The Sound and the Fury

by von

In light of the increasingly frenetic calls to reject Gen. McChrystal's report and to bring the troops back home from Afghanistan, it's worth looking at what Gen. McChrystal actually said.  The unclassified version of McChrystal's report is here.  The striking part of McChrystal's report is how different the report is from its caricature in the press.  George Packer is correct when he writes:  

McChrystal’s report is written in plain English, it’s self-critical, and it shows more understanding of the nature of the fight in Afghanistan than most journalism and academic work. The U.S. military now believes that the Afghan government is just as much a threat to success as the Taliban. That’s a bold conclusion, one that our civilians have not been willing to reach, publicly at least. And the description of the different Taliban networks is as clarifying as it is disturbing.

(H/t Andrew Sullivan)

The question McChrystal's report poses is not "do we send more troops?" but "do we engage in a different strategy?"  Indeed, the debate over Afghanistan is not about sending more troops.  Here is McChrystal addressing this very point in his Commander's Summary:

Success is achievable, but it will not be attained simply by trying harder or "doubling down" on the previous strategy. Additional resources are required, but focusing on force or resource requirements misses the point entirely. The key take away from this assessment is the urgent need for a significant change to our strategy and the way that we think and operate.

(Emphasis mine.)  And how would McChrystal change the way coalition forces "think and operate"?

Our strategy cannot be focused on seizing terrain or destroying insurgent forces; our objective must be the population. In the struggle to gain the support ofthe people, every action we take must enable this effort. The population also represents a powerful actor that can and must be leveraged in this complex system. Gaining their support will require a better understanding of the people's choices and needs. However, progress is hindered by the dual threat of a resilient insurgency and a crisis of confidence in the government and the international coalition. To win their support, we must protect the people from both of these threats.

Many describe the conflict in Afghanistan as a war of ideas, which I believe to be true. However, this is a 'deeds-based' information environment where perceptions derive from actions, such as how we interact with the population and how quickly things improve.  ...

Read the whole thing.  If you think that US interests are best served by leaving Afghanistan as a failed state or under Taliban control, it won't change your outlook on the war.  You'll still want the troops to come home. 

But if you think like I do; if you think that it's impossible to achieve President Obama's strategic goals without a measure of stability in Afghanistan; if you think that an unstable Afghanistan will embolden the Taliban in Pakistan; if you fear our abrupt withdrawal will create regional instability; if you believed President Obama when he called Afghanistan "the central front" on the war on terror; and if you believe, as General McChrystal does, that we are now losing in that central front ..... well ....

I think that you'll start to find a lot of arguments regarding Afghanistan to be irrelevant.  Loud and furious, perhaps, but missing the point entirely.

Comments

[von]

Yes, it's "Great Books" week for von's titles ....

[AIMAI]

I don't have any objection to the strategy as laid out. The strategy's all good, in a way. I have a very strong objection to the leaking of the position paper as a way of forcing Obama's hand and weakening the president's options. I don't want a quiet coup by the military--I didn't want one over Iraq and I don't want one over Afghanistan.

This whole debate about Afghanistan reminds me of the scene in My Dinner with Andre. Andre describes the moment he is visiting his dying mother in the hospital and the doctor assigned to look at one part of her body--her broken arm (?)--comes out of the hospital room. The mother is *dying of cancer* and the doctor tells Andre, enthusiastically, that "the arm is doing much, much better." Yes, the arm is doing well, but the patient will die.

Maybe we can "save" Afghanistan, or shore up the current corrupt regime, but at what cost? We are never going to "win" in any meaningful way--and every day we stay costs us more in people and money than we can afford. The very debate--stay or go is misplaced. We should go and then figure out a way to get what we want without being there--or to want different things.

Packer's article in the NY this week reveals that even within the new new thinking on engagement with "af pak" we are still not getting something fundamental--sometimes even world powers can't get what they want. Over in Afghanistan Holbrooke is trying to refight vietnaminization by making sure to funnel all monies through the afghan government and its units to strengthen them in the eyes of their people. Over in Pakistan the pakistani *people* are telling Holbrooke to buypass Pakistan's corrupt leadership and buy the loyalty of the people directly with big, name, projects like "american dam" and "american girls school" so that they can point to something clearly delivered by america. These are two very different strategies, both extremely risky and expensive, that run contrary (each in their own way) to the reality on the ground--to what our actual political counterparties want us to do in their countries. Any continued negotiations under these circumstances may be necessary, but they aren't going to go well. The only way to win this game is to get out with as much of your honor and your money intact and watch the other losers spiral down.

aimai

[wonkie]

I rememer way back when we first went in thinking we'd have a better chance of winning if we showed up to replant their foreests and redig their irrigation systems.

McCrysatal does seem to be on the right track. Is it too late? Can we afford the investment now, after having wasted so much on a failed strategy?

I'[m sorry to respond with cynicism. It's hard to avoidthinking ofAfganistan as a sort of black hole.

[scott]

So in order to win we need to fight a resilient insurgency, protect the population, and put together a legitimate government with popular support. Nothing that the good general has said, or you for that matter, explains how to do that or even whether we have the competence or resources to do it. That leaves aside the potent moral question of continuing to occupy a country after the threat that initiated the invasion (the presence of al Qaeda) has vanished, by Petraeus' own admission. So that leaves us with nothing to support this farce.

[JamesNostack]

Does this summarize the present conventional wisdom?

1. We can't afford to lose in Afghanistan.
2. We don't know how to win in Afghanistan.
3. So let's stay in Afghanistan for now.

Which has basically been what we've been doing for ~7 years. Good thing we can afford it, and people don't mind dying for bureaucratic paralysis.

[Comrade Dread]

Yes, if you are occupying a country and fighting various entrenched guerrilla armies, it is a good idea to get the population on your side.

Unfortunately, after several years of incidents where we've hit the wrong target with bombs or had plenty of collateral damage taking out a target or spraying their livelihood with herbicide to satiate our drug warriors, I don't know if it will be possible to 'win' these people to our side.

[Cyrus]

I think that you'll start to find a lot of arguments regarding Afghanistan to be irrelevant. Loud and furious, perhaps, but missing the point entirely.

Nice to see that sober-minded, very serious people are finally standing up to all those dirty hippies who want to cut and run.

[Eric Martin]

"if you think that an unstable Afghanistan will embolden the Taliban in Pakistan;"

Why? This has never happened in the past? The Pakistani government wants the Taliban in charge. That outcome will not threaten the Pakistani government, and the Pakistani government knows this.

Otherwise, McChrystal is correct in diagnosing the problems, but wildly unrealistic about our ability to address them.

Are we going to topple the current government and start from scratch? If not, why would the current government suddenly decide to govern better and win the respect of the people?

if you fear our abrupt withdrawal will create regional instability

Ah, that old familiar Iraq war strawman. The "precipitous" withdrawal. The "abrupt" withdrawal. The "immediate" withdrawal. Um, very few people are actually suggesting such a course.

The main suggestions are for a measured, timed, and gradual withdrawal.

[Jay Jerome]

Not only has Obama appropriated Bush's Afghanistan war, he's appropriating his mind-set as well:

More I Believed Obama When He Said He Wasn't George Bush And Now I Have A Sore Rectum News

Obama to Use Current Law to Support Detentions

New York Times
By PETER BAKER
Published: September 23, 2009

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has decided not to seek new legislation from Congress authorizing the indefinite detention of about 50 terrorism suspects being held without charges at at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, officials said Wednesday.

Instead, the administration will continue to hold the detainees without bringing them to trial based on the power it says it has under the Congressional resolution passed after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, authorizing the president to use force against forces of Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

Gasp! It's like a scene from the Dr. Jekyll Mr. Hyde film: the noble meritorious large-eared Liberal metamorphoses before your eyes into the shifty-eyed untrustworthy Neo-Con, espousing the same rationalizations he condemned to get elected.

Now let the rationalizations begin...

[Consumatopia]

While it seemed to verbosely describe what McChrystal believes and what he wants to do, I didn't find his justification for his beliefs (i.e. what he had observed that lead him to take those beliefs) or his consideration of alternative strategies to be particularly deep.

For example, if you believed, as seems reasonable, that Afghan stability is good, Taliban strength is bad, but this difference is not worth infinite resources to be on the wrong side of and, if the mission is difficult enough it would be wiser to abandon it and instead strengthen law enforcement and homeland security--then this report--long on ambitions and theories but short on evidence that they could actually work--functions as a reason to leave the field.

Of course, that's probably beyond the military's job to consider--they should decide how to win a war, not whether the war is worth winning. But I'm not even convinced that McChrystal is honestly considering all the possible ways to win the war. For example, if you thought that disregarding the corrupt national government and cooperating with local leaders on far more limited counter-terrorism goals would have just as much chance of success without quite as much risk to either American or Afghan lives (any attempt to move a country from disorder to order is always going to involve a spike in fatalities), then this report doesn't really do anything to disabuse you of this notion.

I'm no expert or anything, maybe that's still too high-level a strategic change to be in the general's job description. But most damnably of all, I'm not seeing any consideration of the possibility that insisting on the indispensibility of the national government of Afghanistan to America's continued existence actually eliminates our leverage over them to force the much needed reforms. If Karzai is Too Big to Fail, well, we saw how that works out with our financial system. If we cannot walk away, but Karzai and his cronies are perfectly capable of skimming as much from the top as they want then fleeing the country, I don't see how a legitimate central government is possible.

So the success of a population-centric strategy actually requires a viable plan B.

[Jay Jerome]

And Von -- If the Danes and the Spaniards are so hot to keep troops in Afghanistan, why don't they send more of their own there -- between them they don't have 2,000 boots on the ground.

And the Russians, who should know, say that adding more troops now will just make things worse:

Russia's ambassador to Afghanistan has some advice for top NATO commanders fighting the Taliban based on the Soviet Union's bitter experience battling Islamist insurgents here in the 1980s: Don't bring more troops.

'The more troops you bring the more troubles you will have here,' said Zamir Kabulov, a blunt-spoken veteran diplomat.

In 2002, he noted, there were roughly 5,000 U.S. soldiers fighting in Afghanistan and the Taliban controlled just a small corner of the country's southeast.

'Now we have Taliban fighting in the peaceful Kunduz and Baghlan (provinces) with your (NATO's) 100,000 troops,' he said this week, sitting on a couch in the Russian Embassy in Kabul."

Read more here:

[Jesurgislac]

if you think that it's impossible to achieve President Obama's strategic goals without a measure of stability in Afghanistan; if you think that an unstable Afghanistan will embolden the Taliban in Pakistan; if you fear our abrupt withdrawal will create regional instability; if you believed President Obama when he called Afghanistan "the central front" on the war on terror; and if you believe, as General McChrystal does, that we are now losing in that central front ..... well ....

At that point, my fantasy plan in which the US withdraws all military and begins a thirty-year plan of intelligently-directed aid to rebuild Afghanistan and support Afghans, begins to sound good, doesn't it?

Fair trade poppies...

[Uncle Kvetch]

In light of the increasingly frenetic calls to reject Gen. McChrystal's report and to bring the troops back home from Afghanistan

If this is meant to convey anything other than "I am a reasonable, serious thinker; my opponents are screaming, fanatical hippies," I fail to see it.

Additional resources are required, but focusing on force or resource requirements misses the point entirely.

Thought experiment:

"Guaranteeing basic health care for all Americans will require more money, but focusing on the amount of money required misses the point entirely."

Would you have accepted this from a lefty blogger, von?

Excuse me for going all Republican on you, but don't tell me I'm "missing the point" when you're talking about spending my tax dollars. ("It's your money!" said Sen. Dole. Remember?)

How much money, and how are you going to pay for it? Which taxes will you increase and/or which services will you cut? Alternatively, how much of an increase in the national debt are you willing to incur, and how do you justify it?

Oh, and at the risk of derailing the thread:

More I Believed Obama When He Said He Wasn't George Bush And Now I Have A Sore Rectum News

Are you capable of making a point without sounding like a smirking 13-year-old, JJ? We now know that you hate and fear Obama with the white-hot hate and fear of the average homophobic straight man contemplating anal sex...are we supposed to do something with that information?

Grow up, already.

[Rob in CT]

"Now let the rationalizations begin..."

Nope, at least not from me. Obama's position wrt to detentions in particular and WOT issues in general have been extremely disappointing.

...

By the way, has anyone "serious" yet brought up the poppy issue? I remain puzzled by our approach there.

[Slartibartfast]

I think fairtrade opium has some potential, J. I think that notion is a couple of years old, though. It's got some third-rail aspects that might make it political poison to touch.

[Fair Economist]

At this point, the current Afghan government is doomed. It has no power base, no financial base, and no legitimacy. The administration has no plan to deal with this, so nothing they do will bring stability. It's just a waste of resources and credibility to stay - even one minute. A precipitous withdrawal on the grounds that we can no longer support the current government would be the best outcome, because at least it would allow Obama to have some legitimacy for future intervention attempts (including in Afghanistan). Plus, it would reduce the deficit - paging Senator Conrad!

[Slartibartfast]

Seriously.

I seriously doubt it.

[EvilCornbread]

von, can you explain why it's of paramount importance that providing adequate health care to the citizens of our country be revenue-neutral, but we're willing to wage a massively-revenue-negative war?

Why the double standard? Why is it fine to run a deficit for a war, but not for health care?

[Carleton Wu]

But if you think like I do; if you think that it's impossible to achieve President Obama's strategic goals without a measure of stability in Afghanistan; if you think that an unstable Afghanistan will embolden the Taliban in Pakistan; if you fear our abrupt withdrawal will create regional instability; if you believed President Obama when he called Afghanistan "the central front" on the war on terror; and if you believe, as General McChrystal does, that we are now losing in that central front ..... well ....

What I don't see is any consideration of whether we're capable of doing this with the money, force, and time we're likely to deploy.
There aren't many in the US who would prefer an unstable Afghanistan, just as there weren't many who liked having Saddam in charge of Iraq. But a discussion like this should include both cost/benefit analysis and likelihood of success, not just "This would be a really good thing to do."
I mean, I imagine a similar series of statements about eg education spending- necessary to reach Obama's goals, critical to the future of the nation, not succeeding today, etc. And I have a hard time seeing anyone accept the conclusion without asking those sorts of questions.

[HCST]

As has been pointed out by many others, the underlying assumption in the argument seems to be that the US actually *can* promote sociopolitical stability within Afghanistan -- even though the current government lacks legitimacy, cohesion, or central authority, and appears to have virtually no leverage outside its own ethnic enclaves.

Absent a strong indigenous partner, McC's own report rather clearly states that there's remarkably little the US can do. The US is currently lacking a strong indigenous partner, and appears to have remarkably few means of ensuring that they do. Without that rather crucial element, which appears to be wholly *assumed* in the argument being made about the strategic importance etc etc, the rest is a complete non-starter.

========

To use an analogy, I love me some pie. I think pie is AWESOME. I love the recipe for pie that you have. I would totally be for spending money on ingredients for pie.

But we don't have an oven, nor any plans for accessing one.

[Dan S.]

" If you think that US interests are best served by leaving Afghanistan as a failed state or under Taliban control . . ."

And, don't forget, if you hate and fear ponies.

[Steven Donegal]

I think I've read this book series. I believe it begins with A Bright Shining Lie and continues with The Best and the Brightest. I believe Vol III is McMasters' book, Dereliction of Duty. Although since we dealing with deserts and mountains rather than jungles and swamps and there aren't any Communists involved, I'm sure things will work out for the better this time around.

[Jonny Scrum-half]

Why is it that our interests are seriously harmed when we mistakenly kill civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq, but the Taliban and Al-Qaeda can deliberately target innocent populations and not inspire the same resentment as our mistakes? Is it bad PR by us? Or simply the fact that we're an occupying force, which makes the standard higher for us? Or something else?

[mutt]

From dutiful reading, It would seem Von is of the "clap louder" school of war making......
A piece on McChrystals supposed relation to the WH on this, it seems germane, but of course the source is dodgy...
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/24/world/asia/24general.html?_r=1

[Cyrus]

And, don't forget, if you hate and fear ponies.

I love ponies. I hate apple pie, though. And mom. Don't tell von, though.

[Eric Martin]

Or simply the fact that we're an occupying force, which makes the standard higher for us?

Big part of it. We're outsiders. Our motives are unknown. Many assume the worst. The Taliban are locals, their agenda is known and, as brutal as they are, they have a reputation for bringing order and for abstaining from corrupt practices. Many Afghans prefer the Taliban for its lack of corruption, a marked contrast from Karzai's government.

[TheWesson]

Obama said "This is the central front in our enduring struggle against terrorism and extremism."

I read this as (halfway) adopting war-on-terror rhetoric in order to polish his hawk credentials with the neocons and the Cold-War-nostalgia crowd.

Bad idea. In reality, "winning" or "losing" Afghanistan is somewhat orthogonal to the problem of controlling terrorism, a struggle that can neither be won nor lost by the means of war - controlling territory, destroying things, and killing people.

[The Crafty Trilobite]

If you think that US interests are best served by leaving Afghanistan as a failed state or under Taliban control . . ."

Count me in!

Mind you, U.S. interests would be "best served" by populating Afghanistan with angelic beings selflessly dedicated to aiding the U.S. with replicator technology and immortality drugs. But that seems unlikely.

In the real world, what is a stable, non-Talibani Afghanistan going to do for us even if we could get it? Or, turn the question around, how exactly would an unstable, Taliban-ruled Afghanistan harm the U.S?

Last time around, that was a problem because the Taliban sheltered terrorists. If staying in Afghanistan would prevent a recurrence of 9-11, I'd be all for it. But Al Qaeda doesn't need Afghanistan, it's a decentralized network. Even if the Taliban do regain control, they're probably not stupid enough to keep actively helping Al Qaeda; and if they do, we bomb Kabul again while their leadership is in it. Under any government, Al Q might hide out somewhere in Afghanistan, so I'm not seeing the gain to us in staying.

All we could ever reasonably have hoped to do in Afghanistan was (a) punish and deter people who helped Al Q., and (b) take out the Al Q. leadership. We did the first and muffed the second in the first month. Everything since then has been an attempt to punish & deter even more, by permanently depowering the Taliban. That's a reasonable national goal, but how much is it actually worth to us? We have more urgent problems.

[Jay Jerome]

Uncle Kvetch kvetches: "Are you capable of making a point without sounding like a smirking 13-year-old, JJ? We now know that you hate and fear Obama with the white-hot hate and fear of the average homophobic straight man contemplating anal sex...are we supposed to do something with that information?"

It's the Bart Simpson in me Kvetchie (and in fact I'm more true to your blog name then you are). Try to think of it less as smirking juvenile behavior and more as an antidote to pomposity, an attempt to deflate smug self-centered self-righteous liberal elitistism generally expressed in language as divorced of relevance from the American conversation as upper class 1930s enunciation was from the Marx Bros idiom. And, as Groucho said, if you don't like it, you can leave in a taxi, and if you can't get a taxi, you can leave in a huff.

And I take it from your deflected indignation you don't give a crap about Obama's double-cross flip flop to shut down the detention camp in Guantanamo Bay, which he called a 'sad chapter in American history' and now is extending in a continuing saga of hypocrisy.

And I neither hate nor fear O'Blah Blah; he's a smart guy, and would have been a competent senator. And I'm sure in his own mind he has the best of intentions. But he's not trustworthy: he lies by omission; he's willing to twist the truth for political advantage; and he reverses his campaign promises with increasing slippery regularity.

And for that average homophobic straight man contemplating anal sex charge, if you're into anal sex, and enjoy it, go for it, I don't have any problems with that at all. In fact if you are, you should thank me for the support I offered back in the 1980s to decriminalize consensual anal and oral sex in New York (which led to passing People vrs Onofre) and the New York City Gay Rights Ordinance, then touted by Mayor Ed Koch, my old knish-eating acquaintance at the time (munched on at the 2nd Avenue Deli, across from St. Marks Church at 10th Street) who wheedled me, and some of my gay-writer friends from the St. Marks Writer's Workshop (who, unlike you, never got upset over metaphoric sodomy usage -- like calling them pains-in-the-ass) to raise 'awareness' of the ordinances under consideration (meaning raise money for ads in city magazines and newspapers). When the ordinance passed it earned Ed a lot of kudos from the gay community, who earlier had cursed him out (I'd tell you what they called him then but you'd tell me I was a male chauvinistic pig) when he backed the City Health Department's decision to close down all the gay bathhouses in lieu of concerns about the spread of AIDS.

Anyway, in the final analysis, I'd rather sound like a smirking 13 year old then a complacent victim of ObamaSpin. But that's just my opinion. And you're entitled to your opinion and can express it anyway you like, without worrying that I'll call you a straight white male basher.

[tequila]

"At that point, my fantasy plan in which the US withdraws all military and begins a thirty-year plan of intelligently-directed aid to rebuild Afghanistan and support Afghans, begins to sound good, doesn't it?"

If we withdraw all military presence, who do you think is going to be in charge of Afghanistan to harvest all this "intelligently-directed aid"?

"Big part of it. We're outsiders. Our motives are unknown. Many assume the worst. The Taliban are locals, their agenda is known and, as brutal as they are, they have a reputation for bringing order and for abstaining from corrupt practices. Many Afghans prefer the Taliban for its lack of corruption, a marked contrast from Karzai's government."

Eric, have you seen this BBC/ABC News Poll taken earlier in 2009?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/05_02_09afghan_poll_2009.pdf

Q: Who would you rather have ruling Afghanistan today?

Current government - 82%
Taliban - 4%
Other - 10%

Q: Which of the following do you think poses the biggest danger in our country?

Taliban - 58%
Drug Traffickers - 13%
Local commanders - 7%
United States - 8%
Current gov - 1%

Q: Do you strongly support, somewhat support, somewhat oppose or strongly oppose the presence of the following groups in Afghanistan today?

US Forces
Strongly support - 12%
Somewhat support - 51%
Somewhat oppose - 21%
Strongly oppose - 15%

Taliban fighters
Strongly support - 2%
Somewhat support - 6%
Somewhat oppose - 20%
Strongly oppose - 70%

[jrudkis]

The problem is that McChrystal assumes that it is possible to fix things there. We can all believe that US interests are better served by preventing a failed state, and that it would be worth treasure and lives to accomplish that mission. However, if that is not possible regardless of the lives and treasure committed, it is better to pull out now and save the lives and treasure for missions that are actually possible.

Afghanistan has never been a cohesive state: we can't fix that. Afghanistan does not have the resources to sustain itself as a state: it will always be a client to someone (or a loose feudal system). And our history has not shown us able to sustain client states reasonably.

I don't see anything we can accomplish there.

[Eric Martin]

Tequila,

I saw the poll, but question the methodology. They couldn't go into Taliban supported areas so the results are predictably skewed.

[Hogan]

Eric, have you seen this BBC/ABC News Poll taken earlier in 2009?

Before Karzai stole the presidential election? You might get a different result if you took that poll now.

And note that "strongly support the presence of US troops" has gone down from 30% to 12% since 2006, while "strongly oppose" has gone from 6% to 15%.

[Hogan]

I do believe the 3:10 post is not from Eric, and I have my suspicions about that link.

[Eric Martin]

Yes, our resident troll/spoofer/dude with too much time on his hands is at it again.

[magistra]

McChrystal himself says in the report:

A foreign army alone cannot beat an insurgency; the insurgency in Afghanistan requires an Afghan solution. This is their war and, in the end, ISAF's competency will prove less decisive than GIRoA's [Afghan Govt]; eventual success requires capable Afghan governance capabilities and security forces.

So the plan relies on the Afghan government to become a capable one. What are the chances of that? Look at how many governments in the world are currently reasonably non-corrupt: 10% or so, maybe. Think of how long it's taken those governments to become 'capable' (democratic, not too corrupt): it took the UK around 600 years, the US close to 200. Tell me how that kind of thing is going to happen in 5, 10, 20 years in Afghanistan without magic unicorns. And then tell me again how I'm not giving McChrystal's plan a fair hearing.

[mutt]

Of course, to implement a "winning" COIN stratgy, we need....what it seems got "redacted" in the recent leak:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article23566.htm

at least a half million troops. I for one would welcome the draft this would entail. Quickest way imaginable to end this bloody charade.
Re: polls in war zones: you get the same answer you get from enhanced interro- i mean torture: exactly what the questionee thinks you want to hear. Jeez. C'mon.
500,000 troops? I truly hope, Von, you dont think the "free market"- mercs- should make up this force? Do you??
With enough clapping , we get a pony??

[Eric Martin]

Magistra, on the upside, it will only cost a few trillion dollars. And few thousand US lives. And tens of thousands of Afghan lives. And hundreds of thousands of maimed and debilitated survivors.

So it's worth a shot.

[Uncle Kvetch]

And I take it from your deflected indignation you don't give a crap about Obama's double-cross flip flop to shut down the detention camp in Guantanamo Bay, which he called a 'sad chapter in American history' and now is extending in a continuing saga of hypocrisy.

You take it wrong. I actually agree with you. If you'd managed to express your point without coming off like a total jackass I probably would have expressed that agreement.

And, as Groucho said, if you don't like it, you can leave in a taxi, and if you can't get a taxi, you can leave in a huff.

No huff, I'll just make a point of ignoring your comments in the future. I'd more or less had you pegged as the newest version of d'd'd'dave--you've now confirmed that for me, and I thank you for it. It'll save me a lot of time.

[Dantheman]

"And, as Groucho said, if you don't like it, you can leave in a taxi, and if you can't get a taxi, you can leave in a huff."

He also said, if you can't leave in a huff, leave in an hour and a huff.

But that's entirely irr-elephant to what I was taking about (as he also said).

[Cyrus]

Yes, our resident troll/spoofer/dude with too much time on his hands is at it again.

Really? Huh, I took like "If you think that US interests are best served by leaving Afghanistan as a failed state or under Taliban control, it won't change your outlook on the war. You'll still want the troops to come home," As sincere. Good to know I was wrong.

[Phil]

Jay Jerome, yesterday: "So if you didn't complain about someone getting shot on Tuesday, you can't complain about someone else getting shot on Wednesday?

And if you don't criticize DeLay's ludicrous Dancing With The Stars performance now you can't criticize any other tippy-toe politicians who make fools of themselves down the road? Even if it's Sarah Palin doing the Cha Cha Cha?"

Jay Jerome, today: And I take it from your deflected indignation you don't give a crap about Obama's double-cross flip flop to shut down the detention camp in Guantanamo Bay, which he called a 'sad chapter in American history' and now is extending in a continuing saga of hypocrisy.

Pick a principle and stick with it, jacktard.

There, was that sufficiently un-pompous?

[Ugh]

Sigh (and don't click).

[tequila]

I saw the poll, but question the methodology. They couldn't go into Taliban supported areas so the results are predictably skewed.

The poll was taken in every province in Afghanistan, including Pashtun areas and places like Helmand and Kandahar where the Taliban is thick on the ground.

But let's pretend that the Afghan pollsters only went to government-supporting areas. That would mean that there are significant areas of Afghanistan where the Taliban is not looked upon well. Should we abandon them to the Taliban?

Before Karzai stole the presidential election? You might get a different result if you took that poll now.

And note that "strongly support the presence of US troops" has gone down from 30% to 12% since 2006, while "strongly oppose" has gone from 6% to 15%.

Karzai's chicanery might lessen support for his government, but I don't see how that necessarily translates into greater support for the Taliban. And as you can see from the poll, the Taliban are NOT well liked at all.

So the plan relies on the Afghan government to become a capable one. What are the chances of that? Look at how many governments in the world are currently reasonably non-corrupt: 10% or so, maybe. Think of how long it's taken those governments to become 'capable' (democratic, not too corrupt): it took the UK around 600 years, the US close to 200. Tell me how that kind of thing is going to happen in 5, 10, 20 years in Afghanistan without magic unicorns. And then tell me again how I'm not giving McChrystal's plan a fair hearing.

If you're expecting Afghanistan's government to achieve anything like what we in the West would call good government, then yes you are expecting far too much. Nowhere does McChrystal's report conjure such a mythical beast.

But at the very least, the Afghan government can be more capable and responsive and less corrupt than it is now. Even in its current anemic state, it garners more popular support than the Taliban. What it does not have on its side is the ability to project enough force or security to secure the population. The Taliban is not so much out-governing the GoA as occupying a vacuum where the GoA doesn't have the ability to go.

Iraq can provide a good example here. The Iraqi government remains brutal, corrupt, faction-ridden, utterly ineffective in many areas, often captive to the whims of local warlords. The Iraqi security forces are, objectively, awful at basic military skills, deeply corrupt, politically compromised. I saw all these things at first hand last year.

Yet the insurgency is largely gone. The violence level is below that of 2004 and nowhere near the incredible violence of 2006-2007. The ISF and IG don't have to be good --- and they're not. They just have to be better than the alternatives --- al-Qaeda in Iraq and the Mahdi Army. And they are.

At best we can provide the space for the GoA to become marginally effective. It won't be Switzerland --- hell, it won't even be Pakistan. But it'll be better than Afghanistan under the Taliban.

[byrningman]

Our strategy cannot be focused on seizing terrain or destroying insurgent forces; our objective must be the population. In the struggle to gain the support ofthe people, every action we take must enable this effort. The population also represents a powerful actor that can and must be leveraged in this complex system. Gaining their support will require a better understanding of the people's choices and needs.

I really have to disagree with McChrystal's basic assumptions; he's verging on vacuous counter-insurgency bromides here. The last time the West, and the American military, was in the thrall of counter-insurgency theory was the late 1950s and early 1960s, and we're simply getting all of the same doctrine (which is mostly bunk) regurgitated now. The end results will probably be the same, that is, a flop. There's a reason why most modern counter-insurgencies don't succeed -- the doctrine is usually wrong-headed.

In McChrystal's case, he exposes the particularly curious blindspot of the Americans in Afghanistan -- the Soviet counterinsurgency campaign under somewhat comparable circumstances in the 1980s. In that situation, which was at least as successful as the Americans could hope for now, Soviet success very much depended on military achievements - namely cutting the mujahideen off from reinforcement and resupply in Pakistan.

The first precondition for any strategy in Afghanistan is cutting off the Taliban's source of shelter, reinforcement, and resupply in Pakistan. If the US does not do this, nothing else matters, it's that simple. This requires a military effort and also a diplomatic effort. In the Soviet case, Reagan-Gorbachev rapprochement took much of the wind of the mujahideen's sails, but effective military operations in the southern regions of Afghanistan also played a vital part.

I don't claim to be an expert on contemporary Pakistani politics, but so far as I can tell, Washington hasn't had much success in replicating the Soviet success in this regard. If the US can't drastically curtail the Taliban's support from Pakistan, there's really no point in talking about anything else.

The second precondition for success in Afghanistan is indeed a functional government in Kabul, but 'functional' needs to be understood in a fundamentally different way than Western officials are used to. First, the government needs only to be tolerable enough not to provoke substantial armed opposition just by its existence. The Karzai regime (who's car is clearly about to called in), could probably have met this standard were the West not shooting itself in the foot with elections and unrealistic expectations of Afghan politics. Secondly, the regime in Kabul needs to not push its luck by trying to impose its authority too strongly on regional and local bosses. This is also a concept at odds with the standard Western doctrine of nation-building, and the corollary belief that a successful counter-insurgency campaign depends on expanding the state's administrative capacities and reach. This approach has merit in some situations, Iraq for example, but I don't believe Afghanistan is one of them. Thirdly, any successful regime in Kabul needs to accept Sharia law, again a problematic precondition for viability vis-a-vis Western mores. Fourthly, any successful regime in Kabul probably needs to at least tolerate the poppy trade, yet again problematic for Western officials.

The third precondition for success in Afghanistan, indeed in any counter-insurgency campaign -- especially in predominantly rural societies, is an air of permanence. Western counter-insurgence doctrine tends to have misguided notions of how you "win the population", something that I think McChrystal is exemplifying in his latest report. Winning the population is nothing like a popularity contest in the Western political paradigm. The first essentiality is that you win what the Vietnamese peasantry called "the Mandate of Heaven", and which to my mind translates roughly into a sense of permanency, that you will actually be sticking around. In that respect, success breeds success. I doubt that anybody believes that the Americans are sticking around in Afghanistan, nor that whichever government they leave in place will either, since they seem to be doing their utmost to discredit Kabul as it is.

Naturally, you also have to pass the tolerability threshold, something any foreign force has a very hard time doing, but that doesn't at all mean that the local population shouldn't fear you. In this scenario, the local population probably does need to fear the US forces, but they have to know that they won't be exposed to American wrath randomly, within provoking it. Elections also aren't terrible important, or even relevant, save for reassuring the voting public back in the USA.

[byrningman]

Afghanistan may even be one of those situations where elections are counter-productive, because they can undermine traditional authority figures and embolden young men. When they are swatted down, these young men often drift into the ranks of the insurgency. It must be remembered that long-lasting insurgencies like the one in Afghanistan can often become semi-permanent features of society; they provide a useful role and social safety valve by giving young men an outlet to head into the mountains and assert themselves, perhaps even acquiring a notable position in society as a local leader. It's very possible for such men to drift in and out of the insurgency, causing indignation on the parts of other locals when the NATO forces shoot them in any situation other than a clear-cut battle. There is certainly a solid spine to the Taliban that has a fairly defined religious-political motivation, but there's also a great deal of turnover at the local level, where the distinction between 'Taliban' as we think of them and more strictly local groups becomes very blurred.

[Eric Martin]

But let's pretend that the Afghan pollsters only went to government-supporting areas. That would mean that there are significant areas of Afghanistan where the Taliban is not looked upon well. Should we abandon them to the Taliban?

Should we stay in Afghanistan for 50 years and spend 10 trillion dollars so we don't? Keep in mind, also, that right now we are killing hundreds if not thousands of Afghans every month. To what are we abandoning them?

And, coming soon, polling data that does not show such strong support for the govt or aversion to the Taliban. So it's a mixed bag.

Iraq can provide a good example here. The Iraqi government remains brutal, corrupt, faction-ridden, utterly ineffective in many areas, often captive to the whims of local warlords. The Iraqi security forces are, objectively, awful at basic military skills, deeply corrupt, politically compromised. I saw all these things at first hand last year.

Yet the insurgency is largely gone. The violence level is below that of 2004 and nowhere near the incredible violence of 2006-2007.

Yes, the violence is less than 2006-2007. Bu there are still hundreds of Iraqis dying each month in political violence. That's a lot for a country of 25 million. So even the "model" leaves MUCH to be desired. At an ENORMOUS cost to us.

Whereas, if we left, violence might be higher for a brief period of time, but it would flare out rather than drag on at a slower pace. Not sure what we've achieved on that front, really.

[Uncle Kvetch]

That would mean that there are significant areas of Afghanistan where the Taliban is not looked upon well. Should we abandon them to the Taliban?

Right now, we're "abandoning" the people of North Korea to what is probably the most horrifically oppressive government on the planet--unless you're advocating invading and occupying the country.

We are not superheroes and we need to start basing our foreign policy on that fact, or we will bleed ourselves dry (along with a hell of a lot of the people we're trying to "save").

[Hogan]

The last time the West, and the American military, was in the thrall of counter-insurgency theory was the late 1950s and early 1960s

A minor point, but: my sense is that it was the White House that was "in the thrall" of counterinsurgency theory in the early '60s, and that the military, with very few exceptions, exercised all their considerable powers of bureaucratic intertia to keep from incorporating that theory into their doctrine, training and practice. Certainly the way they fought in Indochina in the '60s and '70s gave very little indication of interest in or understanding of counterinsurgency.

[Fledermaus]

Great now I can't stop picturing Groucho Marx as president of Afganistan.

[tequila]

Should we stay in Afghanistan for 50 years and spend 10 trillion dollars so we don't? Keep in mind, also, that right now we are killing hundreds if not thousands of Afghans every month. To what are we abandoning them?

To a brutal collection of Pakistan-based Islamist radicals who have a record of killing tens of thousands to achieve their insane religious principles, who to this day kill many more Afghans than coalition forces do.

Not that all of them will fall under the Taliban. Many will fight. To that end, we abandon the country to a much bloodier, more savage, genuinely civil war since we will strengthen the Taliban tremendously through our departure and weaken the government and anti-Taliban Afghans.

You say that leaving will not result in more dead Afghans. The record of the 1990s shows that unrestrained civil war in Afghanistan will result in many tens of thousands more dead Afghans.

And, coming soon, polling data that does not show such strong support for the govt or aversion to the Taliban. So it's a mixed bag.

Really? Are you so sure?

Whereas, if we left, violence might be higher for a brief period of time, but it would flare out rather than drag on at a slower pace. Not sure what we've achieved on that front, really.

Why wouldn't it drag on? The Taliban wouldn't achieve instant victory. They have no real support in the west, and not much in the north. The Hazaras despise them and the Uzbeks and Panjshiri Tajiks will fight. Russia and India will support the latter two, Iran will support the Shias and their old buddy Ismail Khan. I'm assuming you don't want us to totally abandon the Afghan government or enable a Taliban victory, so we'd still support anti-Taliban elements. What evidence or scenario do you have where the violence would simply "flare out"? As you point out, it hasn't completely flared out in Iraq, despite the collapse of the insurgency, and in Afghanistan the civil war would only be getting started rather than ending.

Southern Somalia, but across Afghanistan writ large, would be the best case scenario given a withdrawal. Or perhaps the paradise that is the FATA, but across all of Afghanistan.

[Slartibartfast]

Great now I can't stop picturing Groucho Marx as president of Afganistan.

[someotherdude]

A little thought experiment….

Let’s just say, the US, after hundreds of years of Empire finally breaks down, and could no longer maintain its military and economic strength. And during this break down, many of the old antagonisms resurface. The Klan goes back to its anti-Papist and anti-Black programs and the Black Panther Party sees a resurgence. The US basically is breaking apart. Because of the vast amounts of dangerous weapons, the Russians and Iranians (let’s just pretend, their global powers with way more capabilities) decide to invade and occupy The South in order to save it from itself. Now whatever influence the Klan had before, it is far more deadly and hostile than before, and is not just targeting Blacks who do not know their place, but begin a campaign to target anybody who work with the occupying forces. Although the Black Panther Party in Western US is still hostile to the Klan, the Black Panther Party in Mississippi makes an alliance with the Klan, because it hates occupation, even though the occupiers are justifying it because they hate racism. Occupiers keep showing the lynchings the Klan perform as proof of their diabolical plans for the region and the world. Northern militia men go down in droves to support the few anti-imperial forces in the South, while many Southerners are tired of the bloodshed, and claim to trust the Iranian and Russian governments more than the US government which failed t control the Black Panther Party, the Klan, and the multitudes of militiamen, killing anything which didn’t recognize their authority. Whatever evilness we associate with the Klan today, would dissipate, I believe, once an invading force kills thousands of Americans to save us from ourselves.

Just a thought experiment.

And just remember, when the Klan was in ascendance (millions were members across the US during the 1920s), the Klan had no problem making alliances with particular Black leaders in Indiana against Roman Catholic workers, while in the South, made alliances with Roman Catholic workers against Blacks. Unlikely alliances are always happening when someone feels threatened by what they perceive to be outsiders.

[Eric Martin]

To a brutal collection of Pakistan-based Islamist radicals who have a record of killing tens of thousands to achieve their insane religious principles, who to this day kill many more Afghans than coalition forces do.

Not quite. Pashtuns make up roughly 45% of the population, and a significant number of Pashtuns identify with the Taliban.

Further, there are Tajik groups that are now fighting Karzai that are labeled "Taliban" which has become a euphemism for insurgent.

Really? Are you so sure?

Yes. It will be in my next post.

Southern Somalia, but across Afghanistan writ large, would be the best case scenario given a withdrawal. Or perhaps the paradise that is the FATA, but across all of Afghanistan.

And what is it now? At what cost? Why aren't we invading North Korea? Why would you abandon the North Koreans to their fate?

What evidence or scenario do you have where the violence would simply "flare out"? As you point out, it hasn't completely flared out in Iraq, despite the collapse of the insurgency, and in Afghanistan the civil war would only be getting started rather than ending.

And what evidence or scenario do you have where we have the power to stop the fighting. As you acknowledge, we haven't even been able to do so in Iraq, and we had numerous advantages there.

If they want to fight, they will fight. We won't change that. We haven't yet, as they are fighting right now. When they decide to make peace, they will. That is how civil wars always end. We won't change that.

The sooner we realize that, the better.

[mutt]

Bryningman, Uncle K, Someotherdude- yup.
Tequila- Im just curious, this has no bearing on the legitimacy of your opinion, but Im wondering how deep youve ever gotten in to what you are writing about- ever lived in a war zone? Third World backwater? Im tryin to figure the ......foundation of your belief in the light at the end of your tunnel.
And Hogan is correct re: COIN & Viet Nam. Not that it would have worked, but it cant be said it was done much at all, and especially after the Marines landed in '66. Hackworth didnt write his manual til....69? And then the notion was moot, as too many bodies had been stacked up, the local Gvt was corrupt & without credibility, and the indigenous military was feared by its own people, monstrously corrupt and politically unreliable. and the enemy was eveybodies uncles and aunts.
Hmmm.

[Eric Martin]

Tequila:

Look, if you feel bad about the plight of other peoples, and you want to stop human suffering, there are a million ways to do that:

1. More effectively
2. More efficiently
3. Cheaper
4. That don't involve killing thousands of adversaries and innocents

For example: You could save hundreds of thousands of lives every year by providing sufficient mosquito nets in Africa and other malaria hotbeds.

Why not focus on that instead. It would cost a slight, slight, slight fraction of the cost of a couple years' ops in Afghanistan. It would save more lives. It would do more to bolster the image of the US, etc.

It's just odd how many people get all excited about humanitarian causes when they involve killing people, but shrug with indifference at the infinite possibilities that are much easier, cheaper and more effective.

Think about it.

[byrningman]

Hi Hogan & Mutt,

I have to disagree with your argument that counter-insurgency concepts played little role in the US military effort in Vietnam (if I've understood you correctly). If I recall, special forces and mobile outfits like the Green Berets and the air cavalry were created specifically to fight small and non-conventional wars. French Indochina, Malaya, the Philippines and Algeria all loomed large in the thinking of many politicians and senior military types. The Strategic Hamlet Program, underway during the Kennedy administration, was a classic in the genre of counterinsurgency thinking, the notion of creating safe settlements isolating the population from the insurgents. On the larger scale political-economic front, at least from the late 1950s, American strategy in Vietnam was premised on the idea that Saigon regime just needed time to get on its feet, develop its army, develop its administrative structures, and develop its economy to win the loyalty of the population. This is all pretty much the boilerplate post-WW2 Western counter-insurgency paradigm.

I'm sure you're right that much of the military brass didn't go in for some of their peers' infatuation with Mao Zedong thought and all that, and they surely resented what was becoming of their army, but like it or not they were fighting a counter-insurgency in Vietnam. Until the final North Vietnamese invasion of the south, which was a conventional invasion, I don't see how you can talk about any other kind of warfare in South Vietnam other than counter-insurgency warfare.

[byrningman]

A decent article on the history of counter-insurgency thought recently came out: http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/2009%20-%20Summer/full-Marlowe.html

[Bruce Webb]

"Why is it that our interests are seriously harmed when we mistakenly kill civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq,"

You are simply building in the idea that these are in some sense "mistakes" rather than predictable results of force protection rules.

The rule in Iraq was that if a vehicle was perceived to be a threat, or did not immediately respond to a hand signal from a soldier who might not even be visible to the driver it was allowable to use deadly force against that vehicle. The result was a lot of Iraqi civilians being killed.

In the early days of the war the US had reliable evidence that Saddam would be in a particular restaurant in a crowded residential district at a given time. Whereupon we launched a cruise missile strike at that restaurant. It turns out that we just missed Saddam in time and at least one missile missed the restaurant and struck an apartment building. One of the victims was a 13 year old girl. First they brought out her torso and then her head. In what sense was that a "mistake"? Would the launch decision have been different if we knew that girl would be dining at a table close to Saddam's?

In Afghanistan a couple of US jets flying lower than was authorized saw what they thought was small arms fire. Now one answer would have been to get their asses up to the authorized altitude, the other was to roll in and drop bombs in the dark. Which ended up blowing up 4 Canadians participating in a live-fire drill in an area designated for such on maps the pilots didn't bother to consult. Yeah that was a "mistake" and no doubt the pilots felt bad. But it was predictable from a strategy that put force protection above everything else. And of course no one got punished.

Frankly the tactics adopted by the U.S. in both Afghanistan and Iraq if done by anyone else would be considered war-crimes. Time after time we were told that air-strikes on remote villages in near inaccessible valleys were based on solid intelligence that insured that no civilians would be killed. Well that was total bullshit, when you blow up a hut at night thinking that a terrorist or two is occupying it you are going to blow up women and children. Which can only be considered a deliberate decision.

Nobody decided to shoot up a car carrying an Italian agent who had just rescued an Italian hostage. He just happened to be in a car driving at speed away from the captivity point and his driver didn't see a hand signal from some soldiers standing in the dark. Yep just another 'mistake'.

We don't let "We really didn't mean to burn down 100 houses and kill two fighters went we started that fire in the hills" to be any kind of defense. Trying to wave off predictable results of a force protection and air assault strategies as 'mistakes' by people who were not 'targeting' civilians is just to accept a moral double standard that in turn is rooted in a couple of different types of American Exceptionalism: "We are a good people!" Yeah who don't scruple at using high explosives in residential areas anytime some soldier gets nervous and calls in an air-strike.

[liberal japonicus]

mutt wrote:
Tequila- Im just curious, this has no bearing on the legitimacy of your opinion, but Im wondering how deep youve ever gotten in to what you are writing about- ever lived in a war zone? Third World backwater?

and Eric wrote
Tequila:

Look, if you feel bad about the plight of other peoples, and you want to stop human suffering, there are a million ways to do that:

I know that it may feel like increasing applications of snark are just helping your interlocuters see the point, but if you don't actually pay attention to what people say, you really come off looking like a jerk. Tequila mentioned in the previous thread that he had just returned from Iraq and Eric, We've already had the great mosquito net debate. Why don't you just advocate with buy a pony for everyone in Afghanistan and then leave? You can't simultaneously argue that we have to spend money to discharge our debt to Afghanistan and claim that we can't afford it.

I'm not trying to embarrass anyone and I know that passions run high, but if you can't pay attention to what individual commenters say, and what points were made previously, you are just in a feedback loop.

[tom]

The one part that stuck out from McChrystal's quoted piece was the idea that we need a "better understanding of the people's choices and needs" so we can "leverage" the population. I really fail to see how after almost eight years of not "understanding" Afghans if we stay another five (or ten, or twenty, is there a point where we would concede that we're not as culturally aware as we picture ourselves?) we'll finally understand.

In my opinion the real question- if chosen as the plan of action- will be what constitutes "leveraging" and if the implemenatation will become more sinister than originally intended. The word brings to mind an Israeli-style system of collaborators and bottomless prisons, house demolitions, forcibly partitioned neighborhoods, etc, to contain and suppress the Taliban. Something that most Afghan civilians probably would not appreciate, just as they probably don't appreciate the US's definition of acceptable force protection described by Bruce Weber.

If the war's objective was solely to disrupt and destroy al-Qa'eda bases and operation capabilities in Afghanistan we won and should withdraw US forces. If it was to create a functioning, Afghan state we will never win and should withdraw.

[liberal japonicus]

I really fail to see how after almost eight years of not "understanding" Afghans if we stay another five (or ten, or twenty, is there a point where we would concede that we're not as culturally aware as we picture ourselves?) we'll finally understand.

I would suggest that during the Bush administration, there was really no attempt to try and understand Afghanistan. One might object to this by saying that the US military would do their best regardless who was leading, but I tend to think that the military takes its cues from the top, and the cues were that Iraq was what was important, not Afghanistan. And I think if you argue that there is a difference between Bush and Obama economic policies because of different priorities, I'm not sure you can deny there is one in the question of Afghanistan-Pakistan policy.

Second, I'm not sure if Israeli-style collaboration is even possible, it is hard to imagine the US military have even a handful of men who could pass themselves off, not to mention the number of people who could speak Pashtun fluently enough to eavesdrop. Perhaps that is cold comfort, but it seems that this avenue is not available.

My cousin served in the SAS in Afghanistan for two tours, one immediately after 9-11, and he feels that light mobile units on the ground (rather than depending on drones) that disrupts potential attacks coupled with a larger presence in the population centers was what needed to be done.

As for the war's objective, I have always felt that it was to recreate some measure of a functioning state, which is what Obama has said on several occasions as a candidate and as president. His most latest speech to the UN suggests that this commitment is being backgrounded, which I think is understandable in political terms, but not in moral ones.

[Nigel]

"But if you think like I do..." - then there would be little point in having a discussion at all.

"if you think that it's impossible to achieve President Obama's strategic goals without a measure of stability in Afghanistan..."
That is one massive 'if'.
Unless one of those strategic goals is 'a measure of stability in Afghanistan', Afghanistan is largely irrelevant to those strategic goals - though the continued occupation is arguably detrimental to the US capacity to achieve anything outside of Afghanistan.

"if you think that an unstable Afghanistan will embolden the Taliban in Pakistan..."
"if you fear our abrupt withdrawal will create regional instability..."

You missed out the 'further' in front of 'embolden' and 'instability'. And you might just as well state your continued belief in domino theory.

"if you believed President Obama when he called Afghanistan "the central front" on the war on terror..."

To do so one would first have to believe in 'the war on terror'. Along with 'the war on drugs'.
Which is a bit like saying 'I believe in war', only weirder.

"...and if you believe, as General McChrystal does, that we are now losing in that central front ..... well ...."

It's time to cut and run?

"I think that you'll start to find a lot of arguments regarding Afghanistan to be irrelevant..."

If one accepts a long list of axioms, then many arguments are indeed irrelevant.

[Hogan]

byrningman: "Counterinsurgency" and "non-conventional war" are not quite the same thing (the first is a species of the second, but not the entire genus).

According to Andrew Krepinevich, the military (at least below the very top levels) played on exactly that ambiguity to make it look like they were taking counterinsurgency theory seriously, when they were simply relabeling all their non-conventional war operations (special forces, etc.) as counterinsurgency. The strategic hamlet program was actually a great example of counterinsurgency being done by people who didn't understand it, and it was dead by the end of 1963. (Agent Orange, on the other hand, was used for ten years; non-conventional, surely, but hardly counterinsurgency. And it doesn't get any more conventional than aerial bombing.)

[magistra]

But at the very least, the Afghan government can be more capable and responsive and less corrupt than it is now. Even in its current anemic state, it garners more popular support than the Taliban. What it does not have on its side is the ability to project enough force or security to secure the population. The Taliban is not so much out-governing the GoA as occupying a vacuum where the GoA doesn't have the ability to go.

So how does the US government act to make the Afghan government less corrupt? Because if it can't the policy's sunk. And it's important to think clearly about the causes of corruption and how to deal with it.

Corruption in most countries is not about people being evil or not having been trained correctly. It is a rational response to the existing system. If you don't give bribes you won't get anyhwere. If you don't take bribes, at the best you will end up looking a poor fool, at the worst you'll be targeted as a threat to the system.

Countries that have successfully reduced corruption (one good example would be ICAC in Hong Kong) have needed to combine increasing the pay of officials with very aggressive targetting of offenders led from the top. The Afghan government hasn't got the will-power or the money to do that, and the US government cam't do it as their proxy except by effectively taking over the government.

Unfortunately, there is one other way to reduce corruption in the short-term. Religious (or political) fanatics can be pretty uncorrupt for a while, because the key men at the top aren't interested in money and they're prepared to mete out extremely rough justice to their underlings suspected of corruption. If you look at the Islamists in Sudan, or the French Revolution or how the Taliban first came to power, it's often on the ability to be less corrupt than the existing authorities. (Of course it doesn't tend to last for that long: the Iranian Revolutionary Guard have ended up very concerned about money).

But in the short term, it is likely that the Taliban will be less corrupt than any government in Kabul, which is a major problem. And we're seeing already how few levers the US has to pull in this case. What are they going to do about the rigged elections? Having backed Karzai this far, are they really going to pull the rug on him now? But if they don't they're backing corruption, and that will be clear to a lot of Afghans.

[andrew enterline]

This thread on Afghanistan is quite interesting and informative. A study that I conducted with a colleague (summary available on Foreignpolicy.com here: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/08/27/is_the_chance_of_success_in_afghanistan_better_than_a_coin_toss) suggests that history is not kind to counterinsurgency warfare in which strategy changes of the sort outlined by Gen. McChrystal occur several years after an insurgency begins.

Indeed, we find zero cases during the twentieth century of victory over insurgents in which a strategy change is implemented following 8 years of war, the temporal cusp of which the current conflict rests. Perhaps this is why the so-called "Biden Plan" is gaining traction, with the goal of outright defeat of the insurgents giving way to some sort of stability operation.

[mutt]

"The Strategic Hamlet Program, underway during the Kennedy administration, was a classic in the genre of counterinsurgency thinking, the notion of creating safe settlements isolating the population from the insurgents."
that was the fluff- the stated aim for US consumption. whats in the textbooks/histories. The reality was forcibly removing, at gunpoint, people off thier land and into what were effectivly prison camps. They were surrounded by wire, the few I saw, & the guns pointed in. First one I saw I thought- whew! were taking 6 year old POW's?- looked like a POW camp.
The Green Beret teams way up in the montains, working with Montagnard & other hill tribes, certainly werent out protectig them. Rather, they found chiefs who would rent out thier own people in exchange for whatever was deemed of value, and ended up creating a war where before there was none. If those thousands of Hmongs freezin thier butts off in Northern Wi (!) are any indication, no thought was given to what would happen to them should they start ambushing/sabotaging the Viet nationalist project. AKA throwing out foriegners.
And I shouldnt have to say Viet Nam still is horrendously polluted w/ Agent Orange et al byproducts, its citizens still suffer birth defects, cancers, in large doses. The defoliation was ALSO ascribed to COIN, as was part of my own outfits specialty, massive land clearing.
It was monstrous vandalism, and a war of terror against the civilian population. Because we could.
The COIN stuff terminology,, like the 67 election, was for domestic consumption....
LJaponicus: I entirely missed Tequila's mention of his return from the Wars, it wasn't snark, it was bafflement. He is filled with such conviction.
I run across Viet vets who, to this very day, think we could have "won" but for Cronkite & Jane Fonda. They simply have told themselves it wasnt a fraud, it wasnt for nothing, it wasnt some crackpot moneymaking war of choice. So, I asked the question, since he is so forceful in his statements. If it came from reading think tank papers, or AM radio, its one thing, if it came because of his subjective service in the Wars, thats another thing.
He saw a lot, and is figuring out the what of it.
When I returned from VN, I had no more an idea of Viet history than before I went. It took a long while to sort it outwhat I was part of, I was most assuredly against it, while still there, seeing a "strategic hamlet/fortified village" being part of the process,
how terrified the civilians were of the Viet army/police another piece of the puzzle. The horrific way women & girls were treated by thier "protectors", and so on. I was against it, but it took a lng while to articulate the why beyond reaction.
I appreciate your sensibilities, tho.
I hardly thought Martin's comment snarky, either. it addressed Tequila's humanitarian streak, which is a lot wider in soldiers of his generation than in the soldiers of mine.
he's tough,he can take it.
Damn. I really parsed my words there, too.

[byrningman]

that was the fluff- the stated aim for US consumption. whats in the textbooks/histories. The reality was forcibly removing, at gunpoint, people off thier land and into what were effectivly prison camps. They were surrounded by wire, the few I saw, & the guns pointed in.

No arguments that the reality was quite different from the theory, but it's worth nothing that history has actually recognised that.

[Eric Martin]

what magistra said

[liberal japonicus]

Is the goal to have a non-corrupt government? Or is it to have a government that can safely have a monopoly of force within its borders and has some thought of its own self preservation? Magistra suggested that 90% of the world's governments are corrupt, but I'd say that maybe 99% of the goverments of the world can meet the latter criterion. If Afghanistan had a government similar to the Phillipines or most Central American countries, I wouldn't have any trouble arguing for a withdrawal.

[Anarch]

Frankly the tactics adopted by the U.S. in both Afghanistan and Iraq if done by anyone else would be considered war-crimes...

Correction: would likely be prosecuted as war crimes.

[mutt]

"Or is it to have a government that can safely have a monopoly of force within its borders and has some thought of its own self preservation?"-
Now Im confused. Seriously confused.
the above is true of every despotic tyranny in history, until the day rolls around they no longer have a complete monopoly on the violence. So- the mission we are sending our people on, and are supposed to support for reasons of.....what? pragmatism? - is to establish a client state with a monopoly on violence that has enough sense to defend itself? thats the goal? Which is more realistic than being there to help establish a transparent, responsive government? (Which we are not now, nor ever have been, interested in?)what? im sure I misreading you here. please tell me I am.
I remember on a more than a few occaisions in the 80's being told by "realists" that my opposition to arming & bankrolling Saddam Husseins machine was naieve & idealistic. I thought bankrolling Saddam was nieve, idealistic, and remarkably ignorant of history. We see who won that argument.
I object to my military being used to establish neocolonial dependancies. Perpetually at war with thier own people. It. Dosnt. Work. (for the "pragmatists") Its fuckin WRONG- (for eveybody else.....)

[Barry]

Posted by: liberal japonicus:

"and Eric, We've already had the great mosquito net debate. Why don't you just advocate with buy a pony for everyone in Afghanistan and then leave? You can't simultaneously argue that we have to spend money to discharge our debt to Afghanistan and claim that we can't afford it."

The point is, and has been for several years, that anybody advocating a war in Iraq (or almost anywhere else) on humanitarian grounds is advocating spending vast sums of money in a way which gets the minimum 'bang for the buck'.

We're probably spending $1 million for each actual guerrilla we're killing (and killing several civilians in the process). 1 dead guerrilla probably prevents several dead innocent people, and a certain amount of misery. $1 million spent on clean water, sewerage, immunizations, livestock and improved seed can save 100's (? 1,000's?) of lives, and a proportional amount of misery.

[liberal japonicus]

the above [that of having a government that can safely have a monopoly of force within its borders and has some thought of its own self preservation]is true of every despotic tyranny in history, until the day rolls around they no longer have a complete monopoly on the violence.

Sure it is, mutt. It is also true of any liberal democracy, so arguing for that doesn't mean that we are aiming on setting up a despotic tyranny, it means that we need to consider what are the minimum aims. magistra says that only 10% of the world's governments are non-corrupt, which I guess is meant as an argument for withdrawal because we cannot possible bring Afghanistan into the top 10%. I'm not sure how magistra is defining corrupt, but I imagine that this definition would have countries like Uganda or Kenya, Indonesia, Bolivia, the Phillipines labeled corrupt. If we were to get Afghanistan to that level, I think it would be an improvement over what we have now. If you feel that it is impossible to bring Afghanistan up to that level without creating a colony of the US, then you obviously have to oppose any increase or any presence whatsoever. If you don't think it is a given, your opposition needs to be based on whatever factors that you think are relevant.

Barry,
my point is that one can't argue that we can't afford the war, and then argue against people who think continued engagement in Afghanistan is necessary by saying that they should instead be advocating spending the equivalent amount on humanitarian aid. And I don't think it is possible for us to put any meaningful amount of humanitarian aid into Afghanistan without some stronger measure of security and stability than exists there now. And we are apparently poised to put more humanitarian aid into Afghanistan, as is suggested by this guest post at Steve Clemons' blog.

Key graf
S/CRS and its partners have already handled numerous small-scale deployments around the world in 25 hot spots, with a team of 20 currently in Afghanistan, and others in and out of places like Pakistan and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

They have already conducted serious planning efforts in Sudan, Haiti, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Kosovo. The training we put our personnel through is rigorous, with heavy emphasis on planning, deploying, and operating in unsecure environments. We can operate with the military or without it, as the aim is to deploy in whatever capacity is suited to the conflict at hand. We have also begun working with allied governments who have built similar capacities; in addition we are actively working with NATO, the EU, and the UN.

Now, you may key into the phrases 'unsecure environments' and 'with the military or without it', but after all I have read about the current situation in Afghanistan (including the evidence presented here that Afghanistan is so hopelessly broken that we have to withdraw right now), I think that it is not possible to put in the kind of humanitarian aid that we owe Afghanistan without taking steps to provide some measure of security. The McChrystal report has this

ISAF has an important asymmetric advantage; it can aid the local economy, along with its civilian counterparts, in ways that the insurgents cannot. local development can change incentive structures and increase stability in communities. Economic opportunity, especially job creation, is a critical part of reintegrating the foot-soldier into normal life. Economic support to counterinsurgency is distinct from and cannot substitute for longer-term development initiatives. With some coordination it can lay the groundwork for, and complement, those longer-term efforts and show that the Afghan government is active at the local level. ISAF must increase the flexibility and responsiveness of funding programs to enable commanders and their civilian partners to make immediate economic and quality of life improvements in accordance with Afghan priorities.

I don't see how the kind of aid that you and others argue for can be delivered without a continued military involvement. If it is not possible, then you have to accept that you are arguing for us leaving Afghanistan without actually improving anything. But it seems logically incoherent to argue that 'we should give more humanitarian aid' but 'we have to get our troops out of there now' Some sort of security structure is required to deliver the kind of humanitarian aid that you are talking about.

[mutt]

LJ- well, we have a difference in terms here....whenever I hear "gvt monopoly on violence" Im thinkin they NEED that monopoly to keep their own people in line. It was needed in 20th century Spain. The French repressive forces are pretty brutal, from what I can tell. And the Brits-well.
We are armed, here. The State dosnt have that monopoly, and if you think the arrogance of the USG is bad now, imagine what they would be like if the citizenship was stripped of any means of defense? We'd be like the Irish, under Britain.....but thats a side issue.
I dont think we will need heavily armed forces with all that implies if we are truly- truly- willing to help w/ the delivery of potable water & roads. the thing is the local warlords won't go for anything that allows thier serfs more autonomy, seems to me. Their power is based on the physical isolation the terrain affords. Each vallety its own caliphate, it seems.
Soon as the project has to be built under an umbrella of foriegn soldiers, you've lost.
And Ill repeat: I dont advocate abandoning these people, we owe them. We have a debt, here.
i just dont believe the project is about Afghanistan. (I have no doubt for many of our soldiers & NGO's it IS about the Afghans- but the people in the line of fire dont call the shots. )
Its a game. We are moving pieces on a board, for some ever shifting crackpot goal. I am against wreaking havoc on people for such reasons.
And theres a familiar smugness- not from you- from those championing continued war & occupation that reminds me of the runup to Iraq:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/09/25/brooks/index.html

I cant compress my entries into sound bites, everything requires explanation, as we dont all have the same definition of terms.....
For instance: Democracy. The US isnt one. So when Im told we are exporting democracy, I question the definition. To me its transparency, one person one vote, and $ dont count for anything in the public arena. Checks on State power, delineated & enforced. Equal access to the Courts. Thats not here.
THATS not what we are "fighting for", never has been.
We are killing people so our duly selected quislings/clients can rule unopposed. Why should ANY free man support that?
Deny someone that which I demand for myself?
When I run into fellow Viet vets, the "Vets for Freedumb" types, who claim they were fighting for Democracy in Viet Nam, I always ask the same question: "name a single right a Viet peasant had that whoever we backed in Saigon was bound to respect".
Simple answer, too. Ive yet to get it from these clowns.
Name a single right an Afghan peasant has the government in Kabul- or Kandahar, or anywhere else- is bound to respect?

Withdrawl will take a while. We should leave behind all our construction equipment, medical facilities, administration infrastructure. Just leave it.
Folks want water, sewage, farm inputs, electricity, schools, the rest of it. Its up to them to create the conditions where those things can be worked on.
We have wreaked enough havoc. Our track record for righting that havoc since War 2 is....zero. Just like the number of rights an Afghan- or Viet- peasant had our, um, allies were bound to respect.

[liberal japonicus]

Mutt, the term 'monopoly on violence' actually has a special meaning when we discuss what constitutes a state. I understand that it can trigger some alarm bells, but I think that most people would agree that this is the prerequisite for a state to exist.

[magistra]

Liberal Japonicus

I would include as corrupt countries such as Kenya (in fact I was thinking of there, because my aunt used to work there and has told me about it). That's one of the many countries where it is routine that you often need to bribe people, where the jobs and the favours go to people from your tribe/family/religion/Masonic lodge etc. And I was also thinking of what Britain was like in the C18 and C19 and many US cities were like into the C20.

The Corruption Perceptions Index currently has Afghanistan at no 176, so it's not too far off Kenya (147) or Russia (147). And I'm not saying that it's impossible for an Afghan government to reduce corruption if it was really committed to it. I'm questioning how the US government can make the Afghan government reduce corruption if the Afghan government aren't committed to such an aim. How do you suggest it can be done, when everything suggests that in the current Karzai government corruption goes right to the top?

[mutt]

thanks, LJ.....count me among the "legitimate use" (of State violence) subset. Im not much for monopolies of any type.
I trust Mr Martin isnt so love-besotted he cant draw a bead on this latest Iran fear campaign.....

[liberal japonicus]

magistra,
A lot of this discussion precedes the election, and it is the vote rigging that apparently has people like Biden supporting a withdrawal. However, when reports of vote rigging came out, some initially argued that this represented ultimate proof that the US was supporting the wrong side. That was a fair conjecture, but later reports suggest that it is not because the US was backing Karzai that this took place, but because Karzai felt that the US was actually backing Abdullah and Karzai's advisors were stoking Karzai's paranoia.

This doesn't really answer your question (I don't really have an answer) but it seems to me that vote rigging as a result of paranoia is not the result of systemic corruption, but a result of particular circumstances. The McChrystal report argues that decentralization of aid efforts and a closer connection to local power brokers will help deal with this. If this could provide the framework of a unctioning state at the local level, one would hope that moderate Taliban would eventually begin to participate in local government, thus isolating the more radical elements.

Perhaps this is too little too late, but Gates was just on CNN arguing that we have not had a strategy for Afghanistan since the Russians were there, and the interviewer said, wow, that's rather harsh given that you were in the Bush administration and Gates replied that what had been going on in Afghanistan was a holding action while the US was preoccupied with Iraq. Of course, Gates would say that, but it accords with my arguments that we can't argue that Obama is simply continuing Bush policies.

But again, I'm acknowledging the fact that we may be too late in this. But that doesn't mean that arguements that it is because of the inherent nature of the Afghan people, or because the US can never be trusted, or that Obama is simply Bush lite are correct. If one is going to argue for a full and meaningful withdrawal, one has to argue that the problems that would arise if Afghanistan again returned to a completely failed state, or the possibility that Karzai would welcome Indian assistance in keeping his government alive are so small that the problems of US involvement dwarf them. Given Afghanistan's geographic location and the other points about the region (including pipelines and potential natural resources that the area represents, see this for some linkage) I don't believe that we have the option of simply asking to be dealt out of the game.

[liberal japonicus]

potential Freudian slip 'unctioning state'...

[magistra]

it seems to me that vote rigging as a result of paranoia is not the result of systemic corruption, but a result of particular circumstances.

I think there's a lot of other evidence of corruption in the Karzai government as well. And it doesn't matter as much in practice why someone is corrupt as the fact that they are corrupt. If Karzai will vote rig whenever he thinks he's going to lose, that's systematic pretty soon.

I'm not reflexively anti-US on all of this: if the US could build a functioning Afghan state I agree it would be good. I'm just very sceptical that such a thing can be done at all by a third party, and particularly when the difficulties are persistently being underappreciated even now. I'm coming to this from the background of a medieval historian, who is conscious of how difficult historically it has been to build functioning states and how fragile effective states are.

To stay with the kind of analogies I've used before, McChrystal semms to think that the Taliban are the Mafia and I worry they're more like the Ku Klux Klan (or the IRA). If the Taliban are just a small group terrorizing the reluctant locals, then if you can remove the population from fear of them, you can restore order. If, however, the Taliban are thugs who have a considerable amount of local legitimacy and tacit support, and the locals will not help the central government against them, that's an extraordinarily difficult problem to solve, even in a state that functions effectively in other regions. I'm not saying it can't be done, but it normally takes decades of commitment by a fairly strong government to eradicate even a small group that has genuine grassroots support.

[liberal japonicus]

That's a fair point, but one has to wonder if Karzai's corruption is something inbred or just because he went without adult supervision for such a long period.

And I certainly don't want to pretend that it is going to be easy, but I've come from the standpoint that we owe the Afghanistan people.

The analogy to mafia versus KKK or IRA is interesting. Obviously, in some places, the mafia is even more deeply entrenched than other organizations. In fact, the Japanese mafia, during the Kobe earthquake, gained a lot of sympathy by distributing aid in the aftermath, however much of the distributed aid was highjacked trucks of instant noodles and bottled water.

It also suggests an alternative to your suggestion, in that perhaps every society has it's anti social element that is able to survive by opposing authority, so it is unrealistic to think that the US can completely eliminate the Taliban and holding that out as the requirement may be demanding the impossible. Assuming a more realistic possiblity about what the end point might be might suggest that it is more rather than less possible.

An alternative analogy would be a doctor working on a patient in the emergency room. It may be too late to save the patient, but the doctor's effort can't be cut short because s/he's got another appointment, or because this particular patient is in a worse way than others. Obviously, there is a point where the doctor ends his/her efforts, where it is clear that the patient is not going to survive. However, that point is often very very far along, and it is at a point where every observer would perhaps agree. Are we really at that point in Afghanistan, where we can declare the patient dead?

[Jesurgislac]

lj: Are we really at that point in Afghanistan, where we can declare the patient dead?

Aren't you in the group arguing that the US ought to stay on in Afghanistan killing Afghans until, er, morale improves? Isn't this kind of ... not really metaphorical, if you think the US ought to continue to kill Afghans until Afghanistan is dead?

[liberal japonicus]

Jes, given that you have clearly acknowledged that your wishes are fantasies and are not going to ever happen, it suggests that your suggestions are more to support the person you imagine yourself to be rather than any outcome that has a realistic chance of occurring.

[mutt]

"one has to argue that the problems that would arise if Afghanistan again returned to a completely failed state,"
Thats not Afghanistans history when its left alone. Its Afghanistans history when external powers treat its people like pieces on a gameboard...and the infantlization of Karzai- that things have reached this point due to lack of adult supervision? If by "adult" you mean the US- NATO is a fig leaf, nothing more- then it WAS the adults who bought this disaster about, starting with the US backing (again) the Northern Alliance warlords. At Karzais very weak governments expense, From day one.
i will maintain my position, based on long precedent, that US motives here are not to be trusted. There is nothing- nothing- to say they should be. This is completely aside from the guys in the line of fire.
We have been down this road- and worse, prodded peasants down this road at bayonet point- before. Frank Rich lays out some good parallells, partcularly Biden as George Ball here....tho his Kennedy hagiography, sorta knee jerk with him, takes the shine off the piece-

http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/index.php/national-security/1386-frank-rich

Rather than "declare the patient dead" Id halt this invasive surgery by force & sue for medical malpractice and fraud.....chicken soup is whats needed, not foriegn doctors with bogus medical degrees.....

[Nathanael]

But counterinsurgency doesn't go far enough.

We can't do a counterinsurgency without a viable, popular government to "counterinsurge" on the side of. *This is the chief lesson of Vietnam*. Ho Chi Minh could do counterinsurgency *easily*. The hated South Vietnamese government couldn't.

And this is why step 1, before any military action, must be to define a plausible, sustainable political result which we are trying to achieve. I suspect that an ethnic, linguistic carve-up of the country along Woodrow Wilson, WWI lines, would be plausible and sustainable. I don't think anything else much would be -- perhaps total Taliban control, but I actually think that's unstable too.

Nobody is willing to accept the Wilson result however -- it implies opium will remain a major cash crop, and the Taliban will rule at least parts of the country. Given that the government will not consider a plausible political endgame, we should give up and get out.

[Nathanael]

To be clearer on what I just said, given what everyone says about ethnic politics in Afghanistan, it's crazy to keep it as one country. It's almost as bad as a bunch of those ridiculous-bordered countries in Africa.