Yes, it's bad. The government is losing. The US is losing. The Taliban are on track to win this war. The question of "what do we do about that?" is an important one, and not a forgone one. Between our nations we have access to huge amounts of resources and military power. We can influence what happens. So what is the right course of action?
If someone can come up with a moral defence for the Allies leaving the country, and I mean that in respect of the Afghan people's suffering, I would like to hear it, because I can't.
The central government, or some form of it, is very welcome amongst some people in Afghanistan, notably the cities and such. Kandahar and Kabul are not the remote villages in Pashtun regions are not the remote villages in Tajik regions etc. There is no one size fits all and no clear boundaries which make partition or increased regional autonomy possible.
It's also not possible for the Afghan government to just sack off the remote regions, because they face regular strikes in areas they control and they have majority support. The Taliban are a distinct security threat to your Tajik regional authorities, even if they probably aren't going to replace you (due to lack of local support). Afghanistan is a melting pot that can't be separated out. From a moral point of view, I can't see how leaving it to it's own devices (i.e. lots of horrible violence post withdrawal) is really defensible.
The central government is welcome where it spends its American largess. We're propping up a government that doesn't represent the entire country.
America has to setup and support numerous localized, regional forces, instead of just giving money to Kabul for them to spend on their cronies.
The cities can't rule the countryside, and the countryside can't rule the cities. Split the governance of the cities and the regions, give them the money separately and directly, and let them run their own defense forces instead of trying to build a national defense force that is inherently corrupt and dependent on US backing.
The model I see for Afghanistan that might work is something similar to the old Swiss Confederation. It took centuries for Switzerland to go from an alliance of self governing cantons, speaking French, German, and Italian dialects, into the national identity it is today. We're trying to force hundreds of years of socio-economic development into a few decades.
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"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
But the national government does represent some people who are legitimately terrified of the Taliban, want a national government, and someone has to coordinate the interprovisional campaign against the Taliban etc. That is a central government. Furthermore, there are legitimate concerns from minority groups in various provinces re. regional autonomy, the US cannot simply decide that we're going to have a Kandahar army and a Kabul army and a Tajik defence force... You're basically saying that parts of the country are going to be Taliban territory, because if they're required to provide their own defence, even with Allied support, they'll fold. And besides nobody can just unilaterally take that choice! You need local cooperation, if we want to talk about imperialistic behaviour...
The government is corrupt, inefficient and in places rather nasty, but it's a government and it is better than the Taliban, make no mistake. It's also trapped in a position where by necessity it is a national government but by reality has loose control of large swathes of remote locations.
But the national government does represent some people who are legitimately terrified of the Taliban, want a national government, and someone has to coordinate the interprovisional campaign against the Taliban etc. That is a central government. Furthermore, there are legitimate concerns from minority groups in various provinces re. regional autonomy, the US cannot simply decide that we're going to have a Kandahar army and a Kabul army and a Tajik defence force... You're basically saying that parts of the country are going to be Taliban territory, because if they're required to provide their own defence, even with Allied support, they'll fold. And besides nobody can just unilaterally take that choice! You need local cooperation, if we want to talk about imperialistic behaviour...
The government is corrupt, inefficient and in places rather nasty, but it's a government and it is better than the Taliban, make no mistake. It's also trapped in a position where by necessity it is a national government but by reality has loose control of large swathes of remote locations.
The national military is utterly useless and is a vehicle for the Taliban to receive black market funding and arms. Once you acknowledge that, then you have to accept that the central authority is a failure and not actually sovereign outside of the cities where the US is stationed nearby to hold for them.
So the solution is to acknowledge the self sovereignty of the people who live outside of the cities. Give them the means to fight back against the Taliban, instead of being forced to tacitly support them so they'll be left alone.
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"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
The national military has a lot of problems. It also is losing a lot of people trying to fight this war and is not necessarily a lost cause in terms of corruption etc, nor should they just be written off because we only value allies that win.
I also don't believe that partitioning Afghanistan, which is what you're proposing, would increase its ability to form a coherent resistance to the Taliban. Kabul defence force troops sitting around while villages attempt (and fail) to defend themselves is not workable. Furthermore, outside the cities, there are many people who support the government as well! Women who want an education, people who don't want to be subject to a brutal theocracy...
The national military has a lot of problems. It also is losing a lot of people trying to fight this war and is not necessarily a lost cause in terms of corruption etc, nor should they just be written off because we only value allies that win.
I also don't believe that partitioning Afghanistan, which is what you're proposing, would increase its ability to form a coherent resistance to the Taliban. Kabul defence force troops sitting around while villages attempt (and fail) to defend themselves is not workable. Furthermore, outside the cities, there are many people who support the government as well! Women who want an education, people who don't want to be subject to a brutal theocracy...
You do understand that, that is happening right now as we speak? The ANA is withdrawing from the countryside to consolidate itself while the US is trying to negotiate a peace treaty. What you say you don't want to happen, is exactly the situation on the ground now. The ANA is the "Kabul Defence Force" in all practical sense.
So while the ANA bunkers up in the cities, the Taliban is free to roam in a largely defenseless country side. I cannot fault the people who live outside the cities for thinking that the national government has abandoned them.
What I'm saying is that, because the countryside can't rely on the national government, it has to rely on itself. If they don't want the Taliban there, they should be organized and given the means to fight back.
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"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
But by necessity, not by design. The ANA has failed to defend those villages, its not sitting around while the battle rages, they went and they lost. Are you suggesting that if it had never tried they'd have done it themselves? No. The ANA has not been successful but that does not mean a policy of sacking off the concept of a national army and relying on extremely dodgy local militias, whose recruitment pool is the same as the Taliban they'll be fighting, is going to work.
But by necessity, not by design. The ANA has failed to defend those villages, its not sitting around while the battle rages, they went and they lost. Are you suggesting that if it had never tried they'd have done it themselves? No. The ANA has not been successful but that does not mean a policy of sacking off the concept of a national army and relying on extremely dodgy local militias, whose recruitment pool is the same as the Taliban they'll be fighting, is going to work.
Given a local defense alternative to the Taliban, young men might fight for their homes and families against the Taliban instead of joining up with them or supplying them so that the Taliban doesn't attack them in retaliation.
We'd be choking off their recruitment pool and giving breath to a new form of resistance against them.
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"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
Or you'd be pouring money and arms into militias that don't fight when the time comes because they're isolated and cut off from retreat or reinforcement, so they surrender or die, and the Taliban takes those arms and keeps going.
There is a reason why we all started to use national, professional militaries and it's because they're much better at it than local militias. What you would actually want is for those guys to join a national military which can be deployed effectively and they do, it's just that the military is losing. That doesn't mean that as a concept the ANA is dead.
Or you'd be pouring money and arms into militias that don't fight when the time comes because they're isolated and cut off from retreat or reinforcement, so they surrender or die, and the Taliban takes those arms and keeps going.
There is a reason why we all started to use national, professional militaries and it's because they're much better at it than local militias. What you would actually want is for those guys to join a national military which can be deployed effectively and they do, it's just that the military is losing. That doesn't mean that as a concept the ANA is dead.
The ANA is doing exactly that. Pouring money and arms into the Taliban so it doesn't have to fight. The Taliban has so much US night fighting equipment now that they're launching night raids! Its amazing.
National, professional armies only work when the people of a nation are willing to fight and die en masse for that national government.
In the French Revolution, Napolean rallied millions of men to die for France and the Revolution. In World War I, millions upon millions of soldiers suicidally charged into artillery barrages to die for a meter of ground.
Afghanistan doesn't have the national spirit and unity for such feats.
What the Afghan people do have is what every human has: loyalty to family and community. So we have to use that, because that is all we really have to work with.
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"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
Yeah but what makes you think that a local militia would work any better? I'm pretty okay with stating I think they'd be significantly less effective. Loyalty to family and community does not mean that they will fight ("hmmmm, could fight that massive Taliban raid, could just surrender and they won't behead my family" is also loyalty to family and community) and more importantly it does not mean they'll win. And, here's the kicker, it would also be much less secure against Taliban infiltration, subversion, sale of equipment etc. I don't disagree with a lot of your criticisms of the government and military (although I will note that a lot of young men have fought and died bravely in the ANA and it feels a bit harsh to say they are useless) but I don't think your alternative will resolve those issues and in fact I think they'd exacerbate them.
Yeah but what makes you think that a local militia would work any better? I'm pretty okay with stating I think they'd be significantly less effective. Loyalty to family and community does not mean that they will fight and more importantly it does not mean they'll win. And, here's the kicker, it would also be much less secure against Taliban infiltration, subversion, sale of equipment etc. I don't disagree with a lot of your criticisms of the government and military (although I will note that a lot of young men have fought and died bravely in the ANA and it feels a bit harsh to say they are useless) but I don't think your alternative will resolve those issues and in fact I think they'd exacerbate them.
Everything you're criticizing a militia for has already happened with ANA forces. The ANA has been infiltrated, subverted, used for corruption, in support of the Taliban.
What we need is a counter-insurgency against the Taliban. An organization that draws resources and support from local populations, so that those populations have an alternative to supporting the Taliban. One that fights because it wants to keep the Taliban from exploiting their communities.
We're fighting a war when what we really need is to fight an organized crime syndicate.
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"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
If you're saying that there is no way to remove the Taliban's local support, then there is no way to defeat the insurgency.
Staying the course we're on, the US will withdraw with a sham of a peace treaty, the Taliban will reneg on the peace treaty, the government will fall, and the Taliban will be back in charge.
Right now the locals have a choice between an exploitative and corrupt ANA and an exploitative and corrupt Taliban, and a lot of them choose the Taliban because the ANA is losing.
What the Taliban has over the ANA is this: the Taliban can say it fights a jihad for Islam against the American infidel invaders and traitors to Islam. Muslims will believe that, understand that, sign up for that.
That narrative might go right out the window if you can get a native, Afghan force, untied to the infidel traitor government, to fight back. Because then its not a jihad anymore, its just people defending their homes against invaders. You'll have people in the Taliban who signed up to fight a jihad balk at fighting against their own people.
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"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
I'm saying that I think your proposed strategy will be less effective than the strategy that has been applied thus far, and that the failure of the strategy applied thus far does not mean that alternatives are necessarily viable.
I'm also going to say that the Taliban are fighting against ANA forces quite happily and the guys making up the ANA are the same guys who would be making up this hypothetical local partitioned militia except with less coordination and training. You seem to think that the Taliban would balk at fighting other Afghan citizens engaged in resistance against them; they're doing that now, it isn't a problem for them.
The problems with the central government do not mean it is viable to throw the idea of a central government out of the window even if that was a decision the Allies can take, and they can't.
Yes, staying on the course we're on is a poor choice. Absolutely, not debating that. I don't agree that your alternative is better though. I would say that Allies and particularly the US need more oversight of expenditure, support and investment will be allowed on the condition that US auditors review the use of funds and policy. There was an admirable attempt to allow the National Government to mostly run its own affairs without oversight and I think that turned out to be a mistake.
One of the delegation members, Qais Sargand, from the Interior Ministry, said the complaints that Jaghori District had not received enough resources were exaggerated for political reasons. He said that local leaders’ desire to have the government arm thousands of militiamen would undercut efforts to have a regular military under central authority. “If we do that here, they will want it in Badghis Province and Kandahar, Nangahar and all over the country,” Mr. Sargand said.
The central government is failing to protect people. The central government is more worried about protecting its own authority than enabling the self defense of communities.
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"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
One of the delegation members, Qais Sargand, from the Interior Ministry, said the complaints that Jaghori District had not received enough resources were exaggerated for political reasons. He said that local leaders’ desire to have the government arm thousands of militiamen would undercut efforts to have a regular military under central authority. “If we do that here, they will want it in Badghis Province and Kandahar, Nangahar and all over the country,” Mr. Sargand said.
The central government is failing to protect people. The central government is more worried about protecting its own authority than enabling the self defense of communities.
To be fair, up arming regions that are as tribal as afghanistan is a good way to create whole new factions to deal with.
One of the delegation members, Qais Sargand, from the Interior Ministry, said the complaints that Jaghori District had not received enough resources were exaggerated for political reasons. He said that local leaders’ desire to have the government arm thousands of militiamen would undercut efforts to have a regular military under central authority. “If we do that here, they will want it in Badghis Province and Kandahar, Nangahar and all over the country,” Mr. Sargand said.
The central government is failing to protect people. The central government is more worried about protecting its own authority than enabling the self defense of communities.
To be fair, up arming regions that are as tribal as afghanistan is a good way to create whole new factions to deal with.
Yeah, once the Taliban is done with, you'll have to deal with the fact that armed populations aren't going to give up their arms or submit to an authority they can fight back against. That is why I'm saying the government needs to be in the form of a loose confederation instead of a centralized national government in Kabul.
The prize of total control of the country, and the access to international funding and aid that brings, needs to be taken away. They'll fight for the seat in Kabul because they know that UN/Western recognition is how you get nice things like aid money, weapons deals, and investment money.
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"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
Yes, it's bad. The government is losing. The US is losing. The Taliban are on track to win this war. The question of "what do we do about that?" is an important one, and not a forgone one. Between our nations we have access to huge amounts of resources and military power. We can influence what happens. So what is the right course of action?
If someone can come up with a moral defence for the Allies leaving the country, and I mean that in respect of the Afghan people's suffering, I would like to hear it, because I can't.
We either leave or depopulate the hinterlands.
Take your pick of which is more moral
You can say that we could create regional defense forces against the Taliban but those can’t involve us and that means withdrawal.
Edit2: or we stay there forever and fight the forever war
Yes, it's bad. The government is losing. The US is losing. The Taliban are on track to win this war. The question of "what do we do about that?" is an important one, and not a forgone one. Between our nations we have access to huge amounts of resources and military power. We can influence what happens. So what is the right course of action?
If someone can come up with a moral defence for the Allies leaving the country, and I mean that in respect of the Afghan people's suffering, I would like to hear it, because I can't.
We either leave or depopulate the hinterlands.
Take your pick of which is more moral
Yeah that is the only way a central authority ever really forcefully took control of rural regions: concentration camps and forced depopulation, then resettlement with loyal populations. The Soviet Union's Decossackization and the US campaigns against the natives are great examples. The British Boer War concentration camps are another example I can think of.
My main thought is that we're attempting to put in place a modern, centralized government, that only works in the West after centuries of central governments consolidating their power over rural populations.
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"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
Yes, it's bad. The government is losing. The US is losing. The Taliban are on track to win this war. The question of "what do we do about that?" is an important one, and not a forgone one. Between our nations we have access to huge amounts of resources and military power. We can influence what happens. So what is the right course of action?
If someone can come up with a moral defence for the Allies leaving the country, and I mean that in respect of the Afghan people's suffering, I would like to hear it, because I can't.
I'm gonna point out, the flip-side is that the central government isn't really any better. They are also another tribe. The most effective Afghan leaders in fighting the Taliban have themselves been brutal strongmen. Child rape remains, for some godunknown reason, a persistent problem with the ANA.
Like... I'm not sure the US being in Afghanistan has actually been morally better, or at least not that much better. I'm not actually sure the US being there has reduced the amount of suffering. And if the current strategy works, I'm not sure it will reduce suffering. It's just... sorta presumed to be so, because the US government, the US media outlets, and the US public prefers to believe it.
These are the guys the US has had to not just turn a blind eye to but outwardly embrace in their efforts to defeat the Taliban. This is why the US doesn't have the support of the Afghan populace. Afghans literally look at the US + central government and then look at the Taliban, and they say, "We're gonna go with the Taliban." Unbeatable: Social Resources, Military Adaptation, and the Afghan Taliban (Warning, LONG):
As Mike Martin notes, the Americans “failed to understand how offering a bounty would cause people to denounce anyone they were having a feud with, or even innocent people, in order to collect the money.”30 The injustice of U.S. counterterrorism operations, combined with the return of abusive warlords, drove the Taliban to remobilize. Echoing the views of several Taliban interviewees, one noted: “When Karzai became president, Taliban were not fighting, they were in their houses. … But when the Americans and Afghan governments were disturbing and attacking on the families of all those Taliban … this is the reason that Taliban started fighting again.”31 ...
The only area in which the Taliban were able to provide alternative government services was in the administration of justice. There was high demand for Taliban services given the frequency of rural disputes over land, trade, and family matters. Initially, the Quetta Shura sought to replicate the court system of the Islamic emirate of the 1990s, with standing lower and higher courts. In Helmand, the Taliban were able to reestablish the emirate court system for a time. But in most places, justice was administered by shadow governors, Taliban mullahs, and military commanders. According to Thomas Johnson and Matthew DuPee, “The Taliban shadow justice system is easily one of the most popular and respected elements of the Taliban insurgency by local communities, especially in southern Afghanistan.”51 ... Nonetheless, Taliban courts remained widely used because, compared with the official Afghan courts, they offered accessible, quick, and corruption-free justice. As one elder observed, “In two or three hours, [the Taliban] could solve disputes with someone over one jerib of land. Now in Lashkar Gah, if you have a dispute with someone over one jerib of land, you have to sell twenty jeribs to pay the courts.”53
Yes, it's bad. The government is losing. The US is losing. The Taliban are on track to win this war. The question of "what do we do about that?" is an important one, and not a forgone one. Between our nations we have access to huge amounts of resources and military power. We can influence what happens. So what is the right course of action?
If someone can come up with a moral defence for the Allies leaving the country, and I mean that in respect of the Afghan people's suffering, I would like to hear it, because I can't.
I'm gonna point out, the flip-side is that the central government isn't really any better. They are also another tribe. The most effective Afghan leaders in fighting the Taliban have themselves been brutal strongmen. Child rape remains, for some godunknown reason, a persistent problem with the ANA.
Like... I'm not sure the US being in Afghanistan has actually been morally better, or at least not that much better. I'm not actually sure the US being there has reduced the amount of suffering. And if the current strategy works, I'm not sure it will reduce suffering. It's just... sorta presumed to be so, because the US government, the US media outlets, and the US public prefers to believe it.
These are the guys the US has had to not just turn a blind eye to but outwardly embrace in their efforts to defeat the Taliban. This is why the US doesn't have the support of the Afghan populace. Afghans literally look at the US + central government and then look at the Taliban, and they say, "We're gonna go with the Taliban." Unbeatable: Social Resources, Military Adaptation, and the Afghan Taliban (Warning, LONG):
As Mike Martin notes, the Americans “failed to understand how offering a bounty would cause people to denounce anyone they were having a feud with, or even innocent people, in order to collect the money.”30 The injustice of U.S. counterterrorism operations, combined with the return of abusive warlords, drove the Taliban to remobilize. Echoing the views of several Taliban interviewees, one noted: “When Karzai became president, Taliban were not fighting, they were in their houses. … But when the Americans and Afghan governments were disturbing and attacking on the families of all those Taliban … this is the reason that Taliban started fighting again.”31 ...
The only area in which the Taliban were able to provide alternative government services was in the administration of justice. There was high demand for Taliban services given the frequency of rural disputes over land, trade, and family matters. Initially, the Quetta Shura sought to replicate the court system of the Islamic emirate of the 1990s, with standing lower and higher courts. In Helmand, the Taliban were able to reestablish the emirate court system for a time. But in most places, justice was administered by shadow governors, Taliban mullahs, and military commanders. According to Thomas Johnson and Matthew DuPee, “The Taliban shadow justice system is easily one of the most popular and respected elements of the Taliban insurgency by local communities, especially in southern Afghanistan.”51 ... Nonetheless, Taliban courts remained widely used because, compared with the official Afghan courts, they offered accessible, quick, and corruption-free justice. As one elder observed, “In two or three hours, [the Taliban] could solve disputes with someone over one jerib of land. Now in Lashkar Gah, if you have a dispute with someone over one jerib of land, you have to sell twenty jeribs to pay the courts.”53
I liked the part about how the Taliban justice system is considered to be more efficient and less corrupt than the national justice system. That combined with how the current regional governments loyal to the central government are run by corrupt and oppressive non-Taliban warlords was really enlightening about how bad the government really is.
Afghanistan's state is effectively a feudal state pretending to be a nation state to get US aid money.
The ending paragraphs are really telling:
In November 2016, Michael Semple and I spent a week conducting interviews with seven senior Taliban figures. Our subjects included two former deputy ministers, a former provincial governor, and two former senior military commanders. What we discovered surprised us. We had expected Taliban confidence to have been boosted by recent battlefield success. Instead, those we interviewed reported widespread disillusion within the movement, with the state of Taliban leadership, and with a seemingly endless war. Multiple interviewees told us that many Taliban members feel that the war lost direction and purpose after the withdrawal of foreign combat forces. The Taliban’s current leader, Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada, is widely seen as ineffective and lacking the moral authority of the group’s founder, Mullah Omar. This is undermining the ideological cornerstone of the Taliban, namely obedience to the emir. Several factions are vying for power within the movement, most notably the Ishaqzai-dominated Mansour network based in northern Helmand (led by Mullah Rahim, the Taliban governor of Helmand).123 Thus, while the Taliban maintains strong vertical ties with rural communities, which have supported the group’s battlefield gains since 2014, the horizontal network holding the insurgency together is weakening.124
Sending more U.S. troops into Afghanistan and pushing them out into the field is likely to provide some short-term gains. Importantly, the presence of a Marine battalion in Helmand helps prevent the provincial capital from falling to the Taliban. Yet this marginal increase in combat-force levels will not break the strategic stalemate in Afghanistan when massive U.S. military power failed to do so in 2010. Rather, sending in more troops and conducting more airstrikes may well make the Taliban stronger. Meanwhile, destroying drug processing and production facilities will hurt not only the Taliban but also anybody involved in opium farming, which is just about every farmer in Helmand. It stands to once again drive them into the arms of the insurgents. And just as before, public patience is likely to wear thin at apparent U.S. military carelessness and mounting civilian casualties.125 In the end, ramping up the U.S. military effort in Afghanistan risks reenergizing the Taliban’s sense of purpose and uniting a movement that may be beginning to unravel. If the United States is not careful, it could end up bombing its way to defeat in Afghanistan.
To reiterate my earlier point, the way to beating the Taliban is removing the narrative of the holy war against the infidel from the equation. Once that is gone, there is nothing binding the Taliban and Afghanistan's population together.
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"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
Gods, do I hate the US/GiROA’s stance on opium in Afghanistan.
Such a useless expansion on the other failed “war on drugs” policy, which makes the mission in Afghanistan more difficult.
One of the problems is that other crops aside from opium are either too difficult (for the soil, opium is more robust) or not profitable enough to farm. Another problem is that because opium farming is illegal, those that do it will not seek assistance from GiROA, which weakens the government and strengthens the Taliban, which leads to the fighting season to be about causing enough disruption to protect the opium harvest. Still another problem is all the money being made selling illegal opium doesn’t go to the government, but to the Taliban and other factions with interest, providing arms and paying personal to fight the ANA and police during the harvest season.
I don’t get why they don’t just legitimize the opium farms. It’s not like opium doesn’t have real world medical purposes.
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
Gods, do I hate the US/GiROA’s stance on opium in Afghanistan.
Such a useless expansion on the other failed “war on drugs” policy, which makes the mission in Afghanistan more difficult.
One of the problems is that other crops aside from opium are either too difficult (for the soil, opium is more robust) or not profitable enough to farm. Another problem is that because opium farming is illegal, those that do it will not seek assistance from GiROA, which weakens the government and strengthens the Taliban, which leads to the fighting season to be about causing enough disruption to protect the opium harvest. Still another problem is all the money being made selling illegal opium doesn’t go to the government, but to the Taliban and other factions with interest, providing arms and paying personal to fight the ANA and police during the harvest season.
I don’t get why they don’t just legitimize the opium farms. It’s not like opium doesn’t have real world medical purposes.
Because all the opium goes to heroin, the profits of which goes to whatever cartel controls the field?
I don’t get why they don’t just legitimize the opium farms. It’s not like opium doesn’t have real world medical purposes.
Because "Just say no." is the height of conservative drug policy, and they freak out if you suggest an alternative.
That, and they don't really want an actual solution. How will their friends in the military/industrial complex make money if they're not bombing Afghanistan's rubble into slightly smaller rubble?
Gods, do I hate the US/GiROA’s stance on opium in Afghanistan.
Such a useless expansion on the other failed “war on drugs” policy, which makes the mission in Afghanistan more difficult.
One of the problems is that other crops aside from opium are either too difficult (for the soil, opium is more robust) or not profitable enough to farm. Another problem is that because opium farming is illegal, those that do it will not seek assistance from GiROA, which weakens the government and strengthens the Taliban, which leads to the fighting season to be about causing enough disruption to protect the opium harvest. Still another problem is all the money being made selling illegal opium doesn’t go to the government, but to the Taliban and other factions with interest, providing arms and paying personal to fight the ANA and police during the harvest season.
I don’t get why they don’t just legitimize the opium farms. It’s not like opium doesn’t have real world medical purposes.
Because all the opium goes to heroin, the profits of which goes to whatever cartel controls the field?
That’s why I’m saying to legitimize it. Instead of heroin, use it for medical purposes like oxy or morphine. There’s a market for the legal use of opium, but instead resources are being used to stop it and violence escalates.
It’s the exact same shit that happens in South America. The cartels are extremely violent, the local governments suffer from both corruption and are weakened from lack of resources do to the demand the heavy violence brings, and the US and those countries wastes billions of dollars and countless lives.
Afghanistan’s opium policy is an extension of the US war on drugs, and we know how that turned out.
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
Trump Is Crude. But He’s Right About Saudi Arabia.
On the strategic questions that matter in the Middle East, the president is cleareyed.
Mr. Doran is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. Mr. Badran is research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
The only strategic question that Trump has shown he cares about is money and even then he clearly doesn't understand the economic relationship between the two countries.
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
Trump Is Crude. But He’s Right About Saudi Arabia.
On the strategic questions that matter in the Middle East, the president is cleareyed.
Mr. Doran is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. Mr. Badran is research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
The only strategic question that Trump has shown he cares about is money and even then he clearly doesn't understand the economic relationship between the two countries.
Trump Is Crude. But He’s Right About Saudi Arabia.
On the strategic questions that matter in the Middle East, the president is cleareyed.
Mr. Doran is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. Mr. Badran is research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
The only strategic question that Trump has shown he cares about is money and even then he clearly doesn't understand the economic relationship between the two countries.
Is the same train of thought of Bush (and now Obama apparently) apologists: "Trump is more damaging that the guys that started wars that killed a lot of people because he says the quiet parts out loud".
If you don't like how the sausage gets made, well, tough. Can't make everybody just bury their heads on the sand about it.
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
My point is that if it's not self-evident, these guys are assholes.
Trump Is Crude. But He’s Right About Saudi Arabia.
On the strategic questions that matter in the Middle East, the president is cleareyed.
Mr. Doran is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. Mr. Badran is research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
The only strategic question that Trump has shown he cares about is money and even then he clearly doesn't understand the economic relationship between the two countries.
Is the same train of thought of Bush (and now Obama apparently) apologists: "Trump is more damaging that the guys that started wars that killed a lot of people because he says the quiet parts out loud".
If you don't like how the sausage gets made, well, tough. Can't make everybody just bury their heads on the sand about it.
Don't be silly. There are no innocents. All international relations will eventually involve defending terrible actions for reasons.
What Trump is doing is not saying the quiet parts out loud, he's declaring that he believes what KSA tells him so long as the check doesn't bounce. In spite of all evidence to the contrary. Including what his own intelligence agencies are telling him. This is the same idiot who now refuses to admit he was suckered by North Korea even as NK continues their weapon development.
There is a difference whether-or-not you chose to acknowledge it.
Gods, do I hate the US/GiROA’s stance on opium in Afghanistan.
Such a useless expansion on the other failed “war on drugs” policy, which makes the mission in Afghanistan more difficult.
One of the problems is that other crops aside from opium are either too difficult (for the soil, opium is more robust) or not profitable enough to farm. Another problem is that because opium farming is illegal, those that do it will not seek assistance from GiROA, which weakens the government and strengthens the Taliban, which leads to the fighting season to be about causing enough disruption to protect the opium harvest. Still another problem is all the money being made selling illegal opium doesn’t go to the government, but to the Taliban and other factions with interest, providing arms and paying personal to fight the ANA and police during the harvest season.
I don’t get why they don’t just legitimize the opium farms. It’s not like opium doesn’t have real world medical purposes.
Trump Is Crude. But He’s Right About Saudi Arabia.
On the strategic questions that matter in the Middle East, the president is cleareyed.
Mr. Doran is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. Mr. Badran is research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
The only strategic question that Trump has shown he cares about is money and even then he clearly doesn't understand the economic relationship between the two countries.
Is the same train of thought of Bush (and now Obama apparently) apologists: "Trump is more damaging that the guys that started wars that killed a lot of people because he says the quiet parts out loud".
If you don't like how the sausage gets made, well, tough. Can't make everybody just bury their heads on the sand about it.
Um. What wars did Obama start?
And even if, hypothetically, you were to blame Obama for starting the war in Yemen, how does Trump giving absolute carte blanche to Saudi Arabia in any way make the US less complicit in what's happening in Yemen? Like, zuh?
Gods, do I hate the US/GiROA’s stance on opium in Afghanistan.
Such a useless expansion on the other failed “war on drugs” policy, which makes the mission in Afghanistan more difficult.
One of the problems is that other crops aside from opium are either too difficult (for the soil, opium is more robust) or not profitable enough to farm. Another problem is that because opium farming is illegal, those that do it will not seek assistance from GiROA, which weakens the government and strengthens the Taliban, which leads to the fighting season to be about causing enough disruption to protect the opium harvest. Still another problem is all the money being made selling illegal opium doesn’t go to the government, but to the Taliban and other factions with interest, providing arms and paying personal to fight the ANA and police during the harvest season.
I don’t get why they don’t just legitimize the opium farms. It’s not like opium doesn’t have real world medical purposes.
The main problem is the Afghan poppy crop fuels the heroin stream into Russia, where drug addiction is a massive problem. If Afghanistan were to legalize opium, GIROA would effectively become a narco-state and Russia would have legitimate reason to be furious with Kabul. China probably wouldn't be delighted either. Western Europe also gets a lot of heroin from Afghan poppy, so their NATO support would be in danger as well. (notably, very little Afghan poppy ends up in the US, so we might not actually care that much if it wasn't for the international fallout)
From a purely internal standpoint, legalizing opium is by far the best option, but it simply doesn't work if they want any international support. The Taliban themselves realized this, it's why they banned opium and cracked down very hard on it in the year before 9/11.
Gods, do I hate the US/GiROA’s stance on opium in Afghanistan.
Such a useless expansion on the other failed “war on drugs” policy, which makes the mission in Afghanistan more difficult.
One of the problems is that other crops aside from opium are either too difficult (for the soil, opium is more robust) or not profitable enough to farm. Another problem is that because opium farming is illegal, those that do it will not seek assistance from GiROA, which weakens the government and strengthens the Taliban, which leads to the fighting season to be about causing enough disruption to protect the opium harvest. Still another problem is all the money being made selling illegal opium doesn’t go to the government, but to the Taliban and other factions with interest, providing arms and paying personal to fight the ANA and police during the harvest season.
I don’t get why they don’t just legitimize the opium farms. It’s not like opium doesn’t have real world medical purposes.
The main problem is the Afghan poppy crop fuels the heroin stream into Russia, where drug addiction is a massive problem. If Afghanistan were to legalize opium, GIROA would effectively become a narco-state and Russia would have legitimate reason to be furious with Kabul. China probably wouldn't be delighted either. Western Europe also gets a lot of heroin from Afghan poppy, so their NATO support would be in danger as well. (notably, very little Afghan poppy ends up in the US, so we might not actually care that much if it wasn't for the international fallout)
From a purely internal standpoint, legalizing opium is by far the best option, but it simply doesn't work if they want any international support.
I'm not sure how much the Russian or Chinese states really care about drug abuse. People abusing drugs are people not able to engage in revolutionary activity, and it gives a legal excuse to clamp down on the populace.
}
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
Gods, do I hate the US/GiROA’s stance on opium in Afghanistan.
Such a useless expansion on the other failed “war on drugs” policy, which makes the mission in Afghanistan more difficult.
One of the problems is that other crops aside from opium are either too difficult (for the soil, opium is more robust) or not profitable enough to farm. Another problem is that because opium farming is illegal, those that do it will not seek assistance from GiROA, which weakens the government and strengthens the Taliban, which leads to the fighting season to be about causing enough disruption to protect the opium harvest. Still another problem is all the money being made selling illegal opium doesn’t go to the government, but to the Taliban and other factions with interest, providing arms and paying personal to fight the ANA and police during the harvest season.
I don’t get why they don’t just legitimize the opium farms. It’s not like opium doesn’t have real world medical purposes.
The main problem is the Afghan poppy crop fuels the heroin stream into Russia, where drug addiction is a massive problem. If Afghanistan were to legalize opium, GIROA would effectively become a narco-state and Russia would have legitimate reason to be furious with Kabul. China probably wouldn't be delighted either. Western Europe also gets a lot of heroin from Afghan poppy, so their NATO support would be in danger as well. (notably, very little Afghan poppy ends up in the US, so we might not actually care that much if it wasn't for the international fallout)
From a purely internal standpoint, legalizing opium is by far the best option, but it simply doesn't work if they want any international support.
I'm not sure how much the Russian or Chinese states really care about drug abuse. People abusing drugs are people not able to engage in revolutionary activity, and it gives a legal excuse to clamp down on the populace.
It creates rival power structures with lots of power, influence, and money.
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Yes, it's bad. The government is losing. The US is losing. The Taliban are on track to win this war. The question of "what do we do about that?" is an important one, and not a forgone one. Between our nations we have access to huge amounts of resources and military power. We can influence what happens. So what is the right course of action?
If someone can come up with a moral defence for the Allies leaving the country, and I mean that in respect of the Afghan people's suffering, I would like to hear it, because I can't.
The central government is welcome where it spends its American largess. We're propping up a government that doesn't represent the entire country.
America has to setup and support numerous localized, regional forces, instead of just giving money to Kabul for them to spend on their cronies.
The cities can't rule the countryside, and the countryside can't rule the cities. Split the governance of the cities and the regions, give them the money separately and directly, and let them run their own defense forces instead of trying to build a national defense force that is inherently corrupt and dependent on US backing.
The model I see for Afghanistan that might work is something similar to the old Swiss Confederation. It took centuries for Switzerland to go from an alliance of self governing cantons, speaking French, German, and Italian dialects, into the national identity it is today. We're trying to force hundreds of years of socio-economic development into a few decades.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
The government is corrupt, inefficient and in places rather nasty, but it's a government and it is better than the Taliban, make no mistake. It's also trapped in a position where by necessity it is a national government but by reality has loose control of large swathes of remote locations.
The national military is utterly useless and is a vehicle for the Taliban to receive black market funding and arms. Once you acknowledge that, then you have to accept that the central authority is a failure and not actually sovereign outside of the cities where the US is stationed nearby to hold for them.
So the solution is to acknowledge the self sovereignty of the people who live outside of the cities. Give them the means to fight back against the Taliban, instead of being forced to tacitly support them so they'll be left alone.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
I also don't believe that partitioning Afghanistan, which is what you're proposing, would increase its ability to form a coherent resistance to the Taliban. Kabul defence force troops sitting around while villages attempt (and fail) to defend themselves is not workable. Furthermore, outside the cities, there are many people who support the government as well! Women who want an education, people who don't want to be subject to a brutal theocracy...
You do understand that, that is happening right now as we speak? The ANA is withdrawing from the countryside to consolidate itself while the US is trying to negotiate a peace treaty. What you say you don't want to happen, is exactly the situation on the ground now. The ANA is the "Kabul Defence Force" in all practical sense.
So while the ANA bunkers up in the cities, the Taliban is free to roam in a largely defenseless country side. I cannot fault the people who live outside the cities for thinking that the national government has abandoned them.
What I'm saying is that, because the countryside can't rely on the national government, it has to rely on itself. If they don't want the Taliban there, they should be organized and given the means to fight back.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
Given a local defense alternative to the Taliban, young men might fight for their homes and families against the Taliban instead of joining up with them or supplying them so that the Taliban doesn't attack them in retaliation.
We'd be choking off their recruitment pool and giving breath to a new form of resistance against them.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
There is a reason why we all started to use national, professional militaries and it's because they're much better at it than local militias. What you would actually want is for those guys to join a national military which can be deployed effectively and they do, it's just that the military is losing. That doesn't mean that as a concept the ANA is dead.
The ANA is doing exactly that. Pouring money and arms into the Taliban so it doesn't have to fight. The Taliban has so much US night fighting equipment now that they're launching night raids! Its amazing.
National, professional armies only work when the people of a nation are willing to fight and die en masse for that national government.
In the French Revolution, Napolean rallied millions of men to die for France and the Revolution. In World War I, millions upon millions of soldiers suicidally charged into artillery barrages to die for a meter of ground.
Afghanistan doesn't have the national spirit and unity for such feats.
What the Afghan people do have is what every human has: loyalty to family and community. So we have to use that, because that is all we really have to work with.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
Everything you're criticizing a militia for has already happened with ANA forces. The ANA has been infiltrated, subverted, used for corruption, in support of the Taliban.
What we need is a counter-insurgency against the Taliban. An organization that draws resources and support from local populations, so that those populations have an alternative to supporting the Taliban. One that fights because it wants to keep the Taliban from exploiting their communities.
We're fighting a war when what we really need is to fight an organized crime syndicate.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
Staying the course we're on, the US will withdraw with a sham of a peace treaty, the Taliban will reneg on the peace treaty, the government will fall, and the Taliban will be back in charge.
Right now the locals have a choice between an exploitative and corrupt ANA and an exploitative and corrupt Taliban, and a lot of them choose the Taliban because the ANA is losing.
What the Taliban has over the ANA is this: the Taliban can say it fights a jihad for Islam against the American infidel invaders and traitors to Islam. Muslims will believe that, understand that, sign up for that.
That narrative might go right out the window if you can get a native, Afghan force, untied to the infidel traitor government, to fight back. Because then its not a jihad anymore, its just people defending their homes against invaders. You'll have people in the Taliban who signed up to fight a jihad balk at fighting against their own people.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
I'm also going to say that the Taliban are fighting against ANA forces quite happily and the guys making up the ANA are the same guys who would be making up this hypothetical local partitioned militia except with less coordination and training. You seem to think that the Taliban would balk at fighting other Afghan citizens engaged in resistance against them; they're doing that now, it isn't a problem for them.
The problems with the central government do not mean it is viable to throw the idea of a central government out of the window even if that was a decision the Allies can take, and they can't.
Yes, staying on the course we're on is a poor choice. Absolutely, not debating that. I don't agree that your alternative is better though. I would say that Allies and particularly the US need more oversight of expenditure, support and investment will be allowed on the condition that US auditors review the use of funds and policy. There was an admirable attempt to allow the National Government to mostly run its own affairs without oversight and I think that turned out to be a mistake.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/12/world/asia/afghanistan-taliban-attack-jaghori-district.html
The central government is failing to protect people. The central government is more worried about protecting its own authority than enabling the self defense of communities.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
To be fair, up arming regions that are as tribal as afghanistan is a good way to create whole new factions to deal with.
Yeah, once the Taliban is done with, you'll have to deal with the fact that armed populations aren't going to give up their arms or submit to an authority they can fight back against. That is why I'm saying the government needs to be in the form of a loose confederation instead of a centralized national government in Kabul.
The prize of total control of the country, and the access to international funding and aid that brings, needs to be taken away. They'll fight for the seat in Kabul because they know that UN/Western recognition is how you get nice things like aid money, weapons deals, and investment money.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
We either leave or depopulate the hinterlands.
Take your pick of which is more moral
You can say that we could create regional defense forces against the Taliban but those can’t involve us and that means withdrawal.
Edit2: or we stay there forever and fight the forever war
Yeah that is the only way a central authority ever really forcefully took control of rural regions: concentration camps and forced depopulation, then resettlement with loyal populations. The Soviet Union's Decossackization and the US campaigns against the natives are great examples. The British Boer War concentration camps are another example I can think of.
My main thought is that we're attempting to put in place a modern, centralized government, that only works in the West after centuries of central governments consolidating their power over rural populations.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
I'm gonna point out, the flip-side is that the central government isn't really any better. They are also another tribe. The most effective Afghan leaders in fighting the Taliban have themselves been brutal strongmen. Child rape remains, for some godunknown reason, a persistent problem with the ANA.
Like... I'm not sure the US being in Afghanistan has actually been morally better, or at least not that much better. I'm not actually sure the US being there has reduced the amount of suffering. And if the current strategy works, I'm not sure it will reduce suffering. It's just... sorta presumed to be so, because the US government, the US media outlets, and the US public prefers to believe it.
For example, when Abdul Raziq was killed last month, he was described as a "Top Afghan General," but if you dig down far enough, you'll see, "Raziq was criticised by human rights groups," (https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/10/top-afghan-official-killed-shooting-general-unhurt-181018122339127.html) or "Raziq was a hugely controversial figure, dogged by accusations of serious human rights abuses. Last year the UN called for him to be prosecuted over allegations of torture and enforced disappearances." (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/18/top-afghanistan-police-chief-abdul-raziq-killed-in-kandahar-shooting)
These are the guys the US has had to not just turn a blind eye to but outwardly embrace in their efforts to defeat the Taliban. This is why the US doesn't have the support of the Afghan populace. Afghans literally look at the US + central government and then look at the Taliban, and they say, "We're gonna go with the Taliban." Unbeatable: Social Resources, Military Adaptation, and the Afghan Taliban (Warning, LONG):
If only this was known 15 or so years ago, when it went from a dismantling of the Taliban and AlQuaeda, to an attempt at regime building.
If only we'd known.
Couldn't possibly be anticipated.
I liked the part about how the Taliban justice system is considered to be more efficient and less corrupt than the national justice system. That combined with how the current regional governments loyal to the central government are run by corrupt and oppressive non-Taliban warlords was really enlightening about how bad the government really is.
Afghanistan's state is effectively a feudal state pretending to be a nation state to get US aid money.
The ending paragraphs are really telling:
To reiterate my earlier point, the way to beating the Taliban is removing the narrative of the holy war against the infidel from the equation. Once that is gone, there is nothing binding the Taliban and Afghanistan's population together.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
Such a useless expansion on the other failed “war on drugs” policy, which makes the mission in Afghanistan more difficult.
One of the problems is that other crops aside from opium are either too difficult (for the soil, opium is more robust) or not profitable enough to farm. Another problem is that because opium farming is illegal, those that do it will not seek assistance from GiROA, which weakens the government and strengthens the Taliban, which leads to the fighting season to be about causing enough disruption to protect the opium harvest. Still another problem is all the money being made selling illegal opium doesn’t go to the government, but to the Taliban and other factions with interest, providing arms and paying personal to fight the ANA and police during the harvest season.
I don’t get why they don’t just legitimize the opium farms. It’s not like opium doesn’t have real world medical purposes.
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
Because all the opium goes to heroin, the profits of which goes to whatever cartel controls the field?
Because "Just say no." is the height of conservative drug policy, and they freak out if you suggest an alternative.
That, and they don't really want an actual solution. How will their friends in the military/industrial complex make money if they're not bombing Afghanistan's rubble into slightly smaller rubble?
That’s why I’m saying to legitimize it. Instead of heroin, use it for medical purposes like oxy or morphine. There’s a market for the legal use of opium, but instead resources are being used to stop it and violence escalates.
It’s the exact same shit that happens in South America. The cartels are extremely violent, the local governments suffer from both corruption and are weakened from lack of resources do to the demand the heavy violence brings, and the US and those countries wastes billions of dollars and countless lives.
Afghanistan’s opium policy is an extension of the US war on drugs, and we know how that turned out.
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/21/opinion/trump-saudi-arabia-khashoggi.html The only strategic question that Trump has shown he cares about is money and even then he clearly doesn't understand the economic relationship between the two countries.
Scooter Libby is a SVP of the Hudson Institute.
There’s no 4D chess or realpolitik here, it’s just pure greed.
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
Is the same train of thought of Bush (and now Obama apparently) apologists: "Trump is more damaging that the guys that started wars that killed a lot of people because he says the quiet parts out loud".
If you don't like how the sausage gets made, well, tough. Can't make everybody just bury their heads on the sand about it.
Don't be silly. There are no innocents. All international relations will eventually involve defending terrible actions for reasons.
What Trump is doing is not saying the quiet parts out loud, he's declaring that he believes what KSA tells him so long as the check doesn't bounce. In spite of all evidence to the contrary. Including what his own intelligence agencies are telling him. This is the same idiot who now refuses to admit he was suckered by North Korea even as NK continues their weapon development.
There is a difference whether-or-not you chose to acknowledge it.
Because we don't want them to?
Um. What wars did Obama start?
And even if, hypothetically, you were to blame Obama for starting the war in Yemen, how does Trump giving absolute carte blanche to Saudi Arabia in any way make the US less complicit in what's happening in Yemen? Like, zuh?
The main problem is the Afghan poppy crop fuels the heroin stream into Russia, where drug addiction is a massive problem. If Afghanistan were to legalize opium, GIROA would effectively become a narco-state and Russia would have legitimate reason to be furious with Kabul. China probably wouldn't be delighted either. Western Europe also gets a lot of heroin from Afghan poppy, so their NATO support would be in danger as well. (notably, very little Afghan poppy ends up in the US, so we might not actually care that much if it wasn't for the international fallout)
From a purely internal standpoint, legalizing opium is by far the best option, but it simply doesn't work if they want any international support. The Taliban themselves realized this, it's why they banned opium and cracked down very hard on it in the year before 9/11.
I'm not sure how much the Russian or Chinese states really care about drug abuse. People abusing drugs are people not able to engage in revolutionary activity, and it gives a legal excuse to clamp down on the populace.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
It creates rival power structures with lots of power, influence, and money.