TSR: "You've got to start
banging India and Pakistan's heads together because
they are the ones who are fueling this war."
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Length: 5:42
LARGE (66.5 MB)
-----
SMALL (7.0 MB)
Suzanne Malveaux talks to Michael about the
upcoming announcement regarding the Obama
administration's Afghanistan strategy. On the night
that Obama hosts a dinner for the Indian prime
minister, Michael reflects on the role India plays
in the AfPak equation.
SUZANNE
MALVEAUX: While President Obama is vowing to finish
the job in Afghanistan, will more troops actually
make a difference? Over the years, CNN's Michael Ware
has spent a lot of time covering the war in
Afghanistan, and he's joining us now from New York.
Michael, thanks for being here. Obviously we're
hearing that we're on the very verge of getting a
decision about the number of troops. What do you make
of the idea of putting more U.S. troops on the ground
in Afghanistan? Is it going to make much of a
difference?
MICHAEL WARE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, it depends
what the president hopes to achieve. If the president
wants to put pressure on the Taliban war machine,
then, yes, he needs to send more troops because right
now with all the U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan,
the Taliban machinery is virtually untouched. Indeed,
American operations are feeding into it, giving it
more recruits -- indeed, as Nic's package shows --
from the drones, from other sorts of attacks. So
America doesn't have enough forces on the ground to
actually hurt the Taliban. The idea would be to put
pressure on them, to turn the screw and to bring them
to the negotiating table, which we see the Afghan
government trying to do.
But more importantly, and perhaps poignantly we have
the Indian leader in the country today meeting with
the president, and what Americans need to understand,
and this is a bit difficult, American soldiers are
dying more because of India's rivalry with Pakistan
using Afghanistan as a battlefield than it has
anything to do with jihad or holy war or the Taliban,
Suzanne.
MALVEAUX: And obviously, Michael, that's something
that the president talked about with the prime
minister of India today, but I -- I know there's been
a split. I've spoken with senior administration
officials over months on end here about this top-down
versus bottom-up approach, that you either try to
build up the Afghan Army and police, or you try to
work with these warlords, these little small militia
groups to try to take on the Taliban themselves. How
do you think more U.S. troops is going to -- is going
to affect the balance there?
WARE: Well, it's going to help you meet in the middle
between those two notions. The U.S. mission
desperately needs to do both of those things. It
needs to build an Afghan Army and an Afghan police
service that can at least vaguely do the job, at
least in an Afghan way.
But at the end of the day, I mean, I lived in
Afghanistan. I lived in Kandahar, the homeland, the
heartland, the birthplace of the Taliban. I know that
place, and there, there's no such thing as a central
government. There's no federal tax or services. It's
about valley by valley by valley and village by
village by village. That's where power rests. If you
have a dispute with your neighbor, you don't go to
the police. You go to the local warlord, and he
answers to a warlord above him. They are the ones who
control it. So if you can bring them on board -- some
of them are on the fence, some are now with the
Taliban simply because that's in their interests
right now -- then if one of those warlords says there
will be no Taliban in my district, there will be no
Taliban in his district. Suzanne.
MALVEAUX: Michael, what do the Afghan people think
about this? Do they want us there?
WARE: Ah, well, certainly at first, certainly at
first, removing the Taliban. Although let's not
forget, the Taliban were welcomed when they first
arrived because the chaos after the Soviet invasion
and America turned its back, that's something the
Afghan people have yet to forget, that that left them
in this anarchy -- raping, pillaging, it's
unimaginable the anarchy that went on, Suzanne, and
America left them to that fate. The Taliban rose up
and in the religious cloak that it wore said we'll
bring you law and order, and they did. Now when that
went too far, sure, the Americans removed them. There
was some celebration, but at the end of the day
ordinary Afghans are fiercely nationalist, and they
see any foreigner as a foreigner. They see the
Americans as foreign occupiers.
MALVEAUX: So they don't trust us? Do they trust us?
WARE: No, no, they don't at all. So many promises
made. Where's the delivery? Where's the roads?
Where's the electricity? Where's the schools? Where's
the security? You have your tanks roll through my
village in the day. You pass out lots of lovely
leaflets. You talk to our elders, but who rules at
night? And where will you be tomorrow when I'm
attacked? No. They don't trust you at all.
MALVEAUX: What would you do if you had a chance to
talk to the president? What would you say to him
about what needs to be happening next when you see
the situation on the ground?
WARE: All right, several things. We could talk for a
long time about this, Suzanne.
MALVEAUX: Only a few minutes, Michael.
WARE: First, send in the troops. Apply the pressure
at the joints and ligatures of the Taliban. You can't
cover the whole place so try to find places where you
can hit them with U.S. troops where it hurts. Bring
in the Afghan forces as best they are and as quick as
you can build them where you can, but turn to the
tribal leaders and the old warlords. Pay them off.
Put it in their interests, outbid the Taliban. That
will give you a success similar to what you saw in
Iraq. It won't be pretty. It will be messy, but at
least it will hold itself together.
MALVEAUX: All right.
WARE: And finally, you've got to start banging India
and Pakistan's heads together because they are the
ones who are fueling this war.
MALVEAUX: All right. Michael Ware, thank you so
much.