AFP Photo/Romeo Gacag (think IN pictures @1WORLD Community)
SitiWanMahani - Apa-apa kejayaan Amerika Syarikat dan sekutu-sekutunya telah menik-mati di Afghanistan dalam tempoh 3 tahun yang lalu akan dikurangkan secara mendadak pada 2017, walaupun kehadiran tentera Amerika Syarikat kekal di negara ini, menurut laporan perisikan Amerika Syarikat.
Perisikan Anggaran Kebangsaan mengira bahawa Taliban dan peserta serantau lain, termasuk Al-Qaeda, akan mula menonjolkan diri mereka sebagai Amerika Syarikat angin ke bawah operasi ketenteraan di negara yang dilanda perang itu, Washington Post mela-porkan, memetik pegawai biasa dengan laporan terperingkat .
Anggaran itu termasuk analisis dari perkhidmatan perisikan negara 16.
Keadaan ini akan merosot lebih cepat sekiranya Washington dan Kabul gagal untuk menandatangani perjanjian keselamatan yang membolehkan kontingen ketenteraan Amerika Syarikat ke atas wilayah Afghanistan selepas tahun 2014 , satu perjanjian yang juga menjanjikan untuk membebaskan berbilion-bilion dolar dalam bantuan kewangan ke Afghanistan .
“Dalam ketiadaan kehadiran berterusan dan sokongan kewangan yang berterusan,” ang-garan perisikan “menunjukkan keadaan akan merosot dengan cepat,” akhbar itu memetik seorang pegawai Amerika Syarikat biasa dengan laporan itu sebagai berkata.
Beberapa pegawai, bagaimanapun, menyatakan berpendapat bahawa anggaran perisikan perang paling lama dalam sejarah Amerika adalah “terlalu pesimis” dan gagal untuk mengambil kira pelbagai faktor, termasuk keberkesanan baik pasukan keselamatan Afghanistan, yang akan diserahkan tugas mencegah Taliban kebangkitan, dan juga kepu-tusan pilihan raya presiden tahun depan.
“Saya fikir apa yang kita akan melihat adalah recalibration kuasa politik, wilayah dan begitulah,” kertas yang dipetik rasmi lain sebagai mengulas . “Ia tidak akan menjadi satu kenaikan tidak dapat dielakkan daripada Taliban.” Seorang pegawai kanan pentadbiran memberitahu akhbar itu bahawa anggaran perisikan mempunyai kecenderungan untuk melukis sekeping gambar suram keadaan di Afghanistan.
“Penilaian yang mengatakan perkara-perkara yang akan menjadi suram tidak kira apa yang kamu lakukan, yang anda hanya melambatkan yang tidak dapat dielakkan, itu hanya pandangan,” kata pegawai itu. “Saya tidak akan berfikir ia akan menjadi pandangan penentu.”
“Sekali-kali tidak telah lonjakan mengalahkan Taliban,” kata pegawai itu, tetapi ia tidak membantu untuk “terbalik momentum Taliban dan memberi kerajaan lebih daripada kelebihan. Saya fikir kita mencapai itu.”
Presiden Afghanistan Hamid Karzai telah disimpan Washington menunggu Perjanjian Keselamatan 2 Hala yang akan membolehkan luar jangka yang diketuai, termasuk kira-kira 15,000 tentera Amerika, untuk kekal di negara ini selepas tahun 2014. Sebabnya adalah jelas: Karzai, di bawah tekanan pendapat awam Afghanistan, enggan untuk memberikan kekebalan kepada mana-mana tentera Amerika Syarikat meninggalkan di atas tanah-air di Afghanistan, berikut 2014 tarikh sisipan yang diisytiharkan.
Taliban back in the saddle in Afghanistan
by 2017 - leaked intel report
Any success the US and its allies have enjoyed in Afghanistan in the past three years will be dramatically reduced by 2017, even if a US military presence remains in the country, according to a US intelligence report.
The National Intelligence Estimate calculates that the Taliban and other regional players, including Al-Qaeda, will begin to assert themselves as the United States winds down military operations in the war-torn country, the Washington Post reported, quoting officials familiar with the classified report.
The estimate includes analysis from the country’s 16 intelligence services.
The situation will deteriorate even more rapidly in the event that Washington and Kabul fail to sign a security agreement that allows a US-led military contingent on Afghan territory beyond 2014, an agreement that also promises to free up billions of dollars in financial aid to Afghanistan.
"In the absence of a continuing presence and continuing financial support," the intelligence estimate "suggests the situation would deteriorate very rapidly," the newspaper quoted one US official familiar with the report as saying.
Some officials, however, expressed the opinion that the intelligence estimate of the longest war in American history was “overly pessimistic” and failed to consider various factors, including the improved effectiveness of Afghanistan's security forces, which will be handed the task of preventing Taliban resurgence, as well as the outcome of next year’s presidential election.
"I think what we're going to see is a recalibration of political power, territory and that kind of thing," the paper quoted another official as commenting. "It's not going to be an inevitable rise of the Taliban."
A senior administration official told the newspaper that the intelligence estimate has a tendency to paint a gloomy picture of the situation in Afghanistan.
“An assessment that says things are going to be gloomy no matter what you do, that you’re just delaying the inevitable, that’s just a view,” said the official. “I would not think it would be the determining view.”
“By no means has the surge defeated the Taliban,” the official said, but it did help to “reverse the Taliban’s momentum and give the government more of an edge. I think we achieved that.”
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has kept Washington waiting on the Bilateral Security Agreement that would allow a US-led contingency, including some 15,000 American troops, to remain in the country beyond 2014. The reason is clear: Karzai, under Afghan public opinion pressure, is reluctant to grant immunity for any US troops left on the ground in Afghanistan, following the declared 2014 pullout date.
Reuters/Stringer (think IN pictures @1WORLD Community)
Rakyat Afghanistan telah menyaksikan terlalu banyak pembunuhan secara rambang rakyat yang tidak berdosa untuk memberi lesen untuk tingkah laku yang lebih itu. Bercuti Amerika Kesyukuran, sebagai contoh, serangan Drone Amerika Syarikat meninggalkan satu kanak-kanak mati dan 2 wanita cedera tentera NATO mendakwa mereka cuba untuk membunuh tunggal “militan yang dikenali” di Wilayah Helmand.
Sementara itu, penganalisis bimbang bahawa cengkaman Kabul pada kuasa mungkin tidak lagi relevan kerana ia kehilangan “pembelian” lebih pelbagai rantau di negara ini, kata pegawai yang lain.
White House enggan mengulas laporan NIE itu. Seorang pegawai pentadbiran kanan berkata penilaian perisikan adalah “hanya satu alat dalam toolbox analisis dasar kami.”
“Salah satu tugas utama komuniti perisikan adalah untuk memberi amaran tentang upsides berpotensi dan kelemahan kepada dasar Amerika Syarikat, dan kami kerap meng-gunakan penilaian mereka untuk mengenal pasti kelemahan dan mengambil langkah-langkah untuk membetulkannya,” kata kenyataan itu. “Kami akan seberat input daripada [perkhidmatan perisikan] bersama-sama orang tentera, diplomat dan pakar-pakar pem-bangunan seperti yang kita melihat keputusan berbangkit di hadapan kita, termasuk mem-buat keputusan mengenai sama ada untuk meninggalkan tentera di Afghanistan selepas akhir 2014.”
Stephen Biddle, seorang pakar dasar pertahanan di Majlis Hubungan Luar, kata pakar-pakar sebahagian besarnya ditarik antara dua pandangan mengenai prospek masa depan di Afghanistan. Satu pihak melihat pasukan keselamatan Afghanistan akhirnya memaksa Taliban ke dalam sejenis perjanjian politik. Satu lagi sebelah ramalan bahawa Taliban, yang Amerika Syarikat dipersalahkan untuk melindungi Al-Qaeda dalang, Osama bin Laden, akan beransur-ansur mendapatkan semula pengaruh bekas di negara ini.
Biddle berkata banyak bergantung kepada bagaimana Kongres, yang menjadi semakin berhati-hati berterusan kehadiran tentera di negara ini, memutuskan mengenai perkara itu.
“Sama ada jalan buntu lebih teruk atau lebih baik bergantung kepada kadar di mana Kongres defunds perang,” katanya.
Pada masa ini Washington masih mempunyai 63,000 tentera di atas darat. Terdahulu pada bulan Disember, undian Associated Press-GfK mendapati 57 % peratus rakyat Amerika berkata berperang di Afghanistan sebagai tindak balas kepada 11- September serangan pengganas mungkin “perkara yang salah untuk dilakukan.” Minoriti rakyat Amerika Syarikat adalah memihak kepada rancangan pengeluaran semasa, dengan 53 % peratus berkata proses ini mengambil masa yang lama dan 34 % peratus respons yang pengunduran tentera adalah kira-kira betul.
The Afghan people have witnessed too much indiscriminate killing of innocent citizens to give license for more such behavior. On the American holiday of Thanksgiving, for example, a US drone attack left one child dead and two women injured as NATO forces claimed they were trying to kill a lone "known militant" in Helmand Province.
Meanwhile, analysts fear that Kabul’s grip on power is likely to become increasingly irrelevant as it loses “purchase” over various regions of the country, another official said.
The White House refused to comment on the NIE’s report. A senior administration official said intelligence assessments are “only one tool in our policy analysis toolbox.”
“One of the intelligence community’s principal duties is to warn about potential upsides and downsides to US policy, and we frequently use their assessments to identify vulnerabilities and take steps to correct them,” the statement said. “We will be weighing inputs from the [intelligence services] alongside those of the military, our diplomats and development experts as we look at the consequential decisions ahead of us, including making a decision on whether to leave troops in Afghanistan after the end of 2014.”
Stephen Biddle, a defense policy expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, said experts are largely pulled between two views on the future prospects in Afghanistan. One side sees Afghan security forces eventually forcing the Taliban into some sort of political agreement. Another side forecasts that the Taliban, which the United States blamed for harboring Al-Qaeda mastermind, Osama bin Laden, will gradually regain its former influence in the country.
Biddle said much depends on how Congress, which is becoming increasingly wary of continuing its military presence in the country, decides on the matter.
“Whether it’s a worse or better stalemate depends on the rate at which Congress defunds the war,” he said.
At the moment Washington still has 63,000 troops on the ground. Earlier in December, an Associated Press-GfK poll found that 57 percent of Americans say going to war in Afghanistan as response to the September-11 terrorist attacks was probably the “wrong thing to do.” A minority of US citizens is in favor of the current withdrawal plan, with 53 percent saying the process is taking too long and 34 percent responding that the troop withdrawal is about right.
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