Now this political decision was predictable, but it’s also ineffectual. Remember when President Obama promised that U.S. troops would be out of Afghanistan when he was out of office? That made sense: we’re not accomplishing anything, and, despite the U.S.’s misguided trust in a corrupt and disorganized regime and an untrained army to fight the Taliban, it makes no sense to leave a handful of troops in a country that can’t stem the insurgent tide, while continuing to kill both civilians and an ever-replenishing enemy.
Afghanistan has been the longest war in U.S. history: now over 14 years. What have we accomplished? Precious little except to vent our ire about the 9-11 attacks.
But, according to today’s New York Times, Obama has decided that, well, the war isn’t over yet. We now have 9800 troops in Afghanistan, originally scheduled to drop to 1,000 troops stationed at the Kabul embassy in January, 2017. Today’s announcement says we’ll draw them down to roughly half of the existing number (5500), and now by the end of 2016 or beginning of 2017.
The Times comments:
In abandoning his ambition to bring home almost all American troops before leaving office, Mr. Obama appears to be acknowledging that Afghan security forces are still not near ready to hold off the Taliban on their own.
The insurgents are now spread through more parts of the country than at any point since 2001, according to the United Nations, and last month the Taliban scored their biggest victory of the war, seizing the northern city of Kunduz and holding it for more than two weeks before pulling back on Tuesday.
And yes, the drones will keep flying:
Now, instead of falling back to the embassy — a heavily fortified compound in the center of Kabul — the administration officials said on Wednesday that the military would be able to maintain its operations at Bagram Air Field to the north of Kabul, the main American hub in Afghanistan, and at bases outside Kandahar in the country’s south and Jalalabad in the east.
Things Obama has done right:
1. Allow the war on drugs to wind down in a gradual, stepwise manner.
2. Convince Russia to take a turn in the middle east barrel.
This should be of great concern for everyone who never changed their mind.
BTW, we still have some 50,000 troops in Germany and Japan.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_deployments
It’s a good think the US isn’t an imperialistic nation. (sarcasm)
I couldn’t fail to agree with you less… 😉
As a European, I find it a bad thing that the USA isn’t an imperialistic nation (no sarcasm).
And I’m pretty sure he means 50,000 troops in Japan and an additional 50,000 in Germany!
Correct. “in both Germany and Japan” English my second language. I don’t have a first.
My problem is that Germany’s Merkel will follow Obama.
I wonder what will happen when U.S. troops are finally out – in 2017 or later?
A likely scenario, I would think, is the barbaric Taliban will quickly take over the area they held before the intervention, implementing harsh sharia law and revoking all progress made by women.
The Kabul will probably remain in the hands of the corrupt alternative. This is the stable state which should last for decades.
When the Russians were trying to tame Afghanistan, the US backed the Taliban and their nutty religion. If you don’t like how things have turned out now, girls, don’t blame me.
Nice backhanded misogyny.
Misogyny is overlooking that women and children are the greatest victims in war, especially wars in backwards societies. I think civilization’s fight against Islamic misogyny could be better conducted, and less moralistic and bellicose, for the sake of women. I defy anyone (and I haven’t looked) to find an article in a major US publication between 1979 and 1989, whether directed to men, women, or the general public, decrying the consequences to Afghan women of Reagan’s war to return Afghanistan to the Islamists. If I’ve been backhanded, I apologize to all. My intent was to be constructive.
This is so true. All the more cause to wonder at the “girls” in your previous post.
I guess, there were few alternative suggestions what to do about the Russians.
(Writing from a country that was “tamed” by them.)
I agree this is an unwinnable war and the lesson to be learned is that when we go to war, we do so to ‘win’ and not settle for temporary half measures. And that necessarily includes dismantling all institutions and reinventing them based not on religious accommodation and tactical convenience but with an imported Western value system for government and law combined with a huge investments like the Marshal Plan of old used on Japan to make it happen throughout the society.
Obama is facing the legacy of the failed Bush invasion of Iraq. Had the Bush Administration not invaded Iraq, based on the big lie that Saddam was implicated in 9/11 and that Iraq had WMDs, and instead put the effort into Afghanistan, the Taliban would have been defeated a long time ago.
Yes, history repeats itself all the time. Afghanistan is a disaster, the Russians pulled out, the US moved in. In Vietnam the French pulled out, the US moved in. Now Iraq is even more complicated. When do we learn that killing innocent people leads us nowhere?
Yep, I was going to comment on that too. “Afghanistan is the Vietnam of our era” is ironic, given that Afghanistan was also the Vietnam of the ’80s era.
Still, a part of me wants to say we belong in there a lot more than we belong in Iraq. The whole point of toppling the Taliban was to prevent the country from being a safe harbor/haven/training are for international terorrists. When we leave, it will become a safe harbor for them again.
Gordon’s comment about Japan is, IMO, actually a reason to stay not a reason to leave. Obviously the cultural and historical circumstances are different, but in the case of Japan continued occupation over 50+ years helped ensure that the transition from belligerent empire to allied 1st world democracy was successful. We went in after the war, rewrote their constitution, and made it stick through looming presence until a generation or two had passed and the new generations accepted that constitution as their own way of life. There is something to be said for that method, IMO. Colonial and realpolitik? Yes. Effective? At least in that case, yes.
I agree about the effect of continued occupation after WW2, forcing Japan to stick the pacifist constitution we imposed. But you have to wonder whether we still need to occupy Japan and Germany today. Certainly the Japanese people don’t want us there. US soldiers are responsible for disproportionately large amounts of crime in Japan, and the Japanese people hate it. And the only thing pushing Japan away from its pacifist constitution these days, sadly, is pressure from the US to assist in US wars. This return to militarization is being done against the will of the Japanese public.
There’s an argument to be made that even if Japan doesn’t want us there, they need us to protect them from China in the future, but I’m just saying that the effects of our military presence regarding their WW2 legacy have long since become negative.
Oh, clearly we don’t need to stay in either country out of fear of some German or Japanese regression to a security threat. I don’t think even the most hawkish US politician claims that. The standard defense of our overseas basing in these countries is that it gives us a tactically valuable forward base against other security threats in the area.
I don’t know much more about the specific situation of Japan than what I occasionally read in the news. But in many other cases where the US has opened up the real possibility of removing bases, the host country has done an about-face and said ‘no, when push comes to shove we’ve decided we actually want you to stay.’ It would not surprise me at all if, despite the rhetoric thrown about in local Japanese politics, a serious plan to leave Okinawa would have Japanese political leaders saying “please don’t do that.”
Though I think our invasion of Afghanistan is more defensible than our invasion of Iraq I don’t think invasion was the best way to deal with the Taliban, and we didn’t do a very good job of it anyway.
Immediately after 9/11 the US had the sympathy and strong support of a large part of the international community. Instead of taking advantage of that the Bush Jr. administration basically said ‘fuck all y’all,’ and went about things in such a way that within a year almost all of that good will had been transformed to just the opposite.
We could have taken care of the threat posed by the Taliban by means much less than an invasion, much cheaper in lives and resources, and while maintaining what good will and respect we had within the international community.
Most of the sympathy and support expressed by the international community after 9/11 was bogus. Ayman al-Zawahiri had predicted in a book that a successful attack against America on its soil would make its allies abandon it, and he was absolutely right.
No more or less bogus than it ever is. You don’t think the way the US government behaved post 9/11 had anything to do with its reputation among the international community falling off a cliff?
And despite that its allies didn’t abandon it. Many of our allies provided resources and soldiers in aid of military actions in the Middle East post 9/11.
The lesson to be learned is to keep your nose out of other peoples’ business.
That was our strategy towards Afghanistan up until September 10 2001. Didn’t work out so well.
I find nothing at all wrong or even novel with a foreign policy that doesn’t tolerate other countries serving as bases of operations for groups or individuals who will attack us. Our Afhgan war is not all that different from our two Barbary wars in the 1800s – albeit its now both longer and less successful, the reasoning is very similar. Even the formation of DHS has a strange parallel; we formed our Department of the Navy as a response to this threat. Also like today, the pirates justified their piracy against the US using the Koran.
Its worth noting that in that historical case, the first attack occurred in 1784 and the final end of hostilities didn’t occur until 1815 (we weren’t fighting the whole time though; we withdrew forces because of the war of 1812). It took 31 years. When you’re dealing with pirates and NGOs, these things take time. Yes this is the longest war in US history. But it’s not the longest off-and-on conflict, and frankly if we are committed to ending the role of Afghanistan as a base of terrorist operations, we should suck it up and accept that fact that it might take another 15-20 years of continuous involvement to achieve that result. This is not a case of ‘we’ve failed at a 5-year job’, its a case of ‘we’ve failed to maintain realistic expectations about a 30-year job.’
Were we serious about the mission you describe, we’d have had the proverbial “boots on the ground” invasion force in Afghanistan on a scale not seen since WWII. If necessary, infantry lined up from horizon to horizon sweeping the region to root out and capture those in caves, bringing in geologists with ground-penetrating radar and similar imaging technology to find them, and so on. Gulags, if necessary, for all suspected Taliban until we could install a friendly government and build up infrastructure and industry to the point that the rest of Afghanistan had its own thriving modern economy.
The way we’re actually conducting the war is right out of Orwell’s 1984, and nothing more nor less than the boot of the powerful forever crushing itself into the face of humanity.
b&
Well, in the Barbary case we sank their ships and put them out of business; essentially, sustained economic warfare conducted via warships. I guess the parallel here would be to protect farming communities so that they can grow regular crops and sell them at regular markets, rather than growing poppies exclusively for the Taliban-controlled drug trade, while simultaneously stopping the flow of money to the Taliban from sympathetic sources (Pakistan, probably Iran, maybe Russia) and training camps.
Those efforts are much harder to do than simply sinking ships in the 1800s. But then again, in one year of the Barbary wars I believe we spent something like 1/6 of the entire US budget on fighting or bribing them, so even back then this was not a trivial effort on our part. We created our navy to deal with this problem. So I think one difference is, back then we were determined to eradicate the threat, period, and willing to go to extreme effort to do so. Today, we’re determined to eradicate the threat so long as it doesn’t cost too many lives or money.
The only reason Marshall Plan worked was because there was barely any insurgency or rampant corruption. When you’re still killing civilians (even accidentally), and when the bulk of the money gets stolen by contractors, warlords, and dirty officials, it’s practically impossible to win the hearts of the population.
Do you think that the hearts of the surviving population after the Dresden or Hiroshima bombing were won? No, they just knew perfectly well that an insurgency would not be tolerated. Unlike now, when every resistance against the USA is taken as a living proof for the wrongness of the US cause, and every failure to embrace the enemy’s ideology is called bigotry.
The regressive-left will condemn the USA for either ‘colonizing’ or abandoning Afghanistan. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
Sub
And history repeats itself. Nuff said!! Although going on about the other war (in Iraq) would be just too painful.
Perhaps there is a fear of a Cambodia style bloodbath after total withdrawal.
It’s a most terrible — in the ancient sense of the word — irony.
Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Price before he took office…yet he will, if I’ve got this correct, be the first US President to serve two full terms without a single day of peace.
Not one day!
By any objective measure, Obama is the single most belligerent President in the history of the country.
Can we please fucking stop killing people!? How long must this orgy of death and destruction continue? I’m all for reducing the human population count…but not like this!
b&
“…yet he will, if I’ve got this correct, be the first US President to serve two full terms without a single day of peace.”
Without looking it up, wouldn’t FDR’s first two terms make it?
You’re presumingly referring to WWII. America’s involvement in the war was only from December 7, 1941 to either August 15 (Japanese surrender) or September 2 (signing of the surrender documents), 1945. That’s less than four years, so less than a single term of office, no matter how you want to tally it.
b&
But FDR was first elected to office in 1932 then again in 1936. He won a third term in the 1940 election a year before Pearl Harbor.
But I am not sure (without looking it up) if the U.S. was involved militarily in any conflicts between 1933 and 1940, FDR’s first two terms.
The US very famously stayed out of the war until after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.
b&
I remember reading some where that Americans date WWII from late 1941, Europeans and Canadians from 1939, and Koreans, Chinese, Vietnamese, etc. from the early 1930s. Interesting how that works.
Depends if you count the Banana Wars as actual war or not.
It is very easy for the USA to stop killing people. Unfortunately, this only means that worse forces will do it on a scale orders of magnitude higher, and will invade countries to destroy them and grab land, as we are seeing now.
You’re suggesting we take sides in civil wars with nations with whom we have no treaty obligations and where the sides we’re supporting hate us only marginally less than they hate the sides we’re opposing.
Believe me, I very much appreciate the instinct to try to stop violence. But it simply is not within our ability to use our military to prevent these bad things from happening.
Indeed, we’ve demonstrated time and time again that we have the reverse Midas touch: everywhere we attempt this, things only turn to shit. Never mind that we actually captured Pyongyang and the rest of North Korea during that war; we lost it soon thereafter and it remains one of the worst hellholes on the planet. Vietnam should need no further explanation. Iraq under Saddam Hussein was bad, but not as bad as Saudi Arabia was then and remains today…but now Iraq is worse than Saudi Arabia. Afghanistan is as miserable as ever.
“The situation is intolerable” too quickly morphs into, “Therefore, something must be done,” and, thence, to, “Bombing the fucking shit out of the place is something, so let’s go bomb the fucking shit out of the place.” Yet nowhere along the line is there any reason to suspect that bombing the fucking shit out of the place is going to actually alleviate the intolerable situation. Quite the contrary: bombing the fucking shit out of the place inevitably makes the situation even worse.
It’s very difficult to accept that you’re powerless to effect positive change in situations such as these, especially when you’re sitting on a massive pile of sniny expensive bombs. But we really are powerless to effect positive change, and the least-worst thing we can do is to do nothing at all. Things will still be bad, yes; they just won’t be as bad as if we keep bombing the fucking shit out of the place.
b&
We accomplished all that was ever going to be done in Afghanistan in the first 3 or 4 months. With a bunch of CIA folks and some special forces to act as observers for the air attack, the Afghan troops on the ground ran the Taliban out of Kabul and into the mountains along the boarder with Pakistan. At this point we should have been leaving and declaring our interest in the country as served. Everything since then has been wrong and had no chance of anything.
The issue in Afghanistan is Pakistan. We could run around in Afghanistan until hell freezes over and still be in the position we are in.
“The issue in Afghanistan is Pakistan.”
Exactly! The WaPo recently had a good article about this.
couldn’t agree more. First thing I did this AM was write(E) Pres O to protest his shameful decision to keep troops in Afghanistan. Stupid…. and that he is not, often. So he is just a pentagon pawn. Too bad.
It might have been more economical in lives and money just to buy raw opium at a premium from the farmers directly (to convert into medical morphine, or just destroy). Both depriving the Warlords of a source of income and putting more money into the farmer’s hands.
Makes sense to me! As did someone’s suggestion of dropping dollars, not bombs.
I don’t know if the idea was originally mine, but it’s one I’ve advocated for for ages.
b&
Probably you, then. 😉
The argument that we shouldn’t abandon Afghanistan to Taliban is a persuasive one, but if we were really interested in saving innocent people from slaughter, we should send forces to Syria, Ukraine, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Nigeria, Sudan, Mali, Gaza, North Korea, and so on. Staying in Afghanistan is all about saving face – or, rather, putting off losing face for a bit longer in the hope that it can be saved.
Well, and perhaps the fear of leaving people actually worse off than they were before…
A lot of cans get kicked down the road in this country.
To quote Roger Waters:
“Bring the boys back home!”
And girls!
And if a Republican wins 2016, what could we expect? This occupation might go on for many more years.
Keeping soldiers in Afghanistan this time isn’t about prolonging the war, it’s about training the Afghans to look after their own country. Since the investiture of a new president in September last year, the governance of Afghanistan has been improving and the capacity of the Afghan security forces is growing. However, their performance is still patchy, and they need more help.
The Taliban, al-Qaeda, and DAESH are all in Afghanistan. They are waiting to take control as soon as the US moves out, and that would be disastrous for the country. Afghanistan potentially has TRILLIONS of dollars worth of natural resources they could develop in peace time – it’s why everyone wants control of the place.
Obama’s decision is not about prolonging the war, it’s about Afghanistan finally having the potential to look after itself (with international support) because of the internal changes they themselves have made. They asked the US to stay and continue training them.
According to the United Nations, 70% of civilian deaths are due to the Taliban, terrorism etc, 14% by Afghan security forces, 1% by international troops, 10% can’t be attributed for sure, and I can’t remember about the other 4% off the top of my head.
If you’re interested, you can read more on my website http://www.heatherhastie.com. I wrote about this on the weekend. Although I usually oppose military intervention, I support Obama’s decision to stay. Assuming Jerry’s figures are correct, he’s also chosen the lowest number of the options presented, except for pulling back to the embassy.
Yeah…we tried that in Iraq and got DAESH. It’s a loverly thought, but we’ve literally never successfully done that before, not even close, despite trying time and time again.
That’s why these situations are called, “no-win.” We’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t. There will be blood, and lots of it, no matter what we do…but why do we have to bathe in it, ourselves? Especially considering that we just make the bloodbath that much bigger by doing so?
b&
Iraq was different. Yes, the Iraqi army was trained, but then the US left altogether instead of leaving a small force, and the previous PM got rid of almost all the US trained military from his forces in no time, with the encouragement of his now Iranian advisors, and given their jobs to people he owed political favours to. They weren’t capable or competent and didn’t deserve the jobs and their men knew it and as a result they ran away when there was trouble. Soldiers not only have to be trained to stand fast in the face of danger, they have to trust the people leading them.
Whether or not Obama could have negotiated a SOFA in Iraq is the question really. I think it would have been virtually impossible for multiple reasons. The GOP thinks he could have if he wanted to.
You’ve accurately described the situation in Iraq…but I see no reason to think that it’s any different in Afghanistan. Quite the contrary, actually…the Soviets did what we’re trying to do now, with the same result as we’re now seeing in Iraq.
The one thing we can be certain of is that bombing the fucking shit out of people in situations like this makes things worse. But that’s yet to stop us from bombing the fucking shit out of people in situations like this!
b&
I’m not advocating for any bombing. So far the international forces haven’t bombed anyone since the disaster at Kunduz (MSF trauma centre), although I don’t doubt they’ll start again. I agree with your anti-bombing stance, although if there is bombing to be done, the US forces are almost infinitely more accurate and better at avoiding civlians because of their targeting ability. Not that that’s a justification.
The reason I think the international forces should extend their stay is because there is a genuine effort on the behalf of the new Afghan government, like we’ve never seen before in modern history, to actually sort themselves out. They want to develop their security forces into an effective force, so they can look after their own people, and have asked for help. I’d rather they got that help from the UN force, currently led by the US. than from Russia, Iran, or China.
Well, I think drone strikes count as bombing, although technically they’re firing missiles rather than dropping bombs…
“…because there is a genuine effort on the behalf of the new Afghan government, like we’ve never seen before in modern history, to actually sort themselves out.”
Heather, how do we know these new people are sincere and trustworthy, and do they have any kind of popular support?
They had an election, with international monitors. I won’t bore you with the details, because there was some to-ing and fro-ing and some attempts at rigging the vote, and some recounting etc etc. But Ghani got about 55% and the other main candidate about 45%. He disputed the result, but eventually a compromise was reached after some frankly impressive work by John Kerry, where is was decided Ghani would be president and the other guy would receive a position, which I can’t remember the name of, but his job is roughly equivalent to a prime minister. The point is, they wanted to make it work, and they made a point of saying they didn’t want to end up like Iraq.
The new president is a former World Bank executive with an excellent reputation. He has done good stuff in other countries, and has the ability to do the same in his own.
They are doing it tough, and it won’t change overnight, but the will to get it right seems genuinely to be there.
I admit I could be wrong and it could all turn to custard. I think the indications are that this time it might not.
That all sounds very promising.
What about the apparent Pakistani support of the Taliban?
It is problematic, which is why they need strong, well-trained, security forces. Whatever else you say about the US military, they are actually good at what they do, and if they stick to passing on their expertise, I think that’s good for Afghanistan.
A professional military takes pride in itself too, and is less likely to revert to things like tribalism too.
Thanks again for your insight, Heather.
Heather, have you read about these developments?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/a-new-age-of-brutality-how-islamic-state-rose-up-in-one-afghan-province/2015/10/13/a6dbed67-717b-41e3-87a5-01c81384f34c_story.html?wpmm=1&wpisrc=nl_headlines
There’s just so much going on in that country, I find it hard to believe that the new government, admirable though it may be, has any chance of addressing it all.
Thanks for the link Diane. Very interesting. I knew DAESH was in Afghanistan, but not many of the details – it is even worse than I imagined. DAESH turning up is one of the reasons I think the Afghan security forces need all the help they can get. This article shows they have an extremely difficult task ahead of them, as you say.
But, don’t you see?
This is exactly what happens when you blow the fucking shit out of a place.
You get rid of the local nasties, yet. But, in so doing, you create a power vacuum…and it’s one that gets filled by a race to the bottom.
Never mind the ethical reasons one shouldn’t blow the fucking shit out of places; this is the practical reason.
Imagine somebody blew the fucking shit out of New Zealand. Do you think that whoever took the place of the current government would be as pacific as y’all’re famous for? Or would it be the frothing-at-the-mouth warmongers? Might not you froth at the mouth, yourself, even just a bit, if you walked down the street and saw your neighbors’s homes blown to fucking shit? Even if said neighbors were “those” people who never fixed their broken windows, had all-night noisy parties, were probably running a meth lab in the basement, and were the prime suspects in the recent rash of petty burglaries?
Military force isn’t even hypothetically capable of improving situations such as the one in Afghanistan. Not even close.
b&
Yeah, I do see. And all the reasons you give are usually the reasons it’s good not to get involved in the first place. Once the situation is created, it’s a different story.
What is happening now is the Afghans not only want their country back, but they are cooperating to make it happen. Initially at least, until stability is achieved, they need strong security forces. They have been establishing those forces for some time now – NZ, Aus, Can, UK and some others did some of the specialist training. (Believe it or not, the NZ SAS is a world leader. The US even requested them as the preferred option in some situations.) The Afghans are getting better, but they’re not there yet. They have asked for help in the ongoing training of their security forces, so they can maintain the fledgling unity government and democracy they have managed to develop out of the mess created in their country. I think the international community should help, and that’s where my argument is coming from here.
I get what you’re saying, and you’re right. The reaction to being bombed etc is exactly as it would be anywhere. At the same time, groups like DAESH exist, and they can’t be allowed to terrorize and brutalize and murder to their hearts’ content just because pacifism is a better philosophy.
But that’s exactly the same situation we just made a mess of in Iraq…and that we’ve made a mess of time and again. Including a few decades ago when we helped the Taliban and bin Laden fight off the Soviets! And in Iran with the Shah, and with the Sandinistas, and on and on and on.
It’s always the same story. Here’re these sympathetic people who’ll be at the mercy of these terrible other people unless we either go in with guns blazing or teach them how to blaze guns (and sell them lots of guns to blaze). And it turns to shit.
Every fucking time!
I get it. These are nice people, and we all want to help them.
But…well, first, if our track record is anything to judge by, they actually aren’t very nice people; indeed, they’re pretty much guaranteed to be just about as nasty as the Taliban themselves. Maybe marginally less nasty. Maybe. Or else they’re a bunch of ball-less wonders. Or both, as in Iraq. I can’t think of a single exception from our history.
And, even if they are nice people, our history once again demonstrates that, no, military “aid” won’t actually do them a damned bit of good. Never has before; why should it now?
Which brings us to the last, most important, and hardest point.
Just because you want to help them does not mean that it’s in your power to do so; nor does it mean that that which you try to do despite your powerlessness is actually going to make their lives any better. Indeed, it’s basically guaranteed that they’re fucked, no matter what, because of what we just did…and now, at best, we’re just prettying them up in a way that’s going to make those who’re going to fuck them enjoy the fucking that much more.
It’s very, very, very difficult to admit powerlessness, especially when you’re sitting behind the most badass military ever. But such is reality, and reality doesn’t give a damn what you wish it were instead.
If we were really serious about helping Afghanistan, we’d be putting massive fully-stocked American-style home improvement stores in every city and giving every man, woman, and child (including Taliban, if they want it) $50,000 gift cards to spend how they like there. How could the Taliban even hope to compete with something like that?
That it doesn’t even occur to anybody to do something so obvious, and instead everybody goes straight to the “I know! Let’s bomb the fucking shit out of the place!” answer tells you that what we really want to do isn’t to build peace and prosperity in Afghanistan and elsewhere, but to — wait for it! — bomb the fucking shit out of those places.
b&
The home improvement store etc idea is a good one. It would cost less in the long term, and be more effective. However, getting people to recognize that would be impossible. They don’t think of money being spent on the military in the same way and money given direct. There are several f**kwits like Ben Carson who say the US should stop all foreign aid because it costs too much. They clearly have no idea how little the US actually spends on non-military foreign aid and just how effective it is.
Another important consideration, both in Iraq and Afghanistan, is that the soldiers we train aren’t motivated to fight and die for their corrupt governments, so they quickly retreat, desert, or even take their weapons and training and go join the other side. I don’t think training troops will ever be enough unless we can give them something worth dying for.
That is important, and part of why I’m reluctantly supporting the US staying in Afghanistan. The motivation was one of the big problems in Iraq once the trained commanders were removed from the army by al-Maliki and replaced with his cronies who had no experience or ability. They were unable to inspire their men, and the men didn’t feel they had anything worth fighting for.
That is the situation that is changing in Afghanistan as the new PM is fighting corruption and giving his people a reason to fight. Afghanistan genuinely has enormous potential, and many can remember the 1970s when it was a much nicer country. Then, it was on the verge of greatness as the potential for wealth was discovered (oil, minerals, rare earths etc). That prompted everyone to want control and the fighting started. If the central government can develop effective security forces, which they are doing but need more training, they can be great, and it’s worth fighting for.
Well I hope you’re right. I’ll only note that what we consider a good reason to fight may not be enough to inspire the people who would actually have to do it. 40 years is enough time to become content with a lower standard of living, and I can imagine people wanting an end to the fighting above all else. But I guess we’ll see!
Heather, that doesn’t quite jibe with what I usually hear about the country, that it’s an artificial pastiche with a long history of tribal feuds.
You’re quite right about its history. I think they’re ready to move one.
You could say the same about many Western countries, and they managed to get it together.
Thanks. I always appreciate your opinion, as you pay much more attention to these affairs than I do!
That’s kind of you. Thanks 🙂
The difference about Western countries that used to be nasty and are now nice…is twofold.
Germany is the perfect example. It’s damned hard to get nastier than the Nazis.
The first reason Germany is no longer nasty is because we killed all the Nazis. Or, at least, we killed enough Nazis and had made it plain that we’d keep killing Nazis until there weren’t any more Nazis that the few remaining Nazis decided that they didn’t want to be Nazis any more.
The second reason ties into the latter half of that. The Germans themselves, for whatever reason, decided that they didn’t want to have anything more to do with the Nazis. For some, it would have been cynical self-preservation, but for many it was simply coming to the realization of how nasty the Nazis were and that it was better to stand up to the Nazis than to idly let them do their nastiness unopposed.
There’re certainly those in Afghanistan who’re fed up with the Taliban, and some of them might even be in the government. But it’s also a fact that, were there enough of them to make a difference, the Taliban would already be defeated. For better or worse, the Taliban really are popular in Afghanistan — or, at least, not especially unpopular. Just as the Nazis were quite popular in Germany before and during the War. Not universally so, no, but nothing’s ever universal.
So, either we’ve got to go full WWII in Afghanistan and kill enough of the Taliban that there aren’t any of them left, or something other than military force is going to have to persuade non-Taliban Afghans to throw the bums out.
But…it’s not just Afghanistan. Are we willing to go full WWII in the entire region, including Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, and Syria? No? Then we shouldn’t kid ourselves that taking potshots just at the Taliban is going to be an effective military strategy.
So the military never should have been there in the first place and should leave immediately, and all options for intervention in the area that include the military need to be completely off the table.
The problem, of course, is that nobody in America can even begin to think of what else we can do except bomb the fucking shit out of places, so that’s what we do, when it’s exactly what we most emphatically should not do.
b&
Please name the last time that outside forces went into Afghanistan and conquered the place? Also, remember how it turned out for Russia. If you conclude that winning is when the people are running their government and the Taliban and other bad forces are gone/eliminated, that is not going to happen. Most of the support and the fighter that we call the Taliban are right across the boarder in Pakistan.
Will you invade Pakistan…probably not. So how do you win when your enemy has safe haven?
You are simply trying to win an unwinnable situation. Also, ask yourself why did we go into Afghanistan in the first place. Was it not because Ben Laden attacked us, so we were going to get him and run his protectors (the Taliban) out of the country or at least out of power. We did that in 3 months, except we did not get Ben Laden….he got away.
When did the rehabilitation and rebuilding of Afghanistan become our goal or responsibility?
We forgot why we went there and now we have forgotten why we are still there. Ask Obama. He has no idea.
I agree up to a point. No one has ever conquered Afghanistan, and no one is ever likely to. If the international forces had got out after three months, that would perhaps have been acceptable too. But they didn’t, and they do have some responsibility now for the situation they created.
Also, if someone like Karzai was still president, I’d say the international forces should leave. The only reason I’m considering this other option valid is because the new president, Mohammad Ashraf Ghani, looks like he is genuinely committed to sorting the country and not lining his own pockets. And he has asked for help – this is not the UN coalition (of which US general Campbell is the leader) forcing themselves on the country.
Russia, Iran, China and the US/UK/Germany/France all want to be the dominant international player in Afghanistan. There are absolutely massive amounts of money to be made there potentially. Call me biased, but I think Afghanistan is better off with the US/UK/Germany/France being the dominant outside player than any of the others, and so is the rest of the world. China and Iran already have deals going.
I think if you stay, you have to commit to do this for generations — full on occupy for generations. Otherwise, you aren’t making a significant enough difference to justify the cost, injuries and loss of life. I don’t know that the US is willing to do this and willing to do it alone.
I agree. It is a commitment. The US force in Afghanistan is actually a UN force, there under Security Council Resolution 1386. The leader of the international forces is a US general, John Campbell. It all gets a bit mixed up whether it’s the US doing its usual “we’re doing what we want and stuff everyone else” thing, but they’re not in this case imo.
When you’re the one who created the problem, you have a moral obligation to see it through imo. In the past nothing was ever going to change because the situation in Afghanistan was so bad. The corruption alone made it impossible – I think that’s why so many other member countries of the UN force left. They just threw up their hands in frustration as it looked like nothing could ever change because of the government, which incidentally got away with so much because GWB got sucked in by Karzai’s lies over and over again.
There is now potential that the situation could be fixed. If it turns out that it can’t, then yes, p** off out of there, but the new government has so far proved it is worthy of the effort. One of the things it has said itself is they saw what happened in Iraq because they wouldn’t give the US a SOFA and the US left. Ghani has said he doesn’t want that the same thing to happen to his country.
Canada was in there with the US right from the beginning but we aren’t there anymore. I hope the other soldiers liked our Tim Hortons store we set up. 🙂
😀 We (NZ) were there too from the start, but left last year.
No! Not if it’s your own incompetence that created the problem in the first place — and especially if your proposed solution is more of what made the mess!
You could be a world-renowned trauma surgeon who gets drunk at a party and runs somebody over on your way home. Your moral obligation is to call 9-1-1 and render whatever first aid you’re capable of on the scene. But you would be horrifically remiss if you started to operate right there on the roadside! And offering to ride with the EMTs to the hospital to perform surgery there? Right out of the question.
We’re the ones who made the mess in Afghanistan, which is exactly why we need to get out right now.
The most that you could reasonably suggest is that we could write a blank check to the UN to put forth a peacekeeping mission to take our place, but it truly needs to be a no-strings-attached paid-up-front deal with not a single US person doing anything at all. Ideally, it’d be Afghanistan’s neighbors at the forefront — Iran, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan. India, China, and Russia, as the major powers in the region, should also shoulder a significant amount of the burden.
That none of them are willing or able to do so tells us that we have even less business muscling in there, ourselves.
b&
You make several good points of course.
The mess was originally created by Russia – they tried to take over when it was discovered how potentially rich Afghanistan was. The US interfered then, and badly stuffed up by aligning themselves with the Taliban to get rid of Russia, then not liking the Taliban when they got control. Iran and China are doing some good things, but the US naturally doesn’t want to leave them to it due to their mistrust of those countries.
As long as the US military sticks to training the Afghan security forces and other things they’re actually requested to by the Afghan government and the UN, I think that’s OK. Your suggestion about a blank cheque/peacekeeping mission is a good one I think. One issue is that the US military genuinely does have a lot of expertise, and are useful in a training scenario.
I watched General Campbell, the head of the UN/US force in Afghanistan when he spoke to the congressional committee recently on C-Span. He struck me as being honourable. For example, Senator McCain gave him several opportunities and excuses to use to blame the bombing of the MSF trauma centre on the Afghans, but he refused to take them.
You’re absolutely correct that the US military is the best, or at least one of the best, at what they do. But what they do is blow the fucking shit out of things, and otherwise kill and lay waste and destruction.
We also have a very long tradition of using “training” as cover for blowing the fucking shit out of things, especially when the CIA is involved; just look at the messes we’ve made all over Central and South America. That’s not an hypothetical in Afghanistan; front and center of our operations there right now is CIA drone strikes, ostensibly providing air cover to protect our forces in their training roles…but, in reality, too-frequently engaging in “double tap” assassinations, where they kill military-age men and then hang around to wait for and kill anybody who comes to their rescue, on the theory that the men must be Taliban and their rescuers their sympathizers.
I’ll agree with you that the picture you paint is of an outcome that might well be desirable. It’s just that that same picture has been sold to us time and again as the excuse for why we have to keep blowing the fucking shit out of people. Maybe this time we really are winning the hearts and minds of the people in Afghanistan…but, honestly, I just can’t see it as anything other than blowing the fucking shit out of more and more people.
b&
“It’s just that that same picture has been sold to us time and again as the excuse for why we have to keep blowing the fucking shit out of people.”
Afraid that’s how I see it, too. Happens when you grew up in the ‘Nam era.
…or in Iran-Contra. Or, I’m sure, today with Iraq and Afghanistan….
b&
I certainly understand your cynicism – the record of the US in these situations is exactly as you say, and “disappointing” is the diplomatic language most often used for US behaviour in these situations. I feel like I’ve seen an improvement in CIA involvement in recent years, but that could easily be me being naïve too. Like you, I don’t want to see any more lives lost, and there’s a helluva lot of killing being done way too easily.
The only “improvement” I’m aware of with respect to the CIA is that they’re being more circumspect about their “black site” operations. But they’ve more than made up for it by becoming the US’s de facto air force with their drone operations — and, believe me, they’re nowhere near as careful about civilians and rules of engagement as our boys in blue are.
b&
In general, this is also my impression of them.
Something you predicted straight after the hospital bombing (namely the probability that it wasn’t a mistake) —
“US special operations analysts were gathering intelligence on the hospital days before the attack, because they believed a Pakistani operative was using it as his base, according to areport by the Associated Press citing an unnamed former intelligence official.
The analysts had mapped the area and drawn a circle around the hospital, the official was quoted as saying. The Pakistani man, described both as a Taliban suspect and as a worker for the Pakistani Inter-Service Intelligence directorate, was killed in the attack, the official told the AP.”
From the Gu reporting on US tanks entering the hospital destroying evidence:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/15/us-tank-enters-ruined-afghan-hospital-putting-war-evidence-at-risk
Canada has a lot of experience in peace keeping missions but our current hawkish government wants to do the opposite.
That’s a shame because Canada is really good at the peacekeeping stuff, and has a good international reputation at it with all.
Our federal election is October 19 and we have that undemocratic first past the post system so many are trying to vote strategically to get the Conservative government out. Even if we manage this, we may still have a minority government so who knows if any substantial change can happen. What is so sad is only 39% of Canadians voted for the Conservatives yet they became a majority because of stupid first past the post!
We used to have that happen to us when we had FPP too. It’s such an undemocratic and unfair system. There are still people who want it back, and they’re mostly people who can’t get power any other way.
I guess the point I am attempting to make with few words is — if we cannot admit the problem is Pakistan and be willing to go in there and overhaul that place first, we are simply beating heads against the wall in Afghanistan.
Not only is there no will to do this, there is no reason either. Afghanistan was run by the Taliban before we went in and it will be after we leave.
You point to another part of the problem…Afghanistan is in the middle of a region where all its neighbors are basically indistinguishable — including the nuclear-armed Pakistan. Why should we expect that American military intervention is going to turn Afghanistan into a democratic capitalist paradise? Does anybody here think that the American military could do the same to Pakistan’s neighbors? If not, then what’s so special about Pakistan that our military is somehow able to do there what it can’t elsewhere?
b&
You’re completely right that Pakistan is a big part of the problem. I think no one really knows what to do, and it’s better to stay out than get in imo if you don’t have a guaranteed way to fix the problem. For myself, I’m hoping the indications that a more secular, less corrupt government can get control sometime in the next decade are borne out. The parties with such values seem to be slowly increasing in popularity. If Afghanistan can get its act together, maybe they’ll provide a good role model for Pakistan.
Modi in India is making some good (and secular) changes too, and Pakistan won’t like seeing India doing better than them, so that might help too.
Let’s just send Cheney & Blackwater. And throw in Wolfowitz while we’re at it.
Yes, and this time Blackwater gets paid only after they get the job done. 😀
I heard this this morning and I was disappointed. Canada is out (unless I missed something) and I’m glad for it.
sub
Shades of the suggestion for Vietnam made by Vermont senator George Aiken, a member of the old Northeastern-establishment wing of the Republican Party, now extinct save for a tiny, relict population up in Maine.
While I understand having an embassy in a “friendly” country (such as it is), why would we bother in the particular instance of Afghanistan? 1000 troops protecting a heavily fortified embassy would be merely a target for militants.
Now we are going to be leaving behind a slightly larger force, though still a mere token force in terms of effectiveness. I suppose 5000 troops will make evacuation easier once it becomes necessary.
I say just rely on an Afghan embassy in DC and be done with it. Take all of our troops and personnel out of that country.
Anyone with half a Brain Cell could see that the Afghan Army alone are incapable of taking on the Taliban , within 10 days of American Troops leaving, the Taliban would be back in Kabul, if a substantial number aren’t there already. I’m afraid your stuck with that Occupation for years to come, if you don’t want the sacrifices of all those Troops to be for nought, I don’t know how Dubya and Cheney sleep at Nights
“Afghanistan has been the longest war in U.S. history: now over 14 years. What have we accomplished? Precious little except to vent our ire about the 9-11 attacks.”
I can’t agree with that Jerry. In fact invading Afghanistan to throw out the Taliban is one of the few invasions I can think of that would have been morally worthwhile even without 9/11. What the coalition forces have accomplished is to create conditions that allowed the education of a generation of girls who otherwise would have been kept in illiterate ignorance, and brought about a major improvement in the legal status, quality of life, and life-chances, of women in every part of the country they were able to control. Those are hugely worthwhile achievements.