December 12, 2008
Steve Collins
Although President-Elect Obama is pledged to steadily reduce American troops in Iraq, he has also pledged to increase them significantly in Afghanistan. If he does so, it will be evident that he doesn’t appreciate the precariousness of the USA’s military position in Afghanistan. Two central tenets of military strategy are that one has to “secure your supply lines” and “secure your flanks.”
Although the Bush-Cheney administration made severe blunders in its post-invasion decisions in the Iraq War (especially disbanding the Iraqi army), it did not violate either of the above military tenets. Iraq had secure flanks (if had friendly border states in Kuwait and NATO-member Turkey) and it had secure supply lines (American troops are easily reinforced and supplied by transport ships to Southern Iraq). The American involvement in Afghanistan increasingly violates both of these military tenets. When the Afghan War began, America had reasonably secure (although extended) supply lines through Pakistan and Central Asian nations. However, increased Russian-American tensions jeopardize the air route to Afghanistan via Central Asia and increased Pakistani hostility jeopardizes the supply lines to American troops through that nation. If Pakistan openly turns hostile to America, the US Afghan War is unwinable. American troops will have no secure supply lines to its troops in Afghanistan and all the surrounding nations (the “flanks” for our troops) will be unfriendly territory.
It increasingly looks like Pakistan is turning away from its tenuous alliance with the USA. The first link below details that attacks by the Taliban (which has many supporters in Pakistan) are growing more numerous inside Pakistan itself. The link describes four successful attacks against American supply convoys passing through Pakistan, the most recent one being the most spectacular. It destroyed “more than 150 vehicles carrying supplies bound for US troops in Afghanistan.” The article notes that 3/4ths of American supplies to Afghanistan pass through Pakistan. The second link shows a picture of the mass carnage inflicted on the USA’s military supply vehicles in what was supposed to be a secure zone within Pakistan.
As readers know, Pakistan has also been implicated in the recent terrorist attacks by Islamic radicals in Mumbai, India. As India is steadily enjoying warming relations with the USA and the West, Pakistan is going the other direction. There are deep doubts whether the civilian government of Pakistan even governs the nation. Pakistan’s army and security forces are heavily-sympathetic to the Taliban by many accounts. It is obvious from the damage done to US supply convoys that the Pakistani army does not regard securing US supply lines as a priority. Indeed, sources within Pakistan’s security services are especially reported to be Taliban sympathizers so its personnel are likely giving information to the Taliban on how best to attack American supply columns. By allowing these attacks to occur with impunity, Pakistani “powers-that-be” are sending a message to the USA that its forces are not welcome in Pakistan any longer. So far, American politicians and commanders are not grasping this reality.
Ezekiel 38:5 prophesies that “Cush” (translated “Ethiopia” in the KJV) will be an ally of Russia’s “Gog-Magog” alliance at the end of this age. The name of Cush’s descendants are on Afghanistan and Pakistan as the Hindu Kush Mountains straddle both nations, so both of them are very likely to be in the anti-American, anti-western alliance led by Russia, China and Iran. Current events indicate this will be the case.
However, Pakistan may allow American forces to be supplied through Pakistan in order to inflict even more harm upon the USA. If you were a Russian, Chinese or Iranian military planner, you would want the US war in Afghanistan to continue because the Afghan War destroys and wear outs US military equipment, exhausts American soldiers with endless combat deployments and the mega-billions of dollars spent on this war will further serve to drive the USA closer to national insolvency (the US Government already can’t afford this war as it technically “broke” and is financing its wars only via endless billions of “new” dollars created by the US Federal Reserve somewhere in fantasyland). Damaging the US military and forcing the USA to spend itself into bankruptcy are important goals for war planners in Moscow, Beijing and Tehran. For this reason, the Pakistanis may be induced behind the scenes to allow America to supply its war efforts in Afghanistan via Pakistan–to ensure that America can go on “bleeding itself white” in an unwinable war.
I can see no way that the Afghan War is winnable in any classic sense. Afghanistan is “governed” by competing tribal warlords who cooperate only when their region is invaded by outsiders. The British Empire and the Soviet Union both tried to conquer Afghanistan and finally realized that they were only “throwing good money after bad” by staying. They cut their losses and got out. The USA still hasn’t grasped this strategic fact. The USA can “fight terrorism” in Afghanistan via intelligence gathering and launching bomber or cruise missiles strikes on any new terrorist training camps whenever they are spotted in Afghan territory. The US has no vital strategic interests or goals worth fighting about in Afghanistan. The USA has been drawn into a new “Vietnam” in the mountains of Afghanistan. The only ones benefiting from the continued US war in Afghanistan are the strategic war planners in Moscow, Beijing and Tehran. Their nations’ militaries are being built up, rested and supplied with new weaponry. They can sit back and watch the USA wear out its own military forces in a needless war.
There is only one thing which is predictable in the Afghan War. Whenever the USA leaves Afghanistan, the tribal warlords will reassert themselves and take over their old territories. President-Elect Obama has a very simple choice to make re: the Afghan War. How much damage does he wish to do to his own US military and to his own US balance sheet before ordering America’s troops out of Afghanistan. War planners in Moscow, Beijing and Tehran hope that it will be a long time before Obama realizes that this is his only real choice in Afghanistan.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-pakistan8-2008dec08,0,2335333.story
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/12/07/asia/pakistan.php
