Afghanistan Encounters American Urban Planning

by Jacob Davies

From an FP post discussing village destruction in Afghanistan:

Well, it's a good thing we decided to take our campaign against the Taliban to the village of Tarok Kolache. I mean, if we hadn't gone there and fought off the Taliban - and improved the design of their village with our urban planning knowledge! - it's clear the local inhabitants would have continued to suffer terribly.

Luckily for them, we have brought our best planners to their village and substantially improved its livability using the latest in high-explosive remodeling techniques. They can now enjoy views of the sky night and day no matter where in their house they are; new "open plan" layouts have been designed without any of those pesky walls that were getting in their way; a modern, sparse, possession-free lifestyle is now theirs; and unparalleled views of the surrounding countryside are available now that all those inconveniently-placed pomegranate trees have been blown up.

Best of all, they can now enjoy the benevolent authority of the most corrupt government in the world instead of those nasty, nasty Taliban who made life so unlivable.

Well, they'll enjoy our brutal and corrupt puppet government until we get bored and leave, then they'll probably wind up with the Taliban again. But they'll continue to enjoy the improvements we made to their cities, and I hope, remember us fondly as they huddle in the ruins of what were once their homes.

Comments

[cleek]

"no nation building"!

[From the article]

"The artillery unit, acting as a provisional infantry battalion, went on the offensive to clear a village, Tarok Kalache, where the Taliban had conducted an intimidation campaign to chase the villagers out, then create a staging base to attack 1-320th's outposts. The village of Tarok Kalache was laden with IEDs and homemade explosives (HME) comprised of 50-gal drums of deadly munitions.

...

"As of today, reconstruction efforts are well on track for Tarok Kalache and others in his AO. Mosque construction is underway, the irrigation canals and culverts are being restored, and the local government has been an active participant in the process of assisting the people of the village in rebuilding their homes."

[Model 62]

Also from the article: NO CIVCAS.

Maybe in six months or a year we'll get another set of before and afters.

[Jacob Davies]

Oh yeah, I'm sure we'll rebuild it better than before. With granite countertops! Nobody will ever remember that we dropped twenty tons of high explosives on their houses destroying everything they owned and rendering them homeless for a year or two or three, because they will be too busy admiring their new cornice moldings.

And obviously there is no chance at all that we'll just concede the area right back to the Taliban or lose interest in the whole deal and leave them with nothing but a bunch of half-finished, shoddily-built houses and unexploded munitions to remember us by.

[bobbyp]

Look, Jacob. They have no streets, and the greenbelt is simply too large. Where is all the R-1 zoning? It was a land use planner's nightmare, and we're better off for its no longer being with us.

[Uzza]

Now come on, we rebuilt Falujah didn't we?

[BigHank53]

If you look carefully you can see the fresh coat of paint on the school...

[russell]

The bright line between plausible and FUBAR is "we had to destroy the village in order to save it".

In October we'll be there ten years.

[b9n10nt]

The empire wounded, the democracy distracted, the capitalist aristocracy wonderfully poised for a future of creative consumption while all work on the half-decaying half-vibrant American avenue. At night some are having the lobster while most are cleaning the shell.

[McKinneyTexas]

So why is Obama now committed through 2014?

[bobbyp]

So why is Obama now committed through 2014?

Impeding the self destructive momentum of Empire is difficult.

[Hogan]

"There’s no point acting all surprised about it. All the planning charts and demolition orders have been on display in your local planning department in Alpha Centauri for fifty of your Earth years, so you’ve had plenty of time to lodge any formal complaint and it’s far too late to start making a fuss about it now."

The PA fell silent again and its echo drifted off across the land. The huge ship turned slowly in the sky with easy power. On the underside of each a hatchway opened, an empty black square.

By this time somebody somewhere must have manned a radio transmitter, located a wavelength and broadcast a message back to the Vogon ships, to plead on behalf of the planet. Nobody ever heard what they said, they only heard the reply. The PA slammed back into life again. The voice was annoyed. It said:

"What do you mean you’ve never been to Alpha Centauri? For heaven’s sake, mankind, it’s only four light years away you know. I’m sorry, but if you can’t be bothered to take an interest in local affairs that’s your own lookout."

[John Spragge]

I happened on this story at Registan, and the following passage from the story there struck me; the author at Registan, Joshua Foust quotes Paula Broadwell, the author of the original account, as saying: "the commander, LTC David Flynn, was concerned about the potential loss of life, but they could not afford to lose momentum." He later refers to that concern in these words:

...these soldiers are scared, and they’re worried about momentum (which is, yes, that thing no one can describe or measure but is nevertheless somehow very important). Best I could tell, that is their only excuse for destroying these non-combattants’ homes.

Now forgive me for pointing out the obvious, but I think we on this blog have a good sense of what it means when American forces suffer "casualties", of the enormous suffering and lost potential each soldier's death means. I might disagree with an officer's decision to save lives under his command by destroying the property and livelihoods of the local people, but I would never reduce that choice to an "excuse". The whole tone of the post seems to reflect someone who does not know, or at least has not expressed, what a soldier might go through trying to remove booby traps from a village, knowing each step, each opened door, the turn of each screw or snip of each wire might mean death or a life of pain and disability. Indeed, and here I suspect I have treated the author unfairly, I even caught a faint whiff of a sense of entitlement to expect soldiers to take these risks.

In any case, I would remind everyone that since in all probability none of us would ever have had to defuse the bombs in that village, we should take care in passing judgement on the people who would.

[someotherdude]

Soldiers always justify mass death and genocide on the rational “it was either me or them.”

[Duff Clarity]

A couple posts ago, Jacob Davies quoted the words of the president:

We recognize our own mortality, and we are reminded that in the fleeting time we have on this Earth, what matters is not wealth, or status, or power, or fame - but rather, how well we have loved - and what small part we have played in making the lives of other people better.

In this post, we see not the words but the actions.

How should we judge our elected officials, by their words or by their actions?

The words talk about making the lives of other people better. The actions say, "A village, a problem. No village, no problem".

[bobbyp]

Now forgive me for pointing out the obvious...

In a word, no. Further, I would remind you that in all probability you will never be a resident of that village or experience its meaningless destruction, and I would think we should take care to not pass judgement on those who would point out this obvious fact.

But I note that you could not resist. You might work on that.

[Slartibartfast]

Soldiers always justify mass death and genocide on the rational “it was either me or them.”

Always? I have spoken with a great many soldiers, and not one of them has said those words to me.

Perhaps you're engaging in a bit of hyperbole, here.

[envy]

@John Spragge:
Indeed, and here I suspect I have treated the author unfairly, I even caught a faint whiff of a sense of entitlement to expect soldiers to take these risks.

Well, yes. In fact civilians are entitled to expect us to take these risks. We are volunteers, and we don't swear to support the Constitution and abide the UCMJ only so much as it doesn't put us in harm's way. We did in fact sign up for this.

Frankly I'm rather insulted you suggest we should adopt a cavalier attitude in regards to operational law. "Military necessity" is not carte blanche. Especially when we adopt a fluid definition of necessity. We have an obligation to accomplish the mission laid before us, but we're not freed from our oaths (nor for that matter the laws that we remain subject to) simply because ignoring them would make it easier or safer to accomplish our mission.

[John Spragge]

@bobbyp: I didn't pass judgment on anybody; I pointed out what I considered and consider serious flaws in an argument. I made no personal attacks on, or claims about, the author whose work I criticized; I only described what the tone of what he wrote conveyed to me. For that I make no apologies whatever.

@envy: Respectfully, if humanitarian law does require soldiers to rehabilitate war damaged property at serious personal risk, then that law contradicts the values applied in civil practice. In any North American city, if we cannot rehabilitate a property without real risks to the workers, that property gets demolished. We can replace brick and mortar; we can't replace lives. Given that we routinely refuse to risk lives for structures in civil life, I submit that we need a good reason to risk soldiers' lives for the same thing. I don't think the commentaries on the operations in Tarok Kolache have provided such a reason.

[Hogan]

I'm not authorized to speak for Jacob, but in the context of his other writings here I would take his criticism to be directed at those who have put and kept our military in a situation where force protection requires such measures on a regular basis, rather than at the troops carrying out that force protection.

[envy]

Respectfully, if humanitarian law does require soldiers to rehabilitate war damaged property at serious personal risk, then that law contradicts the values applied in civil practice.

"Rehabilitate" "war-damaged" property? Euphemize much? We're not talking about "rehabilitating" the village; we're talking about destroying it. We're not talking about "war-damaged" property; we're talking about property that was taken over by hostile forces. The village was not "rehabilitated". It was destroyed to deny it to the enemy. It's being rebuilt for old-fashioned hearts-and-minds reasons. Your lofty "civil practice" analogies are trying hard to hide the fact that this was not done for the village's inhabitants; it was done to them. It's not working.

Look, I get that force protection trumps an awful damned lot in our strategic and tactical planning. Tracking. No worries on that front. I'm military; it'd be awful bleeding hard for me not to notice that. But looking at what's being described here does not really justify your tone above in contemptuously dismissing the idea that civilians should have any right to question military tactics simply because they're civilians. That's not right, and in fact is, as mentioned, rather offensive. You prop up an undue reverence for, and deference to, military decision-making. Last I checked, my Commander-in-Chief was still civilian, and one with no military experience at that. And yet he's charged with ultimately making decisions and passing judgment on the actions of Soldiers who do things he never has, nor never will have, done. Funny, that...

[Jacob Davies]

Yes. I don't have a lot to say about the tactics used on the ground. Obliterating a village may well be a reasonable response to the whole place having been booby-trapped. I have a problem, obviously, with our being in Afghanistan at all at this point, since we no longer seem to have any mission of any relevance to the US. I have a problem with the civilian leadership in the US that is too cowardly to take account of that obvious fact.

And I do have a problem with those higher-up military leaders who are telling the civilian leadership that something worthwhile can be achieved there. But ultimately it's the civilian leadership that is responsible for making the decisions about whether to continue, both the President and Congress.

The point of this post is that the cost is not just dead Americans and wasted dollars, but also the wholesale destruction of the areas being fought over. Which is an entirely predictable and normal consequence of having a war somewhere, which is why we should try not to have wars and to finish those we have as quickly as possible.

[PurpleGirl]

This isn't what I want my tax dollars to pay for. Not at all. (head desk)

[Uncle Kvetch]

Impeding the self destructive momentum of Empire is difficult.

I'm stealing this, bobbyp.

[John Spragge]

@envy: I think you've misunderstood the moral distinction I want to draw. I also think, based on what you've written, that we have different readings of the underlying facts of this situation. The way I read the account, the Taliban placed a large numbers of IEDs in the village, and the local military commander concluded he could not demine it and preserve the houses without an unacceptable risk to his soldiers. He therefore ordered the explosives removed in a manner that posed less risk to his soldiers but destroyed the buildings. In the case of a house occupied by an amateur bomb maker, LA area law enforcement personnel made a similar decision quite recently.

Any person, civilian or military, has the right to comment on this decision. I would like to emphasize this: I don't make a distinction between people who wear uniforms and people who don't. But I do say that if anyone, military, civilian, or grey alien, criticizes another person for a decision that avoids danger, that criticism will have more weight if it comes with some empathy for the actual experience of taking risks. I found that empathy lacking in the the post I originally encountered this story through. Among other things, the author of that post writes: "rather than actually clearing the village—not just chasing away the Taliban but cleaning up the bombs and munitions left over—the soldiers got lazy and decided to destroy the entire settlement". I would object to that statement whether it described the actions of a military unit, a civilian demining team, or for that matter an engineering firm outside a war zone.

I also note that the original foreign policy magazine entry had the opposite problem: it did indeed take the pain of the villagers lightly. I don't defend that either.

[envy]

Fair enough. Now reading the post you reference (I will admit, I am at times a lazy Soldier ;), there does seem to be a distinct lack of empathy therein. While I'm not keen on the idea of "bending" operational law to e.g. bolster morale, methinks that author is going overboard in simplifying the situation in order to amplify and justify self-righteous outrage. Just as I also agree that the FoPo mag article did fairly reek of fresh school paint.

I disagree that it's clear the village needed razed wholesale, or that its razing was justified by military necessity, but facts are rather lacking, and I freely admit that I could see it being completely necessary. I just hesitate to judge it good and just and right, under the circumstances and scant information. And I do suppose a certain withholding of judgment seems to be an underlying theme in your comments as well. I'll freely admit from a tactical perspective it seems the most appealing and practical option; I'm moreso given to questioning whether it mightn't be considered indiscriminate, which operational law tends to look askance upon...

[novakant]

John, why doesn't the US just evacuate all of Afghanistan, carpet bomb it for a month or two and then start with the rebuilding process? That seems to be only logical according to your reasoning.

And as for empathy, how would you feel if the area you live in had been taken over by gangs and to add insult to injury a foreign military power razes it to the ground to "save" you.

[Marty]

"John, why doesn't the US just evacuate all of Afghanistan, carpet bomb it for a month or two and then start with the rebuilding process? That seems to be only logical according to your reasoning."

Well, because the Taliban hasn't run everyone out and booby-trapped their houses yet.

Not to say it isn't a little inefficient, all that waiting for them to actually make the booby-traps and run the villagers away first, but that's just how we roll.

[John Spragge]

First of all, novokant, I don't see how you can possibly get from my call for modesty in passing judgment on the soldiers in this situation to a call to level Afghanistan with aerial bombing.

On the question of empathy, I have two points. First, empathy does not require zero-sum thinking. I can empathize with the soldiers and point out that we who observe this situation must never take the lives of people (soldier or civilian deminers) lightly. That doesn't mean I can't also feel for what the villagers went through. On your specific question, I don't know where you live, but where I come from, if a gang (say the Hell's Angels) took over my house for a grow-op and loaded it with booby traps, then the police would not risk the lives of the bomb squad merely to save my house.

[McKinneyTexas]

Once the Taliban booby-trapped the village, it was not usable by anyone. Why did the Taliban booby trap the village? What recourse did the villagers have at that point?

I am ready, and have been for some time, to leave Afghanistan. Leaving, though, has a price. The Taliban will take the country back and those who don't toe the line will pay a high price, particularly the women. The high moral ground here is a bit foggy.

[Hartmut]

What about the possibility that the Taliban did boobytrap the village with the expectation that the Americans would blow it up as a result*? What if, on the other hand, the Americans would simply ignore such a place (nad just mark it as a minefield)? In the first case villagers are likely to be more pissed at the US than at their Taliban countrymen, in the second it could be reverse.

*Both the US and Israel regularly accuse the people they fight to do exactly that in order to create images for the global PR war, and at least in some cases I am inclined to actually believe it.

[McKinneyTexas]

What about the possibility that the Taliban did boobytrap the village with the expectation that the Americans would blow it up as a result*? What if, on the other hand, the Americans would simply ignore such a place (nad just mark it as a minefield)? In the first case villagers are likely to be more pissed at the US than at their Taliban countrymen, in the second it could be reverse.

The better question is: would US/NATO troops have destroyed the village if the Taliban had left it alone in the first place, and would we then not be having this conversation?

If the Taliban could have been permanently displaced and a reasonably competent, honest regime democratically elected within 2-4 years of the initial invasion, I would be hard pressed to complain about that intervention.

Now, no one can describe the victory would look like that some think is attainable, much less how long it will take to get there. In the meantime, we distract ourselves and burn up our money on a war that we can't really win, even if leaving has its own set of unpalatable consequences. The killing won't stop, it will just be less Americans and allies dying in the process.

[Kenneth Almquist]

"If the Taliban could have been permanently displaced and a reasonably competent, honest regime democratically elected within 2-4 years of the initial invasion, I would be hard pressed to complain about that intervention."

The thing is, for all I know the Taliban could have been permanently displaced if this had been our top priority. The Bush Administration pulled the Arabic speaking Special Forces out of Iraq (so that they would be available for the invasion of Iraq). Figuring out how to spend money to rebuild Afghanistan effectively is a difficult problem. You can get a sense of how seriously the Bush Administration wrestled with this problem from the fact that it didn't include any money for reconstruction in one of its budgets.

I believe that the United States shouldn't start a war if it isn't prepared to do what is necessary to win it, so I should have opposed the invasion of Afghanistan. It just never occurred to me that with the ruins of the World Trade Center still smoldering, the American political right wouldn't be committed to winning the war in Afghanistan.

[Turbulence]

The thing is, for all I know the Taliban could have been permanently displaced if this had been our top priority.

I wonder if the Incompetence Dodge argument can be applied to Afghanistan? To wit: the US military is really good at destroying enemy military forces. They're not good at constructing new governments or massive social engineering projects. I don't see any reason to believe that we ever had the capability to install a government that is significantly better than the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The Bush Administration pulled the Arabic speaking Special Forces out of Iraq (so that they would be available for the invasion of Iraq).

I don't understand. Arabic isn't one of the primary languages spoken in Afghanistan.

[McKinneyTexas]

I wonder if the Incompetence Dodge argument can be applied to Afghanistan? To wit: the US military is really good at destroying enemy military forces. They're not good at constructing new governments or massive social engineering projects.

I wouldn't call this incompetence. It's what I'd hope and expect of our military. I would hope an adversary's military would be strong on the gov't building side, not so much on the destroying enemy forces part.

[Turbulence]

McTex, just to clarify: I'm not saying the military is incompetent. I'm saying:

(1) There exist some people who thought that we could invade Afghanistan, overthrow the government there, and create an entirely new much better government in its place.

(2) When (1) didn't happen, some people decided 'eh, it would have worked except for the fact that Bush is an idiot and screwed it up'

(3) My claim is that even though Bush did screw it up, it never would have worked anyway because the US government does not know how to do massive social engineering projects in alien cultures.

[McKinneyTexas]

Turb--we are completely on the same page.

[Scott de B.]

John,

We can replace brick and mortar; we can't replace lives. Given that we routinely refuse to risk lives for structures in civil life, I submit that we need a good reason to risk soldiers' lives for the same thing. I don't think the commentaries on the operations in Tarok Kolache have provided such a reason.

Even if I were to buy into that formulation 100%, that's it's a question of our soldier's lives and some buildings, and that our soldier's lives are more important than the buildings, I'm pretty sure that the Afghans value the buildings above our soldier's lives. So that the logic of the decision may be clear to you, but I doubt it's clear to the residents (current or former) of that village.

[Marty]

"I'm pretty sure that the Afghans value the buildings above our soldier's lives. So that the logic of the decision may be clear to you, but I doubt it's clear to the residents (current or former) of that village."

I doubt that Afghan people value their homes above a persons life.

I agree/accept/believe that when we destroy their homes that many of them may hold it against us, our presence is in large part WHY there homes were turned into traps.

Once the booby-trapping is done, I bet they understand the logic perfectly.

[envy]

Once the Taliban booby-trapped the village, it was not usable by anyone. Why did the Taliban booby trap the village? What recourse did the villagers have at that point?

A pair of points.

First off, the comments here keep talking about booby-trapping "the village". Wait, what? The whole village? Every building? Every orchard? Somehow I doubt this. A lot. What I would assume (I know, I know: "when you assume...") is that some of the buildings were trapped. And some had supply caches in them. And the first group probably substantially overlapped the second. The hostiles had been driven out, but they could re-occupy newly built structures as easily (or with as much difficulty) as the old ones, so the reason for destroying them was either to destroy their contents, or to prevent the driven-out inhabitants from being blown up (or laying hands on any remaining supplies). Here's where my eyebrow shoots up at talk of "momentum". One presumes the entire village was not trapped. However, the entire village was leveled rather than trying to determine which structures had caches and/or IEDs. This seems... indiscriminant.

Second, no, one strongly suspects that it was not the case that the village was usable by no one. Seems an awful lot more likely that the people who rigged the traps could have kept using it. Just sayin'.

[Marty]

"Wait, what? The whole village? Every building? Every orchard? Somehow I doubt this. A lot."

You could be right, but I count about 30 buildings in the picture, not an extreme number to have rigged to explode. A few mines in the orchards? Perhaps. And:

Seems an awful lot more likely that the people who rigged the traps could have kept using it. Just sayin'

it seems we really didn't want them to use it as a supply base from which to attack us. Not wanting them to keep using it was kind of the point.

[Sapient]

I don't think the action was unreasonable if you assume that the war is reasonable. If it's the right thing to do to be fighting this war, it's the right thing to do to blow up buildings to save soldiers' lives. The issue is whether the war is unreasonable.

This particular incident isn't an argument either way.

[Jacob Davies]

It's an argument against the war insofar as the original purpose of the war was not actually the total elimination of the Taliban, and the purpose of the war at this point is supposedly to improve the welfare of the people in the regions where we are fighting by liberating them from Taliban control.

The whole business about "We'll rebuild the houses" misses several problems: one, once you've obliterated a village it's a little difficult for anyone to determine who owned which houses and which pieces of land, two, those who were renting will probably be SOL, and three, the purchase of the services and materials to reconstruct houses will necessarily cause increased costs and shortages elsewhere in the Afghan economy. American dollars do not conjure up the resources for reconstruction out of thin air. They divert them from other uses. To think otherwise is to believe in the broken windows fallacy.

[novakant]

This particular incident isn't an argument either way.

To me, this particular incident is further evidence that the war is unreasonable.

[envy]

it seems we really didn't want them to use it as a supply base from which to attack us. Not wanting them to keep using it was kind of the point.

Well, duh. But that this was the point undermines claims that no, no, we were trying to rehabilitate the village for those poor victimized villagers. The latter was more of an annoying afterthought PR obligation.

Although again, it seems rather like we were working at cross purposes with ourselves: rebuilding the village gives it pretty much the same potential to be used as a supply base against us as leaving it would have. The only difference would be the absence of any remaining supplies, and the presence of villagers bearing grudges against the Americans who just razed their village (yes, even if we then rebuild it).

[McKinneyTexas]

What Sapient said, exactly.

However, the entire village was leveled rather than trying to determine which structures had caches and/or IEDs. This seems... indiscriminant.

Uh, if I were to learn that Americans were being killed and maimed trying to determine which houses were booby-trapped and which were not out of concern for unnecessary property damage, I would be mightily pissed.

[Marnie]

How many generations of hate will it take to heal this one wound.

What a sad comment on American to see on MLK Day.

[John Spragge]

@envy: you said the people who rigged the traps could have kept using the village. But the text of the story makes it seem likely that the villagers themselves couldn't use the village, at least not safely, because the villagers didn't lay the traps. Even if they did, booby traps have a nasty record of killing or maiming children. If nobody but Taliban fighters could have used the village, I don't see the objection to demolishing it. The issue here seems to revolve around the question of whether or not the Americans or NATO and ISAF could have made the village safe for the villagers and their children without taking the drastic step of blowing it up and starting over again. I can't judge that, except to agree with anyone who finds the upbeat tone of the original foreign policy magazine inappropriate.

[Hartmut]

What about putting signs around the boobytrapped village saying 'Attentioan dear inhabitants! Your Taliban countrymen (not we) boobytrapped this village for your convenience. Too risky for us to try to remove the traps and you'd probably not appreciate, if we simply blew the place up. We feel very sorry for you. Your American friends.'?

[sapient]

Hartmut, excellent idea. In fact, leaving the country with a similar sign (Your Taliban countrymen allowed a criminal gang to plan a horrific mass murder in the United States. As we have failed in our attempt to round up the perpetrators, and to replace the Taliban with a more humane government, we will now leave your country and its problems to you. We feel very sorry for you. Your American friends.) is probably the thing to do now.

[me.yahoo.com/a/7aSMqfkbtY6plLxiVlwBsuFqhQBt]

I did not read every comment so excuse me if I am repeating. The Foreign Policy author is one Paula Broadwell, a reserve army major. Note that she is traveling around visiting her old West Point buddies. So, she's just another cog in the military machine. Notice also how she characterizes the man who says his life has been ruined as being theatrical.

My brother spent five years in Afg and is sickened by the whole episode, as any normal human being would.

[Charles Bird]

There is more to this story. Spragge points out the original Foust critique, but Foust also has a follow-up where Paula Broadwell responds. The key part:

The Taliban had paid the village Malik around June-July to move out of the village. Their objective was to establish their own strong point in that key terrain area.

The Taliban took over the village, kicked out the townsfolk and was using it as a military base. In effect, it was no longer a village but a military target meriting destruction. It also explains why there were zero civilian casualties. Foust still has issues with the action, but to me, I think he jumped to conclusions.

I also think that Flynn & Co are doing the best they can in a situation where the Taliban has historically intimidated the people into submission. At least we're engaging with the maliks and working on the "hold" and "build" phases. The main concern I have, though, is what would prevent the Taliban from going back and retaking that village. If they don't, then it would be a measure of success.

The more interesting part of is that this started a dialogue between Foust and Broadwell/Flynn, starting here, then Foust follows up here, and FP answers here. I think it's a credit that they're having this exchange.

Foust also has a good back-and-forth with Andrew Exum here. Exum and Foust are smart guys who know the military and have some expertise with Afghanistan, so it's a benefit to read their thoughts.

[liberal japonicus]

Thanks Charles, but the registan.net addresses are giving a 403 Forbidden errors for me. Are others having that problem?

[sapient]

"Are others having that problem?" I was able to reach them, lj.

[John Spragge]

My perspective: now that any progress in Afghanistan appears to have stalled like a hogged rock, conservatives worry about the cost in money and lives, and liberals and leftists worry about the destruction. I agree with both perspectives, but with one important caveat: we need to have some concern about the possible consequences of just leaving.

Apart from the imperative to avoid leaving behind an endless civil war if at all possible, which I agree only diplomacy can address, I have seen few people address what seems to me the major risk of simple withdrawal: the possibility of a return by al Qaeda. Many commentators I respect have suggested that the Taliban has learned from their defeat of 2002. I would like to believe this. But I see no way to guarantee that some faction in the Taliban that sees a NATO pull-out as a victory, or worse, a sign of divine favour, will not prevail and invite al Qaeda back in. If that happens, the ideology of al Qaeda will dispose them to attempt another attack on the United States. I certainly do not regard this as a foregone conclusion, and very much hope it does not happen. The possible consequences for Afghanistan, however, seem quite catastrophic to me. At the very least, I would expect the United States to respond to a Taliban government supporting al Qaeda by air bombardment: precise perhaps, targeting property rather than lives I hope, but sustained. Such a policy, combined with trade isolation as rigorous as American economic power can achieve, might consign the Afghan people to utter poverty without displacing the Taliban. And I cannot envision and American administration doing less than this; if it did, I would expect voters to replace it with an administration committed to an even more aggressive policy.

I have no serious argument with people who have considered this risk and believe we cannot end the bleeding of Western and Afghan lives unless and until foreign troops take the risk of withdrawal. But I do disagree strongly with people who do not address this risk.