KABUL – US Army General John Nicholson is repeating the dangerous mistakesof the past.
In a recent interview he echoed the mantra of his predecessors, that thenew US military strategy — which includes increasing both air power and thenumber of American troops training Afghan forces — has fundamentallychanged the situation in Afghanistan.
Nicholson, commander of US forces in Afghanistan and head ofNATO’s Resolute Support Mission since March 2016, should know better by now.
In 2014, Nicholson’s predecessor, General John Campbell, said that he, too,had “seen the change.” General Joseph F Dunford referenced “theinevitability of our success” in 2013. His predecessor, General JohnAllen, declared, “We are winning. We are winning.” In 2011, General DavidPetraeus said that US forces had “reversed the momentum of the Taliban.”
General Stanley A McChrystal, in 2010, thought that “success is stillachievable,” while General David McKiernan, in 2009, observed that theUnited States was not “losing in Afghanistan.” And on it has gone sinceUS-led forces ousted the Taliban from power in 2001.
US military commanders might have a better sense of what’s really going onif they spent more time visiting civilian medical facilities like NangarharRegional Hospital, as Patricia Gossman did last December.
Patricia Gossman interviewed recent air and drone strike victims, like the15-year-old boy who had to have both feet amputated after an Afghan armyhelicopter gunship strafed his family’s car while they were on their way toa funeral, killing his aunt and injuring three others.
These endless claims of “victory tomorrow” are bookended by anothercatchphrase used to dampen expectations: “Afghanistan is not Switzerland.”
Foreign military commanders and officials have used one version or anotherfor years. The new US national security adviser, John Bolton, made thecomparison to justify US forces working closely with warlords.Petraeus said the United States was not “trying to turn Afghanistan intoSwitzerland … [just something] good enough for Afghanistan.” And the UnitedNations Secretary General’s special representative to Afghanistan, Staffande Mistura, commenting on the prospects for credible elections in 2010following the tainted 2009 vote, said, “They will not be Swiss elections,they are going to be Afghan elections.”
Lost in all this positioning is the stark fact that since 2009 the war hasclaimed the lives of 28,291 civilians and injured 52,366. The UN notes thatthose numbers are only the casualties it could confirm. The real numbersare most likely much higher.
The Taliban and other insurgents have been responsible for roughly 70 percent of those deaths and injuries, and Afghan government forces andinternational — largely US — forces have been responsible for the rest—themost recent in Kunduz where an Afghan Air Force attack on theTaliban killed dozens of civilians, including children, at a religiousgathering.
The numbers don’t tell the full story, though. – Agencies