• BBC coverage
• The Taliban insurgency
• Inside the Taliban
• Katy Clark on what if the US loses in Afghanistan
• Jeb Sharp on the mission in Afghanistan

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This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

MARCO WERMAN:  There are also some unsettling revelations today about the conduct of the war in Afghanistan.  They stem from a U.S. airstrike that a German commander called in, in September.  The target was two fuel trucks that the Taliban had seized.  The air strike destroyed the trucks but it also killed thirty civilians.  Today, Germany’s top soldier in Afghanistan, Wolfgang Schneiderhan, resigned over the affair.  It seems he knew the strike had killed civilians, even though the German government was denying it.  The World’s Gerry Hadden reports.

GERRY HADDEN:  General Schneiderhan is accused of deliberately sitting on information about those civilian deaths following the airstrike.  Today, Germany’s defense minister, Carl-Theodor Zu Guttenberg, announced Schneiderhan’s departure at a meeting of the German Parliament.  Guttenberg said the general has asked me to relieve him of his duties and even if I hear sarcastic laughter now, I would like to thank him for his decades of service to our country.  At the same time, other German leaders sought to distance the current administration of Angela Merkel from the scandal.  Labor Minister Franz Joseph Jung was foreign minister when the airstrike occurred.  Today he said that Afghan officials had told him a number of civilians were killed or injured but he said the officials later stated that the Taliban and their allies were responsible.  The government has promised to make public a report that General Schneiderhan had insufficient information about the danger to civilians, just prior to the airstrike and yet he failed to share that information with his superiors.  Germany’s opposition parties are awaiting that report eagerly.  Former foreign minister, Frank Walter Steinmeyer now leads the opposition in Parliament.  He said we still don’t know who’s going to bear the political responsibility for this disdainful treatment of Parliament and the public and this is why I believe that a Parliamentary inquiry into this matter is unavoidable.  The airstrike scandal could have an impact far beyond Germany.  Its reverberations could reach all the way to Washington.  Today’s New York Times reports that President Obama is asking allies such as Germany to send a total of 10,000 more troops to Afghanistan but the revelations about General Schneiderhan could make Germans even less enthusiastic about answering Mr. Obama’s call.  Opinion polls suggest a majority of Germans want their soldiers to come home.  Today’s scandal could well discourage Germany from sending even the 120 soldiers it’s pledged, so says Professor Cord Jakobeit of the University of Hamburg.

CORD JAKOBEIT:  So maybe the consequence would be what’s, eighty or ninety so they reduce it a bit further and there will be more pressure on an exit option that should be on the table concerns 2012, 2013 reduction of Germany participation, etcetera.  That’s imaginable.  That’s something that might happen as a consequence of the scandal around this thing heating up.

HADDEN: Germany isn’t the only NATO country likely to resist the latest U.S. calls for more troops.  French President Nicolas Sarkozy has said he won’t send any more soldiers but outside NATO, there’s at least one country willing to pony up, Georgia.  It’s responding to political pressures of its own.  Georgians hope to be invited into the NATO club one day.  Fighting in Afghanistan is one way to score points.  For The World, I’m Gerry Hadden.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

• The Taliban insurgency
• Inside the Taliban
• Katy Clark on what if the US loses in Afghanistan
• Jeb Sharp on the mission in Afghanistan
• Jeb Sharp’s award winning series ‘How Wars End’
• Inside the Taliban

Read the Transcript
This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

MARCO WERMAN: I’m Marco Werman.  This is the World.  President Obama plans to announce his long-awaited decision on Afghanistan next Tuesday.  It’s still not clear what he’ll say in his prime-time speech from the military academy at West Point.  But yesterday President Obama did say he intended to “finish the job” in Afghanistan.  And today the White House indicated that American troops would not be there in eight or nine years.  So, what does it mean to finish the job?  It’s a question we posed to four experts on war and security.  We start with Peter Bergen of the New America Foundation.

PETER BERGEN: Depending on how you define what the job is done to mean, one definition is, bringing security to the Afghan people, securing the main roads, rolling back the Taliban from Kandahar.  These are doable things that might take a year or two, are an also measurable, observable.  For instance, if you can drive down the Kabul to Kandahar road without being kidnapped or attacked, which is the case right now, in a year from now that isn’t the case, that’s one measurable effect of having more security.  After all, the Kabul to Kandahar road is the most important road in the country, both economically and politically.  So that would be one indicator I’d be looking for, and the other indicator, which is also very measurable, is which districts do the Taliban control and which districts are at high risk for Taliban attack?  The end state is the Taliban recognizing that they have no future in Afghanistan, and either laying down their arms and becoming part of the political solution, or being captured or killed. I mean, the point of all this is to make sure the Taliban don’t return.

STEPHEN BIDDLE:  I’m Stephen Biddle from the Council on Foreign Relations.  As far as how we’ll know when the job is done, the problem with counterinsurgency is that the endings to these things are ragged and usually unsatisfying. I think in many ways the best analogy is the situation we’re finding ourselves in in Iraq right now, where the violence is way down but not zero.  The country is better off politically than it was in 2006 and 2007, but far from perfect.  And what we have is a tentative, gradual draw down of US forces and influence which we hope doesn’t make things worse as we draw back from protecting the population.  But it’s a slow, gradual process where there’s no moment at which everything turns off, we declare victory and we go home.  And it’s not likely to be tremendously satisfying.

MONICA TOFT:  I’m Monica Duffy Toft at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.  I teach and research on civil wars, inner state conflict, religion and violence.  I’m a little bit pessimistic about whether there is going to be a satisfactory end state in terms of western and American interests, and whether we’ll even know whether that end state has been achieved, assuming we can define one.  The reasons that I’d like to raise for why I’m a bit pessimistic or skeptical, one is just basic topography.  As a student of civil wars, I have actually worked on looking at this settlement pattern geography, where people live and how they live.  The topography of Afghanistan is not amenable to a centralized state, which is one of the end points the United States and its allies would like, is a centralized state that has governance and control.  The second issue is that the best counterinsurgency strategy is the hearts and mind strategy, and it requires at least three things:  time, which we know is quite precious.  It requires many troops, but not just many troops.  Troops who are informed in the local culture, so that they can win over the hearts and minds.  And then the one that we’ve been dealing with quite regularly lately is a less corrupt government.  And without all those three, it’s very difficult to institute a hearts and minds strategy and we’re short on all three.

ANDREW BACEVICH:  This is Andrew Bacevich.  I teach at Boston University.  It seems to me that President Obama is rather clearly lowering the bar as to what will define success in Afghanistan.  All the talk about liberal democracy or defending the rights of Afghan women is pretty much gone by the board. I think the focus will be on trying to create an Afghan state that is able to hold its own against the Taliban, and that if the Obama administration can get there, it will be more than happy to declare victory and get out.  My own view is that even that more modest objective will be exceedingly difficult for the United States and its allies to achieve for two reasons.  The first is the clear weakness and inadequacy of the Afghan security forces.  The second reason is the absence of an effective and legitimate Afghan government.

WERMAN:  That was Andrew Bacevich of Boston University offering his view of what it means to “finish the job” in Afghanistan.  Before him, we heard from Monica Toft of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, Stephen Biddle for the Council on Foreign Relations, and we began with Peter Bergen of the New America Foundation.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

President Obama has put Afghanistan at the top of his foreign policy agenda. But polls suggest that many Americans don’t share the President’s priority… or even know why we’re there. Anchor Jeb Sharp speaks with policy expert Andrew Exum of the Center for a New American Security. >>The World’s Aaron Schachter recently reported from behind the front lines.

President Obama has put Afghanistan at the top of his foreign policy agenda. But polls suggest that many Americans don’t share the President’s view on that. Anchor Jeb Sharp speaks with Andrew Exum, a fellow at the Washington think-tank, the Center for a New American Security.

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This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

JEB SHARP: I’m Jeb Sharp. And this is The World, a co-production of the BBC World Service, P-R-I, and W-G-B-H, Boston. President Obama has put Afghanistan at the top of his foreign policy agenda, but his top military man, Admiral Mike Mullen, said yesterday that public support here is flagging. Polls back that up. The goal of stabilizing Afghanistan is ambitious enough. It becomes nearly impossible without solid support from the public, and a clear vision from the President. Andrew Exum highlights the issue in his latest blog postings. Exum is a fellow at the think-tank, the Center for a New American Security, in Washington. He’s also an army veteran, with multiple tours in Afghanistan and Iraq under his belt. Andrew Exum, what is missing here? Is it a vision of a desirable end state, the strategy to get there? Give us a sense of what you’ve been writing about.

ANDREW EXUM: Well, I think you’ve got a couple things. First off, the American people haven’t really paid attention to Afghanistan for most of the past five years because of the war in Iraq. And not only have the American people not paid attention to it, but policy makers have not as well. And so we’ve arrived to the point where we’re almost in our ninth year of combat in Afghanistan, and it suffered from neglect in several different ways, and it shows. First off, the American people, and including actually a lot of senior policy makers I’ve spoken to, and the departments and agencies and the government, don’t feel like anybody’s explained what we’re trying to do in Afghanistan. And then second, I, you know, I just returned from a long trip to Afghanistan, and there is a belief that we have not done an effective job communicating what exactly is going on in Afghanistan, and why we need to shift strategy there.

JEB SHARP: And so, who’s at fault? Whose job is it to articulate and sell division, and how do you do it?

ANDREW EXUM: Sure. I think that two people are really responsible for articulating what’s going on. First off, President Obama has to defend his stra-, his policy rather. He’s the one that has to explain why we’re in Afghanistan, and what we’re doing there. Second thing, Generals Petraeus, and General McChrystal, who really have [INDISCERNIBLE] their responsibility for the effort in Afghanistan. They’re the ones that have to explain to the American people how we’re going to realize the President strategy, in other words, what we’re doing. Afghanistan is never gonna be a popular war, I don’t think any wars are going to be popular, but I think that people would understand it a little bit better if policy makers, and our operational commanders took the time out to explain what we’re doing in Afghanistan, and how we’re going to get to where we want to be. Keep in mind, General McChrystal is a new commander in Afghanistan, he has just completed his own 60-day review. And I suspect that as part of that 60-day review, and this is something that we talked a lot about, is that he needs to take the message to both policy makers in congress, as well as to the American people, and explain what we’re trying to do.

JEB SHARP: So, given that that train is moving along on one track, what are the practical real world consequences of the confusion that you refer to, and the lack of clarity?

ANDREW EXUM: Well, I think you’ve got several problems. First off, this is a NATO war, and it’s very difficult to manage a coalition, and to get every partner in the cohabitation working along the same lines. And for everybody to understand what resources are needed, what type of strategic changes are needed, and it’s very difficult to do that if you, the American government, are all not on the same page about what needs to happen.

JEB SHARP: And Andrew, you are an infantry platoon commander in Afghanistan. Can you give a sense of how and whether this big picture policy stuff affects the men and women on the ground?

ANDREW EXUM: Yeah, it absolutely does. You know, one of the things that we often don’t talk about, but which is quite significant, was the psychological effect that the 2007 Baghdad security plan had on troops in Iraq. Soldiers, American soldiers, generally have high morale, they don’t mind fighting, they believe in their mission. But they have to believe that there’s a coherent strategy that surrounds their mission. And one of the things that the 2007 Baghdad security plan did, is that it provided, first off, a clear strategy for how we were going to go about our business in Iraq. And then second off, it provided sufficient resources for us to be able to go about that strategy. In Afghanistan, I believe the US soldiers on the ground are looking for the same thing. If they are lost in some random valley in Nuristan Province, and they’re not sure how exactly it connects to what we’re trying to do strategically in the country, that’s a big problem. It’s gonna really affect morale, it’s going to affect the way that troops do business on the ground. If however, we have a clear, coherent strategy that’s backed by sufficient resources, and that it’s made clear to not only the soldiers on the ground, but to the American people back home, that could have a tremendous psychological effect on the average guy fighting the war.

JEB SHARP: Andrew Exum is a fellow at the Center for New American Security, in Washington, and author of the blog, Abu Muqawama. There’s a link to his blog on our website, The-World-dot-org. And while you’re, there check out our weekly cartoon slideshow. Last week’s elections in Afghanistan inspired some poignant, and irreverent political cartooning.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

Read the Transcript
This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

JEB SHARP: I’m Jeb Sharp, this is the World. President Obama’s surge of troops into Afghanistan is in full swing. The momentum of operations is up, but so are casualties among US and other international forces. The BBC’s Martin Patience is in Kabul. Martin, where are the US and allied forces suffering the most casualties?

MARTIN PATIENCE: Well, there’s no almost 70 thousand Jewish troops in Afghanistan. They’re focusing their efforts in the south and east of the country, where the insurgencies aren’t the strongest. Now, the vast majority of casualties are happening in those areas, and they’re happening because of improvised explosive devices. Now they’re essentially roadside bombs. They’re very difficult to defend against. And the big issue is, that there’s so many of them out there. I was just down in Helmand Province, on an embed with the British Forces. And I went out on patrol. And in the space of that patrol, the six-hour patrol at two IED’s were found. So the real threat to American, British, and other coalition soldiers, is these IED’s.

JEB SHARP: Now, are the Taliban suffering casualties at the same sort of rates as well?

MARTIN PATIENCE: Well, it’s very difficult to know, because the coalition forces here don’t take body counts on the Taliban. One of the reasons for that is, they’re focused now under General Stanley Mc Chrystal, who’s been in the country for a couple of months, is protecting the Afghan civilian population from Taliban insurgents. Now the argument goes in the past that the more Taliban insurgents that are killed during fighting, then the better. But I think there’s a realization that you can kill the Taliban, but the problem doesn’t go away because Afghan training camps in Pakistan. The best way to win this battle, in many ways, is to try and win the trust, the hearts and minds of the Afghan people so that they chose the Afghan government, which is backed by the international community over the insurgent movement. But I was just speaking to a British commander a couple hours ago, and he said in Helmand that dozens of Taliban fighters have been killed in recent operations, both the British operation, and the American operation in the south of the country.

JEB SHARP: And Mc Chrystal’s notion that this is primarily a battle for hearts and minds, as you say, is there any way at this point yet to gauge whether that’s having any effect? What Afghans think or if there’s any shift in sentiment about what the US is doing?

MARTIN PATIENCE: I think it’s very difficult, because he’s only been in the country since May. I think people are waiting particularly ’til after the summer to pass judgments. But certainly his approach, putting Afghans at the heart of the campaign, Afghan civilians, I think is warmly welcomed here by the Afghan government. And there’s been real criticism of the American military for using air strikes, because they have resulted in mass civilian casualties. So what the Afghan government wants, is greater cooperation between the American, and the Afghan military to try and minimize these civilian casualties. Because when you’re fighting any current insurgency campaign, when civilians end up killed, it’s completely counter productive. Forget the tragedy aside, it’s completely counter productive to the whole mission, because if you’re trying to win the hearts and minds of the people, and you kill civilians in a village, then often that whole village turns against you, if not the district and it just makes your job all that much harder.

JEB SHARP: The BBC’s Martin Patience in Kabul, thank you so much.

MARTIN PATIENCE: Thank you.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.