What's New on Afghanistan

A bill that would prevent current planned drawdown of U.S. troops from Afghanistan is set to hit the House floor next week, continuing a policy that has not succeeded in delivering peace and stability to that country.

The fiscal year 2013 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) which passed out of the House Armed Service Committee (HASC) late last night includes “Sense of Congress” provisions (link) that will maintain a minimum of 68,000 U.S. troops from this summer through the end of 2014. It also calls on the U.S. to maintain a “credible troop presence” after 2014, the current scheduled withdrawal date for the majority of U.S. forces.

The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) is a bill that has been passed by Congress every year for over 50 years. Most authorization bills are taken up once every two-five years, but Congress has a special affinity for the military authorization bill—often calling it a “must-pass” bill. This year will be no different.

Last year, the fiscal year (FY) 2012 NDAA became synonymous with indefinite detention due to provisions included that allow for detention of U.S. citizens by the U.S. military. President Obama signed the NDAA on December 31, 2012, after it was passed by both chambers. Often forgotten, however, are some of the other momentum-building votes that happened on amendments to the FY2012 NDAA.

President Obama’s primetime announcement from Kabul, Afghanistan last night has left us all with many more questions than answers.

The President, while acknowledging the one year anniversary of the assassination of Osama bin Laden, flew to Afghanistan to sign a ten year pact with Afghan President Hamid Karzai. The Strategic Partnership Agreement, which has only recently been made public, paves the way for the United States to stay involved in Afghanistan through 2024.

As we come up on the one-year anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden, the Obama administration is poised to sign a US-Afghan Strategic Partnership Agreement that could be a prelude to Afghan civil war. Unless drastic policy changes are started immediately, reorienting US policy toward legitimate political negotiations between Afghan and regional entities, dark days lie ahead. It's time to end the US war, but the United States cannot afford to abandon Afghans.

The Obama administration has been attempting to negotiate a Strategic Partnership Agreement with Afghanistan since last year through the State Department and the Department of Defense (DoD). According to reports about the negotiations, two major sticking points were control over Afghan detainees and US-led night raid operations. The United States and Afghanistan are now poised to sign an agreement before the NATO Summit in May, where the administration plans to roll out the agreement.

Events in Afghanistan over the last several months have driven U.S. support for the decade long war to an all time low. U.S. General John Allen, who testified to the House and Senate Armed Service Committees last week, pushed back on criticism, telling both committees the war is on track.

Yet to many Americans, the war seems completely off-track. A recent New York Times/CBS poll found that 69% of respondents don’t believe the U.S. should be involved in Afghanistan anymore (that’s up from 53% a year ago).

As is increasingly evidenced by developments in Afghanistan from gloomy intelligence reports to the Quran burning to the recent massacre of 16 Afghan civilians, including nine children, it is long past time for the U.S. military to leave that country.

After weeks of tumultuous upheaval, the slaying allegedly by a U.S. Army Staff Sergeant is just the most recent incident undermining U.S. objectives to win hearts and minds. Frankly, that mission has long been lost.

Scrolling through articles on my iPhone-a ritual on my morning commute-I was astonished by this headline in the New York Times: "Pentagon Says U.S. Citizens With Terrorism Ties Can Be Targeted in Strikes." That is to say: no charges, no trial, no jury and no due process. The Pentagon, with executive branch signoff, can strike down any U.S. citizen where they stand anywhere around the world.

The article opens: "The Obama administration's top Pentagon lawyer on Wednesday said that American citizens who join Al Qaeda can be targeted for killing and that courts should have no role in reviewing executive branch decisions about whether someone has met such criteria."

It’s no secret that war is expensive. The U.S. has spent over $1,400,000,000,000 ($1.4 trillion) in Afghanistan and Iraq since 2001. This figure represents operational costs, not long term costs such as veteran care, which will rise for decades to come. However, looking at the fiscal year 2013 war funding request, you might think war is getting less expensive. Not quite. Funding overall is on the decline, yes, but the war in Afghanistan still costs $1 million per soldier, per year.

Overall, war funding is on the decline because of troop withdrawals from Iraq. Afghanistan war funding is also down due to troop withdrawals. The Fiscal Year (FY) 2013 funding request for Afghanistan is $88.5 billion, approximately $26 billion less than what was appropriated in FY 2012. But there is a hitch: the FY13 request assumes that 68,000 U.S. troops will remain in Afghanistan through September 2013, when the fiscal year ends.

This weekend Matt Southworth and I packed our bags and took our excitement about the upcoming young adult Spring Lobby Weekend on the road, touring the Tri-College Consortium of Bryn Mawr, Haverford, and Swarthmore.

At Swarthmore, we worshipped with young Friends in a beautiful meetinghouse, and Matt shared the story of his first experience lobbying--at Spring Lobby Weekend 2006, lobbying to end the Iraq war, in which he fought. Speaking about Spring Lobby Weekend after meeting for worship brought a gravity and a power to the conversation that sometimes can get muffled in an office environment.

Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta announcement about Afghanistan last week was both unexpected and welcomed. During a visit to Brussels, Belgium, Panetta told journalists “hopefully by mid- to the latter part of 2013 [the U.S. will] be able to make a transition from a combat role to a training, advise-and-assist role.” Previously, 2014 was the year which the U.S. had committed to transition all authority to the Afghan government. The Obama administration has since backpedaled on the announcement, unfortunately muddling whether this move is a rhetorical or strategic shift.

The Obama administration should stick by the 2013 proclamation and take the long view on U.S.-Afghanistan policy. The announcement, if a shift in strategy, is a step in the right direction—and an opportunity to end not only the U.S. war, but also the broader conflict.

President Obama finished his third State of the Union Address the same way he began it—by touting what the administration considers foreign policy successes. “For the first time in nine years, there are no Americans fighting in Iraq” President Obama said, concluding his address by stating, “Ending the Iraq war has allowed us to strike decisive blows against our enemies.”

This kind of rhetoric is incredibly unfortunate. The logic contained within these thoughts says that force has worked to end wars when it has, in fact, failed to deliver long term peace and stability. We can clearly see this playing out in Iraq today—not to mention, as I wrote in December, the U.S. war in Iraq may have concluded, but the long term damage is far from done running itscourse.

On January 5th, President Obama and Secretary of Defense Panetta released the Pentagon's new military strategy document, designed to guide military budgets and operations for years to come. Despite the heavy rhetoric from President Obama and Secretary Panetta claiming the new strategy represents big changes, I find little more than cosmetic touch ups to the same old war policies that have gotten the US into its current economic and security problems and reaped horrendous global damage along the way.

Yes, the size of the forces will be reduced somewhat. Yes, there's a shift away from the idea of the US being able to fight two major wars simultaneously (that one has been buried in Iraq and Afghanistan already). Yes, military planners will be focusing more on Asia and the Middle East, less on Europe and Latin America. And yes, there will be changes in the budget line items (think more drones and cyberwarfare) presented to Congress.

As the last U.S. soldiers leave Iraq, our nation is reflecting on the legacy of this war for returning veterans, for taxpayers, and for U.S. relations with the rest of the world. But nine years later, I’m concerned that as a nation we are simply trying to put Iraq behind us rather than learn some lessons from this conflict. Let us all not forget the biggest lesson of all: the Iraq war was a mistake.

When I deployed to Iraq in 2004, our government argued we were in Iraq to break Saddam Hussein’s ties to al Qaeda, to continue the search for weapons of mass destruction and to bring freedom and democracy to the Iraqi people. Today, very few people argue there were strong links between Iraq and al Qaeda before the U.S. invasion (al Qaeda moved in after the invasion). The CIA has acknowledged that it was the United Nations and the international community that blocked Iraq from developing weapons of mass destruction. And looking at the headlines from Iraq, freedom and democracy still seems a long way away for the Iraqi people.

2011 has been a remarkable year in our lobbying for a world without war. I'm also acutely aware of how many challenges remain and how much work we have ahead in 2012.