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Afghanistan Could Face 'Eye-Watering Violence' After Troops Leave
Nato representative in Kabul says 2014 deadline for ending combat role might not be met
Afghanistan could experience "eye-watering" levels of violence after foreign combat troops withdraw from Afghanistan in four years' time, the Nato representative in Kabul warned today.
Mark Sedwill, the civilian counterpart to US commander General David Petraeus, said that the target of handing over security responsibilities to the Afghan army and police by the end of 2014 might not be met. (AFP/File/Strdel) Mark Sedwill, the civilian counterpart to US commander General David Petraeus, also said that the target of handing over security responsibilities to the Afghan army and police by the end of 2014 might not be met.
The alliance's plan for the "transition" of responsibilities from Nato's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) to the still embryonic Afghan army and police will be high on the agenda at this week's Nato summit in Lisbon.
Many European countries that contribute troops see the plan as their ticket out of an unpopular war, but Sedwill warned that success was not guaranteed and the 2014 date was merely an "inflection point" in a campaign that would continue for a long time. In some areas of the country transition could run "to 2015 and beyond" he said.
Although the alliance hopes that foreign-led counterinsurgency operations will come to an end, troops would still be required to train and support the Afghan security forces and maintain "a strategic over watch" position, he said.
He conceded that a "residual insurgency" was likely to continue in many parts of the country.
"There would still be a certain level of violence and probably levels of violence that by western standards will be pretty eye-watering," he said.
In such a scenario special forces units would be required to remain and fight, he said, in addition to the logistical support, training and equipment provided for Afghan units.
Sedwill said that with so many uncertainties, Nato's 2014 deadline was "realistic but not guaranteed".
He also warned that transition was "not a cheap option" that would allow troops to leave quickly. "We are not looking at forces flooding out of this country as transition starts. One of the key principles of this is you reinvest the transition dividend."
Nato is refusing to announce where the transition process will start for fear of turning those districts into targets for insurgents to increase their operations and mount intimidation campaigns against government officials.
Sedwill said that he expected Nato to hand over several provinces in the first half of next year. However, he said the transfer of responsibility for both security and development activities would vary across the country.
In some areas, entire provinces would be transferred, while in others it would be districts, or even individual towns. Transition would take between 18 and 24 months in some areas, depending on the resilience of the insurgency and the capability of the Afghan army, police and the village militia-style "local police" that are being established.
The Afghan police and army are being built up at breakneck speed. Both institutions remain beset with problems, including widespread illiteracy and drug abuse. The army has also struggled to recruit among southern Pashtuns, the group that predominates in areas of the country most affected by insurgency.
The head of the Nato training mission, General William Caldwell, has complained that he does not have enough trainers to meet the transition deadline.
The attempt to create an army and police up to the job of taking over requires vast sums of money.
Even after they have been built up to strength, officials say they will cost around $6bn (£3.7bn) a year to run – about half of Afghanistan's current GDP and more than the US gives to both Israel and Egypt.
Sedwill said the IMF had calculated that Afghanistan woukd not be able to pay for its own security forces until 2023.
- Posted in
59 Comments so far
Show AllWhy do they keep up these foolish pronouncements that we have to change the withdrawal date. Do they think they are fooling the public? Everyone knows that the U.S. will never leave Iraq of Afghanistan until a) the last penny of profit is extracted, or b) we are forced to by the occupied peoples.
You're absolutely correct, Caleb! And, yes, they think we're all a bunch of idiotic dolts! What an insult to all of us!!!!!!
Eternal occupation and war equals eternal revenue stream for the military industrial media complex.
"military industrial media complex"
-------------
I like how you put that. They ARE one and the same. Also, add the banks, the insurance companies, etc. They are all controlled by the same group. You generally can tell them by their last names.
...And why does it get published in a 'progressive' portal? Madness!
NATO will eave Afghanistan when most of its members have gone bankrupt. Until then, there's still cash to take from the treasury, and domestic problems to hide from by sending youth overseas.
Quite right, and pipeline routes to guard, and strategic bases, etc. I suggest reading Smedley Butler's "War is a Racket" (do a google search) if you haven't already.
I wonder if US.gov told its citizens that it would be out of Germany and Japan after WWII by 1950...
When, oh when oh when will Americans learn...
That at no point when you are kicking somebody's ass, will they turn around and start loving the person doing the kicking.
If you are governed by ADULTS who cannot understand that,
you
are
doomed.
Well put. Its pretty obvious.
Anyone looking at the chart of post-WW2 U.S. imperial base establishment and expansion who believes that it will abandon its global encirclement ANYWHERE soon is dreaming in technicolor.
The provision of military muscle (armamaments and cannon fodder) to the transnational corporatist empire is just about the only role that has not been "offshored" completely. Amongst other inhibiting factors, replicating the requisite gullibility elsewhere is a bit of a challenge -- but don't worry, they're working on it.
Child soldiers appear to offer one cheap possibility for labor replacement. See: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26826.htm
Ah, the old, "The violence will increase if the American Huns leave" canard.
So a bunch of heavily armed hooligans occupy my house, steal our resources and slaughter relatives as they deem necessary and tell the family they can't leave cause the kids will start arguing again.
=============
Call it Democracy
by Bruce Cockburn
Padded with power here they come
International loan sharks backed by the guns
Of market hungry military profiteers
Whose word is a swamp and whose brow is smeared
With the blood of the poor
Who rob life of its quality
Who render rage a necessity
By turning countries into labour camps
Modern slavers in drag as champions of freedom
Sinister cynical instrument
Who makes the gun into a sacrament --
The only response to the deification
Of tyranny by so-called "developed" nations'
Idolatry of ideology
North South East West
Kill the best and buy the rest
It's just spend a buck to make a buck
You don't really give a flying fuck
About the people in misery
IMF dirty MF
Takes away everything it can get
Always making certain that there's one thing left
Keep them on the hook with insupportable debt
See the paid-off local bottom feeders
Passing themselves off as leaders
Kiss the ladies shake hands with the fellows
Open for business like a cheap bordello
And they call it democracy
And they call it democracy
And they call it democracy
And they call it democracy
See the loaded eyes of the children too
Trying to make the best of it the way kids do
One day you're going to rise from your habitual feast
To find yourself staring down the throat of the beast
They call the revolution
IMF dirty MF
Takes away everything it can get
Always making certain that there's one thing left
Keep them on the hook with insupportable debt
"heavily armed hooligans"
They are NOT heavily armed hooligans. They are the bottom two percent of last years high school graduating class.
Don't blame the 18-19 yr old grunt that joined for a 3-4 year enlistment. Clearly there are socio-economic factors that cause many kids to join the military in order to get out of a situation at home, or as a means to a better end. It is the political leadership, and the citizens that let them get away with it, that wave the flag from the sidelines and send these kids to war. The lifers? That's another story. This is their career, what they train for, etc. They are the true believers.
This is more propaganda to keep "manufacturing consent" as Edward S Herman and Noam Chomsky referred to it in their classic on that subject. When will people ever learn that the mainstream media just quotes these jack ass power elites as if what they say is the gospel truth when it's one lie after another.
AD
As with divorce, it's not over till the money is gone, then it's over.
Pepe Escobar: 'Anyone aware enough to think that Washington's goal is not to "win" the unwinnable AfPak quagmire but to keep playing its bloody infinite war game forever is now eligible for a personal stimulus package (in gold).
'Let's review the recent evidence. All of a sudden, the White House, the Pentagon and the United States House of Representatives have all embarked on a new narrative: forget major US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2011; let's move the goalpost to 2014.
'Then wily Afghan President Hamid Karzai tells the Washington Post he does not want all these US troops roaming around "his" country no more, adding please, stop killing my people with special-forces night ops - a euphemism for Pentagon terrorism.'
The article continues at the following:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/LK18Df02.html
"a euphemism for Pentagon terrorism." But he is not allowed to call them terrorists... That would be overstepping his line.
And:
U.S. Pursues Wider Role in Yemen
By ADAM ENTOUS and JULIAN E. BARNES in Washington and MARGARET COKER in Abu Dhabi
Americans Move to Bring In Equipment and Operatives and Propose New Bases for Fight Against al Qaeda Affiliate
November 16, 2010
The U.S. is preparing for an expanded campaign against al Qaeda in Yemen, mobilizing military and intelligence resources to enable Yemeni and American strikes and drawing up a longer-term proposal to establish Yemeni bases in remote areas where militants operate.
The developments are part of a U.S. scramble to step up the hunt for members of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the terrorist organization behind a recent failed attempt to blow up two planes over the U.S. using bombs hidden in cargo.
Limited U.S. intelligence experience in Yemen has created "a window of vulnerability" that the U.S. government is "working fast to address," a senior Obama administration official said.
...
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m71912&hd=&size=1&l=e
I wonder how many bases and troops are already in Yemen.
Well, may be true if we got that pipeline built by 2014! What an oxymoron put out by people that must think we are all a bunch of morons! If we leave it will keep our soldiers safe, but we cannot do that because it will be more violent for the Afghans. Oh... now I see, you war mongers are really more concerned for the Afghan people than our American soldiers! Even if true, which I doubt,let them kill each other, not our troops, as the vast majority of Afghans want us out of their country and the illegal occupation ended.
Collapsing fascist amerikan empire throws all these dates out. Nothing will stop the fall of empire- all empires fall, amerikas fall IS at hand, done in by its violence !
The US will leave Iraq and Afghanistan right after it leaves Germany, Japan and Italy.
Inotherwords, the day hell freezes over.
The US of A and CO. are supposed to be the developed countries. This is an oxy-moron of world wide proportions! Tony
They don't think we're all idiots, just most of us, and of course they're correct in that assumption.
But "patriotic" idiots who will continue fighting and dying to advance the flag of corporate empire none the less, and despite the fact that the "patriotism" is strictly a one-way proposition.
2011? 2015? What's next, 2020? I would get fired if I ever tried to extend a deadline like that. How does NATO get away with that but we don't?
The occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq will continue until those troops are needed back home to suppress riots.
It's not the "eye watering violence" that concerns NATO, but the mouth watering resources to be plundered.
US media coverage of the Afghan War is so slight as to be an insult to the men and women we have sent to die over there. Around here, Veterans Day was marked by the usual events thanking the troops for their sacrifice, without any clear articulation of why they are asked to make such sacrifices - beyond the inane "they are fighting for our freedom." And of course, you are NOT expected to remember the thousands of Afghan dead in those ritual moments of silence.
One good place to remind ourselves of what is being done in the name of "our freedoms" is YouTube, where thousands of videos have been loaded by everyone from US and Brit soldiers to Taliban sympathizers. I was struck by one from 2009 showing Taliban fighters displaying huge piles of US weaponry they had seized after forcing our troops to retreat from a base. (or if you wanted to believe Gen McChrystal, the armaments were seized after we decided to redeploy from the base)
That particular video's at this location, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uj6sRlzgik , but there's plenty more that could be shown on US and UK TV news reports, were not the upcoming wedding of Prince William of more compelling interest
Endless US Nazi aggression...
Afghanistan Could Face 'Eye-Watering Violence' After Troops Leave
Ummmm... soooo... how would that be any different from today?
eye-watering levels of violence, as opposed to the dry eyed Preditor drone murder of cilivians?
As I understand it, we get attacked by terrorists from Afghanistan, and now we are responsible for civilizing this country...is that right? Our citizens are being impoverished, and losing our civil rights, and we have to foot the bill for developing Afghanistan...why is that? It seems to me, that after 2009, the issue of how or why we should be in Afghanistan, has been supplanted by the fact..."WE CANNOT AFFORD IT, ANYMORE". Spending our lives and our money on Afghanistan is a waste. They won't even like us or say thank you for our sacrifices. They are horrible people that abuse their women and their kids, but Saudis do that too, and we don't interfere.
We should adopt the prime directive from Star Trek, and have a policy of non-interference in other countries. If we suffer an attack from them, we should retaliate with military punitive measures to punish and dissuade future attacks. But, long term land wars in Asia must be avoided. We must get our troops out NOW, and have NO bases there.
The Afghans did not attack anyone, neither did the Taliban, neither did the Pashtuns.
Supposedly it was Saudis and other Arabs who had a base in Afganistan, but also operated out of Germany and the USA.
The Taliban were quite willing to extradite Bin Laden if the USA gave them some evidence of his involvement in 9/11.
The USA choose a war of agression rather than the legal system.
For someone to think that a nation which causually slaughters millions of people is somehow better than a nation that has recently oppressed its women but is not in the least agressive, that someone would have to be a thouroughly propagandized dolt.
You both assume that the official story is true--but it has never been proven in a court of law. Instead of filing charges against those who were 'supposed' to have done the deed on 9/11, the American people were thrust into endless war and had the Patriot Act, already written before the attack, quickly turned into law. Did you forget about the Anthrax attacks? Those attacks were supposedly the work of foreign terrorists as well. No, we must revisit these assumptions because they are wrong. Dig deeper.
deleted
I question CD credibility when they post this stuff.
jbchalk: "I question CD credibility when they post this stuff."
Why? jbchalk. I don't follow your reasoning? /cm
Cee Miracles,
I may be wrong but I think he is saying the article is a crude propaganda exercise. The false premise that we are the good guys is the tip off. There is no objectivity in this article.
It's a report of what plans are being made and who is planning these plans, but that doesn't mean CD endorses it.
By the reaction of the posters, most of them/us obviously see through the propaganda. I take it that we are just being informed as to what is planned and what is coming.
That's my take because we do need to know what's going on.
peace, cm
There's already "eye-watering levels of violence" in Afghanistan.
Make peace, be good and just.
How on earth did the Afghan people ever manage to take care of their own business before the Soviets invaded and then the U.S.?
Afghanistan's history is clear that they have survived onslaughts of many Empire-ambitious entities.
And why do we have to train an Afghan Army and help them develop Security Forces? Of course, if they have a regular army, the MIC will be so happy to supply them with weapons, and the usual greedheads will collect another tidy profit.
This country of mine is now so far past disgusting and ugly and EVIL that I can hardly stomach it at times.
What if we just minded our own business for a time? ... a good long time?
We have enough resources and enough people who want to work, who can innovate, who know how to do all kinds of things, who can imagine and invent. Supposedly that's what made our country great. We certainly would be able to take care of ourselves if we decided to concentrate on our own business and work together to take care of our own and what we've got.
Gee, what a novel idea.
Oh, I forgot, we have this wonderful capitalistic system that in order to feed the monster that it is, it has to keep getting fatter and fatter and stronger and stronger by invading, pillaging, cheating, grabbing, doing everything possible to take from others what they have on their lands and territories and often claim particular lands as their corporate right. And, of course, the only ones deserving of the profits are the top 3 per cent of our people, and the rest of us have to serve our masters and be their lackeys.
God, it warms my heart that we are a Christian nation, which is written in The Constitution according to various Right Wingers and the Tea Baggers. ... And that obviously gives us the right to diss, to wound, to kill anyone else who doesn't agree with that and who doesn't live within our national boundaries.
There is such a thing as Karma, and oh, my, are we due for some terrible payback for what we have become and done in the decades after WWII. And let's not forget the karmic backlog beginning with the almost complete annihilation of the Native Americans, slavery, and all the wars we initiated and fought when others had something we wanted, and we decided to bring them freedom and democracy. We have achieved the status historically of the most violent nation that has ever been, and a nation who has killed more people than any other.
America the Beautiful has become a total illusion, which is not to say that there are not many, many beautiful and wonderful people here with their hearts and minds in the right place, but they/we have been betrayed by the kind of nightmare leadership that will do us in just as Hitler did the German people in with creeping fascism that emerged from the shadows and blanketed their nation with darkness and destruction.
If there is one thing constant in history, it is that the same-old, same-old repeats and repeats and repeats. And that, similar to Einstein's definition of insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting the results to be different ... by that measure we are in the middle of another historical Insanity.
It is just a matter of time now. Every empire that ever was overextended their reach, and then they began to crumble all the way to collapse.
I don't wish hardship on anyone or on any people, but as I feel it, it is inevitable now.
The handwriting on the bloody wall is writ large.
/cm
When the troops leave, in four years. Four years ago, they said four years. Today, they say four years. In four years, they'll say four years.
"Afghanistan Could Face 'Eye-Watering Violence' After Troops Leave."
Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan are facing "Eye-watering violence" every day, and will continue to do so until the US, its henchmen, the UN and NATO get the hell out of countries they don't belong in.
Since that would reduce the profits of the Military-Industrial-Congressional-Security cash cow, I doubt we'll ever see it.
The U.S. has had 9 years to bring peace and stability to Afghanistan and I have been told by credible people that things are worse their now than before we bombed and occupied their country. So what the hell is this BS about we cannot leave after 9 long and bloody years because it will exacerbate the violence in Afghanistan! Doing the same thing for the next 5-10 or 15 years will bring the change we can believe in...where have I heard that before.
I am continually surprised that the riots have not already started.
Afghanistan is a wreck -a Damn good Wreck...it's the Vietnam War in Slow Motion.
Iraq is heading for a showdown between Ayad Allawi & Maliki since Maliki is doing all he can to make sure Allawi's power is subservient to his and Allawi won't put up with that and will have Falljah II coming to your living rooms soon.
Both of these occupations are Vietnam Trainwrecks in Slo Mo -but at least will see all the 'plays' more closer.
I can't even be bothered to read this article -the headline is enough. The rest is academic since there is no intention to leave and there never has been.