NATO forces in Afghanistan will step up attacks on drug lords and narcotics traffickers who are supporting a Taliban insurgency that has rebounded in the past year, according to the top US commander in Afghanistan.General David McKiernan also warned on Wednesday that US forces can't copy a central element of military success in Iraq -- recruiting local tribes to support them -- because the Afghan tribal structure has been shattered by 30 years of war. He made it clear that NATO's International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF, was not going to eradicate poppy crops. Afghanistan is the world's top grower of opium poppies, which are processed into heroin.
But by drawing a clear link between the narcotics trade and the insurgency, General McKiernan was outlining what could be an important and expanding role for US and NATO troops as they seek to eliminate a source of money and weapons for the insurgency.
"I think there's a need for increased involvement in ISAF in assisting the Afghan Government in counter-narcotics efforts," said the ISAF commander. "Where we can make a clear intelligence linkage between a narcotics dealer or a facility and the insurgency, I consider that a force protection issue, and we can deal with that in a military way."
General McKiernan said the Taliban would get at least $US100 million ($A126 million) in heroin proceeds this year.
On the subject of tribal outreach, he said it was not possible to import the US experience in Iraq, where US commanders directly recruited and paid Sunni tribes to switch sides and fight against al-Qaeda, he said. "What I find in Afghanistan," General McKiernan said during a Pentagon briefing on Wednesday, "is a degree of complexity in the tribal system which is much greater than what I found in Iraq. One of the real differences between Afghanistan and Iraq was, if you recall, Afghanistan was in the midst of a civil war when we intervened. And that potential is still there."
Republican presidential nominee John McCain has often cited the US strategy in Iraq as a model for how to win in Afghanistan.
| Palin did also. This may end up in an ad by the Obama people ... |
| There's some Army politics at work here. McKiernan appears to be a Big Army guy who clashed with Tommy Franks over the threat McK saw from Saddam's Fedayeen. He wanted a lot more troops from Rumsfeld in 2003 and pretty publicly lost post-war command in Iraq to Sanchez. I'm not saying he's wrong in this case but his history suggests that if he's going to get it wrong it will by by overestimating the strength of irregular forces ... or more precisely, dismissing what good strategy can do with regard to them. This is a jab at Petraeus. It may be an accurate assessment of the situation in Afghanistan, or it may not, but it's definitely got an Army-political dimension to it. |