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THE REAL WAR AGAINST al-QAEDA -- PAKISTAN, NOT AFGHANISTAN
by Dale Brown, 2009

ARTICLE ORIGINALLY APPEARED AT Facebook.com/AuthorDaleBrown, 10/11/09

I'm on the last stretch of novel #22, but I thought I'd take a moment to comment about Pres. Obama's Afghanistan dilemma: send more troops, or hold and kick the can down the road a few more months?

What certainly needs to be done is to define the mission. Are we really after the Taliban? Can Afghan Pres. Hamid Karzai rule by himself, or is he a puppet of the United States? Will al-Qaeda spring to life again if the Taliban is allowed to rule again?

We invaded Afghanistan because we thought that Osama bin Laden was hiding out in the mountain fortress of Tora Bora, being sheltered by the Taliban. We decided not to try to take Tora Bora, but instead embarked on a special ops and heavy bombing campaign that pushed the Taliban out of the cities. Since 2002 until recently, the war in Afghanistan has been in a holding pattern until Iraq was stabilized.

Barack Obama campaigned on a pledge that the "real war" was in Afghanistan, not Iraq, and if elected he would fix this problem. Thanks in part to the "surge" of troops in Iraq and Gen. Petraeus' counterinsurgency strategy, Iraq has been stabilized. This allowed now Pres. Obama to focus on Afghanistan.

But he's received politically bad news from the ISAF commander Gen. McChrystal: he wants 40,000-60,000 more troops to change from a counterterrorist strategy to a counterinsurgency strategy. Instead of getting out of Bush-Cheney devised wars, Pres. Obama faces the possibility of boosting troops levels to as high as 120,000--the same size the Soviet Army was when they were forced to withdraw from Afghanistan! At the same time, we still have a lot of troops in Iraq.

Can you say "Vietnam," Mr. President? Pres. Obama has already pledged not to "leave" Afghanistan. But will he almost double the number of troops deployed there?

Let's examine the mission so far and try to get to the real objective:

The original mission was to capture bin Laden and destroy al-Qaeda. But many experts say that bin Laden is really hiding in the tribal regions of northwest Pakistan, not Afghanistan, being protected by loyal jihadists and Islamists in the Pakistani Internal Security and Intelligence agency. In any case, it appears that the original al-Qaeda organization has been destroyed. Bin Laden and deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri have been reduced to mere figurehead leaders, not operational commanders. Al-Qaeda is now fractured into cells spread around the world, waiting for an opportunity to strike, being pursued by police everywhere.

Al-Qaeda is still a threat, but not nearly the threat it was in 2001.

So why are we fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan? The Taliban may have been providing shelter and support for bin Laden and al-Qaeda, and there's no question that they would like to foment a Islamist uprising strong enough to oust the elected leadership in Pakistan. But like Saddam Hussein, the Taliban had nothing to do with 9/11.

To me, Afghanistan is starting to look like a non-player. Who is in play now? Pakistan.

Pakistan is facing its own jihadist and insurgent threat, and until last summer's offensives in the Northwest Frontier (NWF) and a couple provinces of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), the Pak army was thought to be unable to control the insurgents--they even tried to make a deal with the insurgents and allow Sharia law to be used. The insurgents took this opportunity to move closer to the capital, Islamabad, and the Pak government realized they had to fight or risk collapse. With the help of the United States, the Pak army moved in and pushed the insurgents back.

The NWF and FATA are not in any way aligned or linked to the Pakistani government--tribal elders run the show, and their allegience is for sale to the highest bidder. Al-Qaeda began in Peshawar, the capital of the NWF, and bin Laden contributed a lot of money to tribal maliks so they could resist the Pak government. Pakistan was able to push back against the Taliban and al-Qaeda last summer, but the NWF and FATA are still lawless breeding grounds for insurgents.

And lest we forget: Pakistan has about one hundred nuclear warheads. It is DEFINITELY in our vital national interests to make sure than Islamabad's control of these weapons is absolutely secure. Pakistan is an important American ally in a vital region of the world, and they need all the help they can get.

We need to burn out al-Qaeda's rats nests, and they are in northwest Pakistan, not Afghanistan. This is where our major efforts should be focused. We should be doing more to support Pakistan's fight against the Taliban insurgents in Pakistan.

This is not to say that we should send 60,000 troops to Pakistan, or if Pakistan would even accept them. But we could send 120,000 troops into Afghanistan and still not defeat the Taliban, and in the meantime al-Qaeda still grows and prospers in Pakistan.

So hold fast in Afghanistan; protect the major cities in Afghanistan from the brutal Taliban--but shift military, intelligence, and cooperative efforts to Pakistan to help them contain their insurgents. In the meantime, step up domestic intelligence efforts to hunt down and capture any al-Qaeda elements that make it out of the rat's nests and find their way to our shores.

I'm glad THAT'S settled! Now I can get back to finishing my novel!Watch for the new "Rogue Forces" now in bookstores!

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