Wednesday, May 4, 2011 - 10:49 AM

The death of Osama bin Laden will raise the inevitable question: What are we still doing in Afghanistan? The answer, of course, is that the mission in Afghanistan is about something bigger and more ambitious than eliminating Al Qaeda's leaders-most of whom, in any event, are probably living in Pakistan, as bin Laden was when the United States finally tracked him down. No, the mission in Afghanistan isn't about killing Al Qaeda members. It's about stabilizing the country so that it can never again serve as the hotbed of extremism that it was until 2001, with all of the attendant national security and human rights problems that resulted.
But that in turn raises other questions: Is it worth prolonging a war that has stretched on for nearly ten years for that broader goal? And perhaps the most difficult question of all: Even if that goal is worth fighting for, is it actually achievable?
Over the past few years, a consensus has formed in Washington that the answer to that last question is a resounding no. For years, war in Afghanistan has been portrayed as a hopeless failure. The government in Kabul, we have been told, is corrupt and predatory. The Afghan army is a mess. Tribal loyalties trump national loyalties. The Taliban is gaining in strength.
All of this rendered a decision made by President Obama last autumn rather odd-at least on the surface. Obama had long promised that American troops would begin leaving Afghanistan in the summer of 2011. As Vice President Joe Biden had explained: "In July 2011, you're going to see a whole lot of people moving out. Bet on it." But then, over the course of a week in November, the White House announced a major reversal of course: A large-scale troop presence would remain in Afghanistan for an additional three years, until 2014.
To read the rest of this article, visit TNR.com, where this was originally published.
Peter Bergen, the editor of the AfPak Channel, is the Director of the National Security Studies Program at the New America Foundation, a senior fellow at New York University's Center on Law and Security, and the author of The Longest War: The Enduring Conflict Between America and Al Qaeda. He is a national security analyst for CNN.
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Even Charlie Sheen couldn't win in Afghanistan.
Not as long as U. S. military mollycoddles Katyani's Army
Killing and burial at sea of Osama bin Laden does NOT end troubles for US mission in Afghanistan because US military has been mollycoddling Kayani’s Pakistani Army at the expense of Afghanistan.
General Petraeus has been a Pakistan apologist, together with Adm. Mike Mullen and outgoing defense secretary Robert Gates.
Defense Secretary Gates has sought to justify Pakistan’s terrorist connections, alluding to a “deficit of trust” between Washington, DC and Islamabad. Mr Gates also said there was “some justification” for Pakistan's concerns about past American policies. Gen David Patraeus, rushed in with an apologia for his Pakistani friends, by claiming that while Faisal was inspired by militants in Pakistan, he did not necessarily have contacts with the militants. Both Adm Mike Mullen and Gen Patraeus fancy themselves to be “soldier statesmen” a la Gen Dwight Eisenhower. Adm Mullen has visited Pakistan 15 times and Gen Patraeus no less frequently. Both evidently have high opinions of their abilities to persuade Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani to crack down on the Haqqani network in North Waziristan and the Taliban’s Mullah Omar-led Quetta Shura.
Previous US ambassador Anne Patterson to Pakistan, wrote in a secret review in 2009 that ‘Pakistan's Army and ISI are covertly SPONSORING four militant groups - Haqqani‘s HQN, Mullah Omar‘s QST, Al Qaeda and LeT - and will not abandon them for any amount of US money‘, as diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks show.
Ambassador Patterson had NO reason to mislead her own State Department and U. S. government.
Now that Gates is going, let us see if Mullen and Petraeus now change the tune and help Panetta carry out ferocious drone attacks on Haqqani’s HQN, Mullah Omar’s QST, remnants of Al Qaeda and Hafiz Saeed’s LeT spread all over Pakistan. Afterall somebody has to save Pakistan from itself since Pakistani Army and government are unwilling to do so.
The "Osama Is Dead" Story Has Questions For Investigation
The “Osama Bin Laden Is Dead Story” Has Many Questions That Need To Be Investigated.
Osama Bin Laden was a terrorist and deserved the death penalty. This is why the media must investigate this story instead of merely parroting the information that was provided by the government.
Based on my experience as a decorated US Army combat veteran, this story has credibility problems. I tried to post these questions in the comments section of several mass media publications and they did not get posted. A free press is essential in a free society because it has a duty to investigate what the government is doing and it must educate citizens. A free media must publish all responsible questions from the public and be open to debate. Thomas Jefferson said that given the choice between government and a printing press, he would take the printing press.
1. Why they did not show Osama’s body publicly? In 1967, Che Guevara the Communist guerrilla was captured alive wounded in Bolivia, interrogated, killed and his body was displayed to the world media. A responsible government would display Osama’s body to the media and to a panel of international physicians to prove without a doubt the death of the most wanted terrorist in the world. The government version that Osama’s head was too damaged to show the public is not credible. Morticians can prepare a body for public display. Media and international physicians would be welcome to take DNA samples from the body as total proof of Osama’s demise.
2. Osama was unarmed when they shot him? Osama was a terrorist veteran of the Afghan Soviet war that was waged in the 1980s between Islamist guerrillas and the Soviet Union. Anybody with his background would have alarmed, mined and booby trapped his house. Weapons would be in his possession at all times and in every room of the house, including hand grenades. He had plenty of time to install command detonated mines everywhere outside and inside the compound. I have problems believing that the most wanted terrorist in the world was killed while unarmed. When I was in a war zone, my weapon was with me at all times and I slept with it and lots of ammo and hand grenades, could Osama be so foolish that he did not have weapons in his room?
3. There were no American casualties? This is simply not credible because attacking a compound that is occupied by dangerous men that had plenty of time to prepare for defense, makes it certain that the attackers must sustain casualties. Osama’s terrorist group specializes in suicide bombers of both sexes. They could not spare even one of them to protect their leader?
4. Why did we spend $1.5 Trillion dollars occupying and "nation building" Iraq and Afghanistan instead of targeting Osama's less than 1,000 terrorists?. We could have got Osama 10 years ago at a reasonable cost. When American troops landed in Afghanistan after the 9/11 terrorist attack, the Afghan Northern Alliance had already overthrown the Taliban government that harbored Osama. It was not necessary to occupy the country. A war using Special Forces would have been sufficient
5. Why are we still involved in the Israeli-Muslim conflict? This is the cause of the war on terror. We inherited Israel’s enemies and they struck us on 9/11. The effects of our involvement will continue until we divorce from the Muslim world and focus on killing the actual terrorists until they are finished. Our absence from the Muslim world will make Muslims eventually stop provoking us with terrorism because they will want to keep us out. It is common sense that it would be in the Muslim interest to stop terrorism against America to keep America from coming back to their lands. With America out of the Israeli-Muslim conflict, the Muslims will be free to focus on their affairs and their problem with Israel. Israel has nuclear weapons and a strong military that assures it that it can survive any war without America. The only beneficiaries of the present war on terror are the war contractors and the special interest groups.
Some possible explanations for this unusual story;
a) The government killed Osama Bin Laden but it believes that it is not necessary to provide conclusive proof of their actions because they are universally loved and trusted. This means that they are incompetent because they did not prove their story.
b) Osama Bin Laden was hooked on opium and developed a false sense of security. His followers shared this drug problem and failed to fortify and provide guards for the Osama compound.
c) The masses are so stupid that they will accept without question anything that the government and media tells them, so why bother with proof?
d) Osama Bin Laden died years ago, and now it is a convenient time to bring him back to distract the masses and continue the hugely profitable war on terror and gain mass support for a government that cannot exist without debt and financial dependency on special interest groups.
e) This story is a case that simply shows the irresponsibility and incompetence of the American government.
The $1.5 Trillion spent on the war on terror continues to pile additional debt and there is no end in sight. The money that was wasted on fighting this war with a wrong strategy could have been wisely invested by loaning it to private enterprise companies that would be protected from cheap imports. A new industrial policy like South Korea’s would reconstruct and protect a new American industrial base that would replace the industry and technology that global corporations exported to China and other Third World countries under the globalization false ideology that has ruined America and Europe and created millions of permanently unemployed people. America would be able to replace imports with nationally produced products and services. The trade losses would end and careers in science, engineering, chemistry and skilled jobs would be abundant in an industrial economy.
With a new industrial base, America would be independent of imports and global debt financing. Presently, the Federal government needs to annually beg and borrow $1.65 Trillion a year from international capital and US investors because the industrial base of the American economy is only 9%. There are not enough corporate or individual taxpayers to support the huge Federal, State and local governments, plus their armies of government contractors. In any case, the American governments must reduce their size and expenses by 40% to balance their budgets and avoid digging America deeper into debt and dependency on the kindness of creditors.
The present economic and political dependency of the American economy on debt, special interest groups and imports makes a continuation of the present globalist war on terror fatal for America. It’s a choice of nation building America before it becomes a terminal case of financial and social cancer, or continue to dig the debt and dependency grave deeper until we end like other failed world powers, including the British Empire, the French Empire and Soviet Union.
Roman Gil
http://roman-gil1.blogspot.com
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Putting the clock back. Bergen?
Stabilzing the country so that it can never become the hot bed of terrorism as it was before 9/11? The country has changed, Bergen!. The extremists = Al qaeda, all 50 of them, have gone elsewhere. We now have a country, not a nation, where the Pushtoon Talebs are fighting other Pushtoon, who are being pushed out by the Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazara settling old scores.
The extremists are the 35,000 or so Talebs, with no intention of attacking the US. They want the US to stop attacking them and get out of their country so that their ideology can be shoved onto other Pushtoon.
So the notion that we are there so there will be no extremism hot bed to mount another 9/11 is nonsense. We have a $1 trillion/y (Ron Paul. Chalmers Johnson estimate) military securty macro parasite , and it needs wars. Too bad it loses the ones it cooks up.
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