parallax.news/By Jared Metzker
Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour, head of the Taliban, was killed in a drone strike over the weekend. His killing was touted by President Obama as a milestone, but it was also a reminder that the U.S. is fighting its longest war in history. Obama had originally planned to withdraw all troops and end the combat mission by 2017. However, a lack of progress
led him to suspend that plan.
On Monday, the Obama administration confirmed that Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour, the head of the Taliban, was killed in a drone strike carried out in southwest Pakistan on Saturday. Mansour, the intended target of the strike, had resisted a peace agreement with the U.S.-backed government. Instead, he held on to ambitions that the Taliban could regain control of Afghanistan, which the group had prior to the American invasion in 2001.
“The Taliban should seize the opportunity to pursue the only real path for ending this long conflict, joining the Afghan government in a reconciliation process that leads to lasting peace and stability,” Obama said Monday, re-iterating his call for a unity government that includes Taliban members.
Obama had originally planned to withdraw all U.S. troops and end the combat mission in Afghanistan by 2017, before the conclusion of his presidency. A lack of progress compelled the president to cancelthat goal, however, last October. Now, it appears likely that the nearly 10,000 American troops stationed in Afghanistan could remain until the next president takes office and decides what to do with them.
Killing Mansour served to highlight Obama’s intention to continue waging a limited war in Afghanistan and, by extension, Pakistan, where the Taliban is partly based. The objective of Obama’s strategy is to weaken the Taliban to the point where it can be contained politically, as well as militarily by local Afghan forces. Without backup from the U.S., most experts believe, the Taliban would likely overrun the Afghan military and regain power.
If the Taliban were able to retake Afghanistan, the likely resultwould be a humanitarian crisis. The fundamentalist group, during its reign, imposed draconian rules, carrying out many public executions, for example, and prohibiting women from going to school. The group, after 15 years of war, might also take violent revenge against those perceived as supporting the U.S.-backed government. This helps explain polls showing around 80% of Afghans favoring a continuing American presence in their country.
General David Petraeus argues that more air power is needed to defeat the Taliban
David Petraeus, the former commander of the U.S. military mission in Afghanistan, is worried that the Obama strategy might not be strong enough. The four-star general warns that, unless the administration is willing to unleash more military might in the near term, there is a risk of failing to transfer power to local Afghan forces. This could ultimately allow the Taliban to regain dominance of Afghanistan, where it might once again begin harboring terrorist groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS.
Specifically, Petraeus wants an increase in the use of air power against the Taliban. The U.S. and its NATO allies have only carried out around 300 strikes so far this year, less than 5% of the number of those being conducted in Iraq and Syria. This is because strikes are almost exclusively restricted to targeting those working with al-Qaeda and ISIS. Along with a U.S. troop reduction of around 90% over the last five years, Petraeus sees insufficient use of air power as contributing to the Taliban’s rising strength. Since the U.S. drawdown started, the Taliban has managed to win control of new territory accounting for between 5%-10% of the Afghan population.
Petraeus argues that more airstrikes should be aimed at Taliban members, whether or not they pose an imminent threat or are actively affiliated with international terror groups like ISIS. Considering that the Taliban harbored al-Qaeda around the time of the 9/11 attacks, the general believes the president is legally able to attack the group at will under his Authorization of Military Force, which allows for indefinite war against those responsible for 9/11. To this day, he notes, the Taliban is vocally supported by al-Qaeda leadership.
Petraeus estimates that it will take about two years for Afghanistan to develop its own air force potent enough to take on the Taliban. Until then, the general believes the U.S. would be wise to remember why it went to the country in the first place.
“Some might reasonably ask, after 15 years of war in Afghanistan, why do we need to keep at it? The answer is simple: because Afghanistan, effectively the eastern bulwark in our broader Middle East fight against extremist forces, still matters,” Petraeus argued. “We went there to take away from al Qaeda the sanctuary in which the 9/11 attacks were planned. We have stayed to ensure that this remains the case.”
Representative Barbara Lee says that the Afghanistan war was a mistake and should be ended
In the days immediately following the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. House and Senate took votes on whether to authorize war. Out of more than 500 lawmakers, only one voted against the authorization. Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) remains in the House to this day, and she continues to oppose the operation in Afghanistan, which has become the longest war in American history.
“In 2001, I opposed the authorization for this war because it empowered any president to wage endless war without the Congressional oversight mandated by the Constitution. Fourteen years into this war, this endless war continues and Congress continues to abdicate its Constitutional responsibility,” Lee said last year, after President Obama announced the cancellation of a planned troop withdrawal.
Lee points out that invading and occupying Afghanistan has cost the lives of more than 2,300 American soldiers. This, she notes, is not even counting the thousands more who have been killed fighting alongside the U.S., including local Afghan forces and members of the NATO alliance. For Lee and other opponents of the war, it doesn’t make sense to continue sacrificing military members for a mission, to bring democracy and stability to Afghanistan, which most Americans think will end in failure.
At the same time, Lee cites the $715 billion in direct financial costs associated with the Afghan war. She estimates the war has cost taxpayers about $4 million every hour that it has been ongoing. That money, the California representative says, could instead be used to domestically to improve living standards in America or bolster national security in other ways.
Lee has proposed that the key to ending the Afghanistan war is to rescind the Authorization of Military Force passed in the wake of 9/11. This is a necessary step, she argues, for reducing the likelihood of more ill-conceived wars and returning war declaration powers to the legislative branch, where they belongs according to Article I of the Constitution. Once the AUMF is eliminated, Lee believes, Congress can move to debate whether to continue waging the Afghanistan conflict or significantly reduce its scope.
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