Buried in the onslaught of economic bad news is word that the British Amabassador to Afghanistan has predicted that the war against the Taliban will fail and that what needs to be done is to prepare the public to accept a dictator in Afghanistan because that's the best option:
"The current situation is bad, the security situation is getting worse, so is corruption, and the government has lost all trust,” the British envoy, Sherard Cowper-Coles, was quoted as saying by the author of the cable, François Fitou, the French deputy ambassador to Kabul.
The two-page cable — which was sent to the Élysée Palace and the French Foreign Ministry on Sept. 2, and was leaked to the investigative and satirical weekly Le Canard Enchaîné, which printed excerpts in its Wednesday issue — said that the NATO-led military presence was making it harder to stabilize the country.
“The presence of the coalition, in particular its military presence, is part of the problem, not part of its solution,” Sir Sherard was quoted as saying. “Foreign forces are the lifeline of a regime that would rapidly collapse without them. As such, they slow down and complicate a possible emergence from the crisis.”
But wait, we have bipartisan agreement that Afghanistan is the good war. That what we must do is send more military troops to Afghanistan, that that will make it better, not worse. All the serious people agree! We must be on the right track, right? Bipartisanship = Good.
Sir Sherard, as quoted, was critical of both American presidential candidates, who have vowed, if elected, to substantially increase American military support for Afghanistan to fight the Taliban.
In the short run, “It is the American presidential candidates who must be dissuaded from getting further bogged down in Afghanistan,” he is quoted as saying.
Say it ain't so, Sir Sherard, the Village is entirely wrong about supporting a war? Quelle surprise.
But he can't really be suggesting we should be trying to dissuade Obama or McCain from anything. Not right before an election. After, maybe, but everyone knows your job is to support a candidate before an election, not ask him for a bunch of shit, like not getting more Americans needlessly killed. How very partisan and petty.
And isn't it amazing that a guy so obsessed with getting beyond the "excesses" of the 1960s as Obama is seems committed to pursuing policies in Afghanistan that could leave him with his very own Vietnam. Perhaps the JFK comparisons were more apt than I thought.
But, hey, why should we listen to some limey diplomat. I'm sure the real men, the military guys, will tell us that we've got it all under control:
Britain's most senior military commander in Afghanistan has warned that the war against the Taliban cannot be won. Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith said the British public should not expect a “decisive military victory” but should be prepared for a possible deal with the Taliban.
[SNIP]
Carleton-Smith, commander of 16 Air Assault Brigade, which has just completed its second tour of Afghanistan, said it was necessary to “lower our expectations”. He said: “We’re not going to win this war. It’s about reducing it to a manageable level of insurgency that’s not a strategic threat and can be managed by the Afghan army.”
Those lucky U.S. troops who get to leave Iraq and be cannon fodder for another clusterfuck half a world away. Not that anyone cares, as Andrew Bacevich has pointed out, we basically contract out our national security to the folks who are in the military and then look away. Immoral and wrong, but that's what we do, even as the politicians scuffle to try to pose as to who most supports the troops.
You know what would support the troops? Bringing them home. But I promise this will be the last time I mention that until January 20 because I wouldn't want to ruin everyone's buzz by mentioning all the people likely to die over there next year regardless of who is elected. [Predictable Response: McCain will kill more! Response to Response: Obama will kill plenty!)
As always, Chris Floyd has much more to say and is worth a read.
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And the right approach is?
Hand it back to the Taliban? What could go wrong.
Seriously, I'm asking. Afghanistan is a very nasty problem, and while it is of course fine and good and responsible to point out what approaches will not work it seems to me that at some point a positive critique will have to be developed or stumbling on towards disaster will be what happens by default.
Oh and the Brits have been predicting disaster in Afghanistan from the beginning, some kind of left-over Charge of the Light Brigade syndrome perhaps. Things are bad and getting worse by the moment but still, a grain of salt needs to be applied to what everyone is saying right now.
What's the BDBluePrint for if not success then at least a non-disasterous outcome? Any and all ideas welcome.
The Right Approach
Was to do it right five years ago, not act like it's five years ago now.
More seriously, I think the right approach is to recognize that Afghanistan is likely to be unstable for some time and to limit the damage al Qaeda and the Taliban can do to us through limited law enforcement and special forces action aimed specifically at the terrorists and done on an international basis, preferrably with Pakistan's support (which might be more likely if we stopped bombing their citizens). I also think pumping vast amounts of
bribesdevelopment aid into the region would help (we have done this, of course, but it's hard to develop a country you're bombing regularly and we're talking the Bush Administration's idea of development which more often than not, judging by Iraq and NOLA, is the shock doctrine). We also will have to accept that we cannot have a war on terror and a war on drugs and if we really care about getting al Qaeda must reduce our obsession with eradication (which is one of the things that has made us so unpopular and the Taliban resurgent).Basically a combo of a small, focused effort to root out al Qaeda cells and a larger, more robust effort at draining the swamp. The key, I think is in Pakistan and working with the government there to strengthen democracy and working with it to improve the Pakistani economy (not that we seem to know how to do much beyond destroy economies these days). There has been a home-grown resistance to the militants in Pakistan, we should let it grow, not dampen it by killing Pakistani civilians in cross border raids. We haven't lost Pakistan yet and that's where the real threat is, having moved there from Afghanistan. Granted, it could always move back, but that's why focusing on invading and occupyng a country to get at a small band of criminals is a losing proposition. You're still
destroyingcleaning up the last country while they've moved on to the next.But mostly I think bombing the shit out of the place and trying to take on the guerillas directly is a losing proposition because they don't have to win, they only have to not lose and that's not that hard given the built in advantages of location and a divided and weakened U.S. force. Afghanistan is example 2 (Iraq example 1) of why the war on terror framing doesn't work. We're not at war with a country, we have a criminal conspiracy and need to track down the bad guys. Bombing villages tends not to be all that effective a means of doing that.
We need to pull back and re-think what we're doing. Instead, we're simply doubling down, acting like the last five years never happened, that the Taliban is not rich on opium money and al Qaeda has not retrenched to Pakistan, and going along like it's 2002.
I agree the answer isn't easy, we've taken a war that was always going to be difficult and then decided to fight it while standing in quicksand. However, I've heard that this country wants Change so what better time to re-examine the underlying approach we're taking to the entire terror issue and trying to figure out a new, smarter way to do it.
Watching the war on terror is like watching the war on drugs. The problem just keeps getting worse, only instead of trying something new, we just keep pouring resources into the ways that have failed.
Note - Not an expert on the region by any stretch of the imagination, but it does seem to me like when something isn't working the answer is not "do it more!" I'm sure the folks who are experts have lots of better ideas than I on how we should change our approach and make it more effective. In fact, as RL permits, I'm going to go look for some of those ideas.
Expert on the area
doesn't seem to have been much of an advantage, at least the experts we've been using, and the Brits haven't done any better at figuring out how anything works over there and they've got like two centuries of experience.
Maybe a fresh point of view is what's called for, to figure out what's to be done after the obvious key step of getting George W. Bush the hell out of the way. Look forward to you further thoughts.
it already is handed back--Karzai has no power
-- "More than half of Afghanistan is back under Taliban control and the Nato force in the country needs to be doubled in size to cope with the resurgent group, a report by the Senlis Council think-tank says. A study by the group found that the Taliban, enriched by illicit profits from the country's record poppy harvest, had formed de-facto governments in swathes of the southern Pashtun belt.
...
But senior defence sources say that a lack of frontline combat forces has meant that areas clawed back from the Taliban often cannot be held and have to be retaken after costly and fierce fighting. ...
The Taliban are the de facto authority in significant portions of territory in the south. Exploiting public frustration over poverty and inflammatory US-led counter narcotics policies, the Taliban are gaining increasing political legitimacy in the minds of the Afghan people." ..." -- http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/...
civilian deaths:
we're bombing and killing innocent people every single day there too.
"... The military said Wednesday that U.S. airstrikes in Afghanistan on Aug. 22 killed 33 civilians, far more than it had acknowledged amid Afghan claims of 90 civilian deaths.
...The issue of civilian deaths has outraged Afghans and strained relations with foreign forces in Afghanistan to help fight the insurgency. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has warned U.S. and NATO for years that they must stop killing civilians on bombing runs against militants, saying the deaths undermine his government and the international mission. ..." -- http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,4343...
Maybe defunding the empire would pay for the bailout?
Just asking.
[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Oh ten times over
and enough left for that pony you've been wanting.
Don't please mistake wanting to deal with Afghanistan - and the hundred other jacked up problems all of which have been made worse than they needed to be by Republican policies - in a responsible best-case way as though it is an endorsement for Empire. That isn't the case at all.
There's a rock-climber's adage that going up can be dangerous but climbing down is always more so. Continuing on with Empire is stupid and unsustainable and a disasterous course, but unless we are very careful in how we back down we will end up making things even worse yet. Careful, cautious, thoughtful and deliberate is all I'm asking for, and still sometimes we will have to use force; it isn't a perfect world.
See Russia.
See Russian economy drained.
Why are we in Afghanistan again, Poppy?
Poppy is right--1/2 Afghan GDP is opium
-- Opium Amounts to Half of Afghanistan's GDP in 2007, Reports UNODC -- http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/press/rele...
The Taliban did nothing to us, and they're already back in control of most of the country. You can't catch terrorists with armies and bombing.
Eradication Was the First Problem, IIRC
The Taliban when they were in power, ostensibly did not like the drug trade. But once out of power, they realized the drug trade could help pay for what they needed to fight us. As I understand it, we decided to fight the war on drugs in the middle of the war on terror and resume eradication efforts in Afghanistan, destroying the primary way most Afghanis make a living (we did try to substitute new crops, but that's hard to do in such a short time). The Taliban seized on this issue and so got more of the people on its side and the benefit of the drug money.
A similar thing has happened in Colombia where the FARC has sided with the drug traffickers both as a way to fund itself and as a way to win over more support.
mixing "war on drugs" & "war on terror"=compounding mistakes
i'd say.
anti-Taliban Pakistanis bombed today--
Pakistan bomb attack targets tribal gathering
Up to 50 people killed and nearly 100 wounded in suicide attack in region near Afghan border
-- http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/oct...
" Peace efforts in Pakistan received a major blow today after a gathering of the country's nascent anti-Taliban tribal movement was bombed, killing up to 50 and injuring 100.
The suicide attack occurred in the tribal belt running along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan, in the strategically important Orakzai area, which is used as a crossing point by Taliban and al-Qaida militants.
Some 600 tribal members had come together for a traditional gathering, known as a jirga, when the bomber struck. ..."