Bill Roggio describes the beginning of a critical year in Afghanistan. “Scores of Taliban fighters and several Afghan officials were killed in fighting throughout Afghanistan. The violence marks the opening of the spring fighting season in Afghanistan as the Coalition and the Taliban surge forces for what is expected to be the toughest year of fighting since the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.” Bing West, writing in the National Review (article by subscription) says Afghanistan is “the war that has to be won” but asks, “will our soldiers be given the chance to win it?” West writes:
To accomplish that, the administration will unveil a new strategy in April. Recently the doughty Sen. Joseph Lieberman published an op-ed in theWall Street Journal, proposing one such strategy. What is needed, Lieberman opined, is for someone to take charge, for additional troops to be sent into action, and for the U.S. Congress to sustain a nation-building strategy. This is all good advice, but implementing it will be exceedingly tricky.
Among the tricky bits is to make sure there is unity of command. “Obama has appointed Richard Holbrooke, who played a key role in halting the war in the Balkans in the mid-1990s, as the presidential special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.” But West warns that the record of such plenipotentiaries has been spotty. However well Holbrooke performs, the a divided command is almost foreordained to persist because NATO has a large role in the theater.
The immediate military tasks are clear enough. The US forces must blunt the Taliban offensive to give the Afghan army time to build up. Can enough forces be deployed? West writes “Gates is reluctant to send more than 60,000 U.S. troops into Afghanistan”. He is determined to win the war largely with Afghan forces. This will require extending US forces with local understudies, both in the military and on the civil side of things. But here another problem arises. West thinks that the Pentagon does not want to repeat the partnering US military officers with local bureaucrats. So the State Department will have to team up with Afghan officials: and there are questions about whether they — and their culture — are up to it.
it will expect the State Department to beef up its own ranks and take the lead in putting Afghan civil servants on the right path. There’s a problem, though: The World Bank, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and diplomats have traditionally accepted corruption in a host nation as part of doing business.
Business as usual won’t win Afghanistan. But the most intractable problem in Afghanistan is the Taliban’s sanctuary in Pakistan across the border. West writes, “Peeling away Taliban hangers-on within Afghanistan is a sound tactic, but it’s not a recipe for success inside Pakistan’s western frontier, where Pashtun tribes are increasingly controlled by extremists. In recent decades, Pakistan’s elite in Islamabad believed their country’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency could manipulate Pashtun fundamentalists, collectively called the Taliban, to make sure Afghanistan did not align with India. Beginning in the late 1970s, CIA contacts with the mujahideen were controlled by the ISI. Three decades later, U.S. officials don’t know whether the controlling interests inside Pakistan have swung against the extremists or are playing both sides.” Pakistan will remain the wild card in the situation.
So what’s the bottom line?
Afghanistan can be won, but only if things are done right. West concludes, “Obama has reason to tread carefully. Pres. Jimmy Carter also had high goals, but the gap between his performance and his rhetoric inculcated an attitude of cynicism throughout the ranks of the military. To win in Afghanistan, Obama must lobby his party to support the war effort, year after year, and to supply the necessary resources. Instead, by promising that he will win while reducing funding, he’s made a daunting task sound impossibly easy. ”
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Even before the election conservative bloggers were pointing out that Obama had little or no interest in international affairs; that his preoccupation was with domestic policy even though administrations are remembered for what they do outside our borders rather than inside. Obama might be beginning to focus on international affairs more now as he sees (thanks to the Iranians and a few others) that “making nice” is not a quick fix — i.e., that “love” is not going to beat “hate” unless he puts more effort into it than that of a snake oil salesman jumping from coast to coast in Air Force 1. I continue to believe Obama needs to learn how to govern and forget about campaigning, but it is a lesson that is not coming easily.
Yes, unity of command is essential, but so is focus from the president himself. He has shown he can delegate (Pelosi writing the stimulus package and Dodd/Geithner taking the fall for AIG), although his delegation has largely been disastrous. Now he needs to show he can lead. If he doesn’t get that right Afghanistan will not be the only disaster we face in international affairs. F
Three questions:
1) How long will Gates stay on as SecDef?
2) How safe is Petraeus job as Commander of Centcom?
and most importantly:
3) What is the real logistical situation for our soldiers and Marines in Afghanistan? If we do not have a secure logistical train in place, we are sending thousands out to suffer defeat in a hostile place. You can’t fuel and armor Humvees and Apaches from the bramble on the mountain side.
We need to provide President Obama with information he can use: How do you say “I lied” in the twelve most widely spoken languages in Afghanistan?
Robert Mitchum played the demented preacher Harry Powell, one of the great cinematic bogeymen of all time who was all the more menacing because his nastiness was superficially overlaid with piety. Often triumph and tragedy are a hairbreadth apart. War is one of those enterprises in which the ending depends on the choices we make. Once a nation goes down that road, it should decide to win it or up stakes. Bing West has shown where the chances and the dangers are.
It’s useless to pretend that political feelings aren’t running high, but the reality is that since the US is in Afghanistan, all practical means must be found to win it. It’s an undertaking that goes beyond partisanship. My guess is that the cast of characters managing the conflict in Afghanistan will have as many changes as were seen in Iraq. But the story will go on beyond the professional fates of the individual characters.
Hamid Karzai is up for re-election this year.
It’s no certain thing that he will remain president.
In which case his successor may well wave us good bye.
Viewing it from the countryside it’s hard to see where Karzai will get support. It’s easy to imagine a Talibanned vote. Some ‘moderate’ front man could be stood up for office — and there would be little we could do to frustrate this gambit.
Taking a page from Iraq, the opposition is not going to boycott the polls. Rather, they’ll conquer via the ballot box. I think that is why the shadow army is flooding the zone. I’d say that the Soviet Mafia/ KGB has us behind the eight ball.
General Urges Confidence in Ability to Supply Troops in
Gen. McNabb says “if we had to do everything by air, you would see a Berlin airlift.”
General Urges Confidence in Ability to Supply Troops in Afghanistan
One word: Stalingrad.
I think Obama has an agreement with Patreus.
Patreus can have any resources and can do anything he wants for one year (or two years), and Obama will support him.
Then Obama will re-examine the issue of whether to pull out.
Well I hope Mike Sylwester is right about that bargain between Obama and Petraeus because I have absolutely no faith in Obama’s ability as CiC.
Cassandra,
One word: Inappropriate historical analogy.
The fuel either comes from the South-west on Iranian sufferance or from the North on Russian sufferance. Everything else we can do by air but not the fuel. The Taliban have very little support on the ground, certainly less than 10%. What they have is a presence and the ability to intimidate. They are in a similar position to the darling of the Left from 40 years ago, the Vietcong. If the US could provide physical seurity and train and pay an Afghan police force we could hold the villages and win. The chinese want stability so they can exploit the minerals and have a supply rout to Iran. To me the best strategy would be (would have been for 7 years) a sharp shock to Iran to induce regime change. The problem is Pakistan. How can we stabilize Afghanistan while the big neighbor, over 170 million with over 27 million Pushtuns, is dissolving?
Afghanistan makes
haiku really difficult
Too many syllables
since the US is in Afghanistan, all practical means must be found to win it.
Who has confidence that the top of the chain of command really wants to win bad enough to employ eminently practical but politically incorrect means to win it?
What is the minimally acceptable outcome that we can call “winning” with a straight face?
There is a significant chunk of the Commander-in-Chief’s base who would welcome a morale-destroying military disaster as a well deserved chastisement of the high carbon footprint, global warming-denying, Kyoto-opposing, capitalist running dog global hegemon they are so ashamed of.
Trying to put more troops in A-stan with Obama as president is a doomed enterprise. After one or two months of high casualties a la Iraq he will pull out as did Clinton in Somalia. The best route for us is the status quo. 20 to 30K troops , lots of raids and predator strikes in Pakistan.
To be clear I do not blame Clinton for pulling out of Somalia, a situation he inherited. After all he hardly campaigned on winning in Somalia. Obama on the other hand is a little bit trapped by his own words. He constantly said we wasting resources in Iraq when A-stan was where it was really important to win. But Obama like Clinton is not really the kind of leader who can persevere and win a war. He is too pacifist and too easily guilt tripped by the enemy and the part of his own base which reflexively blame the US, capitalism and the west for everything wrong in the world.
“U.S. officials don’t know whether the controlling interests inside Pakistan have swung against the extremists or are playing both sides.” In which case its best to assume the latter. Remember, we are the infidel.
Mr Fernandez said @ 4: “Once a nation goes down that road, it should decide to win it or up stakes.” and further in: “It’s an undertaking that goes beyond partisanship.”
I must beg to differ. We all noted the approach made by the Democratic Party to the Iraq effort in 2005-8, which was consistent with their approach to the support of the Republic of VietNam in 1974-75. Wars are the Democrat’s opportunity to gain political power at the expense of the Republicans. National interests to the contrary, its in their DNA. Anybody expecting otherwise is in denial.
If, God willing, some or all of the congress changes hands in ’10, watch the ConDems turn on the Afghan War. 0 in the White House won’t matter. They will eat their own for power.
“In which case his successor may well wave us good bye.”
Do we have the same agreement in Afghanistan as we did in Iraq — that if they ask us to leave, we will go? I’m not remembering it that way, but it’s been a while so I could be wrong.
I don’t think Karzai going would be a bad thing. I can’t see where he’s done ANYthing to bring the country together as a whole, let alone to start to change some of their quaint customs like throwing acid in women’s faces and death sentences for apostates.
On the whole, I would not be heartbroken if we did pull out of both Afghanistan and Pakistan and let them have at each other. I think India is competent to defend itself if we’d just let them do it, and I don’t believe in Pakistan’s legendary nukes.
We are in financial difficulties here back home, and I am not convinced that it’s a good use of taxpayer money to keep pouring billions and billions of American dollars into trying to teach these barbaric savages how to become human beings. Not to mention trying to rebuild their dusty countries from the ground up and give them all air conditioning and indoor plumbing.
If we are to win in Afghanistan, we will fight in Pakistan. That is something the Pakistanis at least understand as do the Afghans. So when the time comes for meeting the families of those men lost in the coming battle, how President Obama is judged by them will have been be determined. He must chose honor, there is no other course open to him unless the President is a dishonorable man. I so not wish to think him as that sort that would squander the nations wealth of spirit and send our fighting men to their doom. It is just that the President’s record thus far does not leave me with much hope for a good result. And the challenges that lie directly ahead are as large as any faced by any US President to date. Daunting for a man who does not believe in half of America, impossible for a man in whom the other half does not believe. This is not going to be easy, it is not going to be pretty and it will define like nothing else whether the President really can believe in the American experiment, really understands the American Way of life and really dreams the American Dream, is ready to embrace liberty and chase the American version of happiness.
Secretary Gates is not essential for victory in Afghanistan, nor is General Petraeus. But if one or both leave, who will replace them in their respective positions? Good leadership inspires confidence, success inspires confidence.
Bad leadership is like a cancer spreading demoralization and defeat. So far, our present President has not shown a propensity for choosing good leadership in his cabinet. If Gates leaves and Petraeous is forced out, who will replace them?
And I am convinced there is a lot of happy talk surrounding the logistics situation. I don’t expect a personal briefing on the matter, but the number of forces we can deploy in Afghanistan and their mobility and aircover are all directly linked to this problem.
Without mobility and air cover to patrol the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, the effort there is doomed.
And ground actions within Pakistan would be a disaster of the first magnitude. We would be so overextended that it would be an invitation for defeat in detail. There is no question that we could kill a lot of “Taliban”, but that alone will not result in the desired outcome, namely, building up Afghanistan to function on its own as a somewhat normal nation state.
The O is sandbagging for a ropa-dope via extend hand of love and get lopped off by hand of hate, then unleashes dogs of war against Iranians. If Obama the messiah does the heavy lifting and bombs them who will stand up and condemn him as they have done to Bush?
Perhaps Obama is the only President in history to get a free bomb your enemy card from everyone concerned since Roosevelt.
I await wih beer in hand.
Please. Obama wants defeat in Afghanistan so bad he can taste it. Already Phil Donohue, the Guilty Rich White Guy backer of Obama, is calling for an immediate pull-out of Afghanistan because “it’s another Vietnam and we cannot win.”
Obama spent a lifetime wishing defeat on the US and railing against it. He’s going to switch now? Please.
The only thing to be seen is how quickly Obama orders a pull-out and how we leave, in an Alamo-Chosin Reservoir defeat, or like Saigon. My betting is on the former since Obama, who is also crpyto-Muslim at best, shares many of the same goals and values as the Taliban.
He might not have the American flag in the fireplace and Osama bin Laden’s picture on the mantel as in the New Yorker Cartoon, but it’s about as close as we can get.
No way is Obama interested in anything but a humiliating defeat for the US in Afghanistan. He wants it, and his backers want it. The ladies of Code Pink and the View, the Phil Donanhues, the George Clooneys and Sean Penns, and the Bill Ayers and Rev. Wrights would be overcome with joy and celebration.
I’m afraid that these ideas of creating a modern, self-governed state in Afghanistan are a bridge too far. What precedent is there for such a thing?
As other posters have pointed out above, an overwhelming Democratic majority in Congress surrendered in Vietnam (AFTER the North surrendered at the Paris Peace Accords in 1973). The Taliban show no sign of surrendering, ever. I think we will see the Obama Administration go through the motions, put on a show (as they do with EVERYTHING) and then peter out after a year of tough fighting or so.
Amazingly, Obama’s political support is already dying out in the widely read pages of the NYT, as even stalwarts like Krugman and Rich are declaring his financial efforts a failure. It won’t be long (well, until they can’t blame Bush for not winning Afghanistan) before we bail on Afghanistan. I expect it will not be total, abject surrender as in Vietnam, but something more like Clinton’s show of containment of Iraq with casualty-free bombing of Afghanistan and parts of Pakistan for as long as they hold office. That is, plenty of sound and fury, no progres, no substantive results, no victory, no peace. Most importantly, no flag-draped coffins arriving at Dover, at least until the Republicans can be blamed for it once again.
@15 Buck – Clinton inherited a “peacekeeping” operation, escalated that to a more aggressive operation in response to the massacre of Pakistani peacekeepers (while denying requests for tanks for ground support), and then took it over the top with the ill-fated snatch’n'grab for some forgotten Somali strongman named Farah Aidid. That led to the famous Blackhawk Down incident, and our ignominious high-tailing it off the field of battle.
@17 Nahncee – you bring up a good question, by what authority are we in Afghanistan? Well, I remember we went to war under Operation Enduring Freedom a few weeks after 9/11/01, and the UN authorized ISAF, which I guess is just the NATO half of the war there. This is a good question.
I’d say we bought our stake at this poker table.
The corruption in Kabul runs in all directions.
I’ve posted my notions before and will spare you now.
I foresee more of the exact same helicopter warfare that has gotten us to where we are.
H is quite delighted to just keep the US Army tied down. Thus Russia and China are empowered.
Iran and Syria can breathe a bit easier. Look how trends changed when Iraq and Afghanistan suffered mission stretch.
H sees it trending badly so he’s upping his wager.
blert,
So if Israel takes down Iran and India takes down Pakistan, both actions that would improve America’s position vis a vis Russia and the Muslims would you expect Obama to react by withdrawing all American forces and reducing our power projection capabilities in favor of empowered “civilian defense” forces?
Personally I think he will push for a Susan Powers model confrontation with Israel.
I foresee the ‘civilian defense’ force being shaped from a cadre of black muslim ex-service men.
This defense staff will start to assist the secret service detail since H likes to perpetually campaign.
Eventually, the program will be expanded by enlisting ACORN bots giving H a Nation of Islam style astroturf.
Of course H wants to cram down Israel. Black resentment against the Jewish landlords of New York City runs wide and deep. Was it Jackson who called it Hymietown?
Of course, if H were to go Nazi on the Israelis the whole middle east would detonate. They would give H the Eichmann treatment if he ever survived the blast. Russia and China would be delighted one minute and start shooting each other the next.
It’s a disturbing scenario that’s hard to square with H’s passivity on things international.
Far more likely is that the whole focus is away from statecraft and toward stagecraft: all theatre and no results. He will play to his base… and be done with it.
International affairs are incredibly boring for the 0; all of them.
Not only does Karzai have to stand for election this year, he was thwarted in his effort to move the elections up to April.
His term ends on May 22 and it is going to be a long, hot summer until the presidential elections on August 20, as the constitutional presidency of Afghanistan stands vacant.
A legitimacy crisis in Afghanistan can only hinder our efforts to institute an effective COIN program. The Obama administration chose not to support Karzai’s effort to plug the legitimacy gap, presumably to maintain a plausible claim of being an “honest broker.” For his part, Karzai has attempted to burnish his nationalist credentials by criticizing civilian deaths in western air strikes. (Personally, my mind keeps turning to thoughts of Ngo Dinh Diem … )
Concurrently, our logistics train is becoming more vulnerable just as we prepare to surge.
While we are living through the Obama years, all the United States needs for a strategic victory of sorts is to simply hang on in Afghanistan. If the United States doesn’t lose and Kabul doesn’t fall, that is a victory of sorts because it means that our enemies will not have been able to overrun our position at a time when the political climate is most favorable to them.
Once Obama is out and we then have a commander in chief with the nerve and courage to go in for the kill, we will be in a position to win. Until then, so long as we don’t lose, our enemies have not won.
When isn’t every year now a crucial year for the United States. Our allies have taken a powder on global issues, even issues in their own neighborhood. However some things are altering the calculus dramatically in our favor.
We’ve quit asking Pakistan for permission to make Predator strikes on targets our special forces have under eyeball location. Formerly it would take two, three, or four days to get permission. By then the ISI had leaked to the AQ and poof the big targets were gone.
Since Aug. 31, the CIA has carried out at least 38 Predator strikes in northwest Pakistan, compared with 10 reported attacks in 2006 and 2007 combined. The effects of these strikes are that the upper eschelons of AQ, those who have been with OBL and Al Zawarihi are gone, dead. dogfood. An intense, six-month campaign of Predator strikes in Pakistan has taken such a toll on Al Qaeda that militants have begun turning violently on one another out of confusion and distrust, U.S. intelligence and counter-terrorism officials say.
We are on the precipice of destroying the original AQ hierarchy and the new ones don’t have the expertise to carry the load….we are winning because we sinply told the Paki’s INSAH, Arabic for “tough shit”.
So far Obama has signaled he will continue the no notification strikes..at least that’s what he read off his teleprompter.
I would also alert the contributors that the increased figure is what the CIA has told us…I’d bet the farm it’s much, much higher.
Don’t tread on me.
Semper Fi
Two things.
1. Obama is not going to destroy his reelection chances or his poll numbers for the sake of the war. He doesn’t think it’s that important. He never talks about victory, and seems to view the war as something that comes with the job. It’s not high on the priority list. Unlike Bush, he’s not going to lose everything for victory.
2. I’m not sure Afghanistan is worth the cost. Iraq was more important, and was winnable. We could visualize Iraq being a real country with a functioning government, because it had been in the past. It has natural resources and human capital. Mesopotamia has had a long, long history (longer than anywhere else) of a functioning central government. Iraq is next to Iran, the modern Persian empire. It’s next to our oil supply. We can get to it by sea and have a friendly nation, Kuwait, next door. Perhaps most importantly, Al Qeada is an Arab movement and Iraq is an Arab country. We defeated the radical Arabs on their home turf. I think that’s most important. All of these things made Iraq the central theatre of the war that would determine our future and the future of the Arab middle east. Iraq was winnable because we had enough troops to control the area, the bad guys could not come over the border in large numbers, and perhaps most importantly the Iraqi government was democratic and depended on us to survive.
Now, Afghanistan has never been a functioning country. It has never had a central government. Visualizing a working Afghan nation is hard. It doesn’t matter strategically at all except that the enemy is there. What are we trying to accomplish and how do we get there? What’s the objective in Afghanistan?
Other problems with Afghanistan include an international border that we can’t cross, enemy sympathizers that we can’t touch, and an uncooperative ally that we’re trying to prop up but don’t have much control over. The Afghan government is not really accountable to its people and half the time seems to wish us gone. They seem perfectly capable of making a deal with our enemies. ALL OF THIS SOUNDS LIKE VIETNAM.
There, I said it. We are fighting an ideological war in an area where we have no national interest. We have no plan for victory and lack the leadership necessary to win. I have no doubt that the US Army and Marines and SOF could win a war in Central Asia, given time and resources (I think Vietnam was winnable, too). I do doubt that it’s worth the effort.
Yes, Al Qeada attacked us from their base in Afghanistan. Fine. The trouble is that they have a new base in Pakistan that’s just as useful that we cannot attack. So, how does fighting in Afghanistan help? We’re just letting them bleed us far from home.
In short, Iraq was Korea and Afghanistan is Vietnam. One war will have far-reaching historical impact despite being mostly forgotten by history, while the other really doesn’t matter very much even if we lose. We lost Vietnam but defeated the Soviet Union. I think crushing the Arab radical movement was the important thing, not fighting Pushtun tribesmen and drug lords.
0 has two political positions that deviate so far from his by-the-book standard absolute far left that it makes one wonder. Let me back up a pace and say that until i understood the meaning of the ‘stimulus’ bill and more so, the way it was passed, and the way the guy torques & crazes the language, i’d've never really considered this, but ok, he’s ‘for’ the Second Amendment and ‘for’ the war in Afghanistan. Is the former so’s his youth groups can gun up yet, and the latter so the Oceanian & Eurasian mobs get the poppies instead of the Eastasian Tongs ?
Here’s another way of looking at Obama: not as Jimmy Carter but as LBJ. LBJ wanted to remake domestic policy with the Great Society and Civil Rights. Obama wants nation health care. Both escalated a war left them by their predecessors. Both inherited recessions (LBJ passed the Kennedy tax cuts and left a huge deficit). That’s what we should be seeing, not Jimmy Carter.
20 talebani captured by the afghani army, I wonder of which nationality these Talebani are :
http://en.rian.ru/world/20090322/120679880.html
Hell, I wonder what nationality “Mullah Omar” is.
I agree wit Habu about those predator strikes: presumably we’re just annihilating them as the intel comes in. I wonder how the counter-ops by ISI work though, since presumably they don’t want their agents assassinated, at least not the indispensible ones. The ISI and whoever else might be feeding info back from the Kush to the milsat…
Also of deep interest in the region, as reported by Russian press:
“United States to establish contacts with SCO”
On March 27, Moscow will host a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) on efforts to bring peace to Afghanistan. This will be the first time that a high-ranking U.S. diplomat, namely, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Patrick Moon, has attended an SCO event.
Until now, Washington openly ignored the SCO, fearing greater Russian influence over China and Central Asia. However, the United States, which cannot independently solve the problems of Afghanistan and Iran, is now forced to revise its stand on the SCO.
The Shanghai Five, comprising Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, was established in 1996. Uzbekistan joined the new organization in 2001. India, Iran, Mongolia and Pakistan have observer-nation status with the SCO, while Afghanistan has guest-nation status.
“The United States is sinking deeper into the Afghan quagmire, while the SCO is the only international organization uniting all countries involved in the Afghan conflict,” a Russian diplomat said on condition of anonymity.
Sergei Demidenko, an analyst with the Russian Institute of Strategic Assessment and Analysis, said U.S.-SCO cooperation could also help Washington to restore ties with Iran.
“Washington and Shiite Tehran could team up on the Afghan issue because Sunni Muslims from the Taliban and Al Qaeda movements are their common enemy,” Demidenko said.
In March 2008, Iran applied for full-fledged SCO membership. The organization could become an ideal platform for U.S.-Iranian cooperation on Afghanistan and other issues.
Kommersant
It can’t be COIN warfare when the enemy is an alien force that crossed the border to fight the local Afghans.
I’m so tired of seeing COIN popping up for this campaign. COIN is what happened in al anbar: we were fighting the locals.
In Afghanistan we are NOT fighting the locals. They may tolerate the shadow army but they’re not on board. The typical Afghan is just keeping his head down and sticking to his own business.
The shadow army wears a ‘uniform’ and speaks with a foreign tongue: they REALLY stand out to the locals. There is no confusion as to who are enemy combatants. The shadow army is making no points reminding the locals just what a bunch of murderous bums they are: killing teachers, cops and officials.
Whenever the shadow army shows up business goes straight to hell. Many Afghans lost relatives to the Taliban and can never forget.
It says something that the new Afghan Army is kicking Taliban ass a lot. That is something to build on.
Karzai is obviously a lame duck and if his term ends in May I think he’ll not be re-elected. One of the northern drug lords within his government probably already has the fix in. Hence, Karzai’s inability to get the election pulled forward.
I’m pleased to see that road building is proceeding apace. A normalized Afghanistan would open up the ‘stans to world commerce without being raped by Russia or China. We need what they need to sell.
Victory and defeat in Afghanistan can have many forms, not all as apocryphal as others.
Victory can be just “holding on”, until Pakistan implodes from within and we (and others) have an oppportunity to restructure it.
A decisive victory or set of victories on the battle field is probably not going to happen.
Defeat could look to some as a lot like victory, “just holding on.” This could be very de-moralizing for the Army and Marines on duty there. The fortitude and tenacity of our NATO allies is nothing to bank on. In two years, I would wager that we will be there alone, except for the Afghans.
Defeat could also look a lot like what happened to the Afrika Corp in North Africa, cut off logistically and surrendering at the end.
Agreed that a “national” Afghanistan government will not look like what we normally think of, but I think it is possible, if not very likely. An orderely, tribal form of ‘Federalism’, with a lot of autonomy in the provinces.
Also agreed that a defeat in Afghanistan could be structured to help the Obama perpetual campaign, but this could be very risky business. It would depend on how far down American self-esteem has fallen; that is, how much have we come to loathe ourselves as a people. It is a spreading cancer, but just how far has it gone? Are we ‘French’ yet?
As others have said here before, a defeat of American power in Afghanistan will help the prestige of whatever Taliban or Al Qaeda leader can claim it, and will once again stir up the world wide Jihadist movement. As I have read about what they say in Waziristan, “A Thousand Years for Revenge.”
Who will then be the stronger horse?
Another hugely important difference is that Iraq was a rebellion of the Sunni minority with a large does of foreign ideology. That’s a lot like the Malayan Emergency, where the Communist rebels were mostly Chinese. The foreign ideology didn’t really appeal to either Iraqis or Malays. From the start, most Iraqis and Malays were against the rebellions. I never bought the idea that Iraq would collapse into tribal anarchy, because it never quite did. It’s always been a badly run, corrupt, centrally organized empire. This goes all the way back to the Akkadians and Assyrians, through the Persians and the Ottomans. They’ve often been ruled by foreigners and have a long history of failed rebellions. The rebellion of 2004-2007 was no different than 1920.
In Afghanistan, the Taliban represent Pashtun nationalism just as much as Islamist ideology. Pashtuns are the biggest tribal group. Afghans fight all foreigners, always, from Alexander to the British to the Russians. They’re like the Vietnamese communists in that they appeal to the common peasant. Peasants fight a lot harder than city dwellers. The Iraqi insurgency was city based, and urban rebellions always seem to fail. Peasants often win. Small farmers won the American revolution, the Russian and Chinese civil wars, and filled the Allied armies in World War 2 (note that the still largely backward, agrarian Soviet Union defeated the industrialized and modern Germany). Drug interdiction attacks the common peasant’s livelihood. We’re fighting against the forces of nationalism and revolution and taking the side of a reactionary government. I don’t think that the bad guys will be able to turn a victory in Afghanistan into anything more because it’s not really Islamist ideology at stake there. It’s nationalism and revolution against a corrupt elite. That’s why the Taliban won so quickly in the 90s. They have a message that resonates in Afghanistan. I don’t think that’s transferable, any more than Vietnamese communism was. The was no International Communism. It was nationalism and a reaction against corrupt local elites and Western colonialism. Once those wars had run their course, Communism had no where to go.
We really need to start examining our assumptions and the local histories.
Are we ‘French’ yet?
you’re worst with no money
The Taliban are Pakistani Pashto with an extreme diet of AQ teachings funded first by the Golden Chain and now by opium, hash, and American aid dollars funneled by the ISI right under our noses.
The Afghans have absolutely no desire to join up with the Taliban: that crew let blood everywhere.
Nationalism in Afghanistan… give me a break.
The culture is tribal, period. That’s why growing the National Afghan Army has been so slow. The idea of enlisting so that you can defend a/the national interest far from home — it’s not happening.
The typical villager does not know or care what the hell Kabul is doing. The village is in it’s own world. It pays no taxes at all. It receives minimal resources from the central government. So the basis of the nationalist ethos is completely missing.
Expanding the Afghan Army is way overdue. It’s the priority now, however. Let’s pray for results.
DOn’t give up on Obama and Afghanistan yet. So far he has sent more troops in, and continued the accelerated Predator strikes – both important steps.
Herb,
“Wars are the Democrat’s opportunity to gain political power at the expense of the Republicans.”
Yes, but at the moment that opportunity is actually from the other end of the spectrum. Defeat in Afghanistan will be a personal defeat for Obama. He will not let that happen.
I agree that there’s no Afghan nationalism. What we call “ethnic groups” and “tribes” used to be called “nationalities.” For some reason we’ve confused shaky Third World countries with nations, when they’re not. At best they’re unstable multinational empires on a small scale. If we think of nationalism as they did 100 years ago, it’s still a useful concept. By today’s standards, the Czechs, Hungarians, Croats, Muslims, and Serbs inhabiting the Austro-Hungarian empire were ethnic groups and tribes. There wasn’t “nationalism” for the empire itself. Nothing much has changed. There is a threshold where tribes become nations, and maybe this war is it.
As for local people having no horizon but their village, that was true of Russia, China, Yugoslavia, and Vietnam. It’s when those ordinary people are mobilized (often through terror) for a larger goal that revolution happens. Don’t discount it. The Tsar and Chiang Kai Shek made the same mistake.
Another false assumption: That “Shiite” Tehran will not “team up” with Sunnis to defeat the “Great Satan”.
Shiite Tehran had their own faction (in Afghanistan) they backed during the Russian-Afghan war of the 1980′s, as did the Chinese.
Now “Shiite” Tehran is doing business with the Russians (AA missiles, nuclear power plants, etc.) and the Chinese are working with the Russians through SCO, to work against (wait for it)…..the United States (that’s the Great Satan to the Iranians).
And our new buddy on the block, India, flies Russian designed Migs and Sukhois (built under license) in their air force. And the Chinese navy has Russian built warships.
It’s not called the Great Game for nothing.
The ISI of Pakistan created/fostered/financed the Taliban (in part) to get control of Afghanistan, which was embroiled in a ruinous civil war after the Russians departed. The ISI hoped to use Afghanistan as a cut out “front”, as part of a greater strategy to attack India (much like China uses North Korea against Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and the US). That it did not work out quite that way and that it got out of control is either a bug or a feature, take your pick.
So yes, we can pull out of Afghanistan, and maybe that’s for the best. But the Great Game will go on with us or without us.
The overthrow of the Taliban was a masterpiece of special ops. Despite the inevitable “quagmire” defeatism from the NY Times and others, the light footprint of American forces in Afghanistan successfully avoided the pitfalls that befell the British and the Soviets. With the notable exception of Tora Bora, this flexible strategy allowed an incredibly fast denial of Afghanistan as a safe base of operations to Al Qaeda, under extremely challenging logistic conditions. (Think of how long it took to prepare both times we fought Saddam Hussein.)
Once the Taliban was evicted, we initiated a strategy of national development with the primary goal of avoiding becoming occupiers. As the government of Afghanistan was reconstituted under Hamid Karzai the only Afghans with the knowledge and expertise to staff the various ministries were veterans of Najibullah’s Soviet puppet government. (To this very day when we work with Afghan specialists, business is conducted in Russian. The civil war was a black hole that left a lost generation. Only now are we beginning to see newly educated specialists joining those trained in Soviet Union during the 70′s.)The perceived task was to assist the Afghans in creating a benign central government, with a “peace dividend” after our intervention in the civil war and large doses of aid to jump start the economy.
With the poppy wars this happy scenario was stillborn.
Now, we are increasingly reverting to the British and Soviet precedents of attempting to pacify the country through occupation. Even worse, we are conducting “death from the skies” air strikes that are increasingly viewed by the Afghans as arbitrary and reminiscent of the Soviet way.
It has become common for mid-level Afghan officials to seek emigration as their most rational career move. (State no longer allows Afghan technical experts to come to the US for training because so many of them have fled to political asylum in Canada.)The legitimacy of the Afghan government is piggybacked on the legitimacy of the “Mayor of Kabul,” Hamid Karzai. The bureaucracy, with its ties to the Soviet occupation and lack of mujahedeen credentials, With a vacuum at the top, and possibly growing in the middle, this critical summer may very well spell the end of the effort to erect a civilian government in Afghanistan.
With the closure of Manas, and, threats against the Khyber pass and staging areas in Pakistan, occupation is becoming even less tenable.
The mission has changed and our ability to fulfill it without expanding the war is questionable.
I dearly with that I could suggest any answers, but I can’t. We are living in dangerous times and I doubt that the current US administration is capable of solving these problems.
Konyok – can you expand on the Soviet left-overs (i.e. “trained in the Soviet Union in the ’70s”)?
In military matters, the saying is; Amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics. If all of your logistics run through a single foreign port where the government is on the outs with us [and which may change sides to being an active enemy at any moment via coup or appeasement], and the land routes to the theater of operations are under constant attack by the enemy; your logistics are not in good shape. When all alternate routes are through declared enemies who are acting openly against us everywhere else in the world; your logistics are in a bad way. When the bulk in weight and volume of what you need to wage war is POL you really cannot supply it by air because it would cost far more in fuel to move it from distant air bases than would arrive in theater. Then add in the fact that our airlift assets have been literally running their asses off since the beginning of the second Iraq war, with limited maintenance and no replacements of worn out equipment; and yeah, I’ll go with Stalingrad as a far closer description of what would happen if we try to supply our forces in Afghanistan primarily by air than the Berlin Airlift.
I realize that our current White House incumbent does not want any American victory anywhere, and so I do not expect any action to preserve the lives of American troops. I know that for him, history started with the October Revolution in Russia. That probably precludes any glimmering of knowledge about the First Afghan War on his part, although I would not totally rule out him having heard of it,and using images of it to arouse his prurient interests.
#17 NahnCee:
I agree that the imperative is to get our forces out of Afghanistan, less out of a disregard for the admitted consequences of such withdrawal, than a desire to avoid a repeat of the Battle of Gandamak. As far as “Pakistan’s legendary nukes”; I accept the reality of their existence based on some small effort at studying it. As of last year January, BBC seemed to believe in them too, and to be somewhat worried:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7190033.stm
I note that since this was written, A.Q. Khan, the father of the nuclear programs of Pakistan and most of the hostile countries with their own programs except Iran, was released from prison as soon as Hussein Pasha was inaugurated in Washington; and he is now an honored and active, nuclear scientist again.
The situation in South West Asia is complex, confusing, and the deck right now is stacked against us even if our country had any idea of what its national interest was and was willing to do what was necessary to achieve it. The latter two conditions do not obtain.
Subotai Bahadur
The Afghan Army needs to expand rapidly and become a mass employer. It’s mandate should expand towards more engineering projects, especially ones that soak up manpower.
Actually growing opium poppies is no way to make money. The drug lord doesn’t share the action. Any decent wage would deny the man power to grow fulsome crops.
We’d get a twofer since roads would be extended and the drug lords would have lousier profits. The idea is to clip them economically vs trying to put them right out of business. Prosecuting them for crimes is a complete non-starter for us. By our standards the entire country would qualify as RICO felons.
With money we’re spending we’re fools not to build a road/rail link to the sea south out of Kandahar.
Not having such a link makes every other situation a headache.
Since I don’t imagine that H is going to ever tackle foreign policy any true solution to this campaign is stillborn.
Hence, we should be scaling back and working to a minimalist strategy. We need to be there for the long haul with some skin in the game. Raising our ante with our current strategy is a cardinal error. So, naturally, H is doing it.
Subotai – so, then … do you think that Khan is actively working with North Korea and Iran to help them along with their nuke programs? If so, does that mean they’ve got all the minerals and elements they need to rub together to make it go boom, or are they still trying to import uranium from Russian sources and to make perfectly circular doo-dads with no sand in them? It seems to me that if Pakistan AND Iran AND North Korea are ferrying this and that between the three of them (along with Russia and maybe China) that that would be an excellent opportunity to introduce variables into the chain which would lead to no explosions ever, never.
Iran working on its own seems to be making progress. Maybe. North Korea has a history of pfffftedness, which since they’re just learning how to make pizza, I don’t see changing. Why do we think that Pakistan has either the wealth or the education to be a player UNLESS they are selling Khan’s knowledge because they need the money? And even then, didn’t Khan steal his prototype from Europe initially, so how smart does that make HIM?
MC #38
Sometimes you can be soooo… provençal!
The real story of Khan is his network and how for too long his crew was able to divert dual use equipment out of Europe through his fronts.
This technique is still the style for Iran.
What progress they have is directly attributable to the high tech machining equipment that the euros are so eager to sell.
The advent of really, really cheap computing power plus a slew of hand-me-down weapons designs means that Iran can bypass most of the travail that America endured to get to Trinity.
Such a low threshold has to put fear in the heart of sane men. And the trend goes from bad to worse.
I’d expect Iran to use her arsenal for agitation warfare. She can send her Orcs loose among the infidels and rain ruin upon the countryside.
Obama and many leftist democrats only backed into support for the war in Afghanistan on the pretext that there had to be a war somewhere that they could support to show that they would defend America ‘s interests somewhere, but definitely not in Iraq. Obama is a permanent campaigner, not a guy who thinks ahead about what he will do in office. . His support for the Afghan war was purely for political purposes, period.
Now that he is President, Bama will find a pretext for exiting Afghanistan. He may even try to set up Petraeus, because Petraeus is a strong threat in the 2012 election; therefore he must be discredited. The Bama would be thrilled if he could blame the military for a defeat in Afghanistan. It would be a two fer.
After his ” no health care for vets”, and his willingness to send our service men and women before the International Criminal Court , i find it very hard to believe that any sane person thinks that the Bama wants to do the right thing in Afghanistran. He doesn’t.
NahnCee, actually the Kahn/Pak thing was primarily Chinese. The AQ/Brotherhood prize was always Pakistan, whose internal problems and corruption resulted in Islamic rules without control. The Pak/ISI thugs thus led the Taliban/AQ thing, financed by the Brotherhood, but the target was always the corrupt Pakistan. Ultimately, the decision making line goes back from the final colony target, US, through the shadow army Islamofacist Colonial infantry cannonfodder to the rule by the Brotherhood. Today, the question the Afgans and Paks have is whether they wish to be cannonfodder colonial subjects, and their own corruption leaves them conflicted.
@ 48. NahnCee
make perfectly circular doo-dads
I wonder how their centrifuges are doing, since the latest batches are manufactured in house.
that would be an excellent opportunity to introduce variables into the chain which would lead to no explosions ever, never.
This idea has some merit, but not sure how to intrude in the loop and it is probably too late.
I’ve heard a story of a similar nature that was rather a “copyright” issue. In 1953, Japanese asked a Czech hydro-electric turbine maker (Skoda or Adast, not sure which one) for a proposal, they were on the market to buy some. They asked for a scaled down prototype to try out. The Czechs heard of Japanese and their unusual ways, so the drilled a hole in the body of the turbine and placed a screw there, totally non-functional, just for fun and extra noise. As somewhat expected, Japanese later that year returned the turbine and stated that it was not exactly what they needed and KTHXBAI.
3 years later, one guy from the firm went on a trip to Japan for another project assessment and perchance got a tour through one of the hydro power sites. His hosts looked puzzled when he started laughing when he saw the turbine with a “copyright marker” in place.
@51. Unsk
On the same page. However, for time being, he goes along with the increase of troops in the theater as id does not cost him anything. He is not probably even aware of the logistics issues, despite that was likely explained to him, it is simply out of range of his attention focus syndrome. I expect inconsistent and illogical policy coming out of administration, any posistives would be a pure luck.
Many great points by all.
I personally don’t believe keeping traditional US troops in Afghanistan is worth a wooden nickel much less one American life.
But there are many special operations groups both mercenary and governmental that tracking the AQ and Taliban is always open to volunteers, and there appear to be an abundance of them. Suppliment that with Predators and other under current development UAV’s being flown by pilots sitting in chairs in some very safe area and we can, as has been proven, disrupt the organizational structure.
It would appear that as with all previous history there will be conflict. I have advocated reducing the worlds Islamic population by several hundreds of millions but civil people can not grasp that in any fashion. What that means is that worldwide the Islams will out produce the entire worlds populations and eventually control the entire tea party. This isn’t even debateable given the upward trajectory of Islamic birth demographics. The West isn’t in the competion for population control. Twenty years, perhaps thirty unless we become sanely uncivil and destroy an ideology whose major tenet is to destroy us. No quarter, no negotiation, you’re Islamic,dead, or a vassal.
But “winning” in Afghanistan. Not gonna ever happen. Use high order irradiation, dirty bombs of plutonium etc. on the tribal areas, salt or spray the the opium fields with a soil destroying agent and let them all die. At some time diplomacy will be totally useless and the biggest, meanest dog in the fight will win. Right now we have a panty waste President and a majority population that supports him.
As things stand now we’re on a course to lose within a score years. Kill them or they kill us. Which do you want? Please save the homilies on this being a false choice until you can show me a time since Islam was invented that they haven’t followed the killing aspect of ALL infidels.
What is our strategic interest in Afghanistan? In fall 2001 it was clearly important to deny a base to Al-Qaeda and to strike back at the perpetrators of 9/11. But the need to stop a hostile force from taking root there exhausts our strategic interest in the country.
It is not like Iraq, which does have high strategic value to the U.S. Absent its ability to host hostile forces who can project power to the U.S. mainland, Afghanistan would be of no interest. Given the apparent inability to supply our troops there, perhaps our narrow strategic need could better be served by local proxies instead of by U.S. troops.
Habu…
Most likely food exports towards the muslims is going to dry up: no money.
Population growth in Iran seems to have gone off the rails.
The European riots to come are going to change a lot of attitudes.
I like your minimalist solution for AQ and its shadow army. With mercs I can recruit very broadly indeed. It’s a winner.
Is TOTUS obtuse naturally or is it deliberate?
http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2009/03/obama-upsets-sarkozy-with-letter-to.html
Habu has stated the politically incorrect truth-live free or die…kill them before they kill us. I weep for the women and children who will become the collateral damage in the future war of the worlds with Islam, but damn I’d rather they be the ones vaporized then my own. Its a heartless world now with very limited options. The Big 0 will bring the war of the worlds about because he’ll let our guard down and be looking the other way when the “surprise” comes…we’ll be sucker punched by a Paki with a Brit passport who meets up with an Iranian whos smuggeled in the bomb parts via Mexico. Boom Boom in Houston or Dallas, Boom Boom in Atlanta or Chicago…then Afganistan will fade as fast from the screen as the Shandra Levy murder did on 9/11.
sigintel…
One correction: via Canada…
sooooo much easier.
Well, TOTUS is already having an epiphany and looking for an exit strategy from A-stan.
WASHINGTON — The United States must look for a way out of the war in Afghanistan, President Obama said, in a signal that the military build-up in Afghanistan will not be open-ended and will lead to the eventual withdrawal of American and NATO troops from the country. “There’s got to be an exit strategy,” Mr. Obama said in a wide-ranging interview shown Sunday on “60 Minutes” on CBS. “There’s got to be a sense that this is not perpetual drift.”
European officials have been outspoken about their plans to leave Afghanistan in the next three to four years. Mr. Obama’s remarks, which were recorded on Friday, indicated that the administration, which has more troops and resources in Afghanistan than European countries do, is also working toward a long-term strategy.
Last month, he announced that he would send 17,000 more American troops to Afghanistan this spring and summer, adding to the 36,000 already there.
In the interview, Mr. Obama also signaled that the United States was redefining its mission in Afghanistan, away from the Bush administration’s broader strategy of promoting democracy, civil society and governance in Afghanistan and toward getting the country to a point where it is not used to start attacks on the United States.
Asked what the United States’ mission in Afghanistan should be, Mr. Obama replied: “Making sure that Al Qaeda cannot attack the U.S. homeland and U.S. interests and our allies. That’s our No. 1 priority.”
@ 61. blert
Not really. You can tell based on how easy it is for Canadian pot deliveries to get through the border. In the last 4 or so years, the border is not as sieve-like as it has been in the past. It is so effective that the BC pot grow-ops business contracted by 50%. One would presume that it is not only related to pot going through.