It’s foam finger time! We’re #1:
Even for the humble among us who try to avoid jingoistic outbursts, some national achievements are so grand that they merit a moment of pride and celebration:
US presence in Afghanistan as long as Soviet slog
The Soviet Union couldn’t win in Afghanistan, and now the United States is about to have something in common with that futile campaign: nine years, 50 days.
On Friday, the U.S.-led coalition will have been fighting in this South Asian country for as long as the Soviets did in their humbling attempt to build up a socialist state.
It seems clear that a similar — or even grander — prize awaits us as the one with which the Soviets were rewarded. I hope nobody thinks that just because we can’t identify who the Taliban leaders are after almost a decade over there that this somehow calls into doubt our ability to magically re-make that nation. Even if it did, it’s vital that we stop the threat of Terrorism, and nothing helps to do that like spending a full decade — and counting — invading, occupying, and bombing Muslim countries.
Suck on that, Soviets! USA! USA! USA!
spudvol
I’m detecting some post-Thanksgiving backlash.
General Stuck
There is nothing humble about Glenn Greenwald. Otherwise, I think I’ll let youze two have all the fun with celebrating.
mellowjohn
fuck, yeah. we can piss away more money faster and longer than those dirty russkies.
cuz that worked out so well for them.
Mike Kay (Democrat of the Century)
yeah, but bush didn’t do anything there for 7 years, so those years hardly count, as they were wasted.
WyldPirate
But, but, but..Preznit Obama said addi8ng 100K troops would fix things and make us safe from those skeery terrists–and he promise me turkees and ponies and freedoms.
…and he campaigned on it.
celticdragonchick
So we leave…AQ comes back to set up shop with the Taliban and we go back to cruise missile strikes on the training camps.
I don’t think that will work out really well either. I
handy
And we ain’t leaving, either.
me
That foam hand is holding up the wrong finger.
Mike Kay (Democrat of the Century)
As typically, this line is wrong.
In reality, from 2002 through 2008 the US had no significant combat operations in Afghanistan. Hell, they even went so far as to disband the CIA’s bin Laden unit in Afg.
WyldPirate
@me:
Nah. It should be a fist instead.
joe from Lowell
But never mind him. He’s just an Afghan, and he’s using – pffftt! – numbers of Afghan casualties as his basis of comparison.
As if, amirite?
celticdragonchick
@WyldPirate:
Speaking as a former aviation worker who was put out of work the day after 9/11 and lost almost everything as a result, I think I can say the skeery terrists fucked me over pretty bad and I wasn’t even in New York.
They killed Americans in Kenya, New York, Somalia, Tanzania and nearly sunk a US warship.
Ignoring them and/or using law enforcement didn’t really work under Clinton, and there was only so many attacks the American people would take before some sort of major retaliation would be demanded.
salacious crumb
I have learned one thing since 9/11 and the Enron scandal and Iraq and the latest financial collapse of 2008.
If you want to portray strength, nothing is more easier than to capture a poor country (like Iraq/Afghanistan) and beat the crap out of civilians. Just look at Israel. Nothing makes them look more tougher than occupying a bunch of people. and as of the real war with Iran. Nothing is more manly than asking another country to do your war for you. Conquering Afghanistan is doing no good to our militaristic image and actual nation building is hard. Like Obama said, people will judge us on what we build, not destroy.
Same goes with all these financial collapses. All these CEO’s hedge fund managers who got juiced up in our prestigious schools showed us that, at the end of the day, cheating wins. Taking the easy way out and getting insider information and playing on it is a sure way to get money than to actually use hard math and hard work to make a profit. Spreading lies about your product is another way to make a profit. thats what third world countries we accuse of corruption (think Afghanistan, Pakistan) do
Nothing changes.
joe from Lowell
@celticdragonchick:
That depends largely on how we leave. Personally, I’ve never belonged to the “those people have been fighting for centuries, they just don’t know any better” school of thought. War and tyranny are politically-determined conditions, not culturally-determined destinies.
spudvol
@Mike Kay (Democrat of the Century):
Exactly, we redshirted for 7 years.
HE Pennypacker, Wealthy Industrialist
How did Obama get us into this war anyway?!!
Mike Kay
you know when you think of it.
The U.S. spent more time fighting during the Soviet-Afghan war, as advisers and armors of the mujahedeen, then the U.S.
spent in Afghanistan after 9/11 in active operations against the very same mujahedeen we had trained so well.
joe from Lowell
@celticdragonchick:
Tru dat.
George Bush bungled, exploited, abused, and manipulated the threat from terrorists.
But he didn’t invent it.
Among the numerous reasons to damn him, his sleazy invasion of Iraq, and his “War on Terror” is the way it discredited, even among reasonable people, the real, necessary efforts we need to take in the are of counter-terrorism.
That’s unfair to Clinton. By the last couple years of his presidency, he had ordered the CIA to go to war with al Qaeda, has launched attacks on their facilities, and his transition team had warned the Bushies that terrorism would be the biggest problem they faced.
General Stuck
@joe from Lowell:
The Soviet’s began conducting something like extermination of any village, man, woman, or child suspected of having anything to do with the mujahedeen. And since most villages did, it was pretty much a blanket opposition cleansing in the country side. Until we came along and gave the Afghan peeps Stinger Missiles that put an end to the Hind reign of terror.
Any comparison of us with the Soviet’s, other than purely time in country, is absurd in the extreme. And there is no general uprising of the Afghan populace against us, like with the Soviet’s. It’s just the Taliban, that at least half the country hates like the plague. Or the Soviet’s.
stuckinred
No football today huh?
BR
Do I need to repost a link to Dmitry Orlov on this?
Closing the ‘Collapse Gap’: the USSR was better prepared for collapse than the US
Read it. It’s chilling and pretty hard to refute.
joe from Lowell
@General Stuck: When I was at Bishop Feehan High School, we were visited by some nuns and a doctor who were doing relief work in Afghanistan.
The Soviets used to booby trap dolls and toy trucks and leave them lying around for kids to pick up. This wasn’t some b.s. propaganda from Reaganites, mind you. These were left-wing Maryknoll nuns who had treated the kids with their own hands.
stuckinred
@General Stuck: Sorta like the NVA/VC during Tet.
OldDave
@joe from Lowell:
… and the Bush Admin infamously ignored this advice until 9/11 jammed it down their throats.
General Stuck
@stuckinred:
Sorta, but Tet was mostly done in hopes of causing a general uprising of the populace against the SV government and our presence there. While that backfired, the largely unexpected response in America did succeed in a lot more Americans turning against the war. Such as seeing scenes of VC occupying the American Embassy in Saigon. It put to truth the lies the Johnson Administration was telling us about lights at the end of tunnels over there.
The Soviets seemingly, were just out to kill everyone.
WyldPirate
@celticdragonchick:
The point is that the terrorists are elsewhere–like Pakistan now.
Furthermore, we weren’t ignoring terrorists under Clinton. We captured and began the prosecution of the Blind Sheik using standard law enforcement. I seem to recall the Clinton administration telling the Bush administration that OBL and his ilk would be THE BIGGEST SECURITY THREAT. What did Bush want to do? Accelerate antimissile defenses.
We’re playing whackamole with the wrong goddamned tool and making more enemies in the process with our actions in Afghanistan. We are wasting ti8me, lives and billions u0pon billions of dollars there.
joe from Lowell
@OldDave:
The one that really sticks in my craw was Ashcroft taking FBI agents off of counter-terrorism so they could free up manpower for obscenity prosecutions.
“OK, you’ve covered your ass now.” Assholes.
stuckinred
@General Stuck:I’m just talking about the butchery charlie committed in places like Hue. Of course I was up on the 38th parallel at the time so what do I know?
stuckinred
Go Hokies!
General Stuck
@stuckinred:
I gotcha. Yea, like that.
stuckinred
@General Stuck: It was probably a dumb comparison by me. We did as much as they did, fuck it all.
Kenneth
Who created the Taliban, joe?
We did.
lacp
@joe from Lowell: When my wingnut drinking buddy starts telling me that we have to “take the gloves off” in Afghanistan, I remind him that the Russians been there/done that. Poison gas, cluster bombs….just about anything except nuclear weapons.
Kenneth
The Soviets had more of a reason to be in Afghanistan than we did in Iraq or Afghanistan.
junebug
What is the point of this post or Greenwald’s?
It’s a serious question. What is the point?
Bill Murray
Bah, we still have over 100 years to go before we beat the 100 Years War, so there’s no reason to get excited until 2118 or so
Mike G
Even if it did, it’s vital that we stop
the threat of Terrorism, inspiring people to become terrorists against us, and nothing helps to do that like spending a full decade—and counting—invading, occupying, and bombing Muslim countries.But as the red staters who are obviously much more RealMurkan(TM) than you or I keep telling me, “Freedom isn’t Free” as defense budgets bloat beyond belief. Unless it involves intensive security checks at the airport (“For me? But I’m white!”) in which case the price is now apparently too excruciating for them to bear.
Kyle
@joe from Lowell:
The crotch-sniffer Ashcroft was directing FBI resources into investigating a prostitution ring in New Orleans. An investigation which continued for several months after 9/11.
In the summer of 2001 Ashcroft told an aide, “I don’t want to hear another word about terrorism”. His narrow little fundamentalist mind was made up, and he damn sure didn’t want to be bothered dealing with facts. This is what happens when you put into positions of power glib, ideological magical-thinkers who want to boss reality into conforming to their fantasies.
The whole Bush crew should have resigned for negligence after 9/11. South Korea’s defense minister quit this week for way less. God knows if it had happened under President Gore the Repig congress would have impeachment hearings running within hours, especially if he had sat like a wax dummy reading a children’s book for seven minutes after being told the news.
joe from Lowell
@Kenneth:
The Pakistani ISI. You should do some reading.
joe from Lowell
@Kenneth:
The Soviets had their civilians slaughtered by an organization headquartered in Afghanistan, and receiving assistance from their government?
Really?
Huh. You’d think something like that would make the news.
Kenneth
@joe from Lowell:
They had a government that was hostile to them being set up on their southern border. What they did was no different than what the US has done in Latin America times in the past. Also see the Chilean Coup (Setp. 11th has a very different meaning for them. I wouldn’t be surprised if the date isn’t a coincidence).
And bin Laden is 100% “Made in the USA”, deal with it.
Kenneth
The real question is:
How many more bin Ladens does joe think we’re creating by bombing innocent civllians with drones?
Jamie
Hate to say it, but the Russians didn’t hold the record, the British did, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Game.
Kenneth
And you’re the one who needs to do some reading:
http://www.amazon.com/Clash-Fundamentalisms-Crusades-Jihads-Modernity/dp/185984457X
http://www.amazon.com/Perpetual-War-Peace-How-Hated/dp/156025405X
Kenneth
You were saying?
joe from Lowell
@Kenneth:
None of which is a legitimate reason for military operations, as opposed to allowing your country to serve as a base for attacks upon another country, and providing sanctuary to terrorists who have attacked, and continue to attack, innocent people.
That is not even remotely close to true. You don’t have the foggiest idea what you’re talking about. You really need to do some reading on this, and not just assume that whatever “facts” best fit your prejudices must be true.
Bin Laden never received a single dime from the United States. Seriously, could you at least rouse yourself to scan Wikipedia before you start holding forth on subjects you don’t know anything about?
Kenneth
Read above.
General Stuck
@Kenneth:
Then maybe the US was behind 9-11, do ya think?
joe from Lowell
That you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.
Dana Rohrbacher was a deluded, widely discredited tool, who tried to implicate the US government in order to deflect attention from his own relationship with the Taliban.
Your “evidence” amounts to an unsourced claim, Dana Rohrbacher, and a guy who was fired to releasing information?
Bin Laden was an organizer for foreign fighters in Afghanistan. He also never worked with the Americans, and was quite loud in his denunciations of those who did.
You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. You’re repeating discredited lies, because you want them to be true.
Kenneth
@General Stuck:
No, they weren’t behind 9/11 directly, anyway. We did indirectly cause it through being the bully of the world for half a century, though.
One group of people decided not to take it any more.
Kenneth
@joe from Lowell:
Yes, just a Republican US Congressman, a former CIA operative, and the mujihadeen themselves.
nothing to see here! Move along! Booogah boogah TERRISTS! They hate our FREEDOMZ!
joe from Lowell
No, don’t “read above,” because it’s hogwash. It’s a folk tale.
Read this.
Like most conspiracy theorists, you’re very selectively informed.
Kenneth
Since when is saying that imperialists actions against the global south will cause blowback a “conspiracy theory”?
Still waiting for you to explain how bombing Muslims with drones is going to lead to less terrorism, as aopposed to MORE blowback?
joe from Lowell
@Kenneth:
Is that really all you know about Dana Rohrbacher? I’m embarrassed for you. Seriously, read something from a source that isn’t working to tell you already want to believe. For a change.
Who was fired by the CIA, and made the charge a book blasting the people who fired him.
Nope. Bin Laden, Zawahiri, and the Pakistanis who actually worked with the mujahadeen all say your story is bullshit.
Kenneth
@joe from Lowell:
Peter Bergen? A Villager and neocon?
Kenneth
@joe from Lowell:
Of course bin Laden would deny it. He doesn’t want his followers to know he worked with the USA anymore than the US government wants us to know they worked with bin Laden.
It would ruin their wars.
Kenneth
Joe doesn’t even understand why we’re so despised and hated as a country. Or probably doesn’t even know we ARE hated by the vast majority of the world for our actions.
joe from Lowell
@Kenneth:
Peter Bergen, the first journalist ever to interview Osama bin Laden.
Admittedly, he’s no – snort – Dana Rohrbacher.
Eyeroll.
Kenneth
Yes, let’s trust Villagers like Peter Bergen and all the Very Serious People-the same ones who told us things like Saddam had WMD.
Kenneth
Nothing to see there! No sir!
General Stuck
@Kenneth:
We don’t post article excerpts around here without a link. Just so you know.
electricgrendel
I love our arrogance. A country gets the name Graveyard of Empires and America thinks: “Huh. We’ll be the ones to fix that!”
Corner Stone
That severe refudiation by Peter Bergen is certainly strongly worded stuff:
Bergen on CNN “Q&A” with readers
Maybe if he says it a few more times it will actually be true.
It’s not sourced in any way and makes no reference to further research the statements.
In other words, brutal.
Bob Loblaw
@joe from Lowell:
You warmongerers are such a delight.
So now, after a decade’s time and a complete failure on your side’s behalf to show any discernible lasting progress on your adorable little occupation here, to the point where we’ve got another five years of nation building ahead of us (at minimum) thanks to our NATO betters and President Peace Prize, you’ve resorted to justifying this clusterfuck by reminding us that we haven’t killed nearly as many people as the Soviet Union did. So we’ve got that going for us. Those ungrateful Pashtuns…
By the way, how are those peace negotiations going? I heard we had the number two man in the Quetta Shura on board. Some guy named Mansour or something. Man, what a coup.
@junebug:
The citizens of this country are obviously unable to redirect the military and geopolitical strategies of this country through the ballot box (if we were even so inclined, which 95% of the time we’re not), so all that’s left is mockery.
joe from Lowell
So, the parade’s over.
Has Mr. “9-11 was the righteous global south striking back against oppression!” managed to come up with an explanation for how American support for the Afghan mujahadeen, which ended in 1989, created the Taliban, which was founded in 1994?
As opposed to the Pakistani ISI, which supported Pahstun insurgents throughout the Soviet occupation, and continued to support them after the war, during the civil war, and after the Taliban took over the government?
I suspect the answer is “No.”
joe from Lowell
@Bob Loblaw:
Actually, Bobby, “my side” first implemented its efforts 14 months ago, when Obama took the sorry mess that was Bush’s Afghan non-policy and fixed it, stabilizing what had been a rapidly deteriorating situation. Don’t go pinning Bush’s handling of Afghanistan, which I spent 7 solid years denouncing, on “my side.”
Actually, I was quoting an Afghan, voicing his opinion on, oh yeah, the topic of the post. Some of us actually believe that opinions of people there are worth knowing and considering. And by “us,” I mean “Clearly, not you.”
joe from Lowell
It is certainly impressive to see European journalists with no special knowledge about American intelligence operations or mujahadeen in Afghanistan opine, but I’d have to say that the rebuttals to their opinions by the following are a bit more credible:
For example, Osama bin Laden: “the collapse of the Soviet Union … goes to God and the mujahideen in Afghanistan … the US had no mentionable role,” but “collapse made the US more haughty and arrogant.”
Or Pakistani Brigadier Mohammad Yousaf, who ran the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Afghan operation between 1983 and 1987:
“It was always galling to the Americans, and I can understand their point of view, that although they paid the piper they could not call the tune. The CIA supported the mujahideen by spending the taxpayers’ money, billions of dollars of it over the years, on buying arms, ammunition, and equipment. It was their secret arms procurement branch that was kept busy. It was, however, a cardinal rule of Pakistan’s policy that no Americans ever become involved with the distribution of funds or arms once they arrived in the country. No Americans ever trained or had direct contact with the mujahideen, and no American official ever went inside Afghanistan.”
Or Marc Sageman, a foreign service officer in Pakistan during the war:
“Contemporaneous accounts of the war do not even mention [the Afghan Arabs]. Many were not serious about the war. … Very few were involved in actual fighting. For most of the war, they were scattered among the Afghan groups associated with the four Afghan fundamentalist parties.
No U.S. official ever came in contact with the foreign volunteers. They simply traveled in different circles and never crossed U.S. radar screens. They had their own sources of money and their own contacts with the Pakistanis, official Saudis, and other Muslim supporters, and they made their own deals with the various Afghan resistance leaders.”
Or Vincent Cannistraro, who led the Reagan administration’s Afghan Working Group during the war:
“The CIA was very reluctant to be involved at all. They thought it would end up with them being blamed, like in Guatemala.” So the Agency tried to avoid direct involvement in the war, … the skittish CIA, Cannistraro estimates, had less than ten operatives acting as America’s eyes and ears in the region. Milton Bearden, the Agency’s chief field operative in the war effort, has insisted that “[T]he CIA had nothing to do with” bin Laden.”
But, hey, what would CIA officials, foreign service officers, or White House officials know, right? After all, we have the opinions of European journalists providing unsourced assertions about what “people say.”
joe from Lowell
On the other hand, Bobby, you have “Corner Stone” who agrees with you.
So…there’s that.
General Stuck
@joe from Lowell:
We did have Dangerous Dan Rather poking around in Afghan for awhile. The Balsy fucker
joe from Lowell
Say what you will about Dan Rather, the man had stones.
Kenneth
Joe still won’t say why he thinks the world hates us.
General Stuck
@Kenneth:
Dude, the world doesn’t hate us. They hate what our government does sometimes. You can ask about any Arab on the street in the ME, and they usually will make this distinction. The same could be said in Europe, or about anywheres else. They also admire us in many ways, though GWB did his best to destroy that.
edit – and I would add, the world does fear us as a superpower, both militarily and economically, the only one, with more than a few crazy motherfucking citizens. They should, I know I do for that reason.
joe from Lowell
@Kenneth: You’ve hijacked the thread enough.
Believe it or not, there are other things to talk about than how bad the eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeevil United States is.
joe from Lowell
@General Stuck:
Has this guy shown even the slightest concern for what actual people in other countries think?
They’re just bit players in his big story, which features him as the hero, and the United States as the villain.
It’s a hackneyed tale, in which you know exactly what’s going to happen next, because everyone and everything is just a device to advance the plot.
Look at what his comments all boil down to: not what’s happening in Afghanistan, not actual evidence for his bullshit claims about the US creating the Taliban and bin Laden – no, this is what they boil down to:
The word “hack” comes from “hackneyed.”
junebug
Ahh, Bob, so Greenwald was mocking, was he? How quaint.
Greenwald has admitted that he wasn’t politically aware until well after the invasion of Iraq. I was thinking of asking any of his defenders who answered my question yet another. Where was Greenwald in 2003? Did he write or call his then Senator Clinton and articulately demand that she vote against the use of force authorization? Did he make the argument that invading Iraq would hurt the multi-national effort in Afghanistan?
Greenwald is just like any other pundit. He pays no price when he is wrong, and the more outrageous he is, more attention he gets. Neither war was enough to politically engage him. You know what did? The NSA story the NYT did in late 2005.
Bob Loblaw
@joe from Lowell:
There are no “sides” this time on partisan lines. The current tactics and strategy in Afghanistan (and military leadership consigned to carry them out) are a carbon copy of Iraq 2006-2008. Sorry to break widdle partisan hearts that want strict delineation between the parties on our current military doctrine. Same shit, different venue.
And fourteen months ago? So I guess Obama’s first year didn’t count? Or does it only half-count perhaps? How’s that math go, does every president get a few practice years under his belt now? Because I could’ve fucking sworn that he escalated significantly into the region in March of 2009 without any due diligence on his part.
And I wouldn’t go around using the word “fixed” if I were you. Because last I checked the Afghan President rigged his own election, the security situation in the northern and eastern provinces has never been worse since the fall of the Taliban, the US has resorted to an intensity of violence and special operations in the south that thoroughly obliterates the credibility of COIN as a usable strategy and continues to undermine our standing with the native population, the ISI shut down logistical lines in their country for a week just to show it could, more ISAF personnel have died in your 14 months than did in the previous seven years you don’t want to sully your “good record” with, and the quality of intelligence operations in the region is so poor that we don’t even know what the senior Taliban leadership even look like let alone the lower levels of leadership. And that’s just a cursory examination.
It is not a noteworthy achievement to demonstrate greater humanity than the Soviet Union, and it does nothing to justify our $100B/yr misadventure against an insignificant threat to our national security.
And you have Liz Cheney. Do you see why this is a pathetic form of argument? I’d normally say I expect better, but that would be a lie in this case I suppose.
General Stuck
@Bob Loblaw:
But it is necessary when people like Greenwald and Cole treat us with snarky calls for celebration while comparing the Soviet experience with ours in Afghan.
The ground war against the Taliban needs to end sooner rather than later. Obama didn’t cause this lost cause, and at least is putting some dates for withdrawal out there, something Liz Cheney wouldn’t do, and not because he is a warmonger, but agree or not, and I don’t at this point, to salvage some sense of honor that we at least tried under his watch.
An overwhelming majority of Americans, I suspect, would disagree with this statement. Save for a few isolationists like you and Pat Buchanan.
joe from Lowell
@Bob Loblaw:
I’d try to change the subject if I had made your argument, too. Here’s what you wrote:
You were talking about Afghanistan, you little weasel. If you’re going to make an argument, be a man; either stand by it, or say you were wrong. Don’t do this bullshit.
Actually, 12 months ago. Obama didn’t implement his Afghan strategy until December 2009. Seriously, you’re holding yourself out as a knowledgeable person on this topic, and you don’t even have a vague recollection of Obama implementing a new strategy late in 2009? Sorry for the typo – 14 instead of 12 – but that’s just pathetic.
…which has nothing to do with the new strategy he implemented in late 2009, which you don’t seem to have any knowledge of at all.
Seriously, none of this is ringing a bell? He spent most of his first year studying the problem? Wingnuts accusing him of “dithering” because he pushed back his announcement until his administration formulated a plan he found acceptable? Big speech on December 1, announcing it?
Nothing? Nothing at all? That’s pathetic.
It is indeed. I’d go so far as to say that it’s a cherry-picked list of half-truths intended to prove its conclusion.
I didn’t write the post equating the two, nor the comments agreeing with that equation. Nor was my refutation of that equation intended to justify anything, so it’s not too surprising that it didn’t.
No, I don’t. Liz Cheney has done nothing but blast Obama for his handling of Afghanistan. Do you actually know anything, at all? Or do you just make things up because they sound good?
joe from Lowell
A repetition of the disposition of al Qaeda on September 10, 2001 is “an insignificant threat to our national security.”
I’ll make sure to treat your future opinions on matters of national security with all the respect they so clearly deserve.
Bob Loblaw
@General Stuck:
Legitimate threats against national security are not decided by popular opinion.
Al Qaeda expired its international operational capacity in 2001. Post 9/11 procedural changes and police action have denied it the ability to place operatives within US borders and plan the large scale infrastructure attacks it favored from 1993-2001. They have been reduced to lone underpants bombers of the world.
They are not the Soviet Union. They are not the Empire of Japan. They are not an existential threat to this country or its people. And we should not spend even a tenth of what we do currently prosecuting war against them across the globe.
General Stuck
@Bob Loblaw:
So the fact that we broke up and destroyed OBL/Taliban terrorist training factories across the Afghan countryside and sent the Jihadi Arabs into to remote sanctuaries in the Pak highlands, didn’t have anything to do with these folks being reduced to undie bombers? I like it when anti-Afghan war folks tell us that terrorism is down, and why?, just because dammit. And the infernal actions of the US and others across the globe couldn’t possibly have anything to do with this phenom.
I agree that Bush clusterfucked our mission in Afghan, and now it is time to quit the nation building/ground war shit. But pull out completely? nope, despite obvious fuckups by the US government in a lot of it’s tactics, and also the insane foray into Iraq, the reason terrorism acts are down, is because the leadership is not able to act as openly and freely as in the past. Pre Afghan invasion.
I support a laser like continuation of counter terrorism efforts when necessary. Invading and nation building, and extended ground wars in Asia. Not so much.
Bob Loblaw
This President has now committed both of his (expected) two terms to nation building, you do understand this, right? NATO didn’t arrive on the 2014 date on a whim, nor is it some sort of psyops maneuver against to convince the “weary” Taliban to lay down their arms in the face of a newly resolved opponent.
No, not just because. As I said once already, the Bush and Obama administrations have succeeded mightily in preventing the entrance of terror suspects into the country by and large, monitoring their international communication networks, and pursuing traditional good policing tactics (with the support of members within these terrorists’ families) to cull off the stragglers that slip through the gaps in the planning stages. Not a single policy which requires the need of a 150,000 member strong occupation and training force, it turns out. It has nothing to do with razing farmland and drone striking apartment blocks in the Hindu Kush. The war in Afghanistan exists in its own little universe, and has only marginal utility in preventing terror attacks against the United States and Europe.
General Stuck
The official WH position is that troops will start coming out next summer. Notwithstanding the blatherings of Biden or NATO, Obama is president. And I will wait till he makes any significant changes to his previous plan. And I expect some nation building or “soft power” activity to continue towards assisting the non Taliban part of Afghan. I have no problem with this, and really, we never even got started doing full nation building, all or most of those resources went to Iraq.
And you are aware that I already said I do not agree with Obama on this policy. That we need to start pretty much now unwinding the ground war in Afghan, against the Taliban. But we will not be leaving completely, and I support specific counter terrorism actions and especially not a return to the previous status quo.
Bernard
i guess we just shall have to carry on and kill as many of the “others” who wont agree to do what we want them to do. After all, to leave now would just allow them to regroup and come after us again. Fear this!!! admit defeat? never!
another Vietnam!! God forbid!!
can’t admit we haven’t done anything that would work to stop such lunacy.
even though Bin Laden has won, in every sense of the word.
Endless war begets endless war.
never give up! fight the good war! East Asia is next!!
Bob Loblaw
@joe from Lowell:
And Afghanistan is not a unique organism. Your “new strategy” is the same ideas carried out by the same military leadership that the dastardly Bush administration you’re trying to divorce yourself from so hard used in Iraq during the notorious “surge.” That was my point.
Yes, Obama is pursuing a different course of policy in Afghanistan than Bush did. It just turns out to look a hell of a lot like the late stage Bush policies used in Iraq instead. And shock of all shockers, they’re going about as well this time as last time. But I’m sure Petraeus just needs another six months or so to put it all together…
So then you do advocate the historical revisionism that the entire calendar year of 2009 doesn’t count. Wasn’t Obama’s fault. He didn’t unleash his vaunted strategy that would change the war as we knew it (lulz) for a whole year’s time, so whatever happened before then is somebody else’s problem.
And you consider this a positive reflection on his leadership?
It seems to me that doubling the resources and manpower to the region without any accompanying strategic realignments (which he did, in March of 2009, all on his own) is rather damning to his moral character and qualifications to serve as Commander-in-Chief, but like I said, that’s just me.
No, I mentioned it when I equated it to the spiritual successor of the Iraq surge, remember? Unlike you, I don’t give a shit about process.
While I am glad that Obama took his time to seriously (and let’s make clear, I don’t question his intellectual capabilities or seriousness in trying to arrive at a wise decision) interrogate the war’s aims and plausible outcomes with his military and civilian staff in a way his predecessors didn’t and couldn’t, it doesn’t really matter much when that process produced the wrong decision.
The “new strategy” (which, again, isn’t new) is fundamentally flawed because it relies on a governmental partner that doesn’t exist. The Karzai is inherently, and irreparably, corrupted and discredited, and what little economic base there is is being actively deteriorated every day the war continues. There is no nation there to build. There is no economic or social foundation to defeat an insurgency that isn’t even remotely popular. And we have no allies in the region who are interested in changing their own behavior to patch some of those gaping holes in the plan. It’s all pointless.
Cherry picked? You’re right, I neglected to mention the awesome number of schools we’ve painted, and the one battalion of the ANSF that is now capable of fighting the Taliban on its own without coalition support.
And no, referring to quantitative measurements released by the Pentagon itself detailing things like casualties and reported numbers of air strikes and night raids and territory held are not “half truths.” But since you can’t refute this stuff, I suppose this is the best you can do.
You both agree that terrorists and terror sympathizers in Afghanistan and Pakistan pose a real and pressing security threat that requires US military force for an indeterminate duration. That seems enough of a starting point to me.
Unless you’re suggesting that your only rationalization for supporting the Afghanistan war is because of its support from Barack Obama, and not due to any other line of thinking? In which case, I could see why you automatically try to break everybody down into two groups: friends of Obama and enemies of Obama. It’s a very easy way to go through life, but a bit irresponsible, wouldn’t you say?
Bernard
the whole farcical idea that we can fight in Af-Pak forever is sure sign we are going to collapse as a country sooner rather than later. and we are doing this to ourselves. but we are a military empire, so that just follows.
maybe that is just the plain truth about whom we are as Americans. We are doomed to fail as long as we are a Military Industrial Empire.
gosh i remember the book, “The Ugly American” from many years ago and how much simpler it is to win over the Natives and how to alienate the Natives. wars are usually not the way!
Militaries usually don’t “do” Countries the win win way. so, i suppose all this upset about not Winning in Af-Pak is just wasted energy of how the hell did we get this whole situation so fucked up. Like, what did we expect blowing up their country in order to save their country from the Terrorists who hate America for fucking up their country while attempting to save it.
whatever, looks like the military way aint working here. but to admit that would be to change the focus and wasn’t that the object of the conversation here?
i.e.War is forever, no way out.
joe from Lowell
@General Stuck:
I like it when they tell us that there are only 100 al Qaeda in Afghanistan, because of mumble mumble mumble, so obviously, there’s no purpose in having a military mission there.
junebug
Instead of re-fighting the war, why can’t any of you see that the point of this post and Greenwald’s was to poke all of you in the eye.
There is no point in arguing about the war. There is less of a point in arguing it while someone like Cole (who was warmongering at the start) and Grennwald (who couldn’t be bothered).
The two of them are just playing you all.
That is not to say that there are reasons to look back on what our part in the Afghan occupation and war has been. But arguing it over a bait by Cole and Greenwald concerning a simple comparison of time is foolish and a waste of time.
Better to look at where both of them — Cole and Greenwald — were when this all started back in the dark days — or heady or oblivious days, respectively — when this war started.
General Stuck
@junebug:
I give Cole a lot of leeway and kudos for making the changes and weathering the criticism from the right and folks on the left who use his past as a rhetorical weapon. While it is annoying, the sometimes lurches to the left and siding up to someone like Greenwald, it’s his blog and with it the right to journey toward redemption as he sees fit . I will simply point out the facts about Afghan, and other stuff, as best I can when I think it’s needed. I just wish the dude would forgive his self at some point and return to common sense on national security matters, rather than post posts like this one.
I don’t have much good to say about GG, but more power to him to continue grifting liberals that he is one of them, he isn’t. Just the leans left version of a glibertarian polemicist.
joe from Lowell
@Bob Loblaw:
As a matter of fact, it is. Afghanistan was (before the war) the sole place on earth where the sovereign government was actively in partnership with al Qaeda.
First of all, I’ll once again remind you that we’re talking about Afghanistan, and the actions of the Bush administration I’m “trying to divorce” (whatever that means) myself from are its handling of the Afghan War. Once again, you were talking about Afghanistan when you wrote So now, after a decade’s time and a complete failure on your side’s behalf to show any discernible lasting progress on your adorable little occupation here, to the point where we’ve got another five years of nation building ahead of us (at minimum) thanks to our NATO betters and President Peace Prize, and you were completely wrong. Obama’s strategy “here,” meaning Afghanistan, was most certainly not in place a decade ago, and is most certainly not a continuation of Bush’s strategy there. You should man up and admit you were wrong about this.
Anyway, gliding over the vast simplification and distortion in that last statement, and accepting for the sake of argument that the strategy for Afghanistan is similar to that used in Iraq after 2006, so what? The problem with Bush’s surge wasn’t that the effort to use a security mission to stabilize the country was doomed to failure. The problems with it were that Iraq was a stupid war from the get-go; and that the tactic of the surge (I’ll assume for now you know the difference between a tactic and a strategy) wasn’t married to any plan to hand over power and get out. I never doubted that the military could achieve its short-term objectives in Iraq; they’re very good at what they do. I opposed the surge in Iraq because it wasn’t a plan to end the war, but to maintain a long-term presence. As we saw once Bush was forced to sign the SOFA and Obama affirmed our commitment to leave, those tactics married to a timeline worked out pretty well in stabilizing the country so we could exit without the whole place falling apart.
It wasn’t the surge that was the problem; it was the previous administration’s determination to maintain a permanent occupation which would have doomed the surge to irrelevance; a problem we don’t have with this president in Afghanistan.
That isn’t even remotely similar to what I wrote. Making up arguments and attributing them to me just draws attention to your incapacity to argue against what I’ve actually written.
If, at any point, you feel up to addressing what I’ve written about the implementation of Obama’s strategy in late 2009, how it differs from that which prevailed in Afghanistan from 2002 through late 2009, and how that time period is irrelevant to judging the success of the almost-year-old effort, you let me know. Until then, I really don’t have any interest in getting between you and your straw man.
Yes, it is just you. Most people would understand the distinction between plugging the dike to stop the flood, and building a new one, and wouldn’t actually consider addressing the immediate crisis immediately, and the long-term strategic problem in a deliberate manner, to be a moral shortcoming. A normal person would consider it to be the behavior of a responsible person when faced with a major problem. But, like you said, that’s just you.
The limited goals (much more limited than the Bush administration set for the Iraqi government) are well within the capacity of a central Afghan government. If Obama was talking about “a shining beacon for the region” and the rest that Bush wished for the Iraqi government, I’d be worried. On the other hand, “able to not be overthrown by the Taliban, when given significant aid” is a not a high bar to clear.
This is just flat-out wrong. The Afghan economy is growing at a rate of 10% per annum.
Sadly, it also seems to be enough of a finishing point for you. And that’s the problem; you’re incapable of understanding any question of military and security challenges beyond “US out of (fill in the blank)!” and as a result, you can’t understand anything about those topics except to infer that other people have opinions different from your own.
And, once again, I haven’t the slightest interest in your TSA-like handling of straw men, so I’ll let your last point go as well.
joe from Lowell
@Bernard:
…a figment existing in the imagination of people who aren’t up to considering the actual questions we face, but who remember this book they once read about how imperialism is, like, bad, ok?
Kenneth
Nothinig the US government says can be taken at face value, just look at WikiLeaks.
Can’t wait for the newest revelations. The Empire will not be pleased!
junebug
@General Stuck:
I understand the point with Cole — there were numerous people who worked him over a period of time and finally convinced him — long before Obama was running. Anyone who goes back and looks at his archives would wince at this cheap shot.
Greenwald, on the other hand, is not even in Cole’s league. He’s been playing what he can get for clicks and teevee appearances for quite sometime.
I remember when one of his book collaborators would constantly cast progressives in the worst possible lights — and he never said a thing to refute her rants — quite the contrary — he thanked her. She used to say that there were no pro-lifers in the Democratic party and spouted wingnut talking points. It wasn’t true and then Bart Stupak & co made it clear — any response from Greenwald? No.
Everybody gets a pass. People just quibble over the seriousness of the offense.
junebug
@Kenneth:
I don’t have any problem with Wikileaks, but you must understand that the official line must be at the very least a distancing.
If you don’t, then you have never dealt with Chinese or anyone from another country. You just don’t understand global politics.
Bernard
funny how reality always rears its’ providential face to show me how little i know about the whole shebang. if i just listened to someone else who knew “better.”
too bad common sense isn’t common,though, it would be nice.
Bob Loblaw
@junebug:
Ah, that’s the spirit. We should consider ourselves lucky our esteemed leadership even allows reporting to still be carried out in the region at all.
Fellow conspirators, eh? What’s their motive again? You’ve been rather coy on that point.
That’s not the comparison. Or at least, not the full extent of it. It isn’t about the exact length of the war, or the respective conduct the two armies held themselves to and the damage done to Afghan civilians. It’s about two flailing, doddering empires wasting an entire decade and multiple regimes in pointless ideological wars in backwater nations, furthering the cause of evil and waste and ignorance, and ignoring the rot at home.
joe from Lowell
The US is just like the Soviet Union, and we went into Afghanistan for morally-comparable reasons.
Got it.
Good to know where you’re coming from.
Kenneth
@joe from Lowell:
Well, let’s see:
Torture? Check.
Invading foreign countries er, “preemptive war”? Check.
Collapsing, moribund economic system that still believes in its own failed ideology? Check.
Rotting infrastructure? Check.
Unsustainable military spending? Check.
Sclerotic, unresponsive political system? Check.
Extensive network of prisons filled to the brim? Check.
Gorbachev? Obama!
Well, we beat them by 20 years, joe! There’s that.
Kenneth
@joe from Lowell:
Hey, after our collapse, maybe you can go shill for the Chinese! They have all the money now, after all.
junebug
@Bob Loblaw:
Shit Bob, you blow off all of my substantive points and hope to make me out to be just another warmongerer. I’m not. I have been a pacifist since before Ronny RayGun.
Bob, Greenwald only came to care about these wars in 2005.
Does that not bother you?
Cole came around long after.
Does that not bother you?
Bob Loblaw
@joe from Lowell:
But I’m not wrong. I never said Obama has been prosecuting the war himself for ten years. I said it’s been ten years, ten long years in which to study the conditions and the peoples of Afghanistan and use that knowledge to devise a strategy that can bring stability to the country and enhance and project US geopolitical goals for years to come, and it has. Those ten years have been wasted, nothing has been learned, no wisdom gained. And none is coming. And so because of this, there is no discernible lasting progress to celebrate and build upon. No government to trust, no infrastructure to provide security and jobs and clean water and medicine for the denizens of the open air slums of Kabul and bulldozed farmlands of Helmand.
You have been given ample opportunity to point to any of alleged dividends of Obama’s escalations and yet you do not. There is, of course, a reason for this. The facts on the ground are not on your side. All you have is emotional broadsides about shadowy imminent terrorist threats and demands for justice for an attack that happened nine years ago.
The problem is that Afghanistan is a stupid war now.
There is no settlement between Shiites and Kurds in Kirkuk. No end to the bombings in Baghdad. No future for the refugees in the massive tent cities in Syria. An entire generation of Iraqis will spend their entire lives in the shadow of bloodshed and destruction.
If your selling point is that a successful strategy is one that simply allows the United States to save face and avoid further moral condemnation for the evils it unleashes, I’d seriously advise you to reconsider what you’re selling.
The implementation? Do you really want to talk about the failure to secure Marjah? Do you want to talk about the gains the Taliban have made in the north and the east, spawning violence there that those provinces haven’t seen in years? How the insurgency has evolved beyond a purely Pashtun one, as tribesman of the northern reaches rearm in wary preparation of the dissolution of the Karzai coalition? Do you want to talk about how violence is up 70% countrywide in the last year? Up over 300% in the last three years? Do you want to talk about the roads that are now impassable for NGOs because of the booby traps and bandits that lie in wait, where none were a year ago? Do you want to talk about the complete cratering of any credibility the Karzai administration has with its people? The omnipresent corruption? The rigged and stolen and unsecured elections? The voters silenced and threatened into inactivity? Do you want to talk about how our government lies to us, uses an obedient, mindless little media as pawns for whatever propaganda topic of the month they so choose? Do you want to talk about peace talks that don’t exist? Do you want to talk about an intelligence service that plainly has no idea who our enemies are or where they go to and from or what they’re thinking? Do you think they always know who they’re killing and capturing and imprisoning? Do you think they even have the luxury to care at this point? Do you want to talk about the failure of US forces to provide context for their presence in a nation with next to no knowledge of world events, and thus no capacity for empathy or connection with the people who fight on their behalf?
Do you want to talk about the reinforcing feedback effects our presence there has on the Taliban and its allies? How we give them legitimacy in the eyes of the people, and a justification for their awful cause? How many more thousands need to die before you give up on your plan to kill your way out of Afghanistan? We are not making Afghanis safer, we are not leaving them with a foundation they can build upon in our absence. I don’t know how to fix this, I don’t fully understand that place and its needs, and I don’t know how to fix it. But I know that I don’t trust the military and civilian leadership we have. I don’t trust our national security apparatus, or our contractors, or NATO. And so I am left with the inescapable conclusion: we must leave.
The cause was lost when Karzai stole the presidency. His legitimacy evaporated, and it wasn’t particularly robust to begin with. No government can survive without the consent of its people except through force, and that is both morally unacceptable and practically impossible in this scenario.
Entirely on the backs of international transfer payments, yes. The country has nowhere near the resource base to finance even a fraction of the security state it is assembling, let alone other governmental responsibilities. It is purely a ward of the international community, and will remain so for a very long time.
Bob Loblaw
@junebug:
I suppose not, really. I don’t see it as a covert attempt to sabotage the Democratic Party or Barack Obama himself from within, just because they’re the ones now in charge of our ever-so-competent war machine.
I guess it could be, but that’s a pretty dark reading of motivations, especially in Cole’s case. He’s pretty open about his feelings, to a fault. Almost transparent really.
And no, I didn’t think you were a war supporter. I just didn’t understand what you were harping on about. I think it’s an unabashed positive whenever anybody of even the most tenuous political impact is willing to point and laugh at the duplicity and ineptitude of our political leadership and the abhorrent causes they pursue, no matter where they came from in the past. It’s a start.
junebug
@Bob Loblaw:
You’ve got some formatting problems.
Otherwise, you think joining on any bandwagon is fine.
Sides or not, I would rather you not be on mine lest I find you on the other on another day.
Bob Loblaw
@junebug:
Now I have even less of an idea what you’re talking about.
What exactly are these “sides” we’re all on? Which one am I on, for the record? And what’s the bandwagon? The anti-war position? What behavior am I supposed to be so offended by?
aisce
@Bob Loblaw:
this. good god, this. i think i need a cigarette.
i lurk enough to know you’re one of the resident assholes around these parts, but when you’re on you’re really on. you just destroyed joe from lowell.
best part. so true and so devastating. how’d it get to this?
celticdragonchick
@joe from Lowell:
I disagree. War can be a normative part of a culture. Quite a few examples in sub-Saharan Africa, not to mention early European history.