Afghanistan: Is the Taliban Making a Comeback?
Kandahar province is the strategic keystone for Afghanistan sitting as it does between the central Hindu Kush Mountains and the Registan Desert forming the country’s southern border. The province is also at the center of political turmoil as the United States begins a two-year troop withdrawal.
And the trends are not good. Part of the problem is the weakness of the U.S.-backed Afghan government’s political and military presence. Rather than actually build governmental institutions and the national army the power went to President Karzai’s tribal allies. There isn’t any real army there, just tribal militias. And they aren’t a very effective fighting force or a popular one. The result has been gains by the Taliban and numerous security breaches.
On the political level, the power-brokers have been tribal strongmen allied to the Karzai family who consolidated their rule during the turbulent 1980s and 1990s. But disorganization, corruption, and the limited power of these tribal leaders did not create a strong authority. Thus, the Taliban has been able to challenge the government militarily and politically.
What saved the situation was the presence of NATO forces with massive armament and logistical abundance. They gained apparent control of Kandahar. But under the surface the Taliban has been chipping away and now that the withdrawal of foreign forces approaches, death tolls are growing for both NATO and Afghan units. The fact that Ahmed Wali Karzai, half-brother of Afghanistan’s president and the area’s most powerful ruler, could be killed by his own trusted bodyguards shows how deceptive the supposed stability is in reality.
“And the trends are not good. Part of the problem is the weakness of the U.S.-backed Afghan government’s political and military presence.”
No, say it ain’t so. We only had 10 YEARS to get it right, but I guess we could not do it. This experience should serve as a warning to the next president in 2012 why nation-building is a stupid, costly, and tragic idea. We should have been out of Afghanistan at the end of 2002, shortly after we went in there and thoroughly defeated the Taliban and al Qaeda with overwhelming force. But no, we wanted to win the war “on the cheap,” not using enough troops to do the job right the first time around, and then we went into nation-building, an incredibly STUPID idea in backward Muslim tribal land such as Afghanistan. So now we have a failed experiment that will collapse just like South Vietnam did after we left it. Seems like nobody in either the White House or the State Department ever, ever, cracked open a history book. We’ve seen story before and it never ends well for us.
All well and good. All the comments are correct; but what can anyone do?
A far more important consideration is: what next? NATO leaves.
Afghanistan goes back to the Taliban, back to the stone age.
Presumably scores are settled, thousands killed.
Mullah Omar is back like a dirty shirt, and sets up a Ministry of Al-Qaeda.
They use state resources to create WMD labs, and jihadist training camps, ten times more than before. Western mohammedans travel in increasing numbers to Afghanistan, to be trained by now veteran fighters of the global caliphate army, and the ISI. Then they return to the US and all other western nations, and plan the next wave of attacks.
And what can the US do? IF they can show a substantive connection to Afghanistan, maybe they will lob a few Tomahawks, or send over 50 B-52s to pound some rubble camp to finer rubble.
Depressing. Anyone got a better timeline/prediction?
Aye, Aye. But, worse than that-it appears we are “carrying water”for the Chinese in Afghanistan(- one example-the pipeline , and nother -minerals-to be exploited by Chinese companies-already started.)
And-US will continue who knows how long to provide billions to Afghanistan?
[A liberal Iknow claims “US is repressing the Afghans”}
There is only one solution, render Afghanistan uninhabitable by carpet bombing it with hydrogen bombs. Kick the can down the road a few hundred thousand years.
I don’t think “carpet bombing” is necessary, it would really only take one to re-establish the deterrent. I hope our so called “leaders” realize this is long overdue before the other side can successfully hit us with one (or more).
In the end, giving vanquished enemies aide and comfort doesn’t work unless they know they are vanquished.
It is said that you can not “kill an idea”, but, if you kill everyone who thinks it was a good idea, you don’t really have to.
Same old crap from our politicians. The American troops had the Vietnam War won and the democrat scum in congress gave the North Viets a victory.
I don’t suppose we could accidentially drop at least one nuke on Pakistan, on the way over to Afghanistan? A little, “ooops, we’re so very sorry this has happened, especially given the good and wonderful help that Pakistan has been for the last ten years as our esteemed ally”?
I read the headline of this article and thought to myself, “you gets what you pays for.” As far as I can see, Afghanistan has done zilch to help itself in the last ten years — not even being able to come up with an Iraq-level army — so evidently they *want* the Taliban to come back. Fine with me.
Note to future Presidents — no more nation building. Just nuke ‘em and be done with it.
America should withdraw from Af-Pak region, except for Northern Afganistan and a few large strategic bases in southern and eastern Afganistan. Declare and treat the entire AF-PAK region to be a lawless, terrorist infested region of failed non-states. Institute a containment with the cooperation of India and Russia (The two countries in the region that will suffer the most blow-back) and come to an understanding with the Chinese and let them know that their involvement in Af-Pak in any way counter to our containment strategy would be going against our vital strategic interests: – akin to the US increasing its direct involvement in the China-Taiwan issue.
The containment strategy needs to be draconian. The objective should be two pronged. One to keep the terrorists from organizing in any meaningful way so that they may “takeover” but would be rendered unable to “take control” the region. The second prong is to ensure that the Pakistani nuclear arsenal is rendered ineffective if not rolled back.
To enforce the first prong of containment the US should employ a range of actions that include “Periodic Kinetic Actions and air raiding villages from above”. With the focus on disrupting terrorist infestation and any putative terrorist bases. Increased use of drone attacks deeper and deeper into Pakistan as needed.
The second prong of containment should include covert action of sabotage and overt sanctions. We should install missile-defense systems right on eastern and western borders of Pakistan and right up Pakistan’s throat in the Arabian Sea. We should also keep an hawk’s eye on Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal and make sure that they remain in storage by letting the Pakistani’s know that so much as moving their arsenal will be viewed as a grave threat to the US and its allies; an act of unsheathing the sword.
This will neutralize Iran’s Nukes as well and give India more strategic space to put Pakistan in its place and stand up to the Chinese threat and relieve America so it can focus on fixing its economy and the looming strategic threat from China in the Pacific.