This is depressing:
CIA Director Leon Panetta said Sunday that the war in Afghanistan had “serious problems,” but the U.S.-led mission was making progress.
“It’s harder, it’s slower than I think anyone anticipated,” said Panetta, the nation’s top intelligence officer, in a rare media interview with the ABC program “This Week.”
He cited governance problems, drug trafficking and the Taliban insurgency — all in a tribal society — as the major challenges to the goal of “making sure al Qaeda never finds another safe haven from which to attack this country.”
“Winning in Afghanistan is having a country that is stable enough to ensure that there is no safe haven for al Qaeda or for a militant Taliban that welcomes al Qaeda,” Panetta said.
Ten years in, and our leadership can not provide concrete definitions of winning. Not that we are ever leaving, anyway:
The chairwoman of the Select Intelligence Committee said she is “absolutely” open to delaying the July 2011 date for a troop withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said on Fox News Sunday this morning that if Gen. David Petraeus wants more time in Afghanistan, she’d support him.
“I would say give it to him, absolutely,” she said. “Now, let’s talk about the deadline. This is a transition point toward the beginning of a withdrawal or a draw down, as Petraeus said in his transcript before the armed services.”
Heard a Lewis Black comedy routine yesterday where he stated that our two major political parties in the United States are like a bowl of shit staring at itself in the mirror. On many core issues, he is right.
Z
“It’s harder, it’s slower than I think anyone anticipated.”
Really, now?
Proposed revision:
“It’s harder, it’s slower than I think anyone not on the American left, which is typically completely correct about bumbling headlong with faux-patriotic ululations into these idiotic and intractable wars of conquest, anticipated.”
Just a suggestion, Mr. Director.
Hunter Gathers
We will throw Grandma out into the street, eliminate every social safety net program, eliminate the VA and Medicare, gut public education, and remove the ‘burden’ of taxes on the wealthy before we ever decide to scale back our War Machine.
Violet
No one could have anticipated.
Are these people for real? The left is never, EVER taken seriously, is it? Even when they’re correct time after time.
Mark S.
Isn’t it pretty clear that whatever al Qaeda leadership is left is in Pakistan?
Ahasuerus
So what would you consider a concrete definition of winning?
Seriously. I’m not trying to be snarky here, but Panetta’s statement seems concrete enough. It is coherent, it eschews the jingoistic vapidity of certain prior mission statements, and it could actually be measured by results. It might not be feasible, especially given Afghanistan’s historic role as the bane of empires, but it seems to fit the criteria of concreteness.
James E. Powell
Yes, the Great Glorious War on Terra will probably last forever.
Is there any reason to continue the occupations of Iraq or Afghanistan other than that have no desire to end them?
I am through blaming the corporations, the military, the corporate media, and the politicians for these nightmares. The American people support these nightmares because doing so makes them feel better about themselves.
If this had been going on for a year or two, I’d be more forgiving, but the willful ignorance is inexcusable.
Violet
@Ahasuerus:
What were the stated goals when we went there in the first place? Achieving those goals would be a start.
Hunter Gathers
@Ahasuerus:
Don’t you get it? There is no “winning” in Afghanistan. No foreign army has ever “won” in Afghanistan. Ever. Alexander the Great, the Mongols, The British Empire, and the Soviet Union have all tried to “win” in Afghanistan. ALL have failed. There’s a reason it’s called “The Graveyard Of Empires”. We lost over 8 years ago. But the so-called moderates, centrists, and ‘conservatives’ who control Congress can’t seem to get that through their pampered, cash-addled brains.
America! Fuck Yeah!
AnotherBruce
I’ll go with what Atrios said about this. “We will only leave after we’ve killed all the people that want us to leave.”
Brachiator
@Z:
The American left is like a stopped clock. Their permanent position is always simplistic “war is always bad” and “we must pull our troops out right away” without any other concern.
I think that the American military mission in Afghanistan is doomed to failure, but this does not make the potential threat of a resurgent Taliban go away.
@Mark S.:
This is not the only problem. Remember how we got here. The Taliban took power in Afghanistan and provided operating room and safe haven to bin Laden.
Linda Featheringill
@Ahasuerus:
“So what would you consider a concrete definition of winning?”
I am in favor of declaring victory and coming home.
Then we can hold a contest and award a prize to the finest piece of fiction that justifies our coming home.
Come on. You would support this idea, wouldn’t you?
JMY
SMH @ Feinstein. It’s time to start bring the troops home.
New Yorker
@Mark S.:
Yeah, what the hell does Al Qaeda need Afghanistan for when they’re set up shop quite nicely right across the border? Hell, they could probably move to Yemen or Somalia if need be.
I really don’t know what the point of staying there any longer is. Of course, I also don’t know what the point of our military presence in Germany and Japan is, either.
malraux
Is our presence in Afghanistan significantly hindering AQ’s ability to attack us? Given the number of body bags, I’d say that we are making their job much easier.
licensed to kill time
It really is depressing. I don’t see any outcome except the inevitable ‘declare victory and leave’ at some indeterminate point in the future. It’s really like Vietnam Redux in that sense.
If we had gone in and gotten bin Laden and then left it would have been a “good” outcome, but Bush fuxxored that along with every other damn thing he touched.
The War Machine never learns from past mistakes, just grinds on inexorably in the belief that this time it will be different. Anybody who watched what went on with the Soviets during their Excellent Adventure in Afghanistan could have foreseen this quagmire.
The U.S. didn’t pay attention to what the Chinese and the French had gone through in Vietnam, either. American Exceptionalism was going to win the day. And here we are again.
JMY
@New Yorker:
I never understood why we have so many military bases, but let a president try to close them and all hell will break loose.
Prairie Logic
True… but there’s quite a bit of difference between a nice well-shaped log (Dems); and full-blown wash the walls diarrhea (Repukes)
robertdsc
The Christmas & Times Square bombers show that denying Afghan territory is pointless.
Scamp Dog
@New Yorker: Well, the point of staying in Germany was (during the Cold War, anyway), to “keep the Americans in, the Germans down, and the Russians out”. The Germans can probably be trusted based on the last 65 years of history, and the Russians don’t have the economic muscle to field a NATO-threatening military anymore. So it’s really inertia at this point, but not in a very bad way.
Japan was the same story, without the pithy comment. Although the rest of Asia is probably still happy that we’re there, based on the behavior of the Japanese right.
The inertia keeping us in Afghanistan is more a matter of our current elite wanting to play their delusional game of “we’re the greatest generation, too! See, we’re going to make the world better by kicking ass!”
Svensker
@Brachiator:
Since we’ve tried everyone else’s “clock” and all it has done is get us into undeclared war after undeclared war for the last 60 years, perhaps it’s time to pay attention to us “simplistic” peacenik folks. Unless you consider Korea, Viet Nam, Iraq and Afghanistan to be raging successes.
Why is it “simplistic” not to go bomb people? But terribly “sophisticated” apparently to be militaristic? If we could answer that question then perhaps we could cure the sickness that is killing — or has already killed — America.
Svensker
@Prairie Logic:
Win. LOL.
Ruckus
@Ahasuerus:
So what would you consider a concrete definition of winning?
Getting our military the fuck out of both countries. SATSQ.
Getting our military and politicians off of a multiple war front ideology and into the concept of defense over offense. Someone won the cold war. I think it was us.
I don’t expect to see this in my lifetime. TPTB learned from Vietnam that to continue war as long as desired they must control the press. It seems that they may not control all of it, but enough of it to make it work. So until a majority of the people scream about the wars and the stupidity nothing will change. We may get less bombastic leaders like Obama, but policy will not change.
@Hunter Gathers: This.
Afghanistan was a failed effort before we went in. Nothing has or will change that except the Afghanistan people. Outside countries don’t change a country and it’s people, they conquer it or they lose the war. Those are the two possible outcomes. We lost in Vietnam and I don’t believe a large percentage of the ruling class have truly accepted this loss. They seem unaware that this is not
WWIItheir parents world any longer and are trying to show the world that we are The Superpower. The only thing that makes us a superpower any longer is the worlds most expensive military, and a willingness to use it.Phoenix Woman
@Brachiator:
And who financed the Taliban and bin Laden back in the 1980s, when they were helping to trash the Soviet economy? Why, we did! (See also: Operation Cyclone.)
By the way, Tapper’s question about the military use of drones in Iraq and Afghanistan leaves out the fact that they’re also being used in places like Somalia and Yemen — countries with whom we’re not supposed to be at war, last I looked. And soon we’ll get to see them used in the good old U.S. of A.
As for Panetta, he admitted recently that all of the past nine years’ worth of blood, toil and treasure have been spent on getting “50 to 100, maybe less” Al-Qaeda members. Think Progress did the math and found that we’ve got 1000 troops for each AQ member. Emptywheel did some more math and found that at $1 million a year for each US troop, we’re spending a billion dollars a year on trying to get each AQ member in Afghanistan.
I invite Brachiator to read up on OBL’s plan to take out America the same way he (with our help) used Afghanistan to take out the Soviet Union: Economically. So far, it’s working rather well.
Ruckus
@Prairie Logic:
One covers everything it touches in shit and the other one you have to step in during the night.
Phoenix Woman
@Ruckus:
The way to deal with AQ was the way Clinton dealt with the first group of people who tried to blow up the WTC: By treating it not as an act of war and an excuse to invoke the Ledeen Doctrine, but as a criminal act. Less than a year later, and with the help of a lot of nations who now are no longer friendly towards us because of Iraq and Afghanistan, all the perps were tracked down.
Joseph Nobles
We are there to prevent a new Persian Empire grabbing the old Ottoman Empire with nuclear weapons. We keep the region divided by both propping up our buddies and with our presence, we make sure oil keeps flowing without funding Iranian ambitions, and we try not to blow the damned place up.
At least that’s what I see. YMMV.
Brien Jackson
@Violet:
At the very least, let’s be honest; the overwhelming majority of the country, left and right, supported military action in Afghanistan.
Brien Jackson
@Joseph Nobles:
I think the more likely scenario is that we’re afraid that, in the absence of a US presence, the situation will deteriorate into a battle for influene in the country between India and Pakistan, possibly even a full blown proxy war.
kdaug
Psst… “al Qaeda” is in Yemen….
GO!
Corner Stone
@Brachiator:
Shit. This is pig fucking ignorant.
Without any other concern? Resurgent Taliban?
Are you a comic book character?
Corner Stone
@Joseph Nobles: There’s a Persian Empire?
Corner Stone
@Svensker:
Because that makes you a foreign policy naif. And a Very unSerious Person.
Ruckus
@Phoenix Woman:
Exactly.
Not everything needs to be a war. In my short little life (list probably not complete):
Korean War actually never concluded just in a standoff
Cuban crisis how close to nuclear war?
Vietnam we lost
War on poverty we lost
War on drugs we lost the war, the police state won the game
Granada WTF
Gulf war actually don’t think this was all that wrong
Irag WTF we lost before we went in
Afghanistan WTF we lost before we went in
How many of these would have had better outcomes if not treated as wars?
Violet
@Brien Jackson:
This is true, although military action and a long, drawn out war are not necessarily the same thing.
matoko_chan
Cole, it is ending.
Membah what Petraeus did.
He magicked up a smokescreen for the US to gtfo of Iraq.
That is all COIN is….graceful degredation of service and plausible denial.
COIN doesn’t actually work. It CAN’T.
A third grader can tell it can’t work.
For every baddie terminated, at least two networks get influenced….one social network and one blood kinship network. Injustice propagates as influence over both networks. So for every baddie that gets whacked, SNT creates 2x >1 influence nodes.
McC announced that the mini-surge is FAIL.
Petraeus is coming to shepherd the mini-surge so we can GTFO.
with honor, lol.
Zuzu's Petals
OT, but Sen. Byrd is hospitalized in serious condition, according to CNN.
JAHILL10
I know it hasn’t gotten much attention, but we ARE actually drawing down troops in Iraq according to the SOFA. How many troops will stay after the main force has left is still being worked out, but I think the Obama administration has made it pretty clear they are not interested in an endless occupation. So when you lump AfPak and Iraq in together as the never-ending, just like Vietnam category, you’re sort of ignoring some factoids.
Corner Stone
@JAHILL10: We still have 90K troops there, and we’re the only country incountry, IIRC.
They aren’t the same, by any stretch. But when we gtfo of Iraq you let me know.
Joseph Nobles
@Brien Jackson: I plead victim of U.S. media. Afghanistan is never framed in an Indian-Pakistani context here. All I see is our forces surrounding Iran as much as possible. I’m sure that’s part of it, but strait-jacketing Iran is the U.S.’s main objective long-run. I’d be willing to see India-Pakistan as a close second, though.
@Corner Stone: Well, no, but if a nuclear Iran gained prominence in the borders of the old Ottoman Empire, it would be.
Hiram Taine
Back in 2001 I got kicked off one of the premier amateur astronomy websites in the world for expressing the opinion that invading Afghanistan would turn out to be a disaster of epic proportions for America, citing the Soviet experience in that country and pointing out our much longer supply lines and logistic tail. I made the mistake of thinking that astronomers could take the long view of things and waded into an off topic discussion wherein some people were quite literally and seriously advocating nuking Mecca. The nuke advocates? They’re still there the last time I checked. Those who expressed misgivings? All gone in a matter of just a few weeks.
That was the atmosphere in the USA in 2001, now it’s hard to find anyone who will admit to have been an enthusiastic supporter of invasion.
Success has a thousand fathers, failure is an orphan.
Mark Twain wrote The War Prayer but would not allow it to be published until after his death, he knew how people would react to it.
It will happen the next time the exact same way, people never learn from the mistakes of others and only seldom from their own.
Uloborus
@Brachiator:
I don’t have time to read further than this right now, but… I absolutely and utterly agree. On both sides. It might not be worth the pain, but yeah, there was a threat there. Of course, then we threw George ‘Pooch Screwer’ Bush at it.
And honestly, I thought she laid out our goals just fine. Create a nation capable of policing itself that isn’t actively supporting and encouraging Al Qaeda, like the Taliban did.
Whether that can be DONE is another question.
Corner Stone
@Joseph Nobles:
Gained prominence with who? Where?
Call me a naif, or any other thing you like. But I’m not frightened by a nuclear armed Iran. Or a potentially armed Iran.
Who would be their allies? Syria? Cuba? North Korea?
I’m just stunned anyone could lose sleep over this.
Citizen Alan
Far be it from me to disagree with Lewis Black, particularly in light of my vigorous complaints about Obama’s moral cowardice in matters of civil rights and in how the wars have been prosecuted, but even now, the idea that the Democrats and Republicans are the same is ridiculous. I fully believe that, despite all the Obama cheerleading to be heard here and elsewhere, that by the end of 2016, we will troops in Afghanistan at our current levels and troops in Iraq near our current levels. Despite that, I still support Obama over any Republican because the next Republican president, whoever he or she is, will find some pretext to invade and occupy Iran. If that psychopath McCain had won, we would be bombing Iran right this second.
The Dangerman
To be fair, the vast majority of those years were wasted under the “outstanding” leadership of Shrub, who took his Oedipus complex and our military on an adventure in Iraq instead of solving the riddle that is Afghanistan.
I don’t have a feel for how long it will take or what victory will look like, but I have to put some level of trust in Obama to lead us there. If we withdraw, the Right will shout “surrender monkey” to the rooftops and, with a poorly timed terrorist event, we’ll end up with President Palin.
Afghanistan is just another in a long line of the gift that keeps on giving (the Bush Administration); the economy, the BP disaster, and so much more was their going away presents. Clinton only had the W’s removed from the keyboards (yes, I know that is a myth).
JAHILL10
“Last February, President Obama told troops at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, that he planned to remove combat brigades from Iraq by the end of this summer.
“Let me say this as plainly as I can: by August 31, 2010, our combat mission in Iraq will end,” he said.
The president said up to 50,000 troops would remain in a non-combat capacity after the deadline. All troops, he added, would be out of the country by the end of 2011.
The U.S. military has roughly 94,000 in Iraq now; to meet the president’s deadline, it must thus cut that number nearly in half by the end of August….
“They may be cutting it close in terms of a cut-off point where meeting the deadline becomes unfeasible from a technical perspective, but I haven’t seen anything to make me think that they would be missing the deadline,” military affairs researcher Peter Juul said.”
It may not be speedy, but it is happening.
inkadu
The real struggle in Afghanistan is between the United States and the Karzai regime. The Taliban is going to win back the country. That much is clear. But they won’t win until the United States chooses to leave. And the only thing that will precipitate a rapid withdrawal is a full-scale collapse of the government, which may happen on it’s own, or after the US tries to replace Karzai.
The parallels between this and Vietnam are creepy. United States military trying to keep a local population loyal to a corrupt government while the local rebellion has free reign of the territory and can kill whomever they want while a third country serves as a base of operations for the guerillas.
As Firesign Theater taught us, “Let us not forget the lesson of Vietnam: Never go to war in Vietnam.”
Nick
@Ahasuerus:
There is no winning, you can’t win this war, but admitting it is political suicide.
The fact is, this is why I’m not a populist, Americans may oppose the war now, but if we pull out and we get attacked (which would likely happen Afghanistan or not), the people will forget they opposed the war and punished the people who listened to them.
I hate populism because populism doesn’t provide cover to those who act when the people may be wrong.
schrodinger's cat
@Brien Jackson: Since when has the US been concerned by war between India and Pakistan, there have already been 3 wars between the two countries, 4 if you count Kargil.
Brien Jackson
@schrodinger’s cat:
Pretty sure we don’t want escalating conflict between two nuclear armed states. Seems fairly obvious to me, in fact.
kdaug
@Svensker: See Ike re: military-industrial complex.
SATSQ.
Corner Stone
@JAHILL10:
Ok. Even that very tame goal means 40K troops out in 60 days.
Let’s put up a marker. I’m saying we’ll have 80K+ still incountry by Sept 1.
And as many or more when the end of 2011 comes round.
Tonal Crow
This goal is unattainable, as terrorists can use any country as a “safe haven”. Anyone who read the 9/11 Commission’s report knows that the 9/11 hijackers did much of their planning and preparation in Germany and right here in the good ol’ USA.
I don’t see how our war in Afghanistan improves our security. For example, I don’t see how it impedes Islamists from obtaining Pakistani nukes.
I do see a possible humanitarian angle in attempting to stomp out the Taliban, but I’m unsure that we’re really accomplishing that. And humanitarianism wasn’t the goal of the 9/11 AUMF, so it’s not even authorized, assuming (dubiously) that the AUMF is itself Constitutional.
What a piece of Blue Dog-style GOPage this war has become.
Silver Owl
If America keeps wiping out our young in wars we are only going to be left ugly ignorant arrogant infantile overly needy old white men.
Every time I see some nut job say anything about fighting for “our children” I merely look at the number of young American family lines this generation has wiped out permanently. We’re talking long term suicide run.
New Yorker
@Scamp Dog:
Uh, it’s bad when it’s money spent pointlessly when we’re dealing with problematic budget deficits. I know that the GOP wasn’t acting in good faith when they torpedoed the unemployment bill this week, but how about cutting our military presence where it is no longer needed to free up the cash to help states in budget crises and people put food on the table?
Yes, Germany and Japan were once aggressive imperialist powers. So was Sweden, at one time. Spain was once the world’s greatest superpower. Greece was once the center of the most advanced thought in the western world. Times change.
Brachiator
@Corner Stone:
You and I have been over this before. You got anything besides snark?
@Svensker:
Nope. But do you really consider South Korea to be a blunder?
Problem is, so-called peaceniks don’t really give a crap about peace, and honestly can’t say that they are against killing. American peaceniks are just against the US doing the killing. Many in the American left are no better than isolationist libertarians. The world can burn as long as it never shows up on your TV screens or computer monitors.
And I never, ever said that a military response was “sophisticated.” I said that some of the problems that led us to go into Afghanistan in the first place will not disappear if US troops withdraw. No one has seriously disputed this or offered any alternatives, apart from the typical “Getting our military the fuck out of both countries.”
How was this supposed to work with Al Qaeda in Afghanistan? We asked the ruling Taliban to give up bin Laden and they told us to go pound sand.
Hunter Gathers
@Nick:
Depends on who is in charge at the time. If it’s a Dem, the right wing and their media enablers will yell and scream for impeachment. If it’s a GOPer, the right wing and their media enablers will convince the public to surrender what’s left of their rights, submit to body cavity searches whenever you get on an airplane or any other mass transit system, and, just for good measure, start more wars in the middle east. If they play their cards right, they might be able to start a Muslim genocide project.
Keith G
@Uloborus:
It can’t.
Nick
@Corner Stone: My neighbor and good friend deployed to Iraq a few months ago and is due home early 2011. His mission is pulling troops and supplies out of Iraq and into Kuwait and Qatar.
You’re right in that our numbers IN THE REGION will continue to be high, but the troops inside the country of Iraq itself will and are dropping precipetiously.
I often exchange emails with him…Those 40k troops will be out by Sept 1. In fact many of them are already out.
Svensker
@Brachiator:
Which strawman are you battling here? I lost track.
Laertes
@Brachiator:
There’s nothing uniquely anti-war about the American left. The only reason the lefties are anti-war is that the righties dominate the national security apparatus. Back when we had a Democrat president agitating for war against states that were run by rightists, the American Left was positively bloodthirsty and the rightists suddenly discovered the virtues of isolationism.
Nick
@Hunter Gathers: Well of course, because if it’s a Republican, he’ll say “See, this is why we shouldn’t have pulled out. Because Obama bent to pressure from lily-livered liberals, we got attacked. You should’ve listened to us Republicans.”
If it’s Obama or a Dem, they’ll have to defend the decision to pull out in the wake of the attack and try to convice the public pulling out of Afghanistan had nothing to do with the attack. And let’s face it, the media isn’t going to let him or any Dem do it.
joe from Lowell
How is this not a concrete definition of winning?
schrodinger's cat
@Brien Jackson: I don’t see how staying in Afghanistan helps ease tensions between India and Pakistan. I would argue that US military presence makes the whole region more volatile than it already was.
BTD
How very Nader of you John. Where did Rahm touch you?
Seriously, good to see unvarnished opinions.
I think you are wrong on Afghanistan however and Obama, Rahm, Panetta et al are right.
Corner Stone
@BTD:
Right about what?
srv
With Patreaus out of any 2012 contention now, I suggest the President go on TV and make a public statement that what we really need in Afghanistan is a proven leader with the right vision and announce that he will ask George W. to serve as viceroy of Afghanistan.
Nick
@joe from Lowell: It is. I don’t think the problem with Afghanistan is that we don’t have a goal, we do. (Unlike Iraq, where we had goals, acheived them and stayed anyway because our goals made life worse).
The problem is our concrete definition of winning in Afghanistan is unacheivable.
Corner Stone
@joe from Lowell:
Projected timeline for this “win”?
Corner Stone
@Nick: I hope for their sake, and their family’s sakes, that this is correct.
JAHILL10
@Corner Stone: Okay, and if there are five hundred more men than that in country on that date then Obama is a liar and the U.S. is determined to be at war in two countries forever and ever. Deal?
Jeesh! Some people can’t even take yes for an answer.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
@Brachiator:
“You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out. I know I had no hand in making this war, and I know I will make more sacrifices to-day than any of you to secure peace.” – Noted leftist W.T. Sherman
Corner Stone
@Brachiator:
Jesus Christ. Get lost in Vietnam Syndrome much?
We have to destroy Afghanistan to save it!
Hunter Gathers
@Nick: I’ve heard you claim that you work within the MSM. If so, how do you not tear your hair out on a daily basis? I bailed on the MSM myself about 8 years ago. Now all I have to show for it is a worthless degree.
Citizen Alan
@Laertes:
Are you referring to FDR? Because I can’t think of another president since then who has ever agitated for the removal of a right-wing dictatorship anywhere in the world. I guess Saddam if you want to count him as right-wing dictator. He was a dictator and he was also a creation of Reagan and Rumsfeld, so I guess that makes him a right-winger, but Clinton certainly never agitated for an invasion of Iraq and the Repukes attacked him viciously for his failure to do so.
numbskull
@Brachiator:
Possibly the least-true thing I’ve read all day. “The American left” was actually pretty gung-ho about WWII, pretty gung-ho about “peace keeping” in Serbia (and Croatia, and…), Somalia, and yes, the Middle East at one time.
So who is being simplistic?
Corner Stone
@JAHILL10: Let’s not be cross.
I’m suggesting there will be 80K +/- troops in Iraq come 9/1/2010.
What are you suggesting?
Brien Jackson
@schrodinger’s cat:
I have no idea what’s going on behind diplomatic scenes, but I’ve long found it plausible that our diplomats may have reason to think a proxy war could break out if US withdrawal leads to a power vacuum/civil war in the country. Again, I’ve got no basis to assert that that is, in fact, what’s going on, but it seems very possible to me, especially if it’s assumed that some sort of power struggle will take place.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
The only possible way this could have turned out as something like winning, or better termed a successful mission, would have been to hit the ground running with building vital infrastructure, such as schools, hospitals, roads, etc, and doing it quickly and without the massive distraction of Iraq. Or, IOW’s giving the Afghans something to fight for themselves. But that still wouldn’t have solved some other vital wild cards, such as viable leadership that could rally the non Taliban/Pashtun half of the country, and solving the fact that South eastern Afghanistan is really a separate country that is the traditional Pashtun tribal grounds that stretches also into Pakistan.
The only real leader that could have pulled it off, was assassinated the day before 9-11 by AQ, probly because he was such a threat as a leader. And I don’t think anyone has a solution for dealing with the Pashtunistan lands.
But letting the Taliban reconstitute itself as a fighting force and getting sucked into an insurgency war stalemate is where we ended up. And stalemates in those kinds of wars means the insurgents win. It is time to extricate ourselves from that quagmire, or get sucked in deeper. I don’t agree with leaving the region altogether, and giving AQ the time to relax, and get fat and happy. And then there is Pak and it’s nukes, and a very weak government.
Sloegin
Troops in Cuba: 1898-present (112 years)
Troops in the Philippines: 1898-1992 (94 years)
Troops in Germany and Japanese Territory: 1945-present (65 years)
Troops in some fucking sandbox: 1990-present
The Philippines is the only place we’ve more or less bugged out from in modern times, and it took Pinatubo to do it.
JAHILL10
@Corner Stone: I am suggesting the draw down is ongoing and progressive and at this point limited only by logistics not by political will.
What are you suggesting?
Or to put it another way: What good would it do Obama politically to renege on one of his key campaign promises — To get the hell out of Iraq by the end of his first term?
BTD
@Corner Stone:
How important it is and that we need to establish a situation where the Taliban and Al Qaida do not regain de facto control.
Of course the problem extends beyond Afghanistan and reaches into Pakistan. Indeed, the main problems are in Pakistan.
I think that McChrystal’s meltdown distracted from the fact that Obama has a comprehensive plan that can work.
The team is fractured and maybe more people need to go (Eikenberry and Holbrooke.) I dunno.
I trust Obama is on top of the situation and figuring out what is needed. We’ll know soon enough. Next year even.
GregB
Hunter S. Thompson’s 9/12 column still gives me chills:
“The towers are gone now, reduced to bloody rubble, along with all hopes for Peace in Our Time, in the United States or any other country. Make no mistake about it: We are At War now — with somebody — and we will stay At War with that mysterious Enemy for the rest of our lives.”
eric
@Brachiator: I was against it then because there was never going to be an exit. The whole thing will be like the trenches at Gallipoli. As soon as we leave, the Taliban will march right back in.
Why anyone thinks that the people will tolerate a American puppet regime is beyond me.
We should have used economic sticks and carrots, period.
eric
numbskull
@Sloegin: You forgot:
Troops in Korea: 1953-present (57 years)
joe from Lowell
Corner Stone,
What does that have to do with whether the definition is concrete? Did we have a “projected timeline” for the surrender of the Japanese Empire?
Jamie
Afghanistan is not the kind of thing you win. It’s just the matter of how much money you spend before you realize that.
joe from Lowell
Nick,
I’ll remind you that the Northern Alliance drove the Taliban from power, and our allies plus a few Special Forces eliminated the al Qaeda presence in Afghanistan, with only about 1000 of our troops on the ground, and some intel and air support, in 2001.
Bush didn’t hang around Afghanistan because we couldn’t achieve the goals of routing al Qaeda and driving the Taliban from power. Bush hung around Afghanistan for years because he was an imperialist, who wanted us to have a large troop presence in Afghanistan because he believed that occupying other countries, turning them into Warsaw Pact-style client states, and stationing troops there to project our power was a good idea.
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
Thanks for the quote.
Just asking.
Do you think we should be in Iraq and Afghanistan?
If so why?
If so do you think this is a military mission? Might there be another way to achieve the stated goal?
Is the stated goal of not having a safe haven for dissidents anywhere on the planet even an achievable goal?
Laertes
@Citizen Alan:
Yes. I’m sorry if that was unclear. I didn’t think I needed to spell it out.
Riggsveda
Cuz you know what? No war is a bad war.
Corner Stone
@joe from Lowell: goals vs capabilities. A definition is fine, and I applaud it. But that does not make it any more likely to see fruition.
And the existential threat of WWII does not compare.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@joe from Lowell:
I think this is likely true, but would add a domestic political reason as well. Bush and Rove remember well Bush Sr actually doing this sort of thing right, or different, and successfully and then withdrawing completely from Iraq in 91, and watched his sky high approval plummet afterward to reelection defeat in 92. The lizard brain remembers such things and acts accordingly to prevent a repeat.
inkadu
@Hiram Taine: I was reading a pagan forum at the time of Afghanistan, and one pagan was attempting to rally the group against the war because it was an extension of the Christian Crusades against the muslim non-christian brother.
I found that amusing.
I’ll admit to being for the war in Afghanistan. I was probably wrong. Or maybe we could have just beaten up the Taliban, Thomas Friedman-“Suck. On. This.”-style and got out. But by being for the war initially, I am a serious person, and therefore my opinion means more than yours.
Corner Stone
@Brachiator:
What else is there? Let’s hear your solution.
Corner Stone
@BTD:
And I’d like to establish a situation where Salma Hayek comes over tonight.
Both goals have about the same probabilities of success.
We can want things. We can want them with all of our hearts. We can wish upon that first star at night, or over a turkey wishbone, or when we’re sacrificing someone’s first born on the altar of Zarcon the Benevolent.
inkadu
@joe from Lowell: And you might as well add that your opinion of Bush’s motives for staying in Afghanistan were baldly admitted to in the “Project for a New American Century” papers.
Corner Stone
@inkadu:
This is true. What should we do now, O’ Seer of Foreign Policy?
Tell us, and we will obey.
Elie
@Brachiator:
Yes.
Short of invading Pakistan — impossible and not even remotely considered, squatting across the border in Afghanistan is the next best horrible option. (Brachiator I think you can see this so my comments are more to other comments on this string than you)
Oh, go home and fuggit about it some say…
I am not so certain that is without serious consequence to not only this country but the region.
1. What happens to the already unstable Pakistan with US leaving — what about al Qaeda and the Taliban… do you we think we can just ignore that, really? Some will argue that we are making Pakistan unstable. I don’t see that argument working. Do you think with the US leaving Pakistan would suddenly become a model, stable democracy that would not be staging new projects in India or Afghanistan?
2. India has nuclear capacity. If we follow Pakistan’s activities following a US departure, do you think they would be more or less likely to get into something with India. Do you think India might act preemptively? Hmmm —
3. What are the impacts on the United States of an unfettered Taliban and al Qaeda training ground? Hmmm, not to worry, right, being against war and for peace (who isnt?) just takes care of that.
Reality is not always in synch with what we can actually do.. we DO have interests, and they are not just petty or about “imperialism”…
inkadu
@Corner Stone: The solution is to pass the problem onto the next administration while going through the motions of making a serious and concerted effort in order to burnish your military cred.
“But, as it is, we have the wolf by the ear, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. “
– Thomas Jefferson
Corner Stone
@inkadu: As always, you are wise.
I humbly beg Zarcon to bestow her blessings upon you and your offspring so that they may serve Her well as we destroy the nonbelievers in the ME for the next 20 years.
Peter J
Soviet war in Afghanistan – 3341 days.
US war in Afghanistan – 3185 days and counting.
I wonder if there will be any celebrations on December 1st (day 3342), since we’re not close to beating the real record in the event.
Elie
Let me add this:
I think that our “mission” in Afghanistan cannot be stated as a goal for Afghanistan. We have a regional mission and also to stabilize Afghanistan only enough to not pester us to death while we are keeping an eye on Pakistan. Yes, we would like to do that with the least cost to us and the Afghanis as possible and that is what we are trying to figure out.
Our goal is to keep the lid on the pot in Pakistan till…whenever. Leaving that region without that and to the whims of India, Pakistan, al Qaeda and the Taliban is just not in the cards…
Those of you all hot to bring everyone home… do you spend any time thinking about Pakistan and what could happen (even with us there, but definitely without)? Seriously, you would not give it a thought?
Elie
@inkadu:
This exactly…minus your comment about burnishing military cred. I don’t think that this is about that at all. I believe that the threat is very real and not simple…
It would be nice to be clean and innocent in a complex world… wouldnt it be nice to be Canada — able to ride next to a powerful neighbor and keep their clean, nice guys cred…
Sometimes its a matter of do you want to pay up front or later as consequence? You may not have great control of the scope or nature of the pain up front, but you definitely do not have it in consequence…
Elie
@Peter J:
The Soviets were not interested in monitoring Pakistan.
We are in a hard situation, but a different reason.
JAHILL10
@Elie: This.
I know this is going to sound corny, but I don’t think it is any less realistic than the “If we pull out of AfPak instantly then everything will be okay” crowd…
…but I think Obama takes the CiC thing extremely seriously and is not interested in endless war, but he is also not interested in leaving al Qaeda in tact and ready to attack us again. (Given the fact that the last attack almost pushed this democracy into a fullblown military dictatorship, liberals should want to avoid that outcome also) I think he has a strategy in place to end our involvement there without leaving a bloody civil war in his wake. I think McCrystal wanted an open-ended, Vietnam-ish commitment and Karzai loved him for it because as long as the U.S. is there he stays in power. Obama wasn’t having any of it. McCrystal tried to go around him to the press and got ash canned for it.
As far as I’m concerned all this is a good sign for the peaceniks (myself included). Not only that Obama is not letting the Pentagon push him around, but that he is not interested in renegotiating the strategy surrounding our involvement and the end of our involvement in Afghanistan.
meepmeep09
I think of them as the Craven Sociopath Party (CSP=Dems) and Homicidal Psychopath Party (HPP=Repubs).
Enough CSP members sometimes gather to do the right thing, but so often… yup, it’s a lamentable choice between the two.
Ruckus
@Elie:
You are correct that we have interests all over the globe. Some places more interest than others.
But is the way to best look after those interests to act like an imperialist country? Because I believe that’s exactly how we look to almost everyone else in the world. It works as a policy as long as we are all willing to die for it and willing to kill for it. It works as a policy as long as we are willing to bankrupt both our country and ideals. Unless these are our ideals. At which point it stops working and looks like the stupidest policy. I think we have approached that point. I don’t have any answers but I see that what we have been doing does not work and it doesn’t sound like anyone is working on any other answers. I don’t know the nexus here but it for sure is not kill everyone, which Atrios pointed out comes to “We will only leave after we’ve killed all the people that want us to leave.”
I’m not trying to be an isolationist here like many were before WWI and II. But the world has somewhat grown up, (other than the religious nuts who want us to regress 2-3 thousand years) Maybe it’s time we applied some of that to our view of the world. The earths axis is not in DC.
PeakVT
Winning in Afghanistan is
having a country that is stable enough toensuring that there is no safe haven for al Qaedaor for a militant Taliban that welcomes al QaedaI think Panetta gave a pretty clear goal, but it is one that is impossible to achieve with the level of forces we are willing to commit. The goal should be scaled back to what can be achieved, which is keeping al Qaeda out.
Keith G
@Elie:
Connect the dots for me please, as I guess I am unduly thick this eve.
What are the things that are happening in Pak that will be made better with us in Afg?
If we are going to continue killing civilians willy-nilly in Afg and Pak…..well, morally what gives us that right?
Just Some Fuckhead
9/11 was planned and executed from Afghanistan, Qatar, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Yemen, Germany and the United States. Singling out Afghanistan for the eternal war against terrorism is retarded.
And Nick’s argument that we have to stay and destroy lives and property because his favorite politician might otherwise lose an election is sociopathic.
Corner Stone
@Elie:
Yep. I think about the ninjas all the time. The ninjas who are going to take control of Paki’s nukes.
Sometimes I think about investing in chinese throwing stars, but then I consider maybe blowgun darts or climbing claws would be a better plan.
IOW, we are going to stabilise Paki how exactly by our presence in Afghanistan and our drone attacks across the border?
Corner Stone
@JAHILL10:
***SPUTTER***
Corner Stone
@Elie:
Of course this is about Obama not being called a p_ssy. He knows very well what the story is.
JAHILL10
@Corner Stone: I figured you were sputtering since you never answered my question @ 80.
Joseph Nobles
@Corner Stone: I’m stunned you think I’m losing sleep over this. Perhaps I’m losing sleep over us being there for these reasons. Did you ever consider that possibility?
I was providing my understanding of the reasons why we’re in Afghanistan and Iraq. I don’t think describing them is an endorsement of them at all.
In the future, please display your paltry wit to someone who’s interested in indulging it.
BTD
@Corner Stone:
Well, you may be right.
I think we are in for the next year at least.
I think Obama’s team needs to show results by then. Otherwise the plan has to change.
That politics is clear on that score I think.
Corner Stone
@BTD:
Why? Because people like you will pressure the change?
No. There will always be a reason to continue our fight against Eastasia.
What seems reasonable now will be doctrine then.
Keith G
@BTD:
Is there a plan to create create out of thin air a broad based Afghanistan elite interested in eschewing ethnic parochialism and embracing open and, at least partially, honest government?
If all we are doing is supporting some unsavory folks hoping they magically get better…well…we are just killing a bunch of people for no good reason.
Corner Stone
@Joseph Nobles: Woops. I clicked the wrong reply. My bad.
Corner Stone
@JAHILL10:
I answered it @ 76:
“I’m suggesting there will be 80K +/- troops in Iraq come 9/1/2010.”
That was what I was suggesting. Clearly.
If you’d like to insult me I suggest you try harder. Or at least not ask questions that have already been answered.
Elie
@Corner Stone:
Oh gosh, Corner!
I did not say that our goal was to stabilize Pakistan (not in our control), but just to try to manage and keep a lid on the pot.. ONLY.
Yes, I am not stupid and understand completely that this is fraught with risk and probability for failure that results in attacks at home or upscale of problems between Pakistan and India, etc.
Also, this is not a personal thing. I laid out why I think we are there. You attack me, not the content of my justication, but that is what makes your comments weak.
You tell me why its ok to come home and ignore what is happening in that region and with Pakistan.
Then we can have a conversation that is about content and not who flung poo the best. I am not interested in that and that won’t help to understand the situation beyond the stupid slogans…
I think that you are smart enough to do that. So, do that.
Corner Stone
@Joseph Nobles: I have no idea what this reply means.
Elie
@Corner Stone:
No and Yes.
Obviously…our policy always has both political and real strategic considerations, n’est pas?
Being labeled a pussy is bad. Letting Pakistan turn into an unobserved and unconstrained training ground for al Qaeda or other similar interests, or a jumping off ground for a major and absolutely catastrophic regional conflic with India — is way worse than being pussy and not something I would think even YOU in that position would dismiss..
Corner Stone
@Elie: You’d like me to argue from a premise I do not believe is honest.
It’s clear you believe something can be accomplished by staying there, even the modest “keeping a lid on the pot”.
I do not believe that starting point, and will not give some BS rationalizations for continuing our military presence there.
If you think we can achieve something, or deny some bad actor something if we stay, then I disagree with your intentions and motivations.
Brachiator
@Svensker:
You evaded my questions. Was South Korea a blunder? What should our foreign policy be with respect to the region if we pulled troops out? Isolationism? Withdrawal of military aid from Pakistan? Should we try to broker a deal which includes the Taliban or simply leave the Afghans to their own devices?
@numbskull:
Times change. At one time, the left was willing to take to the streets, or even take up arms, as in the Spanish Civil War. Now, they blog. But yeah, the left still is not a monolith. I’m addressing the issues of one segment.
@Corner Stone:
I asked if you had anything other than snark. The answer is obviously NO.
I’ve written in threads that you have participated in that Bush/Cheney and the neocons got into Iraq because they wanted to re-fight Vietnam and show everyone how real men could achieve a victory. They were fools.
Afghanistan is not Vietnam. It may be worse in some ways.
@Ruckus:
Iraq? No, though I have to be honest and admit that I was briefly sucked into the Saddam is a threat BS (but not because of WMDs). But it wasn’t just the foolishness of the WMD phony chase, it was that everything about our Iraq policy could be shown to be a lie, and we didn’t install much of a democracy (though to be clear, the Iraqis have been trying to restore a stable civil society).
I’m much more conflicted about Afghanistan. I thought that it was worth the risk to oust the Taliban, but the Bush Administration did not seem to have a consistent Afghanistan policy and seemed to be content to let the region wallow while they concentrated on Iraq. And they consistently misread both Pakistan and Saudi Arabia (major meddlers in the region, much more so than Iran). I think that the Obama administration is trying, and I think that they will hold to beginning withdrawals in 2011 (they recognize the problems, but are weak on solutions). But I have noted here before that I don’t think much of their foreign policy efforts and think that they have some of the wrong people in place there. They still allow themselves to be played by Pakistan, whose government and intelligence services insist on double dealing.
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
Yes. People forget about the assassination of Ahmad Shah Massoud on September 9 by suspected AQ agents.
Corner Stone
@Elie:
And this isn’t true. I made fun of your supposed justification because it has about as much connection with reality as ninjas taking control of Paki’s nukes.
Your argument/justification doesn’t hold water, and isn’t a debate.
Corner Stone
@BTD:
When? In the next six months? The next crucial six months?
We’re 9 years into it man! C’mon!
ETA – and yes, I know you said the next year, But IMO it’s like saying a F.U.
Ruckus
@Keith G:
If all we are doing is supporting some unsavory folks hoping they magically get better…well…we are just killing a bunch of people for no good reason.
And this is the crux of the issue IMO.
The end result will not stop terrorism, change religious views, or make this country safer. The only things accomplished are more dead on all sides and an ever increasing police state here and around the world. I’ve heard it said that terrorists never win because the people they attack always attack back many times over. Maybe it’s time to look at what the complaints are and see if addressing some of them in some way actually might work. Because what we are doing does not work. Futile war is the stupidest kind of war. It’s in the description.
Elie
Of gosh again, Corner!
Honesty? My honesty? Please let me know what I am lying about? Are my views not true to what I believe? How could you know that and on what basis do you say that?
What part of the justification that I present is BS? That there is no concern about Pakistan? It is a stable actor in the region with no possible threat to other regional players or us? Really?
If I strain through your wording, you are disagreeing that we should have any concern at all about the intentions of the regional “actors”. My intentions and motivations have nothing to do with this. I am just stating my interpretation of the facts as I see them — I have no intention since I have no power or possibility of acting on any of this — only my opinions.
Please. You have a point of view. It obsiously cannot be questioned. So be it.
Have a great evening.
PS –If you can actually articulate why there is no danger in the currently very unstable Pakistan for us or other countries in the region, please state that and your evidence for that.
Elie
@Corner Stone:
Tell me why it “doesnt hold water” —
Stop avoiding. Give me a better response than “Because I say so”…
kdaug
@Brachiator: No, you lying sack of shit. The Taliban said they would release Bin Laden to a third party international authority – ie, the Hague.
There weren’t 3% of Americans willing to take them up on that deal, me included. We wanted his head.
Doesn’t give you the right to make up the history, though. I can prove it to you through the linky-links if you want, but quit spouting bullshit.
matoko_chan
People please think.
What did Petraeus do?
He got us out of Iraq.
That is ALL the “surge” did.
Now Obama is placing Petraeus in charge of the mini-surge, designed to get us out of the Graveyard of Empires.
All the kabuki is so Karzai doesn’t wet his pants and sell out to the Talis and the Warlords before we get away clean.
Corner Stone
@Elie: Stop your wanking. I said you wanted me to argue from a point I did not feel was honest.
You are free to believe all you like that somehow our presence in Iraq and Afghanistan does something to keep the region stable.
But I am not going to argue from that basis because I do not believe it to be true. We’re paying Pakistan to let us drone attack across their border. Their ruling military allows us to do this as long as we kill their enemies and pay them handsomely at the same time.
We’re not doing anything positive in the region.
Corner Stone
@Elie:
That is what you said. How much less water could this mindset hold?
Is this even achievable in our lifetimes?
srv
@Elie:
We’ve been through this all with you before. The onus should be on you to explain how random tribes today calling themselves the Pakistani Taliban are going to overthrow the 7th largest Army in the world. All while largely being puppets of the ISI, an institution of the Pakistani government.
We really need a term for these fantastical Pakistani thermonuclear scientist/ninjas you have invented in your mind. Maybe Talinukalope.
*please use as big a sandbox and as many GI joe sets as you require
Brachiator
@Ruckus:
A previous reply is stuck in moderation limbo. A second try here …
Iraq? No, though I have to be honest and admit that I was briefly sucked into the Saddam is a threat BS (but not because of WMDs). But it wasn’t just the foolishness of the WMD phony chase, it was that everything about our Iraq policy could be shown to be a lie, and we didn’t install much of a democracy (though to be clear, the Iraqis have been trying to restore a stable civil society).
I’m much more conflicted about Afghanistan. I thought that it was worth the risk to oust the Taliban, but the Bush Administration did not seem to have a consistent Afghanistan policy and seemed to be content to let the region wallow while they concentrated on Iraq. And they consistently misread both Pakistan and Saudi Arabia (major meddlers in the region, much more so than Iran). I think that the Obama administration is trying, and I think that they will hold to beginning withdrawals in 2011 (they recognize the problems, but are weak on solutions). But I have noted here before that I don’t think much of their foreign policy efforts and think that they have some of the wrong people in place there. They still allow themselves to be played by Pakistan, whose government and intelligence services insist on double dealing.
@Elie:
I think that India has been rational and expect them to continue to be so. They have refused to get excited over previous attempts to draw them into a bigger conflict with Pakistan. There are many in the Pakistan government who are equally cautious, but their efforts are undermined not just by radicals, but by others who foolishly believe that they can manage the Taliban and AQ.
@eric:
I totally agree that the people will not tolerate an American puppet. But the US might have been able to create some room for moderate leaders to emerge who did have the support of the people. The Kurds, for example, appear to be appreciative of American support.
On the other hand, economic carrots and sticks would have been useless with the Taliban. Just as the Khmer Rouge were trying to return Cambodia to an ideological Year Zero, the Islamic Khmer Rouge in Afghanistan were trying to return that country to a religious Year Zero. Economic development means nothing for those who put religious purity above anything else.
Corner Stone
@Brachiator:
Yeah. I suggest there’s nothing we can accomplish there within our capabilities.
You squirm all over the damn place and won’t say what you think we can accomplish.
Yet you say i have nothing to offer.
I want to remove our military presence but you want to…?
What exactly? Again I ask you what you have to offer?
srv
@Corner Stone: Corner Stone, it is clearly demonstrable that Pakistan is more stable now than it was pre-9/11. Can’t you see what is so clear to E?
JAHILL10
@Corner Stone: Sweetie, my point is not to insult you. This isn’t about you. The point is to have a discussion based on the facts available.
The question you are still avoiding answering is this:
What good would it do Obama politically to renege on one of his key campaign promises—To get the hell out of Iraq by the end of his first term?
matoko_chan
@Brachiator: lol. the Pakistanis are just filling their moat with Taliban crocs.
They understand perfectly well how nervous Uncle Sam is about the proximity of the islamic millenialists and fundies to Pak nuclear armament.
They are well guarded against Operation Ajax Part Deux.
mclaren
Afghanistan isn’t even a country. It’s a patchwork of warlords who pay no attention to the mayor of Kabul, and some of the valleys in Afghanistan are so steep they don’t get sunlight for six months of the year.
Al Qaeda will always have a safe haven in Afghanistan. So will smugglers, drug runners, gun runners, and white slavers. Welcome to the 12th century. That’s the way Afghanistan is, that’s the way it’s always been, that’s the way it’ll always be unless someone takes a whole bunch of nukes and levels all those impassable valleys and flattens all those rugged passes.
Keith G
@mclaren:
KBR has the low bid.
Corner Stone
@JAHILL10:
Honey, let’s be real. He won’t “renege” on anything. “Conditions on the ground” will determine that withdrawal isn’t feasible. And you will nod your head sagely.
If you honestly, for a second, consider that Obama is concerned about breaking a “campaign promise” then I don’t have a lot more to say to you on this.
Corner Stone
@Brachiator: I’ve thought about this. And I realized I was wrong and you are right.
I concede on all counts. We simply can not withdraw from the region.
Now what?
Nick
@Hunter Gathers:
I remind myself that I actually have a job, which is better than a lot of people nowadays, and that whoever replaces me won’t fight as hard as I do and would just surrender to the world of yellow journalism.
Corner Stone
@srv:
Well, I do enjoy the moonshine. But the last time I indulged on mind altering chemicals was…never. So, no. I can’t see whatever the hell it is she is seeing.
Corner Stone
@Nick:
And the charms of Jane Hamsher as well, amirite? Amirite?
General Egali Tarian Stuck
The dogmatic isolationists want to believe that if we withdraw from the world that is now also a nuclear world, into our own borders, then everything will work itself out and folks will live in peace and prosperity, now that we are not there to cause bad shit to happen.
The neo cons and other militarists want us to believe that our status as the only military superpower in the world demands that we use that military to create a peaceful hegemony by force of arms, or the threat thereof, in every case across the board. Even where there are no apparent vital US interests.
The reality is the world was a warring blood lusting place before we existed. The other reality is that you can’t use the military but for specific reasons, where we have vital interest and they are threatened by another military force. It is not, and should not be used as a politcal weapon. Both the neo con and dogmatic isolationists, and they are on both sides of the left right divide, are some right, but mostly wrong from fixed ideology that does not think, but reacts only.
It is surely the case that our military adventurism has created some real bad stuff to happen that needn’t have, see Iraq for a recent example. But it is also the case that our perceived status as the world policeman has likely either prevented some conflicts, which are impossible to list due to not having happened. And has ended some that were ongoing.
And in a nuclear world, everyone should be concerned about events when they occur in places where such weapons exist.
The situation in Afghan,/Pakistan is exceedingly complex, but to dismiss us as having no interests in that region and clamoring for us to leave completely, either militarily or diplomatically is quite frankly insane, given the ingredients of instability, radical religiousity with militaristic intent, not to mention the possibility of a relaxed and unthreatened AQ to again have the space and time to blow up more civilians in the west, and about everywhere else, including their own kind.
But it is folly, imo, to continue an all out military campaign against a foe that cannot be defeated in a conventional military sense, and I think Obama now gets this and will end the whack a mole with the Taliban. What happens after that is above my pay grade, but it will not, and should not, imo, mean we pack up and go home completely. And we won”t.
Nick
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Putting words in my mouth again I see. Who’s the sociopath?
Nick
@Corner Stone: No, more like the charms of Glenn Beck. Nobody in the MSM knows who Jane Hamsher is or cares who she is. She’s just a fearless leader of liberal
cultsblogs.Elie
@Ruckus:
“but I see that what we have been doing does not work and it doesn’t sound like anyone is working on any other answers”
You of course know that what we are doing does not “work” (depending on your definition of work”)
Me, I do not have that certainty. Work for me means no major terrorist attacks here — has to. How about what “works” means for you?
We have a lot at stake. We cannot ignore this and walk away. We are not Canada.
Corner Stone
@mclaren:
Anybody who watched Meet the Press and listened to the former Army guy say how when they handed out cutouts of Afghanistan to people they were like, “Thanks. What is this?”
And they were like, “It’s your country.”
Elie
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
This X 1000.
Elie
@srv:
srv
You of course KNOW that they are in my mind.
Fine.
Maybe you are right.
But if you are truly not in a position to KNOW that, (beyond the specifics of your ego, that is), then where are the limits of your arrogance?
Lets just pretend. You are in charge of the safety of the American people — YOU are the President. Do you just say, ef-it — these folks are just fine and I am going to TRUST that they know that I am a cool dude and that my people offer not danger or threat to them (despite numerous times that they have documented their aversion and wish to destroy our culture) — and they have already attacked us significantly, but that was all cool with you, right? You are going to just say, you TRUST that but arent going to do anything — not leave one regiment, not any way to surveill that — just going to walk away, sleep like a baby at night — remember, you are not just JO SHMO blogger pushing out your mighty chest talking smack with no skin in the game — lets pretend — you actually are responsible for MY safety, the safety of little girl down the street and little family in Iowa?
The soldiers currently in Afghanistan enlisted to be there. Period. There are no sad conscripts drafted to be there against their will (though I would like to see a draft again for many reasons). If you do not think that the United States should be concerned about this sort of issue (nuclear and terrorist proliferation), then you should name who better to do it. You want to cede this to China? To whom exactly? No one? You want to leave the safety of this country to unknown or accidental others?
You are not even serious. Really.
matoko_chan
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
IMHO Operation Ajax and reinstalling the Puppet/Tyrant Shah was the stupidist and the worst.
That created the embassy hostages, the Islamic Republic of Iran and Students Day and the seeds of al-Q and ‘Nejad and Khamenei and the nuclear threat to Our Crazy Ex-Girlfriend Israel.
incredibly stupid.
i just hope we can stop meddling now.
Obama said we were done meddling…i sure hope that is true.
Brachiator
@kdaug:
Hey now. I was only quoting that apparent lying sack of shit Obama (from his West Point speech):
More seriously, I am aware of the reports that, prior to 9/11, the Taliban offered give up bin Laden, with no strings. But after 9/11, according to the reporting, the offer was to give up bin Laden if the US could prove that he was responsible for 9/11.
I don’t know if this was a serious offer. Bush obviously was hot to demand unconditional compliance. Since then, if they felt that the original offer was genuine, the Democrats and the Obama administration, as well as various factions in Afghanistan and Pakistan, should have been able to use this to end the conflict. And yet this is not what has happened.
@Phoenix Woman:
The Taliban that emerged after the Soviet withdrawal fought with and suppressed moderate elements, including moderates that we supported.
There may be a case to be made that the US should never have got involved in Afghanistan and let the Soviets either have a free hand or deal with whoever else wanted to oppose them. Do you want to make that case?
matoko_chan
@Elie: but we are essentially powerless to change the graveyard of empires now.
COIN is fake.
The much vaunted “surge” was a tent pole to hold up long enough for the drawdown to start. The Sons of Iraq were bought off with paychecks, not converted by trusted networks. The mini-surge was a hailmary pass to McC which has now utterly failed.
More democracy in MENA means more Islam. The people WILL vote for shariah given the chance, in Iraq, in Iran, in Pakistan, in Turkey, and soon in Egypt. GW’s War on al-Islam is FAIL.
More democracy in MENA does not lead to secularism…it leads to representative Islamic states.
Our soldiers are dying for nothing, just like 5000 died in Iraq….2000 more American humans than perished in the twin towers.
Guess we showed them, huh?
Ruckus
@Elie:
Here’s the second crux.
No major terrorist attacks. So what we are doing is working. Is it really? I don’t think so. Why? Because we create more reasons for the attacks in the first place. Now have we made it harder for the attacks to take place and be actually successful? Maybe. But at what cost? To our country, our ideals that we are supposed to be spreading around the world, to our military, to our privacy, to our financial health. Do you really think we will change even one mind by military action? I think we will change many, but I think the change will be negative.
We are not Canada. No we are not. Is Canada attacking other countries? Is Canada holding people in unknown locations, assassinating it’s citizens, driving it’s economy off the rails with an overwhelming military? You’re going to say that they don’t need to because they are next door and take advantage of us. If I remember correctly on 9/11 when the planes were grounded and rerouted, many of them had to land in Canada. Canada was still not attacked. Has Canada, a sovereign nation, been the victim of terrorism? Not that I’ve heard of, so at least nothing major. Why? The rest of the world knows they are our friends. Maybe because they are not seen as imperialistic by the the parts of the world that see us that way? Do you notice most of the countries being attacked? US, UK, Spain, They are or were imperialistic. They had a hand in forming the middle east as we know it today. History has evolved slowly and painfully in the middle east and it will be a very long time before it is a peaceful area. What we are doing is not helping.
And yes I typed this, it is my opinion. It’s not below my pay grade to understand it, misunderstand it or discuss it.
I didn’t say to ignore the situation, I said to look at it from a viewpoint that military force was not the answer and to look for other answers. Military force has not made us safer, because we have not, nor will we ever kill everyone who disagrees with us. Some of them will want to kill us. The world will never be 100% safe.
I always thought we were a pluralist society. I thought that was one of those ideas we were supposed to be exporting. Allowing more than one point of view of the world. More than one way of looking at things. Maybe I was incorrect.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@matoko_chan: Yea, that was a bad one, and all over oil rights for some brit company, if I remember right. Not to mention the CIA bullshit in central and south America.
Elie
@Ruckus:
You have more than one excellent point in your response.
My main point is that operationalizing /protecting our country and also being a good global citizen is not an easy transition or real state of being in a practical sense, from where we are, were…
The nuance of what you propose is indeed valid and desirable, but difficult to actually implement in a real world operational day to day sense from where we ARE TODAY.
To make that transition is complex, difficult and uneven in the day to day implementation. Do we placate this warlord or not, do we invade or do this thing or not in this area? Who is screwing us — or not? People behave as though there is some known and tested “correct answer”. There isnt. Period. We put out a plan, get results, adjust, put out a plan, adjust and freaking hope for the best.
No one has patience for it…and Lord knows its so much easier to talk about where we should be without mapping the points in between. We all want to gallop to an unequivocal conclusion within the 24 news and political cycle.
THAT is the lie and the destructiveness of it — from left or right.. that the ANSWER is knowable in a distincty definable way and that the ANSWER HAS NO NEGATIVE CONSEQUENCES — THAT is the lie for right and left
matoko_chan
@Elie: but there is no way to map a path out of the graveyard of empires.
Obama is just trying relly hard to avoid the “run for the choppahs” moment.
that is what Petraeus is for.
kdaug
@Brachiator: Point taken. But just because it’s the official lie doesn’t make it true.
I file this under the “Saddam wouldn’t let the inspectors in” canard.
I’d been watching the Talibs since they took down the Buddhas of Bamyan with artillary shells. They were and are nasty, brutish, and short men of vendettas and ancient honor. They are not, however, stupid. They were willing to deal if we provided evidence.
We weren’t playing.
liberal
@Elie:
True. But it’s also costing us billions of dollars per month.
I don’t understand why you think us being in Afgh is going to help stabilize Pakistan.
Et Tu Brutus?
@Brachiator:Just as the Rightwing’s position always seems to be set at kill them all and turn the place into a parking lot. I’m more for, if we have to fight, let’s can the dance music and get serious, get the job done and get the hell out. Impossible in Afghanistan as long as the Paks continue to support their creation, the Taliban. But never fear, looks likely that Israel ( certainly not with our help or approval;) will shortly be bombing Iran, which should give both sides of aisle something new to cry/cheer about, while you and I bleed at the pump.
Elie
@liberal:
Actually I addressed this a couple of times. The US role is not to “stabilize” — but to monitor and manage. We cannot/should not try to “stabilize” Pakistan. Said that. Just look out after our interests and vulnerabilities downstream —
Elie
@Ruckus:
Okay. I don’t completely disagree, but lets pretend that you are this administration for a minute. Okay, lets say you order American troops out of Afghanistan… THEN what? Given what you propose (“military force is not the answer”), and that in your proposed solution, we are completely not there, then how do you monitor and manage, on a day to day basis, the “street” of Pakistan well enough to prevent bad things there or in the Region? What do you do with the so called “Friendlies” like India? Hope for everyone to stay cool and get along? How do you ultimately enforce that — if you think anything can be enforced or do you just say, well, Hell, we tried and just shrug your shoulders and watch em fight — or take a serious hit here from el Qaeda and take the hit on your population. Could you REALLY risk or allow that, if you could hope to prevent it? Do you think that you could prevent it without any military force whatsoever?
I do honestly sympathize with your values. I just don’t think that they are fully actionable in a real world way. Like turn the other cheek, I totally hear and generally support that value, but could not act out my life that way literally,
I think that the world we live in, and YES, we made worse sometimes, has to be more actively managed and our needs more actively addressed. It is not trivial to be attacked or to have our allies attacked. It is not realistic to blow off the threat of those who have sworn to damage us or our interests without serious concern. You don’t let someone threaten your family without taking precautions. I hear way too much like, “the threat is a fantasy” or the United States deserves to be at risk or attacked and that if we just stopped being us, it would stop. I think THAT is fantasy. How far down in a hole would we have to hunker down before we shrinked our threat down enough to stop their threats?
There is a role for diplomacy and for the military. They operate together but the see saw goes back and forth depending. I cannot see, nor would it be reaonable, to pre judge that one tool or the other be used in a given situation.
Ruckus
@Elie:
So it’s hard to do the right thing? That’s enough reason to keep doing the wrong thing?
@matoko_chan:
I remember all the teeth gnashing at the end of Vietnam, how bad it will be to stop, how wrong it will be to not stop the red menace anymore. And you know what? It was. For about 10 seconds. At the most. Ending a war is never easy without victory. That’s why we talk about victory in the middle east. Why we have to make up a victory when we don’t have it and can’t get it. We made fun of Bushit’s mission accomplished fuck up because that is what that was. A made up victory dance. It’s just more bull shit to save face. We wore out that dress a long time ago. It was better to end Vietnam and it will be better to end conflict in the middle east. For fucks sakes can’t we take the high road for once in my lifetime? We were supposed to be better, but we’re not. Over the last 65 years we have become an imperialistic, bulling, bore of a country. I for one would like to see that change.
Elie
@Ruckus:
“Has Canada, a sovereign nation, been the victim of terrorism? Not that I’ve heard of, so at least nothing major. Why? The rest of the world knows they are our friends”
I think that we confer a significant “free rider” status to our Canadian friends. I don’t resent that or that reality, but there it is. They don’t have to spend billions on defense and a ramped up diplomacy, now do they? And they also have the glorious luxury of critiquing the big bad wolf while they rest comfortably in our protection… I don’t think the Canadian model is an appropriate comparison for the role we must play…..
Elie
@Ruckus:
Thats a cop out…
Describe the “right thing” and not play Pollyana. How are you going to protect our people and be a good world citizen? Answers are not about “being good”, but have to be operationalized in real world activities and choices. Sometimes those choices have negative consequences that we must accept. We cannot abdicate our responsibilities to our people or those who depend on us — best we can.
I understand if you think that those choices are not critical and difficult… nevertheless, they must be made — that is if you are serious and have responsibility for this country. If you are just a blogger with opinions, well…
Elie
@matoko_chan:
Your context is that we are in Afghanistan as a revenge for the twin towers. I donot believe so. Please read upstring what I wrote.
The twin towers was a bitter lesson for not paying attention. You are not being realistic if you think if we stay home here and mind our business that we donot attract danger or those who wish to make a larger point.
Yes, there is a pointless emptiness to militarism for its own sake. I donot advocate for that. I only caution that our (military) stay in Afghanistan and our subsequent withdrawal is complicated by many obligations and realities. For the black and white thinkers who have no patience for that, well, nothing that I argue about that duality makes any difference. That does not change the reality though.
Bob Loblaw
@Elie:
You forgot to capitalize ‘Serious.’
Also, I don’t know when outright racism became so en vogue with supposed Democrats. You guys are beginning to sound like neocons with your “scary brown people can’t keep their nukes in their pants” talk. India and Pakistan have about the same odds of going to nuclear war over Afghanistan as they do over Jamaica. And Pakistan is more stable now than its been years, not less.
Ruckus
@Elie:
Excuse me but that’s bull shit. Protect the people. You don’t get it. The last 65 years of foreign policy has put us in a position of having to maintain a gigantic military and go to war because we have fucked over so many people in so many countries. We have to protect us from our failed policies, not protect us from people who would mean us no harm if not for those polices. And two wars in the middle east is part and parcel of the problem.
You become a good world citizen by doing exactly that. Not by being a bombastic bully. Not by invading other countries for bullshit reasons. That protects your country better than any military escapades.
Don’t for a minute think I don’t believe in the military or that we don’t need one. Or that I am a pollyanna. I enlisted during a time of war and did what I was told and went where I was sent. On a previous thread I advocated for the return of the draft. With no deferments other than medical issues that would get you discharged if they happened when you were in. Lose a leg or so on. I8 you go in. If you want to stay, great. If not, you have done your duty. And that duty could be lots of things besides being a instrument of death. But we don’t need the military that we have today, against threats that don’t exist and won’t for decades.
You are probably right that the middle east is not due to 9/11. I think that was simply an excuse for idiots to continue to think with their heads up their asses. That might makes right. So what are you advocating for? Nine more years of failed policy to make up for the nine prior years of failed policy? You want to get out when the getting is good? If so then we will forever be at war, if not in the middle east then somewhere. It has to stop. It isn’t working and no matter how long we stay it will not get materially better. No time is better to stay and no time is better to leave. Are the threats real? Sure, some of them are. War mongering does not lessen those threats. It escalates them and creates more.
And notice that I didn’t say that we had to pull out 100% tomorrow. A question was asked how to solve the problem. The answer is to stop waging war all the god damned time. It really is pretty simple. Be a better world citizen. We have failed at that greatly.
Ruckus
@Bob Loblaw:
Thank you.
The level of made up fear in this country is amazing. We are afraid of nukes with no delivery system, but take little issue with a thing that kills us in droves in this country. The automobile.
Amir_Khalid
If there’s a major post-WW2 counterinsurgency success it might be the one that happened here in Malaysia (Malaya, as it was until September 1963), but it took the best part of three decades before the last of the communist insurgents were defeated, and we had success factors here that they simply don’t have in Afghanistan. Not least of these was a transition in process from British colonial rule, resumed after the Japanese occupation, to independence in 1957 under a functioning federal government. We always had a better alternative to the commies here, and we had a politically and economically viable nation which has now lasted more than half a century.
Afghanistan is not even really a nation; the population has no real sense that it is a nation. Until they do, there is no nation to be built. There was no one nation to conquer, which is why empires ultimately failed there. Its problem is not an insurgency like we had, not a civil war like I believe was going on in Vietnam (which the US mistook for an insurgency) but tribal conflicts that no outsider can mediate let alone resolve.
Karzai is part of the problem, not part of the solution. He couldn’t set up an honest and able national government if he wanted to, and there would be nothing in it for him if he did. If geopolitics were like a corporation you could just fire him, but the US couldn’t do that even if it had a replacement it (currently) liked.
The US might have displaced Al-Qaidah in Afghanistan, but in such an incomplete way that if it leaves then Al-Qaidah will reestablish itself. There was never a way to achieve more than that. So it can’t leave, the argument runs. The US winds up bleeding. This is the genius of George W. Bush’s incompetence, that he found the worst and most shortsighted possible way to deal with a problem.
I see no way out of Afghanistan for the US but to find the least-bad way out, to do it quietly, and to eat the inevitable big helping of shit — well, not with a smile, but while saying to itself that this too shall pass. I have to hope that this is what Obama is working on.
matoko_chan
@Elie: no, Afghanistan isn’t revenge for the twin towers. that is just how Bush sold it to frightened revanchist americans.
Afghanistan and Iraq are both part of the Grand Misadventure of the Manifest Destiny of Judeo-xian Democracy in MENA aka the Bush Doctrine.
Those retards actually thought they terraform ancient islamic cultures into tame little brown clone americas.
Sad for them, more democracy in MENA means MORE ISLAM, not less. Iraq cost us 5000 soldiers, one trillion dollars, and 100000 dead muslim Iraqi civilians.
What we did get in return?
The deathless hatred of most of the world and a countably infinite supply of spare parts for the MENA reaver factories.
matoko_chan
At 11 EST today Bacevitch is hosting an online discussion on Afghanistan.
Questions can be submitted during the discussion.
I presubmitted one about COIN.
The discussion is based on this article……
Endless war
matoko_chan
@Elie:
lawl.
the twin towers were MENA’s REVENGE for centuries of Big White Christian Bwana’s ceaseless meddling, colonialism, imperialism, proselytizing and missionariism.
And more proximately for Operation Ajax and the reinstallation of the America Puppet/Tyrant Shah.
Law of unintended consequences.
America built those reaver factories all by her bigself.
We own those reavers….we hand built them,and now peeps like you are all “why do they hate us?”
WATB.
we made them.
mclaren
@Corner Stone:
LOL. We can withdraw from the region. And we will. The only question is: when?
And how? Will America leave in an orderly manner, with slow convoys rumbling out of Kabul to the sound of parade music?
Or will we flee with frantic haste from mobs of AK-47-armed Afgans scaling the walls around our fortified compounds while our troops cling to the skids of overloaded helicopters and desperate U.S. diplomats hurl M60 ammo belts out the gunship doors to gain height?
Afghanistan has been the graveyard of empires for 2300 years. Every imperial invader that ever tried to conquer Afghanistan has been humbled and destroyed for the last 23 centuries. Alexander the Great failed, the Ottoman Empire failed, Imperial Great Britain at the height of its power under Queen Victoria failed, and the USSR failed.
Afghanistan: Where theories of warfare go to die.
“Why the Taliban is winning in Afghanistan” by William Dalrymple
“The arrogance of ignorance” by Franklin C. Spinney
You may want to study the 2008 RAND report ““War by Other Means – Building Complete and Balanced Capabilities for Counterinsurgency“, by David Gompert and John Gordon et al (2008).
In Appendix A of that RAND report, Martin C. Libicki examines 89 insurgencies and adds up the success rate.
[Libicki et al., op. cit.]
TABLE A.24
89 insurgencies since 1945 sorted by outcome
Direct intervention by foreign forces:
——————
Government wins 4
Mixed outcome 8
Government loses 5
Ongoing 4
——————-
Indirect intervention by foreign forces:
——————
Government wins 2
Mixed outcome 2
Government loses 4
Ongoing —
——————-
No intervention by foreign forces:
——————-
Government wins 22
Mixed outcome 10
Government loses 16
Ongoing 12
——————–
People are entitled to their own opinions about counter-insurgency operations since the end of WW II, but they’re not entitled to their own facts. These are the facts. Sooner or later, America will have to face ’em.
The latest rationalization for America’s Afghan occupation (after the Osama story — who’s Osama? Haven’t heard about him in years, have we?) is that if the Taliban regains control of Afghanistan, they might topple the government of Pakistan and get nuclear weapons and give ’em to Al Qaeda, who will use ’em on us.
This is ignorant nonsense.
The government and most of the population of Pakistan are secular and they have nothing but contempt and hatred for Islamic fundamentalists. The only areas of Pakistan sympathetic to the Taliban are the impoverished outlying regions in an area that has never really even been part of Pakistan until recently. (The Pashtun are really a distinct tribe who have little loyalty either to Aghanistan or Pakistan.
They think of themselves as their own separate group, much as the Kurds think of themselves as separate from the rest of Iraq.)
All the area experts who have spent time in Pakistan aand speak the local language and know the local culture there say there’s no danger whatever of the fundamentalist peasants in the outlying regions of Pakistan toppling the Pakistani government, any more than there’s any prospect of the teabaggers and birthers toppling the American government and launching nukes at Iran. It’s on the same level of likelihood.
The real killer question for people who claim that the
Pakistani government is in danger of falling to the Taliban is this:
If that’s the case, why aren’t they also worried about the
government of India falling to Islamic Fundamentalists?
These ignorant people will answer “But India is a secular democracy and its population is not Islamic,” which is foolishly false — in fact, there are more Moslems in India than in Pakistan. A lot more.
But no one fantasizes about the government of India falling to the Islamic fundamentalists because everyone knows that India is a secular society. Almost no one in India has any sympathy for religious fundamentalists like Osama. What Americans don’t seem to realize is that the population of Pakistan didn’t come from Mars — they’re
all formerly Indians. Pakistanis come from the exact same culture as the people of India, so if the population of India isn’t about to turn Islamo-fundamentalist and start lobbing nukes at Washington D.C., why would the population of Pakistan?
What this foolishly ignorant argument boils down to is the old domino theory. I heard the domino theory when I was kid and America was in Viet Nam. Never seemed credible then. After Viet Nam fell to the communists, I waited for Red Chinese troops to pour across the border from Tijuana and take over California. Lots of John Birch Society guys in San Diego claimed that’s what would happen, and they headed to the hills of El Centro to stock up on food and ammo.
Nope. Never happened.
Now we’ve got a new domino theory. This time, if Afghanistan falls, the Taliban will take over Pakistan. It seems as ridiculous today as claims that if Viet Nam fell, Thailand and Indonesia would pledge allegiance to Mao.
The domino theory was nonsense in 1968 and it’s nonsense today. What I don’t understand is why people still fall for this same fairy tale. Haven’t we learned anything in the last 40-odd years?