Kagan: US Withdrawal from Afghanistan Will Mean 'Victory for
al-Qaida' Now!
Tuesday, 28 Jan 2014 10:25 AM
By Melissa Clyne
America’s safety is directly tied to keeping al-Qaida from gaining
a foothold in Afghanistan,
an impossible feat without "massive infusions of international
support," according to Fred Kagan,
director of the Critical Threats Project at the American Enterprise Institute.
Writing Monday in a Wall Street
Journal op-ed piece, Kagan said it’s more crucial than ever for the U.S. to
leave boots on the ground in Afghanistan, despite claims by Afghan President
Hamid Karzai about "American abuses" or his refusal to sign a
security agreement that would "give legal basis to continued U.S.
presence" beyond the scheduled NATO
military withdrawal at the end of this year.
Karzai, according to Kagan, is
nothing more than a "jaded politician fading gracelessly from the
scene," who has zero credibility with the Afghan people.
Karzai's refusal to sign the
Bilateral Security Agreement – a pact providing for thousands of troops to
remain in the country to help train Afghan forces – has virtually no support
among the Afghan people or its future leaders, according to Kagan.
"On the contrary, the
gathering of influential elders and leaders [Karzai] convened in November to
consider the Bilateral Security Agreement emphatically endorsed it and called
on him to sign it quickly," he said. "Almost every major candidate
running to succeed Mr. Karzai has supported signing the agreement.
Advertisements are running on Afghan television stations calling on Mr. Karzai
to sign.
"He does not speak for
them," Kagan added. "And in a few months he will not be leading
them.”
Kagan strongly disagrees with those,
including White House adviser Douglas Lute, who say leaving Afghanistan is in America’s best interest because it
is a losing, or lost, battle. But the facts don’t support that theory,
according to Kagan, who notes that since Obama ordered 30,000 more troops into Afghanistan in
the 2009 surge the Taliban has failed to reestablish its pre-surge power. He
also notes that in a country of 32 million people, the Afghan National Security
Forces (ANSF) has gone from fewer than 100,000 members, equipped only with
rifles and pickup trucks, to more than 350,000 with "increasingly modern
vehicles, artillery and even its own helicopter support."
"Al-Qaida leadership remains
battered but defiant (and still operational) in Pakistan despite Osama bin Laden's
death,” he wrote.
"The Afghan National Security
Forces are enormously larger and more competent than they were when Obama took
office, but they are still unable to function independently against an
insurgency that remains lethal and determined.
"It is preparing for its
first peaceful transition of power in many decades. It is impossible to argue
for withdrawal on the grounds that Afghanistan no longer needs help," he
added, noting that abandoning Afghanistan now would allow a “lethal foe”"
to close in on Kabul, the nation’s capital and home to an international
airport.
“Withdrawal from Afghanistan, whether financial or military or
both, will be a defeat for the U.S.
and a victory for al-Qaida,” Kagan concluded. "It really is that
simple."
Fred Kagan
Frederick W.
Kagan was the Iraq
military strategy adviser for the George
W. Bush administration, a professor of military history at the U.S. Military Academy, is a resident scholar
at the American Enterprise Institute (think
tank), and his brother is Robert
Kagan.
Note: Robert Kagan is Frederick W. Kagan’s brother, was a senior
associate at the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace (think tank), a transatlantic fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States
(think tank), and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution (think tank).
Marc
Grossman was a trustee at the German
Marshall Fund of the United States
(think tank), and a special representative for Afghanistan & Pakistan.
German
Marshall Fund of the United States (think
tank) was a funder for the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace (think tank).
Foundation
to Promote Open Society was a funder for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (think tank), and the Brookings Institution (think tank).
George
Soros was the chairman for the Foundation
to Promote Open Society, and is a board member for the International Crisis Group.
Jessica Tuchman Mathews is a board
member for the International Crisis
Group, the president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
(think tank), a director at the American Friends of Bilderberg
(think tank), was an honorary trustee at the Brookings Institution (think
tank), and a 2008 Bilderberg conference participant (think tank).
Ed Griffin’s interview with
Norman Dodd in 1982
(The investigation into the
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace uncovered the plans for population
control by involving the United
States in war)
Thomas R.
Pickering is a co-chair for the International
Crisis Group, a distinguished fellow at the Brookings Institution (think
tank), and was the chairman of the review board that investigated the 2012 attack on U.S.
consulate in Benghazi, Libya in 2013.
J.
Christopher Stevens was killed in the 2012
attack on U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya,
and the U.S. ambassador for Libya.
Ivo
H. Daalder was a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution (think tank),
and is the NATO U.S. permanent
representative.
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