RESIGNATION LETTER FROM U.S. FOREIGN SERVICE OFFICER MATTHEW P. HOH
By U.S. Foreign Service Officer Matthew P. Hoh, Senior Civilian
Representative, Afghanistan
Washington Post
October 27, 2009 (letter dated Sept. 10)
Dear Ambassador Powell,
It is with great regret and disappointment I submit my resignation
from my appointment as a Political Officer in the Foreign Service and
my post as the Senior Civilian Representative for the US Government in
Zabul Province. I have served six of the previous ten years in
service to our country overseas, to include deployment as a U.S.
Marine office and Department of Defense civilian in the Euphrates and
Tigris River Valleys of Iraq in 2004-2005 and 2006-2007. I did not
enter into this position lightly or with any undue expectations nor
did I believe my assignment would be without sacrifice, hardship or
difficulty. However, in the course of my five months of service in
Afghanistan, in both Regional Commands East and South, I have lost
understanding of and confidence in the strategic purposes of the
United States’ presence in Afghanistan. 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. To put 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.
This fall will mark the eighth year of U.S. combat, governance, and
development operations within Afghanistan. Next fall, the United
States’ occupation will equal in length the Soviet Union’s own
physical involvement in Afghanistan. Like the Soviets, we continue to
secure and bolster a failing state, while encouraging an ideology and
system of government unknown and unwanted by its people.
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’s reign, has violently and savagely pitted the urban, secular,
educated, and modern of Afghanistan against the rural, religious,
illiterate, and traditional. It is this latter group that composes
and supports the Pashtun insurgency. The Pashtun insurgency, which is
composed of multiple, seemingly infinite, local groups, is fed by what
is perceived by the Pashtun people as a continued and sustained
assault, going back centuries, on Pashtun land, culture, traditions
and religion by internal and external enemies. The U.S. and NATO
presence and operations in Pashtun valleys and villages, as well as
Afghan army and police units that are led and composed of non-Pashtun
soldiers and police, provide an occupation force against which the
insurgency is justified. In both RC East and South, 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 and taxes
imposed by an unrepresentative government in Kabul.
The United States military presence in Afghanistan greatly contributes
to the legitimacy and strategic message of the Pashtun insurgency. In
a like manner our backing of the Afghan government in its current form
continues to distance the government from the people. The Afghan
government’s failings, particularly when weighed against the sacrifice
of American lives and dollars, appear legion and metastatic:
* Glaring corruption and unabashed graft;
* A President whose confidants and chief advisors comprise drug
lords and war crimes villains, who mock our own rule of law and
counternarcotics efforts;
* A system of provincial and district leaders constituted of local
power brokers, opportunists and strongmen allied to the United States
solely for, and limited by, the value of our USAID and CERP contracts
and for whose own political and economic interests stand nothing to
gain from any positive or genuine attempts at reconciliation; and
* The recent election process dominated by fraud and discredited
by low voter turnout, which has created an enormous victory for our
enemy who now claims a popular boycott and will call into question
worldwide our government’s military, economic and diplomatic support
for an invalid and illegitimate Afghan government.
Our support for this kind of 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 whose nationalism we arrogantly and
ignorantly mistook as a rival to our own Cold War ideology.
I find specious the reasons we ask for bloodshed and sacrifice from
our young men and women in Afghanistan. If honest, our stated
strategy of securing Afghanistan to prevent al-Qaeda resurgence or
regrouping 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 where we
rightly fear a toppled or weakened Pakistani government may lose
control of its nuclear weapons. However, again, to follow the logic
of our stated goals we should garrison Pakistan, not Afghanistan.
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. Finally, if our concern is for a
failed state crippled by corruption and poverty and under assault from
criminal and drug lords, then if we bear our military and financial
contributions to Afghanistan, we must reevaluate and increase our
commitment to and involvement in Mexico.
Eight years into war, no nation has ever known a more dedicated, well
trained, experienced and disciplined military as the U.S. Armed
Forces. I do not believe any military force has ever been tasked with
such a complex, opaque, and Sisyphean mission as the U.S. military has
received in Afghanistan. The tactical proficiency and performance of
our Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines is unmatched and
unquestioned. However, this is not the European or Pacific theaters
of World War II, but rather is a war for which our leaders, uniformed,
civilian and elected, have inadequately prepared and resourced our men
and women. Our forces, devoted and faithful, have been committed to
conflict in an indefinite and unplanned manner that has become a
cavalier, politically expedient, and Pollyannaish misadventure.
Similarly, the United States has a dedicated and talented cadre of
civilians, both U.S. government employees and contractors, who believe
in and sacrifice for their mission, but they have been ineffectually
trained and led with guidance and intent shaped more by the political
climate in Washington, D.C., than in Afghan cities, villages,
mountains, and valleys.
“We are spending ourselves into oblivion” a very talented and
intelligent commander, one of America’s best, briefs every visitor,
staff delegation, and senior officer. We are mortgaging our Nation’s
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.
I realize the emotion and tone of my letter and ask that you excuse
any ill temper. I trust you understand the nature of this war and the
sacrifices made by so many thousands of families who have been
separated from loved ones deployed in defense of our Nation and whose
homes bear the fractures, upheavals, and scars of multiple and
compounded deployments. 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, loved vanished, and promised
dreams unkept. I have lost confidence such assurances can anymore be
made. As such, I submit my resignation.
Sincerely,
Matthew P. Hoh
Senior Civilian Representative
Zabul Province, Afghanistan
