Beyond Bin Laden Read Online Free Page B

units of Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
    But then the military force, commanded by U.S. Army General Tommy Franks, permitted Bin Laden and a substantial cadre of Al Qaeda and Taliban members to escape into the wilds of western Pakistan. Neither General Franks nor President George W. Bush nor the U.S. Congress, nor indeed the American public, seriously entertained the idea of hot pursuit across the border. We did not finish the fight while the world still trembled before our wrath. When thousands of Americans were killed at Pearl Harbor, our nation went to war. Had the Japanese claimed we could not pursue them, say, across the international date line, we would have laughed. Yet after Bin Laden killed thousands in 2001, our generals, politicians, and president stopped at the obscure Durand Line and allowed a sanctuary to Al Qaeda when the network was at its weakest.
    Instead, the U.S., NATO, and the United Nations turned their collective attention to the gargantuan task of building Afghanistan into an economically viable, democratic, unified nation. In 2002, the U.S. changed its mission from counterterrorism into state-building.
    The military embraced this mission. By 2006, the U.S. Army and Marine Corps had produced a field manual on counterinsurgency that declared that soldiers and marines were "nation-builders as well as warriors." 1 The manual was intended to provide a framework for winning the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; its strength was its insistence that the people be treated with respect.
    The doctrine was based upon a theory of the social contract—the United States would give the people money and protection, and honest Afghan officials and the people would turn against the insurgents—that did not address the dynamics of Afghanistan. The doctrine did not say what to do when the people remained neutral and the government remained dishonest. It was silent about Islamist religiosity as the ideology fueling the enemy, It laid out no practical steps for restraining corruption, and ignored tribalism and the existence of a sanctuary in Pakistan. It accorded total sovereignty to a host government in Kabul led by the erratic president Hamid Karzai. Put bluntly, the doctrine was theory that did not accord with the realities of Afghanistan.
    From 2006 through 2008, even as Iraq was stabilizing, the Taliban were gaining strength and momentum in Afghanistan. Some claimed—rightly—that the United States needed 100,000 troops in the country, rather than 30,000. A report to Congress criticized a "lack of coherence" in disbursing $32 billion in U.S. and $25 billion in NATO European reconstruction funds, pointing to the need for a comprehensive strategy. 2
    The failures inside the Afghan government, however, were not fundamentally due to a lack of strategy or resources. In November 2009, the U.S. ambassador in Kabul, Karl Eikenberry, sent a cable to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Eikenberry, who had served as the three-star commander in Afghanistan, warned against sending additional troops. He wrote, "Karzai was not an adequate strategic partner … shuns responsibility for any strategic burden, whether defense, governance, or development … there is no political ruling class that provides an overarching national identity."
    The ambassador also held out little hope that Pakistan would cooperate. "Pakistan will remain the single greatest source of Afghan instability so long as the border sanctuaries remain, and Pakistan views its strategic interest as best served by a weak neighbor." 3
    In December 2009, President Obama announced, "It is in our vital national interest to send additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan. After eighteen months, our troops will begin to come home." 4 Asked what he expected the troops to accomplish, Obama replied that our goals were not clear and that a strategy was being devised. 5 "We’ve seen a sense of drift in the mission in Afghanistan … what kinds of