Conn Hallinan, a columnist with Foreign Policy in Focus, discusses his article “Afghanistan: Is It Really the End Game;” the US’s unwillingness to negotiate with adversaries even as the insurgency and poppy production run wild; the Kabul suicide bombing by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s Hezb-i-Islami group; Afghanistan’s strategic importance in oil and gas transport; and the US’s responsibility for the continuing disaster in Somalia.
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And they got a great stable of writers over there, by the way.
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Colin Hallinan is one of the best of them, and his recent piece republished at antiwar.com.
I lost it in my pilot tabs here, but somewhere it's about the eventual question mark withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan.
Welcome back to the show, Colin.
How are you doing?
I'm doing fine, Scott.
How about you?
I'm doing great.
I appreciate you joining us today.
So let's see.
Yes, Afghanistan.
Is it really the end game?
Is it really the end game?
Well, that's really the question that Colin was asking.
In theory, what you have, most the public thinks and the media thinks that sometime at the end of 2014, that American and North Atlantic Treaty Organization troops are going be withdrawn from uh... from afghanistan now they're actually very few nato troops left in afghanistan at this point though a lot of american troops uh... but there is a treaty of that will uh... it at least in theory keep the u s special forces and trainers and and also aircraft and uh...c i a etc in nine bases scattered throughout afghanistan so it it will really not kind of withdrawing the the focus of the column however was the fact that here we we are drawing to some kind of conclusion there are no negotiations going on we're not talking to anybody well in other words i mean it sounds like what you're saying is the policies acting as though they've won their stalemate that they were trying to achieve but they haven't done that may not have any agreement with the taliban to let them behave as though they have won that exactly i mean that's exactly what happened you you've got this become completely odd situation where the surge went in in two thousand and nine in the idea behind the surge was a surge was supposed to uh... sort of force the taliban uh... to recognize that they couldn't have a military victory uh... and to stabilize the uh... provinces in the southern part of afghanistan specifically uh... khanda har uh... uh... and and a couple of problems helmand province a few of the other provinces in the south now the church didn't work uh... it did those particular provinces right now uh... are uh... are unstable uh... with their uh... the troops are are basically under siege poppy crop is exploded so um... they're full back into the drug trade uh... at this point and uh... the what happened is is that what the surge really did was that rather than suppress the taliban in the south it it simply spread on the insurgency to other parts of the country that were formally much more stable that is the north and the west so now you've got full-scale insurgencies going on in the north in the west you get these unstable provinces uh... in the south uh... and and the taliban uh... is not the slightest bit weakened except of course that they're not talking to us so uh...absolutely nobody knows what's going to happen the late uh... the will not delay but the former a french ambassador who just left a couple months ago uh... held a press conference about it and he said this is insane you know we've at this situation where in theory we're supposed to be withdrawing and and nothing is happening and and that i think it's a major concern uh... certainly for americans we have spent a huge amount of money uh... in afghanistan uh... it we're going to continue to spend a lot of money we haven't even really seen the bills come home because much of the money that it the long-term money that costs here are going to be on treating a lot of these uh... veterans of afghanistan also iraq uh... and at that this point we figured that the final bill between iraq and and afghanistan uh... is going to be six trillion dollars they figure that uh... national budget of the united states a little over a trillion dollars uh...we're talking big bucks here and there's just no effort by the by the administration to uh...step up the game and start to sit down and talk to people well i mean and here's the thing you can't talk at this point especially the democrats because of the way politics work and everything in dc uh...they can't sit down really negotiate with the taliban anymore they can sit down and negotiate with zawahiri at this point these guys are uh... hitler and blah blah blah like that and so politically and that was what the surge was all about in the first place was just politics right just putting off the eventual defeat until sometime after uh... you know the rubio administration takes power or something across yourself on that one uh... well you know part of it of course is that the uh... as a whole the americans tend to uh... look at the at the world through these very odd prism uh... if if everybody who poses as is evil and you know that's a term that is used in the use of terms evil even though that's really a religious term you know uh... they're evil and and so we can't one of the reasons that the administration says well in afghanistan what we can't talk to the haqqani now haqqani are a large tribe uh... that sprawls sort of between afghanistan and pakistan because most of the tribes in the in what they call the northwest frontier in the and the tribal areas of uh...of afghanistan uh... they they don't recognize that border between afghanistan and pakistan that was a border that was arbitrarily drawn in eighteen ninety three uh... by sir mortimer durand who at that time was the leading colonial officer in india and and and and actually afghan government doesn't except that line only the pakistan government does so you have this tribe you know the haqqanis and they're sort of on both sides of the border and we're not going to talk to them because they're terrorists well they're the most effective fighting force uh... that the taliban has well and you say in there they're not going to talk to the people who are the most effective fighting force who are you going to talk to right and they had no problem working with uh... hekmatyar which i can't keep track of this i didn't realize hekmatyar was actually part of the government coalition at this point is that right?
big part of it as a matter of fact he's one of the key key elements in the in the current and they were the people who just set off that big uh... suicide bombs hold that because there's a whole lot of explanation that i need to let you get to about that that suicide bombing the aftermath of it and everything else but this guy hekmatyar was the guy who laughed and bragged about how he took a bunch of cash from the americans and then turned around and helped osama bin laden escape to pakistan and said haha you guys are suckers you guys do whatever i tell you and just laughed about it in our faces and now okay american soldiers are over there getting their legs blown off for this guy uh... but we're way too good to talk to mullah omar or haqqani exactly and and the and and uh... the this kind of demonization uh... this really you know sort of well the uh... you know it it it's across the board i mean it's a we won't talk to asad uh... in syria for a long time we wouldn't talk to the national liberation front uh... or the or the north vietnamese uh... there is this idea that you know you talk to people who who what do you agree with that you're not fighting uh... those are normally what they call lunches okay now what is this group hekmatyar's group that set off this suicide bomb and why the hell is he bombing his own capital city if he's part of the government well that's a very good question scott uh... the the reason why uh... the hekmatyar's group say they bombed say they launched the bomb was because they found out about the treaty between the karzai government and the united states that will keep the u.s.troops in uh... in uh... afghanistan until uh... twenty twenty four twenty twenty four however that doesn't make a lot of sense because in fact they they they're part of the government they certainly knew this treaty was being uh...uh... was being negotiated so so i'm very doubtful that that's the reason they set off these suicide bombs i think what it is is that there are a number of groups in afghanistan are looking at that twenty fourteen and they're saying ok there's an endgame here uh... we want to be at the table what better way to be at the table uh... than to set off a massive suicide bomb uh... at the same time as you're still part of the government just to remind everybody we're here and we need to be included uh... in the final negotiations and i think that probably was the major reason uh... behind the suicide bombing because i guess again i i can't believe that uh... that a connie's group didn't know that this uh... treaty was being negotiated it wasn't even a secret i mean i think they've been talking about it in the press for the last year year-and-a-half so but here he is you know he's our ally we're allies of the karzai government he's karzai's one of the karzai's major allies that's sort of the outside of the northern alliance people uh... and they're setting off suicide bombs in kabul if you want to talk about the dysfunctional war uh... that afghanistan is the very definition of uh... a dysfunctional war and it certainly isn't a surprise it's not like a lot of people here in this country everywhere in the world said you know it's a really bad idea to invade afghanistan and they went and did it anyhow some of us knew back and said so back in two thousand one absolutely but of course you know they have gotten something which is important i mean it one way to look at it is you say gee the americans are crazy but the fact is that they now have a powerful military presence in and absolutely key strategic area uh... in central and south asia i mean they're right on the iran border uh... they're right on the russian border there are bright on that on the chinese border uh... moses pakistan uh... kazakhstan etc uh... they're they're right near pakistan i mean there's a reason why all those conquerors uh... tried to conquer afghanistan and that is because it is the crossroads to south asia to the middle east to the caspian and to east asia so the united states has a formidable military presence now and at least plans to keep it up until uh... twenty twenty four well but if any of this is on purpose it seems to be only to disrupt any trade from going through there because they sure as hell are providing security for free trade and to control it i mean what they would what they don't want is uh... they don't want those afghan minerals uh... going to china uh... and to russia they want to keep the pressure on the iranians and they want to be in a position to influence what happens to iranian oil and gas specifically a pipeline uh... that would run from iran through pakistan to india and uh... originally when the uh... before the war started the bush administration was talking to the afghan government about running a gas pipeline from kazakhstan from the natural gas fields in kazakhstan through southern uh... afghanistan to india and that was an effort to bypass the kind of control that uh... russians have of much of the uh...uh... caspian oil and gas and so you know the old joke you know this is all about oil no it's not all about oil some of it's about natural gas i mean that still is a very strong element there and what i find interesting is that people avoid that or when you say it they say oh that's well see the problem is is it such shorthand it makes it sound like all the policy is americans having cheap but that's not what it is at all this is all about military strategy about denying or at least having the ability to deny uh... fuel resources in a crisis in the event of a war with china to be able to cut them off that kind of thing this has nothing to do with making us all fat and rich and happy and so when people hear that they think that's what you mean and they go yeah right because i'm paying four bucks a gallon pal don't tell me i'm saving money on this yeah no you're absolutely right i mean this this is a strategic move it's a worldwide strategic move in and you can you cannot separate what's going on right now in afghanistan from the that what they call the asia pivot uh... by the uh... by the obama administration because a lot of this has to do with the politics of pakistan china and india and and that is it that's a very relevant element in this asia pivot this move to essentially challenge china and it's not just challenging china in the east uh... pacific that is it i mean the western pacific so it's not just you know japan and the islands in south korea etc it's also south asia and it's central asia because one of the things the chinese are doing is that they're trying to figure out how to move a lot of the oil and gas by pipeline because they move eighty percent of it now by sea and and those that oil and gas goes through choke points that are controlled by either the fifth u.s. fleet uh... or the seventh u.s. fleet and the chinese are very nervous about that and i think that they have a certain basis to be so and now that i think about there's some more mujahideen that the west supports i don't know they're all along still or what but the Uyghurs in afghanistan when they're going through afghan camp that ain't too bad no absolutely i mean you know they're like chechens they're they're alright for mujahideen and and you know if the thing about it is is of course the Uyghurs uh... and and and the uh... groups of people in uh... in western china they have absolutely legitimate grievances uh... there there is a way in which that you know the chinese uh... are perfectly capable of uh... of looking imperial uh... when they put their mind to it and uh... and a lot of the stuff that's going on particularly in the south china seas relationship to uh... vietnam uh... malaysia uh... taiwan etc it is the chinese you know throwing their weight around on the other hand what's going on right now uh... in are around between japan and china uh... is really not the chinese picking a fight this is the japanese picking a fight and from the chinese point of view they think that the japanese are doing it because the u s is egging them on not entirely accurate uh... but it it certainly is a very dangerous situation i mean is that as bad as a situation in afghanistan if you would ask me in one of them one of the most dangerous areas in the world right now uh... i would say the single most dangerous area right now uh... is the east china sea i mean that's a dangerous dangerous uh... area of the world and i don't think people are paying a lot of attention to it and i think that's a very bad idea i know it's a long way from afghanistan but it's all linked all of this stuff is sort of either linked by pipelines or linked by politics yes sir and as we can see in syria whatever the fighting uh... al-qaeda ish warriors all over the world is simply the cover story for all these great power politics just like always you know whether it's the wolfowitz doctrine or the hillary clinton smart power one it's basically the same uh... goals in mind and the same means for that matter a lot of time and if you look particularly at the sudden appearance of uh...terrorism in the shahara uh... and uh... there there there is uh... this suddenly you know they're talking about al-qaeda uh... taking over uh... the sahara and there's a situation in mali and situation in nigeria and situation somalia terrorism was never a problem uh... in the sahara and uh... the situation in mali will really wasn't the result uh... al-qaeda when it was a result of the something all of us that which was if you overthrow the gaddafi government uh... there's going to be a flood of arms all over africa uh... and a lot of people who take advantage of those arms and that's exactly what's happening so i think that the that the key thing that you said about looking young you've seen what you do you mean and then using that as a way to step in the most obvious example and and the most current example right now uh... is a growing u.s. military presence on the african continent the formation africom the fact that they're setting up a drone base uh... in nigeria uh... that they are involved in mali that they're involved in in zimbabwe that they're actively involved in in somalia uh...you know these are suddenly the u.s.uh... is is in the african continent in a way that it wasn't you know before right now let me stop you for a second i'm sorry for interrupting you khan but i have to because he said my word of the week which is uh... somalia which when you say somalia i say page two hundred and twenty-two of scale hills new book dirty wars jeremy scale the oh yeah intrepid reporter page two hundred twenty-two and i'm sorry to go off on this diversion but god this just gets at me i have to say uh...the whole thing where connelly's arise cried uncle and went ahead and let sheikh sharif be the president after all as long as he would abandon the form of the i see you and take on the form of the u s u n created transitional federal government was the plan all along was to keep sheikh sharif but just go ahead and have a gigantic war and kill a quarter of a million civilians for nothing and they keep sheikh sharif anyway all along that was their plan to keep them and so while boy should some republicans be in the dock my god man well you know we are one hundred percent responsible for what's happening in somalia because the islamic court uh... uh... government uh... was overthrown and at the time was overthrown the shabab was just a very small marginal group within that that's what allowed them to take over and we did it i mean we we overthrew the islamic court government i mean we we basically uh... not only supported we actively aided the ethiopian invasion uh... we use special forces to uh... he hit certain targets we we actually shelled uh... man attacked the coast uh... in the southern part of somalia well in fact your colleague at foreign policy and focus uh... rob prince there at fpif dot org he covered how it's in the wiki leaks that the bush administration made melissina we do it i think he objected originally and they twisted his arm and made him do the war he was the dictator of ethiopia virtually as far as i'm concerned rob prince knows more about north africa god damn god uh... he's he is just he's an amazing he's absolutely amazing he spent uh...several years there uh... in the in the peace corps in uh... in tunisia and uh... uh... if he is uh... a guy who just kept up on everything that's going on in algeria tunisia morocco uh... libya uh... etc and also of course the malia situation uh...and uh... the the horn of africa i mean this is the to me you know i i this is very distressing because every time the united states does this every time they move in well you know with their military into an area uh... bad things are going to happen and i'm very concerned that bad things are going to happen in uh...in places like nigeria and molly in nigeria and and like i'm talking about congo too yes absolutely which you know i don't find out later that that was a war that was all america's fault in fact i had been citing it as the only war i could think of that wasn't all america's fault and then i read some journalism and interviewed some experts and realize that no every war in the world right now is america's fault including the congo well certainly we play a role in all of them absolutely i i i absolutely agree and again you know you what you have is that you really have to think of pepe escobar who's a brazilian yeah he's wonderful i love pepe and and uh... you know he's got this he had this this book called pipelining uh... and and what he what he does is that he looks at the entire world in terms of not where borders are but where natural gas and oil pipelines run and then what you can tell on the basis of the politics and the history based on following these pipelines i mean it's an enormously interesting and uh... and creative way of looking at the world and disturbingly much of it turns out to be absolutely accurate so you know i i think that what you see here is the united states is following pursuing its interests and as you point out its interests are not what its citizens pay for oil its interests are does it control energy supplies and that's the key thing exactly all right now here's the thing too we got a what's the only like two or three minutes left here but i want to i want to go back to afghanistan real quick and ask you about how many guys are they planning on leaving army and mercs behind and is it enough to even provide force protection for their own existence there and if they're not really still occupying the country and doing delta force raids and and uh... and securing uh... clearing holding in building towns and whatever then uh...what's the point of staying till twenty twenty four other than setting guys up to die in a gigantic route of saigon moment we don't know how many people that they're planning to leave they haven't made that decision and that has gone all the way the figures have gone all the way from about eight thousand to about twenty thousand i tend to think it's probably going to be in the range around twelve thousand that however is military personnel now we don't know what they're going to do with the c.i.a. stuff uh... so that will be a separate kind of thing uh... you know what are they there for they're basically there to uh... make sure uh... that the cars i government or the the whatever whoever takes over from cars on uh... uh...you know continues is it enough to to do anything now it's enough to get a lot of people killed it's enough to get a lot of people angered at us but it's not enough to do anything militarily well i'm just wondering if it's going to be like the beirut bombing only times a hundred or whatever where our guys are basically just set up to die like a benghazi only multiplied right right we couldn't conquer afghanistan with a hundred fifty thousand uh... american troops we're going to do it with twelve or ten uh... i'll be obviously that that that that's not what if they are four i think my own feeling is is that they would they want to maintain a military footprint in afghanistan because it's still one of the most strategic areas in the world and or i think they actually would like some kind of peace agreement uh... i don't think they're capable of of doing it because of all these restrictions they put and who they talk to and everything but they want to keep a military presence uh... in afghanistan and uh... often do i think it's going to work in the long run now wide because i i i i don't you know i think you're going to get a lot of pressure from a lot of other countries in the region this is not going to make the iranians happy it's not going to make the russians happy it's not gonna make the chinese happy is not gonna make the pakistanis happy all of those countries have an ability to destabilize afghanistan so what the u.s. really needs to do is it needs to pull all of the combatants together all of them not we'll talk to you and we won't talk to you and they need to talk pull together all of the actors in the region in pakistan india iran russians china uzbekistan you know kazikistan uh... uh... they need to pull all of those people together sit them down and say okay how we work out something uh... how we cut a deal here the afghans are always willing to cut a deal i mean the afghans have this reputation of being incredibly warlike they can be very tough but actually they love to deal a whole lot better so it is possible to do it but it is not possible to do it if you take the attitude of we're not going to only talk to people we want to talk to and b the reason why we're there is in our own interest and to follow our own strategic uh...goals not going to work i'm sorry we gotta leave it right there we're done we're all out of time for the week that's it con hallinan thank you very much for your time appreciate it thank you for having me scott everybody that's con hallinan from f p i f dot org foreign policy and focus thanks for listening no kpfk show tonight because of fundraising time but see you next week hey everybody scott horton here everything maybe your group should hire me to give a speech well maybe you should i've got a few good ones to choose from including how to end the war on terror the case against war with iran central banking and war uncle sam in the arab spring the ongoing war on civil liberties and of course why everything in the world is woodrow wilson's fault but i'm happy to talk about this by anything else you've ever heard me cover on the show as well so check out youtube.com/scott horton show for some examples and email scott at scott horton dot org for more details see you there hey y'all scott horton here for wall street window dot com mike swanson is a successful former hedge fund manager whose site is unique on the web subscribers are 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