‘Afghan pact reflects a failed nation-building US effort’

WASHINGTON (PAN this week, a powerful US lawmaker on Thursday alleged the US-Afghan strategic partnership agreement reflected a decade of failed nation-building effort of the United States.

“The Obama administration reportedly still plans to spend as much as $4 billion a year supporting Afghan security forces, plus billions more in foreign aid and nation building efforts after 2014, said Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, who asked “after spending over $520 billion in the Afghan campaign, they have to ask when does it end and when do we have a strategy that wins the war?”

The agreement promises at least another decade of American military involvement after the bulk of US forces withdraw in 2014.

“Helping the Afghans defend themselves is a good thing, but some in Washington have been calling for as many as 30,000 U.S. troops to remain behind–a clear admission that a decade of nation building has not worked,” Rohrabacher, who is Chairman of the US House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, said.

Early this week, he was denied entry into the country by President, Hamid Karzai, who personally reached out to the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to express his objections.

Rohrabacher opposed the provision in the strategic agreement which bans launching attacks from Afghan soil against Pakistan. “This restriction will allow the enemy to retreat to, and rebuild in, a safe area. It is equivalent to the bombing halts during the Vietnam War which allowed the Communists to survive years of battlefield defeats to ultimately win a prolonged war,” says Rohrabacher.

“By obligating the US to come to the aid of Kabul, yet denying the use of drone strikes, al-Qaeda and the Taliban’s return to power is a certainty,” he said.

“The Afghan War continues to be justified as the only way to prevent terrorists from having a base to plot against the US. However, al-Qaeda is operating in many countries like Somalia and Yemen and Osama Bin Laden was killed last year in Pakistan,” he said.

“The Afghan model is not the way to fight global terrorism and has already been abandoned in favor of other strategies everywhere except in Afghanistan,” the Congressman said.

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