Obama's War, One Year Later: 195 Million Say No to War

By Robert Greenwald

Next month will mark the one-year anniversary of the launch of President Obama's escalated military campaign in Afghanistan. One year later, violence is still getting worse and costs are skyrocketing. After more than nine years, it's time to end this war.

Take a strong public stand against the war by posting your picture and comment on Rethink Afghanistan's new "Because It's Time" feature.

On February 13, 2010, NATO troops launched Operation Moshtarak in the Marjah district of Helmand Province. It was the first major military action enabled by President Obama's 30,000-troop escalation, and was supposed to be proof-of-concept for Generals McChrystal's and Petraeus' counterinsurgency doctrine. The military hype said Afghan forces would be in the lead as coalition forces invaded Taliban-controlled areas. They'd deliver "government in a box, ready to roll." Over and over, military officials repeated their mantra that the new troops would enable them to "protect the population."

What followed was a fiasco that still hasn't ended.

In Marjah, "government in a box" turned out to be "government with a rap sheet," as it turned out the U.S.-backed district governor was a convicted felon. (He did, however, fit in just fine in the corrupt Karzai regime.) A misfired munition from a High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) killed a house full of civilians in the first few days of the offensive. Afghan troops trained by the Americans proved often unreliable and inept. All throughout 2010, Marjah remained a danger zone for U.S. troops as the Taliban forces who seemed to flee revealed themselves to be competent guerrillas, melting away before superior firepower only to slowly filter back in to plant roadside bombs and take potshots at troops. Eventually, military officials had to admit that they'd over-promised and under-delivered.

The pattern of hype and embarrassment repeated itself across Afghanistan all throughout 2010, as U.S. military officials repeatedly asserted that an influx of troops would bring security and protect the population, only to see those areas remain violent hot-spots where civilians were rarely safe. NATO similarly invaded Kandahar in force later in the year, and that area remains hotly contested and violent. In fact, violence in Kandahar and Helmand account for more than half of insurgent-initiated attacks for all of Afghanistan. Worse, areas that were previously relatively secure suddenly saw a spike in the number of insurgent attacks at the Taliban continued their relentless expansion across the country.

So. President Obama has had a full year now to prove that his new strategy is worth the costs. What are the results?

• Country-wide, 2010 was the most violent year of the war so far. Ten thousand people died in war-related violence, including roughly 500 U.S. troops, thousands of civilians and who knows how many insurgents.


• We spent roughy20 million on killing each enemy fighter in Afghanistan. Yet, Taliban growth is such that despite reportedly losing more than 5,000 fighters this year, NATO estimates their numbers remain steady across the country.


• Numerous polls show that opposition to the war is at an all-time high, with 63 percent opposing the war. When you do the math, that's more than 196 million Americans who want our troops to come home.

While we were wasting $100 billion on this war per year, Americans fought to stay above water in a horrible economy. Unemployment has now topped 9 percent for 20 months straight. Groups like the Salvation Army are reporting an alarming shortfall in resources to help the hungry. And state budgets all across the country are considering huge draconian cuts to their public structures and social safety nets that millions of people rely upon. Not only do most Americans oppose the war, but they rightly worry that it's making it harder for us to fix these problems here at home.

After a year of escalated fighting across the country--after more than nine years of this war!--it's absolutely clear that military solutions won't work in Afghanistan, and they're certainly not worth the cost. More than 195 million Americans want this war to end, yet their faces don't seem to be reflected among elected officials to timid to take the morally courageous action of forcing this war to a close. So we're giving people a chance to put their face and their opposition to the war in full public view.

Today, we're launching "Because It's Time" on Rethink Afghanistan to help Americans who oppose this war to make their voices heard. On this page, you can post your photo and a reason why it's time to bring troops home.

Starting next Wednesday, you'll have the chance to vote on your favorite comments. Those who get the most votes will get to star in an upcoming Rethink Afghanistan video.

As the one-year anniversary of "Obama's War" approaches, please take a moment to call for our troops to come home--because it's time.

Follow Robert Greenwald on Twitter: http://twitter.com/robertgreenwald

The New York Times Hypes the Afghanistan War, Again

By Derrick Crowe

The New York Times just published a story under the headline, "Coalition Forces Routing Taliban in Key Afghan Region" that could not include more Pentagon talking points if it were written by General David Petraeus himself. In both the broad outline of the story and in the particulars, the Times conveys a deceptive picture of the state of the conflict and obscures the continued deterioration of the situation in Afghanistan. The available facts simply do not support the assertion that U.S. and coalition forces are "making 'deliberate progress' and have seized the initiative from the insurgents."

The gist of Carlotta Gall's article is that U.S. operations in Kandahar are shattering the Taliban as the U.S. strategy there begins to bear fruit. Though the article is heavy on talking points from NATO spokespeople and anecdotes from troops, we are given only one concrete measure of "progress" in this article:

"Lt. Col. Rodger Lemons, commanding Task Force 1-66 in Arghandab, said he had seen insurgent attacks drop from 50 a week in August to 15 a week two months later. That may be because of the onset of colder weather, when fighting tends to drop off, but Colonel Lemons said he felt the Taliban was losing heart."

But here's the problem: According to the Afghan NGO Safety Office (.pdf), armed opposition group attacks all across Afghanistan increased between August and late September.

And, in Kandahar City, the insurgent attack rate continues to follow a general upward trend:

"The daily attack rate [in Kandahar] has grown from 0.1 in Week one to 2.8 per day by Week 35 suggesting that the elements of OP HAMKARI undertaken so far are not degrading the AOG ability to conduct attacks. Field reports suggest that the Taliban retain up to 4,000 fighters inside the city and continue a wide- spread campaign of intimidation, targeted assassination and the widespread deployment of IEDs against Police and Military targets."

Further, the area continues to become more hostile for civilians. The International Committee of the Red Cross says that the number of war-related injuries being treated at local hospitals is spiking.

Someone please explain the progress to me again. I can't find it.

This gem from Gall's article is particularly rich, emphasis mine:

Unlike the Marja operation, they say, the one in Kandahar is a comprehensive civil and military effort that is changing the public mood as well as improving security.

That sounds vaguely familiar, doesn't it? Why, it's almost like this is exactly how U.S. officials described the Marja operation at the time. Here's one General David Petraeus, interviewed back in February:

"But Petraeus sought to put the [Marjah] offensive in a larger context, saying that it's "just the initial operation of what will be a 12- to 18-month campaign."

"We've spent the last year getting the inputs right in Afghanistan, getting the structures and organizations necessary for a comprehensive civil-military campaign," he said.

You can find this language about Marjah from Petraeus, General McChrystal, and others in countless other places, including this transcript of Petraeus' remarks from April and again in the Senate Democratic Policy Committee talking points, "Progress Toward Turning the Tide in Afghanistan." Yet, somehow, Gall and the rest of the media seem to just give the Pentagon a free pass to keep dredging up the same tired talking points without questioning their reemergence. She relays to the reader that Kandahar will be different than Marjah because it will be a "comprehensive civil and military effort," without providing the reader context that this is exactly the same language that the military was using to sell the Marjah operation.

Throughout the article, Gall practically drools over a "new" rocket system employed in Kandahar, the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS), and uncritically passes along General Nick Carter's praise for this weapon:

"Yet residents say that the Taliban have been stunned by fast-paced raids on their leaders and bases. In particular they talk with awe of a powerful new rocket that has been fired from the Kandahar air base into Panjwai and other areas for the last two or three weeks, hitting Taliban compounds with remarkable accuracy.

"In an interview, General Carter said the weapon the Afghans saw was most likely the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or Himars, a relatively new multiple rocket system. "They are extraordinarily precise; they are accurate to a meter," he said."

The article lacks any mention of the last time the HIMARS made the news, back in February, when U.S. forces in Marjah killed a slew of civilians with it, after which the HIMARS was briefly suspended from use in the country . From ISAF's own statement on the incident:

"Two rockets from a High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) launched at insurgents firing upon Afghan and ISAF forces impacted approximately 300 meters off their intended target, killing 12 civilians in Nad Ali district, Helmand Province today."

Let's just ignore the fact that these "new rockets" with "remarkable accuracy" have been in the field for years and were the munitions involved in highly publicized civilian casualty events...those rockets are just bad ass, aren't they? I mean, it "curls and turns in the air as it zooms in on its target"! AMAZING! The war is over!

This is the problem with the obsession with "precision" weapons: they are frequently imprecise, and they are only as good as the judgment of the wielder. That's why the first 50 "precision" strikes of the Iraq War all failed to hit their intended targets. So pardon the pun, but it's particularly galling that the Times would pass along this bit of merchandising for the war industry without doing so much as a Wikipedia search to just see if maybe General Carter is blowing smoke in your face.

This latest burst of war propaganda is depressingly transparent, and it insults the intelligence of the American people, most of whom see past the smoke screen and oppose the war. We know that the war in Afghanistan isn't making us safer, and it's not worth the cost. It's imperative that we end this conflict now, before it corrodes our national interest further. Doing so would be much, much easier if the media in this country would do their job and question authority, rather than uncritically passing along easily disproved spin from their handlers in Afghanistan.

If you're tired of the Pentagon spin and ready to see this brutal, futile war end, join Rethink Afghanistan on Facebook and Twitter.

General Petraeus, Proconsul of Fantasyland

By Derrick Crowe

The gap between General Petraeus' rhetoric and the reality on the ground in Afghanistan grows every day.

On October 14, 2010, the Afghan NGO Safety Office (ANSO) released its quarterly report (.pdf) on the security situation in Afghanistan, which described the continued growth of the Afghan armed resistance and a deterioration of security in areas where ISAF made major military pushes. Yet on October 15, 2010, General Petraeus crowed in London about "progress" made in Afghanistan. Americans are wise to the game and don't buy this sort of clap-trap anymore: most Americans believe the war in Afghanistan is a "situation like Vietnam (.pdf)." Yet Petraeus spins on, damaging his own credibility and fooling no one.

The ANSO report paints a grim picture of the reality on the ground in Afghanistan:

The [Taliban] counter-offensive is increasingly mature, complex & effective. Country wide attacks have grown by 59% (p.10) while sophisticated recruitment techniques have helped activate networks of fighters in the North where European NATO contributors have failed to provide an adequate deterrent (p.11). Some provinces here are experiencing double the country average growth rate (p.12) and their districts are in danger of slipping beyond any control. Clumsy attempts to stem the developments, through the formation of local militia's and intelligence-poor operations, have served to polarize communities with the IEA capitalizing on the local grievances that result. In the South, despite more robust efforts from the US NATO contingents, counterinsurgency operations in Kandahar and Marjah have similarly failed to degrade the IEA's ability to fight, reduce the number of civilian combat fatalities (p.13) or deliver boxed Government.

By contrast the [Taliban] are showing signs of transition to their own 'hold & build' phase. Already operating advanced administrations in the rural South & East, local 'shadow governance' structures in the North are being buttressed by cadres of loyalists to reinforce the ideological and political cohesion of the movement. Field reports suggest that these efforts are drawing in more conservative recruits from the Uzbek, Turkmen and Tajik communities affording highly valuable opportunities for expansion. Internal factionalism is being addressed with junior opposition partners (domestic and foreign) being slowly subordinated to their command structure, sometimes violently. At the strategic level, leaders are outlining tentative foreign policy, reassuring neighbors of cooperation on narcotics, the environ- ment and commerce, while alluding to 'the upcoming system of the country'. The sum of their activity presents the image of a movement anticipating authority and one which has already obtained a complex momentum that NATO will be incapable of reversing.

...This year has seen nine consecutive months of deterioration, with each month since May breaking a new record, and high levels of attacks extending well in to the traditional downturn season (Aug-Dec).

In other words, the counterinsurgency campaign is failing all over the dang place. ANSO very helpfully updated their chart showing the number of armed-opposition-group-initiated attacks over time, and the picture is worth a thousand words:

...The data rises above day-to-day tactical assessments and presents a remarkably consistent five year pattern of intra-annual cycles, summer peaks and winter troughs driven by climatic conditions on the ground, paired with a very steady 45-55% growth in total attacks between years.

Each new year retains approximately 80% of the previous years growth suggesting that once ground, or capability to attack through manpower, technology or technique, is gained it is seldom relinquished. The pattern suggests careful and deliberate building on last years gains, expanding, consolidating and expanding again.

Lest you think the ANSO data is an outlier, remember that military assessments in both December 2009 and late March 2010 both said that the insurgency's organizational capabilities are qualitatively and geographically expanding.

Now, in this context, with a clear and easily available body of data that includes U.S. military reports, no U.S. media outlet should be uncritically passing along any quote from any military official claiming "progress" in Afghanistan. The American adventure in Afghanistan is a 9-year-plus unequivocal failure with the indicating statistics showing a remarkable consistency.

Yet on Friday, October 15, General Petraeus laughably attempted to paint "a picture of Afghanistan in which the Taliban's ability to mount attacks is being reduced..." The ABC News coverage of Petraeus' remarks came under the headline, "General Petraeus Upbeat, Cites Signs of Progress in Afghanistan." The subsequent story is little more than stenography, reporting Petraeus' narrative without including information that would challenge the general's false depiction of the situation on the ground. The story even claims--without substantiation--that the insurgency has been "knocked back." That's laughable, and easily disproved. See above.

Petraeus went on to describe plans to "link the growing Kandahar security bubble with the one in central Helmand." That begs the question: what planet is Petraeus living on?

Marjah is a basketcase--an example of the failure of the McChrystal/Petraeus strategy. Here's a brief description, courtesy of the Associated Press:

Eight months on, the Taliban are still here in force, waging a full-blown guerrilla insurgency that rages daily across a bomb-riddled landscape of agricultural fields and irrigation trenches.

As U.S. involvement in the war enters its 10th year, the failure to pacify this town raises questions about the effectiveness of America's overall strategy. Similarly crucial operations are now under way in neighboring Kandahar province, the Taliban's birthplace.

There are signs the situation in Marjah is beginning to improve, but "it's still a very tough fight," said Capt. Chuck Anklam, whose Marine company has lost three men since arriving in July. "We're in firefights all over, every day."

Also from the ANSO report:

"Data from Marjah, Helmand (below) paints a similar picture with high rates of attacks persisting 30 weeks after OP MOSHTARAK and an average of two residents per week being killed by AOG in acts of intimidation or collaterally in IED strikes. The closed nature of Marjah makes reliable reporting difficult but anecdotal reports suggest the fighting is much more intense than ANSO records show with possibly as many as 70-100 kinetic events per week. Both operational areas shows signs of the 'dynamic occupation' process typical of the region with AOG melting away ahead of IMF operations only to reappear intact in their wake."

Kandahar is similarly a wreck. Security for the civilian population has rapidly deteriorated since the launch of the ISAF military push there, resulting in a doubling of the war-related injury rate for civilians, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross. ANSO's data confirms the dire security situation:

"The daily attack rate [in Kandahar] has grown from 0.1 in Week one to 2.8 per day by Week 35 suggesting that the ele- ments of OP HAMKARI un- dertaken so far are not de- grading the AOG ability to conduct attacks. Field reports suggest that the Taliban retain up to 4,000 fighters inside the city and continue a wide- spread campaign of intimidation, targeted assassination and the widespread deployment of IEDs against Police and Military targets."

If those are security bubbles, the only thing Petraeus is going to succeed in linking is a discreet arc of deteriorating safety for civilians and rising insurgent attacks. Petraeus's slippery aspirational language can't hide the fact that he and his strategy are failing to produce promised results.

There are no "security bubbles" to link.

These aren't signs of progress.

These are signs of failure.

With roughly 60 percent of the American people opposed to the war in Afghanistan, it's clear that Petraeus is no longer fooling anyone. We know failure when we see it, and we see it in the counterinsurgency strategy pushed by Petraeus, McChrystal, and their think-tank allies.

Where Petraeus is succeeding, however, is in demonstrating conclusively just how disconnected the generals are from reality. But as long as President Obama suspends his disbelief and allows their warped version of reality to drive U.S. policy in Afghanistan, we'll continue to waste lives and resources on a failed policy that corrodes the national interests of the United States. The president once declared he was against, "dumb war." It's past time he acted like it and acted aggressively to rein in the Proconsul of Fantasyland.

The Afghanistan War isn't making us safer, and it's not worth the cost. If you're tired of this brutal, futile conflict, join us at http://facebook.com/RethinkAfghanistan.

Petraeus' Oily Spin about Progress in Afghanistan

By Derick Crowe

With General Petraeus' stop on CBS Evening News with Katie Couric now halfway over, it's worth taking a moment to unpack the unchallenged, false assertions and implications he's piled up thus far on his media tour. We decided to look into the claims he made about "oil spots" of "progress" during his interview with NBC's David Gregory. Both claims were absolute fantasies, and the remaining journalists on Petraeus' tour owe their viewers more rigorous skepticism than what we saw on Meet the Press.

Despite Petraeus' use of the term more than a dozen times in his MTP interview, virtually no data that shows strategically significant security "progress" in Afghanistan since the start of the latest escalation. According to the Afghan NGO Safety Office (ANSO), emphasis mine:

...[T]he number of provinces having more than three attacks per day has grown from 1 to 4 while the number of provinces seeing the lowest rate (<1 per 2 days) has dropped from 22 to 19. Overall ANSO assess that, in terms of daily attack rates, 23 provinces have remained stable, 1 has improved and nine provinces have deteriorated being Nangahar, Paktya, Kandahar, Paktika, Uruzgan, Helmand, Ghazni, Farah, Kunduz.

AOG are presenting a formidable geographic presence and are escalating attacks, in areas well outside of IMF main focus, at their own direction and tempo.

Needless to say, if insurgents are initiating many more attacks "at their own direction and tempo," International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) has not "regained the initiative."

But let's talk specifically about General Petraeus' "oil spots."

GEN. PETRAEUS: Well, the oil, the oil spot, if you will, is a, is a term in counterinsurgency literature that connotes a peaceful area, secure area. So what you're trying to do is to always extend that, to push that out. ...[D]own in Helmand Province what we sought to do was to build an oil spot that would encompass the six central districts of Helmand Province, including Marjah and then others, and then to just keep pushing that out, ultimately to connect it over with the oil spot that is being developed around Kandahar City...

The general's visit to Wardak Province today was in part to underline the ...importance of that security bubble being extended from outside Kabul to the southwest here to Wardak Province.

The general, quite frankly, is out of his mind if he wants us to apply a term that means "a peaceful area, secure area" to Helmand (which includes Marjah), Kandahar, or Wardak. None of those provinces are secure. None. In fact, compared to this time last year, they are less peaceful and less secure.

Helmand/Kandahar Region

According to the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), southern Afghanistan is in the grip of an ever-escalating insurgent assassination campaign. UNAMA's latest report conveys the local Afghans' perception that the insurgents can strike anywhere, anytime, and that U.S. and allied forces can't protect them. From the report:

The Taliban's use of assassinations increased from an average 3.6 per week and 15.6 per month in the first part of 2009 to on average 7.0 per week and 30.5 per month in the first four months 2010. In May and June, the number of assassinations skyrocketed to on average 18.0 per week according to the UN Department of Safety and Security- Afghanistan.

Helmand (including Marjah)

According to ANSO, the number of insurgent attacks in Helmand province during the second quarter of 2010 spiked to 820, compared to 257 attacks during the same period last year. According to UNAMA, the has effectively prevented provincial authorities from delivering the promised "government in a box" in Marjah, while Operation Moshtarak "has not resulted in increased protection for the civilian population."

UNAMA also slapped ISAF for decreasing civilian security by locating their bases in or near residential areas. ISAF justifies this placement by appealing to counterinsurgency admonitions to "live in and among the population," but UNAMA's report retorts that, because of the locations of the bases,

Afghan civilians face not only the risk of often disproportionate and indiscriminate attacks by AGEs, but also death and injury from mortar and rocket attacks fired by IM Forces that mistakenly fall short of their target and hit residential compounds.

The failure of ISAF to establish security for the residents of Helmand and the ever-growing insurgent assasination campaign combine to make Helmand "the most violent province in the country," according to ANSO.

Kandahar

When Karzai, McChrystal and other representatives of ISAF and the Afghan government held their shuras in Kandahar to win local support, they were told in no uncertain terms that the locals didn't want a military operation brought to their home because they feared it would just drag violence into their neighborhoods. They complained bitterly about ISAF's dismissal of their concerns to UNAMA:

Elders also reported that...these meetings were "photo opportunities" at which the elders' concerns and suggestions were not taken seriously. As one elder from Panjwayi district told UNAMA HR, ".. there are far too many 'meetings in name.' ISAF and the Government ignore what we say, because we are from the districts..[T]his is not true, and it is insulting...[t]here are too often photographers and television cameras at these meetings. In Pakistan, of course, the Taliban can watch television, see me sitting with the governor and decide to kill me. So, when there is a 'meeting in name,' first I risk my life, and then I am insulted."

As ISAF's so-called "rising tide of security" began to materialize, the elders' contended to UNAMA that "ISAF's publication of its plans to launch the military operation caused the Taliban to plant more IEDs and intensify their campaign of intimidation against pro- Government figures." ANSO and UNAMA figures bear out their assertion: Armed opposition groups initiated 559 attacks in the second quarter of 2010, up from 399 during the same period last year, with "more civilians were killed in the region in the first six months of 2010 than in any other region."

Wardak

As for Wardak, ANSO's figures show that, again, attacks were up in the second quarter of 2010 (183 attacks) compared to the same period in 2009 (139). The province is a hotbed for abductions, particularly along Highway 1. In fact, according to UNAMA, "On 15 June, the acting District Governor of Sayadabad district in Wardak province was abducted reportedly by AGEs and later beheaded." Also according to UNAMA:

"[E]lders in Logar and Wardak provinces...said their priority was to end the culture of impunity for civilian deaths and injury from military operations and for those who committed abuses to be held accountable."

And, for the bonus round, rocket fire interrupted Petraeus' shura while Gregory accompanied him for his puff-piece interview. Sounds like a place safe enough for a middle-school field trip, doesn't it?

You've Got to Be Kidding Me

All this brings us back to Petreaus' definition of an "oil spot."

"Well, the oil, the oil spot, if you will, is a, is a term in counterinsurgency literature that connotes a peaceful area, secure area."

Nobody in their right mind or wearing pants that aren't on fire can honestly look at the information above and derive from that anything remotely approaching an "oil spot," as Petraeus defines it. Helmand, Kandahar, and Wardak aren't examples of peace or security. I honestly have no idea why Petraeus would hold any of these places up as his "progress" examples. Wardak is certainly not stabilized, and Helmand and Kandahar are glaring examples of the failure of counterinsurgency in Afghanistan.

So here's a takeaway for all you reporters out there rounding out Petraeus' media tour: General Petraeus' job is not to tell you the truth. Petraeus' job is to win the war handed him by President Obama. He sees public opposition crystallizing, while at the same time coming to the realization that his mission will not be accomplished by the deadline to start withdrawals. Rather than questioning the basic assumption that COIN was the right strategy to pursue in Afghanistan (it wasn't), he wants what generals always want: more troops, more time. Thus, he sees it as his job to sell the messages that need to be sold to get the things he think will help him accomplish his mission.

His job isn't to tell you the truth. It's to sell you his war. Buyer beware.