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It appears that the U.S. military expedition in Afghanistan, begun in the autumn of 2001, may finally be coming to an end. Significant hurdles still have to be overcome, involving among other things the Taliban having to meet a vague standard of reducing, though not ceasing, their military operations. But a conclusion to direct American involvement in the Afghan war does seem closer than at any previous time in the more than eighteen years of that involvement.

Expect many commentaries in the weeks ahead about what went well and what went poorlyespecially poorlyin the Afghanistan war. There will be hindsight-laden appraisals of tactics and strategy and of such things as troop surges said to have started too late or ended too soon. Most of the commentary probably will miss the most fundamental aspects of Americas experience in Afghanistanwhat most deserves to go into the history books and what is most relevant to avoiding more ultra-long wars in the future. Those fundamentals have less to do with tactics and strategy and more to do with broader perceptual and political patterns in the United States, including the following ones.

Getting Stuck in Terrorist History

U.S. forces were sent to Afghanistan in 2001 in direct response to the 9/11 terrorist attack, perpetrated by Osama bin Ladens Al Qaeda at a time that this group was a guest in the Taliban-controlled portion of Afghanistan. The tragic events of 9/11 created such severe national trauma that they have reshaped the way Americans think about terrorism and counterterrorism. It became a template in which perceptions about terrorism and combating terrorism were formed, even though the template does not always conform to a wider reality.

A major aspect of that perception was that the fight against terrorism came to be seen as primarily a military fight, with Afghanistan being the initial battlefront in a war on terror. Any backing away from that military fight thus was seen, wrongly, as a backing away from counterterrorism itself.

The template also promoted a failure to understand the special circumstances, including the history of the earlier mujahedin fight against the Soviets, that led Afghanistan to be associated with bin Laden, Al Qaeda, and a terrorist threat to the U.S. homeland in 2001circumstances unlikely to be replicated by future terrorist threats to the United States. Afghanistan came to be seen as the terrorist haven par excellence, even though, to whatever extent such havens may be significant, many other places could serve that role. Afghanistan was seen playing that role even though many of the critical preparations for the 9/11 operation itself took place in Europe, the United States, and cyberspace.

Political Fear of Imperfect Results

Another American legacy of the trauma of 9/11 was a zero-tolerance attitude toward terrorism. Even a single American death from a single terrorist attack was regarded as something that could and should be avoided, regardless of the costs of trying to do so. This has not always been the case. The 1970s, for example, saw many terrorist attacks within the United States, perpetrated by a variety of foreign and domestic actors, without counterterrorism zooming to the top of national priorities and without any felt need to launch a war on terror. As a result of the new zero-tolerance standard, U.S. political leaders have had to live with the fear that if they pulled troops out of Afghanistan and the United States later experienced any type of terrorist attack with any connection at all to Afghanistan, their political opponents would pillory them.

Bias Toward Mission Creep

The longstanding term mission creep testifies to the prevalence of what that term describes. The dynamics of how mission creep worked in the Afghanistan war, similar to how it has arisen with other issues, are twofold. First, leaders mustering public support for costly efforts such as a war in a far-off, half-forgotten land tend to pull out all the rhetorical stops to do so. Thus the costs and casualties incurred in trying to defeat the Taliban were said to be necessary not only to beat terrorism but also to build a stable democracy in Afghanistan.

Second, once the intervention took place, a sense of U.S. ownership of the problem followed and with it, changed standards for deciding whether to go or to stay. Issues that never would have been a reason for going to war in Afghanistan in the first place later became reasons not to leave it. Concern about the repressed state of women under restored Taliban rule, for example, became one of those issues even though it would not have been a casus belli for initiating the intervention.

Effects of the Iraq War

The grand neoconservative experiment in trying to remake the politics and economics of the Middle East through regime change in Iraq had deleterious effects on U.S. policy toward Afghanistan, in two different ways under two different administrations. For the George W. Bush administrationwhich began the march toward war in Iraq shortly after 9/11 and, after a huge promotional campaign to sell the war, launched it in March 2003Iraq was an enormous distraction from Afghanistan. The biggest cost in this regard was not measured in troops and tanks but rather in the focus and attention of policymakers. The resulting loss of focus on Afghanistan was a major factor in missing what would have been an appropriate exit point, just several weeks into the U.S. intervention after Al Qaeda had been rousted from its base and the Taliban had been ousted from power in Kabul.

For the succeeding administration of Barack Obama, the good war in Afghanistan contrasted with the bad war in Iraq. Having been on the correct side all along in opposing the folly of the Iraq War, Obama felt an extra reason to stay the course in Afghanistan and even to surge U.S. force levels temporarily to show that he was not a pacifist wuss.

Misunderstanding Other Peoples Ways of War and Peace

Americans tend to think of all their wars in a simplified way in which wars have definite beginnings and ends and in which good guys are clearly distinguishable from the bad. The model was a poor fit for the long and messy Afghanistan conflict. The U.S. intervention was preceded by decades of warfare, of ever-changing complexion, in Afghanistan. That history included coups and insurgency in the 1970s, Soviet occupation and resistance to the occupation in the 1980s, and in the 1990s, fights among warlords later swept aside by the Taliban. Revisions of alliances and outright side-switching have been common. Afghanistans complex ethnic geography has further complicated the Americans problem. For example, the Tajiks who dominated the local forces most heavily involved in ejecting the Taliban from their seat of power after the U.S. intervention are a minority who would never be allowed to secure a dominant position in Afghanistan.

The prudent way for the United States to have extracted itself from that messy situation would have entailed adapting to the Afghans ways of war and peace, in which concepts of victory and defeat and of good guys and bad guys play much less of a role than do hodgepodges of bargains struck among local chieftains. But the United States never seemed to adapt, and kept thinking in terms of achieving nationwide victory over the Taliban. More than eighteen years later, its troops are still there.

Paul R. Pillar is a contributing editor at the National Interest and the author of Why America Misunderstands the World.

Image: Reuters

Originally posted here:
Pashtun Paradise: How Years of a U.S.-Led War in Afghanistan Helped Its Adversary Succeed - The National Interest Online

RichardStanley was in Pakistan, andhad just watched a man die, whenhe got a call from London. It turned out to be a producer named Trix Worrell, the director recalled. By the time he found me, he was already desperate.

He was using a lot of f-words. You have no f------ idea how hard weve been working to f------ find you, mate!I hung up on him.

Stanley, a director of pop videos for Public Image Ltd and Renegade Soundwave, was at a Red Crescent field hospital in the city of Peshawar, 31 miles from the border with Afghanistan. Hed fled there directly from the Battle of Jalalabad, a standoff between the Pakistan-and US-backed Mujahideen and the Afghan army. Some 15,000 people had died there during a savage battle marked by numerous atrocities against civilians.

And people were still dying. All around Stanley layamputees bleeding out, and burn victims losing their fight for life.Stanleyand his cameraman, Immo Horn, had been among the fortunate ones.Theyd taken fire from Afghan forces at point-blank range, only tostagger away unharmed.Stanley likened their escape to the Pulp Fiction scene in which John Travolta and Samuel L Jacksons characters face a hail of bullets and yetsurvive. (Horn had, however, been wounded by shrapnel, hence theirhospital trip.)

And now this: an executive from London-based Palace Pictures, desperate forStanleyto come back to Britain. Having joined the Mujahideen in frustration at his moribund movie career and with the vague intention of making a documentary, the South African filmmaker had seen death at first hand. The last thing hedexpected was his old life to come crashingthrough the walls. He had no idea how to react.

Trix had tracked me down,Stanleytold the Without Your Head podcast in 2017. They wanted to option my script. The Hardware script had been floating around London like a raisin dropped in a glass of champagne.

Without me knowing, it had gone from one set of hands to another and had found its way to Steve Woolley at Palace Pictures I was so confused, I didnt take it seriously for a period of time.

But, against the odds, Hardware was about to get made. In an even more unlikely twist, it would become a surprise money-spinner for Harvey Weinsteins Miramax, thanks tothe companyhaving a relationship with Woolley that led them to distributesuch Palace hits as The Crying Game and Scandal. Hardware would also serveas an acting showcase for two of rocks craggiest icons: Iggy Pop and Lemmy (of Motrhead).

And it would representthe opening chapter ofStanleys unconventional career as a feature director. He subsequently made the 1992 cult chiller Dust Devil before things wentspectacularly awry in 1995 afterhe was given the job of directing the disruptive duo of Marlon Brando and Val Kilmer in The Island of Doctor Moreau. (After just three days on set, he was fired by fax.) Recently Stanleyhas achieved another milestone, as his adaptation of HP Lovecrafts Colour Out of Space opens in cinemas.

Allthis, however,was in the future. As Stanley put down the phone in Pakistan, hewondered if he wasnt dreaming.In subsequent months,that suspicion would never entirely dissipate. Halfway through the Hardware shoot, which took place at the Roundhouse in Camden, Hornturned to his director and suggested that they must have died back in Jalalabad, making everything sincea grand hallucination.Stanleywasnt sure he disagreed.

It did feel a little uncanny, hetold Screen Anarchy in 2009, as if we werentreally on set but in Hell all along. And that the folks surrounding us werent really our friends, colleagues and loved ones, but demons sent to devour us.

No one had really heard of post-traumatic stress disorder at the time, but I guess it helped give Hardware a certain edge, an authentic stench of trauma. Hardware is what we had instead of therapy.

On its release in October 1990, Hardware would be hailed as a pulp masterpiece. The storyis stunning in its simplicity. In a far-future Earth ravaged by global warming, a scavenger (Fields of the Nephilim frontman Carl McCoy) discovers a buried robot. Hesells it to an ex-soldier, who passes it on to his sculptor girlfriend.

Unbeknownst to all, the MARK-13 is an experimental combat droid capable of self-repair and programmed to dismember on sight. Soon its chasing heroine Jill (Stacey Travis), boyfriend Moses (Dylan McDermott) and sundry other characters around a dystopian apartment complex,armed with a chainsaw, rending claws and a deadly toxin.Stanley, not-so-subtly,also flags a Bible verse Mark 13:20 No flesh shall be spared.

Stanleyhad intended for the film to be set in a future-shock Britain, but under pressure from Weinstein and Miramax, he agreed to a transatlantic casting. Hence Travis, a Texan,shares the screen with British actors such as Mark Northover and Paul McKenzie.

I didnt believe the movie would get made,Stanleylater revealed. They used extraordinary means to get me back from Afghanistan. They chartered my immediate ex-girlfriend to bring me home. I [went] directly from the Afghan conflict to developing Hardware.

Stanleyhad used his music industry contacts to convince Iggy Pop to play the part of DJ Angry Bob (who never appears on screen). And he talked Debbie Harry of Blondie into portraying a cab driver plying the flooded byways of his future city. Unfortunately,she dropped out to go on tour. So the director went to the nearest pub, on Chalk Farm Road in Camden, in search of a replacement. There he found Motrheads Lemmy: He agreed to do it in exchange for a bottle of Jack Daniels.

You like to be in a movie, Lemmy later said in a behind-the-scenes feature about the making of Hardware. But you dont realise how boring it is to be in one. Its bloody boring, acting in a movie. Its standing around really.

It was shot in London in the middle of winter, Stanleyadded. The weather was like a hurricane at times. It was all made more difficult by the fact Lemmy wasnt following his script [and was]ad-libbing all the dialogue.

Palace had stumbled onStanleys script after it decided to make a straight-to-video horror in the vein of Evil Dead, and thedistribution deal with Miramax had raised the stakes. The budget of $800,000 (626,000), however, was still puny considering the many special-effects shots required.

Stanleys solution was to hire a crew made up of eager newcomers. Theseincluded 15-year-old Chris Cunningham, later to become famous directing videos for Bjrk, Aphex Twin and others.He was already a genius, Stanley remembered.There were a lot of young people. All too young. None of them [were] paid enough.

Back then, the Roundhouse was essentially a dilapidated shed, full of junk and detritus. But it was cheap: it cost less tofilm there for a weekthan it cost to hire a soundstage at Pinewood for a day. The director was able to scrimp further by shooting through the night. He used two crews,the firstworking with the actors until 6.30pm,then the second coming in andfilming the FX sequences. Stanley was on set throughout: We were able to run 24 hours, which meant that I didnt get much sleep.

Hardware was hailed as an instant splatter classic, andMiramax took the extraordinary step of putting this mere B-picture in 700 screens across America.It duly opened at number six in the box office, going on to gross $70 million.

But its success wasdouble-edged. It landedStanleywith a lawsuit from 2000AD, which accused Hardware of lifting the robot-repairs-itself storyline from its 1980 strip SHOK! Fleetwood Comics went to court; subsequent releases of Hardware were required to include a credit acknowledging 2000AD as the source material.

Stanleys gonzo adventures in the B-movie business were just beginning. He would go through further hell filming his next picture, Dust Devil, on location in Namibia. In the end, he was locked out of the editing room by the financiers. That was followed by The Island of Doctor Moreau, a$40-million disaster.Stanleywas fired after three days of running battles with Kilmer, who had turned up at the tropical Queensland set in a sulk after discovering that his wife, Joanne Whalley, was divorcing him.

Stanley would, though, bounce back with Colour Out of Space. After condemning him to 24 years on a directors desert island, Hollywood hassuddenly embraced this maverick again. Hes already looking forward to his next project, an adaptation of Lovecrafts The Dunwich Horror.

Yet for many, Hardware will always be his masterpiece. Its weird and rough-hewn; ithas a robot with a chainsaw and Lemmy from Motrhead driving a apocalyptic taxi. What else is required?

As Stanley says of the shoot: I was actually in pretty murky psychological shape at the time. I had been fished out of the war in Afghanistan and put straight into pre-production.They were strange experiences to have back-to-back. I guess a lot of that spills over into the movie and the way it looks.

This piece is part ofScreen Secrets, aregular series telling the stories behind film and TVs greatest hits and most fascinating flops

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From Afghanistan to androids: the story behind heavy metal horror masterpiece Hardware - Telegraph.co.uk

Islamabad plays a crucial role in advancing mediation efforts between the Taliban and Washington, positioning itself as a powerful bargaining force in the future of Afghanistan.

As the talks between Washington and the Taliban have increased the possibility of a settlement in the Afghan conflict, behind the scenes, Pakistan, a state which has crucial ethnic and cultural ties with Afghanistan, has played a critical role in bringing the Taliban to the table.

Pakistan has been very consistent about the Taliban. Right after September 11, Pakistan kept telling Americans that there is a difference between the Taliban and Al Qaeda. We must talk to the Taliban, said Kamal Alam, a military analyst.

Before the September 11 attacks, the Taliban was the ruling power in Kabul. In order to go after Al Qaeda and its leader Osama bin Laden, who was based in Afghanistan, and harboured by the Taliban leadership, Washington went to war with Kabul in 2001.

The US military eventually overthrew the Taliban-led government, replacing it with a pro-Western alliance of political powers, which have not been on friendly terms with Pakistan.

In 2001, there was the Bonn conference, which brought Hamid Karzai to the government, even then, they wanted the Taliban talks to happen. When Karzai was the president, he wanted to talk to the Taliban, but the Americans did not allow him, Alam told TRT World.

But nearly two decades later, Washington appears to be bogged down in a civil war in Afghanistan, where the Taliban controls much of the country. In the face of a growing Taliban reality on the ground, US President Donald Trump currently seeks a quick exit from the conflict.

Now, Washington appears to recognise the validity of Pakistans Taliban argument, getting closer to a deal with the groups leaders.

Pakistan has long said that the Taliban is different from international terrorism and the group should be part of the Afghan dialogue, according to Alam.

Americans have finally agreed to this. Not because Americans like the Taliban, but because they are stuck after 19 years of failure, Alam underlined.

After a disputed election, the two contenders the incumbent Ashraf Ghani and Dr Abdullah Abdullah, an influential Tajik-origin politician are jostling for power, both claiming the Afghan presidency.

After all these strategic failures, Americans are saying, Right, lets talk to the Taliban. And Pakistan is bringing the Taliban to the table in Doha [the capital of Qatar, where the talks have been held], Alam said.

Pakistan: the main actor in the Taliban talks

Alam definitely thinks that Pakistan is the main actor in the ongoing Taliban talks because key people participating in the negotiations are under the influence of Pakistan.

Some of the exiled Taliban leaders have allegedly lived in Pakistan since the US occupation of Afghanistan. In the wake of the Taliban talks, Pakistan quietly released Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar,one of the co-founders of the Taliban, who joined the Doha talks right after his exit from a Karachi prison.

While Pakistan has much more influence over the Taliban than any other regional states, Iran and Russia also support the group, Azam says.

As a result, Pakistan wants to make sure that if the Taliban deal comes into force and the Americans leave Afghanistan, Washington does not have to drop all its problems on Pakistans door, according to Alam.

Thats what happened in 1989 after the Soviets departed Afghanistan in defeat and Pakistanis do not want to have another repeat of history, Alam says.

Pakistanis have done their job and now the job is an Afghan job, which is the intra Afghan dialogue. The Taliban needs to sit with Ashraf Ghani or Dr Abdullah. Now its up to the Afghans. Pakistan can not do anymore, Alam said.

The supposed agreement will create a political mechanism in which the US military will withdraw from Afghanistan in exchange to the Taliban promise that the group will not harbour any terrorist organisation which aims to attack the West.

As the US military begins withdrawing from Afghanistan, the intra-Afghan talks will be launched to address the countrys long conflict between the Taliban and Kabul, the deal proposes.

Whats actually happening on the ground?

While the Taliban and the US negotiate a deal to end their respective hostilities, the situation on the ground has not improved much.

This is just for Trump to declare a victory and say that I ended the Afghan war. There has been a peace deal, Alam said.

[But] the situation on the ground is very bad. The Taliban will continue to fight. Probably they want the whole country. And Ashraf Ghani and all other politicians want to remain in power.

If the Taliban takes over the whole country, it might also have an impact on Pakistan.

I dont think its in Pakistans interest for the Taliban to rule the whole country, Alam added, citing different factors from changing times from the 1990s to 2010s, to the rise of international terrorism, economic sanctions, the relationship with Iran and Pakistans worsening relations with India.

Source: TRT World

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Where does Pakistan stand in the Afghanistan deal? - TRT World

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will witness the signing of a U.S.-Taliban agreement on a withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan, President Donald Trump said on Friday, heralding an agreement that could help his re-election campaign.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo testifies before the House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on Trump administration policies on Iran, Iraq and use of force. on Capitol Hill, in Washington, U.S. February 28, 2020. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

The deal, part of a wider push for Afghan reconciliation and an end to the longest U.S. war, faces many obstacles, including an election feud between Afghanistans two leading politicians. It is expected to be signed in Qatars capital Doha on Saturday.

The U.S.-Taliban agreement would begin a phased withdrawal of American and coalition forces. It would require the Taliban to initiate a formal dialogue with the Afghan government and other political and civil society groups on a permanent nationwide ceasefire and power sharing in postwar Afghanistan.

U.S. forces invaded the Southwest Asian country in 2001 to topple the Taliban rulers who provided a safe haven in which al Qaeda planned the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and the Pentagon that killed nearly 3,000 people.

Among the many obstacles to peace are resolving a dispute between Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and his main political rival, Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah. Both have claimed victory in the disputed Sept. 28 presidential election.

There is also the undecided question of who will form the Afghan team that would negotiate with the Taliban on how to bring the insurgents into the political process and, ultimately, how to share power with the movement.

The agreement calls for a long-planned initial drawdown to 8,600 U.S. troops from some 13,000 but it ties further cuts to the Taliban keeping promises it may find challenging, such as cutting deep ties with al Qaeda and other militant groups.

If the Taliban and the government of Afghanistan live up to these commitments, we will have a powerful path forward to end the war in Afghanistan and bring our troops home, Trump said in a statement, saying Pompeo would soon witness the signing.

We ... urge the Afghan people to seize this opportunity for peace and a new future for their country, he added, without addressing when or where the signing would happen.

Earlier, Pompeo told U.S. lawmakers he had seen a significant reduction of violence in Afghanistan over the past six days.

If extended for a full week, the Reduction in Violence pact that took effect on Feb. 22 is expected to culminate in the signing of an agreement between top U.S. and Taliban negotiators on Saturday in Doha, the Talibans political headquarters.

Afghan officials met Taliban members in Qatar on Friday to discuss a prisoner swap plan.

Testifying before the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, Pompeo said Washington is watching to see whether neighboring Iran may seek to play a spoiler role in Afghanistan.

We have seen just these last six days a significant reduction in violence in Afghanistan, Pompeo said. He said there was a history of Iran to act as a spoiler inside Afghanistan.

Trump has made withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan a major foreign policy objective. An agreement with the Taliban to end the 18-year-old war could boost his re-election prospects.

The American troops are part of a U.S-led NATO mission that trains and aids Afghan forces and carries out counterterrorism operations to prop up the Kabul government and prevent an al Qaeda resurgence.

When I ran for office, I promised the American people I would begin to bring our troops home, and seek to end this war, Trump said in his statement. We are making substantial progress on that promise.

Additional reporting by Jonathan Landay; editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Jonathan Oatis and David Gregorio

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Pompeo to attend signing of U.S.-Taliban troop withdrawal pact - Reuters

The Government of Japan announced that it would provide USD 3.8 million dollars in financial support to the World Heritage property of Cultural Landscape and Archaeological Remains of the Bamiyan Valley in Afghanistan.

The property was inscribed simultaneously on the World Heritage List and the List of World Heritage in Danger in 2003, after the destruction of the Giant Buddhas, in recognition of its values as a testament of interconnectedness and shared history between Western and Eastern civilizations.

During its 31stsession in July 2007, the World Heritage Committee set four corrective measures for the State Party to achieve the desired state of conservation and thereby allow the property to be removed from the List of World Heritage in Danger: the State Party is to ensure site security, the long-term stability of the Giant Buddha niches, the adequate conservation of archaeological remains and mural paintings, and to implement the Management Plan and Cultural Master Plan for the World Heritage property.

The newly-approved project, which represents the 6th phase of a long-term effort to support Afghanistan in the framework of the UNESCO/Japanese Funds-In-Trust cooperation, is aimed specifically at addressing the stabilization of the rear side of the Western Buddha niche and at preserving the surviving mural paintings at various locations in the Bamiyan Valley. It will also help guide the establishment of the national cultural heritage Office at Bamiyan and reinforce human resources in the field of heritage preservation and planning at the national level.

Approved on the 90th anniversary of the diplomatic relations between Japan and Afghanistan in 2020, this initiative will provide a new impetus towards fulfilling the necessary conditions to remove the World Heritage property of Bamiyan Valley from the List of World Heritage in Danger.

The authorities of Afghanistan and the international community, already very active in joining forces to preserve component sites and build national capacities for heritage conservation and management, are further encouraged to be associated with this endeavour.

Field operations are expected to start in the autumn of 2020 after the necessary technical preparations have been completed.

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UNESCO and Japan support Afghanistan's efforts towards removing the Bamiyan Valley from the List of World Heritage in Danger - UNESCO.org