Too Steep a Price in Afghanistan

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YOU can always tell that the generals believe their wars are faltering when they're making a big show about the number of their 'enemy' they're claiming to have killed or captured. This week, as Defense Secretary Gates was dispatched to Afghanistan to pump up the troops with positivity, his new Afghanistan commander, Gen. Petraeus, has been busy back home extolling the successes to the media of his Special Forces in driving up the body counts of whoever the military deems 'insurgent' or 'militant'.

Associated Press reported today that Gen. Petraeus has used a 'series of high-profile media interviews' to try and undo the growing pessimism about his escalated occupation, and to 'woo' skeptics into support. From the AP: (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/03/AR2010090302840_pf.html)

More than previous commanders, Gen. David Petraeus has been releasing the results of special operations missions - 365 militant leaders killed or captured in the last 90 days, another 1,031 rank-and-file insurgents killed and 1,335 detained - to demonstrate the Taliban and their allies are also suffering losses as NATO casualties rise.

. . . Playing up missions by special operations forces - Navy SEALs, Delta Force, Army Rangers and Green Berets - offers a way to demonstrate that the U.S. and its NATO partners are taking the fight to the Taliban.

Petraeus has shared key heretofore classified data with reporters at a level of detail that surprised many U.S. officials here and in Washington . . .

In Afghanistan, the general's Pentagon partner and fellow Bush-era holdover, Sec. Gates, gave an unsurprisingly optimistic assessment of 'progress' when speaking to the troops there, while warning, nonetheless of the almost certain prospect of more casualties in the months ahead.

from the VOA: (http://www.voanews.com/english/news/US-Defense-Secretary-in-Afghanistan-102053153.html)

"You guys are in the forward foxhole and what makes a difference in the whole campaign is your success here in Kandahar city," Gates told U.S. troops at Camp Nathan Smith, headquarters for U.S. operations in the largest city in southern Afghanistan.

"As we expected and warned, coalition forces as well as Afghan Army and police are taking heavier casualties as we go into areas the Taliban has dominated for years. Having said that, our enemies are paying a very steep price and feeling more pressure than ever."

more: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iHJ_mmyzSO5vLdDwuAyMaHxEbcJgD9I0F3HO0

Almost on cue, Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Richard P. Mills told Pentagon reporters during a video news conference from his headquarters in Afghanistan that he believes our troops and coalition partners have also paid a 'steep price' for whatever 'progress' has been achieved in their ongoing escalation of force.

“None of these advances have come easy. A steep price has been paid in coalition blood – not only in U.S. and U.K. blood, but in the blood of all of our coalition partners,” (Gen. Mills) said today.

from Media-Newswire: (http://media-newswire.com/release_1126632.html)

This year, Mills said, is panning out to be the deadliest for international forces in Afghanistan. There have been 493 coalition deaths through today - 30 fewer than last year’s total, he said. U.S. troops, he added, accounted for 326 deaths this year in Afghanistan, nine more than the previous year.

The Afghan populace also has paid a heavy price, Mills said. Afghan civilians, he said, have been caught in between coalition and militant crossfire. Taliban and other insurgent forces in Helmand province, he added, have planted roadside bombs and launched attacks without regard for potential civilian deaths or injuries.

“That takes a large, tragic toll on the Afghan population, on the innocent children, the innocent women and the innocent men who live here in the province.”

The general actually understated the record of U.S. casualties in Afghanistan this year. According to the AP, as of Thursday, Sept. 2, 2010, at least 1,172 members of the U.S. military had died in Afghanistan.

(LAT) iCasualties.org lists 1,269 U.S. deaths since 2001, about 25%, a record 322 of them this year. Americans have made up about 62% of total coalition fatalities. As the second Obama troop surge gained momentum, so did U.S. deaths -- 180 this summer, the worst three-month toll of the war."
(http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2010/09/obama-iraq-joe-biden.html)

Afghan civilian deaths are also increasing, along with tensions and disagreements between the Karzai regime and NATO over just who is being killed in the increased raids and assaults. A NATO air assault Thursday in which civilians were reported killed was the subject of dispute today where NATO was claiming they'd targeted and killed 'insurgents' and Afghan President Karzai was again publicly complaining that innocents were the victims of the NATO attack.

from the AP: (http://www.csmonitor.com/From-the-news-wires/2010/0903/NATO-airstrike-killed-civilians-according-to-Afghan-president)

NATO said an airstrike in northern Afghanistan killed about a dozen icampaign workers seeking votes in this month's parliamentary electionsnsurgents, but President Hamid Karzai said the victims were .

NATO said its airstrike on a car in northern Takhar province's normally quiet Rustaq district killed or wounded as many as 12 insurgents on Thursday, including a Taliban commander and a local head of an allied insurgent group, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, responsible for attacks in Kabul and elsewhere.

However Karzai — who repeatedly warns that civilian casualties undermine anti-insurgency efforts — said the airstrike had killed 10 campaign workers instead.

"The rationale for the airstrike still needs to be fully investigated," the president said at a joint news conference in Kabul with U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

According to the UN, US-led forces have been responsible for a fifth of civilian casualties this year, with most of the rest of the 1,300 deaths caused by 'militants' and 'insurgents'. That number is certain to rise in the face of the Petraeus plan to dig in as far as he can until he bumps up against his CIC's 2011 deadline for de-escalating the forces there.

Perhaps the general's hawking of the proficiency of his Special Forces in killing and capturing Afghans is an effort to characterize their mission as a 'success' in anticipation of that 2011 deadline. Despite Petraeus' recently vocalized doubts about the ability of our forces to disengage from the fighting by then, he's reportedly moving ahead with outlining and drafting an Afghan exit strategy ahead of the upcoming NATO summit.

from The Times, AP: (http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/afghan-exit-plan-already-drafted/story-e6frg6so-1225914021178)

General David Petraeus, the overall US commander in Afghanistan, said yesterday that he had set certain principles for a transition program and presented them to NATO's North Atlantic Council, the main policy-making body.

Despite making it clear in a number of recent interviews that Mr Obama's July 2011 deadline would be only the start of a process, General Petraeus said he had begun to work out how he was going to implement a transition program. This will be debated at the NATO summit in Lisbon in November.

The general said steps towards possible reconciliation with some senior Taliban figures had been taken, but gave no details. "There have been approaches with senior leaders that hold some promise," he said at his headquarters in Kabul.

There may well be a promise of 'reconciliation' with senior Taliban leaders in Afghanistan, but it's clear that the Pentagon leadership isn't through trying to 'win' something or the other behind their escalated force before they trust Afghans to manage their own future without benefit of the U.S. military's obliging beneficence. However, for those we task with carrying out the military's political mandate, and the Afghans caught in the way of our opportunistic and incidental advance on their territory, the price of that victory or 'progress will almost certainly prove too steep to celebrate.

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