By Steve Hynd
US Navy SEALS have been practising counter-terrorism in Somalia, killing one of the region's most wanted terrorists in a lightning raid.
The dead terrorist, Saleh Ali Nabhan, is believed to have taken part in the 1998 attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. He is also believed to have orchestrated the 2002 bombing of a resort hotel in Mombasa, Kenya, and a failed missile attack on an Israeli airliner leaving Mombasa airport.
Several sources tell ABC News at least one U.S. helicopter fired on a convoy carrying suspected al Qaeda targets in southern Somalia. An American official says a U.S. Navy ship was also nearby to monitor the situation and provide assistance if needed.
Ali Nabhan's death has not yet been officially confirmed, but sources tell ABC News that his body is now in U.S. custody.
No drones flown by remote control from Nevada, no airstrikes by fast-moving jets, no 100,000 strong occupation force, no decades-long nation building at gunpoint.
Given a far smaller footprint of US and allied troops in Afghanistan, say around 20,000, there's no obvious reason that spings to my mind why this raid couldn't be duplicated in Afghanistan as part of a Rory Stewart style counter-terrorism effort there.
The best Afghan policy would be to reduce the number of foreign troops from the current level of 90,000 to far fewer � perhaps 20,000. In that case, two distinct objectives would remain for the international community: development and counter-terrorism. Neither would amount to the building of an Afghan state. If the West believed it essential to exclude al-Qaida from Afghanistan, then they could do it with special forces. (They have done it successfully since 2001 and could continue indefinitely, though the result has only been to move bin Laden across the border.) At the same time the West should provide generous development assistance � not only to keep consent for the counter-terrorism operations, but as an end in itself.
A reduction in troop numbers and a turn away from state-building should not mean total withdrawal: good projects could continue to be undertaken in electricity, water, irrigation, health, education, agriculture, rural development and in other areas favoured by development agencies. We should not control and cannot predict the future of Afghanistan. It may in the future become more violent, or find a decentralised equilibrium or a new national unity, but if its communities continue to want to work with us, we can, over 30 years, encourage the more positive trends in Afghan society and help to contain the more negative.
When COINdinistas and escalation hawks paint the choice in Afghanistan as between doubling down on a massive nation building venture or "surrender monkey" withdrawal, they're painting a false picture. The SEALS have just given an object lesson in one of the other possibilities.
The Seals appear to have broken US law. What happened in Somalia was clearly an assassination, made unlawful by Reagan under Executive Order 12333.
ReplyDeleteI'm afraid more lawbreaking is not the answer.
A light footprint strategy. Oh yeah, you mean like how Rumsfeld ran the war, 2001-4. That worked out great.
ReplyDeleteJoshua, no not like Rummie ran the occupation. For a start, the idea is not to dictate how people run their country, to not be an occupation as much as possible.
ReplyDelete(But in any case, doesn't pretty much everyone agree 2005 was the high point in Afghanistan, with the Taliban at their nadir, and it's gone downhill from there?)
Regards, Steve