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The Only Way to Win in Afghanistan

We must build up the strength and role of indigenous forces in our drive for victory in Afghanistan and deliver on the promises we made to the Afghans decades ago when their fierce resistance, with our aid, led to the signal defeat of Soviet forces and helped end the Cold War.

But policy flaws, rather like those that turned liberation into quagmire in Iraq, may well undermine our renewed efforts in Afghanistan as President Obama shifts the U.S. focus away from Iraq. We need to recognize that “boots on the ground” are not the primary factor of success.

We only had about 150 “boots on the ground” when the Taliban was defeated and driven out of Kabul seven years ago. In Iraq, contrary to what the military mavens claim, a lack of policy, not a lack of manpower, turned victory into four years of mayhem. Our amazing initial success in Afghanistan, in contrast, was due to relying on an established local power base, the Northern Alliance, a loose-knit yet powerful alternative to the Taliban and al Qaeda.

In the 1990s, House International Relations Committee Chairman Ben Gilman, and I along with other veterans of the Mujahideen war against the Soviets, nurtured this opposition coalition. The Clinton administration at the time was involved in covertly supporting Taliban rule.

After Sept. 11, 2001, the fighting power of this northern/ethnic coalition was mobilized, and with U.S. air support, al Qaeda terrorists and their Taliban hosts were forcibly expelled from the country.  This was done with a minimal loss of American lives and relatively few American “boots on the ground.”

In Iraq, our troops destroyed Sadam Hussein’s military forces magnificently, thus ending his genocidal regime. But because we did the fighting, no local forces or commanders were readily available to fill the power vacuum. We exacerbated that problem with a stunning display of naivete and arrogance after the liberation.

In short, President Bush’s personal choice as boss of occupied Iraq, Paul Bremer, was an unmitigated disaster. Hubris is too mild a description of the ego-driven elitism surrounding his management of Iraq. Instead of recognizing and using the traditional social-political institution, Mr. Bremer, acting as a Douglas McArthur wannabe, set out to redo the entire society.

We alienated a host of influential Iraqis who should have been our allies. It was not until Gen. David Petraeus initiated an effort to recruit Iraq’s tribal leaders that the situation began to turn around. The progress continues, and there is ample reason for optimism in Iraq.

Afghanistan, in contrast, started out successfully and is now on a downhill slide. This negative turnabout can be traced to a misconception about the Northern Alliance. Apprehension about armed ethnic and tribal forces led our government to disarm those very same militias that defeated the Taliban, even as the Taliban regrouped and rearmed across the border in Pakistan.

America then put its emphasis on establishing a central government based in Kabul as the dominant authority in Afghanistan, something no one – foreign or Afghan – has been able to do for centuries.

Rather than lack of “boots on the ground,” victory is being turned into defeat by the insistence on centralized power. That takes the form of a grandiose plan to train and equip a 135,000-man National Army. “It won’t work,” I sadly told a U.S. general who briefed me in Afghanistan over the recess. “This plan will fail.”

The general could not fathom how his plan, based on centralizing power in Kabul, was totally unworkable. I predicted all the militias and ethnic and provincial power brokers left out of the general’s plan soon would be hired on by the drug cartels and Taliban fanatics. The situation, I cautioned, would worsen, not improve.

A genuine commitment to decentralizing power and authority in Afghanistan is only part of the solution, but a critical one. This is difficult for military leaders, schooled in chains of command and top-down structure, to comprehend.

Afghanistan needs elections at the provincial level. Education, police and local services should then be administered by the elections’ winners.

A strong national army is needed. The militias, tribal forces and so-called “war lords” must be part of the plan. These battle-hardened forces must be incorporated into the Afghan version of our National Guard. The elected provincial governor would be the commander in chief, but the “provisional guard” would also be part of the overall Afghan military, as the National Guard is here. This would undermine the Taliban resurgence from the bottom up just as the “tribal awakening” undercut the Sunni insurgency in Iraq.

Though the trend in Afghanistan is disturbing, it is not unsalvageable. Opium production obviously remains a great challenge. Micro-herbicide can provide a solution. The State Department for years has refused to test this anti-opium poppy-killing fungus, though I saw to it that money was budgeted for such testing.

If we have the courage to use this option, the entire Afghan poppy crop could disappear for decades and no other crop would be affected. Of course, this strategy would also require instituting a major economic recovery plan as soon as the fungus is used

Reconfiguring the political landscape in Afghanistan is not enough. Inclusion of the diverse fighting forces in that country is not enough. Just destroying the poppies is not enough. We as a nation need to rebuild Afghanistan as we promised.

We broke our promises after the brave Afghan people, at tremendous personal sacrifice, defeated the Soviet Army and helped bring an end to the Cold War. We broke our word again after the defeat of the Taliban.

The United States went into Iraq and spent a trillion dollars, part of which should have been used to rebuild Afghanistan. Now we have a second chance to prove our respect of and gratitude to the Afghan people, and to keep our word.

The way to win in Afghanistan is to help rebuild the country from the bottom up. Do that and the whole Muslim world will know it is good to be America’s friend in more ways than one.

I Oppose Los Angeles Port Deal with China

The  Port of Los Angeles was wrong to give a contract for security equipment to a Chinese Company in the first place.  It was right to take a second look at the matter.  It is now wrong to give the issue a third round of decision making.  All of this confusion relates directly to the lack of guidelines by the Department of Homeland Security.  The most important factor in purchasing security equipment should be that it’s not coming from a potential enemy.  That should exclude Chinese security equipment.  The fact that the President of China’s son is part of this deal indicates that the whole deal deserves a great deal more scrutiny.  I would suggest that the Port of Los Angeles start all over again and this time exclude consideration for  security equipment  manufactured by a potential national security threat like China.

A Modest Proposal for a Bold Agenda

1. CHINA

For the last thirty years, the United States has permitted lopsided trade with China.  We have made it easy for American businesses to shut down domestic manufacturing and relocate factories in China.  We have closed our eyes to technology rip-offs and the wholesale theft of American intellectual property.  All this has been justified by the clearly flawed argument that economic engagement will result in political reform.  There has been no political reform.  We have created a monster that threatens our security even as it undermines the prosperity of our people.  It is time to end this lopsided trade and stand up for our own people rather than the limited number of billionaires who are reaping huge short-term profits from trade with China, even as it drags down their fellow Americans and puts our country in jeopardy.  All this while Chinese believers continue to be thrown into a murderous prison system.

2. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

We’ve done our best not to confront this thinly veiled power play, but for over a decade, multinational mega-tech electronic companies have been trying to destroy America’s patent system. That, or at least weaken it so our inventors can be robbed, as they are under the weak patent laws found in much of the rest of the world. These mega-tech giants, who don’t want to pay royalties to the little guy, have never been our friend.  The so-called patent reform bills of the past 15 years have been aimed not at reforming the patent system, but weakening it, perhaps fatally. The GOP should be the friend of America’s small inventors and all of the other industries and educational institutions that rely on strong patent protection.

3. HEALTHCARE

We must be the party of choice and cost reduction.  We must lead the fight against efforts to regulate and control vitamins and food supplements. Sick Americans, especially the terminally ill, should not be denied the right to experiment with drugs that have yet to be approved.
The elongated process of FDA approval costs tens of billions of dollars and is responsible for the death of hundreds of thousands of Americans.  We must champion the freedom of our people as compared to the Democrats who will protect them to death, hurting more people than they are helping while driving costs ever higher.

4. ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION

President Bush and Senator McCain did America and the GOP a disservice when they smothered the anti-illegal immigration sentiment evident among Republicans.  It was one of the few major wedge issues that could have attracted Democrat voters.  We have limited health care and education dollars.  Insisting those resources go to American citizens and legal immigrants should be a no-brainer.  Muddying the water so the voters did not have a clear choice on this issue cost us votes.  Again, we need to proudly proclaim we are on the side of the American people if we expect them to be on our side.

5. GLOBAL WARMING

Most of us, even those too cautious to say so, know that Global Warming is a politically motivated hoax, a power grab of historic proportion.  We must have the courage to stand up and argue our case.  Our positive alternative is that we are targeting pollution here at home, which is a goal we can achieve, rather than attempts to change the climate trends of the entire planet.  The global warming agenda will be rejected by the American people if we alert them to the enormous price (money and lifestyle) they are expected to pay.  Our members should be thoroughly briefed to meet the rapidly approaching debates on this issue. The American people will suffer as a result of this nonsense.  Again, we need to be on their side.

6. GLOBALISTS vs. PATRIOTS

The US should not be granting more power and authority to the United Nations, or any other unelected international body.  It threatens the sovereignty of our nation.  Nations that have some of the worst human rights records in the world are represented in this body and have a voice in global policy set by the U.N.  We should focus our international efforts on bilateral (country to country) rather than multilateral agreement.  This fundamental difference between our parties needs to be highlighted whenever possible.  American interests, not some globalist dream, should be the major focus of American diplomacy.

7. BAILOUTS

Had McCain opposed the Wall Street bailout, the election would have been different.  The majority of our GOP House Members opposed the bailout, yet our leadership used its influence to the contrary.  This only solidified the image that there is little or no difference between the parties and reaffirmed what the American people have begun already to believe—that the GOP has become the party of rich wheeler dealers.  We should oppose all future bailout proposals and offer less costly alternatives; alternatives we were denied the last time around.

8. EMPLOYEE OWNERSHIP

Abe Lincoln not only freed the slaves, he was also the father of the Homestead Act.  The Homestead Act not only shaped our country into what it is today, but also formed an alliance between Republicans and ordinary Americans that held for fifty years.  In an age of bailouts and obvious CEO abuses against their own corporations, stockholders, and employees, we should offer bold alternatives to the Democrat game plan of more and more control by federal bureaucrats.  Rather than complain about unions as the problem, which is not always the case, we should offer working people a share of the action.  In short, stock given to employees (in a wide distribution to all employees) should not be taxed as income, and if the employee holds it for tens years, there should be no capital gains tax. Expanding employee ownership will have tremendous positive political, economic, and social implications, as did Abe Lincoln’s Homestead Act.

9. PRIVATIZATION THROUGH EMPLOYEE OWNERSHIP

Let’s give the Post Service and all its assets to the postal employees, and create a new delivery corporation with no debt and lots of assets.  Then, let the Post Service compete like everybody else.  Overnight, 600,000 people who think of themselves as government employees will become private sector owners anxious to succeed. This same system of privatization may work with other parts of the federal government once it is proven with the Post Service.

10. LIMITED GOVERNMENT AND INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY

In recent years, especially since 9-11, Republicans have ignored our traditional commitment to limited and decentralized government, and in some cases, have compromised our long-term commitment to individual liberty.  This loss of fundamental direction was never clearer than when our party championed reauthorizing a version of the Patriot Act which did not include the sunsets that were such an important part of the original legislation. Now the expanded power we granted the executive branch over the years will rest in the hands of our political opponents.  When an emergency requires a temporary expansion of federal powers we need to ensure what we do will not lay the foundation for the creation of an all-powerful federal police state never intended by our founding fathers, or any of the liberty loving patriots who followed.

11. LOW TAXES AND A STRONG ROLE FOR STATE GOVERNMENT

This doesn’t require any new suggestions.  There are many great Republican ideas in this arena to draw upon.

12. ESTABLISHING A NATIONAL REFERENDUM

The California referendum process, with a few blatant exceptions, has served our state well. Having an issue presented directly to the American people to officially poll them as part of the national debate may well serve America.  If one believes our constituents to be instinctively more conservative than the people they elect to go to Washington, a national referendum, or national poll, will help us mobilize votes, as was recently the case with Proposition 8 in California.

13.    Energy

The Republicans are, and should continue to be, the champions of prioritizing the development of American domestic energy production.  Whether it be oil, gas, coal, nuclear, biomass, solar, wind or any other type of energy, we should be facilitating, utilizing, and putting online domestic sources of energy.  The Democrats are so hamstrung on this issue by the radical environmental alliance they can’t support issuing approval for solar plants in vast stretches of desert and wasteland.  They are also unable to support nuclear energy, and on that front Republicans should be supporting wonderful technology alternatives provide by the high temperature gas reactor.  The reactor is a new system that minimizes waste, maximizes safety, cannot meltdown, and can’t be turned into a weapon.  Additionally, utilizing the technology will bring down the waste in Yucca Mountain.

Dana Rohrabacher