I don’t think Hamid Karzai is a terrible guy. I just think he’s incapable of governing Afghanistan. What I don’t understand is why we would think we can succeed where he has failed. He gets his hands dirty trying, because you have to get your hands dirty if you want to make a sincere effort to govern Afghanistan. But, why would we want to get our hands dirty? Recent intelligence reports suggest that the majority of insurgents in Afghanistan are more motivated by simple avarice and xenophobia than any religious fundamentalism. Ironically, this leads to non-sequiturs like this:
Indeed, the intelligence reports say the Taliban movement that harbored the Al Qaeda terrorist network before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks is responsible for only a small share of the rising attacks – mostly in southern Afghanistan, according to the officials…
…It…raises prospects for reconciliation with some of them. For example, two major insurgent groups are believed to have allied with the Taliban to protect their sphere of influence, not to wage a holy war against the West.
And, similarly, this:
US commanders and politicians often loosely refer to the enemy as the Taliban or Al Qaeda, giving rise to the image of holy warriors seeking to spread a fundamentalist form of Islam. But the mostly ethnic Pashtun fighters are often deeply connected by family and social ties to the valleys and mountains where they are fighting, and they see themselves as opposing the United States because it is an occupying power, the officials and analysts said.
The nonreligious motivations give American war planners some hope that they can reduce the power of these militias, and perhaps even co-opt their support with a new set of strategies and incentives.
There are a couple of obvious problems with this logic. First of all, the fact that the majority of these soldiers are not religiously motivated means that they represent much less of a threat to us than we might imagine. It also means that a collapse of the central government in Kabul doesn’t automatically augur a return of Taliban rule or renewed safe-harbors for al-Qaeda training camps. The latter concern is definitely heightened in any situation where Afghanistan returns to a completely failed state. But there are ways for us to manage that threat short of garrisoning the whole country. Another problem is that determining that the real issue is avarice and xenophobia opens up a irresolvable can of worms. Our presence, then, is the biggest problem, and the only solution is to become the most effective paymaster/sugar daddy. If Karzai’s government is only corrupt because corruption is the only effective means of control, then we stand to corrupt ourselves by taking more responsibility for maintaining order. With the world’s biggest opium trade, it’s inevitable that we’d become compromised in some very nasty business. In fact, we already have been embarrassed, with a recent front-page New York Times article alleging that Karzai’s brother is an opium kingpin who has been on the CIA payroll for years. If the game is to be the one throwing around the most cash, eschewing any dealings with the opium trade seems like a losing proposition.
Perhaps the problem in Afghanistan is cultural and structural. It seems that there is something about the place that precludes anyone, Afghan or not, for exercising central control. If every mountain valley expresses its own form of xenophobia, there really isn’t a national Afghan identity. Sometimes it seems like even terms like Pashtun or Tajik are too broad to really express the kind of cellular and tribal reality on the ground.
The international community does have an interest in preventing Afghanistan from returning to the kind of unremitting civil war it endured once the Soviets invaded in 1979. There is an humanitarian interest, if nothing else. But there must be ways to help Afghanistan other than increasing our failed effort to prop up a failed government there.
I think Barack Obama is thinking along these same lines, but I get the feeling that he isn’t getting the right advice. There’s a certain inertia that sets in in our national security apparatus that makes radical change difficult. And, frankly, our national security apparatus has been lying to us for so long that it is difficult for them to stop on a dime and say, like Emily Litella, “Oh, those Taliban? Never mind.”
But, perhaps, that is what it is time to do. Maybe Obama has to give a speech where he explains that we’ve been misled about the threat from the Taliban and the nature of the insurgency in Afghanistan. Maybe he needs to reset the bullshit and stop catapulting the propaganda. We do have concerns about what is going on in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Let’s try being honest about that. Maybe then we can have a better discussion about our options.
Let’s now sit around a have a discussion about what is ‘best’ for the Afgans.
Just like the British used to do in the 19th century. You know those days, when ‘the sun never set on the British empire’.
nalbar
i think we Americans are still in love with the idea that we’re a force for good everywhere we are in the world. It’s obvious that we are the destabilizing element in Afghanistan. Our very presence radicalizes the population.
I’ve been reading Jungle of Snakes, by James Arnold, which covers counterinsurgency efforts by Western powers in the Phillipines, Malaya, Algeria, and Vietnam. The McKinley administration focused on building infrastructure and figured that the Filipino insurgents would wake up shortly and be grateful for our benevolence. We never learn. I wonder if the DOD is paying any attention to the 10 years the Soviets spent mired in Afghanistan. If so, I’m not seeing it in current analysis.
From the point of view of national security, the two biggest issues are the narrative with which we leave and the negotiations that provide our soldiers safe passage out of the country. The Iraq Status of Forces Agreement did both in the case of Iraq, and it now seems that our military there have gotten clear orders from their commander-in-chief to not dally around or whack hornets nests.
Karzai by himself does not have the legitimacy after the stolen election to help our narrative, but a national unity government would, even if it were Karzai, Abdullah, Hikmatyar an a small number of different Taliban groups. These groups can then begin discussing the future of the central government in Afghanistan.
The plan that McChrystal has already put forward for concentrating troops in population centers is an reasonable intermediate step towards withdrawal. Having safe passage to move these troops and equipment to Bagram for the flight out and a timeline with a date certain is the missing piece.
Thereafter the problem is to make sure that no unhappy political party seeks to prolong our stay there through attacks on civilians or on US troops. The secret to this is to avoid being baited.
That done, the other task is to reorient the defense against al Quaeda by, wait for it, moving to an international law enforcement strategy.
Finally, at some point there needs to be some consideration of rolling back the PATRIOT ACT and other compromises of civil liberties.
“Serious” discourse treats objective discussion of the facts in Afghanistan as tantamount to treason. It’s been pretty well established that to establish his national security bona fides a president must bombard, invade, or occupy another country. My impression is that the national political media only cares about Afghanistan to the extent that whatever happens there makes Obama look bad. Since our discourse treats withdrawal without a chimerical “victory” as weakness, the executive has little to gain from such a course, except doing what is right and pleasing the DFHs.
On a related note, the first 10 months of Obama’s presidency have shown that the most powerful forces in the world are the finance industry and the health care industry. There’s every reason to believe the military-industrial complex will soon claim it’s pound of flesh and take it’s rightful place in the triumvirate of empire. I will be astonished if Obama does not increase troops, even if he just maintains the status quo.
it’s not a country; it’s a bunch of tribes on a landmass. nothing wrong with that, but let’s not call it something other than what it is. We cannot ‘nation build’ here. We need to leave it alone; whatever possible ‘ win’ was blown in the 7 years it was ignored.
Self determination is what is best for the Afghans. That means getting out. We have already lost the war. It is just a question of how long and how much we want to suffer before we realize this.
Self determiantion will also likely not result in something we like. That however is something we will have to live with as we neded up being seen an occupying force of invaders. One day we will learn the lessons of this approach but not soon. In the long run it i salways better to let countries determine how they want to operate theirselves and then form relationships with them, or not if the system is too obnoxious. Tryuing to influence internal affairs especially by military action is nearly always counter producitve to even our own national interests and especially to the interests of our people. However, dont expect such enlightenment to occur any time soon.
Given the current status of the American dollar and the over extension of the American military, President Obama better not dilly dally too long over his Afghanistan imbroglio. This is the stuff of which declining empires are made. Repeating the Vietnam disaster and letting the financial and pharmaceutical companies have their way may be the fastest way to stifle the American way of life. Just think, Obama could become a one term president followed by the likes of Palin and Huckleby. In that event, I don’t think foreign policy would be our biggest concern. Tea bag policies at the national level with a pissed off population becoming ever more fragmented might well spell the beginning of the american armageddon.
Whom the Gods would destroy, they first make mad.
Uh… there will never be a better national discussion about anything so long as Americans are, and an aggregate, idiots.
How the US army protects its trucks – by paying the Taliban | World news | The Guardian
…and neither does anyone else.
Afghanistan is no different to Iran in this respect. To be nominally ‘Islamic’ is as necessary to power in Afghanistan as it is in Iran.
And power equates to money.
The last vestiges of religious control departed in June from Iran – which is no longer a theocracy – when power passed to what is essentially a nominally Islamic version of Russia’s ‘siloviki’ class. ie the IRGC, which is essentially making a hostile takeover.
The solution for the US IMHO in both countries is a new ‘bottom up’ approach to the economy. In fact, I think it is through engaging with Iran that a solution to Afghanistan may be found – after all it is Iran who has thousands of miles of border with Afghanistan, not the US.
What!!!???
What would he say if our president ‘s closest relative was a major drug kingpin?
Oh.
Wait a minute,
Bush II’s father (Bush I) was a major drug kingpin.
While he was still president!!! (You could look it up. Iran/Contra. Drugs for empire. Bet on it.)
Nevermind.
Your friend…
Emily Litella
P.S. This is an old, old act.
Good Cop, Bad Cop.
Inside guy, outside guy.
Criminal and respected figure.
Whitey Bulger (Boston Irish crime boss) and William Michael Bulger, a former President of the Massachusetts State Senate and the University of Massachusetts.
Vincent ‘Chin’ Gigante (NY Mafia crime boss) and his brother Reverend Louis Gigante, a (retired) Catholic priest, former Bronx city council member, the founder of the influential South East Bronx Community Organization (SEBCO), a Bronx community activist and tireless defender of the rights of slumlords.
But Karzai has taken it over the top.
Crooked as a snake with a broken back.
Bet on it.
Another in a long line of US-backed, CIA-created monsters who will turn on their masters as soon as it is practicable for them to do so.
And Booman says:
Deep.
AG
Seymour Hersh did an absolutely must-hear interview yesterday on Fresh Air.
He makes a good case that Pakistan, not Afghanstan, is the central theater of any struggle against Islamist terrorism. He starts out with a very credible and optimistic take on where Obama might be going regarding Afghanistan policy: