USS Clueless              Voyages of a restless mind

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Stardate 20011220.0628 (On Screen): The differences of opinion about the size, makeup and mission of the upcoming Afghan peacekeeping force are coming to a head, and it's becoming blatantly obvious that the entire concept was unwanted by the Afghans themselves. Somehow or other, the existence of a peacekeeping force was someone's price for participating in the Bonn negotiations. Evidently it was external nations who were pushing it, not including the US.

US statements about this peacekeeping mission have been: we're not going to participate, and make sure that they don't get in our way as we continue to prosecute this war. (Which, if you think about it, is a complete repudiation of the entire concept of "peacekeeping".) Some of the Afghans themselves originally said in Bonn that they didn't want peacekeepers at all (and then changed their minds after backchannel wrangling), and now what they're saying is that they don't want many and they too don't want them to get in the way.

Fahim said the peacekeepers' role will be largely symbolic, with 2,000 of the 3,000 peacekeepers on humanitarian aid missions or as a reserve force, out of sight at the Baghram air base north of the capital.

"They are here because they want to be. But their presence is as a symbol," Fahim told The Associated Press. "The security is the responsibility of Afghans."

"They are here because they want to be" means they are here because we were forced to accept them. The contrast in attitude about them to how the Afghans seem to feel about the Americans couldn't be more stark, and it does not bode well. The new rules approved by the interim Afghan government largely make the peacekeeping force meaningless. Only a thousand of them will actually be permitted to patrol, and they won't actually have the power to act. They'll be a show force. It's hard to say just what good they'll do.

It's almost like they're a security blanket. There seem to be people in the world who just won't believe that a war can end without peacekeeping forces. But it sure as hell isn't the Afghans who need their blankee. At the rate they're going the whole mission is going to be a shambles anyway. If the US war in Afghanistan demonstrated how best to run a military effort, this peacekeeping mission is demonstrating all the things not to do. They have no clear mandate, no clear mission, and they're being imposed on the locals; they are already suffering from coalition command; they're going to be there in insufficient numbers and operating under rules of engagement which wll make it largely impossible for them to be effective, and they'll be confined to a small part of the country (the Kabul area). No soldier should be given an assignment like this; they're being let down by their leaders. (discuss)

Is it too soon to start referring to it as the "International peacekeeping farce"?