Why Europeans Don't Kill in Afghanistan?

[GAP]

Why Europeans Don't Kill in Afghanistan?
Posted on : Tue, 09 Jan 2007 Author : Ehsan Azari
Article Link

There is a strategic difference between non-Anglo Europeans and the US over war in Afghanistan. The Europeans are wary about the aims of the US in the ongoing fight in this country between the Taliban and NATO, for the Bush administration has virtually failed to address the real cause of terrorism and violence in Afghanistan. Pursuit of military solution and indulgence in protracted guerrilla warfare in this central Asian country produced very dangerous conditions on the ground for both Afghan innocent civilians and Western forces.

Germany stationed its troops in the north of Afghanistan where about 35% of Afghans are living, and French troops play a peace-keeping role in the Afghan capital, Kabul, the Italian, Spanish, and Danish troops are also deployed in the non-Pashtun areas. Despite pressures from the US and NATO, many European countries refrain from killing and bombing civilians.

There can be seen wisdom and humanitarian concerns in European attitude. Firstly, there is a pathetic lack of transparency in US's relation with Pakistan, which is the major factor in the growing violence and bloodshed in Afghanistan. Pakistani northern-western province which is virtually run by religious extremist groups, sympathizers of Al-Qaida and Taliban, has provided a safe haven to the insurgence and Islamic terrorist groups. Insurgency and terrorist operation of the Taliban is directly being planned, supervised, and run by Pakistani infamous Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI). Pakistan's Waziristan is awashed with Taliban training camps and Al-Qaida centers. Still, the US and its allies see Pakistan as a valued ally and partner in war against terrorism. No one knows what is behind the US and Pakistan's love affairs. The Europeans knows this very well, if the last Taliban be killed in Afghanistan, the US cannot win this war, because the Taliban is only a production a perverted ideology that was spawned and nurtured by Pakistani generals and mullahs. All relevant political analysts, journalists, the Afghan government, NATO's officials, and Think-tank groups have been crying for years that Pakistan is the real source of both the ideology and physical infrastructure of terrorism and the Taliban, but the Bush administration turned blind eyes to this. The US must come clean with its policy. The US continues killing the Taliban and supporting its source, Pakistan, at the same time.

Secondly, foreign military presence with no end to it in sight brought about a condition most favorable for the insurgency, which manipulates Afghani proverbial xenophobia for escalating violence. The souring civilian casualties add to the dilemma. Thirdly, another dangerous trend is the rapid disintegration of political authority and legitimacy of Mr Karzai's government. The government in Kabul is hold hostage by former communist and Islamic warlords, drug-lords, and a corrupt administration. Mr Karzai is only a cloak to the notorious gangs of the Northern Alliance. Last and fourthly, the US and Mr Karzai failed to initiate division among the Taliban, and isolate the heart of darkness, Mullah Omar and his perverted Islamic values. To be honest and fair, Pakistani generals and mullahs with their luciferous duplicity block the slightest reform among the Taliban. They left no stone unturned to keep the Taliban explosively radicalized. For the retrograde and the darkest core of the Taliban has been seen by Pakistani ISI as a strategic national asset that can be used for their regional claims in future.

In such conditions on the ground everyone see the futility of military solution and double-standard of the US. The Europeans are right to refrain from killing and bombing innocent civilians that will only give rise to the Taliban. The US's various policy circles need to listen to the Europeans and Afghans, to bring war against terror to its source. Afghan war can only be won in Pakistan. The US must deal with Pakistani generals and mullahs that have been fooling the West into believing that it is its loyal ally. Pakistan has the key to the problem, it hides Taliban leaders in Quetta, Karachi, and Peshawar, to use them once the West washes its hands from Afghanistan and leave this unfortunate country.
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[KevinB]

:  I will refrain from commenting on the author and his geneology

 

[Lazy W]

I didn't realize that the Brits were no longer European....

 

[Kirkhill]

I didn't realize that the Brits were no longer European....

Never have been man, or at least not since the moat filled 8,000 years ago.  ;D

 

[Colin Parkinson]

So I take the author is suggesting that the US Nukes Pakistan?  :

 

[28402 engineers]

i can sort of see why the US would turn a blind eye to Pakistan. Pakistan is a nuclear power. one nuke from Pakistan, and  New York, LA,
Chicago or San Fransisco get blown to kingdom. When Pakistan was detonating their seven underground nuclear, the US was oblivious (at least as far as i know). the Americans picked up on North Korea's nuclear "adventurism" right away, but while Pakistan was testing their nukes, those spy satelites that are held in such high esteem were like Ray Charles in the Louvre: the didn't have frickin clue!

this is just my opinion though,
regards,

Matt

P.S. please don't eat me

 

[George Wallace]

i can sort of see why the US would turn a blind eye to Pakistan. Pakistan is a nuclear power. one nuke from Pakistan, and  New York, LA,
Chicago or San Fransisco get blown to kingdom. When Pakistan was detonating their seven underground nuclear, the US was oblivious (at least as far as i know). the Americans picked up on North Korea's nuclear "adventurism" right away, but while Pakistan was testing their nukes, those spy satelites that are held in such high esteem were like Ray Charles in the Louvre: the didn't have frickin clue!

this is just my opinion though,
regards,

Matt

P.S. please don't eat me

If you don't want to be eaten alive, don't post such stupidity.

 

[NL_engineer]

I always thought the Dutch were Europeans.

I didn't realize that the Brits were no longer European....

It says Non-Anglo, Meaning non English, meaning if they included the Brits they would not be able to make a point.

 

[GAP]

If Pakistan was not outwardly onside with the US & NATO, just what exactly do you think would happen to the Afghanistan "War on terror"?
Anyone?

 

[Centurian1985]

If Pakistan was not outwardly onside with the US & NATO, just what exactly do you think would happen to the Afghanistan "War on terror"?
Anyone?

A lot of 'what if's', very dependent on how you interpret the relations between Musharraf, the Pakistani military and the internal security organs. 

 

[ThatsLife]

I didn't realize that the Brits were no longer European....

If you would read the first paragraph I believe it says something along the lines of "non-anglo Europeans".

Edit: Whoops, I missed Engineers comment which basically is the same as mine. Sorry about that

 

[NL_engineer]

If you would read the first paragraph I believe it says something along the lines of "non-anglo Europeans".

Edit: Whoops, I missed Engineers comment which basically is the same as mine. Sorry about that

Another reason to read everthing before you reply  ;D

 

[Good2Golf]

...and so things would markedly improve in Pashtun areas to the South if non-Anglo Europeans came in to "save the day" without letting a single drop of blood be shed?

Personally, I find this an astonishingly naive view of the situation on the part of the writer.  Musharraf has enough problems trying to keep the western half of his country from tearing itself apart.  The fact, as mentioned earlier, that Pakistan is a nuclear power and that control over that arsenal is not at all lost on the Americans, Brits, us, Dutch...anyone with a clue, really.  There is most definitely a balancing act going on with the US and Musharraf, much as there is a balance in the relationship that the US maintains with Saudi Arabia, which itself has a problem of swelling internal discontent (principally on the part of Wahhabist Muslims.)  For both the Taleban and those Pakistanis who see more legitimacy to a Greater Pashtunistan than they do to geographic apportionment based on the Durand Line, the belief that some day they will be reunited remains.  Pakistan may also see other benefits to continue any implicit support of Pashtun-supportive groups in its own and neighbouring regions. 

As food for thought, and keep in mind the source given the thinly-veiled negative perspective towards Pakistan, this paper makes for an interesting read.  The writer of the subject article appears to be more interested in providing the Europeans with a feel-good story about themselves at the cost of the Americans and Pakistanis.  Unfortunately, the feel-good story is a little thin both in basis and in the details of how such peaceful (well, non-killing) European countries would stabilize the South of Afghanistan once and for all...

G2G

 

[warpig]

I too agreed that it was an interesting read. The author got a lot of things right, for example the fact the Taliban was created by the Pakistanis, principally their National Intelligence, in order to act as spoiler against the warlord factions that were jockeying for post-soviet control of their regions. Is it any wonder that the Taliban's supporting Tribe, the Pashtunes, have their origins in the region next to and straddling the Pakistan boarder?

You can't fault the Europeans for having their own agenda here. They have much more experience with this region than North America does. As it stands after the consequences of the Riga meeting of NATO, we are lucky to have them there at all. When I talked to the Dutch military in Kabul, they too were anxious to have Afghanistan stabilized and to be a part of the solution. They just weren't out there to kill everything that moved. Europeans understand that excessive casualties amongst the people you are trying to help don't help the situation. NATO itself has admitted as much in self-analysis of their Afghan Operations. This doesn’t excuse the French and Germans for basically hiding in redoubts waiting for peace to fall in their laps.

Despite glaring flaws in the article, the most important question of this conflict was asked. What's Pakistan going to do to reign-in it's own monster? Pakistan has to become a greater part of the solution, and stop refusing to deal with it’s own shortcomings in the Wazhiristan Territories.

 

[DBA]

When Pakistan was detonating their seven underground nuclear, the US was oblivious (at least as far as i know). the Americans picked up on North Korea's nuclear "adventurism" right away, but while Pakistan was testing their nukes, those spy satelites that are held in such high esteem were like Ray Charles in the Louvre: the didn't have frickin clue!

this is just my opinion though,
regards,

They announced the 28 May tests on the same day they were carried out. Confirmation of the success of _underground_ tests relies on seismic readings and isotope profiles of the plume of gases and particles that escape from underground. The existence of the nuclear weapons program was know long before then. A good reference is the FAS article on Pakistan Nuclear Weapons. 

 

[pbi]

One has to wonder about the purpose of the article.

The author casts a rather narrow net when he says "non-Anglo Europeans". He leaves out the Dutch, whose AHs and SP arty have been and are participating in combat operations. He leaves out the Poles (and I believe the Roms as well..) who have enthusiastically signed up for unrestricted roles in RC South. He leaves out the French, whose SOF operated for a long time with OEF.

He skirts around the fact that the reason that the "caveat commandos" don't engage in combat ops is not because they are inherently morally superior to, or smarter than, us grubby Anglo-Saxons, but because they are largely located in Northen and Western regions where the ethnic make up and (relative) economic and political stability mean that the baddies are not really welcome and would have difficulty creating support structures. In my view it is very questionable if the stability of those areas has much to do with the small, relatively innocuous presence of the "soft power" militaries, or if it would be that way anyway, more or less. If you want to talk about "moral superiority" in non-Anglo foreign countries, I suggest that a quick look through the history books of Belgium, France, Italy, Spain and Germany would provide lots of examples of blood-drenched nastiness towards locals in foreign countries. Who shall cast the first stone?

He is certainly right about Pakistan's duplicity, but wrong to say that the US and allies turn a blind eye. IMHO we do anything but turn a blind eye. What we have done, and this is what is biting us in the ***, is to avoid making Pakistan do something decisive about it. Instead the US (and friends) have maintained a public fiction that has become increasingly more tattered as the facts and history of Pakistan's role have become more evident. But what to do? Musharraf is a gamesman, but he is probably a much more desirable gamesman than whoever might replace him if he loses power as a result of ill-considered Western pressures. It's obviously no secret that the ISI and others, both within the PAF and "retired" (like a certain "former" Pakistani general recently interviewed on CBC...) have divided loyalties to put it very politely. IMHO Pakistan has never wanted a secure and stable Afghanistan on its NW frontier, because "secure and stable" probably means pro-Western which, in their minds means pro-Indian. Much better to give themselves some strategic depth and a "secure rear" by maintaining the mess in the southeast of Afghanistan. AS well, one can't reason away the power of blood connections for the Pastuns who straddle that disastrous, arbitrary thing called the Durand Line. Curse Durand and the British for not putting all of Pashtunistan inside India, so it would now all be a Pakistani problem. This talk of a "fence" along the NWF by Pakistan is IMHO nothing but rubbish. Anybody with five minutes experience in the Infantry will immediately realize that unless that fence is guarded by alert and motivated troops every inch of its length, it is about as much use as a picket fence for stopping the people we're worried about.

Overall a rather rubbishy article with a few good bits: rather like raisins in a turd pudding. Still, it offers a useful insight into what is probably a fairly common point of view.

Cheers

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Well a fence with a vehicle barrier will at least make smuggling heavy weapons and ammo a tad more difficult, hopefully driving up the cost to do so and if Pakistan is paying for it, then it is not likely to hurt our side, so I say let them build, if it is even effective in reducing the flow of bad guys and their equipment by 10%, then it is good for us.

 

[geo]

pbi,
while ISI has had a hand in the problems of Afghanistan, Pakistan has never had a firm grip on it's own western frontier with Afghanistan.