The RollerCoaster of Emotion That I Felt Reading Julian Barnes Article on Afghanistan Today Posted by Michael Cohen

Ok, here it goes:

U.S. military leaders have concluded that their war effort in Afghanistan has been too focused on hunting Al Qaeda, and have begun to shift Predator drone aircraft to the fight against the Taliban and other militants in order to prevent the country from slipping deeper into anarchy.

AH!! It can't be, it can't be!!! Do I have send a copy of the Looming Tower to everybody in America and remind them that Al Qaeda and not the Taliban attacked us on September 11th. I not that I have gone over this issue before, but the US should be "too focused" on Al Qaeda. THEY ARE OUR ENEMY!

Ok, ok calm down, keep reading:

Senior government officials say that defeating Al Qaeda remains the overriding U.S. objective. However, they have determined that the best way to do that is by strengthening and stabilizing Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan, rather than endlessly looking for important Al Qaeda figures.

AH!! AH!!! AH!!!!! AH!!!!! (Running around living room screaming, bulldogs cowering in bedroom). Yes, this is a great idea. Let's spend lots of time, billions of dollars and the precious lives of American soldiers in the pursuit of a dubious mission intended to stabilize Afghanistan, rather than say killing the "important Al Qaeda figures" who slaughtered 3,000 Americans and may well be plotting further attacks today.

This is not to say that the latter goal will be easy or even successful, but it seems like the potential for success might be greater then the former. Also, as Peter Bergen's excellent piece in the New Republic on this issue makes clear part of the benefit from the drone war comes not just from AQ leadership, but also the psychological toll that the drones take. All this has contributed to putting Al Qaeda on the defensive.

Ok, deep breaths, deep breaths:

The military has shifted about eight Predator drones assigned to special operations forces in Afghanistan to conventional forces. It is refocusing them on major insurgent strongholds rather than on scouring remote mountain ranges for suspected terrorists. The U.S. military's Central Command is planning to send about a dozen more drones to Afghanistan, representing about a 25% increase. Among them are aircraft being reassigned from Iraq, despite resistance from the U.S. command there.

The sweeping redeployment means that insurgent groups that have carried out ambushes and roadside bombings will for the first time be tracked by dozens of drones capable of remaining over a target for hours undetected, identifying key individuals, and firing missiles within a matter of seconds.

Now we're getting somewhere. This seems like a smart use of the drone aircraft in Afghanistan and a way to put the Taliban forces on the defensive. I can't say I have a huge problem with this. But isn't one of the reasons that the drone war has been more effective in Pakistan - and thus thankfully killing fewer civilians - is because we are doing better intelligence sharing with the Pakistan military? In fact, wasn't the biggest complaint about the drones in Pakistan that they kill civilians and thus send more people into the hands of the insurgents?  (And didn't the guy making that argument just get back from participating in McChrystal's policy review in Afghanistan?) How does the military square the use of drones with a counter-insurgency mission focused on protecting civilians, a point that Julian makes:

A new directive from the top commander in Afghanistan is forcing the military to be more careful about airstrikes. But with up to 20 more drones dedicated to the task, the military may have more chances to attack key Taliban leaders.

Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the new U.S. commander in Afghanistan, made it clear in a recent interview that protecting the Afghan population, not hunting suspected terrorists, was his priority.

"I don't think there is enough focus on counter-insurgency. I am not in a position to criticize counter-terrorism," he said. "But at this point in the war, in Afghanistan, it is most important to focus on almost classic counter-insurgency."

In of it itself, this probably wouldn't send me on a complete bender . . . but then I read this:

But top military officials have concluded that they need to keep Afghanistan from sliding further into chaos in order to keep Al Qaeda from rebuilding there. Doing so will require a campaign to build confidence in the government and make the population feel more secure.

"We have been overly counter-terrorism-focused and not counter-insurgency-focused," said one U.S. official.

Senior government officials said Bin Laden remained a prime target but that they needed to focus on fighting the Taliban.  "We might still be too focused on Bin Laden," the official said. "We should probably reassess our priorities."

AH!! AH!! AH!!!!!!!!!! (Breathing deeply in brown paper bag, banging head against wall repeatedly, wife hiding kitchen knives and prescription medicine).  Yes, we should reassess our priorities to fight an enemy that didn't attack us on 9/11, that has shown no interest in killing Americans who are not in Afghanistan and that even if by some remote chance was able to take power again would probably have very little incentive to set up another terrorist safe haven for Al Qaeda - which oh by the way happens to be our actual enemy (oh and safe havens are probably overrated anyway). And how about the fact that Al Qaeda hasn't had a presence in Afghanistan since 2002! 20002 I tell you.

Here's something I don't understand, why if Al Qaeda didn't rebuild a presence in Afghanistan over the past seven years -- when there weren't enough US troops on the ground to bring stability -- why would they rebuild one now when the focus of the US military is on Afghanistan, not to mention 17,000 more troops?

Obviously, I'm being melodramatic for dramatic effect, but this isn't a joke. American troops are dying every day because of this policy in Afghanistan and and we are slowly but surely venturing down a road that could lead to more deaths and more tragedy. The time has come to seriously examine what we are trying to accomplish in Afghanistan; whether the mission makes sense or is achievable and where our national interests lie.

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