Michael Hastings, in “The Operators, The Wild and Terrifying inside Story of America’s War in Afghanistan”, cites a letter of resignation to the U. S. State Department by Matt Hoh, a field observer, that was reviewed and discussed at the high levels including Ambassador Richard Holbrooke who , reportedly, agreed 95% with what Hoh had to say.
Here are excerpts from the letter, dated September 10,2009:
“To put [it] simply: I fail to see the value or the worth in continued U. S. Casualties or expenditures of resources in support of the Afghan government in what is, truly, a 35-year old civil war…If the history of Afghanistan is one great stage play, the United States is no more than a supporting actor, among several previously, in a tragedy that not only pits tribes, valleys, clans, villages and families against one another, but, from at least the end of King Zahir Shah’ reign, has violently and savagely pitted the urban, secular, educated and modern of Afghanistan against the rural, religious, illiterate and traditional…
I have observed that the bulk of the insurgency fights not for the white banner of the Taliban, but rather against the presence of foreign soldiers…Our support for the [Afghan ] government, coupled with a misunderstanding of the insurgency’s true nature, reminds me horribly of our involvement with South Vietnam; an unpopular and corrupt government we backed at the expense of our Nation’s own internal peace, against an insurgency who nationalism was arrogantly and ignorantly mistook as a rival to our Cold War ideology…
If honest, our stated strategy of securing Afghanistan to prevent al-Qaeda resurgence or regroup would require us to additionally invade and occupy western Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, etc. Our presence in “Afghanistan has only increased destabilization and insurgency in Pakistan…
More so, the September 11th attacks, as well as the Madrid and London bombings, were primarily planned and organized in Western Europe; a point that highlights the threat is not one tied to traditional geographic or political boundaries….I realize the motion and tone of my letter and ask you [to] excuse any ill temper…
Thousands of our men and women have returned home with physical and mental wounds, some that will never heal or will only worsen with time. The dead return only in bodily form to be received by families who must be reassured their dead have sacrificed for a purpose worthy of futures lost, love vanished, and promised dreams unkept. I have lost confident such assurance can anymore be made. As such, I submit my resignation.”
