CanadaNews’ Reporter Notes

Even though the guest speaker was fifteen minutes late and the weather was the coldest it had been since last winter, the crowd that had assembled into the Kenney Auditorium believed it was worth the wait.

The SAIS South Asian Studies Program at the John Hopkins University’s D.C. campus had 2004 Democratic Presidential Nominee, U.S. Senator John Kerry as its guest speaker on Wednesday afternoon. John Kerry spoke before a crowd of about 150 people. He gave his thoughts on Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

Senator Kerry said, “I came here last June to advocate a new strategy for meeting our generation’s great challenge, terrorism. I called for replacing today’s mismanaged “war on terror” with a “global counterinsurgency” effort that places military action in its proper context alongside our moral authority and diplomatic persuasion. Regrettably, that remains an elusive goal.”

He said the difference between what’s going on in Iraq and what’s going on in Afghanistan is: the occupation in Iraq is being done without the consent of the Iraqi people; whereas the occupation in Afghanistan is being done with the consent of the majority of the Afghan people.

The senator from Massachusetts says that it is important for the United States to be in Afghanistan. “The very same people that attacked us on 9-11 are still there, right where we left them. Our nation’s own National Intelligence Estimate warned us this July that the Taliban and Al Qaeda have reconstituted themselves on the Afghan-Pakistan border and are planning more attacks on our homeland,” said Kerry.

Senator Kerry further said Afghanistan has more support from allied forces.

Presently there are 37 different nations representing half of the full military forces in Afghanistan. These forces are fighting against the Taliban and assisting a fledgling Afghan government in protecting its citizenry.

Kerry also warned about the threat of another Vietnam. “There is definitely failure to appreciate the difference between tactical success and a winning strategy. The fatal consequence, all too familiar to those of us who lived through Vietnam, is that you win every battle, but fail to win the war,” he said.

In order to get things right, Kerry recommends: a) being honest assessment of where the United States stands in Afghanistan, b) need to implement a comprehensive strategy that focuses as much on good governance and reconstruction as it does on kinetic military operations, c) we should remember the lessons of the Afghanistan history, d) finally we need to provide a sufficient number of troops to stabilize a deteriorating security situation.

With his last statement Kerry was not advocating sending more U.S.; rather he was saying NATO and Allied Forces need to commit to more support.

“General Dan McNeill, who commands NATO forces in Afghanistan, has asked for 5,000 more troops, and we should make sure he gets them. We need to lean hard on our NATO allies to pull their weight by expanding their current troop commitments and make sure the job gets done. NATO should reach out to Muslim partners in the Mediterranean Dialogue—countries like Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, and Tunisia,” Kerry remarked.

Senator Kerry those who are taking the brunt off the fighting were the American, British, Canadian, and Dutch troops, because they are the only countries deployed in the south where the fighting is most fierce. He believes all the previous best efforts will come

to naught if the United States cannot convince the Europeans that this isn’t just another of George Bush’s wars.

He also said, “Their [Europeans] populations remain deeply skeptical of this Administration’s adventures—no matter how legitimate the cause. We have to persuade our allies that a broader strategy focused on good governance and reconstruction to help the long-suffering Afghan people, not just counterterrorism, deserves a bigger commitment. They need to know the challenge to NATO is real, with real implications for each of their countries.”

Kerry feels the bottom line is that, on the current course, we’re losing ground in Afghanistan. He admitted that the Taliban and Al Qaeda have regrouped along the Afghan-Pakistan border, currently hold large swathes of territory, and are expanding their reach into regions that haven’t seen the Taliban since 2001, ever closer to the capital city and NATO stronghold of Kabul. With this violence is at its highest levels since the invasion. Between 2001 and 2005, there were 5 suicide bombings in Afghanistan. There were 77 in the first six months of this year alone. Reconstruction efforts have stalled, and Oxfam is reporting “humanitarian conditions rarely seen outside sub-Saharan Africa.” Opium cultivation has soared to 93% of the world’s market. Meanwhile, the weak central government lacks the capacity to wage a nationwide counterinsurgency.

In conclusion Kerry reminded the listeners that no foreign power has ever remained welcome in Afghanistan for a sustained period of time, and we all know that empires like the British and the Soviets paid a bitter price for trying. The Soviets invaded with 100,000 troops, bled their army dry, and left humiliated. “Why did the Soviets suffer so badly? In part because they killed over a million Afghans and fundamentally alienated the Afghan people.”

Kerry believes the goal of Americans is not to dominate Afghanistan—but rather to empower the Afghans to govern their own country in line with their own best interests and our own national security.