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Why We Must Stay
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As Kabul is rocked by another bombing, America is in danger of abandoning Afghanistan for the second time in 20 years. Reihan Salam on why that would be a grave mistake.
In an address to the Veterans of Foreign Wars in August, President Obama made an impassioned case for the American military effort in Afghanistan. “If left unchecked,” Obama said, “the Taliban insurgency will mean an even larger safe haven from which al Qaeda would plot to kill more Americans.” Indeed, he went so far as to call the war in Afghanistan a “war of necessity,” a term one normally reserves for repelling a foreign invasion or foiling an imminent attack. One of the vitally important points the president made was that just as the insurgency in Afghanistan had grown over the course of years of neglect, it would not be defeated overnight. Having embraced a troop-intensive counterinsurgency strategy in March, it seemed the White House was committed to seeing it through, despite the painfully high cost in American lives. But now, just weeks later, the president seems to have abruptly changed course.
If al Qaeda vanished tomorrow, the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban would remain a potent and intertwined threat that could destroy both countries.
General Stanley McChrystal, the man Obama chose to lead the counterinsurgency effort in May, has been criticized sharply for publicly suggesting that he needs more troops to stabilize Afghanistan. The notion that the general was engaging in MacArthur-esque insubordination by making an honest assessment is wildly off-base, as defense wonks from right and left have pointed out. Although the White House has ruled out drawing down American forces in Afghanistan, it seems increasingly unlikely that General McChrystal will get what he wants, as critics of a surge gain the upper hand. What we’re seeing is a replay of a familiar American story. After making a firm commitment to “bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend,” in the words of John F. Kennedy, there’s a danger that we’re going to abandon Afghanistan for the second time in 20 years. And just like the last time, this decision will haunt us.
• Peter Beinart: Bury the Vietnam Analogy
• Martin Sieff: The Key Democratic Defectors on Afghanistan Part of the problem is that Obama—like President Bush—has never been completely honest with the American public about why we belong in Afghanistan. The truth is far more complex than the war’s boosters and detractors allow. This summer, before the president’s talk of a “war of necessity,” Stephen Biddle, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and one of the intellectual architects of the Anbar Awakening strategy that helped turn around the war in Iraq, published “Is It Worth It?” in The American Interest. While Biddle concluded that the war was indeed worth the staggeringly high cost, he called it “a very hard sell” that would involve “smaller benefits in exchange for greater exertions, yielding a net cost-benefit calculus perilously close to a wash.” How’s that for a stirring endorsement? As for the notion that a revived Taliban would allow al Qaeda to establish a safe haven, the central argument made by this president and the last for staying engaged, Biddle offers an obvious caveat: Terrorists seeking a safe haven could just as easily find one in Yemen or Somalia or Uzbekistan, and he could just as easily added rough neighborhoods in Paris or Berlin or perhaps even Brooklyn.
• Tina Brown: Let’s Not Abandon Afghan Women Moreover, the leadership of Al Qaeda is now based in Pakistan’s wild borderlands, and if crushing what is left of al Qaeda were our only goal, the United States could in theory focus its military efforts there. Indeed, U.S. forces have had tremendous success over the past year in thinning the ranks of Qaeda fighters in Pakistanm despite the near absence of U.S. forces on the ground. If you believe that al Qaeda is the sole reason the United States should be involved in this miserably dangerous corner of the world, you might also believe that General McChrystal’s strategy is overkill. The Taliban is best understood not as a single force but rather as as a series of overlapping insurgencies and criminal movements centered on Pashtun regions both in Afghanistan and Pakistan that are united only by a zealously misogynistic interpretation of Islam and psychotic xenophobia. Defeating it might will probably be much harder than defeating al Qaeda alone. So why bother? The simple answer is that our real goal ought to be a stable Pakistan.
The last time the U.S. was enmeshed in the affairs of Afghanistan was during the long CIA- and Saudi-sponsored insurgency against the country’s Soviet-backed government. Even after the Soviet Union under Gorbachev sought a compromise with the United States that would prevent Afghanistan from falling into the hands of anti-American fanatics, U.S. policymakers, including Robert Gates, refused to budge. After Afghanistan’s struggling central government collapsed, the Pakistanis were left to pick up the pieces as Americans celebrated their hard-won “peace dividend.” That’s one reason why today’s Pakistan is so deeply distrustful of American intentions. This distrust is precisely why the Obama administration had until recently been approaching Afghanistan and Pakistan as a single integrated challenge, hence the term “Af-Pak.” The fact that we’re finally winning the fight against al Qaeda doesn’t mean we can separate the Af from the Pak, as Vice President Joe Biden seems to believe. If al Qaeda vanished tomorrow, the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban would remain a potent and intertwined threat that could destroy both countries. We’re at risk of repeating the same mistake Gates made in the 1990s, only this time the outcome could be far worse.
I don’t envy Obama. I have no doubt he’s taking his responsibilities very seriously and that he badly wants to do the right thing. But I worry that he’s being misled by advisers who are emphasizing the short-term costs of waging a serious counterinsurgency effort rather than the far higher long-term costs of a nuclear-armed Pakistan falling into the hands of dangerous radicals.
Reihan Salam is a fellow at the New America Foundation and the co-author of Grand New Party.
For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast at editorial@thedailybeast.com.
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robwriter
Dear Mr. Salam,
If you are so concerned, so exercised about the fate of Afghanistan, why don't you move there and and put your considerable energies and talent to effect by solving their problems from inside the country? Why do all you guys just fucking WRITE about it while other people bleed and pay? BTW, where were you the last 8 years? Oh, yeah, "working" at the New America Foundation! Almost forgot!
Leaving aside the Taliban and Muslim terrorists, the fact is that if Afghanistan itself disappeared tomorrow the only people who would miss it would be heroin addicts. And while we're on the subject of missing out on stuff, which defense contractors are funding the New America Foundation?
TheDailyJban
"If you are so concerned, so exercised about the fate of Afghanistan, why don't you move there and and put your considerable energies and talent to effect by solving their problems from inside the country? Why do all you guys just fucking WRITE about it while other people bleed and pay?"
-- So are you saying that those who write have no desire to make a difference? How is that you're justified to write an opinion, and Mr. Salam is not? These are arguments of a child.
"Leaving aside the Taliban and Muslim terrorists, the fact is that if Afghanistan itself disappeared tomorrow the only people who would miss it would be heroin addicts."
-- Fictionalized outcomes don't mean anything, not even to make an analogy, in this discussion on Afghanistan, because the fact remains, Afghanistan is not going to "disappear" -- just like us leaving won't necessarily make anything better for us or for anybody else.
"And while we're on the subject of missing out on stuff, which defense contractors are funding the New America Foundation?'
-- Tin foil hat, much?
robwriter
Touch a nerve? Yes, what I'm saying is that your opinion piece will make no difference. None. Nada. Niente. Zilch. Zero. Neither will the blood and treasure America is pouring into this putrid rat hole. BTW, when's your flight out? We'd love to see you off. Give our best to the Taliban when they kidnap you.
oliverckerr
This is an open letter to president Obama, posted elsewhere on this site. The posts on this page are interesting, too. I am not the only one who sees what eye see.
This is the Afghanistan Solution, the strategy we need, what we should do, how to do it, and why, what I, an independent candidate for president am going to do upon election to our highest office, a happenstance that cannot be ruled out, as the American people are bound to find out when I wrote this essay and when I posted it.
We adopt this opium poppy strategy, explained below, or we risk another terrorist attack in America, rivalng the 9 / 11 attack. White House officials involved in the ongoing Afghanistan deliberations should carefully consider what eye say!
The key to winning Afghanistan and Pakistan, to dissolving al Qaeda and Taliban, is opium; world wide, the father of all opiates. That dirt-cheap heroin readily bought on the streets of Manhattan and Washington DC began a sleepy Pashtun poppy, milked in Afghanistan, oceans away.
That 17% pure heroin bag; available on select street corners in every major city in the western world, started out an opium poppy grown in Afghanistan. You first saw the rich poppy fields in The Wizard of Oz.
93% of the world's opium is grown and refined into heroin right on the Afghani farms! They are not such a backward unsophisticated country as rigid status quo bureaucrats are apt to paint them. The farmers grow the highest quality most potent opium that yields the most heroin, world wide!
Bill Gates must marvel at their opium / heroin market share. Monopoly! Irreplaceable, worldwide; a blessing for all sides, especially us, because controlling the opium poppy fields means we will have taken over the main source of income for all the barbarian Taliban, the terrorist al Qaeda operations in all the neighboring countries, and all of the Western Hemisphere cartels and subtle European drug dealerships.
The heroin lifeblood for terrorists and drug cartels is smuggled throughout Europe, with tons, tons going by plane and ship to South America where, repackaged, its origin is disguised so no one gets wise; and from there, routed to Mexican cartels, and from Mexico, into our country, to be sold in our ghettos and suburban streets.
For the cartels this wholesale heroin represents billions of dollars in retail business. Billions of underground criminal, and terrorist dollars!
The key to stuffing Taliban and al Qaeda, eradicating all of their corruption of Afghanistan, is to choke the opium supply the Afghan farmers are world wide famous for; choke the supply which would wipe out the opium / heroin smuggling trade; and choke their criminal customers on our side of the sea.
We don't have 68,000 troops in uniform, stationed in South America, chopping down the Columbian forest to get at the cocaine plantations. That is not happening, and won't. But we do have 68,000 troops stationed in Afghanistan, and the opium poppy stratgegy carefully explained here will SAVE MOST OF THEIR LIVES.
Surely, you, the reader, hopefully a White House official involved in the deliberations over what and how to proceed in Afghanistan do not want to see any more American blood shed.
The Taliban's and al Qaeda's end in the opium/heroin trade nets millions of dollars, peanuts in the big picture, falafel on the table for Taliban's "freedom fighters" over the border, in Pakistan; and money for the families of al Qaeda's suicide bombers throughout the region.
But without the opium / heroin trade, al Qaeda and Taliban would be decimated. The Western Hemisphere drug cartels would lose hundreds of millions of dollars and be facing their own recession. All of the illegal heroin in the United States would dry up as the pipeline for the heroin would be destroyed! Do not suggest to me we don't want that! Of course that is exactly what we want.
In Iraq, whoever is running the roads, wins. In Afghanistan, the opium dollar is fueling both the war and the Taliban structure, enabling them to strike! Afghanistan is a poor country with a rich culture. Whoever controls the opium harvest will have battled for that right. The hardy farmers get only enough to live decently and plant their fresh poppy.
The Taliban "freedom fighters" would leave for home in a heartbeat, were they not getting fed and allowed to while away the day smoking the black Afghani hashish. No food no money no fight. The newly chosen Taliban "leader" has a payroll he must meet. The opium proceeds cover that payroll!
Mr President Obama you are our Commander-in-Chief, the civilian boss in charge of our ribbon shirts, but your military bureaucrats, and the retired cable news talking heads are all misreading and misleading the war.
The Wall Street Journal article: Top Troop Request Exceeds 60,000 by Peter Spiegal and Yochi Dreazen states,
"White House officials familiar with deliberations said that while some elements of the Taliban were inclined to harbor al Qaeda, which operated freely in Afghanistan through 2001, other members were focused on Afghanistan's internal politics and much less likely to support the international terror group."
Oh! The taliban is more interested in securing seats on the local school boards.
(C'mon). The Taliban differs from al Qaeda in one respect. Taliban are criminal drug dealers hiding behind religion and oppressing the local people they believe is the key to their continuing success in controlling the opium / heroin, whereas Al Qaeda smuggles heroin to fund sensless political attacks throughout their region, and to plan another 9/11 which cannot be accomplished without millions of dollars.
A few years ago a Taliban leader came to Texas. Whatever the official reason for the "trip" that was to meet with, at the least have a lengthy conversation on a throw away cell phone with a Mexican Cartel person about shipping refined heroin instead of tell tale smelly opium. The Columbians got into the act bcause no one would suspect heroin originating in far a way Afghanistan would be round-about smuggled into South America.
We don't need to build an Afghanistan army.
The unalighned unofficial Afghani militias know how to fight. With a little strucure and dollar support at the bottom, at the farm level, they will protect themselves. Abraham Lincoln established a sea embargo to win the Civil War. Without supplies by ship from Europe, the Confederate Army was doomed.
Our troops get killed on border patrols between Pakistan and Afghanistan to protect our way of life across the ocean. Yet a stone's throw away, Mother Nature's opium is grown for the criminal and international terrorist's gain? How can our military be so dumb as to allow this to go on, creating millions of terrorist jihad dollars?
The only thing going across that Pakistan / Afghanistan border are paid fighters and convoys of drug smugglers hauling their cargo. The Afghan opium is key to everything happening there!
We own the opium and the country is ours. Free. Opium control means renegade Taliban, al Qaeda terrorists, and warlords are on the road again. Skedaddled or killed.
(I like the idea of not killing anybody.)
Your failure to respond to this open letter will lead to loss of American lives, and seal the possibility of Barack Obama being reelected to a 2nd term in our Highest office. As the person who created the Vehicle for World Peace, I promise you that much. But I am not the issue here, only what eye say.
The opium production and our clear ability to control that opium, is the only issue.
Our guys must begin digging foxholes in every opium field, making Cash In Advance deals CIA with the Afghanis we are purchasing their opium crop for top dollar, in raw opium form. The farmers don't have to brew the black sap into a dangerous snowy heroin powder, so they are poppy plentiful, an ounce or two for the house, compliments of us.
Raw opium isn't dangerous. You won't kill yourself smoking opium the way you can so easily overdose from a heroin syringe, so we want their whole crop raw, just like unefined brown sugar, and we will pay the refined opium heroin price which is similar to tacking on an additional 50 cents to a bushel of Iowa corn.
The war momentum will immediately shift! Instead of Taliban's "freedom fighters" picking us off every other day as we patrol the dangerous Afghanistan border, we will occupy the opium poppy fields and wait for Taliban to show up, our invited guests.
The key to Afghan quality of life for Taliban, thugs without a country when we defeat them, to shipping their kids off to the Ivy League is based on who gets to stash the cash from Afghanistan's opium crop.
Would that be Karzai and his drug dealing family in Kabul? At the same time, on the diplomatic front we ought to push to reunite Pakistan with India. This will initiate an eviction of Taliban by the Pakistani people. For Pakistan, rejoining India means freedom, food, jobs, education, and a better life. Only their military bureaucrats are against this idea, and their minds could be changed with a passport, an SUV, and a forty acre guarantee in Montana.
Instead of knee jerk reactions to my Red October reference to 'Montana," just get creative and plant that in their newspapers! Now is the time to wag the Pakistan India dog!
Sad, these policies, purchasing Afghanistan's opium, piecing off the Pak military, and reuniting Pakistan with India may be too progressive for you, Mr. president, and for your Secretary of State Hillary Clintstone, too, but maybe not.
Certainly wagging this Pakistan-India dog will be incentive for the Paks to evict the Taliban and that is what we want! The Paks have nothing going for them under the Taliban gun.
Don't you know the Taliban bribed the Pak military for long-term safe journey with the opium money. That is how they established their foothold in Pakistan! Opium money! Mr. President, you are surrounded by bureaucrats who wouldn't know the scent of an opium house were they standing at the door.
Many Taliban soldiers will change colors of their turbans and meld into the crowd as soon as they understand the opium harvest has been taken away from them. It isn't about religion, or the neighbor hood school board, or how many times a day you pray to Big Al (Allah to you), it is about the opium / heroin and millions of dollars in cash! Seeing as you can eat three hot meals a day in the streets of Mumbai for less than a dollar, one million dollars = one million days divided by x number of Taliban grunts.
In Afghanistan, we need to get busy, prepare the fields, create comfortable foxholes on every poppy acre, booby trap the brush surrounding with a wide safe swath to the farmhouse, and make it clear to the farmers, by CIA shelling out Cash In Advance, we are purchasing their whole raw opium crop but paying top refined heroin price, so the farmers are with us! Super incentive for the farmers. Less work more money.
Taliban, Al Qaeda and warlords will have to exit their caves and cross the poppy fields instead of picking us off with their remotely detonated roadside attacks. Retired military will be opposed to this poppy war, but hard pressed to tell you why because they support that opium trade just the way it is.
We are purchasing their poppy crop, and negotiating fair and square and in advance how much sticky black sap can be extrapolated from each plant. Though I pun CIA as standing for Cash In Advance this is a job for our enlisted soldiers in the field to negotiate with the farms where they are dug in, not CIA officers who are from Kabul, not living on the farms in foxholes!
The plants, ripening by day, are the draw for Taliban, al Qaeda and warlords to show, the only way for them to go, taking on our troops in the poppy fields where we will defeat them!
When they come down the yellow brick Afghanistan road we can sting them from above. A couple drone attacks will turn them all around in their tracks. No opium no paychecks.
The extra virgin first milk is scheduled to start tomorrow. Our enemies know that. The farmers are out of the picture as they are already paid in advance. At 4:00 a.m. we begin snipping every plant two inches above ground with two handle bush trimmers, chop chop, just like that. At dawn, we start stuffing wood chippers and spread the soil with the chopped up results to fertilize next year's crop.
So good-bye Taliban grunt, and don't step on any land mines going home.
A couple million heroin addicts in Europe will be going cold turkey! The Mexican and Columbian drug cartels will be out of heroin, and lose hundreds of millions of criminal dollars in projected sales.
Regardless bureaucrats will be viciously against this operation. The status quo is how the rigid government's bureaucrats want to go.
But with a cash infusion at the farm level, Afghanistan will begin to flourish. The Afghani people will start rebuilding their own country, without corruption from above, roads and schools decided by tribal leaders in the farm districts, with a helping hand from us.
We must also purchase their whole marijuana and hasish crop, and either sell that to the shops in Amsterdam or bring each of the harvests to USA for medicinal purposes. or run the risk that that crop, too becomes an income for the terrorists. Afghani marijuana is the most potent in the world, best for relief of chemotherapy's side effects.
Regardless what your surrounding bureaucrats say, we occupy the opium fields, purchase the whole crop, and all the heroin sold every day in our country will dry up! Young kids in poor neighborhoods will not become addicted to heroin. Don't we want that? Don't you? The opium / heroin dry up is guaranteed because all of the other countries where opium grows, they only have planted enough for their own home land and neighboring clientele.
The opium pays al Qaeda's world salary. But who controls the opium wins the terrorist war, world wide! The above poppy strategy will accomplish our mission! Those opposed want things the way they are. Follow the money, Mr President. In the event we ignore the terrorist's cash cow, and leave, al Qaeda, opium rich, will have the funds to execute all of their murderous plans. Wasn't the twin towers brought down and their Pentagon attack enough for you! You inherited that issue! The opium trade paid for the 9/11 tragedy! We cannot risk allowing that to repeat. We cannot!
Unless you want it guaranteed before the end of your first year that you are a lame duck one term president, then ignore what eye say.
michaelslevinson.com
BullMoose
TheDailyTaliban is having a hissy fit. Ssshrub could have devoted ALL the resources we had at the start of the afghanistan war. But the idiot had to follow Cheney the Devil incarnate and Rumsfeld, and sent all the necessary troops and equipment to Iraq.
All that accomplished was to buy time for the Taliban to regroup, and use tactics learned from Al Qaeda i.e. their Iraq IEDs, and now its too late.
Go join you keyboard warrior, and Obama is a fool to commit any more troops to this Vietnam Act 2.
zaxxon
Oh yes...and the British have been blown out of these tribal lands twice in the last 2 centuries / and the full force and might of the Russian Armies in 1989. So now, we Americans are to take up this burden (no one else will accept it), to change the unchangeable? America comprises only 4.89% of this lonely globe's population - if the Russians and Europeans don't have a dog in this fight, why do we?
Answer please - and, be assured, my son will not "serve" in this insane sandbox.
sonofloud
hear, hear
BullMoose
Just read what Rudyard Kipling wrote about the folly of war against Afghanistan.
bonafortuna8
We either get out or give our soldiers the support and clarity of purpose they need--NOW. Read this article and tell me that the waiting/waffling game the current administration is playing is acceptable:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/Afghanistan/article6865359.e ce
No matter where you stand on Afghanistan--or whether you're a Repub, Dem, Lib or Indepen for that matter--this should break your heart. What the hell are we doing?
khepri
Yes, it is a familiar American story: American over-reaching, American obsessive fears, American policy driven by corporate and military motives, and young Americans and their families lied to each time--told that each soldier's death will preserve American freedom and liberty. It is a familiar story; too familiar.
Frenchmanaz
@ThedailyJban...no sir, what robwriter was illustrating in his message ( which I am quite sure you ascertained on your own ) to Mr. Salam was that it is far too easy to call the shots from the comfort and security of their desk.
If you have been over to huffpo this morning, the head article indicates the deep despair being felt by troops in Afghanistan. One might first be lead to the belief that this has to do with a lack of support however, the most telling statement amplified in this article is the fact that the troops " don't know why they are there " !!! It doesn't get any more telling than that.
Before anyone responds with..." that's because they haven't been clearly told what their objective is...by their commanders ( ie Obama / McChrystal )...let us be clear that even til the last minute in Vietnam, despite the carnage and the desperation, our troops knew exactly what their objective was ( push back the VC ).No one needed to tell them.
While confusion in war might arise, our troops always know who the enemy is, this is not the case in Afghanistan. And they, even better than we could ever, know full well that the real enemy AQ are, for the most part on the fringes of Pakistan. So, for the most part our soldiers are now simply fighting against a bunch of war lords who are just pissed off that we are on their land.
I would bet my bottom dollar that not a single one of these " terrorists " even has the desire, will or resources to ever be even a remote threat to America.
Meanwhile the real terrorists are in Yemen, Somalia, Indonesia and the list goes on.
Are we so arrogant that we believe we can achieve what the Brits and the Russians were not. There is no winning. The only way to effect real punishment on the real enemy, as I have sound countless times, is to follow our biggest allies lead, the Israeli's. The film Munich laid the recipe out for us in broad strokes. Covert assasination squads, because besides Bin Laden, most of AQ's financiers and organizers live among us, in Paris, London, Berlin, Jakarta you name the city, AQ is there.
Pull our poor exhausted scared disillusioned sons and daughters out NOW ! Have they not sacrificed enough for us ? Most of the kids joined as the only way to get to college.
slmpirate
Well stated Frenchmanaz,
I would go one further..Not only what are we fighting, how can it be sustained. I love some of the comments made in Mr. Salams article in which he implies that the buying off of the Iraqi Sunni leaders has led to our success in Iraq... Iraq is a work in progress and I am highly sceptical that the game is over in Iraq, once we pull back and Iraqi Sunnis have no one paying them to back off, we will see that country plunge back into turmoil.
To imply that a strategy that has yet been tested by time in Iraq,is going to work on Pashtoon tribes in Afgahnistan is insane..These people pride themselves in all aspects of a warrior class; Loyalty to clan and tribe and adherence to codes of integrity that we only talk about. They see the western culture as corrupt and moraly bankrupt.
Further, how in the hell is a country with a GDP of a little over a billion dollars going to sustain a Afghan military of 250-300 K which is what it would require to defend itself and from who???. Without familial aliances and tribal loyalty, they could not and would not defend an government in Kabul...I'll fight a hell of lot harder for my family and way of life versus some abstract concept of "country" if that country provides me nothing.
Frenchmanaz
perfectly stated slmpirate,
Unfortunately, the likes of Mr. Salam and all of the other war mongerers out there actually see very little of the complexities of war. It is obvious that they believe they are cheering their kids baseball game, where at the end, one team is given a nice gold ( plastic ) statue and patted on the back as te big " winner ". The difference is that in any sport there is a final whistle, a clear and concise point where regardless of how much energy and desire to continue the game, they must cool their heels and either accept defeat or enjoy the spoils of their efforts.
Not so in war and especially not in this amazingly broad " war on terror ". There is no definitive playing field, no uniformed opposition, nothing that fits our military leaders outdated vision of what war used to look like.
This is what I see as our collosal problem. Military leaders such a McChrystal were schooled using history books featuring tactics etc used in the Civil War, WWII etc. conventional wars. There biggest fear is that they recognize that they are becoming outdated relics so they are fighting tooth and nail to justify their existence by continuously pushing to keep " the old way " relevant.
Fighting this war on terror requires new thinking and therefore new leadership. Leadership that has been trained and based on intelligence and more akin to what the CIA does than the military.
I have watched numerous documentaries featuring our special forces and seals and the comments that have stood out most are " we sit here for months on end, we get the call to mobilize but then get pulled back, we are frustrated and are dying to see some action ". This comment could very well be applied to the likes of McChrystal. He is finally seeing some action and wants to keep it going. One can hardly blame them, given they are trained to lust for the blood of our enemies.
They don't think like we do, which is why we should not trust them to make policy decisions. Sadly too many war mongering monday morning quarter backs who also crave that golden statue, that will never happen, at the end of the game cheer the military leaders on. It is likely that very few of them actually have kids in these wars. They have little if anything to really sacrifice, except their ego's.
Frenchmanaz
the very man responsible for ousting the Russians from Afghanistan thinks we should get out Charlie Wilson :
http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/even-former-texas-rep-charlie-wil son
too all of you " we must stay until we win " folk out there, please find me a better authority on Afghanistan. Before you say it, Afghanistan 1980's and today, different players but essentially nothing has changed !
sugaree2
Is this a deal with the devil?
The Dems want healthcare. The Republicans want Afgan secured. If the Dems give the Republicans Afgan then we should have universal, government sponsered healthcare. The same quality that the broken bodies will recieve that will be returning from Afgan.
Counterglow
1. McChrystal is Bush's beast. He has demonstrated incompetence and dishonourable conduct in his handling of the Tillman situation. He should be replaced immediately. And yes, he is replaceable, probably by a counterinsurgency expert able enough not to step on his d!ck the way McChrystal did with Tillman's death.
2. It is foolish to talk about "the people of Afghanistan". It is a synthetic country glued together by a colonial power that had no idea what it was doing. The people in the region will gladly take whatever's given, but they will never stand up for themselves. Give it another 20 years and the situation will be the same as it is today, except the area's criminal class will be a lot wealthier.
robwriter
Totally agreed.
Maezeppa
How can somebody be so consistently wrong as Reihan Salam? It's almost axiomatic that he wanders down the wrong thought-path every time. At least he's consistent!
ThinkAgain
The longer Obama dithers over this, the worse it gets and the harder it's going to be deal with. He seemed to know exactly what was going on and how to deal with it during the election. Where's that guy? Here's a clue Obama, doing nothing isn't on the table. Get them help or get out!
xlntcat
Obama can dither over this until the end of the year and it will make no difference whatsoever. We do not have 40,000 additional troops trained and ready to go to Afghanistan before the first of next year at the earliest. Obama only got McCrystal report this week. The arrogant, self-serving McChrystal decided to make a name for himself by pursuing a career as a media star after he submitted his report to the Pentagon. Unlike, McChrystal the report follows the chain of command prior to reaching the president's desk where is will have been critiqued for flaws and misrepresentations as well as availability to resources. The final units of the remaining 21,000 troops authorized this spring will not deploy until December as far as I know. You are being manipulated by the media for political purposes. By now they all know that taking time to make an informed versus a knee jerk decision makes no difference whatsoever in when resources will be available.
BullMoose
Shrub "dithered" 8 years, and he is an ignorant lump on a log.
Ozone69
Are Hillary Clinton and Sec. of Defense Gates are the only ones in the Obama administration that see the nexus between the Taliban and al Queda? Biden is a light weight when it comes to military matters (he and Dick Cheney both have 5 military deferments to stay out of Vietnam). He should stick with state funerals and ceremonies involving B list players. His facade of gravitas is no longer needed as the campaign is over. This is crucial to combatting al Queda. The Taliban gave them safe haven for years. I hope the President listens to Clinton and Gates.
my3sons
It would be great if "We the people" got a chance to decide whether we stay in or leave Afghanistan. November 3rd we have Election Day, let us put that question forward and have the people vote!
Chuckv
I do not pretend to know what we should do in Afghanistan, but I do know that there are reasonable arguments for staying, Whether they are better than the arguments for leaving is another story. But pretending there are no reasons is no good.
One undeniable fact is that Pakistan has nukes. The exact affect upon Pakistan of a Taliban victory in Afghanistan is unknowable, but it is very unlikely to be good. Pakistan's government is weak now, it does not need further weakening by an enemy's victory next door. And the Taliban must not have access to Pakistan's nukes.
There is an ethical argument that leaving the Afghans to the tender mercies of the Taliban is wrong--particularly with respect to women who would be sent back into the middle ages. And the people on the whole do not want the Taliban. They were quite happy when the Taliban was driven out. Pity we did not properly seize the moment, but that is another story.
It will discourage moderate Muslims worldwide and encourage radicals. This is is not by itself a reason to spend the lives of Americans, but it is a factor to take into consideration.
To repeat, I do not know what we should do, but it is wrong to pretend there is no significant downside to withdraw.
Cazart
I'm with Chuck.
One of the many, many things W. was bad at was Managing Perceptions - ex: if you were a member of the Axis of Evil, you could reasonably expect to be invaded, and commence rattling of sabers.
So.
What perceptions would we leave with moderate Muslims if we pack it in? Wouldn't they feel abandoned?
What about your Taliban types?
Wouldn't they feel emboldened? I know I would.
Like Chuck, I don't pretend to know all the answers. But I do know that A.Q. and the Taliban make Dick Cheney look like Abbie Hoffman. And at one point last summer, they were about 60 miles outside Islamabad, locked, loaded and ready to roll.
It seems to me that wherever we can find a (for the region) moderate Muslim community, we ought to protect it and allow it to flower. It's in our interest - grow the number of Muslims who don't want to kill us - and it's the right thing to do. A significant part of this task would be accomplished by combat troops. But a (possibly more) significant part of this task would be accomplished by civil service types. I think it's worth a shot.
Finally - what about this? Let's buy every single poppy in the fucking country. Outbid the Taliban. Buy up every one - sell some to the pharma companies, burn the rest. You'd deny the ISI, Taliban, Al Qaeda and the Russian mob some serious bucks and maybe even impact the global heroin trade. (I know it would just pick up and move, but still.) It's a lot cheaper than war.
BullMoose
Just give India all the logistic and material they need . Then they can finally squash those jealous pests from their north once and for all.
Pakistan is jealous because india has smarter, more civilized, and a better nature of inhabitants, than those backward Paki Pashtun hillbillies.
handycapt
The author writes: "The simple answer is that our real goal ought to be a stable Pakistan."
Please stop stating your OPINION as if it is a fact. It is a childish and deceptive technique. State your opinion as FACT and then argue from said FACT.
Here's another FACT that's just as valid as yours: " The simple answer is that our real goal ought to be disarm Pakistan".
Remove the weapons and you remove what our enemies are after. Much like putting the sugar away to get rid of the ants.
DISARM PAKISTAN!!! so we can get the heck out of there.
Terkelguy
The premise that this "surge" in Afghanistan is necessary because such a military move worked in Iraq is fallacious. The streets of Baghdad and other Iraqi cities were so racked by the violence of a civil war. Therefore, Iraqis welcomed our protection.
Such a welcome is not now nor will ever be a reality in Afghanistan; witness how two U.S. soldiers were brutally murdered recently when they were sleeping by an Afghan "soldier."
The real Al-Qaida action is in the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan; that's where we should be. If we can somehow work that out with the Pakistani government, that is.
mcmchugh99
I don't see any alternative to staying, since we cannot leave a failed state there in Afghanistan, run by the Taliban, drug dealers and the mafia.
Frenchmanaz
@mcmchugh...I do completely appreciate your reasoning and the fact that you seem to be reaching your conclusion with all of the bravado so prominent by the " we must win to save America " crowd, so my response is not meant in malice.
The Afghans have lived the way they do today for centuries, they have fended off some of the strongest military powers on the planet. Let's be clear that before AQ, the Taliban were quite happy with their corner of the world. Are they archaic monsters still living in the middle ages, indeed, but it's their land. They are not asking for inclusion in the EEC or any communities associated with the world community at large, therefore while we may abhore the way they treat their women etc. it is not our place to dictate.
Most Afghans are farmers making pennies a day. The fact that what they happen to be farming is heroin is only relevant because they actually get 60 cents a day instead of 3. The rest of the warlords and drug dealers etc are like cockroaches. They cannot be eradicated. You kill 1, 10 take their place.
A decision to leave Afghanistan will have nothing to do with " our job is done " but rather " our job can never be done ", unless of course, were ready to simply kill them all. Their government, which really has little power anyway, is corrupt and as predatory as the war lords they pretend to govern.
The point, whether we leave today or in 10 years Afghanistan will remain the heroin producing, AK47 totting waste land it has always been. We cannot change centuries of culture, unless it wants to change itself.
The only thing time will tell is the degree of failure we witness.
Chris Matthews ( Hard Ball ) love him or hate him expressed something yesterday that made complete sense. Why not allow Afghanistan to return to it's former terrorist glory. If we allow that to happen and it becomes a haven, they will all be sitting ducks and we can just send in drones to pick them off. As it stands with all of the heat currently there, they naturally scatter by pulling out, we in effect corral them back into a nice fat target.
At what point do we blow the whistle and say " we won " ? or will that whistle ever blow ?
Garvagh
mcmchugh: The drug dealers were largely put out of business by the Taliban. I rather doubt the mafia would be eager to attempt to do ;business with them either. If Hamid Karzai thinks putting in more US troops will not improve security, surely there is a strong argument for not doing so.
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