President Obama is reviewing the way forward in Afghanistan. His decision will define his presidency much as Vietnam defined the legacy of President Johnson’s presidency in the 1960s.
At a time when so much opportunity and necessity for change is at stake from health care reform to climate change legislation, education and nuclear weapons policy and the economy, the war and its costs will trump all.
The president would be well served to reflect on the words of Iraq veteran, Marine Corps Capt. and Afghanistan Foreign Service officer Matthew Hoh. As the senior US civilian in Zabul province, he became the first US official known to resign in protest over the Afghan war. On September 10, in a letter to his department head he wrote:
“I have lost understanding of and confidence in the strategic purposes of the United States’ presence in Afghanistan. I have doubts and reservations about our current strategy and planned future strategy, but my resignation is based not upon how we are pursuing this war, but why and to what end.”
His frustration and realization that the war effort itself fuels the insurgency and continues the cycle of violence speaks to the truth that there is no military solution in Afghanistan. There is only a political and diplomatic solution.
Dropping bombs and killing civilians angers whole populations and creates ill will. Respected international mediator John Paul Lederach has said that bombing to vanquish the al-Qaeda network is like hitting a mature dandelion with a golf club. It just ensures another generation of al-Qaeda.
There are many examples of alternatives to war that are far less costly and yield far greater results. Among these are:
1) Diplomacy and nonviolent conflict resolution.
This includes efforts like the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission that resulted in the peaceful end to apartheid in South Africa. In Afghanistan, there exists Loya Jirgas or grand councils where tribal leaders come together and political issues are debated and resolved. On October 22, 2009, a peace Jirga was launched by governors of three eastern provinces of Afghanistan to step up peace, reconciliation and development efforts in their areas. The governors also approved an eight-point draft strategy of the Jirga. The Jirga will initially have more than 300 tribal leaders as members from four provinces of the eastern region.
2) Appropriate foreign aid.
Among the best examples of this is the building of schools for girls done by Greg Mortenson’s Central Asia Institute. Author of “Three Cups of Tea,” his “books not bombs” approach has now built 39 schools in Afghanistan and 92 in Pakistan, in Taliban areas with the strong support of the local communities. Countries where girls are educated move beyond the cycle of poverty and violence for a fraction of the cost of war.
3) Respect of and adherence to international law.
The United States should endorse the International Criminal Court that tries individuals for international crimes. Bosnian Serb wartime President Karadzic is currently on trial there for war crimes. Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda leaders could be tried there.
4) Cooperate and collaborate with other nations.
The US must work to strengthen UN peacekeeping forces to provide the security necessary for the previously mentioned steps to be successful. This international effort must include all of the regional players who have a stake, so as not to be viewed as a solution imposed from the West. Without the safeguarding of local populations in their work of self-determination and reconciliation, there will never be peace.
Now is indeed the time to rethink Afghanistan. The decisions made will indeed determine our future. A new documentary “Rethink Afghanistan,” by Brave New Foundation, can be viewed at http://rethinkafghanistan.com. This film is mandatory viewing for anyone concerned about this decision. Our collective voices must be heard to help the president in the way forward.
The House is nearing a vote on health care legislation that is expected to be very close. At this critical juncture, a former Blue Cross Blue Shield spokesperson is doing what he can to help pass reform.
Actor and comedian Andy Cobb, who used to be the spokesman for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida, has teamed up with Robert Greenwald’s Brave New Films project “Sick for Profit” to produce a new ad in favor of health care reform. In the ad, Cobb calls himself a former “spokesjerk” for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida, and says that his job was to “sell you the worst product in American history: private health insurance.” Cobb calls attention to Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) for his signficant contributions from the health care industry, and asks him to vote in favor of health care legislation with a public option. Watch it:
This morning, Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman interviewed Cobb. He told her, echoing remarks from Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), “This is the time when we have to say, ‘Which side are you on? The insurance companies or the American people?’ And for too long I’ve been on the wrong side of that.”
Teaming with the liberal Brave New Films, a former Blue Cross pitchman is now pitching against Blue Cross.
Andy Cobb, who once tried to sell Floridians on a Blue Cross health insurance plan, says he’s fed up with the industry.
“I was a spokesman for BlueCross and Blueshield of Florida,” Cobb says. “Call me a spokesjerk. People who make money for buying things you don’t need. And we’re telling you lies.”
“They, by which I mean I, make money by standing in the way of reform,” Cobb says in the ad, which appears as a spoof of something like a freecreditreport.com ad. “It’s time for change.”
“That’s why I’m calling on leaders from the spokesjerk industry,” Cobb continues. “The freecreditreport.com guy. The Shamwow dude. And Senator Bill Nelson, recipient of big money from insurance companies — to lead us. To walk away from their cash cows and tell American people the truth.
“And us spokesjerks, we’ll be fine,” Cobb adds. “There’s plenty of room in entertainment for people who tried to sell you the worst product in American history. Private health insurance.”
As House Democrats prepare to vote on their version of a healthcare reform bill this weekend, a man who used to be the face of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida decided he’s had enough with the way the health insurance industry is impeding reform. Actor and comedian Andy Cobb used to promote Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida. But now he’s broken with his former employer and is speaking out against the entire private health insurance industry that has strongly opposed any government-run health plan.
Guest:
Andy Cobb, Actor and comedian. He was the former television spokesperson for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida.
JUAN GONZALEZ: As House Democrats prepare to vote on their version of a healthcare reform bill this weekend, a man who used to be the face of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida decided he’s had enough with the way the health insurance industry is impeding reform. Actor and comedian Andy Cobb used to promote Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida. But now he’s broken with his former employer and is speaking out against the entire private health insurance industry that has strongly opposed any, quote, “government-run health plan.”
Andy Cobb teamed up with Brave New Films to create this video, released Thursday.
ANDY COBB: Hey, Stretchy, what are you paying for health insurance?
Well, how much are you paying a month in diapers?
Do you have twenty bucks in your pocket? Then you can afford our Blue Options insurance policy.
DIRECTOR: And cut. Now slate.
ANDY COBB: Hi, my name’s Andy, and I sell health insurance.
Blue Options has just added a bunch of lower…
I was a spokesman for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida. Call me a “spokesjerk.” We’re people who make money by selling you things that you don’t need, and we’re telling you lies.
It’s cheaper than your cell phone bill.
Sure, if your cell phone bill is $400 a month. American healthcare is a mess, and everybody knows it. But no matter how bad it gets, insurance companies trot out their spokesjerks to charm into buying their insurance and avoiding a public option.
ASSISTANT: We’re ready for Andy.
ANDY COBB: They, by which I mean “I,” make money by standing in the way of reform. It’s time for change. That’s why I’m calling on leaders of the spokesjerk industry—the freecreditreport.com guy, the ShamWow dude, and Senator Bill Nelson, recipient of big money from insurance companies—to lead us, to walk away from their cash cows and tell the American people the truth.
And us spokesjerks, we’ll be fine. There’s plenty of room in entertainment for someone who once tried to sell you the worst product in American history: private health insurance.
AMY GOODMAN: That says “Fired” after, for our radio listeners. A new video released Thursday by Brave New Films, featuring the former spokesperson for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida.
Well, Andy Cobb joins us now from Los Angeles.
We welcome you to Democracy Now! Talk about your time—your first experiences, why you became the Marlboro Man of Blue Cross Blue Shield, and how you changed.
ANDY COBB: Well put. You know, actors are people who lie to you. That’s our job. And what one does is one auditions for work, and one hopes one gets work. And one doesn’t really spend much time, generally, thinking about what you’re advertising.
I did do work for Blue Cross for quite awhile. It became apparent, eventually, that it was something that I needed to disassociate myself from, for reasons both political and personal. Politically, I think we’re at that time, aren’t we? Dennis Kucinich, the adorablest little congressman of them all, said it very well recently. He said, “This is the time when we have to say, ‘Which side are you on? The insurance companies or the American people?’” And for too long, I’ve been on the wrong side of that. And if Senator Lieberman can change his mind to go from the right side of this issue to the wrong side, I figure a schmuck actor like me can change his mind and go from the wrong side to the right side.
JUAN GONZALEZ: I’m interested, the reaction of Blue Cross and Blue Shield. Did you get a chance to tell them directly about your change of heart? And what their reaction was?
ANDY COBB: We have not spoken. We don’t have that sort of a relationship. But I’m guessing that I won’t be invited to the holiday party this year.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Did your agent try to dissuade you about the lost revenue?
ANDY COBB: There was some discussion along those lines. And, you know, he’s—and my agent is a good guy. And, you know, I didn’t meet any bad people at Blue Cross, to be honest. It would go a lot better with sort of the progressive narrative, I suppose, if it did—if I had, but that’s not the case. You know, I met nothing but nice folks. But they’re in a monstrous system that really doesn’t work for Americans.
I’ve had a lot of personal contact with this recently, this year. As a comic, I did a benefit for my friend Alicia, who had breast cancer and, because she made the mistake of getting breast cancer while being covered by Blue Cross of California, needed comics to raise money for her healthcare. My friend James, whose mother was—got breast cancer while she was covered by Blue Cross of California, is now going bankrupt, so we had a benefit for them. So we’re essentially relying on comics to do the work of a medical insurance industry. And I wouldn’t trust comics with a lawn mower, much less a medical system. So it became very apparent that I had to disassociate myself.
AMY GOODMAN: So, why should we believe you now, Andy?
ANDY COBB: Well, it’s a good question. I was well paid by Blue Cross, of course, to say what was scripted for me. To write what I wrote, which was that piece, and to do it for Brave New Films, I was—I was paid. I was paid the union minimum, which is minimum wage. And suffice it to say, it’s a significant pay cut.
JUAN GONZALEZ: And speaking of comics, what’s your reaction to how the healthcare legislation is proceeding in the House and Senate?
ANDY COBB: Well, it’s comical. It’s unfortunate right now that we’re in a situation where it doesn’t look like we’ve got a real robust public option on the table, although it’s unfortunate, I think, that we’re calling it a “robust public option.” It sounds like we’re being sold TV dinners. My friend John Aravosis had a funny line; he said, “The only other thing that they focus-tested was a ‘buxom public option,’ and that didn’t test well.” But hopefully we’ll get a robust public option. That seems to be the thing that can give us a real option other than these private insurance companies that are doing America and their clients absolutely no good.
AMY GOODMAN: Andy Cobb, the conversations you had with Blue Cross Blue Shield, or did you, when you were actually doing the commercials, did they come in? And did actually any say to you, when you’re just sort of behind the scenes, that they didn’t believe what you were saying, either?
ANDY COBB: No. You know, it’s—to be honest, there was no discussion like that. It’s a very sort of surface conversation. There was very little discussion about the issues. One could say these are people doing their jobs. And, you know, it’s—as I say, I don’t think these people who work for Blue Cross are monsters, but it’s a monstrous system, and it has to be changed.
I would invite my fellow spokesjerks to stop what they’re doing and cross the line, as I said in the video. I would like for other people to do the same. Maybe it’s time for people like myself, Joe Lieberman and the Aflac duck to find honest jobs.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Is there an association of spokesjerks, as you say? Do they have conferences regularly?
ANDY COBB: The ASJ? Yeah, me and the GEICO lizard and that guy who goes, “That’s Allstate’s stand,” get together every now and then and have drinks, but no formal organization.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Andy Cobb, we want to thank you for being with us, actor and comedian, former television spokesperson for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida, has now crossed the line.
Andy Cobb has had enough. A former pitchman for BlueCross Blue Shield of Florida, Cobb is breaking with the firm and speaking out in favor of health care reform and a public health insurance option.
“This is the time when Americans have to choose which side we’re on,” Cobb told HuffPost, quoting Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio). “Is it the insurance companies or the American people?”
Cobb calls on what he dubs his fellow “spokes-jerks” — singling out the FreeCreditReport.com guy — to stop hawking products that hurt the American people.
“I do know that 19 percent of every dollar of our premiums goes to administrative costs, for executive compensation and people like me. We can’t afford people like me any more in this country,” he said.
With a White House decision on the direction of the war in Afghanistan still up in the air, and President Barack Obama considering whether to send as many as 40,000 additional U.S. troops, veterans groups on opposite sides of the debate are storming Capitol Hill this week to sway congressional opinion.
With U.S. deaths in Afghanistan rising and the Taliban resurgent, officials from the hawkish Veterans for Freedom and the dovish Veterans for Rethinking Afghanistan said they are increasing their lobbying campaigns to dramatically change how America conducts the eight-year war.
Veterans for Freedom kicks off Thursday at the District of Columbia’s American Legion post with a breakfast and strategy session, followed by a meeting with Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), who represents the district where part of Fort Campbell — the military base that houses the 101st Airborne Division — is located.
After a news conference, and armed with embedded media, a group of 50 to 100 veterans will fan out across Capitol Hill for meetings with the staffs of key senators, including Majority Leader Harry Reid, Democrats John Kerry of Massachusetts and Jim Webb of Virginia and Republicans John McCain of Arizona and John Cornyn of Texas.
“This is a very important litmus test for Obama,” said Pete Hegseth, chairman of the group and a supporter of surging more U.S. forces into Afghanistan. He noted that, during the campaign, Obama called Afghanistan the “good war” and has endorsed continuing to fight a counterinsurgency there.
If Obama backs a request by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, to send more U.S. forces to the country, “we’ll stand right next to them and support that,” Hegseth said.
On the other side of the issue is Veterans for Rethinking Afghanistan, a relatively new group, with a handful of members, that is trying to persuade lawmakers that U.S. war strategy in Afghanistan is a massive failure and that the military is part of the problem.
The group is starting to receive notice in the national media, particularly after a debate it had this week against Veterans for Freedom. Veterans for Rethinking Afghanistan met with the staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and will check in with anti-Iraq war Democrats — including Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin and Reps. Raul Grijalva of Arizona and Lynn Woolsey and Barbara Lee of California — trying to stuff their briefing books with reasons to end the military commitment to Afghanistan.
“Listen, you’ve got to stop falling in love with the military solution; it’s not feasible,” said Jake Diliberto, one of the group’s founders. “This is a war of poverty and cultural misunderstanding, and it’s an Afghan problem that we don’t have the means or the wisdom to figure out.”
In between the two groups is VoteVets.org, a veterans group with closer ties to the Democratic Party that has staked out the middle ground and is watching this week’s lobbying activities from the sidelines.
In 2007, Veterans for Freedom supported the surge of U.S. forces in Iraq, and VoteVets.org opposed it, advocating a drawdown from Iraq instead. But for now, the organization is still debating its position on the war in Afghanistan, said VoteVets Chairman Jon Soltz, and it is concentrating its efforts on climate change.
“The only mission that we think we’re sure can be successful is the military option,” Soltz said. But that’s not a matter of simply beefing up troops, he said, and it doesn’t address questions about whether Afghan President Hamid Karzai is a legitimate political partner, how much Pakistan cooperates inside its own territory in the fight against Al Qaeda and whether the U.S. government can provide the kind of humanitarian support and reconstruction that is required to boost security in Afghanistan.
VoteVets wants to see how the White House defines the goals of a troop buildup, Soltz said. “We’re waiting to see how they define success and whether these other elements can be achieved.”
Of the three groups, Veterans for Freedom has the most extensive lobbying background. The organization began in 2005 and helped cement support for the U.S. troop surge in Iraq by saturating Washington with advertising and sending 400 of its members to the Hill on two occasions to twist arms.
And history suggests that if Obama does not support McChrystal’s request for more troops, Veterans for Freedom may turn on the president. The group actively ran a whisper campaign in western Pennsylvania to defeat Democratic Rep. John Murtha and has backed a slate of largely Republican veterans for Congress.
The group’s founder, David Bellavia, who in 2008 ran unsuccessfully for Congress in New York, attacked Kerry and the late Sen. Ted Kennedy in 2005 for supporting statements that Iraqis wanted the United States to leave their country, claiming in an article on FrontPageMag.com that the comments were “a political attack on the troops, an attack that is aiding our enemy.” The publication is run by Holocaust denier David Horowitz.
With the U.S. drawing down in Iraq and on the brink of ramping up in Afghanistan, Bellavia’s group is now courting Kerry and says it has a meeting scheduled at the White House to discuss war strategy. That’s completely consistent, Hegseth said, because Veterans for Freedom is dedicated to a single issue: winning the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The newest group, Veterans for Rethinking Afghanistan, has outside backing from Brave New Films and its president, liberal activist and filmmaker Robert Greenwald, who created documentaries including “The Real McCain” and “Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism.” Greenwald has been a regular donor to liberal members of Congress and supported Kerry’s 2004 presidential bid.
Members of the group say that one of the arguments they will make to lawmakers on Capitol Hill is that the price of remaining in Afghanistan is simply too high. Leighton Akio Woodhouse, political director for Brave New Films, asserted that supporting one soldier for one year costs American taxpayers $1 million.
“The American people need to be aware of exactly what a counterinsurgency means,” said former Marine Sgt. Devon Read, a member of the group who served in Iraq. “A counterinsurgency campaign is going to mean not 40,000 troops but 150,000 troops or more, 10 years of a presence in Afghanistan and tens of thousands more dead troops.”
A little more than two months ago, Brock McIntosh was fighting in Afghanistan, a member of the Army National Guard. This week, he’s walking the halls of Congress, trying to end a war that began when he was 13 years old.
McIntosh, now 21, and four other vets are in Washington for something of a preemptive strike. A new pro-war group calling itself Vets For Freedom plans to begin lobbying Congress Thursday, pushing for an escalation. The anti-war vets hope to head them off.
But if their erstwhile comrades and now political opponents are “for freedom,” that raises an unusual question. “What does that make us?” Devon Read, 29, asks mockingly. “Vets Against Freedom? Vets For Terrorism?” Read served for eight years and took part in the invasion of Iraq before leaving the Marine Corps in 2008.
Technically, the soldiers are part of Iraq Veterans Against the War, but most are Afghan veterans who have linked up with Brave New Films president Robert Greenwald, whose documentary project “Rethink Afghanistan” urges a drawdown of the American presence in that country.
As the vets wait outside the office of Rep. Raúl Grijalva, a Democrat who co-chairs the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Jake Diliberto, 27, recounts tales from the first skirmish with Vets For Freedom earlier in the morning.
Diliberto went mano a mano on CNN with VFF rep Thomas Cotton. Cotton had a simple appeal to authority: He’s for whatever General Stanley McChrystal wants — and that’s more troops.
Before they went on, says Diliberto, he could hear his opponent prepping himself. “He kept repeating, ‘General Stanley McChrystal. General Stanley McChrystal. General Stanley McChrystal.’ ”
Backers of escalating the eight-year-old war present a variety of complex arguments, but at their heart is Cotton’s mantra: “General Stanley McChrystal. General Stanley McChrystal. General Stanley McChrystal.”
The troops were joined in Grijalva’s office by Malalai Joya, an Afghan member of parliament who has been suspended for speaking out against the warlords who run the country. She is appealing her suspension and, in the meantime, promoting her new book, “A Woman Among Warlords.” Joya, too, has a simple message: Go home, USA.
“It’s much easier to fight against one enemy than two,” Malalai Joya tells Grijalva, identifying the two current enemies as the Taliban on the one hand and the United States and the Afghan government it props up on the other.
The Afghan government, she says, is hopelessly corrupt; President Hamid Karzai is in league with powerful warlords and druglords, some of whom are his close relatives. His top opponent, Abdullah Abdullah, is himself a well-known warlord, she says. The election process is controlled by warlords for their benefit. The farce that was the previous election will not lead to a run-off because Abdullah doesn’t believe it will be fair.
“It’s not important who’s voting. It’s important who’s counting,” says Joya, adding that the canceled election matters little since both candidates are representatives of the warlord class. “They both call the Taliban brother.”
Both President Obama and General McChrystal have said that the U.S. effort in Afghanistan cannot succeed without a governing partner that is seen as legitimate by the Afghan people. That’s a tremendous problem for proponents of a troop escalation, since Karzai is seen as anything but that.
The problem for the war’s opponents, however, is that it’s hard to comprehend just how corrupt the Karzai regime is. Seeing it first hand persuaded the troops.
“The Taliban isn’t their enemy,” says Read. “The greatest enemy of the Afghan people is the Afghan government and the occupation forces.”
McIntosh, who takes some time to get over his nerves in the congressman’s office, tells Grijalva that the Afghan people appreciate the occupation army most for the medical services it provides. Afghan doctors, he says, were poorly trained, because the Taliban banned pictures in text books. The health care makes them dependent, he says, when what they need is training.
“They can do it on their own,” he says. “They’re fully capable human beings.”
Grijalva nods, acknowledging the wisdom from the young man who just recently got the legal right to drink.
The kind of training Afghans don’t need, the soldiers say, is military. We’ve been training young men to fight in Afghanistan for decades, they note, and look where it’s gotten us. An overwhelming number of soldiers trained by the U.S. go on to fight for the Taliban instead, which was itself originally trained by the U.S., notes Read. “So if we train 400,000 soldiers and 200,000 go fight for the Taliban, what have we gained?”
“We don’t expect anything good from you,” Joya tells Grijalva. “Just stop doing wrong.” As she brandishes photos of dead civilians, known warlords, and evidence of Karzai’s corruption, her voice gradually rises. With a finger pointed squarely at the progressive congressman, she repeatedly indicts the occupation and those who allow it to continue.
“This is what your government has done,” she fumes. “Silence of good people is worse than action of bad people.”
Witnessing her rough treatment if Grivala, who agrees with her, it isn’t hard to see how she has found herself out of favor among the warlords.
After the meeting, Grijalva says that Joya helped alter his perspective. “Sometimes in our urge to fix things, we just pile money on top of a [friendly] government,” he says. But Joya had convinced him, he says, that the U.S. is “funding fundamentally the people who are unraveling the country.”
Outside in the hall, the vets assess the meeting. “I don’t think he needed a whole lot of convincing,” offers Diliberto. Next up: Reps. John Tierney (D-Mass.), Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and Barbara Lee (D-Calif.). “But we’re not just meeting with progressives,” assures Leighton Woodhouse, a Brave New Films aide escorting the soldiers. Rep. Dana Rohrbacher (R-Calif.), Adam Smith (D-Wash.), David Price (D-N.C.), Tim Johnson (R-Ill.) and Sylvestre Reyes (D-Texas) were also scheduled to receive the veterans.
One member had previously offered a “walk and talk” with the soldiers, but had since demoted them to a sit down meeting with the chief of staff.
He might not get off that easy. The vets are neither your typical lobbyist nor your standard anti-war protesters. Diliberto suggested they deal with that congressman in a way that would convey the gravity of their message.
“We should just go to his door,” he suggests, ‘and say, ‘Look, motherfucker.’”
Diliberto will be on Larry King Live tonight on CNN, debating General Wesley Clark and one of the Vets for Freedom.
President Obama is expected to make a decision on troop levels in Afghanistan in the coming weeks. His top commander in Afghanistan wants at least 40,000 more soldiers. Is that the right number? Should we be sending more troops at all?
(Veterans Thomas Cotton and Jake Diliberto debate opposite sides of the troop surge divide.)
Two veterans of the war, Thomas Cotton and Jake Diliberto, will be lobbying Congress on opposite sides of the troop surge divide. They spoke to John Roberts on CNN’s “American Morning” Monday. Below is an edited transcript of that interview.
John Roberts: Thomas, let’s start with you. What’s the pitch that you’re going to make in favor of General Stanley McChrystal’s call for some 40,000 additional troops in Afghanistan?
Thomas Cotton: I’m going to tell Congress that we need every last one of those troops. That’s based not only on my experience over the last year in Afghanistan, but also on General McChrystal’s reputation and expertise. He has spent a career in the Army Special Operations community and he’s looked at this situation carefully and knows that we can’t win with a counterterrorism strategy only.
We need a full-spectrum counterinsurgency that can secure the south and the east while mentoring and training the Afghan national army. And 40,000 troops is the absolute minimum with which he can accomplish that mission.
Roberts: Jake, you heard Thomas’ argument. What’s your argument against the surge in troops in Afghanistan?
Jake Diliberto: Well, Tom’s right – if you want to do a counterinsurgency campaign, you absolutely need 40,000 troops. But that’s not enough. You’re going to need another 100,000 troops on top of that. And all counterinsurgency experts will pretty much agree that another year is going to look like another 15 years. And so the idea that another counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan is in our best interest as Americans, I don’t think, is the right answer.
Roberts: So Jake, what do you do instead?
Diliberto: The inclination that somehow we need to be in Afghanistan to keep America safe is not the complete answer. Al Qaeda is a 5,000 to 7,000 operative force that is across the world. They are in Germany, they’re in the United States, they’re in Mexico, they’re all over the place. And you need to do the good things to find these criminals and put them in jail, which is – looks like a worldwide collaborative intelligence effort to find them and root them out.
Roberts: So Jake, do you not buy the argument that Afghanistan is the central front in the war on terror and that as General Stanley McChrystal says, if U.S. troops were to leave and it were to fall back in the hands of the Taliban that it could provide safe haven for al Qaeda again?
Diliberto: Even if you could prevent the Taliban from taking over Afghanistan, you could not guarantee that al Qaeda would not be able to go back there. To think that is a one-size answer to say we need to be in Afghanistan, is not complete. We have fallen in love with a military solution in Afghanistan and that is not the answer.
Roberts: Let me go to Thomas on that. What do you think about that argument that Jake just made, that we’ve fallen in love with the idea of a military solution in Afghanistan? And then on the idea of more troops going on, as you know, U.S. diplomat Matthew Hoh recently resigned his post, saying we’re doing this all wrong, we’re creating more of a problem by having American forces there.
Cotton: I agree that a military solution alone is not the answer. General McChrystal recognizes that, as does President Obama. However, first and foremost, you must have security for – you’re going to hope to have improvements in the government or economic development.
And I know Matt, he actually came to my base last year – or earlier this year – and we visited sometime, and he may not have received the clearest guidance from the civilian side, but on the military side, we certainly received crystal-clear guidance from General McChrystal down to the front line troopers, that you really have to provide security for the people to allow them to be able to develop the economy and develop a strong and more efficient government. The same way we saw in Iraq with the surge in 2007 and 2008.
Roberts: And Jake, what do you say to that argument, that one of the problems that the Afghan people have is they believe the U.S. isn’t keeping their promises. They promised to go in there and provide safety and security and they don’t have it. So the way to get safety and security to win over the hearts and minds of the Afghan people is to send more troops in there so you can more effectively police the area.
Diliberto: Well, our history is short in this country. I think we need to recognize that the Afghanistan people have been bombed for almost 100 years going back to the British at the turn of the 20th century. And this continued violence that’s taking place has caused the Afghanistan culture to be very resilient and also resistant to any sort of foreign powers. So to think that another 40,000 troops or counterinsurgency campaign can be successful really misses the point on this war.
What’s taking place is a cultural misunderstanding and a war on poverty. The real war that’s taking place in Afghanistan is poverty. And more troops destabilizes the area even more. And this overlooks, if you send more troops to Afghanistan, you actually have the unintended effect of destabilizing Pakistan, which is a nuclear-armed, highly volatile region that needs to be a close watch of intelligence and special operations for terrorist activity, not a counterinsurgency campaign.
