The WSJ describes the administration’s plans to counter the opium trade in Afghanistan and stabilize Pakistan. In an article entitled “White House Plans Extensive Afghan Escalation”, Yochie Dreazen wrote:
The Obama administration will unveil a new Afghanistan strategy Friday that calls for devoting significant new resources to counter-narcotics efforts in Afghanistan and economic development in Pakistan, according to senior U.S. officials. …
Mr. Obama will also significantly expand the American presence in Afghanistan. The president recently agreed to send 17,000 U.S. military reinforcements to Afghanistan in coming months, and officials said the new plan will add roughly 4,000 military trainers who will be charged with mentoring the nascent Afghan army and police.
AdvertisementThe new troops, along with the hundreds of diplomats and civilian officials who will be sent to Afghanistan as part of a so-called “civilian surge,” will begin departing for Afghanistan later this spring.
The new strategy is notable for the emphasis it places on Pakistan, which senior officials now see as critical to determining whether Afghanistan stabilizes or continues its downward spiral. The U.S. has given Pakistan more than $10 billion since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S., mostly in military assistance. As part of its new strategy, the Obama administration plans to instead give Pakistan at least $1.5 billion per year in economic-development aid and other non-military forms of assistance.
White House officials hope the money will be used to create jobs and fund construction projects in Pakistan’s lawless tribal region, areas that provide havens to the militants who cross into Afghanistan to carry out attacks.
The Obama administration hopes to undercut the Taliban by launching a new counter-narcotics offensive in the Helmand River Valley and other parts of southern Afghanistan. The mission will be the primary focus of the U.S. reinforcements currently streaming into the mammoth military base in the southern city of Kandahar.
Under the planned counter-narcotics mission, U.S. or Afghan troops will first offer Afghan farmers free wheat seed in the hope of persuading them to replace their opium crops. If the farmers refuse, U.S. or Afghan personnel will burn their fields, and then again offer them free replacement seeds. A senior U.S. military official described the approach as a “carrot, stick, carrot” effort.
Despite the tone of the WSJ’s piece, Fred Kaplan in Slate writes that “with just a week until President Barack Obama flies to Strasbourg, France, for his first NATO conference, his top advisers are still divided over what U.S. policy should be on the summit’s No. 1 issue: how to fight the war in Afghanistan.” Kaplan says that President Obama has not yet made the fundamental choice between what he terms the CT or Counterterrorist strategy or COIN (counterinsurgency). Kaplan writes:
According to close observers, the key debate in the White House is whether the United States and NATO should wage a counterinsurgency campaign—securing the Afghan population, helping to provide basic services, and thus strengthening support for the government—or whether we should devote most of our resources to going after al-Qaida terrorists directly. Obviously, any plan will wind up doing at least a bit of both; the debate is over priorities and emphasis.
Andrew Exum, writing in the Small Wars Journal, is appalled by the idea that this debate can still remain unresolved at so late a date. He says, “the distinction between COIN and CT, however, is poorly understood. For one, there is no hard and fast dichotomy between the two – a fact that Kaplan and other longtime defense correspondents largely understand but which policy-makers must understand as well. If what Kaplan writes is true, and policy-makers are stuck thinking of their policy options as either/or propositions, we are in more trouble in Afghanistan than I thought.”
But the real choice is more basic. It’s not between CT and COIN. It is between a decision to stay until the Taliban are meaningfully defeated or simply to prepare for a withdrawal ‘with honor’. At a talk I recently attended a senior retired military officer argued that neither counterinsurgency nor nation building could be achieved unless the Taliban, who are largely founded upon the Pashtun tribal structures, are militarily brought to heel. So the hidden choice in the Obama strategy is whether or not it is willing to invest the resources and undertake the political risks necessary to defeat the Taliban, even in their sanctuaries across the border. From the scant detail reported in the WSJ article, the Obama administration appears to have accepted the necessity of dealing with the sanctuaries across the border, albeit indirectly, by assisting the Pakistanis. However, it is unclear at present how aggressive it will be in actually breaking the combat capability of the Taliban. The difficulties of accomplishing that task were highlighted by a recent accusation by Afghanistan that the Pakistanis were helping the Taliban.
KABUL – Afghanistan’s intelligence chief accused Pakistan’s spy agency of helping Taliban militants carry out attacks in his country, highlighting one of the biggest challenges facing the Obama administration as it prepared Thursday to launch a new strategy for the Afghan conflict. …
Afghanistan’s intelligence chief, Amrullah Saleh, told parliament Wednesday that the spy agency provides support to the Taliban leadership council in the Pakistani city of Quetta headed by the group’s supreme leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar. He said the council sends militants into Afghanistan to attack Afghan and international forces.
The New York Times reported that Pakistani spy operatives provide money, military supplies and strategic planning guidance to Taliban commanders, with evidence of the ties coming from electronic surveillance and trusted informants. The report cited American, Pakistani and other security officials who spoke anonymously because they were discussing confidential intelligence information.
In any case, if the Administration does not plan to degrade the Taliban’s power to the point where Pashtun tribal chiefs can switch allegiance without fear of sudden and painful death, then Kabul will never acquire control on the ground and the Obama civilian surge may simply be an exercise of going through the motions to disguise the goal of realizing an exit strategy. Then the “civilian surge” would simply be “the long goodbye”.
Every time I see COIN used in Afghanistan strategy work-ups I know they are lost.
The shadow army is simply not an insurgency. What are they smoking?
Even Pakistan’s civil war is not an insurgency. It is a tribal breakout whereby neo-mongols rampage over civil societies.
Of course, going after the farmers by burning their contractually obligated crops will have the entire countryside up in arms right in front of the election.
With such a mind set, the campaign in Afghanistan is lost before the first footstep.
Burning the crops will give us the insurgency that can never end. We really will be fighting the locals. It’s totally insane.
I have heard it argued that Afghanistan is not beset by an insurgency at all, but is rather a conflict between an ancient form of state, based on tribes and a modern state, which the US and its allies are trying to promote. If we seriously want to do that, then we need to bring the Pashtuns to heel, on whichever side of the border they are. Whether or not that’s a valid goal is a political question. But as a practical matter, if the US wants to establish the Afghan state, it has to degrade the Taliban’s ability to control the ground. If you want those ends, then those are the means.
So the real question in Afghanistan is about ends. What are our goals?
This probably reveals the quality and character of those likely to comprise the ranks of the “civilian surge”, (know what I mean), that will “confiscate” and “eradicate” all that “counter-narcotics effort”(s).
Who knows, maybe its the means as to how Pres Obama will “fund” government and along with his plans to “cut spending” and even “bring down the deficit”, bring “fiscal responsibility to congress”? (who, spends all the money apparently, so I’m told, ‘ways and means’, appropriations, etc)).
But I kind of doubt it
Great, now “the lawless tribal region” of southern Paki-stan is now bumped up a notch and slated as the *new* priority on givernment subsidies list(s) for “at least $1.5 billion per year in economic-development aid and other non-military forms of assistance.”
That ought to do it
Wretchard – “So the real question in Afghanistan is about ends. What are our goals?”
I think that is the core of the problem right there. What ARE our goals? I have no military experience or training, but I think before you can plan a strategy out, first you need to have a goal in mind. I would also add, you need to have a true belief in your own “side”. I think the liberals in D.C. don’t believe that the USA is the best nation in the world and worth protecting. This lack of faith in our culture/nation is seen by others in the world for what it is, a weakness. They will not hesitate to take advantage of this fact. (To be clear, I have no doubt our men and women in the U.S. military are the best ANYWHERE, and can accomplish whatever they set out to do.)
So, not only don’t we have a goal, we don’t believe in the mission. Our enemy over there, whether in Afghanistan or Pakistan, has a definite goal and does believe in their mission!
Blert makes excellent points.
This has been rehashed repeatedly here at Belmont Club. Just to play Devil’s advocate in a situation that doesn’t require many diabolical additions, how much operating money do we think the Taliban derives from opium? How many tens of millions of dollars can Al Qaeda and other Islamist groups bring into the Afghan / Paki region from Saudi Arabia & other gulf Wahhabis? If the counter opium campaign is successful it will make the millions of dollars Al Qaeda can throw around in the region that much more influential in Pashtun circles. The fact that opium farming was curbed and on the verge of obsolescence in Afghanistan under Taliban rule is not often discussed.
If the Taliban hadn’t banned opium growing as haram, they could have taxed opium production to provide a much larger government operating budget. In that case, Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, and the money, goods and favors they provided to the Taliban wouldn’t have been nearly as eagerly received. With a viable narco economy, Mullah Omar might have kicked Al Qaeda and Bin Laden out of Afghanistan back in the late 90s so as to avoid upsetting the applecart on their account.
Opium has been a source of revenue for the Pashtuns for centuries. To really obliterate it and replace it with something else will require a huge investment in money and personnel and won’t happen quickly without resorting to death threats and summary executions. The Taliban could get away with that, Allah was on their side. Can Obama or NATO top divine will?
I see us repeating many of the mistakes the Soviets made!
Time to play cowboys and Pashtun’s.
Lest anyone forget, the Soviets were fine until they went after the opium crop. Things went straight south so fast it was hard to believe.
Even Soviet levels of repression and depopulation — war crimes, really — did not in any way end the insurgency.
If we go after their wallets they’ll shoot us in the back and in the bed.
This gambit is engineered to fail, and fail big and fast. Force attrition is going to skyrocket.
South Asia suffered for generations from the legacy of Cambridge University Fabian Socialism. Now that India has finally shaken off that legacy the cultural imperialists are poised to try again under American cover in nearby Afghanistan. Call if the Revenge of the Raj. There clearly is a place for Civil Affairs projects. Normally these functions are performed by uniformed soldiers called to active duty from specially trained reserve units that recruit civilians with the needed skills. That makes sense while combat operations are still in progress. Later when the military moves to supporting and overseeing tasks more commonly associated with law enforcement it becomes appropriate to shed the army uniforms. Iraq is now probably at that stage. The risks in Afghanistan are two fold. First it might be premature to civilianize the effort while there are still organized enemy combat units in the field. Second is that these efforts should be focused on providing the training, legal framework, market access, and infrastructure for a normal society to develop. My fear is that this will become a pork barrel for an army of Chicago Community Organizers who will saddle Afghanistan with a model of dependancy and corruption, although the native variety may be able to teach the newcomers on that score, and inefficiency that will collapse as soon as outsiders withdraw and the waiting Taliban move back in.
Barry 0351 – NO. Time to play exterminators and cockroaches.
Here is possibly a very dumb question. Since opium is the source of some legitimate and needed drugs, why not encourage the cultivation of opium by whatever group and then have drug companies buy it for the production of drugs?
How are we supposed to defeat the Taliban when the Pakistani government covertly aids them? The Afghan government almost certainly does too. Why are we giving either government money when most of it will be treated as jizya and covertly funnelled to various Islamic terror groups worldwide, including the Taliban itself?
Even if we did destroy the Taliban, in what universe would Pashtun tribal leaders align themselves with infidels, when doing so would be in direct violation of the Quranic injunction never to take infidels for friends unless you do so in order to deceive them? Why haven’t we asked this question regarding Iraq and their alleged friendship with us?
The only way to get the farmers unhooked to opium cultivation is to gradually change the economics.
That means rigged food prices/ price stabilization…
Seed and fertilizer subsidies only to those that are poppy-free. We pay the locals directly with our own bag men — you can forget about Kabul.
We’ll have to provide technical assistance since these planters don’t know how to do it modern.
And we’ll have to build roads, roads, roads.
It’s a poor economic proposition for us.
We’d be better off just tagging the drug lords and treat them as adjuncts of AQ.
BTW the Taliban have reversed course on their objection to opium. It is now very permitted in as much as it provides war funding.
If we were to use modern technical means to track back the crop to its point of concentration…
Predator UAV’s would have something worthwhile to tag. Damaging the supply system many,many miles from the farm is definitely the way to go. So H is not for it.
Can’t bring 14th century land locked culture/country into the 21st, not when its surroundings aren’t even there yet let alone they ain’t gonna let them get there first! This is a massive grave yard waiting to happen, Russia, Iran and China is gonna bloody us there cuase “0″ ain’t nothing! he ain’t got no brains and his full of hot air, just looking at who he surrounded himself with and how his administration has worked over the last three months is all the proof you need…
Obama’s primary problem is what to do with Patreus. I assmue Obama sincerely admires and trusts Patreus as the best possible general to accomplish whatever can be accomplished in Afghanistan.
Obama does not really want to fight militarily in that region but since he did promise during the campaign to fight there and since Patreus is in place, this is a situation where Obama will go with the flow. Whatever Patreus wants, Patreus will get. Whatever Patreus wants to do, Patreus can do. And Obama will back Patreus to the hilt.
This is a situation that was not planned and could not be planned. Events and personalities have engaged and interlocked, powering a wheel and propelling us forward on an exciting ride. The Global War on Terror, unexpectedly, is catching a second wind. A lot more Moslem radicals are going to get killed.
It’s looking more and more like this is practice for what we’re eventually going to have to deal with in Mexico. So it’s probably money well spent.
blert,
Correction. We have to hire them to build roads roads roads. We need to build in economic incentives, roads they are hired to build and defend should be worth more than them being paid to blow up roads and grow opium.
Why not use some of the expanded Americorps dough to recruit some narcs in the hood as part of the counter-narcotics push? Just thinking outside the box.
The roads make it easier to take the opium somewhere else to make more money.
As individuals, the Afghans are an appealing group (according to things I’ve read , written by people like Michael Yon, and others that have been there); stubborn, independent, they somewhat resemble the yeoman farmers that were the Jeffersonian ideal of America.
Somewhat.
But if you take a step back, the poor yeoman farmers are part of a larger, medieval culture that is not susceptible to change. There is a tribal, feudal system to the culture (not the government) of that poor country. It promotes all kinds of things to make “easy money”, banditry, harsh patriarchy, etc. It’s been this way since before Alexander got stuck there 2300 years ago (read “The Afghan Campaign” by Steven Pressfield for a fictionalized account). Anyone who has a real hunger for a better life usually finds a way out of the country.
None of this is news to most of the regular readers of the Belmont Club, of course.
But what to do with these people and the situation to prevent Afghanistan slipping back into the blackhole of Taliban/al Qaeda chaos? I remember back in the ’80′s a friend of mine told me he bought Hashish that was molded into a disk that had an emblem of the Mujahadeen (A fist holding a rifle) fighting the Soviets at that time. They were selling stuff back then to support their “war effort”.
Whatever trick we come up with, it’s got to be attractive enough to these people that they will mostly give up growing opium to make money, and do something else to make money. Good luck with that.
Or nuke Quetta and be done with it. That would make a harsh example.
sorry, i got the “civilian surge” folks mixed up with the *new* Americorps conscripts.
I thought it was part of that same (other) story.
<b.Gaffe Prices,
You crossed Egon’s lines.
If we ship 500,000 Obomajugend to Afghanistan, each perfectly illiterate with a community college degree to prove it, I’d expect the Urban crime rate to drop and the GDP to rise. Daytime television would have to find a topic to explore other than “Whose the Daddy?”
There’s a whole lot of chaos in parts of Africa — yet the US does not seem to feel the need to intervene there. So why does Obama feel the need to borrow money from the Chinese to spend it in Afghanistan?
With Obama, it seems one is for ever caught between two possible explanations for his behavior.
The incompetent — he committed to war in Afghanistan during the campaign to sidestep the accusation that his opposition to Iraq was a sign of weakness. Now he is trapped by his own past statements, and things are running on autopilot.
The devious — the US military has the confidence of 80% of the US people, while the Democrat-controlled Congress has the confidence of only 20%. The US military needs to be brought down. Obama wants to see an Alamo in Afghanistan, with US forces cut off and routed.
Take your pick.
The Afghanis are not stupid. They will do both. Work the poppies and build the roads. As long as the market price is supported by prohibition as in the 1920′s here. There WILL BE poppies grown and harvested. No matter if you build the roads or not. It is irrelevant to the average Afghan.
The European elites have been trying to stamp out the Scots-Irish culture since before the Stuart kings came to power. Hasn’t happened. Won’t happen. And they have had complete control over every facet of daily life of the Scots-Irish except their ability to breed and teach their children the culture.
Afghans will always be Afghans. The sooner we learn this and apply it to our strategic goals we will suffer the same fate as all previous “conquerors” of the only stop light on the silk road.
Jim
JFSanders: What about employing the State Dept Reset Button?
Save Zack Shahin
Banner Ad on Drudge
The_Torture_and_Arrest_of_US_Citizen_Zack_Shahin_in_Dubai,_UAE.pdf
Taliban Unify in Face of American Influx
The Pakistani Taliban have closed ranks with their Afghan comrades ahead of a new American offensive.
Above, a funeral for a victim of a U.S. missile attack
Looks like a target to me.
Are we sending our children to fight and die there? Why? What for? Afghanistan was Russia’s Vietnam, must it be ours too?
Those poppy fields are politically safe from any military effort we can make. A consortium of what amounts to shadow governments buys the stuff, and the fraction that comes into USA clearly enjoys near-perfect protection, as one would expect considering the amount of money involved.
Rick:
We Get some great aerial photos of Taliban Gatherings.
The Global War on Terror is over, mike. The Afghanistan Campaign of the GWOT is now merely an Overseas Contingency Operation, in which the United States applies some of its military power and the minimally plausible amount of its diplomatic, information and economic power not toward “victory” but towards an “exit strategy.” Overseas Contingency Operation aren’t “won” or “lost,” they are “conducted” with various degrees of “success”. Ownership for any publicly perceived lack of success will fall upon the MSM’s designated scapegoat, which is not going to be the C-in-C, but the COCOM.
“There’s a whole lot of chaos in parts of Africa — yet the US does not seem to feel the need to intervene there. So why does Obama feel the need to borrow money from the Chinese to spend it in Afghanistan?”
A bet ? when finally the Mullah will accept meeting your representants, and agreeing on their propositions, (you have still time to watch the peripeties before) I bet that the occupation of Afghanistan will end soon. This is still part of the ol Brzezinski project, the green belt ! Iran is incercled until she complies, AS it was the very same man’s design, and as he is back in office, he will not resign on what mattered for him soon
I believe that Blert and A Rex are on target.
One has to remember that opium has been cultivate since 3400BC with Sumerians leading the way. Afghanistan has a history of a thousand years. It is a major part of their entire society and though the big money never makes it to the actual worker,they do make a living at providing the WEST with blow and an underground economy in the billions of dollars.
If we didn’t snort,cook,bake and otherwise demand the drug the market would not exist. It is not for naught that Sumerians refer to it as Hul Gil, the ‘joy plant.’
I’m confident eyeballs on their screens reading this right now have done a line or two or done some rock.
So going after their most important crop that is grown for OUR recreation is a loser in every way.
We have a President that has contributed to terrorism by dealing dope. My guess is he still get’s a jolt from “friends” when he wants one.
Make then into wheat growers. Pleeeeze get real.
Our goal in Afghanistan is to deny a sanctuary in which terrorists hide and train.
But that is absurd when a dirty bombing of the NW tribal regions could accomplish the job. We needn’t lose American lives in the most hostile fighting ground on Earth.
We still haven’t eradicated the Baaka Valley of it’s terrot bases, nor has the West the cajones to tackle the Islamic population explosion that will , as Mark Steyn put so well, be the death of the West.
Civilized non Islamic societies are not prepared to do what is necessary so we will have to live with the consequences. There isn’t a magic bullet; only the unthinkable.
it’s not the mouthy global war anymore, it the back-yards war, like in the good ol time
the War on Drugs keeps product prices up for the mob, and the mob has enough national political power to make sure the War on Drugs never ends. I hate to think this part of ‘the Afghan situation’ has any DC bearing on our deployment, but there’s so much slop in the air i don’t think i’d be surprised to hear it. Who’d know, outside the mob CPA circles.
Cannoneer,
Since there are no more Enemy Combatants, a Miller caller suggests:
“Friends going thru tough times. “
14. Mike Sylwester:
obama and General Patraeus. obama will only allow him so much since he is being courted bt the Republicans as a Cincinnatus.
At the appointed time Gen Patraeus will have his Chicago gangster cooked up Abu Ghraib momment to tarnish his brilliant career and charm. Yheir is an old saying in politics that when you’re explaining you’re losing. At some point obama will have Gen. Patraeus in front of Senate and House committees explaining. It may backfire. Only time will tell any of it. If he’s smart, he’ll retire and go fishing in Montana.
I can’t believe I am even reading this… has the utter failure of the war on drugs taught us nothing? I really hate to parrot the left’s mantra of creating more terrorists, but are we ging to burn the village to save it? When you take away a man’s ability to feed his family you just made a powerful enemy.
Our actions should be limited to denying Islamic terrorists a safe haven. Nothing more. That George Bush promised them something more, something we couldn’t deliver, was bad enough. There’s got to be a better way of leaving.
The problem of the Opium Poppy will be solved in a level 3 recombinant research viral laboratory.
OT, here is the Republican budget plan. Would that they had come out with it 8 months ago and stuck to the script. http://www.gop.gov/solutions/budget/road-to-recovery-final
The long goodbye has always been the exit plan.
Blert @7. If we go after their wallets they’ll shoot us in the back and in the bed.
This gambit is engineered to fail, and fail big and fast. Force attrition is going to skyrocket.
Precisely. And O will smile with glee watching the military get run through the grinder.
Few people in the pacifist left of the Democratic Party will speak up in defense of our enemies along the the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Those enemies burn down schools in order to prevent the education of little girls.
If Obama unleashes Patreus, then all options will be open in dealing with these enemies. Appropriate words for describing our military goals against these enemies might be “decimation,” “devastation” and “annihilation.”
ONE MORE TIME! Stop trying to stop opium production. Maximize it instead. Buy the crop from the growers. Pay top dollar.
Convert said crop to petroleum. You get almost three barrels of “bio-diesel” per acre. Use microbe enhancement of the mash and I rather imagine the yield will go straight up from there.
Plus, use labor-intensive techniques to run the plants/cracking towers. That gives the locals regular jobs while avoiding any petroleum overhead that might eat up the gains.
Damnit! Stop criminalizing the only people around that are trying to earn a honest living.
I’m sorry, Dave, I can’t open the pod bay door. The Genovese have the key, not to mention the gavel.
Old Blue, where are you?
And another thing: The one guy that was successful in Afghanistan? Genghis Khan.
He took and held the countryside and did not bother with the cities other than to kill, loot, rape, put to the sword, etc. These activities took but a portion of the Mongol Hordes time. The majority of the time they kept busy holding the key terrain outside.
No, they were not geniuses. But they were a horseborne force with an enormous remuda. They were out after three things, pasture, pasture and pasture. Keeping the equestrian arm in good shape required their constant attention. Hence they actually controlled Afghanistan.
In conjunction with the Northern Alliance, the Sneaky Petes routed the Taliban because they too took the countryside first.
But then, the old losers game of trying to rule/govern from Kabul etc came back and of course so did Taliban.
To perservere in Afghanistan, our side is going to have to engnage in various and sundry productive activities in the tribal areas, securing the activites from harm by using both regulars and tribal auxillaries.
Keep that up for up to 30 years (guesstimate)
and the tribal mores will have adapted to our standards enough that an actual nation will exist.
A long and arduous procedure. But not any more difficult than using Tonkawas to help Dirty Blue Shirts whup up on the Commanche while cattlemen developed their lands and herds.
Failure just means Afghanistan will revert to being a privileged sanctuary for our foes.
ONE MORE TIME! Stop trying to stop opium production. Maximize it instead. Buy the crop from the growers. Pay top dollar.
So they can use our own money to buy weapons to kill us with? No thanks. We have no interests there. Move out, withdraw all aid, and let them rot in Islamic paradise (otherwise known as hell around these parts).
Keep that up for up to 30 years (guesstimate)
and the tribal mores will have adapted to our standards enough that an actual nation will exist.
Fanciful and foolish thinking. They’re hardcore Muslim, they’ll never adopt our standards or mores.
‘Minder again Buddy: Texas CSA by James Farber.
BTW, you got any idea how many Afghan acres to support a pair? Some of my people are managing to make a living cow-keeping on 150 acres the pair. Land there is not any poorer.
Then there is the possibility of (don’t tell anybody I said this) of sheep. Once you get some black gold out of those poppies there will be quite a bit more local cash flow than ever seen before. Don’t you figure you might find some buyers, for wool, mutton and even t-bones, not to mention cow juice?
Mountainous terrain like that will always have some form of mineral wealth there. Need to explore and find out how much of what and how exploitable.
If there were volcanic springs in the prehistoric past, then some 20-Mule Team Borax might be found. In fact, that area of the world might have been where borates were first discovered.
Now it does look sorta like old what’s-his-face is determinjed to intercourse in a vertical manner. LBJ with attitude. However, does not look like we will have to bury 100 to 300 a week like was necessary when I was adventuring. So, four to eight years from now, the Pak-Af region will still be percolating.
Thus, good ideas can still find fertile ground.
Dave, the old way was to invite their good students over here for a junior year abroad, at least, and then rest assured that just being ourselves in this bountiful land would be all that was needed to plant the seeds of progress back home. Maybe it’s just me, souring away in disappointment at how casually we ignore, right when we most need it, the miracle of free people with 95% employment and fair elections and upward mobility and beaucoup stuff, in order to let fly with a stupid food fight with turds like marxism. So anyhow, nowadays our campus is probably NOT the showcase for the Enlightenment. Wonder where is? Utah?
Around the central hills here, a cow-calf unit gonna need 30 acres when rain is average. That 150 you say, that must be over in the Trans -Pecos, huh? Hudspeth County maybe? That’s really the eastern Chiricahua Desert. better for scorpions, sidewinders, them funny little bipedal lizards that run 100 miles an hour, and yer old uncle in his broke down 1955 Airstream.
Bob Smith, add a few thousand miles of barbed wire and a minefield, and cratering every road crossing the border and every airfield, and repeating as necessary, and I’ll agree with you. They want to live in the 7th century; make sure they get what they appear to want.
Most still don’t get it. You can’t get 14th century culture (the worst type to begin with “Islam”) to adjust to the 21st century! it would take numerous generations and we ain’t got numerous generations to wait it out, you can’t do it with surrounding countries that aren’t even close to the 21st century ether and once again of the culture that ain’t gona change, it can’t be done when your “Leader” is as spineless and untrustworthy as ours is, you can’t also do it because our “PC” daisy squeezers and everything is the Americans fault congress ain’t gonna let it happen ether…
dave, i think i get it –what you’re driving at, the full, enveloping quadrophonic panavision of a certain sort of political disaster.
Here complete on-line (see the fullbooks or Gutenberg sites) a great memoir of confederate combat infantryman Sam Watkins of Tennessee (or, as they said back then, “TEN uh see”).
BTW the Gutenberg site reminds me, there’s very very strong, in fact all but irrefutable, circumstantial evidence that Mr. Gutenberg ah, ”nationalized”, the idea and 1G tech specs for moveable type –the printing press, in the vernacular –from one Laurens Janszoon Koster, a Dutchman, and sans any pertaining agreement or discussion a priori. More later on that, if anyone wants. Bad form to puncture willy nilly a cultural icon, but in this dry secular case, Mr. Koster could fill the gap quite painlessly, esp. given that his name is shorter & easier to spell. And strooth there’s Justice that need be hewn to.
It may not be possible to eradicate the poppy crop, but it may be possible to devote more to the middlemen. I woke up to news on NPR that the SCO is holding a meeting concerning Afghanistan and its drug trade in particular ahead of NATO’s meeting/the President’s announcement on the same subject. It occurs to that to get from Afghanistan – I repeat, Afghanistan – to Europe and the USA there must be an extraordinarily long logistics train. Is it really possible to move 75% or more of the world’s powder from the Kush to Berlin and New York without being able to cinch the chain in Tashkent or Delhi or Karachi or the Kurdish territories? Is it really unlikely that the Russian and Chinese intelligence services have a hand in making sure the smack gets from A to B?
In any case, we can’t raze the crops without alienating the farmers; we can’t significantly affect the Western market of ravers and the students and the addicts. Couldn’t we possibly cordon off the country using CIA and/or spec ops, or the countries next to the country?
One has to wonder about the venerable opium poppy plant itself: It probably can grow in places where other plants won’t.
All I know is if any lush green areas turn up there anywhere, on google earth, I think we can deduce it is their cash export crop. useful for barter and trade for other foods grown elsewhere.
Its like Le Grec anciens, little else grew there except olives and grapes, but they traded for everything else, on the Mediterranean sea lanes. And became the wealthiest subdivision of loosely allied or warring clans and tribes, I guess that’s what the Illiad is about; them trying to become a confederation and failing to do so.
I hate to go all environmental, but the thing that turned that broad area, from Morrocco to Pakistan, from semi-arid to arid was the sheep and goats, who eat not only the grass, but the roots and seeds as well. (everything but the stones who cry out “there’s one here!”.
Its hard to imagine these off-the-books, ‘special forces’-foreign service, bureaucrat ‘volunteers’ (from Americorps, as I alluded to earlier) involved in some kind of realistic, re- or mis- application of a plan that tells the Afghanis to drop their way of life (the goats and trad. trade), and arbitrarily adopt the sort of ‘”agrarian reform” the communists of old claimed to be implementing, but never quite succeeded in, in places far more productive else where. And ended up just confiscating land and property from those engaging in Catholicism, or teaching, or some other form of western bourgeois colonial activity or mentality, in southeast Asia in “the good old days”.
And just what forms of “agrarian” agriculture is likely to succeed in a place as harsh as Afghanistan. And one wonders, as well, what is it about Afghanistan that gets folks like Britain or Russia for example, so interested in that local in the first place? It certainly isn’t the jewel in any crown, as India might have been, and probably was.
And that probably brings us back to opium, and its, (as mentioned by Armageddon Rex in#5) its viability as a item of trade or barter. Mix in some of Obamas offshoot americorps and you’ve got corruption; and I’m sure some of those like the folks in Oakland are just itching for some (more) payback for perceived
‘social injustice’ that they see as being in default and payments for such, need to be resumed.
I don’t trust anything anymore and I would back this up by citing the subjective opinion that, moslems would probably laugh at the prospect of nuclear devastation. It explains why Islam thrives in bleak desolate area’s (Allah wills it (or willed) it), and why they feel no compunction on imposing similar conditions on the rest of anywhere’s in their sights. One must pony up, or ante up, the ‘good faith’ down payment (the austere, spartan existence of …), to demonstrate that one perceives fully the way Islam operates. Learn the lesson of the goat.
Opium, more specifically morphine, comes in handy when dealing with battlefield injuries, which makes all this so self fulfilling, dammit. That’s why I was ready to accept the idea of disengagement with Iraq, (because we got them on their feet this quickly (quicker even than, oh, deutschland, Nippon, South
Korea, as opposed to Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos where we weren’t able to)), and Afghanistan, because its not so nation-ready; not yet, not for a good long Indiana Jones “look at these quaint, simple, primitive superstitious peoples!!” time. (see Illiad, and Saul)
Obamas reneged on the most supreme article of his platform, that there is no ‘war on terror’ and those who want their head back in its sand bought it hook, line and sinker. Along w/ Libertarians and ‘independents’, even some republicans, who got cold feet and squishy, because the going seemed to get ruff. And so they bought into the idea that a war could be fought non-chaotically, from the infusion of absurd propagandic criticism’s alone. (see press reports Israel, circa Aug 9, 2006 up to the Litani River). They thought he would draw down the involvement of troops far away. And If there is any real politic in that, it would be because maybe we need our troops in defense of our borders here, against encroachment(s) onto our home turf. Patton did that.
Putting aside Sandler/Soros master plans for the moment, there can be only one explanation for this, as I see it: that he sees himself as Mahdi, and when disastre and corruption erupt onto the pages of newscript, and ‘journalists’ “question all this”, in their uberconscience, reviving the old ‘vietnam template’; they will explain it all away, saying it was all Bush administration idea anyway, and colonisation and whatnot, (and Afghanistan didn’t attack us on 9/11, or was that Iraq? Oh, whatever…) when teleprompter man had a differnet objective all along.
Nukes? they are just the fast food variety of what can be accomplished by the more useful and merciful, and edible sheep and goats, in just fourteen centuries.
A hardy people will learn to exploit the fruits of the region they live in. It’s to be expected, too. It’s in the bible.
Got lots of trees? Cut lumber. Got 12-20 inches of precipitation and good grassland? Grow cattle. Got semi-arid limestone crags, cold winters and thin soils? Grow poppies. Got miles of white-sand beaches and a warm sea offshore? Encourage tourism.
It’s only in today’s modern, “progressive” managerial mindset that human welfarist ideals trump Nature’s common sense. Here, in today’s fantastic world only, can a gaggle of urban, Western college students who once sprouted a lima bean in a wet paper towel, and who have been taught to despise the market economy, be deputized to “revolutionize” an entire south Asian region’s agriculture.
For this reason alone, that the idealistic progressive intent is so incompatible with real, on-the-ground affairs, an interdictive economic campaign will fail in Afghanistan. The predictable result will be n expansion of the police state, increased profits for contraband smuggling and evermore civil unrest.
Just as if Obama’s prohibitions were foisted on the US citizenry, they will generate a fierce reaction from Afghanistan’s people, too.
Notwithstanding the many real issues that are associated with letting the Afghanistan situation deteriorate, why do I still get the strong impression that the only reason that Obama wants to get into Afghanistan is that Bush went after Iraq?
Further, it seems that the only reason this particular strategy is being promoted is that Obama seems to think it was Bush didn’t do in Iraq.
There is no upside to this.
I think they should send 15-20k organizers from ACORN over to Afganistan and get them whipped into shape – it would make a great movie!
and think of all the X’s they could collect on voter registration cards for the next US election!
They could refinance their houses instead of selling opium
Doesn’t the US cozying up to Iran (access to Afghanistan) preclude Israeli preemption?
#54 geoffgo
I rather hope that the state of Israel realizes that the United States is no longer anything approximating an ally; and in fact has rolled over to side with Iran in wanting the destruction of Israel and the Israeli people. Based on that, the reaction to Israel pre-empting Iran becomes a two-fer from their point of view.
Mind you, such an action would be a friendly gesture to the American people, just not to the American government. The two are not necessarily connected any more.
Subotai Bahadur
Did anyone EVER seriously believe BHO would stand up for Israel? How could he –he’s an academic, and the academy has been lying about the middle east ever since Brezhnev decided to turn hard against Israel.
H can’t even stand up for America…
of course not, not until it has the same GDP as Burkina Faso.
In my class I teach what a liberal is and what a conservative is. Two characteristics of a classical conservative are militarism and isolationism- they don’t like to meddle in other nations, but when they do it is with powerful military force. A good example is Bush, who got us into Iraq and Afghanistan- but that’s really it in 8 years.
On the other hand, a liberal believes in pacifism and interventionism. They like to meddle, but when they do it is with less force. A good example is Clinton, who got us into Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Serbia, Bosnia, and many other conflicts.
Obama is a liberal. Everyone who voted for him for a more peaceful world with our military less involved was an idiot. Our military will become more involved- but in a weaker way. Peace comes through strength, so he will make our nation less safe but more embroiled in international conflict. Anyone could have predicted this.
- blert: “Burning the crops will give us the insurgency that can never end. We really will be fighting the locals. It’s totally insane”
Insanity would be believing that Opium growers economically aligned with the Taliban could be any more against us than they are, and that we should not make them mad by destroying their opium and giving them free wheat seed.
- Blert: “Lest anyone forget, the Soviets were fine until they went after the opium crop. Things went straight south so fast it was hard to believe.”
You have cause and effect backwards. The Soviets “did fine” in Afghanistan until we organized and funded the mujahideen resistance. And part of that was through expansion of a tiny opium cultivation industry. As the resistance strengthened (and the Soviets not longer did fine) they of course attacked it’s funding source. That’s no reason to believe that if opium cultivation were left alone, the resistance would have weakened, then our now .
http://current.com/items/89870513/afghanistan_back_on_top_in_opium_production.htm
“…opium-poppy cultivation is relatively new. It started with the Soviet invasion in 1979.” Before that, Afghanistan was actually an exporter of fruits, vegetables and spices, he noted. “Afghanistan, believe it or not, was the garden of the former Soviet Union.”
Chossudovsky writes: http://www.cam.net.uk/home/aaa315/peace/opium.htm
“Prior to the Soviet-Afghan war, opium production in Afghanistan and Pakistan was directed to small regional markets. There was no local production of heroin. In this regard [Professor] Alfred McCoy’s study confirms that within two years of the onslaught of the CIA operation in Afghanistan, ‘the Pakistan-Afghanistan borderlands became the world’s top heroin producer…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_production_in_Afghanistan
As the Afghan government began to lose control of provinces during the Soviet invasion of 1979-80, warlords flourished and with it opium production as regional commanders searched for ways to generate money to purchase weapons, according to the UN.[4] (At this time the US was pursuing an “arms-length” supporting strategy of the Afghan freedom-fighters or Mujahideen…
If the Taliban hadn’t banned opium growing as haram, they could have taxed opium production to provide a much larger government operating budget.
Uh. The opium ban was only for one year. It was caused by an oversupply that reduced the value of the Taliban’s stock in hand. Once the oversupply was reduced business continued as usual.
==
#60. Bill Carson,
Insanity is in believing that year 95 of opiate prohibition is going to work any better than the previous 94.
==
The key to defeating a lot of the insurgencies around the world is to stop subsidizing them through prohibitions. Mexico and Afghanistan are the same problem in different geographic locations. The Drug War has turned into a real war. One we have been losing for a very long time. No surprise. You can’t solve a medical problem by police or military action.
Is it really possible to move 75% or more of the world’s powder from the Kush to Berlin and New York without being able to cinch the chain in Tashkent or Delhi or Karachi or the Kurdish territories?
Well that has been the dream for 95 years. How is it working out?
A reduction in supply means an increase in profits. Profits go up faster than supply goes down. Now what?
Let me help you folks who are having trouble figuring it out with a one sentence explanation:
Prohibition doesn’t work.
Corollary:
It empowers criminals and terrorists.
All those in favor of empowering criminals and terrorists raise your hands.
@M Simon #61:
With you about defeating insurgencies. However, we should not make the mistake of thinking that the Mexican cartel war would instantly vanish with the repeal of drug laws.
It would wind down quite a bit quicker and probably with fewer casualties but there would be no immediate “cease fire”.
REpealing improper laws is always a propriety, never a panacea.
M. Simon – “The key to defeating a lot of the insurgencies around the world is to stop subsidizing them through prohibitions. Mexico and Afghanistan are the same problem in different geographic locations. The Drug War has turned into a real war. One we have been losing for a very long time. No surprise. You can’t solve a medical problem by police or military action.”
I think the problem goes beyond medical as well as military, involving psychology, ethics and politics. How can destructive drug usage be minimized? How far should government go to make it illegal? Should it support junkies “medical problems” with social services? I a freer world, the drug trade could run its course in its own sub-community. But as long as we’re a mixed managed economy, we’re already subsidizing drug use here and in turn insurgencies dependent on the trade.
Our influence in Mexico on its offense against drug growers is questionable. Colombia would be a closer analogy to Afghanistan, and it’s at least a partial success.
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Colombia:+an+opportunity+for+lasting+success:+fact+sheet.-a0191999619
“In the late 1990s, Colombia was failing. Violence was rampant, citizens were fleeing the country, and the economy was plummeting. “[he United States and Colombia decided to work together to combat violence and instability. Since President Alvaro Uribe took office in 2002, security has improved dramatically. Homicides have dropped by 40%, kidnappings by 83%, and terrorist attacks by 76%. Over 31,000 paramilitary combatants and 10,000 guerrillas--mostly from the FARC and the National Liberation Army Noun 1. National Liberation Army - a Marxist terrorist group formed in 1963 by Colombian intellectuals who were inspired by the Cuban Revolution; responsible for a campaign of mass kidnappings and resistance to the government's efforts to stop the drug trade; "ELN (ELN Noun 1. ELN - a Marxist terrorist group formed in 1963 by Colombian intellectuals who were inspired by the Cuban Revolution; responsible for a campaign of mass kidnappings and resistance to the government's efforts to stop the drug trade; "ELN kidnappers target )--have demobilized. FARC guerrillas' top leadership has been disrupted, and the rank and file are deserting.
"Drug cartels have been dismantled, and Colombia has extradited over 700 drug traffickers--including 15 paramilitary leaders--to the United States. Cocaine production has fallen by a third, seizures of cocaine bound for the United States have more than doubled, and, while estimates differ, coca cultivation has declined since 2002. [Since 2001, cocaine production has fallen by a quarter. "--November Update] Interdiction INTERDICTION, civil law. A legal restraint upon a person incapable of managing his estate, because of mental incapacity, from signing any deed or doing any act to his own prejudice, without the consent of his curator or interdictor.
“…and eradication have kept an average of 400 metric tons per year of cocaine from reaching the United States. Alternative development programs benefit over 135,000 families. Colombia’s economy is growing rapidly (6.9% in 2007), and poverty continues to drop.”
Iran has de facto no limits on opium…
So her citizens are addicted like you can’t believe.
Easily 10% of the urban population is strung out.
The partial solution to opiate traffic is term limits for the drug lords.
Narco-terrorism and islamist terrorism are now joined at the hip.
W made some strategic errors in framing the nature of the conflict and the enemy…
H will take us even further away from better outcomes.
H is using the Mexican upheaval to establish the moral basis for collapsing our second amendment rights. The “AX-47s come from America” meme is as great a lie as any propagated by the Soviets, Nazis or the islamists. Tyranny is based on deceit and manipulation.
The gross violations of the US Constitution emmenating from the House and rubber stamped by the Senate are a tyrannous travesty. The outcome is not hard to foresee: civil disorder then repression then civil war then world wide conflict upon the death of pax Americana.
Sub corollary:
Prohibition creates a bureaucracy the economic interests of which overlap and merge at the margin with the economic interests of the criminals and terrorists. Ergo, prohibition corrupts, and does so rationally, as a function of time, until the ratio is 1:1 at which point the chaotic subsystem has become the system order.
PS, at which point, nations with drug wars become drug wars with nations.
Bert/65; The outcome is not hard to foresee –no, it is not at all hard to forsee. The hand has been dealt. Fox is reporting that O & entourage plan to ”go to the border” next week. We can expect a Major Address signaling a solution to Global Warming, oops, i mean, to American Weapons Creating Border Unrest.
After failure to lose the war in Iraq, it’s too late & even he can’t f-ck it up, Obama desperately needs a war to lose.
He has chosen Afghanistan.
HABU:
AMMO BABY, AMMO!
The currency of the new millenium.
My large stock is up 500% from what I paid for it!
M. Simon – “The key to defeating a lot of the insurgencies around the world is to stop subsidizing them through prohibitions. Mexico and Afghanistan are the same problem in different geographic locations. The Drug War has turned into a real war. One we have been losing for a very long time. No surprise. You can’t solve a medical problem by police or military action.”
The the war on drugs goes beyond medical issues as well as military issues, involving psychology, ethics and politics.
How can destructive drug usage be minimized? How far should government go to make it illegal? Should government support junkies “medical problems” with social services? In a more free world, the drug trade could run its course in its own sub-community. But as long as we’re a mixed economy, we’re subsidizing drug use here and in turn already subsidizing insurgencies dependent on the trade.
The commitment of Mexico’s offense against drug growers is questionable. Colombia would be a closer analogy to our drug offensive in Afghanistan, and that’s at least a partial success.
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Colombia:+an+opportunity+for+lasting+success:+fact+sheet.-a0191999619
“In the late 1990s, Colombia was failing. Violence was rampant, citizens were fleeing the country, and the economy was plummeting. “[he United States and Colombia decided to work together to combat violence and instability. Since President Alvaro Uribe took office in 2002, security has improved dramatically. Homicides have dropped by 40%, kidnappings by 83%, and terrorist attacks by 76%. Over 31,000 paramilitary combatants and 10,000 guerrillas--mostly from the FARC and the National Liberation Army Noun 1. National Liberation Army - a Marxist terrorist group formed in 1963 by Colombian intellectuals who were inspired by the Cuban Revolution; responsible for a campaign of mass kidnappings and resistance to the government's efforts to stop the drug trade; "ELN (ELN Noun 1. ELN - a Marxist terrorist group formed in 1963 by Colombian intellectuals who were inspired by the Cuban Revolution; responsible for a campaign of mass kidnappings and resistance to the government's efforts to stop the drug trade; "ELN kidnappers target )--have demobilized. FARC guerrillas' top leadership has been disrupted, and the rank and file are deserting.
"Drug cartels have been dismantled, and Colombia has extradited over 700 drug traffickers--including 15 paramilitary leaders--to the United States. Cocaine production has fallen by a third, seizures of cocaine bound for the United States have more than doubled, and, while estimates differ, coca cultivation has declined since 2002. [Since 2001, cocaine production has fallen by a quarter. "--November Update] Interdiction INTERDICTION, civil law. A legal restraint upon a person incapable of managing his estate, because of mental incapacity, from signing any deed or doing any act to his own prejudice, without the consent of his curator or interdictor.
“…and eradication have kept an average of 400 metric tons per year of cocaine from reaching the United States. Alternative development programs benefit over 135,000 families. Colombia’s economy is growing rapidly (6.9% in 2007), and poverty continues to drop.”
Hello, since my #65 has not yet been approved (and is a mess), please delete it and approve #71.
(Don’t post this please.)
Great, that one posted immediately. LOL! I don’t understand this…
Opium is the single most useful medicine in human history. There are so many useful alkaloids in raw opium that we probably have not discovered every possible use of the poppy.
The world supply of legal opium comes from Anatolia, the result of an Eisenhower administration policy to stabilize Turkey. It has become a treasured agricultural monopoly as well as an unassailable foundation of US-Turkey relations.
The poppy has always been a traditional crop in Afghanistan, but not the prime money earner that it has become recently. In the past the country was renowned for its fruit trees and vines. Raisins, along with pistachio nuts, were the leading Afghan export until the Soviet invasion. The Red Army targeted orchards and vineyards aggressively in their campaign against the mujahideen. The destruction only accelerated during the civil war.
It takes so long to rehabilitate an orchard that growing poppies makes great economic sense. A valuable crop can be grown in one season and requires a lot of hand labor, abundant in Afghanistan, and very little fertilizer or capital, scarce in Afghanistan.
The other pillar of the Afghan economy is cattle, sheep and goat herding. Again, the Soviets targeted herds. Currently, Afghan herds are so depleted, and anthrax and hoof and mouth disease are so prevalent that the country is a net importer of meat and milk.
The glaring shortfall of US reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan is neglect of the agricultural sector in an agricultural country. There was an initiative by US farmers a few years ago to provide portable refrigerators and vaccines to the Afghan countryside, but it received little support from the Bush administration. The effort withered away as the security situation in the hinterlands deteriorated. USDA has played only a token role in Afghan reconstruction.
Of course, there has never been even a hint of granting Afghan growers the kind of privileges enjoyed by Turkish farmers. (This seems to me about equivalent to refusing nuclear power while denouncing global warming.)
@Konyok #71: Outstanding Sir! What kind of Georgian wine have you been drinking?
I’ll be sure to send a case to all our Generals.
Dave,
I’ve pretty much settled on Khvanchkara as my favorite. It has a wonderful affinity for Mexican food.
Konyok, tovarisch! Long time no see –hope all is well –