U.S., NATO Poised For Most Massive War In Afghanistan's History
By Rick Rozoff
URL of this article:www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=15364
Global Research, September 24, 2009 Stop NATO
Over the past week U.S. newspapers and television networks have
been abuzz with reports that Washington and its NATO allies are
planning an unprecedented increase of troops for the war in
Afghanistan, even in addition to the 17,000 new American and several
thousand NATO forces that have been committed to the war so far
this year.
The number, based on as yet unsubstantiated reports of what U.S.
and NATO commander Stanley McChrystal and the chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff Michael Mullen have demanded of the White House,
range from 10,000 to 45,000.
Fox News has cited figures as high as 45,000 more American soldiers
and ABC News as many as 40,000. On September 15 the Christian Science
Monitor wrote of "perhaps as many as 45,000."
The similarity of the estimates indicate that a number has been
agreed upon and America's obedient media is preparing domestic
audiences for the possibility of the largest escalation of foreign
armed forces in Afghanistan's history. Only seven years ago the
United States had 5,000 troops in the country, but was scheduled
to have 68,000 by December even before the reports of new deployments
surfaced.
An additional 45,000 troops would bring the U.S. total to 113,000.
There are also 35,000 troops from some 50 other nations serving
under NATO's International Security Assistance Force in the nation,
which would raise combined troop strength under McChrystal's command
to 148,000 if the larger number of rumored increases materializes.
As the former Soviet Union withdrew its soldiers from Afghanistan
twenty years ago the New York Times reported "At the height of the
Soviet commitment, according to Western intelligence estimates,
there were 115,000 troops deployed." [1]
Nearly 150,000 U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan would represent
the largest foreign military presence ever in the land.
Rather than addressing this historic watershed, the American media
is full of innuendos and "privileged" speculation on who has leaked
the information and why, as to commercial news operations the tawdry
world of Byzantine intrigues among and between American politicians,
generals and the Fourth Estate is of more importance that the
lengthiest and largest war in the world.
One that has been estimated by the chief of the British armed forces
and other leading Western officials to last decades and that has
already been extended into Pakistan, a nation with a population
almost six times that of Afghanistan and in possession of nuclear
weapons.
Two weeks ago the Dutch media reported that during a visit to the
Netherlands "General Stanley McChrystal [said] he is considering
the possibility of merging...Operation Enduring Freedom with NATO's
ISAF force." [2] That is, not only would he continue to command all
U.S. and NATO troops, but the two commands would be melded into
one.
The call for up to 45,000 more American troops was first adumbrated
in mid-September by U.S. armed forces chief Michael Mullen, with
the Associated Press stating "The top U.S. military officer says
that winning in Afghanistan will probably mean sending more troops."
[3]
Four days later, September 19, Reuters reported that "The commander
of U.S.
and NATO forces in Afghanistan has drawn up a long-awaited and
detailed request for additional troops but has not yet sent it to
Washington, a spokesman said on Saturday.
"He said General Stanley McChrystal completed the document this
week, setting out exactly how many U.S. and NATO troops, Afghan
security force members and civilians he thinks he needs." [4]
The Pentagon spokesman mentioned above, Lieutenant-Colonel Tadd
Sholtis, said, "We're working with Washington as well as the other
NATO participants about how it's best to submit this," refusing to
divulge any details. [5]
Two days later the Washington Post published a 66-page "redacted"
version of General McChrystal's Commander's Initial Assessment which
began with this background information:
"On 26 June, 2009, the United States Secretary of Defense directed
Commander, United States Central Command (CDRUSCENTCOM), to provide
a multidisciplinary assessment of the situation in Afghanistan. On
02 July, 2009, Commander, NATO International Security Assistance
Force (COMISAF) / U.S. Forces-Afghanistan (USFOR-A), received
direction from CDRUSCENTCOM to complete the overall review.
"On 01 July, 2009, the Supreme Allied Commander Europe and NATO
Secretary General also issued a similar directive.
"COMISAF [Commander, NATO International Security Assistance Force]
subsequently issued an order to the ISAF staff and component commands
to conduct a comprehensive review to assess the overall situation,
review plans and ongoing efforts, and identify revisions to
operational, tactical and strategic guidance."
The main focus of the report, not surprising given McChrystal's
previous role as head of the Joint Special Operations Command, the
Pentagon's preeminent special operations unit, in Iraq, is concentrated
and intensified counterinsurgency war.
It includes the demand that "NATO's International Security Assistance
Force (ISAF) requires a new strategy....This new strategy must also
be properly resourced and executed through an integrated civilian-military
counterinsurgency campaign....This is a different kind of fight.
We must conduct classic counterinsurgency operations in an environment
that is uniquely complex....Success demands a comprehensive
counterinsurgency (COIN) campaign."
McChrystal's evaluation also indicates that the war will not only
escalate within Afghanistan but will also be stepped up inside
Pakistan and may even target Iran.
"Afghanistan's insurgency is clearly supported from Pakistan. Senior
leaders of the major Afghan insurgent groups are based in Pakistan,
are linked with al Qaeda and other violent extremist groups, and
are reportedly aided by some elements of Pakistan's ISI [Inter-Services
Intelligence].
"Iranian Qods Force [part of the nation's army] is reportedly
training fighters for certain Taliban groups and providing other
forms of military assistance to insurgents. Iran's current policies
and actions do not pose a short-term threat to the mission, but
Iran has the capability to threaten the mission in the future."
That the ISI has had links to armed extremists is no revelation.
The Pentagon and the CIA worked hand-in-glove with it from 1979
onward to subvert successive governments in Afghanistan. That Iran
is "training fighters for certain Taliban groups" is a provocational
fabrication.
As to who is responsible for the thirty-year disaster that is
Afghanistan, McChrystal's assessment contains a sentence that may
get past most readers. It is this:
"The major insurgent groups in order of their threat to the mission
are: the Quetta Shura Taliban (05T), the Haqqani Network (HQN), and
the Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin (HiG)."
The last-named is the guerrilla force of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the
largest recipient of hundreds of millions (perhaps billions) of
U.S. dollars provided by the CIA to the Peshawar Seven Mujahideen
bloc fighting the Soviet-backed government of Afghanistan from
1978-1992.
While hosting Hekmatyar and his allies at the White House in 1985
then President Ronald Reagan referred to his guests as "the moral
equivalents of America's founding fathers.
Throughout the 1980s the CIA official in large part tasked to assist
the Mujahideen with funds, arms and training was Robert Gates, now
U.S. Secretary of Defense.
Last December BBC News reported:
"In his book, From the Shadows, published in 1996, Mr Gates defended
the role of the CIA in undertaking covert action which, he argued,
helped to win the Cold War.
"In a speech in 1999, Mr Gates said that its most important role
was in Afghanistan.
"'CIA had important successes in covert action. Perhaps the most
consequential of all was Afghanistan where CIA, with its management,
funnelled billions of dollars in supplies and weapons to the
mujahideen, and the resistance was thus able to fight the vaunted
Soviet army to a standoff and eventually force a political decision
to withdraw,' he said." [6]
Now according to McChrystal the same Gulbuddin Hekmatyar who was
cultivated and sponsored by McChrystal's current boss, Gates, is
in charge of one of the three groups the Pentagon and NATO are
waging ever-escalating counterinsurgency operations in South Asia
against.
To make matters even more intriguing, former British foreign secretary
Robin Cook - as loyal a pro-American Atlanticist as exists - conceded
in the Guardian on July 8, 2005 that "Bin Laden was...a product of
a monumental miscalculation by western security agencies. Throughout
the 80s he was armed by the CIA and funded by the Saudis to wage
jihad against the Russian occupation of Afghanistan. Al-Qaida,
literally 'the database', was originally the computer file of the
thousands of mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help
from the CIA to defeat the Russians."
Russian analyst and vice president of the Center for Political
Technologies Sergey Mikheev was quoted in early September as
contending that "Afghanistan is a stage in the division of the world
after the bipolar system failed. They [U.S. and NATO] wanted to
consolidate their grip on Eurasia...and deployed a lot of troops
there. The Taliban card was played, although nobody had been
interested in the Taliban before." [7]
Pentagon chief Gates' 27 years in the CIA, including his tenure as
director of the agency from 1991-1993, is being brought to bear on
the Afghan war according to the Los Angeles Times of September 19,
2009, which revealed that "The CIA is deploying teams of spies,
analysts and paramilitary operatives to Afghanistan, part of a broad
intelligence 'surge' that will make its station there among the
largest in the agency's history, U.S. officials say.
"When complete, the CIA's presence in the country is expected to
rival the size of its massive stations in Iraq and Vietnam at the
height of those wars.
Precise numbers are classified, but one U.S. official said the
agency already has nearly 700 employees in Afghanistan.
"The intelligence expansion goes beyond the CIA to involve every
major spy service, officials said, including the National Security
Agency, which intercepts calls and e-mails, as well as the Defense
Intelligence Agency, which tracks military threats."
U.S. and NATO Commander McChrystal will put the CIA to immediate
use in his plans for an all-out counterinsurgency campaign. The Los
Angeles Times article added:
"McChrystal is expected to expand the use of teams that combine CIA
operatives with special operations soldiers. In Iraq, where he
oversaw the special operations forces from 2003 to 2008, McChrystal
used such teams to speed up the cycle of gathering intelligence and
carrying out raids aimed at killing or capturing insurgents.
"The CIA is also carrying out an escalating campaign of unmanned
Predator missile strikes on Al Qaeda and insurgent strongholds in
Pakistan. The number of strikes so far this year, 37, already exceeds
the 2008 total, according to data compiled by the Long War Journal
website, which tracks Predator strikes in Pakistan."
Indeed, on September 13 it was reported that "Two NATO fighter jets
reportedly flew inside Pakistan's airspace for nearly two hours on
Saturday.
"The airspace violation took place in different parts of the Khyber
Agency bordering the Afghan border." [8]
Two days later "NATO fighter jets in Afghanistan...violated Pakistani
airspace and dropped bombs on the country's northwest region.
"NATO warplanes bombed the South Waziristan tribal region....Moreover,
CIA operated spy drone planes continued low-altitude flights in
several towns of the Waziristan region." [9]
The dramatic upsurge in CIA deployments in South Asia won't be
limited to Afghanistan. Neighboring Pakistan will be further overrun
by U.S. intelligence operatives also.
On September 12 a petition was filed in the Supreme Court of Pakistan
contesting the announced expansion of the U.S. embassy in the
nation's capital.
"Pakistani media have been reporting that the United States plans
to deploy a large number of marines with the plan to expand its
embassy in Islamabad."
[10]
The challenge was organized by Barrister Zafarullah Khan, who "said
that Saudi Arabia was also trying to get 700,000 acres (283,400
hectares) of land in the country."
He was quoted on the day of the presentation of the petition as
warning "Giving away Pakistani land to U.S. and Arab countries in
this fashion is a threat for the stability and sovereignty of the
country" and "further added that the purpose of giving the land to
U.S. embassy was to establish an American military base...there.
"He maintained that such a big land was enough even to construct a
military airport." [11]
Intelligence personnel and special forces are being matched by
military equipment in the intensification of the West's war in South
Asia.
On September 10 Reuters revealed in an article titled "U.S. eyes
military equipment in Iraq for Pakistan" that "The Pentagon has
proposed transferring U.S. military equipment from Iraq to Pakistani
security forces to help Islamabad step up its offensive against the
Taliban...."
A U.S. armed forces publication a few days afterward wrote that
"U.S. hardware is moving out of Iraq by the ton, much of it going
straight to the overstretched forces in increasingly volatile
Afghanistan" and "The U.S.
military has already started moving an estimated 1.5 million pieces
of equipment - everything from batteries to tanks - by ground, rail
and air either to Afghanistan for immediate use...." [12]
In the middle of this month "U.S. military leaders infused Gen.
Stanley McChrystal's ideas of how to win the war in Afghanistan"
by conducting a large-scale counterinsurgency exercise in Grafenwoehr,
Germany.
"Dozens of Pashtun speakers joined more than 6,500 U.S. troops and
civilians in an exercise for the Afghanistan-bound 173rd Airborne
Brigade and Iraq-bound 12th Combat Aviation Brigade. It was the
largest such exercise ever held by the U.S. military outside of the
United States...." [13]
The Pentagon and NATO have their work cut out for them.
"A security map by the London-based International Council on Security
and Development (ICOS) showed a deepening security crisis with
substantial Taliban activity in at least 97 percent of the war-ravaged
country.
"The Council added that the militants now have a permanent presence
in 80 percent of the country." [14]
The United States is not alone in sinking deeper into the Afghan
morass.
On September 14 U.S. ambassador to NATO Ivo Daalder, in celebrating
the "resilience and deep-seated support from our allies for what
is happening in Afghanistan," was equally enthusiastic in proclaiming
"Over 40 percent of the body bags that leave Afghanistan do not go
to the U.S. They go to other countries...." [15]
Daalder also gave the lie to earlier claims that NATO troop increases
leading up to last month's presidential election were temporary in
nature by acknowledging that "Many of the extra troops that NATO
countries sent to Afghanistan for the August presidential elections
would stay on." [16]
Leading up to the Washington Post's publication of the McChrystal
assessment, NATO's Military Committee held a two-day conference in
Lisbon, Portugal which was attended by McChrystal and NATO's two
Strategic Commanders, Admiral Stavridis (Supreme Allied Commander,
Operations) and General Abrial (Supreme Allied Commander, Transformation)
which "focused mainly on the operation in Afghanistan and on the
New Strategic Concept." [17]
The 28 NATO defense chiefs present laid a wreath to the Alliance's
first war dead, those killed in Afghanistan.
Earlier this month the Washington Post reported that "The U.S.
military and NATO are launching a major overhaul of the way they
recruit, train and equip Afghanistan's security forces," an
announcement that came "in advance of expected recommendations by
Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal." [18]
The article quoted Senator Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed
Services Committee:
"We're going to need many more trainers, hopefully including a much
larger number of NATO trainers. We're going to need a surge of
equipment that is coming out of Iraq and, instead of coming home,
a great deal of it should be going to Afghanistan instead." [19]
According to the same report, this month NATO will "will establish
a new command led by a three-star military officer to oversee
recruiting and generating Afghan forces.
"The goal is to 'bring more coherence' to uncoordinated efforts by
NATO contingents in Afghanistan while underscoring that the mission
'is not just America's challenge'..." [20]
Contributing to its quota of body bags, NATO has experienced losses
in Afghanistan that have reached record levels. "According to the
icasualties website, 363 foreign soldiers have died in Afghanistan
so far this year, compared to 294 for all of 2008." [21]
This month Britain lost its 216th soldier in the nearly eight-year
war. Canada lost its 131st. Denmark its 25th. Italy its 20th. Poland,
where a recent poll showed 81 percent support for immediate withdrawal
from Afghanistan, its 12th.
Russian ambassador to Afghanistan Zamir Kabulov, who had been in
the nation in the 1980s, was cited by Associated Press on September
12 as reflecting that in 2002 the U.S. had 5,000 troops in the
nation and "Taliban controlled just a small corner of the country's
southeast."
"Now we have Taliban fighting in the peaceful Kunduz and Baghlan
(provinces) with your (NATO's) 100,000 troops. And if this trend
is the rule, if you bring 200,000 soldiers here, all of Afghanistan
will be under the Taliban."
Associated Press also cited Kabulov's concern that "the U.S. and
its allies are competing with Russia for influence in the energy-rich
region....Afghanistan remains a strategic prize because of its
location near the gas and oil fields of Iran, the Caspian Sea,
Central Asia and
the Persian Gulf."
He also said "Russia has questions about NATO's intentions in
Afghanistan, which...lies outside of the alliance's 'political
domain'" and "Moscow is concerned that NATO is building permanent
bases in the region."
The concerns are legitimate in light of this month's latest quadrennial
report by the Pentagon on security threats which "put emerging
superpower China and former Cold War foe Russia alongside Iran and
North Korea on a list of the four main nations challenging American
interests." [22]
At the same time a U.S. military newspaper reported on statements
by Pentagon chief Robert Gates:
"Gates said the roughly $6.5 billion he has proposed to upgrade the
[Air Force] fleet assures U.S. domination of the skies for decades.
"By the time China produces its first - 5th generation - fighter,
he said, the U.S. will have more than 1,000 F-22s and F-35s. And
while the U.S. conducted 35,000 refueling missions last year, Russia
performed about 30.
"The secretary also highlighted new efforts to support robust space
and cyber commands, as well as the new Global Strike Command that
oversees the nuclear arsenal." [23]
To add to Russian and Chinese apprehensions about NATO's role in
South and Central Asia, ten days ago the U.S. ambassador to Kazakhstan,
which borders Russia and China, "offered to Kazakhstan to take part
in the peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan."
At the opening ceremony of the NATO Steppe Eagle-2009 military
exercises in that nation envoy Richard Hoagland said "Kazakhstan
may again become part of the international NATO peacekeeping force
in Afghanistan." [24]
Radio Free Europe reported on September 16 that NATO was to sign
new agreements with Kyrgyzstan, which also borders China, for the
use of the Manas Air Base that as many as 200,000 U.S. and NATO
troops have passed through since the beginning of the Afghan war.
On the same day NATO' plans for expanding transit routes through
the South Caucasus and the Caspian Sea region were described. "[T]he
air corridor through Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan is the most feasible.
"This route will be best suited if ISAF transport planes fly directly
to Baku from Turkey or any other NATO member....Moreover, it
[Azerbaijan] is not a CSTO [Collective Security Treaty Organization]
member, which allows Azerbaijan more freedom for maneuver in the
region when dealing with NATO." [25]
Just as troops serving under NATO command in the war in Afghanistan
and Pakistan now include those from almost fifty countries on five
continents, so the broadening scope of the war is absorbing vaster
tracts of Eurasia and the Middle East.
America's longest armed conflict since that in Indochina and NATO's
first ground war threatens to not only remain the world's most
dangerous conflagration but also one that plunges the 21st Century
into a war without end.
Notes
1) New York Times, February 16, 1989
2) Radio Netherlands, September 12, 2009
3) Associated Press, September 15, 2009
4) Reuters, September 19, 2009
5) Ibid
6) BBC News, December 1, 2008
7) Russia Today, September 7, 2009
8) Asian News International, September 13, 2009
9) Press TV, September 15, 2009
10) Xinhua News, September 12, 2009
11) Ibid
12) Stars and Stripes, September 19, 2009
13) Stars and Stripes, September 13, 2009
14) Trend News Agency, September 11, 2009
15) Reuters, September 14, 2009
16) Ibid
17) NATO, September 20, 2009
18) Washington Post, September 12, 2009
19) Ibid
20) Ibid
21) Agence France-Presse, September 22, 2009
22) Agence France-Presse, September 15, 2009
23) Stars and Stripes, September 16, 2009
24) Interfax, September 14, 2009
25) Jamestown Foundation, Eurasia Daily Monitor, September 16, 2009
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Copyright Rick Rozoff, Stop NATO, 2009
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