Government Expert Quits Afghan Mission And Rattles The Brass: Text of his resignation letter here.

[Better Believe It]

Expert Quits Afghan Mission And Rattles The Brass
by JERRY REMMERS
October 27, 2009

As you will learn, Matthew Hoh is no peacenik rabblerouser but a seasoned combat Marine, civil engineer and member of an elite Foreign Service team whose resignation shocked the top civilian foreign policy leaders in the Obama administration.

“I have lost understanding of and confidence in the strategic purposes of the United States’ presence in Afghanistan,” he wrote Sept. 10 in a four-page letter to the department’s head of personnel. “I have doubts and reservations about our current strategy and planned future strategy, but my resignation is based not upon how we are pursuing this war, but why and to what end.”
The State Department thought so highly of Hoh that he was flown to Washington with a face-to face talk with Richard C. Holbrooke, the administration’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

“We took his letter very seriously, because he was a good officer,” Holbrooke said in an interview. “We all thought that given how serious his letter was, how much commitment there was, and his prior track record, we should pay close attention to him.” While he did not share Hoh’s view that the war “wasn’t worth the fight, “Holbrooke said, “I agreed with much of his analysis.”

Many Afghans, he wrote in his resignation letter, are fighting the United States largely because its troops are there — a growing military presence in villages and valleys where outsiders, including other Afghans, are not welcome and where the corrupt, U.S.-backed national government is rejected. While the Taliban is a malign presence, and Pakistan-based al-Qaeda needs to be confronted, he said, the United States is asking its troops to die in Afghanistan for what is essentially a far-off civil war between rural and urban rivals.


"I have lost understanding of and confidence in the strategic purposes of the United States' presence in Afghanistan," Matthew Hoh wrote in a resignation letter.

http://themoderatevoice.com/50991/expert-quits-afghan-mission-and-rattles-the-brass/

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You can read Matthew Hoh's resignation letter at the following link:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/21683575/Matthew-Hoh-first-US-official-to-resign-over-Afghan-War

[IndianaGreen]

1. It is true that our mere presence is the source of the violence

Staying in Afghanistan will only result in more graves in Arlington.

[FrenchieCat]

2. I wondered in two other threads which posted this exact same story.....

one last night, and one a while ago over at GD,
I wondered as to why it took so long for this Former Captain to figure out what he is against.

He fought in Iraq, and it is obvious he had no problem fighting in that wrong war....
a war much more controversial in that it was not linked to 9/11 at all, nor was it sanctioned
by NATO allies.

So it would seem that he was asleep while in Iraq,
and woke up while in Afghanistan......

Guess he now is willing to sacrifice his civilian career on "principle" that he discovered
only in Afghanistan and obviously wasn't present while he was fighting in Iraq.

Guess he didn't follow the elections, or he would have known way before last month
exactly what would take place in Afghanistan....and that the reasons that we are there
actually hasn't changed since 2001, other than the fact that we are now concentrating
on Afghanistan, a war that was not of any focus since its inception.

[IndianaGreen]

4. Have you ever served in the military, or are you just another chicken hawk?

A lot of soldiers are gung ho at first, only to become bitterly disillusioned and alienated by their combat experiences.

[FrenchieCat]

8. Seems like he fought in Iraq, left military life, only to sign up into

the exact similar arena; war.

He obviously didn't have a problem while fighting in Iraq,
which is why he came back again, this time in civilian clothing,
and simply to a different theater. Everything he is saying about Afghanistan
held true in Iraq.....the difference of course is that one war was a against
a country that didn't harbor any terrorists implicated in 9/11 (and we have known this forever),
and one war was completely neglected and ignored for 8 years.

Just seem that if he had some real misgiving, he would have had them while fighting in Iraq....
That's all I'm saying.

He can and should do as he chooses.

As whether I ever served in the military....I didn't know I had to in order to hold an opinion
on this subject. Guess that I'm only allowed to comment on the topics you so choose.
Thanks for being less than generous with what I'm alloted to comment on. What would I do without you? :shrug:

[Better Believe It]

7. Why have you engaged in a vicious personal attack against this courageous and brave person?

Support the loss of more GI's lives in Afghanistan if you want, but don't engage in such low level attacks against soldiers who oppose it and want our troops brought home.

Have you no shame or compassion?

Did you even bother to read his letter?

[FrenchieCat]

11. Vicious personal attack must be in the eye of the beholder......

I don't regard my comments as vicious in anyway.

I'm sorry if I don't worship at the feet of those who you so choose. :shrug:

[Better Believe It]

13. Oh ..... you lauded his courage! Guess I just didn't read your comments carefully.

And here I thought you were slinging mud at him and his motives.

Gee .... thanks for the clarification Frenchie!

You certainly know more than he does about Afghanistan!

Oh .... if you can find the time you might want to actually read his letter!

[FrenchieCat]

14. Courage is relative.......

Far as you're concerned,
and appears to only manifest itself in those who agree with your views.

My point still stands. He seem to have no issues with fighting in Iraq.
How courageous was that?

[IndianaGreen]

17. Everyone experiences fear when there is someone shooting at you

Real courage is to stand up for peace. Cowardice is to support a wasteful war on account that it is a Democratic war, instead of a Republican one.

[FrenchieCat]

20. Thanks for the definitions to everything....

And put so simply like Black contrasting White too!
Again, what would one do without you? :shrug:

At the end, I'm happy that this man is standing up for his defined principles....
and I agree, war is usually wasteful.
.

[Better Believe It]

18. Still haven't read his resignation letter?

[wisteria]

10. I agree with you on this man. n/t

[Thrill]

3. Hopefully Obama has the guts to stand up to the military commanders and end this

Not holding my breath though.

[IndianaGreen]

5. Obama already did his LBJ impersonation by putting peace off the table

All that await us are the helicopters ferrying people out of Kabul just before it falls.

[Forkboy]

6. K&R

[wisteria]

9. Ah, a star in the making. n/t

[TomCADem]

12. Very good letter, but I don't like his suggestion that we garrison Pakistan

He does make a good point that the primary point of origin for Al Queda is in Pakistan and he recognizes that the pursuit of Al Queda should continue. However, his argument that it makes more sense to garrison Pakistan, rather than Afganistan sound unteneble.

I wish his letter itself provided a better suggestion regarding the ultimate goal, which should be to prevent future attack. The suggestion that the U.S. should devote its Afganistan forces to Pakistan sounds like a worse alternative to the situation the U.S. currently is in.

[IndianaGreen]

15. Al-Qaeda is in Pakistan

I would rather we bring all the troops home now. We lost this war, let's not send more people into battle just so that our Commander-in-Chief looks resolute.

[TomCADem]

19. Did We Lose The War? If So, What Is Winning?

My main concern about Afganistan was there never was an objective during the eight years were there once the Taliban were rooted from power. We should have got out then, but no. Instead, eight years later, we are still in Afganistan, and to what end?

The answer I want is whether if we leave will Al Qaeda simply move out of Pakistan, back into Afganistan? The goal should be to prevent another 9/11. Once we reach that goal, then we get out.

The question of whether we won or loss is meaningless if we lose sight of the goal of keeping the U.S. safe. If it does keep the U.S. safe, then the effort is well worth it. If not, then get out.

[IndianaGreen]

21. We lost Afghanistan

Pakistanis don't like foreigners, and that includes the Arabs that comprise the bulk of Al-Qaeda.

[TomCADem]

22. What is winning then? Making Afganistan the 51st State?

[IndianaGreen]

24. Winning? There are no winners in war!

War is not a stupid video game.

[Better Believe It]

25. Sometimes there are winners. Glad the union defeated the confederacy.

And that the axis powers were defeated in World War II.

And the Vietnamese won their war for independence in 1975 and we won ours against Great Britain almost 200 years before!

But Afghanistan is not that kind of war.

[quiet.american]

16. K&R nt

[Better Believe It]

23. Former Marine captain resigns in protest of Afghanistan war By Glenn Greenwald

Former Marine captain resigns in protest of Afghanistan war
By Glenn Greenwald
October 27, 2009

Matthew Hoh, a former Marine captain with combat experience in Iraq, resigned last month from his position with the Foreign Service, where he was the the senior U.S. civilian in the Taliban-dominated Southern Afghanistan province of Zabul, because he became convinced that our war in that country will not only inevitably fail, but is fueling the very insurgency we are trying to defeat. Hoh's resignation is remarkable because it entails the sort of career sacrifice in the name of principle that has been so rare over the last decade, but even more so because of the extraordinary four-page letter (.pdf) he wrote explaining his reasoning.

Hoh's letter should be read in its entirety, but I want to highlight one part. He begins by noting that "next fall, the United States' occupation will equal in length the Soviet Union's own physical involvement in Afghanistan," and contends that our unwanted occupation combined with our support for a deeply corrupt government "reminds horribly of our involvement in South Vietnam." He then explains that most of the people we are fighting are not loyal to the Taliban or driven by any other nefarious aim, but instead are driven principally by resistance to the presence of foreign troops in their provinces and villages.

How long are we going to continue to do this? We invade and occupy a country, and then label as "insurgents" or even "terrorists" the people in that country who fight against our invasion and occupation. With the most circular logic imaginable, we then insist that we must remain in order to defeat the "insurgents" and "terrorists" -- largely composed of people whose only cause for fighting is our presence in their country. All the while, we clearly exacerbate the very problem we are allegedly attempting to address -- Terrorism -- by predictably and inevitably increasing anti-American anger and hatred through our occupation, which, no matter the strategy, inevitably entails our killing innocent civilians. Indeed, does Hoh's description of what drives the insurgency -- anger "against the presence of foreign soldiers" -- permit the conclusion that that's all going to be placated with a shift to a kind and gentle counter-insurgency strategy?

Hoh told The Washington Post's Karen DeYoung that he's "not some peacenik, pot-smoking hippie who wants everyone to be in love" and that he believes "there are plenty of dudes who need to be killed," adding: "I was never more happy than when our Iraq team whacked a bunch of guys." Plainly, there's nothing ideological about his conclusions; they're just the by-product of an honest assessment, based on first-hand experiences, of how our ongoing occupation of that country is worsening the very problem we're allegedly there to solve.

Read the complete article at:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/10/27/afghanistan/