To the US Public Affairs section at the National Press Club, to hear a presentation by Dr Anthony Cordesman, analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and currently an advisor to General Stanley McCrystal on Afghanistan.
Cordesman has a busy schedule in Australia, presenting seminars, giving media interviews, and meeting with government departments, as he outlines his support for a “shape, clear, hold and build” strategy in Afghanistan – “shaping” operations to “clear” and “hold” population centres, from where you can “build” better goverance.
Cordesman was scathing about the international aid effort over the past eight years (”Western contractors have often been as corrupt and inefficient as Afghan ones”), about the recent elections (”Karzai chose to turn an election he had already fixed to one modelled more on Iran”), as well as very certain in his conviction that a Taliban victory would also be viewed as a “massive strategic victory” by al-Qaeda. The US is reported to be reviewing their assessment of the links between the two movements, amid signs that the relationship has cooled.
Cordesman, however, maintains that the relationship is still close enough that the Taliban would provide al Qaeda with a sanctuary “if they won”.
The Obama administration is still deciding on forthcoming strategy for Afghanistan. And I’m still deciding on my opinion of the Obama administration…
I can report one US-related development: recent US public affairs seminars have featured a switch in catering, from trays loaded with Krispy Kreme doughnuts, to plates of (unbranded) biscuits and pastries. I thought this might have been a symbol of the age of Obama – he doesn’t look as though he scoffs Krispy Kremes – but apparently, it’s budget-related. Krispy Kremes expensive.
My thoughts about “AfPak” are complicated, long-winded, and still in process. But I can sum up my thoughts on the catering in eight words: Don’t like Krispy Kreme. Prefer the chocolate biscuits.
3 Comments
We (the West & fellow travellers) either hang in there, or we retreat from the hills and attempt to save the Pakistani lowlands from the fate that will then befall Afghanistan and Pakistan’s tribal areas- a certain second period of rule by the Taliban and all the ignorance, destruction & hopelessness that will entail.
Bush II & Cheney are the real vandals here. They deliberately starved the most important theatre of their wars so that they could invade another country that they reckoned would provide real profits to themselves and their corporate backers. We all know how that went, but at least Halliburton made a good thing out of handling the catering.
Paul Barry thinks James Packer is good at pissing money up against walls. He is just a rank amateur compared to the neocons…
PS- If what remains of Afghanistan does collapse and our forces are squeezed out, there will be one or two more Afghan refugees moving about the world than there are at present.
I prefer Tim Tams.
The AfPak situation is so complicated. I fear that the NATO invasion has driven ordinary Pathans into the arms of Taliban and will continue to do so with every civilian death. The British Empire failed to defeat the Pathans; the USSR bankrupted itself and collapsed as a result of fighting them. The Americans need a strategy other than warfare to ensure that Afghanistan and NWFP do not fall back into the arms of Taliban. Schools? Hospitals? Roads? a reliable electricity supply? no convicted kleptomaniacs in government?