How many troops in Afghanistan?

Every time I see a figure for the number of US troops already in Afghanistan, it seems like its bigger than the last time. One of Rummy's innovations was that he had several tens of thousands of troops that he could use wherever and not count them in the country totals. So its hard to tell if the count has really gone up or if its just being officially reported more fully. On the "credibility gap" front, that's not a real confidence builder.

I could swear that the last time I saw a figure for US troops in Afghanistan, it was 22,000. Now the Los Angeles Times is using a figure of some unspecified amount over 30,000 (Marines drafting plan to send more troops to Afghanistan by Tony Perry 11/24/08):

Gates said Friday that he wanted to supplement the more than 30,000 American troops, mostly from the Army, already in Afghanistan. An additional 30,000 troops from other North Atlantic Treaty Organization countries and allies are also stationed in Afghanistan to combat the Taliban and other Islamist insurgent forces.

Juan Cole at his Informed Comment blog links to the LA Times article but uses a more specific figure of 32,000.

In any case, the Pentagon is gearing up to send more. Which, on the one hand, is sensible planning since the incoming President Obama has stated repeatedly his intention to ratchet up US troop presence there. But there could also be a motive of trying to put the process in motion in a way that will make it difficult for Obama to slow it down if he decides that further escalation of the Afghanistan War is not the best way to proceed.

Getting back to Perry's report, what is wrong with this picture?

For the Marines, there is a sense of unfinished business in Afghanistan. In early December 2001, soon after the Taliban government was routed, Marines were part of a plan to attack the mountains of the Tora Bora region where Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was believed to be.

But even as Marines waited at Kandahar airport to board helicopters, U.S. officials called off the attack, preferring that Afghan forces finish the task of capturing or killing Bin Laden and his top lieutenants. Instead, Bin Laden and many of the others escaped and are still at large.
Maj. Gen. Thomas Waldhauser, meeting with Marines of the 2nd Battalion, 7th Regiment, last week at the austere Forward Operating Base Delaram in Afghanistan, characterized the Marines as "starting over" in that country.

Waldhauser, commander of the Camp Pendleton-based 1st Marine Division, praised the Two-Seven, which has begun returning home, for its success in mentoring Afghan police, killing Taliban fighters and making contacts with tribal leaders.

"You guys have lived the dream," he said. [my emphasis]

What's wrong with the picture? Leaving aside the fact that living "the dream" sounds kind of creepy in the context, the reference to the Tora Bora fiasco is a reminder of something that still deserves an official investigation. I have no reason (other than imaginative suspicions) at this point to think that the screw-up at Tora Bora was anything other than Rummy's characteristic incompetence. But in any case, it deserve to be fully clarified by the incoming administration.

But it's also a reminder of what most of us anyway thought was the original purpose of the Afghanistan intervention that began in 2001: to target, fight and capture Al Qa'ida, Osama bin Laden's terrorist group that was responsible for the 9/11 attacks. Not to carry on counterinsurgency warfare forever against the "Taliban". And, as Juan Cole repeatedly points out, the Pashtun guerrillas that the Pentagon and our press corps code as "Taliban" are not identical to the former Taliban government, although Mullah Omar and others active in the original Taliban movement are involved.

But what we've had in this war in major mission creep. It started from the need to target the immediate, direct threat from Al Qa'ida. Then it became a protracted war against Pashtun guerrillas in Afghanistan as well as against other, non-Pashtun warlords. And it became an extension of the drug war, which the Taliban had been waging with seeming effectiveness at the time of the American invasion. We can't say the same about the US/NATO drug war there.

And now it's escalated into a war against Pashtun guerrillas in Pakistan and to targeted assassinations against the suspected hiding places of suspected terrorist leaders, air strikes whose net effectiveness are highly questionable.

This whole effort needs to be seriously re-thought. I'm against any kind of US or NATO military escalation unless it's designed as a short-term element of a clear exit strategy. The fact that the US and other Western powers ("Christian" powers in the eyes of Afghans and Pakistanis) are engaged in a protracted, open-ended war has become the overriding problem for the US and NATO interests. But even if Obama carries through on his escalation plans, there really should be an official redefinition of what US war aims are in that conflict.

And those really should be redefined in an official Congressional declaration of war or its legal equivalent, an "authorization for the use of military force" (AUMF). The original post-9/11 AUMF is open-ended and overly vague. Are we at war in/with Afghanistan and what are our war aims? Are with at war in/with Pakistan and what are our war aims? Congress should actually be the body making the decision. And while it's almost certainly too much to expect a President to voluntarily suggest limiting his own existing authority under the 2001 AUMF, it would be a good opportunity for Obama, who is after all a Constitutional law authority, to work with Congress to establish some sound long-term precedents to counter future authoritarian attempts to assert Cheney's Unitary Executive theory under a future Republican President. A new AUF - better still, an explicit declaration of war - would be a good way to do that.

Just to be clear, I do think that a new Congressional action would be good in itself, even though I oppose continuing the war. If, as I hope, Obama decides against an open-ended continuation of the Afghanistan War, he could use the Constitutional requirement for Congressional authorization as a way to get the Republicans to share responsibility for the decision. And not in the back-stabbing, cynical way that the Cheney-Bush administration used intelligence briefings for that purpose. He could declare that the 2001 AUMF did not authorize further warfare against Pashtun guerrillas or a war against Pakistan and make an exit strategy. Then, if the Republicans want to continue the war, let them propose a formal declaration of war or a new AUMF.

Or, if he does take the mistaken decision to continue the war there, he could still go to Congress and ask for an AUMF/war declaration. If Congress doesn't give it to him, then he can opt for a withdrawal plan. Either way, he should force the Republicans to take a clear position on the Afghanistan War. Or, as Obama put it in his acceptance speech at the Democratic Convention in a somewhat different context, "it is time for them to own their failure".

And, now that Hamid Karzai is demanding something like an "exit strategy" for foreign forces in Afghanistan, that may offer Obama additional options in getting out of Afghanistan.

Tags: afghanistan war, barack obama