The War will Rage On Until Kabul is Surrounded

What I've noticed in reading the media reports coming out of Afghanistan as the Taliban have engaged in a pitched battle since Friday to take control of the Ghazni City and cut the vital Kandahar-Kabul highway is that the United States military is just flat-out lying now. A good example is taken from Mujib Mashal's "Why the Taliban’s Assault on Ghazni Matters for Afghanistan and the U.S.":

But much like the Afghan government, the United States military played down the extent of the crisis, in assessments completely at odds with the information from the locals. 

A statement by the United States military said, for example, that the main highway to the south remained open. But passengers on both sides remained stuck, and local Afghan officials said the highway was closed. 

It is unclear how many American troops are on the ground in Ghazni. But in cities such as Farah and Kunduz — assaulted by Taliban militants in 2015, 2016 and this year — the American military sent teams of Army Special Forces to call in airstrikes and fight alongside their Afghan commando counterparts.

An even more telling passage is found in "Were Victims Friend or Foe? U.S. Airstrike Leads to New Dispute With Afghan Allies" by Farooq Jan Mangal and Rod Nordland which was published Friday. The story is about a U.S. airstrike in Logar Province that killed 17 Afghan police and pro-government volunteers who were battling the Taliban. Mangal and Nordland widen their scope to take in other deadly errant U.S. airstrikes of late:

The episode on Tuesday was the latest in a series of cases in which the outcomes of American airstrikes were disputed, and occurred as the tempo of coalition air actions in support of their Afghan allies has risen sharply. With only about 14,000 American soldiers in Afghanistan — compared with 140,000 at the peak of the deployment — most of the ground operations are being conducted by Afghan forces, whose air force is small and poorly equipped.

In the first six months of this year, United States forces dropped more than 3,000 bombs across Afghanistan, nearly double the number for the same period last year and more than five times as many as the number for the first half of 2016.

For this same six-month period, the United Nations documented a 52 percent increase in civilian deaths from airstrikes compared with the first half of 2017.

On July 19, an American airstrike in the Chardara District of northern Kunduz Province killed 14 members of one extended family, including women and children, according to Afghan officials in the area.

On Friday, Colonel O’Donnell said that the American investigation of the July 19 airstrike in Kunduz had been closed after determining that there were no civilian casualties. “After carefully considering all relevant and reasonably available information, which included a review of the Afghan government’s report of findings, our investigation found no credible information to corroborate the allegations,” he said.

Aerial video footage showed a single bomb dropped on two homes where the Taliban had been firing from for more than an hour, he said, and the firing stopped as soon as the bomb was dropped.

The American military spokesman said that no Afghans had come forward to document any civilian deaths, and the only complaints received were two that documented damage to homes and one injured person.

A New York Times reporter at the scene, however, was given a list of the names of all 14 fatalities from the same extended family. The list was provided by family members and verified by government officials and the Kunduz hospital, where 12 of the dead were taken. The victims included five women, seven children aged 2 to 14, and two men, a father and an uncle to the children. 

Told about that, Colonel O’Donnell said, “When we’re presented with any credible evidence, if something is provided to us we will take a look at it.”

The U.S. is in a spot so tight it has very little room to turn. Peace with the Pashtun Taliban would not be recognized by the Hazaras, Tajiks, Uzbeks and Turkmen, not to mention a large part of the 9/11 mythologized U.S. population. The war will rage on until Kabul is surrounded, which the U.S. will deny right up until the moment the last diplomats and military advisers are airlifted away.

Is Peace Breaking Out in Afghanistan?

Thursday Afghan president Ashraf Ghani announced a unilateral ceasefire. Saturday the Taliban reciprocated. According to The Long War Journal, "Whereas the government announced that its unilateral ceasefire will last until June 20, the Taliban’s order covers just 'the first, second and third day of Eid' — meaning a shorter timeframe."

Reading Mujib Mashal's "Afghan Leader Declares Brief, Unilateral Cease-Fire in Taliban Fight," published Thursday, one can't help but come away with the opinion that what Ghani is doing is calling a timeout to give his winded team a breather and prevent the opposition from running up the score:

Some analysts feared that not enough thought had gone into how a cease-fire might play out at a time when the war has spread to nearly half of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces. The presence of many militant groups makes the task much harder for a force stretched by daily fighting.

“Fighting is ongoing in 15 provinces, and the Afghan president announces the cease-fire,” said Atiqullah Amarkhel, a retired Afghan general and military analyst.

“Unilateral cease-fires are not helpful,” Mr. Amarkhel said. “Don’t forget that already the Afghan Army isn’t attacking — it is defending. It will confuse the Afghan forces, the Taliban will attack and gain more, and it will affect the morale of the Afghan forces.”

But Borhan Osman, a senior analyst for the International Crisis Group in Afghanistan, said a cease-fire might be an effective countermove at a time when “more than 90 percent of the attacks in Afghanistan are initiated by the insurgency.”

With the government already on the defensive, Mr. Osman said, it might as well use a cease-fire to build trust with the Taliban and test their seriousness about negotiating peace. The Taliban have yet to offer a clear response to the peace plan that Mr. Ghani offered months ago.

“The Taliban have always expressed concern that the government is not serious about peace, and not coherent enough to be a reliable partner for talks,” Mr. Osman said. “Today’s announcement could be a step toward addressing those worries, showing that Mr. Ghani as commander in chief has the power to halt offensives by all pro-government forces.”

Mushal's story from Saturday, "Taliban Announce Brief Cease-Fire, Offering Afghans Hope for Lull in War," convincingly places the Trump administration firmly behind the peace process:

Increasingly, senior Afghan officials and Western diplomats in Kabul believe the United States is willing to take a direct role in peace talks with the Taliban. Pakistan remains a key component of that.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke by phone with Pakistan’s powerful army chief, Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa, a day before the cease-fire was announced. Gen. Bajwa is set to visit Kabul soon.

“We have asked for Pakistan’s assistance in facilitating a peace process, and we have sought to understand Pakistan’s own core security concerns and ensure that its interests are taken into account in any peace process,” said Lisa Curtis, who is in charge of Afghanistan and South Asia policy at the National Security Council. “The United States is ready to participate in the discussion, but we cannot serve as a substitute for the Afghan government and the Afghan people.”

Many saw the strong American role in the Afghan government’s cease-fire announcement as an indication of a more hands-on approach. Senior members of the Afghan government did not know of plans for a cease-fire until a couple days before they were announced.

Mr. Blanc, the former diplomat, said the urgency to show Mr. Trump some progress is palpable.

“There is a deep concern amongst the Americans who want to see the American commitment to Afghanistan remain, that Trump is going to pull the plug,” Mr. Blanc said. “The idea that potentially someone is working to do something dramatic — no question about it. I would be shocked if that wasn’t somebody’s calculation, whoever is in the driver’s seat here.”

It could be that the reason Afghan commanders had no clue about Ghani's ceasefire is that it was a last second diktat from Washington. It makes sense and is consistent with Trump's focus on 2020. If he can broker an end to the frozen conflict on the Korean Peninsula, as well as bring an end to the 17-year war in Afghanistan, it will be a potent argument for his reelection.

What is the Ghani peace plan on the table? It was something that came out of the Kabul Process in February. An opinion piece written by Hekmat Khalil Karzai vaguely describes some of its features:

The Afghan government is firmly committed to addressing the core concerns and demands of the Taliban, including the future presence of the international military forces, amendments to our constitution and the release of Taliban prisoners.

The initiative also offers removal of the names of Taliban commanders from the sanctions lists maintained by the United Nations and others, which limit their movements and hinder their inclusion into mainstream Afghan society and polity.

Throughout the peace process and after the end of hostilities, the Afghan government will ensure the security of the Taliban and their families and help resettle former combatants as part of an agreement.

The Taliban won't accept the presence of any foreign troops stationed on Afghan soil. A complete withdrawal is not something the U.S. military will abide. So the war will likely continue.

U.S. Desperation in the Death of Mullah Mansour + Western Corporate Media Supersede Political Parties

One thing to keep in mind when you read statements that the United States didn't pre-clear with Pakistan the drone attack that killed Taliban leader Mullah Mansour is that the same thing was said about the killing of Osama bin Laden, and Seymour Hersh exposed that as an Obama administration lie.

The Pakistanis were part of the plan to execute OBL from the beginning. They didn't want to lose the financing their country receives from U.S. taxpayers. This leads one to believe that the Pakistanis once again were in the know. The reason given for Mullah Mansour's elimination is that he was not cooperating in peace talks with China, the U.S., Pakistan and the Ghani government; that he had turned into nothing more than a narcotics kingpin, a mafia don, the duties of war chief being handled by Sirajuddin Haqqani, a wholly-owned asset of Pakistan's Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). Possibly.

As Mujib Mashal points out in his frontpager today, "Taliban Chief Targeted by Drone Strike in Pakistan, Signaling a U.S. Shift," one U.S. accomplishment in eliminating Mullah Mansour is it creates a contentious succession struggle among Taliban leadership:

One leading candidate would be Sirajuddin Haqqani, one of Mullah Mansour’s most feared deputies, who has largely been running battlefield operations in recent months. While closely linked to Pakistan’s spy agency, Mr. Haqqani would struggle to gain the support of the wider Taliban as his small but lethal network has only in recent months fully integrated into the larger insurgency.

An illuminating way to understand the demise of Mullah Mansour is the desperate situation of the American project in Afghanistan. Pro-government militias are battling one another in the north, while in the south police are defecting to the Taliban. Protests roil Kabul. Cutting the opposing king's head off is an effective way to buy yourself some time.

The best thing I read over the weekend, the best thing I have read in a while, is the interview of Stathis Kouvelakis, "What’s Next for Nuit Debout?," that appears on the Jacobin web site. It is long, but it is worth the slog. Kouvelakis shares many keen insights. One that I thought was particularly acute was his discussion of "Bonapartism without Bonaparte." The political parties in the West -- France, Austria, Britain, Greece, Spain, the United States -- have become so hollowed out that now the media fulfills the classic function of the political party:

The concept of authoritarian statism also adds something, here, in that it places emphasis on the material transformations of state apparatuses, and not only the development of superstructures, the crisis of political representation, and the manner of its resolution. The media apparatus in part fulfills not only the role of spreading the dominant discourse, but also the role of reorganizing the political terrain. That is something the classic parties of the dominant classes are no longer able to do, given that they are extremely weakened and discredited. 

We clearly see this in Latin American countries where the media are truly the political nerve center of the dominant power bloc — much more so than the greatly weakened bourgeois political parties — and also in Italy with Berlusconi. Yet this is also true of France, with Sarkozyism and with what’s now happening as oligarchs with a multiplicity of ties to the state and political personnel take control of the most important media.

This has certainly been the case with the 2016 U.S. presidential primaries. The Gray Lady has carried Hillary's corpse on her back throughout the primary; and prior to his dropping out, she did the same for Marco Rubio.

Afghanistan at a Turning Point

Here is the Afghanistan blurb from this morning's "Situation Report" by Foreign Policy's Paul McLeary and Adam Rawnsley:

Echoing American generals who have run the war in Afghanistan for the past decade, leader of U.S. and NATO troops there, Gen. John Campbell, told a congressional panel Tuesday that the country “is at an inflection point.” If Washington pulls out too many troops by the end of this year, 2016 “is at risk of being no better, and possibly worse, than 2015,” which was the bloodiest year yet for Afghan security forces. The general -- expected to retire in the coming months once Lt. Gen. John "Mick" Nicholson comes to Kabul to take over -- praised the White House’s decision to keep U.S. troop strength at around 9,800 troops for much of this year, eventually falling to about 5,500 by 2017. "Ultimately, Afghanistan has not achieved an enduring level of security and stability that justifies a reduction in our support in 2016," Campbell said.

Last year the casualty rate sustained by the Afghan security forces was deemed unsustainable. According to Mujib Mashal's "Taliban Bombing Kills at Least 20 at Kabul Police Station":

. . . [C]asualties among Afghan soldiers and police officers had risen by almost a third in 2015, compared with a record casualty rate in 2014 that some officials then considered unsustainable.

***

Intense Taliban offensives this winter, including the string of bombings in Kabul, have Afghan and Western officials increasingly worried about the pressure on the Afghan security forces. 

Col. Michael T. Lawhorn, a spokesman for NATO and United States forces in Afghanistan, said the casualties of Afghan forces through 2015 were 28 percent higher than in the previous year. Colonel Lawhorn, who would not go into details about the new casualty report, said a difficult year for Afghan forces had long been expected because they were carrying responsibility for a “significantly increased operational tempo” last year, after the end of the NATO combat mission. 

An Afghan official briefed on the matter put the number of casualties last year at close to 16,000 soldiers and police officers, with more than 5,000 killed. Even those numbers seemed low, considering that 4,100 were killed in the first six months of 2015, and the fighting greatly intensified in the last six months of the year.

Oruzgan Province north of Kandahar is in trouble, as Mashal goes on to relate:

In the district of Deh Rawood in southern Oruzgan Province, where the police have long complained of a lack of equipment and ammunition while practically under siege, four security checkpoints were abandoned by the police and later burned down by the Taliban, according to Mohammad Karim Khadimzai, head of the Oruzgan provincial council. Around 30 police officers deserted their posts in Deh Rawood and arrived in Tirin Kot, the provincial capital.

In today's paper Mashal and Taimoor Shah report that a hero boy soldier was assassinated by the Taliban in front of his home in Tirin Kot ("Taliban Gun Down 10-Year-Old Militia Hero in Afghanistan").

Gen. Campbell appears to have told Congress the truth when he announced that 2016 is an "inflection point" for Afghanistan. If the Chinese can't put enough pressure on Pakistan to get substantive peace negotiations moving, it is hard to see how the U.S./NATO project in Afghanistan survives.

Hillary Swings to the Right + Clock Running Out on Afghan Extra-Legal Government

There is a good piece this morning by Gaius Publius, "The Clinton Campaign Speaks to the New York Times," which combs through a Patrick Healy story, "Clinton Campaign Underestimated Sanders Strengths, Allies Say," that appeared in the Sunday edition of the paper. One of the interesting points sussed out is that the Hillary brain trust is fearful of a "wave election," which means that the Clinton campaign, contrary to its publicly stated position that it plans to win by returning the Obama coalition to the polls, is actually now running against the Obama coalition; hence the attacks on Sanders' "Medicare for All" from the right. According to Gaius Publius,

A “wave election” is one where a very large number of new voters attempt to make big changes. Very large numbers of new voters. Now go back up to the Healy comment gleaned from the Clinton campaign. Ms. Clinton is “unnerved by the possibility that Mr. Sanders will foment a large wave of first-time voters…” 

How would a “wave of first-time voters,” which would heavily drive Democratic base turnout, not be very good for the Democratic Party, as in, 2008-good. The Healy passage basically says that Hillary Clinton would trade away all of that to-the-party benefit to become the nominee, that she would be willing to seriously weaken the party so long as she could then lead it. This is almost the definition of destructive ambition. Is that a fair characterization? I think we’d have to ask Patrick Healy, as the quoted passage is his. 

Don’t forget that the quoted passage add the phrase “and liberals” to the “large wave of first-time voters” that Mrs. Clinton and her husband are “unnerved by.”Are Mr. and Ms. Clinton really “unnerved” by “liberals”? Again, the phrasing is Healy’s, but the sentiments are claimed to be those of the Clintons.

Just as the Republicans are struggling with a "wave election" of their own in the form of Donald Trump, so too are the Democrats. At this point the two hands of the duopoly are trying to beat down a democratic uprising. In the case of Hillary, her campaign team now regrets not resorting to fearmongering earlier ("A vote for Sanders is a vote to raise your taxes"; "Sanders is unelectable"). Amy Chozick outlines this in an illuminating piece that appeared yesterday, "Hillary Clinton Gets Set for a Long Slog Against Bernie Sanders," the most revealing passage of which I found to be the prediction of where the Clinton campaign's current rightward drift will end up:

Even if Mrs. Clinton wins in Iowa, where she maintains a slight lead in most polls, Mr. Sanders could receive an outpouring of small donations if the outcome is close that would help him compete in subsequent states. Mr. Sanders, a small-state senator who has never run for national office, has shown surprising fund-raising muscle. Many of his donors have yet to give him the maximum individual contribution of $2,700, meaning they could be tapped repeatedly if the contest remains close. [Good point.] His campaign raised $33 million in the final quarter of 2015, just $4 million less than Mrs. Clinton.

Mrs. Clinton’s aides say they expect to win Iowa and New Hampshire [happy talk] and are ready for the grind. A giant whiteboard on the wall of the campaign’s headquarters maps out where staff members would be sent depending on the outcomes in the early states.

“We just game out a bunch of different scenarios,” Mr. Mook said. “It’s kind of like ‘choose your own adventure.’ ”

This is not the adventure the Clinton team would have chosen.

A prolonged primary campaign against an opponent widely popular with the party’s liberal base could exhaust donors who will also be asked to contribute to an expensive campaign to defeat the Republican nominee. A contentious race against Mr. Sanders could also weaken Mrs. Clinton’s standing among Democratic voters she would need in November.

The last sentence is the obvious one, the one that loomed large last year but has yet to be given the prominence it deserves. Now it is all the more prominent because Hillary is attacking from the right. After months of this, how are you going to drive turnout among the progressive Democratic base come November? You're not.

The pro-Hillary people are hoping that a defense of the Democratic status quo -- Obamacare, for instance (see Krugman's hopeless Monday column, "Health Reform Realities") -- will allow the Clinton campaign to muddle through. But while this might be a 50%+1 strategy to win the Democratic nomination, it basically guarantees a loss in the general election (unless the Republicans manage to concoct an even more perverse strategy to nominate an Establishment-friendly alternative to Trump).

One story that is worth taking a look at is Mujib Mashal's "Afghan Panel Sets Election Date, Drawing Government Criticism." Afghanistan and the United States are intimately linked. At the end of the 1970s when neoliberalism -- the eradication of social democracy -- was taking root in a post-Vietnam, post-Watergate America, a robust militarist accompaniment was called for. Afghanistan provided it with Charlie Wilson's War, the U.S.-led, Saudi-funded proxy conflict against the Soviet Union. Then there was the post-9/11 occupation, which remains to this day despite many announcements of the end of combat operations.

 In 2014 the U.S./NATO puppet government was in danger of splitting apart because of the fraudulent election of Ashraf Ghani over his opponent Abdullah Abdullah. Secretary of State John Kerry jetted in and cobbled together an "extra-legal" agreement enshrining a unity government that made Ghani president and Abdullah chief executive.

That agreement had a sunset date, this October, and some caveats, two of which are that parliamentary elections be held before October and that a loya jirga be convened, none of which has happened. According to Mashal,

The Afghan unity government, brokered by the United States after the bitter election dispute between Mr. Ghani and Mr. Abdullah in 2014 threatened to tear the country apart, is in a race against time to meet the requirements of the political agreement it was founded on, set to expire in October. 

That agreement requires the government to hold local elections, which are already months overdue, by the time it completes two years in office in October. It is also supposed to have convened a grand assembly of elders from across the country by October to amend the Constitution and create the position of prime minister for Mr. Abdullah to move into. 

Pressure from political opposition groups has been increasing on Mr. Ghani and Mr. Abdullah in recent months. Some of the groups have warned that the government, severely pressed by Taliban offensives across the country, will lose its legitimacy if it does not hold the elections soon. Other groups have given up on the current government entirely, calling for early presidential elections to bring in a new administration.

The problem is even if there were a decision by all in government to hold elections immediately there would likely not be enough time, with war raging in Helmand Province and Islamic State on the rise in Nangarhar Province, to have elections by October.

The October surprise in the U.S. elections could be the collapse of the quisling government in Afghanistan.

The Afghanistan Formula for Perpetual War

With all that has been happening in the news -- COP21 in Paris; Trump demagoguery with the Iowa caucus less than two months away; a widening international war in Iraq and Syria; terror attacks here, there and everywhere -- it is easy to lose track of Afghanistan.

But we shouldn't because the Greater Middle East is being "Talibanized." I don't mean by this to say that Mullah Mansour is exporting his fighters to other countries. What I mean is that the model par excellence of state powers using their intelligence agencies to aid various Salafi groups in order to pursue geopolitical objectives, blow back be damned, is Afghanistan. Back at the beginning of the current bankrupt neoliberal/neoconservative paradigm was the U.S./Saudi effort to dislodge the Soviet-backed Afghan leader Babrak Karmal. Thirty-five years, a couple of invasions of Iraq and one Global War on Terror later we now have a world war, not to mention a caliphate, in Syria and Iraq.

Meanwhile the Western quisling in Afghanistan, the Ralph Nader of Kabul, Ashraf Ghani continues to face mounting losses -- in territory, among his security forces and in any hope that his government has a future.

Yesterday's story by David Jolly and Taimoor Shah, "Afghan Province, Teetering to the Taliban, Draws In Extra U.S. Forces," outlines once again how U.S. Special Operations troops and air power are being rushed into theater to keep the Taliban from controlling a province. In October it was the northern Kunduz Province; now it is Helmand in the south:

KABUL, Afghanistan — Alarmed that large stretches of Helmand Province are falling to the Taliban, American Special Operations forces have secretly taken a more central role in the fighting to save crucial areas of the province, as more air power and ground troops have been committed to the battle, according to Western and Afghan officials.

A Western diplomat said last week that United States Special Operations forces had been engaged in combat in Helmand for weeks, and that there were more American forces fighting there than at any time since President Obama last year announced a formal end to combat operations in Afghanistan.

The extent of the American role has been kept largely secret, with senior Afghan officials in the area saying they are under orders not to divulge the level of cooperation, especially by Special Operations forces on the ground. The secrecy reflects the Pentagon’s concern that the involvement may suggest that the American combat role, which was supposed to have ended in December 2014, is still far beyond the official “train, advise and assist” mission.

The elite ground units in Helmand include both Special Operations troops and the United States Air Force’s Special Tactics Squadron, according to the Western diplomat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid angering his colleagues.

The American intervention in Helmand is accelerating amid growing reports of demoralized or trapped Afghan security forces and alarm at the amount of territory the Taliban have been able to seize in Helmand this year. If the insurgents are able to sweep away the tenuous government presence in district centers and the capital, Lashkar Gah, it would be a dire setback for the Afghan government, and would give the Taliban a strong foothold in southern Afghanistan.

Asked whether American forces were taking a larger combat role in Helmand, a United States military spokesman, Col. Michael T. Lawhorn, would not reply directly. But he praised the Afghan forces’ efforts so far.

“There’s little question that Helmand is a contested area,” Colonel Lawhorn said. “But the Afghan National Security Forces have conducted no fewer than five major operations there to disrupt insurgent and Taliban activities.” 

Afghan officials in Helmand, however, gave more dire assessments about the state of the battle. 

“The security situation is really bad,” said Toofan Waziri, a Helmand politician and prominent television commentator. Without more foreign air support, he added, “the entire province would probably fall to the Taliban in three days.”

Helmand is important because it is prime poppy growing country. It was also the location of the ballyhooed Stanley McChrystal-Obama COIN troop surge, now broadly acknowledged to be a terrific failure. Parts of Helmand in the north have never been out of the Taliban's control.

The Ghani government is in dire straits. There is no doubt about it. That is why Ghani went hat in hand last week to Pakistan looking for some kind of peace deal, even while the strip adjoining U.S. air base in Kandahar was being shot up and burned to the ground by Taliban. The story to consult is last Friday's "Afghanistan and Pakistan Agree to Reopen Talks With an Absent Taliban" by Mujib Mashal and Rod Nordland. The last two paragraphs sum it up:

While many in Kandahar criticized Mr. Ghani for reaching out to Pakistan, others were sympathetic, saying he had no choice but to keep pushing for talks.

“This is a scattered, spread war in Afghanistan which also involves several countries,” said Abdul Jabar Qahraman, a member of Parliament. “The Afghan government has no other way but to engage them. The Taliban are also a fractured movement. One of them launched an attack on Kandahar, but it is possible that another faction wants to talk.”

Sounds like Syria and Iraq, doesn't it? It is the formula for perpetual war. A conclusion which is unavoidable is that this is a state of affairs that the U.S., with by far the largest military, favors.

U.S. Project in Afghanistan: Going, Going, Soon to be Gone

The jaw-dropping absurdity that is the Western project in Afghanistan is on display in two stories published yesterday and today in The New York Times. 

Yesterday, Alissa Rubin, in "Life Pulls Back in Afghan Capital, as Danger Rises and Troops Recede," tours a greatly changed Kabul from "the surge" days of yesteryear. Gone are most of the Westerners, as well as the restaurants and nightspots that served them. Helicopters shuttle U.S. embassy staff to and from the airport; driving is considered too dangerous. Afghans stand in line at the Interior Ministry office to get papers stamped in order to exit the the country:

KABUL, Afghanistan — If there had been grumbling before about the deafening intrusion of low-flying American helicopters in the Afghan capital, the discontent has surely multiplied along with the number of flights: packs of them now, coming two, four, six at a time, starting around 7 a.m., then again at midday and at dusk. 

Why so many? 

“The American Embassy’s not allowed to move by road anymore,” a senior Western official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the news media. 

“If you’re at the airport and you have work at the embassy or at R.S.,” he said, referring to the international coalition’s mission, known as Resolute Support, “they fly you over in the morning and back at night.” 

After 14 years of war, of training the Afghan Army and the police, it has become too dangerous to drive the mile and a half from the airport to the embassy.

If that doesn't conjure up the Saigon of 1975, read on. It is fascinating story, the kind of "reporter's notebook" I wish the Gray Lady would indulge in more often:

One favored spot over the years was the Design Cafe, a place with what might be called Kabul chic: sconces on the walls and low Afghan-style seats with cushions indoors and rattan furniture in its leafy courtyard. The cafe made an amazing mint lemonade in the summers, with icy, barely sweet, shredded mint whipped in until the drink turned a frothy green. 

Now, on a hot day in August, the corrugated metal door was locked, and no amount of banging on it brought an answer. Through the small square grate, all that was visible was a dusty courtyard, a couple of plastic bags blowing across it in the late afternoon wind. 

The cafe had a second outpost in a more secure neighborhood, and that one appeared to be open — at least someone answered the door. 

But walking inside was like entering an attic. The upholstered chairs were covered in dust, and a couple of them no longer had cushions, as if this were the last lot for sale at an auction, when all that was left was the furniture nobody bid on. 

Was it possible to get a coffee? The two guards conferred. Then one said, “Yes.” 

He would go look for the cook, he said doubtfully, then appeared relieved when he was told not to worry about it. 

It was not just the expatriates leaving; the Afghans were going, too, and in droves.

But the story that takes the cake is today's. In "Afghan Businessman Convicted in Kabul Bank Fraud Is Still Free to Make Money," Mujib Mashal describes how Khalilullah Frozi, the guy convicted of bilking the Kabul Bank of close to $1 billion, is actually partnering with Ashraf Ghani's government to develop real estate. Ghani endeared himself to his Western backers last year upon assuming the presidency by promising that he would go hard after the people responsible for defrauding Kabul Bank. Brokering deals with the convicted fraudster and allowing him to serve out his 15-year sentence at night by sleeping in a posh cell stuffed with floor cushions and Persian rugs doesn't really conjure up the sobriquet "The Ralph Nader of Afghanistan."

KABUL, Afghanistan — In a big day for development here, a notable Afghan businessman stood with top government officials on Wednesday as he signed the contract for a new township: 8,800 homes across 33 acres of prime real estate in the heart of the capital, with an initial investment of at least $95 million.

There was just one problem: The businessman, Khalilullah Frozi, is supposed to be serving a 15-year prison sentence for his role in defrauding Kabul Bank of nearly $1 billion of depositors’ money. The scheme broughtAfghanistan’s biggest bank, where Mr. Frozi was listed as chief executive, near collapse in 2010, and it deeply shook trust in the Western-backed financial system here. 

But Mr. Frozi, it seems, will be spending his days making money while he serves his sentence at night.

Five years after the banking scandal, the apparent unwillingness of the Afghan authorities to deal firmly with the perpetrators is perhaps one of the most glaring examples of Western impotence in the fight to clean up a system that the United States, chiefly, built and paid for.

But wait. It gets worse:

Mr. Ghani’s coalition government depends on many of the same players [that Mr. Frozi bought when he headed Kabul Bank], and could do little more now than to reach a compromise with Mr. Frozi, the analysts say. 

Mr. Frozi’s enduring influence ensured him luxury even in jail, from where he was reportedly released regularly to watch his soccer team, Ferozi F.C. 

On a daily basis, Mr. Frozi posted photographs and poems on his Facebook page from his cell, which was specially furnished with cushions and maroon Persian rugs, its walls painted a pale yellow. 

Among the images is one of him with his children lounging on the cushions during family visit day. There is even a photograph of Mr. Frozi in the prison yard, hanging out with Taliban prisoners. 

“In Pul-i-Charkhi prison, with the political opponents of the National Unity Government,” the caption reads, in reference to Mr. Ghani’s coalition that he just signed a partnership with.

Obama's decision to extend the presence of U.S. troops through the end of 2016 needs to be seen for what it is: a delaying tactic that dumps the mess on the lap of whomever succeeds him. The Taliban have already won. That's why there is a mass migration underway. In all those stories about refugees flocking to Europe, Afghans are the next nationality mentioned after Syrians.

The U.S. project in Afghanistan is an abject failure. Kingpins like Khalilullah Frozi, who stored the money looted from Kabul Bank in the U.A.E., will be fine, I would imagine, when the Taliban take control of Kabul.

Doctors Without Borders is still waiting after one month for an answer from the Pentagon why its hospital in Kunduz was blown apart and its staff killed. Was the reason for the attack really to assassinate an ISI agent?

U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, tracking all the way back to the days of Jimmy Carter, is inherently part of the global guy-wires of neoliberalism and neoconservatism. Its onrushing collapse portends a great change coming our way.

Obama to Rescind U.S. Troop Pullout from Afghanistan: Perpetual War the Preferred Option of the Power Elite

A good story by Matthew Rosenberg, "Obama Is Rethinking Pullout in Afghanistan, Officials Say," which directly confirms Putin's observation about U.S. military planners having mush for brains, appears in today's paper. Obama, having announced at the end of last year the wholly fictitious end of U.S. combat operations in Afghanistan, is set to rescind the deadline of year-end 2016 for a complete withdrawal of U.S. troops:

But at the very least, those pushing for an expanded mission after 2017 would like to see the United States and its NATO allies maintain at least two or three bases from which drones could be flown and Special Operations Forces could readily strike at militants. The Central Intelligence Agency also wants a larger presence to help protect its assets in Afghanistan.

For now, the option that is being most seriously considered is a proposal made this past summer by Gen. Martin Dempsey, then the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to keep 3,000 to 5,000 troops for the counterterrorism mission.

The officials said that the Pentagon had also presented other options that range from just an embassy force of about 1,000, which mainly protects American diplomats in Kabul, to maintaining the current force of roughly 9,800, which would also allow American forces to continue training and advising the Afghans.

***

Still, Mr. Obama and some of his closest advisers remain skeptical of the military’s ability to continue training and advising Afghan forces, other officials said. Building the Afghan Army and police was the main imperative of American-led coalition for much of the past five years, and it has cost the United States more than $65 billion since the war’s outset. Yet even with roughly 17,000 NATO troops still on the ground — including the 9,800 Americans — the Taliban still managed last month to take Kunduz, seizing a city for the first time since 2001.

Afghan forces struggled to retake Kunduz, despite American airstrikes clearing a path and American Special Operations forces at times joining the fight. The city appeared to be back in government hands on Tuesday for the first time in more than two weeks after the Taliban said they were pulling out in order to avoid, as they said in a statement, the “unnecessary waste of ammunition.”

The battle for Kunduz also laid bare the risks posed by air power when, on Oct. 3, an American strike was called in by Afghan troops. The air attack hit a hospital run by Doctors Without Borders, killing 22 patients and medical staff — and no insurgents.

The president is determined to avoid a repeat of the strike on the hospital, for which he personally apologized, and wants any mission after next year to be as narrow as possible, officials said.

Seemingly the entire U.S. national security establishment is circling the wagons around a robust military presence to train and assist the Afghan Armed Forces regardless of the price tag.

Beyond the military, though, a powerful cross-section of the American foreign policy and national security establishment is also pushing for as broad a military commitment in Afghanistan as possible. The latest salvo is a paper to be released on Wednesday by the Atlantic Council, a think tank, which bluntly declares: “U.S. and NATO force levels and presence around the country, as well as intelligence assets, should be maintained at or close to present levels.”

The main argument of the paper, which was written by James B. Cunningham, a former ambassador to Afghanistan, centers on the need to continue helping Afghan forces, and to give the next American administration as much flexibility as possible.

But the most striking element of the paper, which was provided to The New York Times ahead of its release, is the list of more than 20 former senior officials, Democrats and Republicans alike, who have signed on to it. The list includes Madeleine Albright, the former secretary of state who served under President Clinton; Stephen Hadley, who was national security adviser to President George W. Bush; two former defense secretaries,Chuck Hagel and Leon Panetta (who also ran the Central Intelligence Agency); and four former American ambassadors to Afghanistan. The paper’s two sponsors are Senators John McCain, Republican of Arizona, and Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island.

After 14 years of war in Afghanistan, the list of American officials who have worked with the Afghans is long. And many have in the past year stepped forward to urge Mr. Obama to keep American troops in Afghanistan; in March, when President Ashraf Ghani of Afghanistan was in Washington, a group of 23 former ambassadors and senior officials made their point in an open letter to the president.

“Those of us who worked with the Afghans over the last decade or more feel that we’ve established a relationship that is of some enduring value,” said James Dobbins, the Obama administration’s former special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan and one of the signatories to the Atlantic Council paper.

He argued that Afghanistan may be the most democratic country in the Muslim world today, and that its government was unambiguously the most pro-American. But without American troops, he said, Afghanistan’s future is grim.ontinue reading the main story

“I can’t promise you that retaining a commitment at the current level will ultimately yield a completely peaceful settled and stable Afghanistan,” he said.

But leaving behind too few troop was lead to “an Afghanistan in complete turmoil.”

“You like Syria?” he said. “How would you like to have another one?”

Of course the United States helped create the chaos in Syria. No acknowledgement of that. Nor is there acknowledgement of the gist of a story by Rod Nordland and Joseph Goldstein, "Afghan Taliban’s Reach Is Widest Since 2001, U.N. Says," from a few days back:

The data, compiled in early September — even before the latest surge in violence in northern Afghanistan — showed that United Nations security officials had already rated the threat level in about half of the country’s administrative districts as either “high” or “extreme,” more than at any time since the American invasion ousted the Taliban in 2001.

That assessment, which has not been publicly released but is routinely shared by the United Nations with countries in the international coalition, appears at odds with the assessment of its American commander, Gen. John F. Campbell, in his testimony to Congress last week.

“The Afghan security forces have displayed courage and resilience,” General Campbell testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday. “They’re still holding. The Afghan government retains control of Kabul, of Highway One, its provincial capitals and nearly all of the district centers.”

Afghan officials in many districts currently under attack by the Taliban depict a significantly different situation. Even Highway One, a ring road connecting all of Afghanistan’s main cities, has long suffered repeated Taliban ambushes and roadblocks in southern Afghanistan; over the past two weeks the insurgents repeatedly cut the highway in the Doshi and Baghlani Jadid districts of Baghlan Province — long an uncontested government stronghold. Few government officials now use the highway along much of its route.

In many districts that are nominally under government control, like Musa Qala in Helmand Province and Charchino in Oruzgan Province, government forces hold only the government buildings in the district center and are under constant siege by the insurgents.

“We do not have any way to escape,” said Wali Dad, the police chief in Charchino, where 400 police officers have been surrounded and pinned down for months. “If we get any means of escaping, I will not stay for a second in the district. The government is failing in their governing, and it’s better to let the Taliban rule.”

General Campbell testified that the Afghan security forces had “reversed almost all of the Taliban gains in northern Helmand after a considerable effort.” He also said they had retaken Musa Qala and held on to other districts, like Sangin and Kajaki, that had been threatened in that area.

On Saturday, however, officials in Musa Qala said the government held only the district government compound, with no freedom of movement outside it because of Taliban threats. 

“Only the government can enter the district center, and there are no government activities outside the district center,” said Haji Mohammad Sharif, the district governor. 

The United Nations data suggests that the tempo of the insurgency has increased in many parts of the country where there had been little Taliban presence in the past, including some areas in the north with scant Pashtun populations. The Taliban have been a largely Pashtun-based insurgency and have been historically strongest in Pashtun-majority areas in southern and eastern Afghanistan, with some pockets in the north, such as Kunduz. 

"We have had fighting in 13 provinces of Afghanistan over the past six months, simultaneously,” President Ashraf Ghani said this month in response to criticism after the fall of Kunduz.

It is a compendium of failure that begs for a policy reversal. Since Obama has already gone the surge route, the logical next step would be to sit down to the bargaining table and hammer out a transition. But we know that won't happen, not only because of the national security elite singing in one voice calling for an indefinite commitment, but also because of the (re)appearance of specific propaganda favorites.

For instance, the old chestnut by Alissa Rubin, "Taliban Waged a Calculated Campaign Against Women in Kunduz"; as if the United States cared anything about the rights of women. This is the same U.S. military that condones sexual slavery as practiced by its mercenary Afghan militia allies.

Another propaganda favorite justifying indefinite, unilateral U.S. military force projection is the image of ISIS on the march, gobbling up and despoiling turf. Mujib Mashal delivers such a report with "Afghan ISIS Branch Makes Inroads in Battle Against Taliban."

The failed occupation will continue. More districts will fall to Taliban. The U.S. and its Afghan puppet government will maintain a cosmetic presence in the district centers. Gradually Kabul will be encircled. But the U.S. elites will have their drones bases and possibly an expanded CIA program for mayhem and murder. The Carter Doctrine can be maintained, I suppose the Beltway thinking goes, as long as you have a sharp stick to stir up the hornet nest.

There is also a pacifying spillover in the homeland. Ever since 9/11 we sing "God Bless America" during the seventh-inning stretch. Back then, we invaded Afghanistan instead of uprooting Al Qaeda's backers in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Now, almost 15-years later, we're still in Afghanistan, still losing hearts and minds, and the Saudis have expanded their jihadist terrorism, aided by the CIA, cracking apart the Sykes-Picot Middle East. The U.S. homeland is more militarized than at any time since the Vietnam War.

Then it took Congress to defund the Vietnam War to shut it down. The same thing is going to have to happen now in Afghanistan. The problem is that we are far less democratic a nation than we were 40 years ago. Congress is completely captive to wealth. Both political parties have nothing to do with the interests of ordinary voters. It is going to take a collapse of the system, a crackup, a revolution to get us back on the right path.

U.S. Project in Afghanistan Looking Very Wobbly

Two stories emanating from Afghanistan in the last two days -- "Afghans Protest After U.S. Forces Carry Out Raid on Strongman" by Mujib Mashal; and "In Afghanistan, Suicide Blast and Angry Crowd Target American Soldiers" by Joseph Goldstein and Ahmad Shakib -- highlight the duplicity of the Obama administration's public declaration that U.S. combat operations have ceased in that country.

The first story describes a raid by U.S. military on a local militia (non-Taliban) leader in Parwan Province, home to the U.S. mega-base Bagram Airfield, to destroy a weapons depot. The raid sparked a significant protest:

KABUL, Afghanistan — Protesters in the northern Afghan province of Parwan blocked the main highway there on Monday after American forces raided the village of a local strongman and blew up a weapons depot belonging to him, officials and residents said. 

The raid on Monday morning demonstrated that American troops in Afghanistan, months after President Obama declared their regular combat mission over, are engaged beyond their publicly stated role of advising the Afghan forces and carrying out targeted counterterrorism operations. 

It also highlighted how, despite a lengthy campaign to disarm illegal militias, costing hundreds of millions of dollars, armed groups that have no apparent ties to Al Qaeda or even the Taliban are still considered by American forces to be a significant threat.

The target of Monday’s raid was Jan Ahmad, a local commander who fought the Soviets and then the Taliban. Hours after the raid, shops in Charikar, the capital of Parwan Province, just north of Kabul, remained closed as Mr. Ahmad’s supporters shouted, “Death to America” and “Death to the enemies of Islam.” They expressed outrage at the manner of the raid, saying it was a matter that the Afghan authorities, not foreign forces, should have handled.

“The protesters burned a lot of tires to show their rage,” said Mahmood Hamidy, 20, who runs a private school in Charikar, “and that, if the issue is not taken seriously, they are ready for violence.”

While the American military described the raid as force protection, former commanders and local elders in the north leveled accusations that the raid had been politically motivated and possibly a settling of scores from last year’s election crisis.

Mr. Ahmad has supported Abdullah Abdullah, who was President Ashraf Ghani’s rival in the bitterly contested presidential runoff. At the height of the crisis, Mr. Ahmad was among a group of commanders who threatened to use force to support a breakaway government led by Mr. Abdullah.

Echoing his calls for restraint during the election crisis, Mr. Abdullah, who is now the chief executive in a power-sharing government with Mr. Ghani, called on the protesters Monday to remain calm as he appointed a fact-finding mission and asked Gen. John F. Campbell, the commander of United States forces in Afghanistan, to provide further information on the raid.

The gist of the story is particularly troubling for the U.S.-backed Ghani-Adbullah government. Militias are stockpiling weapons and gearing up for battle in anticipation of a coming collapse of authority in Kabul, and Ghani is using American troops to beat them down.

The second story, filed yesterday by Goldstein and Shakib, describes a suicide attack on a U.S. military convoy moving through Kabul that ended up in an anti-American protest after it appears troops fired on people trying to come to the assistance of those injured by the blast:

KABUL, Afghanistan — A convoy of American troops survived a huge suicide bomb attack in Kabul on Tuesday afternoon, only to find themselves struggling against a gathering crowd of Afghans who were trying to tend to civilians wounded in the bombing. 

The confusing scene left one American soldier wounded, possibly by a knife, as Afghans shouted, “Death to Americans,” and accused the soldiers of opening fire on them in the frightening seconds after the suicide attack, witnesses said.

The episode hinted at a lingering wellspring of anger against American troops even as the United States’ military presence in Afghanistan is receding. Convoys of heavily armored troop carriers are still spotted routinely in Kabul making shuttle runs between bases and embassies and the airport.

Around 1:30 p.m. on Tuesday, in the hot midday hours, a suicide attacker detonated a car bomb amid one such convoy, on Airport Road. The blast did not kill or seriously injure any of the soldiers, but it wounded at least 22 Afghans, including passing motorists and roadside shopkeepers, and killed at least one, officials said.

What happened next is still being pieced together. But at some point, a member of the crowd attacked and most likely stabbed an American soldier who had exited one of the vehicles to form a cordon, witnesses said. A soldier opened fire, although it was unclear whether the shots came before or after the crowd member’s attack. Some witnesses said the American soldiers, along with Afghan security officials who were nearby, had fired only warning shots.

These stories follow a week where there was a suicide attack on the Parliament in Kabul while Afghan lawmakers were trying to confirm a defense minister. The ministry has gone leaderless since the extra-legal Ghani-Abdullah coalition government assumed power from Hamid Karzai last September. Parliament's term has expired; it is in session based on presidential fiat. The Taliban is taking territory in the north.

Joseph Goldstein and Rod Nordland reported last week in "Taliban Strike Afghan Parliament as Lawmakers Meet" that things are dire for the U.S. project in Afghanistan:

KABUL, Afghanistan — The Taliban attacked the Afghan Parliament on Monday [June 22] just as lawmakers were convening for their third attempt to confirm a defense minister, while in northern Afghanistan a second district fell to Taliban insurgents. 

At least two bystanders died in the attack on Parliament and more than two dozen were injured, but government officials said that all members of Parliament had been taken to safety with at most only minor injuries. 

The seizure of the Archi district, which was confirmed by an Afghan Local Police commander, deepened concern that an attack on neighboring Kunduz, the capital of Kunduz Province, was imminent. Archi was the second neighboring district to fall in two days. On Sunday, the Ministry of Defense and other officials confirmed Taliban claims that the Chahar Dara district had fallen to the insurgents that morning.

The Parliament attack was an embarrassment to the government, apparently timed to coincide with the appearance of the acting defense minister, Masoom Stanekzai, in an effort to win confirmation. The attack was initiated just as Mr. Stanekzai and the country’s second vice president, Sarwar Danish, arrived at the hall in southwestern Kabul.

The country has been without a confirmed defense minister for nearly 10 months, since the coalition government of President Ashraf Ghani was inaugurated in September. Mr. Stanekzai was Mr. Ghani’s third choice for the post; his other candidates were rejected by Parliament.

The term of the Afghan Parliament expired Sunday, with no arrangements yet agreed upon between Mr. Ghani and his coalition partners for new elections. Mr. Ghani extended its term in office until new elections are held, although it is unclear whether such a move was constitutional.

As the Ghani-Abdullah government wobbles, the Taliban is softening its image, reaching out to women ("Taliban Are Talking Peace, Though Not With Afghan Government" by Mujib Mashal). One wonders how close the Kabul-based U.S.-dependent government of the former Johns Hopkins professor is to experiencing its own helicopter-on-the-U.S.-embassy-in-Saigon moment.

This is the End for Both the Democrats and the Long U.S. War in Afghanistan

Democrats' hopes of holding onto the White House seem remote. Obama is in free fall. Anti-police #Black Lives Matter protests continue, now in their second year. When I got off the train last night and scooted up the escalator, a couple of officers from the King County Sheriff's Department stood at the entrance to the transit station. A sure sign that a protest was underway. Last year, beginning with Thanksgiving and the riots in Ferguson, the police stayed on the streets for a month, a massive display of force for the holiday shoppers.

The cities are protesting and Obama is trying to have it both ways, poo-pooing rioters while explaining the conditions -- drug abuse, broken homes, underdevelopment of black communities in the inner-city -- that make riot necessary. But Obama does not call out the system by name --institutional racism. The Kerner Commission Report identified the problems 50 years ago in the wake of the riots of 1967 and articulated solutions, principally economic investment. Half-a-century later solutions remain unimplemented, a huge failure.

Obama is paying out what little political currency he has left to get the Trans-Pacific Partnership  through Congress. In order to do so he is going to have to rely on Republican votes. In many ways the last year of Obama's presidency is shaping up to look like Bill Clinton's, and we know how that turned out for Democrats.

The difference between Obama and Clinton is that Clinton was waging war in a relatively modest manner, bombing Yugoslavia into submission and terrorizing Iraq. Obama has more wars on his hands than we can count.

The one that kicked it all off for Clinton's successor, George W. Bush, is promising to provide a spectacular failure for Obama as he exits the White House. U.S. forces in Afghanistan, despite the administration's declaration of the end of combat operations there at the end of last year, are actively engaging the Taliban in attempt to keep the government of Ashraf Ghani from losing large chunks of territory.

Two stories over the last two days -- Mujib Mashal and Jawad Sukhanyar, "Afghan Troops Rush to Kunduz Amid Taliban Assault"; Azam Ahmed and Joseph Goldstein, "Taliban Gains Pull U.S. Units Back Into Fight in Afghanistan" -- depict a dire situation. The coalition government of Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Adbullah is not fully functional after more than half a year. There is still no defense minister even though the Taliban spring offensive has jumped off to an earlier than expected start with the provincial capital of Kunduz threatened.

As Ahmed and Goldstein explain, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan Gen. John Campbell is basically acting as Ghani's defense minister, and this despite the declared end of a U.S. combat role:

As early as January, when officials in Washington were hailing the end of the combat mission, about 40 American Special Operations troops were deployed to Kunar Province to advise Afghan forces that were engaged with the Taliban over a handful of villages along the border with Pakistan.

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With the troops on the ground, the command for the American-led coalition called in airstrikes under the authority of force protection, according to two Western military officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the details of the operation were not public.

“They are putting guys on the ground in places to justify the airstrikes,” one of the officials said. “It’s not force protection when they are going on the offensive.”

Commenting on the continuing military operations against the Taliban, the top American commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John F. Campbell, vehemently denied accusations that he was putting troops into harm’s way just to enable more airstrikes.

He has insisted that it is within his purview to target Taliban insurgents who pose a threat not just to American or NATO troops but to any Afghan security forces. And his options on the ground were clear, he said in an interview, even if Washington’s public description of them was not.

“Washington is going to have to say what they say politically for many different audiences, and I have no issue with that,” General Campbell said. “I understand my authorities and what I have to do with Afghanistan’s forces and my forces. And if that doesn’t sell good for a media piece then, again, I can’t worry about it.”

He added: “Combat and war and transition, as you know, it’s a very complex thing. For me, it’s not black and white.”

The operations are continuing during a troubling stretch for the Afghan security forces, as the Taliban are continuing to make gains. Members of the nation’s military and police forces were killed by the insurgents at a high rate last year. And in the first three months of this year, things already appeared worse: The casualty rate rose 54 percent over the same period last year, according to one Western and one Afghan official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the figures were not public.

The danger was highlighted in recent days in the northern province of Kunduz, where the Afghan Army has been forced to send thousands of reinforcements to beat back a major Taliban offensive. In addition to threatening to claim at least one district, the insurgents have come within a few miles of the provincial capital, officials in Kunduz said. Coalition forces deployed jets to the area in a show of force but no munitions were dropped, officials said.

In that environment, American military officials have been reluctant to let go of the war, arguing that their involvement remains necessary given the Taliban threat and changing regional factors.

But in March, when Mr. Obama and President Ashraf Ghani of Afghanistan publicly announced that they had agreed to slow the withdrawal of American troops, administration officials emphasized that counterterrorism and training were still the focus, not everyday combat missions against the Taliban. The idea of the extended timeline was to bolster the ability of Afghans to fight, officials said, not to directly fight on their behalf.

Now, though, the distance seems to be widening between the administration’s public statements and what the military appears to be doing, whether at the behest of the White House or on its own, officials here said.

“What I’m thankful for is that I have the authority and flexibility to make those very tough decisions,” General Campbell said. “They could have said, ‘Every time you hit a target, you have to get approval.’ ”

***

Still, General Campbell has found strong support from Mr. Ghani, who became the president in September. Many officials characterize their relationship as a strikingly close partnership: General Campbell visits the president nearly every day — more than any other Western official in the country — and the commander’s staff has been tasked with not only helping to write policy for the Afghan forces but also helping direct overall strategy, at a time when the war is meant to be entirely in the hands of the Afghans.

Some Western officials have privately expressed discomfort with the American role and questioned how prolonging the American strategy in Afghanistan would be more effective this year than it was in the past 13.

“I’m not surprised they are continuing in this way,” said one Western diplomat living in Kabul. “What’s surprising is how much of it they’re doing.”

For an idea of the "thumb in the dike" nature of expanded U.S. airstrikes, read the Mashal and Sukhanyar story about the Taliban offensive in Kunduz. One thing that is apparent from their report is that there is a deep fissure in the Afghan force structure. The Afghan Local Police, militias set up and funded by the U.S., are often at odds with the Afghan National Police and Afghan National Army. (There is an excellent short film produced by The New York Times that documents this.) According to Mashal and Sukhanyar,

The intensity of the violence around Kunduz sent the government scrambling to respond, with three high-level visits to Kunduz on Monday alone, and with confusion and dissension reported among some of the forces fighting back against the insurgents.

The provincial head of the Afghan Local Police, militia forces that have often been on the front lines of fighting against the Taliban, was scornful. “The army and the police don’t coordinate the operations with the A.L.P.,” said the forces’ leader, Sayed Dawood Hashemi. “We are used as firewood in the fighting.”

Despite requests for assistance from the security forces, one A.L.P. unit with dozens of men was forced to retreat from the neighborhood of Talawka, on the outskirts of Kunduz, allowing Taliban fighters to flood in, according to a member of the provincial council. Elsewhere, 26 A.L.P. fighters have been captured by the Taliban and two killed, Mr. Hashemi said.

Intense fighting started relatively early this year. Two weeks before the official start of their spring offensive, the Taliban attacked Afghan Army positions in remote Badakhshan Province, with hundreds of fighters overrunning Jurm District, abducting and killing dozens of soldiers, some of whom were reportedly beheaded. The government says it has begun a counteroffensive in Badakhshan, even as heavy fighting has been reported in several other northern provinces, including Sar-i-Pul, Jowzjan and Faryab.

With so many battles raging across the country, visiting army officials have told provincial council members in Kunduz that the best they can do is push back the enemy a bit, and that they cannot afford to sustain a longer operation, according to Mr. Ayoubi, the council chief in Kunduz.

In the meantime, irregular militias that were once funded by the United States as bastions against the Taliban have largely been on their own.

In Qala-i-Zal District, the 300 men under a commander named Nabi Gechi have been trying to fend off the Taliban advance. After five days of sustained small-arms and mortar fire from the insurgents, Mr. Gechi said, his militia was forced to retreat from one of its posts, with three men killed and a dozen wounded.

“The people of Qala-i-Zal are paying for the ammunition and food to supply us enough so we can stand up to the Taliban attacks,” he said.

Not only is there a war with the Taliban, but there is a war within the U.S.-created Afghan state between local and national armed forces. This cannot end well. The question is when will it collapse not if it will collapse.