Jeremy Scahill, author of “Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army”, and Rick Rowley, of Big Noise Films are back after two weeks in Afghanistan. They were not embedded with US troops. Instead they operated independently working with a translator to get a clear picture of what is happening in the war torn country and what we are really sending our troops to do.
Scahill writes for The Nation magazine in this revealing piece and declares we are losing the battle to the Taliban.
In Afghanistan, Taliban commanders are fond of characterizing their fight to expel the United States and its allies with the phrase, “You’ve got the clocks, we’ve got the time.” While US leaders are struggling to define what victory would look like in Afghanistan, the forces they are fighting are not. “We have two goals: freedom or martyrdom,” says Taliban commander Salahuddin. “If we do not win our freedom, then we’ll die honorably for its cause.” The continuing US targeted-killing campaign and renewed airstrikes ordered by General Petraeus seem only to be further weakening the already fragile Karzai government. In plain terms, the United States’ own actions in Afghanistan seem to be delivering the most fatal blows to its counterinsurgency strategy and its goal of winning hearts and minds. “I think that the Americans are already defeated in Afghanistan, they are just not accepting it,” says former Taliban official Zaeef.
“If the US pulls out, my heart will be very sad because there will be a civil war,” says Asif Mohammed, a young driver who escorts supply convoys to Kabul. “If they stay, they will continue killing our women and children.” In the end, there could be the worst of both worlds: an escalation in raids by US Special Operations Forces, with their heavy toll on civilians, and a failed counterinsurgency campaign incapable of stopping a civil war.
