Former UK ambassador to Afghanistan condemned U.S. General David Petraeus for employing counterproductive military tactics in Afghanistan, accused him of increasing violence and said the general should be “ashamed of himself” for boasting publicly about insurgent body count.
Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles told the Guardian Petraeus’s “kill or capture” approach was “profoundly wrong” and was based on a line of thinking that reminded him of the American mindset in Vietnam.
During Congressional testimony earlier this year Petraeus asserted coalition forces were killing or capturing 360 insurgent leaders every three months in an effort to pressure the Taliban to the negotiating table.
From Cowper-Coles’s perspective, by taking such an approach the general was actually violating his own counterinsurgency principles, which are supposedly centered on winning the “hearts and minds” of the local population. He also credited Petraeus’s predecessor, General Stanley McChrystal, for trying to protect Afghan civilians even at the expense of killing more Taliban. The diplomat was quoted as saying:
"There is no doubt that Petraeus has hammered the Taliban extremely hard," he said. "I am sure that some of them are more willing to parlay. But, equally, for every dead Pashtun warrior, there will be 10 pledged to revenge.”
Instead of focusing on the political dimension, which is core to defeating an insurgency, Petraeus has “trebled the number of special forces raids by British, American, Dutch and Australian special forces.”
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Australian defense sources have claimed that, although the targeting of insurgent leaders is ''on an industrial scale'' under Petraeus, the coalition has achieved medium-term goals ''even if there's probably more [insurgents] flowing in than we can remove from the battlefield”.
Cowper-Coles believes Petraeus’s strategy has made a stable political settlement even more elusive.
The New York Times reported yesterday the U.S. has begun “exploratory” talks with a senior aide to Taliban leader Mullah Omar, but officials in the region are skeptical about the aide's authority to speak on behalf of the insurgents.
Not to mention, British officials have indicated that, contrary to rumors about contacts with senior-level Taliban, U.S. special envoy Marc Grossman reportedly can’t find any credible Taliban members willing to even engage in “talks about talks”.
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