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WHAT NEXT IN AFGHANISTAN?
In a refreshing change of pace from previous
exercises in cruise missile diplomacy, the Bush
administration seems aware that a torrential
downpour of aerial ordinance won't be enough to
deal with Al Qaeda and the Taliban; "There is,"
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said from the
Pentagon on Sunday, October 7, "no silver bullet
in this battle."
Nonetheless, it was hard not to detect signs of
satisfaction as various administration officials dis
cussed the probable destruction of targets they
hold are key components of Taliban/Al Qaeda
"infrastructure." But according to a number of
career military and intelligence officers inter
viewed Sunday afternoon and evening, the real
thrust of the bombing has considerably less to do
with physical demolition than it does with psy
chological and political warfare.
"let's be clear, there is no infrastructure over
there," says Mel Goodman, a professor at the
National Defense University and former chief of
the CIA's Soviet/Third World analysis desk.
"There's so little to bomb. Their air defenses aren't
that formidable. Neither is their air force. You can
break communications, but that's temporary." A
veteran officer of the CIA's Directorate of
Operations (DO) with extensive South Asia experi
ence concurs. "You can batter that ground to
death and eliminate what few facilities there are
for training terrorists," the officer said, necessarily
requesting anonymity. "And maybe you take out
some ammo dumps and generators. But I don't
know that that's really going to make much differ
ence. So you knock out the electricity in Kabul
and Kandahar Big deal.
Most of the country
doesn’t have electricity
anyway, and electricity
was never key to muja-
hadeen victory."
The real question,
old spooks and soldiers
say, is what impact the
bombing will have on
the notoriously fickle relationships between cer
tain tribal factions who constantly shift alle
giances between the Taliban and the Northern
Alliance. For spies and diplomats who worked
Afghanistan during the anti-Soviet jihad of the
1980s or the Taliban's rise during the 1990s, a
quiet mantra has been, "You don't buy an Afghan,
you rent him"—something then-Assistant
Secretary of State for South Asia Robin Raphel
publicly noted in a December 1996 press confer
ence, adding that this "is nothing new and cer
tainly not exclusive to any faction."
While the Taiwan's cadre are certainly battle-
hardened, Goodman points out that in the entire
decade the Soviets occupied Afghanistan, "they
never brought anything to bear on the muja-
hadeen like what the U.S. unleashed today," and
suspects the bombardment will cause some tribal
commanders to throw their lot in with the
Alliance. (Whether or not those commanders will
require something sweeter to maintain alignment
with the Alliance—and whether or not the CIA
has a mechanism in place to give them what they
might want—remains to be seen.) According to
the veteran DO officer, this is "exactly what were
after. We want to get them to go do it themselves.
We're not screaming to send in the army, because
it's an extremely difficult place to supply, and
armor and artillery are almost useless."
Just how much assistance the Alliance is likely
to get from U.S. and British special operations
troops isn't clear, but some defense observers
believe soldiers from U.S. Special Forces and
Britain's Special Air Service are already on the
ground, at the very least training Northern
Alliance soldiers in the use of laser targeting
devices or perhaps conducting forward air control
operations themselves. According to the DO
officer, while several television stories have shown
elements of U.S. Special Forces training and
convey the notion that they're ready for covert
missions in Afghanistan, the officer believes their
role should be minimal because despite their
superior training, "they're going to get their
clocks cleaned."
Both Goodman and his anonymous former col
league are also concerned that too visibly close
cooperation between the Northern Alliance and
f oreign troops could drive capricious freelance
commanders into the arms of Taliban, as the
Afghans have been historically hostile to outside
invaders above anyone else. These are all reasons,
f he veteran DO officer says, "to start the whole
process (of the 1980s] over, only try to start it
this time with somebody who subscribes to a dif
ferent brand of Islam and who looks at running
the country differently."
But to many, this is a proposition fraught with
peril. During their brief time in power from 1992
to 1996, the Northern Alliance hardly distin
guished itself (except badly) in the peaceful gov
ernance and human rights departments. And while
intense efforts are underway at forming a broad
pan-Afghan political coalition of anti-Taliban par
ties, some veteran diplomats and intelligence offi
cers are skeptical that such a confederation would
survive after a victory over the Taliban.
And, they say that really shouldn't be the U.S.
concern, given what they see as an inevitable
continuation of violence in Afghanistan, regard
less of who's in titular control. "The only time
Afghanistan has had anything like a stable gov
ernment was between the end of World War I and
World War II, and that was only in the form of a
king who was nothing more than a negotiator
between warring
groups," says the vet
eran CIA officer. "(Back
in the '80s], we even
tually discovered that
the mujahadeen fac
tions were caching a
substantial amount of
the weapons and sup
plies we were providing
through ISI (Pakistani intelligence), in anticipa
tion of fighting each other after they got rid of
the Soviets. I mean, they had a longer view than
we did. The : didn't want a stable government.
They wanted to keep fighting, like they have
been forever."
When asked about Afghanistan's future last
week, President Bush said, "We don't do nation
building." But after he committed $320 million in
emergency food, medicine and shelter to Afghan
civilians, he added that "for the longer-term, I
urge Congress to make funds available so that one
day the United States can contribute, along with
other friends of Afghanistan, to the reconstruction
and development of that troubled nation."
To some, it seems clear Bush is dangling the
prospect of future aid in front of disparate anti-
Taliban forces as an incentive to put rivalries
aside and commit to a peaceful post-Taliban
future. Sending State Department Policy Planning
Office Chief Richard Haass to Rome to speed the
establishment of a coalition seems to show aware
ness of the past mistake of simply walking away.
However, if Senate Foreign Relations
Committee Chairman Joseph Biden has his way,
the United States will be making a long-term aid
commitment to Afghanistan's future. Last week he
proposed a $1 billion "downpayment" in advance
of a "multinational, multiyear, multibillion dollar"
effort that would bolster women's rights, open
medical facilities, help establish infrastructure
projects and create schools for all children regard
less of sex. "If we had not lost interest a decade
ago, perhaps Afghanistan would not have turned
into the swamp of terrorism and brutality that it
has become," said Biden. "It is time to reverse
more than a decade of neglect, not only for the
sake of Afghanistan, but for our sake."
Jason Vest
Altemet
" ...the Soviets never brought
anything to bear on the
mujahadeen like what the
U.S. unleashed today."
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