What America Is Leaving Behind in Afghanistan

Jennifer Norris | Foreign Policy in Focus | Reader Supported News | April 21, 2013

mericans who left Zero Dark Thirty thinking that the dark stain of torture is behind us should be cautioned by the U.S. exit strategy in Afghanistan.

As the 2014 deadline for ending the U.S. combat mission in Afghanistan approaches, U.S. forces have been working with the Afghan National Army (ANA) and the Afghan National Police (ANP) to build their capacity to fight the Taliban and other insurgent elements on their own. Yet even as the ANA and ANP cost U.S. taxpayers billions of dollars a year, there are still swaths of the country that the national army and police cannot control.

Faced with an impending withdrawal deadline and tightening budgets, U.S. planners created another security entity, the Afghan Local Police (ALP), which they have pitched as an affordable short-term fix to fill this security vacuum. However, the name is a misnomer, since members do not have police powers and are essentially village militias armed with AK-47s. Highlighting its prominence as a key feature of the U.S. exit strategy, General David Petraus described the ALP program in 2011 as “arguably the most critical element in our effort to help Afghanistan develop the capacity to secure itself.”

Despite some success in achieving security gains, the ALP program has been plagued by such problems as Taliban infiltration and insider attacks. But most controversially, ALP units have been accused of committing serious human rights abuses against local populations with apparent impunity. Afghan President Ahmed Karzai recently expelled U.S. Special Forces from Wardak province due to allegations that American forces and the ALP members they trained had tortured and killed Afghan civilians. Many commentators in the United States attacked Karzai’s decision, but allegations of human rights abuses must be taken seriously.

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US and Afghanistan Reach Deal on Pullout of American Special Forces

Associated Press | Reader Supported News | March 21, 2013

he US military and the Afghan government have reached a deal on the pullout of American special operations forces and their Afghan counterparts from a strategic eastern province after complaints that they were involved in human rights abuses.

American military officials have steadfastly denied the Afghan abuse allegations, which led the president, Hamid Karzai, to demand the withdrawal of the US commandos from Wardak province despite fears the decision could leave the area and the neighbouring capital of Kabul more vulnerable to al-Qaida and other insurgents.

The agreement calls for the US-led coalition to withdraw the special operations forces from Wardak’s Nirkh district, the area where the abuses allegedly occurred, along with the Afghan forces who work with them, as they are replaced by the Afghan army or national police. The rest of the province would “transition over time,” according to a statement.

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NATO Plan Tries to Avoid Sweeping Cuts in Afghan Troops

Shah Marai/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

An Afghan National Police graduation in Kabul on Thursday. A plan would sustain troops at more than 350,000 through 2018.

THOM SHANKER | New York Times | February 21, 2013

BRUSSELS — NATO defense ministers are seriously considering a new proposal to sustain Afghanistan’s security forces at 352,000 troops through 2018, senior alliance officials said Thursday. The expensive effort is viewed as a way to help guarantee the country’s stability — and, just as much, to illustrate continued foreign support after the NATO allies end their combat mission in Afghanistan next year.

The fiscal package that NATO leaders endorsed last spring would have reduced the Afghan National Security Forces to fewer than 240,000 troops after December 2014, when the NATO mission expires. That reduction was based on planning work indicating that the larger current force level was too expensive for Afghanistan and the allies to keep up, and might not be required. Some specialists even argued that the foreign money pouring into Afghanistan to support so large a force was helping fuel rampant official corruption.

Recruiting, training, equipping and operating Afghanistan’s army and national police forces at their present level will cost about $6.5 billion for the current American fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30. Afghanistan pays $500 million of that total, its international partners add $300 million, and the United States provides the remaining $5.7 billion.

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With New Control, General to Focus on Withdrawal in Afghanistan

Pool photo by Massoud Hussaini

Gen. John R. Allen, second from left, relinquished his duties to Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., second from right, on Sunday.

ALISSA J. RUBIN | New York Times | Feburary 10, 2013

KABUL, Afghanistan — Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr. took command of both the American and the international military missions in Afghanistan in a traditional handoff ceremony on Sunday, becoming the 15th general to lead the international command here — and he is expected to be its last.

It falls to General Dunford, who led the Fifth Marine Regiment at the start of the Iraq war, to manage the withdrawal of nearly 100,000 troops, about 68,000 of them American, and a vast amount of equipment and cargo from a landlocked country still at war with the Taliban.

He will also oversee the final transfer of lead responsibility for security to Afghan troops, including in the most volatile districts in the south and east where the Taliban have maintained influence if not outright control.

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Obama, Karzai announce reduced role for US military in Afghanistan

Jonathan Easley | The Hill | January 11, 2013

President Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Friday announced that the  U.S. military would begin a scaled-back role in Afghanistan in mid-2013, sooner  than initially projected.

“Starting this spring our troops will have a different mission — training,  advising and assisting Afghan forces,” Obama said in a joint press conference  with Karzai in the East Room of the White House.

 

“By the end of next year — 2014 — the transition will be complete,” he  continued. “This war will come to a responsible end.”

Obama said he’d be taking recommendations from commanders on the ground to  determine how many — or if any — troops would stay in the country after 2014. In a statement released just moments before  the press conference, the White House said the two governments hoped to soon  finalize an agreement on residual U.S. troops.

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