of that from happening.

Many people are weary of Afghanistan and hope that we are soon done with it.  Many feel that the whole South Asia mess is just another left-over from the bad old days under Bush. That is far too easy.  We may learn soon enough that much more is at stake then many think.

Eight years ago today two airplanes flew into the twin towers in New York in a firey inferno of death and destruction.  Hopefully none of us will forget the sickening horror of innocent people going to their death for no rational reason.  Each time I travel to New York I make myself visit that site as an act of forced remembrance and as a reminder of what that terrible day means even now eight years later.   And as a reminder that we have done so little to try to ensure that it does not happen again.

At the time there was visceral anger directed at anyone who talked of the social and political causes of what happened that day.  We have now reached the point that we can at least admit that the long legacy of western abuse of nations with large Muslim populations is not wholly unrelated to these horrors.  The west has much to answer for.

But it is every bit as true now as then that the individuals and organizations involved in sponsoring these attacks were criminals and murderers in the worst senses of those words.  Al Qaeda and its Taliban protectors consciously and actively organized and supporter these attacks as part of a larger assault upon western nations and cultures in a cynical and deadly attempt to exploit the anger and despair felt in many South Asian and Arab nations about what has happened over the years.  Western exploitation of oil and other resources and a long history of cynical occupations and attacks upon Arab and South Asian populations have played their part in creating a fertile environment for hatred.  But this provides no excuse however for those who enlist large numbers of young people in a murderous cause which preys upon the powerless and the alienated.

Remarkably however, the hatred of America and the west so feared in the days and weeks after 9-11 is much less deeply embedded than often thought. Al Qaeda and the Taliban have proved to be of very little interest to mass populations in South Asian nations with large Muslim populations.  Anyone who has worked in or visited Afghanistan and Pakistan for example cannot help but be impressed with the widespread hope that the United States and the west will help bring stability and development to those countries.  Only a small minority of people in these countries express much sympathy or support for the Taliban or al Qaeda as a political movement or as an alternative government.   Remarkably, the vast majority like Americans and hope for their support.

The real tragedy and lost opportunity of the last eight years has been the US’s and the west’s failure to build upon the hope and goodwill of this massive majority of Muslim believers in these countries.  The ousting of the Taliban in Afghanistan was seen at the time by most Afghani’s as necessary and justified.  Only a small minority wanted the Taliban to stay.  Virtually all Afghani’s believed that the removal of the Taliban would result in a new era of peace, security and development after years of war and killings by the Soviets, warlords and the Taliban and they welcomed that prospect.  A large amount of public opinion and other reliable research supports this and puts the lie to those who claim the intervention was unwarranted or unwelcome.

Sadly, the US and the west failed to carry through with their 2001-03 commitments to security and development in Afghanistan in favour of the quixotic and wrongheaded invasion of Iraq.  The expected effort in Afghanistan and Pakistan was for all intents and purposes over before it even really got started.  Removing the Taliban was only the first small step needed to restore South Asia to stability and normalcy.   Huge investments in infrastructure, security, development and governance were needed and expected.  Large scale and decisive action was needed to end the Pakistan intelligence services and the army’s support of al Qaeda and the Taliban, and to support the transition of Pakistan to civilian rule.

But these things got postponed or never got done.  Instead, the US and the west diverted resources to Iraq, while in South Asia focusing on the hot pursuit of Taliban insurgent forces in pointless firefights and in propping up the disingenuous dictator Musharaff in Pakistan.  These were all short cuts and short-term expedients which any informed observer knew would achieve little.

Sadly it may now be too late to change direction.  Little progress has been made on development, security and governance in Afghanistan, not because of Afghani failures but because of western inattention and stupidity.  Now Karzai has resorted to electoral corruption to overcome popular disappointment and so the recent election threatens to confirm him as an illegitimate western backed leader in the eyes of the people.  The needed remedy is to void the election on the basis of findings of international observer forces.  However given western cynicism and a continuing preference for short cuts, this seems unlikely.  With Karzai confirmed, there will be broad based popular alienation from the whole reconstruction effort and an increased tendency to accept possible Taliban rule as a lesser evil.

It is a mistake to assume that Afghanistan and Pakistan are far away places of little interest and concern to us.  Success by al Qaeda and the Taliban has nothing to do with the liberal cause of self determination based on broad popular support.  The truth is both distain western ideas about popular self-determination.  Their agenda is to rule through force and to secure a base for continuing terrorist attacks on the west and to build support for their brand of gender hatred and militant repression of western ideas as part of a hoped for world wide conflict.  The dangers inherent in their success cannot be underestimated.  Their hope for future world wide war between the Muslim east and the heathen west is not something that any peace loving and compassionate person should view with equanimity.

I have said before that South Asia is the most dangerous place in the world.  It houses the only real threat to international peace and stability today.  It is within the capacity of the west to see that this threat is cauterized. But it won’t be achieved by the frenzied killing of Taliban in wild-west shoot-outs and by propping up corrupt and unpopular leaders like Karzai and Musharaff before he was pushed out by Pakistani’s themselves.  And it can’t be done on the cheap.  Unfortunately it is far from clear that there is the will or the understanding on the part of the west including Canada to do what is necessary.

Today President Obama said “Let us renew our resolve against those who perpetrated this barbaric act and plot against us still,” at a somber ceremony attended by about 500 people under rain-filled skies at the Pentagon.   Let’s hope he means it and understands what it means.