Afghanistan More Like Vietnam?

As President Obama crystallizes a new Afghan strategy, Taliban gunmen attacked a guesthouse in central Kabul, killing six United Nations employees and two Afghan security personnel. A Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, warned there would be more attacks against “anyone who works for the second round” of elections.

The New York Times reports that President Karzai‘s brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, has been on the C.I.A. payroll for years despite the suspicion of his involvement in the drug trade. The article quotes Maj. Gen. Michael T. Flynn who argues that if “we are peceived as backing thugs, then we are just undermining ourselves.” Such incidents led a Foreign Service officer, Matthew Hoh, to resign his post in Afghanistan. In Hoh’s resignation letter, he questions why “we continue to secure and bolster a failing state, while encouraging an ideology and system of government unknown and unwanted by its people.” Thus Juan Cole laments “Afghanistan looks more like Vietnam every day.”

Hoh’s letter also suggests the insurgency is fueled by the presence of foreign troops, a view also supported by Selig S. Harrison. In addition, Harrison contends Pashtun insurgents feel threatened by the “domination of the Afghan armed forces, police, secrete police and intelligence agencies by leaders of the Tajik ethnic minority.”

In The Los Angeles Times, Doyle McManus argues the U.S. can work with the Kabul government “only if it overcomes the inefficiency and corruption that have plagued it.” American officials “are hoping the international backlash against Karzai’s attempt to steal the election – including threats to cut off his pipeline of financial aid – jolted the Afghan president into a commitment to serious change.” Meanwhile, Bruce Riedel, in an interview with Der Spiegel, states Afghanistan needs “shock therapy” and explains nation-building in Afghanistan “is not doomed to failure.”