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What are we doing in Afghanistan?
Qingu
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
From the NYT today:
I've always had misgivings about escalating the war in Afghanistan (and, of course, Pakistan), and the more I think about this quote, the more obviously bullshit it is. The Taliban, in Afghanistan, is not going to wreak havoc on Europe and the United States anymore than Saddam Hussein's regime was going to.
In fact, the war there bears a lot of similarities to the war in Iraq, both in terms of its justification, the way it's being fought, and the lack of exit strategy. It is true that the people who actually orchestrated 9/11 have much closer ties to the Taliban than to anyone in Iraq, but framing the conflict in terms of "protecting America"—as opposed to seeking justice—seems disingenuous. The idea that we are going to win Afghan hearts and minds by using drones to drop bombs on their civilians seems about as naive as that idea in Iraq. And what is our end goal? The unconditional surrender of the Taliban (assuming they are an organized enough polity to even do so)? Or are we explicitly nation-building—a nation that has almost no infrastructure and is largely organized into tribes?
If the sole justification for this war is hunting down bin Laden and his allies, this shouldn't be a war, it should be more akin to a police action against organized criminals. These people operate in civilian populations. There is no "battlefield" anymore. Any hopes to win a victory against "terrorists"—even specifically defined as al-Qaeda style ideologues—seem just as stupid as hoping to win a victory against "crime" or "drugs" or "the Mafia."
Speaking during a tour of Ukraine and Georgia, Mr. Biden told the BBC that the lawless region along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border was “a place that, if it doesn’t get straightened out, will continue to wreak havoc on Europe and the United States.”
I've always had misgivings about escalating the war in Afghanistan (and, of course, Pakistan), and the more I think about this quote, the more obviously bullshit it is. The Taliban, in Afghanistan, is not going to wreak havoc on Europe and the United States anymore than Saddam Hussein's regime was going to.
In fact, the war there bears a lot of similarities to the war in Iraq, both in terms of its justification, the way it's being fought, and the lack of exit strategy. It is true that the people who actually orchestrated 9/11 have much closer ties to the Taliban than to anyone in Iraq, but framing the conflict in terms of "protecting America"—as opposed to seeking justice—seems disingenuous. The idea that we are going to win Afghan hearts and minds by using drones to drop bombs on their civilians seems about as naive as that idea in Iraq. And what is our end goal? The unconditional surrender of the Taliban (assuming they are an organized enough polity to even do so)? Or are we explicitly nation-building—a nation that has almost no infrastructure and is largely organized into tribes?
If the sole justification for this war is hunting down bin Laden and his allies, this shouldn't be a war, it should be more akin to a police action against organized criminals. These people operate in civilian populations. There is no "battlefield" anymore. Any hopes to win a victory against "terrorists"—even specifically defined as al-Qaeda style ideologues—seem just as stupid as hoping to win a victory against "crime" or "drugs" or "the Mafia."
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Sort of their way of proving to the moron-right that they were patriotic all along or something.
Is he the guy that made Saddam blow up our freedom?
It's not bullshit. Every IR expert on the planet- right or left- is crapping their pants over what might happen in Pakistan as a result of what happens in Afghanistan.
Policy wonks have started referring to it as "Af-Pak" because they so often have to combine the two. Biden put it inexpertly, since the effects on Europe and the US would be more indirect than what he was implying, but Afghanistan and Pakistan are definitely a matter of concern. It's the largest foreign policy challenge facing Obama.
Yeah, but Afghanistan itself is disinteresting. Pakistan is the concerning state, what with its nukes and all, and it would be far easier to stabilise, given that its state is far more stable to begin with.
Spend the money directly on industrial investment in Pakistan and we'd all be rapidly better off...
...And we'd run the risk of alienating India.
What would change if the US treated it as a "police action"?
More realistically though, I think the best way is to help Afghanistan back on its feet with economic support (which could actually run a profit), train their military and make sure they suppress the Taliban further....I mean, haven't you guys learned a thing about fighting an invisible enemy in Vietnam? Because I see them making the same mistakes, thinking it is just a matter of keeping up the pressure.
There is a fair amount of US money going into Pakistan. The concern is basically that Afghanistan can be the safe-haven of an insurgency in Pakistan that spreads out of the FATA. The Morocco to its Algeria; the Cambodia to its Vietnam.
And no one wants to see that happening in Pakistan, of all places. As for the approach, the US military finally got a decent counter-insurgency strategy going in Iraq; the goal is to do the same with Afghanistan.
Unless we're spending money directly to help Pakistan with Kashmir, I'm pretty sure India wouldn't be pissed off if we helped to stabilize their direct neighbor to prevent said neighbor's government and/or parts of territory being undermined by extremists.
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Limed for truth. Biden highlighted this during the campaign, before and after he became a VP candidate, and he's been focused on it once he got elected. The instability of Afghanistan and Pakistan are significant issues that have broad implications for the rest of the region and the world.
Stabilizing Afghanistan is much more important than anything in Iraq, in a geopolitical sense; Afghanistan was the right war to undertake although Bush managed to screw the pooch there (no surprise).
Unfortunately, as has been said, in the last eight years or so the Taliban/Al-Queda have completely decentralized and things have massively deteriorated to the point that it'll be next to impossible to accomplish anything without getting neck deep in quagmire. Not to mention the very, very scary spillover into Pakistan.
Did any of them try working with the locals (as we are) rather than trying the brute-force method?
I don't know, man. That seems almost as removed from an actual existential threat as Saddam Hussein's desire to build WMD's. And if this is our justification for invading and occupying, that's still pre-emptive; we're still in the Bush Doctrine.
And while I certainly agree that we should do everything we can to shore up the stability of Afghanistan and Pakistan, aren't the drone attacks and, you know, an active war rather counterproductive to that? As I said in my OP, why is this a war? And how do we win it? I still haven't really seen much of an answer.
Hopefully we can come to some type of meaningful partnership with them soon.
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The concept of war has completely changed since World War II, where victory was defined as unconditional surrender after a war of attrition. We don't fight wars of attrition anymore. And we are increasingly "at war" with vaguely defined ideas or political ideologies, rather than actual sovereign governments—in other words, wars that cannot actually be "won" in any meaningful sense.
And yet, we still use extremely lethal methods of attrition warfare: fighter planes dropping giant bombs, tanks that can blow up buildings, marines armed with weapons that make it impossible to avoid killing huge numbers of civilians. When has this ever worked since WW2?
They made the same sort of claims. That they needed to train Afghan police to take over their own security. That they would leave as soon as the situation stabilized (although they had to bring in more troops to do this). So they gave Afghan police and military weapons and training and information, even though they knew that the people they were training couldn't truly be trusted. The enemies were terrorists, remnants, dead-enders. The communist regime had allowed the education of women and girls; the Soviets tried to maintain this while the mujihadeen burned down the offending schools.
Its all the same rhetoric; Afghanistan doesn't seem to like the US and more than the Soviets.
Aren't they helping the poppy farmers get new crops started?
Mission accomplished
Yes, but very few crops grow as well in Afghanistan or sell for the exuberant profits that opium does.
In the interim, destroying the crops that sell well enough to keep the farmers alive before you manage to get them sustainably setup on alternative, non-opium crops is probably not the best solution for helping people.
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We call this "asymmetric warfare," but I wonder if calling it "warfare" is part of the problem. Because ideally, asymmetric warfare should not look like warfare. Fighting in civilian centers should not involve bombs dropped from airplanes. It should look a lot more like, for example, FBI raids on mafia hideouts.
Al Qaeda trained, planted, and supported the cell that carried out 9/11. Al Qaeda hid in Afghanistan, aided and abetted by the Taliban (who were no saints themselves). So the war in Afghanistan made sense provided we had constrained ourselves to Afghanistan and focused our efforts on stabilizing the country and hunting down Al Qaeda. Of course, we didn't do that but theoretically, the war was justified.
The Taliban and other extremist groups are not a hypothetical threat. They are powerful and not relegated solely to the fringe. Remember that many, if not most, Pakistanis support Al Qaeda's attacks against the US. This is not to say they want the Taliban to rule their country, the vast majority do not. But they have no love for us.
The Taliban is making significant inroads into areas like southern Punjab. Nicholas Kristof had a good op-ed about this today. The Pakistani government needs our help but doesn't like to admit it. They have been, thus far, unable to mount any coherent response. This is probably due largely to corruption and inefficiency, but also because many Pakistani soldiers support the Taliban. They haven't given us the ability to do anything more than drone attacks, so we do what we can.
The best way to stabilize Afghanistan is to continue to build civil society and the economy while protecting it from militants. Also, we need to keep building schools because the Afghanis, particularly the women, are desperate to educate themselves. Eventually, Afghanis will reject the Taliban, especially when we can provide them with a better future.
Most definitely.
With regards to going to a police action standing, my understanding is that (correct me if I'm wrong) treating the situation as a war means an interest in holding territory, eliminating enemies, and then ensuring that those people who weren't culpable in the war still have a place to live. A police action would focus on maintaining security in certain set areas while tracking perpetrators and collecting evidence--it's not about "let's take the fight to Johnny Afghan" anymore, but rather tracking guys on the streets and tracing the lines back to the guys who are setting up IEDs, etc. More Law and Order, less Saving Private Ryan.
The Bush policy was definitely one of trying to hold territory and shoot bad guys, and it wasn't working. I'm hoping Obama wants to go to a standing where we try to stop the drug trade from financing what's left of the Taliban. (One thing I suggested trying in my report was the US seizing any poppies we find, refining them into medicines, and then distributing back into Afghan healthcare.)
This also gets into the thorny issue of agricultural subsidies. Many governments subsidize their agriculture heavily, leading to artificially low prices. A developing nation like Afghanistan cannot afford these subsidies so their crops cost more on the open market and do badly.
Just getting crops started and giving them farm equipment isn't enough. This is a structural issue where domestic and foreign policy meet.
Nitpicky, but no, we really, really don't have to keep building stuff, as stuff without the supporting education system are just 4 walls and a roof.
Also, the implication that only we can help them out of their situation or they'll be grateful for our help is not terribly supported by current sentiments in LDCs, given that they'd rather have the help (since we have a responsibility given the DC's past treatment of LDCs) but also the recognition that they need to develop themselves. Afghanistan is a slightly different case given the initial non-development reasoning for going in there, but from a development perspective we're never (or shouldn't) going to build their civil society or economy for them. We'll get them to the point that they have the help they need to build their own civil society/economy and then (hopefully) leave while continuing to provide support.
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[5e] Dural Melairkyn - AC 18 | HP 40 | Melee +5/1d8+3 | Spell +4/DC 12
2. If many Pakistanis support the Taliban, how is our war justified? That seems even more like justifying Vietnam. And I thought we liberals had an understanding that you don't go to war just to "liberate" people from despots.
DC agriculture subsidies is amazingly retarded, though sadly I don't think they're ever going to be resolved soon. The best for Afghanistan I think we're going to result in is a combined effort of continuing poppy production for legitimate opium usages while also subsidizing the production of non-opiate crops such that eventually there'll be enough of an agricultural infrastructure that it becomes self-sustaining enough, even with the DC-LDC issues.
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[5e] Dural Melairkyn - AC 18 | HP 40 | Melee +5/1d8+3 | Spell +4/DC 12
Afghanistan could join Turkey as a prime manufacturer of legal poppy for opiate-based medicines. Its supply would lower the global price, opening up new medicinal possibilities in the entire Developing World.
Are you talking about Afghanistan or Pakistan here? Because we're doing a lot more in Afghanistan than drone attacks. We've developed significant relationships with certain segments of the Afghani population, particularly women.
@Aegis: That is nitpicky since we're essentially agreeing. We can't do it for them but we can provide infrastructure, funding, and defense until they are able to take it over for themselves. We give technical expertise and training along with the funds to utilize that training; they take care of the rest. We train and supply their police force and army, then they take over defending their nation. The ultimate goal is, as you said, leaving and providing support when asked.
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[5e] Dural Melairkyn - AC 18 | HP 40 | Melee +5/1d8+3 | Spell +4/DC 12
Yes. More particularly Pakistan, because whether or not the USAF possesses the authority under international law to carry out strikes inside Pakistan is still a rather unanswered question.
I realize the United States military has a pretty extensive economic development/PR mission, and I'm all for building up schools and the like. However, if they're handing out textbooks in one village, and the next spot over they're dropping laser-guide munitions on family houses, well, that's a silly way to make friends.
This is all true, but it's also conceptual. A stable Af-Pak is necessary for security reasons. So how do we stabilize it? Right now our strategy appears to be "by killing people that cause trouble." The problem is we do so indiscriminately without attacking the root of the problem (lack of socio-economic infrastructure and growing anti-Western sentiment that is rooted in our very presence there). It's a lot like getting stung by bees then hitting the bee hive in response.
Part of me thinks we should just GTFO and that its hopeless without a strong enough movement coming from the people who live in those regions. I often just don't know what we should do.
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