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You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / Settling for The “Half-Full Glass” in Afghanistan

Settling for The “Half-Full Glass” in Afghanistan

by Anne Laurie|  May 10, 20132:38 am| 28 Comments

This post is in: Foreign Affairs, Military

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The Marines are reputed to get stuck with all the lousiest jobs and least winnable battles, which some people might say is why one’s in charge of the U.S. forces in Afghanistan now. From the NYTimes:

KABUL, Afghanistan — Under Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the new commander of international forces here, the American-led military coalition is no longer aiming to change Afghanistan. Its focus now is on a far more narrow goal: readying Afghan forces to withstand the Taliban regardless of the country’s looming political and economic troubles.

The rest, he said in an interview, is up to the Afghans.

Perhaps unsurprisingly for someone who says he sees the glass as “half-full,” General Dunford laid out a case for why he believes Afghan forces will step up as the coalition’s long war here moves toward an official close.

He offered a far more positive take on the prospects for this country than many longtime Western officials here, and a less critical one than many of his predecessors had offered. They had emphasized that long-term stability would require faith in the Afghan government, which could be achieved only if the rampant corruption and widespread rights abuses were reined in.

In describing his goals for the Western military endgame in Afghanistan, General Dunford kept a tight focus on definable training and security benchmarks, leaving much of the politics out. He boiled it down to three fundamental questions: Will the Afghan troops be able to assume lead responsibility for military operations? Will the Afghan security forces be able to give security to the Afghan people nationwide for the presidential elections scheduled for next April? And, will the international troops be able to transfer all authority to the Afghans at the end of 2014, when the International Security Assistance Force mission ends?

“The answer is yes,” to all three questions, General Dunford said, even while readily noting that there was much work ahead to reach that level of readiness…

“Over time we’ll continue to see, in fits and starts, corruption,” he said. “We’ll still see predatory behavior, and the only way it’s going to be fixed is when the Afghan people demand that it be different and when Afghan leadership demands that it be different.” …

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Reader Interactions

28Comments

  1. 1.

    Ruckus

    May 10, 2013 at 3:06 am

    the only way it’s going to be fixed is when the Afghan people demand that it be different and when Afghan leadership demands that it be different.” …

    Finally, someone gets it. It’s their country and they run it like they want to, not how we think they should.

  2. 2.

    NotMax

    May 10, 2013 at 3:08 am

    Shorter version:

    So long, and thanks for all the fish kebabs.

  3. 3.

    ulee

    May 10, 2013 at 3:39 am

    I wish Biden was president. I think he would say that this is pointless bullshit. But Biden isn’t in charge and we need to work with Obama, and this guy is some pretty weak tea.

  4. 4.

    ulee

    May 10, 2013 at 3:44 am

    And I’m no Republican by a long shot, but I don’t want to hear about Michelle’s garden or Barack’s jump shot anymore. I want Americans to stop having their arms and legs blown off for nothing. If it’s so fucking important, start the draft. If not, bring these people home. Enough already.

  5. 5.

    ulee

    May 10, 2013 at 3:58 am

    And guns, guns, and more guns. More toddlers killing other toddlers because their parents are morons. I’m sick of this shit. Sorry to be so negative but this is just stupid shit. Obama should heed Ike’s warning. But he doesn’t. I shouldn’t be so angry about all this but it just doesn’t end. If George Carlin was alive and president none of this would be happening. Arrghhh. Angry. Fuck this military society.

  6. 6.

    ulee

    May 10, 2013 at 4:06 am

    But I do love my dogs, Joplin and Cassady(spelling right, named after Neal Cassady) but the rest of society can go fuck off…present company excluded.

  7. 7.

    Another Halocene Human

    May 10, 2013 at 4:15 am

    How is Obama supposed to do anything or your mythical Prez Biden? The sequester didn’t even lay a finger on that stupid, wasteful, yet untouchable F35 program. As for current engagements, like it or not, they’re going to leave on the timeline. That’s one thing Obama has kept his word on.

  8. 8.

    ulee

    May 10, 2013 at 4:16 am

    I know it’s late, but does the West Coast close at 1am? Whatever, Never Mind.

  9. 9.

    Another Halocene Human

    May 10, 2013 at 4:22 am

    Okay, now my cat is being an obnoxious bitch b/c I ejected her from my lap so I could go to work. Jeeezus.

  10. 10.

    ulee

    May 10, 2013 at 4:22 am

    @Another Halocene Human: Obama can do whatever he wants to. If he wanted to end the war he would end the war. Apparently, he does not. He also doesn’t want to close up Gitmo. The guy has been given an opportunity to genuinely change things and he doesn’t do it.
    My mythical prez Biden might have the guts to do something like close Gitmo. Obama does nothing. Nothing at all.

  11. 11.

    ulee

    May 10, 2013 at 4:33 am

    Obama is a tool. I hope he had a good time at the Correspondant’s dinner. I hope it was a hoot. Fuck him. End the war. Too bad Eugene McCarthy is dead. He might bring some truth to the conversation. Tired of you Obama apologists.

  12. 12.

    ? Martin

    May 10, 2013 at 4:45 am

    Ugh. Bed time. Nothing like a nice 18 hour work day.

  13. 13.

    ? Martin

    May 10, 2013 at 4:49 am

    @ulee:

    He also doesn’t want to close up Gitmo

    Yeah, because fuck that presidential order and those 98 senators that told him to go shove it up his ass. If you ain’t Stalin, you ain’t no good to liberals.

  14. 14.

    ulee

    May 10, 2013 at 4:56 am

    @? Martin: If Obama wanted to close Gitmo, he would say, it’s over. The president can do whatever he wants to these days. He can start wars, can end wars, and can certainly shutdown Gitmo. He doesn’t do it because…I don’t know, maybe he’s a political coward. I voted for him. I would again. But he is a coward.

  15. 15.

    David Koch

    May 10, 2013 at 5:15 am

    DougJ, you gotta make your parody trolling less obvious.

  16. 16.

    Villago Delenda Est

    May 10, 2013 at 5:43 am

    Can you say “Vietnamization” boys and girls?

    Surrrrrrre you can!

  17. 17.

    Schlemizel

    May 10, 2013 at 6:06 am

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Except that Afghanistan will not last as long as S. Viet Nam did after we pull out. All the money, all those young men and women all those loves we pissed away though incompetence, ignorance and hubris. All for nothing.

    And in 30 years we will hear how we coulda won it if not for those damn liberals. We can probably watch them make the same mistakes all over again too assuming we are still here

  18. 18.

    Suffern ACE

    May 10, 2013 at 6:26 am

    @Schlemizel: because we never clean our own damn house, unfortunately. I’m sure we’ll be hearing as well in 30 years that “Syria would be full of Happy Jeffersonian Yeoman Farmers right now if Obama hadnt squandered his opportunity.” It will be written by new up and coming pundit Richard Cohen IV.

  19. 19.

    JDM

    May 10, 2013 at 6:27 am

    @Villago Delenda Est: I was thinking the same; substitute “ARVN” for “Afghan” and I’m back in the 70s.

  20. 20.

    Cassidy

    May 10, 2013 at 7:43 am

    @ulee: Starting early or still drunk form last night?

  21. 21.

    lojasmo

    May 10, 2013 at 7:53 am

    @ulee:

    Willl you kindly drink bleach and securely fasten a garbage bag over your head?

  22. 22.

    El Cid

    May 10, 2013 at 8:01 am

    If the strategy ‘works’, it will likely leave the Afghan ‘security’ forces as the most coherent element of state power, so hopefully we can all act surprised and disappointed when it turns into a Pakistani-style military-run pseudo-democracy.

  23. 23.

    Omnes Omnibus

    May 10, 2013 at 9:02 am

    @ulee: One can’t simply apparate the troops home. The linked article is about the process of ending the fucking Afghan war.

  24. 24.

    DZ

    May 10, 2013 at 9:08 am

    I seem to remember that Vietnamization didn’t work the first time around.

  25. 25.

    Omnes Omnibus

    May 10, 2013 at 9:24 am

    @DZ: Leaving aside the differences between Vietnam and Afghanistan, what is happening in Afghanistan right now is that we are leaving.We might be trying to set things up so that “our guys” have a chance of winning, but that is about it.

  26. 26.

    JDM

    May 10, 2013 at 12:03 pm

    That’s exactly what Vietnamization was, a series of Friedman Units that it was said it would take until ARVN was ready to take over the fighting from us. In the end we just climbed into helicopters and got the hell out. ARVN was never ready. All the “ARVN will be ready in X months” stuff did was stretch the process out for additional years during which yet more people died.

  27. 27.

    Ted & Hellen

    May 10, 2013 at 1:18 pm

    @ulee:

    I wish Biden was president. I think he would say that this is pointless bullshit. But Biden isn’t in charge and we need to work with Obama, and this guy is some pretty weak tea

    You are a racist motherfucker.

  28. 28.

    Ted & Hellen

    May 10, 2013 at 1:20 pm

    @ulee:

    And I’m no Republican by a long shot, but I don’t want to hear about Michelle’s garden or Barack’s jump shot anymore. I want Americans to stop having their arms and legs blown off for nothing. If it’s so fucking important, start the draft. If not, bring these people home. Enough already.

    OMG. You are so full of racial hatred it is breath taking.

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