Maurice Ferre for US Senate - Florida Democratic US Senate Candidate

POSITION PAPER – AFGHANISTAN

Maurice A. Ferre – Candidate for the US Senate 2010

It is my judgment that President Barack Obama’s plan for escalation and a probable 18 month withdrawal from the Afghanistan war is not worth one more drop of American blood or $1 of taxpayers’ money, because it is doomed to failure based on history and experience.

While I feel badly that I cannot support my President, if I were representing Florida in the United State Senate today, I would vote against funding of Obama’s plan. I would oppose any increase in American involvement in Afghanistan and oppose any escalation and expenditure of American resources.

Additionally, we need to understand that we are fighting two different entities: the Taliban, a radical Sunni Islamic tribal counter insurgency, classified as an alternative fundamentalist government in Afghanistan and al-Qaeda, who are a radical Muslim ideological terrorist sect that knows no borders. This is not the same as fighting a war with a nation.

Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, and other Muslim fundamentalist jihadists are the enemies who planned and executed terrorist acts against the U.S.A., including 9/11. U.S. intelligence estimates that there are now less than 150 al Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan. Al Qaeda fighters enter and leave Afghanistan and Pakistan at will and if pushed out of Afghanistan, they will move to Iraq, where they now operate, to Somalia or Yemen.  Al Qaeda equips, finances, trains and executes their diabolic plans from multiple places: mostly in the Muslim world but also in London, Madrid, Canada, among many others.  Afghanistan as a unique “staging platform” is a myth. They are terrorists, they know no borders.

As an early and strong supporter of President Obama, I am disappointed that he has chosen to increase the presence of American troops in Afghanistan and at the same time setting a date for withdrawal. Such a policy is self-defeating.  Afghan officials who might be inclined to support the United States will be disinclined to do so for fear of retaliation by the Taliban after America withdraws. Sadly, the President’s plan is based on this fallacy.

The current U.S. military presence in Afghanistan is just over 90,000. With 30,000 new deployments most likely by fall of 2010 and with the new 5,000 NATO International Security and Assistance Coalition, our forces will be up to 135,000. Today, the Afghan army is 68,000 strong. The administration’s aspiration is to build up to a 200,000 Afghan Army and a 160,000 police force by July 2011. This is not practical or probable. It is unlikely that Afghan peacekeeping forces can be ready to hold the Taliban at bay upon American withdrawal.

The recent elections in Afghanistan firmly established the endemic corruption in the country.  The U.S. was embarrassed by the election, but we were forced to accept the results. To make matters worse, President Hamid Karzai’s brother is the alleged drug lord of Afghanistan, who in turn is the world’s premier supplier of heroin. Big bucks are involved. When we leave, will the 360,000 Afghans in arms fight the Taliban or protect the poppy fields?

Afghanistan, with a population of over 32 million across 34 provinces, has one of the highest poverty rates in the world and one of the lowest educational levels.  It has no functioning institutions, no civil society, no history of social advance in thousands of years of tribal living, no history of progress and no formal army, civil service or military tradition – in contrast to India and Pakistan. Furthermore, by our own acknowledgment, the Taliban counter insurgency is now beating us. The Afghan government has failed to recruit significant numbers of Pashtuns into the army and police, and the Pashtun-dominated insurgency is taking advantage of the negative popular feelings this imbalance engenders. Iraq had similar issues early on with balancing Shiite and Sunni representation, but the Afghan government seems unwilling or unable to learn from Iraq.  As difficult as Iraq has been, the root of the troubles in Afghanistan appear to be even more deeply entrenched.

Then there is Pakistan, where the real major issues are based. That is an even more complex situation than Afghanistan, if for no other reason than the presence of nuclear weapons.

We have made little gain after eight years of war in Afghanistan, have doubled our losses from 2008 to 2009, and continue to rely on our volunteer army. A small fraction of American families are bearing the burden of this war.

To boot, we are not paying for any of these wars. We borrow money from the Chinese and the Arab oil producers to pay for our fight and let our children worry about paying our war debts. George W. Bush in eight years took the U.S. from a $7 Trillion to a $12 Trillion debt. The Iraq war alone will cost more than $1 Trillion.

In the interim, 48 million Americans have no health insurance. Health costs in the U.S. for a decade have grown at a rate three times more than inflation. U.S. health costs are 17% of our GNP and that number continues to grow. At twice the per capita cost of Germany and Switzerland, the U.S. does not get as good recorded medical results.

Commander-in-Chief Barack Obama’s mandate is not a decisive military decision. It is meant to please all sides half-way, and thus pleases none. President Obama is making half-hearted military decisions, which generally leads to disappointing results. Unfortunately, the new Obama Afghan policy is doomed to failure; it is a military quagmire and a political grab-box, aiming to please the left and the right, but ultimately pleasing no one. We should know by now that these compromised paths do not work.

Conservative commentator George F. Will is correct in his Washington Post article, “This will not end well.” This is Obama’s Iraq. Having vowed to finish the job in the “good war,” the President is now pushing a “necessary war” (vs. a war of choice, i.e. Iraq), but the push is half-hearted, because the Democratic base is not there. Indeed, the Country is not on board with the Afghanistan war, according to all recent polls.

The United States needs to remain strong militarily. We need to be respected. Our military budget is larger than the rest of the world’s put together. That’s the price of being the dominant, and for now, the only superpower.

What we cannot do is police the world, take over unilaterally the position of multilateral organizations (NATO, UN, World Bank, IMF, etc.), nor can we become over-extended beyond our ability, as happened to Rome and the British Empire. But the most important issue is that the U.S. must regain our traditional good judgment. This is why we are the dominant power for good in the history of the world. George Will is right. Sending more troops to Afghanistan in 2010 is not good judgment.