Letter from the Af-Front

On September 10, 2009, recently appointed career U.S. Foreign Service Officer, 36-year-old Matthew P Hoh, sent a four page letter to the Director General of the Foreign Service & Director of Human Resources, Ambassador Nancy J Powell, resigning from the service and specifically from his position as Senior Civilian Representative, Zabul Province, Afghanistan. A former Marine captain who had served in Iraq, Mr. Hoh resigned in protest to the continued U.S. presence and battle in Afghanistan.

“I fail to see the worth in the continued U.S. casualties or expenditures of resources in support of the Afghan government in what is, truly, a 35-year old civil war.” Noting that in one more year, the U.S. presence in Afghanistan will equal that of the failed Soviet effort during the 1980s, Hoh added that we were attempting to impose a form of government on this nation that is “unknown and unwanted by its people.” Hoh is not the first person to note the profoundly tribal nature of a nation that is seen as a single political “unit” only in the eyes of the outside world.

Hoh noted that the seemingly great unifying force in Afghanistan is neither support for the Taliban insurgency nor the quest for a freely elected central government; it is the anger of a people at the “foreign soldiers and taxes imposed by an unrepresentative government in Kabul.” In short, the mere presence of NATO troops and the clearly and overwhelmingly corrupt government in Kabul – represented by the election-fixing face of President Karzai – are the driving forces for continued violence and instability in this region.

Hoh states that “We are mortgaging our economy on a war, which, even with increased commitment, will remain a draw for years to come. Success and victory, whatever they may be, will be realized not in years, after billions more spent, but in decades and generations. The United States does not enjoy a national treasury for such success and victory.” Congress and the President are asking the same questions, and the answer seems to be uncompromisingly simple: this is, realistically, an unwinnable war for the allies; the answer is to find a reasonably dignified exit strategy and soon.

Had the United States and its allies made the most of the almost immediate collapse of the Taliban government in 2001 – funneling money into infrastructure like schools, electrical power generation, roads, hospitals and jobs, literally improving the lots of the people of Afghanistan – it might have been a different story. But we deployed that money in the absurd quest for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, with profoundly embarrassing results. That misstep cost us the possibility of any semblance of affordable “victory.” For us, that possibility no longer exists.

Hoh’s letter drew the attention of many, and senior diplomatic officials, including the U.S. Ambassador to Kabul, Karl W. Eikenberry, and Richard C. Holbrooke, the administration's special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, convinced Hoh to remain with the service in a new and elevated capacity, but Hoh soon realized that his original decision was the correct one. He wasn’t a “peacenik” he told the press, and viewed the Taliban and al Qaeda with equal enmity: “There are plenty of dudes who need to be killed.” But maybe this theater of operations isn’t the place where American goals can be properly and efficiently effected.

In the end, with dwindling economic resources at our disposal and our role as the preeminent global power slipping away almost as quickly as the dollar depreciates, we have some exceptionally difficult decisions to make. Matt Hoh had the courage of his convictions, based on his “up close and personal” experiences on the ground in Afghanistan. That senior American diplomatic officials wanted him to remain even after they received his letter of resignation lets you know, beyond the slightest doubt, that they actually believe Hoh is correct. So do I.

I’m Peter Dekom, and I approve this message.