31 Comments

1. Doug Loss:

OK, are there any potential alternative supply routes into Afganistan? I doubt that an entirely air-lift supply system is feasible, even if you could stage in Uzbekistan or Kazakhstan or somewhere else. Anything overland?

If not, then there are only two options that seem workable. One, use military forces (ours, not tha Pakistanis) to secure the supply routes. Yes, this would be a de facto invasion of Pakistan. I doubt very much if it’s diplomatically viable.

Two, hire and arm heavily private security contractors for the supply convoys. If they’re able to defend themselves and fight off the Taliban and other looters, this might even take some of the pressure off Afghanistan since teh bad guys would have to expend more efforts at disrupting the supply lines.

Oh, there is a third option. Just say, screw it, and occupy the FATA militarily. Yeah, everyone will complain. Screw them too.

Nov 16, 2008 - 1:16 pm 2. Wadeusaf:

I’ll take door number three, Doug Loss.

Nov 16, 2008 - 1:49 pm 3. NahnCee:

Door Number Four: Pull out, nuking Pakistan on the way, and let Afghanistan build itself back up however it pleases without American or NATO help or interference.

Pakistan can remain a smoking rubble heap as an example of what happens when Muslim nations start messing with atomic structures.

Nov 16, 2008 - 2:35 pm 4. Richard:

Use step two. Set up decoys and use the predators to take out the Taliban

Nov 16, 2008 - 3:17 pm 5. LDG:

Some asked, so…

There are three routes from the Arabian Sea to central regions of Afghanistan. In descending order of infrastructure quality, they are:

Karachi-Peshawar-Kabul

Karachi-Quetta-Kandahar

minor Baluchistan coastal harbors (in or next to Iran)-Zahedan(Iran)-Kandahar and points northwest

The only other system of overland logistics would be to route via Russia and then through the Central Asian ’stans.

To summarize:
Bad, Worse, and not-going-to-happen.

I’ll sidestep the “what to do?” argument as that one is for policy-makers.

Nov 16, 2008 - 4:32 pm 6. trangbang68:

Nuke Pakistan is probably not a real viable option. Or maybe that’s just me. I understand we’re just a busload of bozos on an internet message board, but all the nuke talk is distressing. Get out of the house once in a while. Go to the Middle East market, buy some falafel mix from Omar who is about as devout a Muslim as most Americans are Christians. Go to the Soul Shack for a rack of ribs or some fried chicken and waffles. The guy behind the grill is a righteous guy not some crack slinger with a gold grill. When you pigeon hole everybody into shallow stereotypes you dilute the ability to identify and deal with the real bad actors and make yourself look buffoonish.

Nov 16, 2008 - 5:20 pm 7. whiskey:

Trang, the issue is not whether we can all get along, ala Rodney King, inside America, with the rule of law, but how the West responds to the existential threat of nukes in the hands of Islamists.

Because, no we can’t get along.

Muslims and Islam are incompatible with the West, not the least of which is the Polygamy and eternal tensions a few Big Men with many wives and lots of men without create.

As long as the Muslim world is the Muslim world, i.e. polygamous and rioting, prone to killing nuns and priests over something the Pope said, or killing people over cartoons (so much for Muslims being able to live with Westerners in either their own countries or the West), there will be tension.

Add nuclear weapons and there will be war. Eventually, and tragically, unlimited nuclear war. Muslims + nuclear weapons + the West being the West (cartoons, something the Pope says, ice cream swirls, whatever) = nuked Western Cities.

Particularly since whoever kills the most Westerners gets money, men, and power. Something Bin Laden hit upon after the end of the anti-Soviet Jihad in Afghanistan. If you are an ambitious Muslim man, and want to run your native country, the best way to achieve that goal is not elections but jihad killing lots of Westerners to create your own Army-Militia.

OF Course we will lose Western cities. And more Western cities, as the ambitious and dangerous men like Zawahari (who once shot a pair of 12 year old boys dead with his own pistol in front of his fellow Jihadis just to make his point) get their hands on nukes.

Omar the Muslim is irrelevant. He certainly does not speak out or oppose Jihad at any rate and wants Sharia, polygamy, cutting off of hands, and all the rest of the brutal, tribal, Dark Ages Islam. He will get it in the neck the way the people in the WTC did, or Flight 93, or a resort on Bali, or the first Western City to die of a nuke.

Now that brutal tribal leaders like Zawahari, who has shot 12 year old boys with his own pistol, have the ability to get nukes, the only way to survive for the West is to simply wipe out all potential enemies. This is what Wretchard warned about, and it is coming to pass. Failure to engage comes with it’s own costs, as does abandoning deterrence.

We won’t see a US-Soviet global nuclear war, but city after city getting nuked, and then the counter-nuking, from global proliferation of nukes. Driven by the social pressures of Polygamy which has created a disaster throughout the Muslim world from it’s founding in the late 500’s.

Nov 16, 2008 - 5:59 pm 8. Captain Ramen:

We will probably have to pull out. American power is not infinite. Never was. Afghanistan is simply too far away – logistically speaking – to sustain operations indefinitely. Thank God Bush did not listen to the liberal morons whining about finishing the job in Afghanistan. Just imagine if we had half of our army there now about to be cut off from their supplies.

Nov 16, 2008 - 6:06 pm 9. krontekag:

“Just imagine if we had half of our army there now about to be cut off from their supplies.”
Agreed Captain Ramen. Although I’m not ready to write off Afghanistan yet.

I’m surprised it has taken this long for the bad guys to cotton on to the best way to inhibit the good guys’ ops. However, our capabilities have increased – in the areas of Intel, targeting and removal of enemy commanders, especially inside Pakistan. Naturally this is a sensitive class of activities, but it may just be that the best way to respond to this attempted choking is to strengthen our own strangling grip – ie up the tempo in the unpoliced areas of Pakistan.

As with Iraq, it’s the set of ROE that is important here, not just throwing more soldiers into the mix. It’s important not to declare defeat however – the gains in Iraq would be safely swept under the Persian rug if the jihadis had a victory in Afghanistan, which they would use to reinvigorate their flagging recruitment and funding drives.

Nov 16, 2008 - 7:04 pm 10. OldSalt:

We will probably have to pull out.

That decision was made November 4th. There is no way Obama will escalate a war anywhere, except perhaps with Israel – “put those Zionists in their place…”. The tripe Obama about Afghanistan being the focal point of the war and Bush abandoning our responsibility there, had everything to do with political expediency and nothing to do with reality. Preemptive war as a means of defending the USA is dead until “hit Bravo”. When the second major event happens, Obama will blame 8 years of poor leadership from Bush for putting American in a place where bad guys hate us enough to kill 2000 or 200,000 Americans, i.e. whatever the result.

As soon as Obama takes any action to disengage from Afghanistan, the Europeans will view that as their long awaited signal to bail, and the party in Kabul will be over. It’ll be Talliban2, or a fuedal civil war, but the US will be out of Afghanistan and reaping the “peace dividend” of “demilitarizing” our country (i.e. the better to pay for Obama’s domestic agenda.

Bet on it.

When 53% of the American (voting) people elected Obama, they pissed on the grave of every soldier, Marine, sailor, and airman lost defending America. The “deterrence”, i.e. American intent and the ability to follow through, purchased by their blood will be gone January 20th.

Nov 16, 2008 - 7:07 pm 11. exhelodrvr:

Old Salt,
I disagree – it’s reasonable to question Obama’s character, but he does have very good political instincts. He knows that pulling out of Afghanistan, with the resulting chaos there and probably in Pakistan, would be a serious blow to him being re-elected, especially since he has trumpeted Afghanistan all along.

Nov 16, 2008 - 7:21 pm 12. E. Nigma:

I don’t think there will be any absentee ballots being cast in the 2012 presidential election from Afghanistan or Pakistan by the natives.
So no, I don’t think it will be a major blow, in and of itself. The truth of the Killing Fields in Cambodia took years to penetrate the psyche of Americans. The truth of Rwanda certainly didn’t hurt Bill Clinton in 1996. And the truth of Darfur hasn’t made a dent in domestic politics in America.

Wars are fought to the tune of logistics. If we cannot support the army stationed in Afghanistan, then we have to pull them out before a disaster strikes. It’s that simple.

So with enough fig leaves covering our political genitals, NATO (entirely) and the US (mostly) will slyly slip out of Afghanistan within a few years. Look for a replay of the Fall of Saigon for the few American advisers, etc., lucky enough to be stationed there when the country again falls to the “Taliban”, that creature of the Pakistani ISI.
Lather, rinse, repeat.

Nov 16, 2008 - 7:38 pm 13. JFSanders:

Oh, I don’t know if THE ONE will drop the ‘Stan. A surprising number of lefty boards that I watch hold the view that Afghanistan is the one true war worth fighting.

I would like to see us pack up in Euroweenie land and see how long it takes for Putin to slap them around like a pimp. Send those usable assets we have there to the ME. Take the left over money and use it to beef up our over the horizon capabilities. Let them kill each other for awhile.

Besides Columbia could use our help. And for that matter we could send them down there through Mexico and clean that latrine up as we go south.

Jim

Nov 16, 2008 - 8:13 pm 14. 3Case:

The Egyptian genocidal dwarf “who once shot a pair of 12 year old boys dead with his own pistol in front of his fellow Jihadis just to make his point” shot those boys upon suspicion of homosexuality, if I am not mistaken…saving them the horrors of Guantanamo Bay, some might say.

While American power is not infinite.” The problem has never been about the magnitude of our power, but about our [political] will to use our power in an unrestrained manner. Vaporizing any part of one of our cities will remove that restraint, whomever may be President. Perhaps the jihadis will vaporize Euro-cities, which have no credible means of retaliation.

Allow me to repeat:

Slaughter now or slaughter later.
Slaughter later = slaughter more.

Nov 16, 2008 - 8:23 pm 15. Lifeofthemind:

@Old Salt,
I take heart from the suspicion that the level of fraud and corruption by the Democrats was sufficient that the true vote was probably closer to 49% to 49%. Still it was an amazing testimonial to a collective detachment from reality.

@3Case,
You base your belief that we will respond more forcefully the next time on exactly what evidence?

No one has discussed the interests of India in determining the future of Pakistan. India may not be the 600 lb Guerilla in the room but she is the 500 lb Tiger. If Pakistan starts to break up will India seize the Punjab and Kashmir? Will China get involved? Will the Americans find it easier or harder to run a supply line up to Kandahar under those circumstances? Will the Iranians be able to intervene and trap use or will they be busy picking up the pieces after a preemptive strike by Israel? If the Israelis had 3 Arsenal ships loaded with cruise missiles or old Polaris SSBMs this would be much less risky. As it is I fear we are conjugating fish life. The KGB-Jihadi roll of the dice alliance is screwing, the Israelis are screwed, and we will become Scrod.

Nov 16, 2008 - 9:07 pm 16. NeoCon Don:

We could always access Afghanistan via Iran

Nov 16, 2008 - 9:49 pm 17. trangbang68:

Whiskey, I’m not saying don’t engage the jihadis, I say engage them with great force. Bush is doing that to the best of his limited ability (with a defeatist opposition party, a lying press and a population which wants to watch television and pretend the world is Disneyland.)
But categorizing whole populations or racial groups as fit for the executioner is stupid and barbaric. Read Bing West’s “The Strongest Tribe”
which unpolemically relates the history of the Iraq War. Between all the wrong turns and blunders; there have emerged many courageous Iraqis who value freedom. An article in my local fishwrap this morning talks about a Sunni translator now in America who had his eye shot out helping our guys survive the IED’s .
Nuking a billion Muslims because of a small percentage of Wahabbis is the mindset of fools. If we lose a city, God help us. We strike back with fury. But the Cold War rationale was confront evil, but by all means possible keep the nuclear genie in the bottle.
All I’m saying is racial and cultural stereotyping is the work of lazy minds. Just like asserting that all Black Obama supporters are welfare moms and gangbangers. That is simply a reflection of the profound ignorance of those who hold those views.

Nov 16, 2008 - 9:52 pm 18. Wadeusaf:

The Pakistani’s still hold the key, will they allow themselves to be the slaves of the nasty Jihad’s or will they tire of paying them off for no result. I think we will see a set grown on the Pakistani military and tribes not aligned with the ashat Taliban. Same same for Afghanistan if somewhere some one displays the stubborn bullishness necessary to keep them afloat. With out support, all is lost, last man out take the light bulb. But if that is the way we go, we will hear for that region sooner, and louder and it will not be in court.

A case of being careful of what you wish for.

Nov 16, 2008 - 10:09 pm 19. NahnCee:

trangbang, you’re the only one I’m seeing that’s saying nuke all Muslims, and you’re the only one I’m seeing that’s expanded that concept into Muslims in the United States. So just exactly what sort of profound ignorance are you citing, any way?

Nov 16, 2008 - 10:50 pm 20. trangbang68:

I’m citing the statement “nuke Pakistan on the way out” as a provocative statement that a) is not grounded in reality b)is casually laughing off the annihilation of millions of people.
c) advocating a course of action that would plummet the world into great darkness
I think Afghanistan may well be a lost cause in that we lack the political will and endless resources to probably prevail there.
My statement regarding stereotyping all Muslims (or blacks in America) is a response to too many posts that lump whole people groups into 2 dimensional cardboard figures, and deny that nations and cultures are made up of complex and diverse individuals.

Nov 16, 2008 - 11:22 pm 21. Captain Ramen:

I don’t think this has anything to do with Obama. Would John McCain really be able to prevent Pakistan from falling apart? Or Bush? Or even Reagan? You are kidding yourselves if you think the election has anything to do with this.

I think that the Bush Admin knew back in 2001 that a long term nation building campaign in Afghanistan was impossible given the logistics. Hence Iraq. The fact that your liberal friends (if you have any) have been screaming non stop to ‘finish the job in Afghanistan’ these last 7 years should have tipped you off.

As Richard pointed out before in The Third Conjecture and follow up articles, winning the GWOT – specifically with the strategy of defeating AQ in Iraq – is the Islamic World’s last chance at not getting erased from history. Once Pakistan falls apart and those nuclear weapons find themselves in the wrong hands, I really do not see any alternative to what the article laid out.

I pray that two+ years of AQ blowing up other muslims has convinced the muslims that going down this road won’t get them anywhere. Have they learned the lesson? We shall see.

Nov 16, 2008 - 11:22 pm 22. sf:

So it would appear most of you are hoping that the Pakistani military will keep their own Islamic fanatics from grabbing their nukes in a Pak meltdown. The problem with this “strategy” is that it seems highly likely that only a tiny percentage of the Pak military is willing to risk death for the safety of the West. Far better for them to stay out of the extremists’ way and hope for the best than risk one’s family. After all, the fanatics know where your family lives, and have demonstrated a willingness to torture and kill women and children in the name of their prophet.

Nov 16, 2008 - 11:52 pm 23. wretchard:

As a practical matter the US is not going to nuke anybody pre-emptively. The real dilemma comes if the West is WMD-attacked by a terrorist organization that doesn’t declare its identity and can repeat the attacks indefinitely. Without the ability to take on terrorism at a low level of granularity — something which requires a vast investment in intelligence and information warfare — the overwhelming temptation will be to send a signal cheaply. Clinton was a big fan of sending cheap signals. Sending signals is a proxy for action when effective action is infeasible. So you fire cruise missiles, talk ominously, etc. But the downside to sending signals is that everybody gets the message indiscriminately.

In the last 8 years the US has made significant advances in selective targeting and intelligence/action fusion. You don’t have to signal as much — shout at the crowd — if you can pick of the troublemakers. But the precision capability is all driven by intelligence, which paradoxically comes from engagement itself. Engaging the enemy gives you intelligence. Disengaging gives you space but you lose information. If Obama pulls back he’s going to lose intelligence. And without intelligence the danger is you go back to sending signals again.

So to recap, if Pakistan goes south it will present a huge hostile furball. Although using a nuke would be normally unthinkable, if a WMD comes out of that opaque furball, and nobody knows exactly where from, then the Clinton tendency will be to send a big, cheap, honking signal in default of precise action may reassert itself.

All this talk about giving terrorist financiers rights, due process, not tapping their comms, not investigating politically correct groups and staying at arms length from everything confers the benefit of seeming nice and clean. But it comes at the cost of losing lots of information which someday we may need to act humanely and instead be forced by ignorance to act barbarously.

Nov 17, 2008 - 1:20 am 24. Tim Lynch:

I have been in Afghanistan a long time and have met very few Afghans who take the Islamic religion any more seriously than than your average American takes their religion. The percentage of real fanatics in the population at large is probably equal to America – at least that has been my experience. The Pakistan government cannot keep the Khyber pass closed for long because too much of both Afghanistan’s and Pakistan’s GDP flow through that crossing. The generals will be losing millions daily as long as this keeps up. As you watch all the flat out bizarre things happening throughout the North West Frontier one gets the distinct impression that the Pashtuns – especially the Pakistani Talib types – don’t think we are really being serious. When they are serious they kill important men, and these men have large funerals which the Talibs attack with more suicide bombers, if the Talibs were really pissed at the guy they’ll go onto attack the funerals of victims from the second attack.

If we were serious there could never be a large public venting of hatred of the west and the call to jihad by crowds at funerals of leaders we have whacked. We have a ton of assets constantly over the airspace in FATA and I would submit another good use of them would be to target families of suicide bombers. If we were really serious than every suicide bomber attacking us would know we were going to kill his family and a bunch of his best buddies if we catch a lucky break because we do not like suicide bombers and know that a large part of their motivation steams from the esteem in which they are remembered by family and friends.

That is how people in this part of the world understand that you are taking them and their antics seriously. Another cheap addition to a campaign of this nature would be to triple the number of drones flying overhead. The extra drones don’t need weapons or even a sensor package – just the telemetry required to fly them and a few enlisted specialists to pilot and then let them make noise, constantly, every day, all day. The villagers in around here do not like the sounds of drones circling overhead at all; even in areas with no Taliban or fighting the villagers have no real clue about what the drones are looking at and suspect they can see through walls and detect all sorts of things. They are largely illiterate and run the most efficient viral rumor news system in the world…well maybe not the world but you know what I mean. Psyops is a beautiful thing when it is designed to take advantage of an non enemy weakness.

However I do not think that any course of action remotely as aggressive would be considered until after we sustain some type of mass casualty attack on the homeland – only then will we consider actions that would have mitigated the attack if adopted before it was launched. And that is too bad because as Wretchard pointed out it is not easy to envision any type of governmental control being established in FATA with the exception of maybe the Khyber Agency. Who knows what will may come out of that place but an NBC type attack against America is certainly well within the realm of possibility. Then we will get serious.

Nov 17, 2008 - 6:37 am 25. Lifeofthemind:

@Tim Lynch,
While I am not wiling to say bomb the funerals I do think that your point about hitting their esteem is valid. Perhaps we can have the drones crop dust the funerals with tear gas.

Back in the ’70s I read that most of the drug trade in NYC was being run by illegal immigrants from two towns on the North coast of the Dominican Republic. They NYT magazine did a piece on this then unusual phenomena. What struck me was the description of the two things that stood out to a visitor to these towns. First was the unusual presence of the then new technology of satellite dishes on the roofs of what were otherwise typical Latin American village houses. The second feature was the collection of extraordinary monuments that were in the local cemeteries to commemorate the drug traffickers whose remains were shipped home.

To me the obvious response by the US to this invasion should have been to order the destruction of every monument in the cemetery that was paid for by drug money. Second we should have set up an offshore jamming center that would have rendered all of their fancy electronics worthless. Finally if things did not improve we could have targeted for destruction every house with a satellite dish.

A similar approach should be used to deny the allies of the Islamists the benefits of attacking Americans. No family member of an Islamist should be allowed entrance to the US. If Harvard wants to give their kid a scholarship then the CBP officer at the port should tear the admission up and throw them out. No family member of the Islamists should benefit from the financial or communications systems we pay for and defend. If lawyers and the EU try to fight it then they should learn just how seriously we can defend ourselves.

Yes, I know with the Democrats coming in we are going in exactly the wrong direction. Wretchard is correct; we shall have less of the intelligence data needed to defend ourselves in the future.

Nov 17, 2008 - 9:22 am 26. Lifeofthemind:

Here is a link to a 1993 House hearing, under Charlie Rangel, on Dominican drug trafficking by illegals from the Dominican Republic
http://www.archive.org/stream/dominicandrugtra00unit/dominicandrugtra00unit_djvu.txt
To me there are parallels to the culture and motivations of the Jihadis.
Let us see if the blog software here will post a comment with a link, over half the time it refuses.

Nov 17, 2008 - 9:52 am 27. 3Case:

lotm,

No evidence. Recent history augurs quite the opposite, I agree, which is unfortunate. I’m about 85 miles from NYC to the NE. The winds will carry the fallout.

Nov 17, 2008 - 9:07 pm 28. Cannoneer No. 4:

My condolences, Tim, about the loss of your body armor to those land pirates.

Nov 18, 2008 - 8:45 pm 29. Cannoneer No. 4:

http://www.michaelyon-online.com/shakedown.htm

Nov 18, 2008 - 8:49 pm 30. Cannoneer No. 4:

Amateurs Study Tactics

We came to get bin Laden. We stayed because lily pads at KAF and BAF were good clue bats with which to whomp Islamabad, Tehran, Beijing, Moscow, New Delhi, Bishkek, Tashkent and Dushanbe up side the head. Maintaining these two super FOB thumbs in the eye of the regional powers was the mission after Tora Bora. They made great places to run the Special Forces Olympics out of. Beijing and Moscow saw our clue bats and raised us an SCO, outbribing us with Karimov so we lost K2 which put all our logistical eggs in Musharraf’s basket. He actually did an adequate job of keeping the LOC open, but he’s out now, and his successors aren’t earning their bribes.

Nov 18, 2008 - 11:34 pm 31. Earl:

#23 wretchard

From this, am I to take that you have abandoned your “Three Conjectures” model?

Nov 19, 2008 - 2:54 am

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