At Claire’s Kitchen Table Talk in St. Louis just before last Christmas:
one audience member pleaded with her to urge Obama not to get sucked into Afghanistan. Claire wasn’t having it: “We cannot stand by…We cannot stand by and allow terrorist camps and training to go on without any real consequences in our world. We just can’t.”
If you watch the video, you can hear the resounding applause from an audience that is basically liberal. I react to both McCaskill and the applause the same way sarah jo did when she wrote about the military “solution” in Afghanistan: “Excuse me while I run around the block naked, screaming at the top of my lungs.” But certainly Claire and the clappers are not alone, among those that lean to the left, in believing that al Qaida and the Taliban must be controlled with weapons. A Post-Dispatch editorial last week asserted that:
Mr. Obama also knows he can’t leave Afghanistan to its own devices without creating more problems for neighboring Pakistan, which has nuclear arms and a nervous nuclear-armed neighbor in India.
The concern of the P-D editorial staff about the shaky, nuclear-armed government in Pakistan seems, at first blush, like a rational argument for military action. But consider that the writer did not explain how leaving “Afghanistan to its own devices” will create more problems. Does he fear that al Qaida will revive from its current debilitated state of 100 fighters in Afghanistan? Global sanctions have weakened the organization and its chances of revival are slim.
Perhaps, then, the editorial writer is concerned about the Taliban threatening Pakistan’s weak government. If so, let me refer him to Gail Sheehy’s review of Robert Greenwald’s documentary about Afghanistan
The strongest argument in the film against our mission is made by Robert Baer, the former CIA field operative in the Middle East, whose book See No Evil was the basis for the film Syriana: “The more we fight Afghanistan, the more the conflict gets pushed across the border into Pakistan; the more we destabilize Pakistan, the more likely it is a fundamentalist government will take over the army… and… [we] will have al Qaeda-like groups with nuclear weapons.”
Baer spent a couple of decades understanding how military solutions in the Middle East produced all the wrong outcomes. His warning is credible. So is Molly Ivins’ observation that “it’s damn hard to convince people you’re killing them for their own good.” Every time we bomb villagers into oblivion, we strengthen the Taliban’s hand. Which brings us back to sarah jo and the idea, presented in “Three Cups of Tea”, that education is the key to peace in Afghanistan.
President Obama should earn that Nobel Prize by sending most of our tired troops home, letting those that remain guard all the schools we should build, and focusing on honest elections. And if that solution sounds too Pollyanna, think about the alternative: recall how getting bogged down in Afghanistan contributed to the breakup of the Soviet Union. That’s not ancient history and it’s not in another hemisphere. The very same Taliban that did for the Soviets is now, just twenty years later, sucking us into the same quagmire.
Claire worried about allowing terrorist training camps to go unchallenged. But al Qaida has been challenged and has mostly succumbed. And if we want to keep the Taliban from getting hold of nuclear weapons, then perhaps we should refrain from pushing them into nuclear-armed Pakistan.
There are some persuasive arguments presented here but I don’t think they will prevail. Also, it’s hard to suggest letting the Taliban regain total control in Afghanistan when defeating them, because they were providing safe haven to al Qaida, was the reason we sent troops there in the first place.
Martin Pion
I dunno. There are several significant details that I’ve never heard Robert Baer mention. Perhaps as a former CIA agent, he may not be permitted. Since history hasn’t been a required course for journalism majors, our ‘media’ tends to be a bit thin on context. At times, facts are rearranged to fit flow chart presentations when the reality isn’t so clear cut. We rarely ever hear about the works of the NGO’s and NATO allies (clinics, schools humanitarian aid to internal refugees, etc.). The ‘boys’ like to show off their ‘toys’ so we’re mostly getting the military news.
I recommend reading Invisible history : Afghanistan’s untold story / by Paul Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Gould. The authors produced PBS documentaries on the subject in the past. They remind of us that during the Cold War, both sides tried to get the other mired in/drained by a war in some unsuspecting Third World country. Carter used Afghanistan to bleed the Soviets who, in turn, destroyed everything.
Then there’s Pakistan – Without a government or the means to create one, the their military encouraged some lunatics educated in their madrasahs (aka the Taliban) to take control in Afghanistan because of burdens by refugees. According to these authors, war lords didn’t exist before then. They and the Taliban became the only means for law and order. There may only be 100 Al Qaeda left, but,according to returning correspondents, there are plenty among the Taliban willing to take their place.
Some pundits claim that Pakistan can help clear up this mess. They’re as paranoid about being invaded by India as we were about the Soviet Union; most of their military resources protect that border. They saw no need or urgency for their engagement until recently when Al Qaeda, as we predicted, tried to invade Islamabad. So, while our troops are in Afghanistan, there are intensive diplomatic efforts taking place to relax the tension in order to get Pakistan willing to re-deploy troops.
The defeat of previous ‘conquerors’ can be misleading. Give the Afghani people credit for knowing the difference between invasion, conquest and temporary occupation. Their ambivalence and wariness are products of their suspicion that we’ll abandon them again. According to the reports I’ve read, they’re not attacking us. Our battles are with those who want to regain power and they know that.
President Obama uses highly skilled people. His biography prepared him to appreciate the ramifications of intervening in another country’s affairs. Considering the opposition consists of sociopaths and criminals, I hope he’s lucky, too.
I dunno. There are several significant details that I’ve never heard Robert Baer mention. Perhaps as a former CIA agent, he may not be permitted. Since history hasn’t been a required course for journalism majors, our ‘media’ tends to be a bit thin on context. At times, facts are rearranged to fit flow chart presentations when the reality isn’t so clear cut. We rarely ever hear about the works of the NGO’s and NATO allies (clinics, schools humanitarian aid to internal refugees, etc.). The ‘boys’ like to show off their ‘toys’ so we’re mostly getting the military news.
I recommend reading Invisible history : Afghanistan’s untold story / by Paul Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Gould. The authors produced PBS documentaries on the subject in the past. They remind of us that during the Cold War, both sides tried to get the other mired in/drained by a war in some unsuspecting Third World country. Carter used Afghanistan to bleed the Soviets who, in turn, destroyed everything.
Then there’s Pakistan – Without a government or the means to create one, the their military encouraged some lunatics educated in their madrasahs (aka the Taliban) to take control in Afghanistan because of burdens by refugees. According to these authors, war lords didn’t exist before then. They and the Taliban became the only means for law and order. There may only be 100 Al Qaeda left, but,according to returning correspondents, there are plenty among the Taliban willing to take their place.
Some pundits claim that Pakistan can help clear up this mess. They’re as paranoid about being invaded by India as we were about the Soviet Union; most of their military resources protect that border. They saw no need or urgency for their engagement until recently when Al Qaeda, as we predicted, tried to invade Islamabad. So, while our troops are in Afghanistan, there are intensive diplomatic efforts taking place to relax the tension in order to get Pakistan willing to re-deploy troops.
The defeat of previous ‘conquerors’ can be misleading. Give the Afghani people credit for knowing the difference between invasion, conquest and temporary occupation. Their ambivalence and wariness are products of their suspicion that we’ll abandon them again. According to the reports I’ve read, they’re not attacking us. Our battles are with those who want to regain power and they know that.
President Obama uses highly skilled people. His biography prepared him to appreciate the ramifications of intervening in another country’s affairs. Considering the opposition consists of sociopaths and criminals, I hope he’s lucky, too.
One of the first lessons I learned in leadership school was that it is always easier to get in than it is to get out.
One of the paths that we might want to take on the way out is to remove the last of the restrictions on women in combat, since there are no front lines in this one and recruit the shit out of women because the most effective foot patrols in Afghanistan right now are Marine FETs (Female Engagement Teams).
No joke. The female marines can talk to the women in the civilian population who have a lot more influence than the reports of how women are treated in Afghanistan as a whole would lead us to believe. Inside their homes, it is a different story – they have a lot of influence. Over their husbands, over their brothers and especially over their sons.
The FETs get invited into compounds for tea and frank discussion, while the male Marines wait outside. They are trusted by the local by virtue of their gender.
And I remember being laughed at a quarter-century ago for saying women could do COIN better!
Newsweek summarized some of the remarks made at a debate in New York last week on the question: “America Cannot and Will Not Succeed in Afghanistan/Pakistan.” It’s worth a look, but the online version is less complete than the dead tree copy and failed to include this remark:
..and comments. I wrote this as a comment here and was inspired to turn it into a posting…BD
As a point of information to perhaps gain perspective on this business of Empire in the middle of Afghan-war debate, some facts to consider.
At the risk of being accused of over-simplifying the issue, in light of the above stats, the point of what we prioritize and spend money on has to be brought up.
It strikes me that in regard to US foreign policy one of the best things we could focus on, aside from solely defending American interests, is to do the most good by improving people’s quality of life and saving lives, for those most threatened. This, in turn, helps America because it gains us friends showing a responsible and balanced direction of our intention to do the most good in the world.
What are we really in Afghanistan for?
Putting aside reasons like economic strategy or chess-like positioning to counter world powers for a moment, consider the terrorism arguments (the most popular justifications given in the main stream).
We are in Afghanistan not to prevent the unpreventable, say, an isolated suicide bombing here in America. We are in Afghanistan to stop the re-emergence of a terrorist safe-haven that could eventually mount an attack rivaling 9/11.
This is where the “fighting terrorism” debate as a justification for prolonged military occupation doesn’t hold water.
Because an argument that’s just as plausible immediately pops out, that being, an American military Empire conducting combat operations in multiple countries in the Near East and Middle East, will guarantee heightened motivation for our enemies to attack back — here at home. From this perspective, at a certain point, maybe after nine or ten years of being in country, withdrawal is the best course.
Interminable militaristic behavior will create determined opposition. Geopolitics, in this way, follows a well-know rule in physics: with every action, there’s an equal and opposite reaction. On the part of our enemies, human ingenuity will answer this warring behavior in the form of revenge; more violence.
There’s a moment when “running out the clock” and hoping things will get better won’t work for our current posture in Iraq and Afghanistan, because the clock that’s really ticking in the minds of our detractors, is:
We are a debtor nation like no other, and all our banking “creativity” not only caused the recent global economic crisis, but allowing US debt to rise exponentially has produced an Achilles heel that could bring down the giant.
What branch of the Department of Defense deals with this threat to national security?
Domestic manufacturing dismantled, industry pieced out, good jobs shipped overseas – all this paints a picture of the strong self-reliant American eagle slowly boiling into a paper tiger. Producers morphed into dependent debt-ridden consumers.
This is a potentially much greater tragedy for our nation; much greater than the difficult task of looking in the mirror, taking inventory and redefining the manner in which our country makes decisions on how to spend tax payer’s money or how we project force. The economic, military and real collapse of over-extended Empires is well trodden ground in world history: British, Roman, Ottoman, et al.
We currently maintain, at an exorbitant expense, military superiority over much of the planet with 7000 bases (6000 here, 1000 abroad), and US troops stationed in a shocking 77% of Earth’s nations. The United States military spending exceeds the next 45 highest spending countries in the world, combined. Totaling nearly $1.5 trillion dollars.
So this, then, brings up the subject of why we’re really “over there”. And why we spend more money on war preparation and defense than anyone now, or ever.
Yes. Over the decades, Eisenhower’s prophesized “complex” has equaled trillions of dollars of benefit.
IMHO, yes.
Yes. Money is power. When the famous Supreme Court case Buckley vs. Valeo said money is free speech, the inevitable coalescing of political power around money was enthroned.
Free Speech for sale — someone richer can “buy” a lot more First Amendment than someone else — and that goes for multi-national corporations as well, legally acting as “corporate persons”, another court ruling coercing concentrations of political power straight to the top.
A peculiar dysfunction of practiced economics is the need for “limitless growth”. When combined with the bottomless well of the US Treasury to fund mindless military expansion, this weak spot is an irresistible target for profiteers and fiscal opportunists. This dilemma brings everyday Americans to where we are today, faced with wresting back control of our corridors of power to save the republic from destroying herself. We must not ignore these parasites compromising our body politic.
It’s my suggestion that, in the big picture, our hand is being forced. Our economy and long-term prosperity is threatened by the fantasy that the US can forever maintain an increasingly expensive war enterprise. We need to ramp down this business of Empire before Lady Liberty gets the wind knocked out of her.
There are easier and less expensive ways to diplomatically achieve our objectives. President Obama speaks of increased engagement with the international community – unilateral military solutions would not be part of that portfolio. Obama the candidate and Obama the President are not entirely congruent – maybe some of these inconsistencies can work in our favor. In the campaign, we heard that Iraq was the dumb war and Afghanistan “just and necessary”, countering accusations of Obama being a weak Commander-in-Chief. Some saw this as political positioning, rather than the true aims of our President.
Well, now that he is President, maybe Obama could act on his nuanced understanding of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq instead of plunging America deeper into endless war.
President Obama should bring the majority of our ground troops home in Afghanistan and maintain an active collaboration with the Afghan military including over-watch responsibilities with air superiority and intelligence to insure no terrorist “safe-haven” would emerge. Special forces could be utilized on the ground in mission-specific operations to insure terrorist containment. No permanent old-school military occupations to fight this asymmetrical decentralized foe.
This would answer the ‘fighting terrorism’ question with regard to Afghanistan — but other questions remain.
In other words, even if we wanted to continue overdependence on one-sided foreign policy, considering our economically weakened condition, is that a cost too heavy to bear, the risks of fatal economic collapse too great?
These are soul searching questions that dig deep down into who and what we are as a people. Avoiding these difficult issues and pretending we’re still in the springtime of America might be easier
, summer soldiers sunshine patriots and all. Many activists have experienced at one time or another the blistering sustained while attempting to unpack the status quo — it is certainly much easier to just decide not to climb that mountain; to acquiesce and not stand against the mighty river’s flow.
But as Paine said,
America is dear to us all, and as forces have led her astray, we are compelled to think, speak and act anew to straighten her course. It is time to face the music of the American Empire that’s been built, and to make sure not to let play out her last coda.
All of these issues are valid. With the exception of increasing FET usage, they fall apart ‘where the rubber meets the road.’ Cross cultural judgments and assumption are dangerous and are how we got into this. Spreading democracy was Bush’s fantasy; analysts and pundits have become more realistic since Obama took office. Again, I suggest reading “Invisible History.’
The following facts are easy to verify by Googling Taliban Islamabad as well as searching CNN and the New America Foundation’s web sites using those two key words.
The Taliban attacks and destroys the schools and infrastructure that we and the NGOs set up. We don’t have enough troops to protect them. 97% of the country is now illiterate because of Taliban policies. Where are the teachers going to come from?
Afghanistan doesn’t have an army. Guerilla tactics are their ‘shtick’. Developing and training one is one of our military’s missions.
They have no police force. Creating one is another mission.
Its topography renders our air superiority and intelligence assets useless.
As recently as last week, Taliban seized and occupied Pakistan’s intelligence HQs
Yahoo news 10/12/09 -‘The Taliban are in much stronger financial shape than al-Qaida and rely on a wide range of criminal activities to pay for attacks on U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan,’
Unlike here where the President is Commander-in-chief, the Pakistani government has no control over its military (who, BTW, control the nuclear arsenal)
Although pundits present Al Qaeda and the Taliban as separate entities, foreign correspondents who’ve interviewed them say that the boundaries are fluid.
If the Taliban takes control of Pakistan, our nuclear nightmare will become fact.
If Pakistan defeats the Taliban, whoever’s left will move back to Afghanistan to flourish where there’s no army or police force to keep them in check.
My point is that solutions to this George Bush legacy aren’t clear cut or simple. When someone cites an article or an expert, take care. As I’ve learned more, I’ve also discovered that the experts don’t even agree. We’re talking about Afghanistan, right? But the entire region (Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India) is a hornet’s nest and its dilemmas are inter-related. Pakistan and its nuclear arsenal are vulnerable to Taliban takeover. The Taliban began in Pakistani madrasahs. Pakistan encouraged and abetted their control over Afghanistan and was among the only 3 countries to recognize the new regime. Anyone familiar with the region’s struggle for independence from Britain knows that the presence of foreign troops would be catastrophic. Afghanistan is a better staging area for us.