I've written extensively about Afghanistan in these pages, mostly several years ago. Examples:
In the first of those articles, I said:
We're not going to win in Afghanistan, because a clear-cut military victory isn't possible. Sooner or later, negotiations are going to have to happen. Unless we grasp that reality, and learn from history, and do something about it, we're going to go on losing our servicemen and -women to no good purpose.
That remains the case to this day. I see no reason to change my views. Others agree with them, for example, Eric Margolis:
... the Pashtun defeated the invading armies of Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, the Mogul Emperors and the mighty British Raj. The US looks to be next in the Graveyard of Empires.
Nobody in Washington can enunciate a good reason for continuing the colonial war in Afghanistan. One hears talk of minerals, women’s rights and democracy as a pretext for keeping US forces in Afghanistan. All nonsense. A possible real reason is to deny influence over Afghanistan, though the Chinese are too smart to grab this poisoned cup. They have more than enough with their rebellious Uighur Muslims.
And the Ron Paul Institute:
Sometime late next year, possibly as early as September, news crews will gather in Afghanistan for a unique event: To interview an American serviceman or woman who was not born when the war they are fighting began. He or she will not remember 9/11, and will have grown up with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as background noise. No doubt also a senior commander will be on hand to pronounce that the war against the Taliban is making progress, the same pronouncements the young recruit will have seen on TV all his or her life.
. . .
Terrorists have exacted a grievous toll in attacks on America and Americans, but they do not threaten the continuance of the union.
. . .
The president has been asking, in his caustic style, just why the US has men and women in harm’s way in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan, places that pose no direct threat to the United States.
A new proposal by Erik Prince, founder of the security company Blackwater (now known as Academi), offers a new approach in Afghanistan.
Prince calls his proposal “A Strategic Economy of Force.” It entails sending 5,500 contractors to Afghanistan to embed with Afghan National Security Forces, and appointing a “viceroy” to oversee the whole endeavor. Prince said some version of the idea had been percolating in his mind since he first went to Afghanistan in 2002; he knew then, he said, that the Pentagon wasn’t going to be able to resolve this.
. . .
Under Prince’s plan, the viceroy would be a federal official who reports to the president and is empowered to make decisions about State Department, DoD, and intelligence community functions in-country. Prince was vague about how exactly this would work and which agency would house the viceroy, but compared the job to a “bankruptcy trustee” and said the person would have full hiring and firing authority over U.S. personnel. Prince wants to embed “mentors” into Afghan battalions. These mentors would be contractors from the U.S., Britain, Canada, South Africa—“anybody with a good rugby team,” Prince quipped. Prince also wants a “composite air wing”—a private air force—to make up for deficiencies in the Afghan air capabilities.
. . .
Critics say Prince’s plan will lead to a moral and legal quagmire, as contractors from around the world fighting in place of U.S. forces present a host of possible problems. What happens if a Canadian, for example, kills an Afghan civilian while fighting as a contractor under the leadership of the American “viceroy”? What if the contractors get in a real bind—does the U.S. send our military in to help them?
“Quality is a problem, accountability is a problem,” said McFate, who wrote a book about modern mercenary warfare. McFate raised the possibility of the Prince fighting force changing allegiances: “It could go into business for itself. It could be bought out by ISIS, China, Russia.”
. . .
One criticism of the Feinberg and Prince plans is that they are being proposed by people who potentially stand to make a profit off of them.
“I think it will make Erik Prince billions of dollars while he loses the war for us,” a congressional aide who has seen the plan said.
Prince’s argument essentially boils down to: So what?
“If someone is doing that, saving the customer money, is making a profit so bad?” he said. “And let me flip that on its head even more. Before anyone throws that accusation, I think they should interview all the former generals, all the former Pentagon generals, and all the boards they serve on, and all their recommendations … advocating for the Pentagon $50 billion approach to continue on like we’ve been doing for the last 16 years. Which one is it going to be? I’m happy to have that debate.”
. . .
Prince said he intends to keep pushing what he calls “the moderate option” in the public discussion. “There’s pullout completely, there’s double down, triple down, after 16 years,” he said. “Even though you might not like the use of contractors, what is there as a better alternative?”
There's more at the link.
I'm afraid I don't think very much of Mr. Prince's new proposal. It amounts to more of the "same old, same old", but substitutes contractors for US military personnel. If what the latter have been doing for all these years has brought us no closer to a resolution in Afghanistan, how will continuing to do it - by contractors or by troops - achieve any better result? It may mean that the US military budget can contract by a few tens of billions of dollars (less whatever the costs are to sustain thousands of contractors and their equipment), but it won't stop the fighting, and it won't solve the intractable social, cultural and extremist problems in Afghanistan.
There's only one approach guaranteed to work in Afghanistan: "scorched earth". If an occupier does to Afghanistan what Rome did to Carthage, there will be peace in that tortured nation. There will also be no more Afghans. They'll all be dead, because only dead people can be guaranteed not to make any more problems for the living. We can't adopt that approach, for ethical and moral reasons . . . so, if we won't do the only thing that will guarantee peace there, why are we still there at all?
Peter
10 comments:
I used to write ALL my elected officials every few months & ask them "why are we still in Afghanistan?"
I never got a good answer, an answer that pointed towards the time we could say "it's finished". Never.
McGovern was going to pull out of Viet Nam, Nixon had a secret plan for Viet Nam. Nixon won the election, his secret plan was to wait 3 years then pull out.
I suspect when our time comes to end this it will go like it went with Vietnam...
The Presidential Wars continue...
Oh, I think we can employ a 'less than scorched earth' policy. It would require the Administration, the military and the American people to have the balls to accept 'civilian' casualties and allow the release of the Rules of Engagement even more than they are now (well, in comparison to the previous administration's ROEs and the previous previous administration's ROEs.)
Many of the servicemembers I have talked to all express the same frustration about not being able to prosecute the fight. They are happier now, but the rules can be relaxed.
And, of course, stopping the pipeline of materials and men from Pakistan would help cut off foreign assistance and protection for the Afgan fighters (take away their rest and refit areas, their hospitals, et al.)
Combining this with a real 'hearts and minds' campaign that is based on building functionality over sucking up to the village headsman or whatever goals the CIA wants.
But all of that would, as I said, require intestinal fortitude that we, as a weak-kneed nation enamored of feelings and emotions, don't have.
Time to nut up, America. Either fight the war as if it was a real war, like WWII style war, or get out.
Get out. Declare a draw and leave.
Let me ask the question Prince did: "So What" if we leave?
Heroin production goes up? Well, there's a Border Wall for that, next budget, right?
Red China obtains a satellite? Maybe. Red China has plenty of financial problems right now. Russia? Hell, no. Putin doesn't want to even THINK about The 'stan.
Just leave.
Pakistan is the key, Iran to a less extent. Both give safe areas to rebels. A huge mistake was putting in place a centralized government in Afghanistan, it's never had one, or had one in name only. Pakistan, I don't see any good solution for.
It's a big question why is the US in Afghanistan, what good does it do us. Surrounded by enemies of the US.
The new rail lines and harbor in Iran is hurting Pakistan's trade with Afghanistan.
The problem with both Afghanistan and Iraq is that, assuming we weren't gaping to conquer them and make them colonies (and we weren't), the smartest thing we could do was destroy their armies, topple their governments, say "This is what happens when you cone to our negative attention. Bevahe, or we will be back", and then LEAVE.
I'm not sure it was politically possible, though.
*shrug*
But the sooner we establish that if you attack united States citizens or interests life will shortly be both exciting and unpleasant, the better. Half a century or more of appeasing nutcases and undermining allies get us where we are today with the Islamotwits. We cannot suppress them in other countries, but we CAN demonstrate to other countries that suppressing them is in the interests of whatever clique holds power.
We tried ignoring Afghanistan, once. Remember the end of the Soviet incursion, and how we left the place "alone"?
That got us an al Qaeda safe area, and a playground for the Pakistani ISI. Didn't work out so well, did it?
That's why we're in Afghanistan: It's a festering sore you can't just leave alone. You want to solve the problem entirely? That means eliminating the ISI, the Iranians, and all the other players. Otherwise, the place is just going to cause more problems.
As well, we pull out? The Chinese are going to pull in, and commence to exploiting the resources, while eliminating the locals. China will do unto the Pashtun as they are doing unto the Uighur, and I can't think of a nice group for the Chinese to happen to.
Funny, that... The Brits and Europeans all bewail the days of Empire, and want to forget they ever did things like that, but the Chinese are all about re-enacting the Raj, only with other Asians as the victims...
The thing about the war in Afghanistan, at the beginning, is that we didn't really have a beef with the Taliban. Sure, the Taliban were ultra-conservative Islamic dickheads, but they had no ambition beyond Afghanistan. That's pretty much been true of Afghans throughout Afghan history - if you leave them alone to squabble and fight among themselves, they're pretty much no threat to anyone.
Our beef was with Al Qaeda. If The TB has turned AQ over to us, we wouldn't have invaded. But they wouldn't give them to us, partly because the AQ fanatics were useful to them as shock troops against the Northern Alliance, and partly because their cultural honor code (Pashtunwali) said that AQ were guests, and a host has to protect his guests.
I think it might have been possible to convince the TB that OBL and AQ were behaving in a dishonorable way, using TB hospitality as a shield to attack other people. Maybe.
Failing that, I think that yes, a punitive expedition would have been the way to go, especially if we extended targeted strikes into the FATA and NWFP in Pakistan. (Message to the Pakis: these are the guys were want. Give them up, or get out of the way. And we sell cool weapons to India. Maybe hi-res satellite imagery of some of your important defense facilities, like your nuke storage.)
And Afghanistan has had a functional central government, just not since the communists overthrew the king in the 1970s. Prior to that, while Afghanistan had a central government, it didn't look like a European-style centralized state. It looked a good bit like the American republic, circa 1800 or so. (Minus the written constitution, bill of rights, and such). But the central government dealt with foreigners, collected tarriffs, kept the Ring Road open, and sometimes settled conflicts between tribes. (Usually with force.) Other than that, they left the local villages and tribes to handle things at their level. Kind of a weird, Muslim hillbilly federalism, after a fashion.
We should leave now and without conditions. Simply gather at the APOE after transhipping as much out as we want overland and we leave, lock stock and barrel.
It is an ungoverned land much like the rest of the muslim middle east. We deal with them using individualized drone strikes and we can keep doing that until we're blue in the face in Afghanistan.
What Americans failed to realize is that by taking on the Taliban in Afghanistan we took on islam. We, like the Japanese, declared unilateral war on a sleeping giant of hate and iron resolve. They don't care how many die for allah. It's a price they're willing and eager to pay. We forgot that. We have done a significant injury to an agrieved party who never ever forgets an injury or slight and will pursue a vendetta for a thousand years without a single sign of remorse. Don't believe me? Look at islam still riven by who was the proper leader after mahammet the pederast died. Was it Ali or was it the other loser? Shiite and Sunni will kill you to this day for believing one over the other.
I would invite those who think there is moderation in such fights to review the current flux in Israel. The PLO and Hamas are not going to give up and neither is hezbollah. Nothing on earth will make them give up. For the next 2000 years they will teach the young to hate to death jews and westerners just as they have been doing for the last 1000 years.
Why would it be immoral to do to Afghanistan what Rome did to Carthage?
Carthage had Moloch (the only pagan deity in existence that the Bible explicitly commands the faithful to slay its followers wherever they are found). Afghanistan has its 'dancing boys.' So I ask again, why would it be immoral to use a scorched earth policy on a nation filled with people who hate us and have made child rape into an esteemed pillar of their culture?
When America leaves, the most ruthless and efficient local leaders will be the local warlords. They will be willing to kill their opponents with as much zeal as Chicago gangs.
If there WAS a "strong, good" local leader, one who respects the Human Rights of his opponents, he'd be killed by his less good rivals.
I recommend a Swiss Canton system so each tribe gets one or more cantons where they are a majority. So that a "nation-state/ city-state canton" can be ruled locally by one accepted by the local majority tribe. Whether this is full democracy or only limited male-only, majority only voting.
The US needs to accept that imposition of US levels of Human Rights requires constant American fighters killing and dying for this US ideal which is NOT the Afghan ideal. Altho many there may pine for 1972 (see photo: https://imgur.com/M1vJjcu ), too few are willing to fight and kill for that now-gone pre-Khomeini moment of post WW II de-colonialization.
Instead of using mercenaries, the US should hire "the best we can find" of the local Afghans, train them to kill and survive, and let them kill the Taliban. In some cases, they will kill women and children of Taliban supporters. In some cases, they will turn against the US or against the US supported local Afghan mini-dictator. In most cases, for most local tribes, "our bastard" will be able to start supporting market capitalism. Like the post-War Rhee Syng-man semi-dictator, and then Park Chung-hee, even more an authoritarian dictator.
Before real democracy allowing citizens choice for politics, there needs to be market capitalism, with choices of products and support for private property.
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