Afghanistan: An American Tragedy

Why is the United States engaged in massive ground warfare in Afghanistan in 2010?  When it launched Operation Enduring Freedom in October 2001 its aims were (1) to find Osama Bin Laden and the other Al-Qaeda leaders and bring them to trial, (2) to destroy the Al Qaeda organization, and (3) to eliminate the Taliban regime and thus end the use of Afghan territory as a safe haven for Al-Qaeda and other international terrorist groups.  Only partial success was achieved.  The Al-Qaeda leadership escaped.  Its organization remained intact, although it did suffer a serious blow to its operational effectiveness.  By mid December the Taliban government was overthrown and the Taliban were ejected into the frontier regions of Pakistan.  Afghanistan was no longer a safe haven for international terrorists.

It is important to acknowledge that Afghan forces supported by U.S. airpower achieved these partial successes.  In the north it was primarily the Northern Alliance, which seized Mazar-i-Sharif, Kunduz, and Kabul.  In the south it was primarily tribal forces led by Gul Agha Sherzai and Hamid Karzai, which seized Kandahar.  Very quickly after the fall of Kabul local tribal forces liberated the western provinces along the Iranian border to include the city of Herat and in the east local forces seized Jalalabad.  By December 7 there were no organized Taliban forces remaining in Afghanistan.  United States airpower played an essential role in these successes, but the support by U.S. ground forces was negligible.  American boots on the ground numbered less than 5,000 by December 7.

At this juncture the United States could have withdrawn its combat forces from Afghanistan, leaving the Northern Alliance and the other anti-Taliban forces to establish a government “made in Afghanistan by Afghans” with economic and humanitarian assistance from the United States and eventually from the United Nations.  The United States was no longer in a position to pursue its other initial objectives without invading the Pakistani border territories where Al-Qaeda had found sanctuary. This, of course, was totally out of question.  So, the war against Al-Qaeda would have to be conducted by other means.

The United States government decided that it would create a new justification for a continuing military effort in Afghanistan by adopting the mission of creating a new Afghan state.  In this radical departure from its initial objectives the United Nations Security Council aided the United States.  The Council called for an international conference to be held in December 2001 in Bonn, Germany.  The purpose of the conference as announced in the agreement that was promulgated at the conference’s conclusion was to set in motion the process to establish a new democratic government in Afghanistan.  The agreement created an Afghanistan Interim Authority to oversee the preparation of a constitution that would result in elections of a president and national assembly.  The agreement also established an International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) with the mission of assisting in the security of Kabul and the surrounding area. 

Why did the United States government modify its aims? 
Read article: http://www.unc.edu/depts/diplomat/item/2010/0912/oped/op_landis.html