US hero quits Afghanistan job in protest at ‘unwinnable war’ as casualties mount

A senior US official in Afghanistan has resigned in protest at a war he says cannot be won — as eight more US troops died yesterday making it the deadliest month in the eight-year conflict.

The resignation of Matthew Hoh, a senior Foreign Service officer and former Marine captain, reverberated as far as the White House, not only because of his superb credentials but also because of his view that the presence of US troops is fuelling the insurgency.

News of his resignation came as eight US servicemen died in a series of roadside bombings — a day after 14 Americans were killed in two helicopter crashes, bringing the number killed this month to 55. Officials said that the troops were killed in two attacks on their convoys by “multiple, complex” bombs in southern Afghanistan. An Afghan civilian working with the military was also killed. The attacks suggest that the Taleban’s weapons are becoming more sophisticated and lethal.

With President Obama appearing ready to send more troops to the country, Mr Hoh wrote in an emotional four-page resignation letter: “Put simply, I fail to see the value in the continued US casualties or expenditures in support of the Afghan Government in what is, truly, a 35-year-old civil war.”

Mr Hoh, who spent six years in Iraq where he was cited for “uncommon bravery”, continued: “My resignation is based not on how we are pursuing this war, but why and to what end.” Many Afghans, he said, were fighting the US because its troops were there.

Hundreds, maybe thousands, of groups across Afghanistan had few ideological ties to the Taleban but took its money to fight the foreign intruders and maintain their local power bases, he said. Even if the US increased its commitment, it would take years, if not decades and generations, and many billions of dollars to achieve success.

Mr Hoh decided to make public his resignation, which took place in September, in yesterday’s Washington Post. “I want people in Iowa, people in Arkansas, people in Arizona, to call their congressman and say, ‘Listen, I don’t think this is right’,” he said.

He spoke of the multiple, seemingly infinite local groups — “it’s localism. I would call it valley-ism” — that fed an insurgency “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”. Mr Hoh, who joined the US Foreign Service this year, was by July the senior US civilian in Zabul province, an area with a strong Taleban presence.

Karl Eikenberry, the US Ambassador in Kabul, tried to talk him out of resigning, even offering a post as a senior embassy official. Mr Hoh was then flown to the US, where he had a meeting with Richard Holbrooke, the Obama Administration’s Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan. Mr Holbrooke asked him to join the State Department Afghanistan team. Mr Hoh accepted, then changed his mind a week later.

Mr Holbrooke, speaking to The Washington Post, said: “We took his letter very seriously, because he was a good officer. 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.”

Mr Holbrooke said that he did not share Mr Hoh’s view that the war “wasn’t worth the fight”, but added: “I agreed with much of his analysis.”

This week Mr Hoh is scheduled to meet Vice-President Joe Biden’s foreign policy adviser, Antony Blinken, in the White House. Mr Blinken and Mr Biden oppose sending more troops to Afghanistan. Mr Hoh’s resignation comes as new polls indicate that half of Americans are now opposed to the war. President Obama’s delay in responding to a request for at least 40,000 more troops by his ground commander, General Stanley McChrystal, is also taking its toll politically.

An ABC News/Washington Post poll indcated that 63 per cent of Americans did not think that the President had a clear plan for dealing with Afghanistan. In a speech at a naval base on Monday, President Obama said: “I will never rush the solemn decision of sending you into harm’s way.”

He is expected to make a decision on troops between November 7 — the date of the Afghan run-off election — and November 20.

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