Afstan: Reaction to Kunduz airstrike/A broader perspective

Further to this post,

ISAF airstrikes in Afstan: "About Kunduz"

a number of developments:

1) This angle has not been reported elsewhere, as far as I've seen:

Afghan Reaction To Strike Muted
Anger at Taliban, Apology by U.S. Deflect The Usual Outrage Over Civilian Deaths

2) Poor NATO:

US Gen Stanley McChrystal rebukes Germans over Afghan strike that killed civilians
America’s senior commander in Afghanistan rebuked his German subordinate on Monday as the Nato allies exchanged recriminations over an air strike that claimed at least 54 lives.

3) More on Germany:

Merkel Defends German Afghan Role as War Tops Election Agenda

This is interesting:

...
“The mission in Afghanistan is our reaction to terror,” Merkel said...

4) A Canadian role:

Canadian general to investigate Kunduz air strike

A Canadian general will lead the investigation into a recent airstrike on a pair of hijacked fuel tankers that killed as many as 70 civilians in northern Afghanistan.

Maj. Gen. C.S. ``Duff'' Sullivan serves as the Air Component Element Director and the Deputy of Joint Operations for ISAF.

The former fighter pilot joined the Canadian Armed Forces in 1979.

The board also will include a U.S. Air Force officer, a German officer, and a legal advisor. The board will co-ordinate with the Afghan investigation team, formed by Afghanistan President Karzai...

The Joint Investigation Board is expected to take several weeks to complete its work.

It has been directed to research and document all facts and circumstances surrounding the strike and any potential civilian casualties.

The results will be shared with Afghanistan and German authorities to inform their follow-on actions as appropriate.

Sullivan has had this kind of experience before. He served as co-president on the U.S.-led Combined Investigation Board convened by Commander AFCENT to investigate an A-10 Friendly Fire incident during OP Medusa near Kandahar, Afghanistan.

Pte. Mark Anthony Graham died and several other Canadian soldiers serving with Charles Company group, Royal Canadian Regiment, were injured after a U.S. Air Force plane opened fire on Canadian troops on Sept. 4, 2006 .

More on Maj.-Gen. Sullivan here and here (no way, especially now, that any of our CF-18s will ever be sent to Afstan).

Meanwhile, Anne Applebaum provides a broader perspective in the Washington Post:

Will Obama Fight For Afghanistan?

Perhaps this summer's record bloodshed did it, or perhaps it was the disappointment of the election, with its low turnout, accompanying violence and allegations of fraud. Whatever the reason, the Afghan war is suddenly at the center of political debate in several Western countries. At stake are not merely tactics and strategy but a far more fundamental question: Should we still be in Afghanistan at all [Update: from Spiegel Online, "Can the War Be Won? Disillusionment over Afghanistan Grows in West?"]

Given how different the political cultures of North America and Europe are sometimes alleged to be, the similarity of the arguments is striking. In the States, George Will has just pointed out that U.S. involvement in Afghanistan has lasted longer than its participation in World Wars I and II combined. In Germany, the defense minister caused an uproar by predicting that German troops might be in Afghanistan for another decade; opposition leaders immediately started calling for a much faster withdrawal. Faced with public disapproval, the Canadians have had to promise to withdraw troops by 2011. The Dutch are supposed to pull out in 2010. At a conference I attended in Amsterdam last weekend, a large audience cheered when a panelist denounced the war. Demands for a time frame -- "two more years and then out" -- can be heard almost everywhere.

Equally universal (and bipartisan) are complaints that the war's aims are unclear or unrealistic...

Which is, if you think about, all rather strange, since the goals of the war have never been in doubt in any European or North American capital. "Winning" means we leave with a minimally acceptable government in place; "losing" means the Taliban takes over and al-Qaeda comes back. No one has ever pretended it would be easy. But this is a war that has never been properly explained to most of the populations fighting it. For years it has simply been the "good war," as opposed to the "bad war" in Iraq, and no one felt the need to argue further.

The results of this silence are most visible in those European countries whose people have been conned into believing that their troops aren't really fighting in Afghanistan but, rather, participating in an extensive armed charity operation. Germans, for example, were deeply disturbed to learn that a German commander called for the NATO airstrike that killed some 90 Afghans in Kunduz last week. This news surprised those Germans who thought their troops in Afghanistan were doing reconstruction work [more on Germans here and here]. Americans seemed shocked to discover that Marines were fighting this summer to retake previously safe areas, that the election was not going smoothly and that the government of President Hamid Karzai was corrupt. All of that has been clear for some time. But who was talking about it?

Following the lead of one of the region's most clairvoyant experts, Ahmed Rashid [see 3) at this post, already linked to] I would argue that the situation in Afghanistan is not yet hopeless. As I wrote on the eve of the election, there is still a definite Afghan majority that wants not only peace but also some version of democracy. The central government still has a modicum of legitimacy, though it may not last long. The plan to increase troop levels in the near future to give the Afghan army time to grow stronger in the long term is not naive, particularly if accompanied by sensible investments in roads and agriculture. But such a plan cannot be carried out without public support, and public support will not be forthcoming unless politicians agitate for it...

On both sides of the Atlantic, Obama needs to cajole and convince, to produce plans and evidence, to show he has gathered the best people and the most resources possible -- to campaign, in other words, and campaign hard. If the health-care debate will determine his domestic fortunes, the outcome in Afghanistan will make or break his foreign policy. He has said many times that he supports the Afghan war in principle. Now we'll see whether he supports it in practice.

Update: An excellent post by BruceR at Flit on the dicey position of the Afghan government we are trying to build up:

More on helplessness and powerlessness