Hack
After Bush, Werner Wejp-OlsenThe colossal misunderstanding of our time
is the assumption that insight will work
with people who are unmotivated to change.
--Edwin Friedman
It is a perfect example of what happens when
we all get carried away with our own BS
and when we forget to ask, "Are you nuts?"
--Bob Schieffer, on the film, Being There
_______________
Ranger Question of the Day:
Do the 550,000+ unemployed from last month alone
really care if Afghanistan becomes a democracy?
How is democracy in Afghanistan
helping the unemployed in the U.S.?
________________
What follows are thoughts on Afghanistan from local coffee shop denizen, Bob the Taxi Driver. Bob is from Cleveland, and works long days on the job but stays informed via his discussions with a broad clientele and his own readings from diverse sources.
"The story goes, 'We cannot lose Afghanistan,' for if it falls Pakistan would be next, with the entire Muslim world lost to radical Islam. The old Domino Theory, and we know how well that turned out.
"It seems that victory in Afghanistan would require a troop commitment commensurate with that of Vietnam. That endeavor required the conscription of hundreds of thousands of men, lasted over seven years and took 58,000 American lives. It still ended in failure.
"Such a strategy would transform Barack Obama into Lyndon Johnson, and it is hard to imagine the U.S. public ready to support such a commitment. If Obama seeks success in Afghanistan, he must be prepared for defeat at home.
"This, presuming it is possible to wage war at the levels of Vietnam. In 1969, we actually had a balanced budget and a trade surplus which helped finance our overseas military commitments. Today, we are facing a budget deficit in excess of $2 Trillion dollars, and our accounts deficit have been increasing about $900 Billion per year.
"$100's of billions go to maintain troops in bases at hundreds of outposts across the world. The dollar is weaker than at any time in our history, and current policy looks to weaken it further in a misguided attempt to mitigate the effects of recession. The kind of outlay required to win in Afghanistan could collapse the dollar, allowing Osama bin Laden to emerge triumphant.
"The fact is, we are going to withdraw from Afghanistan. The only question is, 'When?'
Labels: afghanistan, phony war on terror, PWOT
posted by rangeragainstwar at 9:28 PM
4 Comments:
When? indeed. but also at the cost of how many dead and to what purpose?
just what we need. another long, debilitating war where the final result is less than the result of not going in at all.
the window of opportunity was absolutely blown when the marines and the pentagon insisted on joining in on what should have absolutely been a langley and special ops task. light, mobile, and agile teams doing very focused search and snatch missions to take out or apprehend the al-qaeda folks. without disturbing the rule of the taliban, without disrupting an already fragile and mostly disrupted social order.
an operation like that would have been seen by the afghans as removing foreigners from their society. they were already tired of bin laden and his minions. their job in afghanistan was done, the russians had left, yet, they stayed on and the taliban was unwilling to make the sacrifices it would have had to make to expell them. by most intelligence accounts, the taliban would have been very happy to see the departing views of al-qaeda. while they might not have been much help, i doubt seriously they would have mounted much opposition.
that window is gone. instead of making anything better there, afghanistan has been cut off at the knees yet again. an already chaotic and destroyed "country" has again been steamrollered into further oblivion.
it was never an option to "bomb them back to the stone age."
they were already there. as always, it was the same things that have destroyed and bled every invader/occupier since darius. rugged terrain, impossible supply lines, hostile neighbors, and above all, a tribal, shifting social structure.
among the many thorny problems is that the borders themselves are artificial impositions of european colonial regimes. the idea that the pashtun would allow themselves to be divided as a people because a british viceroy drew a line on a map somewhere was always patently absurd. the pashtun are large and numurous enough that they could constitute their own "-stan." that might get them to quit fighting among themselves, of course, the problem then would be their inclination to subjugate and enslave, then absorb the neighboring peoples. uzbeks (now divided between uzbekistan, afghanistan, and china), tajiks (pretty much the same problem), uighers (mostly divided between the afghans and the chinese).
given a problem that complex, a situation that thorny. where most of the solutions are as unthinkable as leaving things alone. the best course of action might be to simply walk the fuck away, leave it absolutely alone for ten years, then return, and negotiate with the winners.
MB,
It all starts with the mission statement which was never realistic from the gitgo.
I really have a hard time believing that the blanket term AL Q even covers the threat.We must distinguish military arm from the political etc...and force of arms does not impact on these equations.
The problem is one of leadership from our side of this mess.As you know from your days in harness ALL LEADERS MUST BE HARDCHARGERS.One must always be showing that they are more of a leader than their fellow officers,after all everyone can't get promoted.It's motion and not progress.
Killing the ALQ in AFGH and IRQ will not address the fact that Saudi Arabia grows them faster than we can kill them.
jim
Somehow it seems just downright un-American to deny other peoples the benefits of our (somewhat) democratic principles. I hear people say "How can we just sit back and let Afghanistan fall into chaos and deny women and girls the right to education?" When the question comes like that, it has a deceptive appeal. Until you ask exactly how we can achieve that. Even more fundamentally wrong is the belief that we or any other other nation has that right or that our form of government is the answer to every society. All of which makes for a very muddled mission, about which this blog has been more than perceptive.
As for the military, those hard chargers are always ready to show their stuff and I don't doubt either their capability or dedication. What I doubt is the military/political leaders who seem so willing to sacrifice that capability and dedication
The whole Afghan mess goes back to the decision by the Taliban (who were our friends) to tell us to take our pipeline and shove it. Then they weren't our friends. And we haven't had many friends there since then.
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