Local views diverge on Aghanistan war

A former ambassador to Afghanistan said Wednesday it would be “foolish and fatal” to quit the war, and a retired Army colonel said the battlefield commander should get the reinforcements he requested.

But as the increasingly violent Afghan war enters its ninth year, those perspectives from two Sonoma County residents who once served in Afghanistan diverge dramatically from a local peace activist who calls the war a mistake and Rep. Lynn Woolsey who opposes sending in more U.S. forces.

“I don't see any military solution to the situation in Afghanistan,” said Woolsey, D-Petaluma, who also was a vocal critic of the Iraq War.

The United States should bolster humanitarian and economic aid to Afghanistan and pursue diplomatic efforts to stabilize the country, Woolsey said.

Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, who sits on the House Intelligence Committee and visited Afghanistan in August, said he doesn't think diplomacy would be productive with the Taliban, the hardline Islamic group driven from control of Afghanistan in 2001.

Thompson declined to elaborate or to say whether he favors a troop buildup in Afghanistan. “I'm working on it,” he said. “There are certain things I just can't tell you.”

Ted Eliot of Sonoma, who served as U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan in the 1970s, said a prolonged campaign is needed to establish a stable, self-governing Afghanistan.

“It's kind of like putting Humpty-Dumpty together again,” Eliot said, referring to Afghanistan's 31 years of war since the Soviet invasion in 1978.

If the U.S. and its NATO allies were to give up, Eliot said, “the place would fall apart fairly quickly.”

A longterm commitment will cost billions of dollars, Eliot said, adding that it behooves President Obama to define a strategy in Afghanistan and “sell it to Congress and the American people.

“It's an issue that can make or break his presidency,” the retired diplomat said.

Steve Countouriotis of Petaluma, a retired Army lieutenant colonel, said Obama should quickly approve Gen. Stanley McChrystal's request for up to 40,000 more troops to bolster the authorized 68,000-member force.

“I think it's incumbent on the commander-in-chief to execute the request,” Countouriotis, a veteran of two tours in Afghanistan, said. “When a guy asks for help, send it to him.”

The NATO alliance's goal in Afghanistan should be to “disrupt, dismantle and destroy Al Qaida,” the international terrorist organization responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, he said.

If Al Qaida were to regain a safe haven in Afghanistan, it could “recruit jihadists from all over the world” and possibly mount an attack on neighboring Pakistan, Countouriotis added.

Thompson and Countouriotis both cited the prospect of Al Qaida gaining control of Pakistan's nuclear weapons as a potential nightmare.

Roads in Pakistan and Afghanistan lead to Europe, Countouriotis said. “Throw a nuke in a truck and drive it into a European city,” he said, outlining a terrorist attack scenario.

Other countries — including secular Muslim states like Indonesia, Malaysia and Turkey — should contribute troops and money to the campaign, including training and equipping vastly expanded Afghan security forces, Countouriotis said.

“U.S. taxpayers should not be the only ones bearing that burden,” he said.

The Afghan police force should be doubled from 84,000 to at least 160,000, and the Army of about 92,000 should have up to 300,000 troops, said Coutouriotis, who served as an adviser to the Afghan police.

Ted Sexauer, a Sonoma peace activist and Vietnam War veteran, said that America's belligerent response to the Sept. 11 attacks has backfired, saddling the nation with a costly, bloody — and in his estimation — unwinnable war in Afghanistan.

“It is a heartbreaker,” he said, noting that military and civilian war casualties in the Middle East have vastly exceeded the nearly 3,000 lives lost on 9/11.

“We should have taken the route of compassion and cooperation,” he said.

Sexauer, a past president of Veterans For Peace Chapter 71, Sonoma County, said he has “no answer” to the concern that Al Qaida could regroup in a disintegrated Afghanistan.

Thompson, also a Vietnam veteran, said the U.S. made a “terrible mistake” by diverting its focus from Afghanistan to Iraq, where there was no Al Qaida presence prior to the American-led invasion in 2003.

“We could have secured the lives of the Afghan people,” he said. “We did it wrong the first time. I think we need to do it right this time.”

Recent counterterrorism efforts in the tribal areas along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan have shown some progress, he said. “I think we have them (Al Qaida) off balance,” Thompson said.

Woolsey was one of 57 House members, including seven Republicans, who signed a letter to Obama in September urging him to reject a troop increase in Afghanistan.

House Democrats will be split over such a proposal, if it comes to a vote, Woolsey said. But with most Republicans in favor of troop escalation it wouldn't take many Democratic votes to approve it, she said.

Woolsey believes public support for the Afghanistan war is eroding, “not just among my wonderful constituents who didn't like it in the first place.”

An Associated Press poll conducted through Monday found that 57 percent of people oppose the Afghanistan war — up 4 percent from a mid-July poll — while 40 percent favor it.