70 Comments

1. buddy larsen:

Let us be frank. We must look at the situation and ask….

Here, in paragraph four, the ‘disillusioned arab’ –but from the other side of the great divide –agrees with Michael Yon.

Jul 9, 2009 - 4:22 am 2. ADE:

it will take 100…

So why bother? What is the West’s strategic interest in Afghanistan, indeed any of the area around Afghanistan?

Why can we not just contain just Afghanistan within its borders?

If the inhabitants want to be illiterate, won’t use phones, want to spend the winters with their animals, want to let AQ into their area, does it matter to us if we have contained them? Is it likely that a group of people so backward will be able to nuke New York? So AQ goes there for ‘training’, but does that matter if we don’t let AQ out?

I just don’t get it that the West should spend billions on moving these people into the 21st century, unless there is some huge payoff.

What is the payoff? WIFM?

ADE

Jul 9, 2009 - 4:23 am 3. Bob Sykes:

Afganistan cannot be fixed; Africa cannot be fixed; Latin America cannot be fixed; Russia cannot be fixed.

The problem in each case is a deeply embedded cultural/psychological disease that extends from the whole culture down to the individuals in it. These places have incubated and nutured their diseases for hundreds (Russia) to tens of thousands (Africa) of years.

Go say a mass for their souls, but stay home and keep your wallet in your pocket.

Jul 9, 2009 - 4:35 am 4. wretchard:

Pakistan and the whole region are part of the problem. The region itself needs a solution because that was the canker from which 9/11 sprung. The question to think about is whether the strategy being currently pursued effectively prevents or predicts new 9/11s.

Jul 9, 2009 - 4:37 am 5. ledger:

“Good strategists find ways to make time work for them.” –Wretchard

If it doesn’t include race hustling, Obama is like a fish out of water. Obama is now flip-flopping on a hot deck. Obama has no strategy. If there is a way – Obama will screw it up.

Maybe we should call Afghanistan “Obama’s War.”

Jul 9, 2009 - 4:39 am 6. wretchard:

Maybe we should call Afghanistan “Obama’s War.”

The problem with thinking that way is that allied soldiers are risking their lives there. I think we should define winning in a practical and sustainable way and aim for that. Once you’re in a fight win it or don’t bother.

We have centuries to “fix” Afghanistan, if they ever want to be fixed. Right now, the immediate problem is putting a crowbar in the spokes of the wheel of anyone figuring on making a mass casualty attack. So we have to fix it so’s its in their interest not to let that happen and it’s in their interest to do good things.

If I get the opportunity to go to Afghanistan or something, maybe I can pick up what ideas are floating around. I have the half-baked notion that the real key to the region is roads and just linking it up with the outside world. That creates what I’ve called a “radical transparency”. When a place is wired and thronged with strangers, news of bad stuff in the offing leaks out. Roads create multiple loyalties in the form of that most intractable of beings, men. But don’t take that idea seriously as a prescription. I don’t know enough to make sense.

But in general if you want to solve something you can. And while I despair of a ‘once and forever’ solution to Afghanistan, it may be possible to do a patch. And that may be enough, and yet we may not get it. I think the big danger is that the body politic isn’t focusing on developing a winning strategy because they don’t think in those terms.

Jul 9, 2009 - 4:53 am 7. ADE:

W@4

But 9/11 could have been prevented by better airport security, and we now have it.

allied soldiers are risking their lives there They should’nt be. Pull them out. Let the Afghanis do whatever, as long as it doesn’t affect us.

Root-cause-analysis may be revealing, but it doesn’t mean that the root has to be dug out.

Airport security is a form of containment. Let’s improve and extend the model, which is cheaper and works.

Splendid isolation, anyone?

ADE

Jul 9, 2009 - 4:57 am 8. Bruce Johnson:

The one thing that may change situations like this over the coming decades is the advance of technology. In particular, cheap, unmanned, persistent surveillance devices. It may be that the way to keep backwards countries and populations from endangering the rest of us is to keep them under continuous watch, in fine detail. That certainly has ethical implications (and I’m not saying it’s a good idea), but it may be the only realistic solution.

Jul 9, 2009 - 4:58 am 9. Lucy:

We are unable to confront the unpleasant political incorrect reality. The problem is islam. You cannot solve the backwardness of this belief system by building schools. In fact, schools are an affront to islam. Our belief system is antithetical to the way they have lived for centuries, the tribal way, the way the majority still want to live. It’s not like rebuilding Germany after the war. Germans lived in the 20th century. Afghanistan, but for some imported machinery, is still someplace around 1200 AD.

The shame is that our brave soldiers will be sacrificed on this politically correct altar. If our “leaders” could see more clearly, they would reach a different solution than the epic fail plan they’re following now.

Jul 9, 2009 - 5:53 am 10. Brad:

Given the rapid collapse of the West, Afghanistan and other trouble spots will be the problem of India and China, nations that have ambition and energy, not to mention 50% of the global populace. Whether they will wage politically correct war when their interests are threatened is unknown at this time.

Jul 9, 2009 - 6:00 am 11. NullificationNow:

Obama’s war – Could it be the first Kenyan Presidents strategy is to weaken the Army by putting the best through a calculated meat grinder (Afghanistan) while building his America Corps (Acorn) mob at home.

Jul 9, 2009 - 6:00 am 12. Peter Boston:

I don’t think anybody can predict with any certainty what their own society will look like in a 100 years, never mind a society as alien to us as Afghanistan.

So long as Pashtun tribal leaders are willing and able to arm their young men and send them into battle against “intruders” then even enough stability to assure ourselves against a resurgence of international terrorist ambitions in Afghanistan will remain out of reach. The same conclusion applies to the Tribal Areas of Pakistan as well – and Sudan and Somalia and a dozen other places where tribal Islam is not kept in check by a capable central authority.

18th and 19th century literature was very clear about who the “Turk” was and why he was the enemy of civilization. Today’s political leaders don’t have the good sense, or more likely the courage, to even name the enemy.

It’s insanity to send your best to the far reaches of the earth to fight tribal wars when you invite the same enemy to run for city council in your homeland.

Jul 9, 2009 - 6:18 am 13. RWE:

Once again, I say that as long as the head guy in Kabul is not giving us the finger when we tell him we are going to blow the crap out of the village of Disisbad then that is all that we need. The national anthem of Afghanistan can become a version of an old Olivia Newton-John song, called “Please Mr. Please, Don’t Play B-52.”

The real reason the Left wants to focus on Afghanistan as “the good war” is that if they can get things “fixed forever” there they think they can go back to sleep and use the court system to handle terrorism, the same way they want to use the court system to handle everything.

A “permanent fix” for Afghanistan to them means that they can go back telling airline pilots and their passengers to be totally passive, forget about anything you would call “suspicious activity,” and adopt a “hire the handicapped” approach to security as well as a “They’re just a bunch gooks, who cares” approach to foreign policy.

No matter what happens in Afghanistan, we will never be back to the Left’s imaginary world of 9/10/01, but they think they can get there with enough dead soldiers in the hinterlands.

Jul 9, 2009 - 6:21 am 14. Joshua:

Yon: Let us be frank. We must look at the situation and ask, “How far can we nudge this place by the year 2100 … if Afghanistan is to reach even the level of Nepal — maybe we could do that in 25 years. Meanwhile, Germans and Canadians seem to be growing weary … Yet we and our many allies must realize that this cake will not be baked in 10 years. … a key Japanese official … told me they are committed to 10, 20, maybe 30 years. It will take 100, but at least the Japanese are thinking straight, while most of us are not.

A big part of the problem, it goes without saying, is that most of the troops in Afghanistan come from democratic nations with election cycles of just a few years. The entire war effort can be jeopardized by a domestic political backlash against the war developing in just one of those nations between now and their next elections.

In that light, even the very act of publicly acknowledging that Afghanistan could take generations to bring up to speed is politically risky for any democratic nation with troops there, particularly any Western nation, where the idea of maintaining a foreign presence for that long smacks of an expensive boondoggle at best, “neo-colonialism” at worst.

Jul 9, 2009 - 6:24 am 15. Steve:

“The one thing that may change situations like this over the coming decades is the advance of technology.”

I’m for surveillance and attack drones filling the skies of countries that can’t – or won’t – keep their people from posing a threat to us. That’s a subject for its own thread, as there is so much we could do there. The surface has barely been scratched.

Here’s a suggestion: since Afghanistan’s principal problem is isolation, both physical and intellectual, can we turn the entire country into a Wi-Fi zone, flooding every village with laptops, phones, kindles, whatever? I understand the risk is the Taliban will shoot those who possess such devices, so perhaps the idea will be to use the devices to lure the Taliban into the village, where Special Forces types can ambush them, while also exposing the Taliban snitches and killing them, too. Internet access will simultaneously drag them out of the dark ages and help us find/fix/trap/kill the Taliban. This is still a rough idea, but surely it can’t hurt to examine it.

Jul 9, 2009 - 6:26 am 16. Cannoneer No. 4:

“By aiding and abetting murder, the Taliban regime is committing murder. And tonight the United States of America makes the following demands on the Taliban.

Deliver to United States authorities all of the leaders of al-Qaida who hide in your land.

Release all foreign nationals, including American citizens you have unjustly imprisoned. Protect foreign journalists, diplomats and aid workers in your country. Close immediately and permanently every terrorist training camp in Afghanistan. And hand over every terrorist and every person and their support structure to appropriate authorities.

Give the United States full access to terrorist training camps, so we can make sure they are no longer operating.

These demands are not open to negotiation or discussion.

The Taliban must act and act immediately.

They will hand over the terrorists, or they will share in their fate.”

— President George W. Bush, September 20, 2001.

What passed for the Westphalian nation-state of Afghanistan in 2001 allowed al Qaeda to plan and launch attacks on the Westphalian nation-state of the United States of America from sanctuaries on territory over which they claimed and the international community recognized sovereignty. That regime was changed. The successor regime is still, eight years later, incapable of exercising sufficient control over its sovereign territory to be trusted not to allow another attack to originate from within what should be its area of responsibility.

We are stuck in that briar patch until we can trust them.

Jul 9, 2009 - 6:27 am 17. Harry:

RE #6 – W are you saying you would like to go to Afganistan? Maybe you could hook up with Michael Yon or Totten and give us your insights. I think it’s a good idea.

Jul 9, 2009 - 6:44 am 18. Lifeofthemind:

God made the Israelites wander in the desert until two generations had past and the stain of slavery was washed from their culture. Some things take time. They also take a focused effort. Anne Coulter was not attempting to pass the Foreign Service oral examination after 9-11 when she said “invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity” but she had the essentials down right. When the Japanese missionaries were kidnapped in Afghanistan we should have gone ballistic and wiped out villages. When they lynched our four contractors in Fallujah we should have leveled the place. In between those extremes we should do lots of civic improvement projects. Our clear and stated goal should always be to ensure that they understand the choices have to be between tolerance and death. Afghanistan and Iraq should be crawling with Jesuits and Baptists and Hasidim and Buddhists and Zoroastrians. A 16 year old girl should be able to walk unmolested from Kandahar to Kabul or Basrah to Kirkuk, in a string bikini.

It is not an airport security problem and we cannot isolate them in an aboriginal reserve.

Jul 9, 2009 - 6:46 am 19. dan:

the problem seems to be the tribals and the Pashtunwali generally. But these people are not 20th century metallurgists & etc. Is it not possible to starve them of their arms supply? i read in viktor suvorov’s Spetznas that there is more ingenuity and craft in one bullet than in a fountain pen. wouldn’t it at least be possible to starve them of ammunition relatively easily?

because unfortunately if yon and ralph peters and the other “get the hell out” analysts are correct, we will be ceding the field to a perpetual taliban. if the suppliers are “elements” of the pkaistani military and intelligene services who believe the tribals can be used to exert control over afghanistan to form a sort of Greater Pakistan, and that territory in turn will be used a base to launch destabilizing strategic terror attacks against those whom either the Taliban or Pakistan (or those who buy their favors) deem their enemies, then we will have left behind an absolutely civilization-killing problem.

A problem, by the way, that will no longer be addressable politically in the West until the next gigantic terror attack – the entire theme of “pull out and just threaten to nuke their cities if they misbehave” and “well we’ll just go back in there if things go badly but right now we should leave” are both completely and utterly meritless in light of the facts. The fact is, if we leave, every dove or pseudo-dove in the world will be able to screech about poointless or imperialist wars and stupidity and all of it and completely eviscerate the political will to address the problem before it goes nuclear.

The only real answer is to deal incredible damage on the populations capitivated by the Pashtunwali collective psyche, and possibly also on Pakistan’s ruling elite and its assets. Probably the USA is out of the business of outright domination, if it ever really has been in it to begin with. The current AfPak strategy is a middle way I’d think men like Peters and Yon would appreciate more than they seem to. There is no good alternative.

Jul 9, 2009 - 7:01 am 20. Dave the Kapampangan:

W@6,

Interesting thesis. The larger problem is that isolated tribal society can allow genocidal, irrational cults to thrive, and if given the weapons, these nutcases present a danger to easy-going, rational society.

A “big idea” solution is to reform the society, i.e. coax it out of the dark ages.

A smaller idea is to reform the isolation, i.e. put in roads and encourage trade. That way news gets out and problems can be “predatored” out of existence before they fester.

Nanny Obananarama says: “OUR solution is to spin-doctor the situation, and use the State-controlled media to hide the extent of the problem from rational society. Because we can’t let inconvenient facts get in the way of our heartfelt multicultural ideology.”

Jul 9, 2009 - 7:06 am 21. Seppo:

Often times failed states are states whose very existence and borders are an incongruous gift from the past. Why Afghanistan and Pakistan? Where is Pushtunistan and Punjabistan? Is Somalia really a “nation”? Why are the Kurds without a national entity of their own?

Maybe we expect too much of some of the currently deemed “countries” because they lack cohesion or the advanced capabilities of living together in a multi-ethnic state of peace.

Jul 9, 2009 - 7:07 am 22. veracious:

RWE@13,

The left wants to…
use the court system to handle terrorism, the same way they want to use the court system to handle everything.

This is a conceptual keeper. Let’s see if I can flesh this out… The democratic mob determines what is right/wrong, the courts ajudicate infractions thereof and create law _out_of_thin_air_ (to guide the mob). Note that mob right, eventually decays to lowest common denominator. Perhaps this the place remaining when God is kicked out.

Jul 9, 2009 - 7:09 am 23. Barry 0351:

Ya can’t fix stupid, mired in the world of islam afganistan will always be a shithole.

Jul 9, 2009 - 7:14 am 24. exhelodrvr:

wretchard,
I agree on the roads. Reasonable transportation gives people options. Right now most of them have no options.

Jul 9, 2009 - 7:18 am 25. Lifeofthemind:

exhelodrvr,
In the long run the roads help change the culture but in the short run they (roads, planes, cell phones) make it easier for the bad guys to get out and come after us. Isolation is not an answer but engagement does increase short term risk. Of course in the long term we are all dead anyway.

Jul 9, 2009 - 7:44 am 26. cjm:

the 9/11 mass attack was possible because of the level of incompetence and political paralysis in this country. and that problem has still not been addressed. gwb took the easy way out, in attacking afghanistan and iraq, while leaving the local jihadis (leftists) in power.

if you want to pacify places like afghanistan and pakistan, just seize all the food. problem solved.

Jul 9, 2009 - 7:47 am 27. dennis:

I, too, struck on the roads idea though not in the deeper strategic sense you speak of. From what I understand, it’s an internally-oriented, extended family organized, tribal society. Therefore, there is no “United” Afghanistan, no state pride or nationalism. A way to break that down is to encourage interaction among the elements, and roads could encourage and simplify that. Not just large, paved 4-lane roads necesarilly because I suspect most don’t have vehicles that could use them. No, I think it has to be a road network that incorporates graded trails 4-5 feet wide, and graded dirt and gravel roads as well. The government could encourage the establishment, improvement, support of regional trading centers from which this system would eminate and interconnect. Trading requires goods and goods require production. Production requires focus and hard work. The idea is first to build a society and then to build a nation. All that said, I must confess that my knowledge of the country and the people is only “National Geographic Deep.” That progression, however, is how our own nation developed.
When one thinks about roads to the wider world, one also thinks about what they would connect to. A peaceful, modernized(ing) Pakistan would seem an advantage. Also, connections to the advanced society that Iran was before the Mullahs. North? Not much to gain there it seems. South? Trading ports perhaps and eventually. But strategically it seems the intractable problems of “Mullah-ism” must be solved first. Hence an emphasis on Iran and Pakistan is to our strategic advantage and the world’s. And we are back to regime change.
I’m glad it’s not my job to sort it out, but I sure wish it was someone’s.

Jul 9, 2009 - 8:11 am 28. exhelodrvr:

25) The negatives from improved transportation for the terrorists pales in comparison to the benefits of improved access for government and allied forces to terrorist areas, improvements in education and health care, options for farmers other than poppies.

Jul 9, 2009 - 8:14 am 29. Lifeofthemind:

exhelodrvr,
I agree with your position but we do need to understand that a complex security situation unfolds as we upgrade communications. It is like Schrodinger’s cat, once we show up and change things we must understand that things change. Now that sounds profound enough to be carved in stone. The second problem that we still face in Afghanistan is the logistical tether that we beat to death on many Belmont Club threads. Putin’s beneficence does not make me feel better about having 70,000 Americans out in the back of beyond with Obama watching their 6. Finbally we have the problem of how Afghan’s treat a road passing their village. They are like a thousand small town Ohio speed trap operators were in America when the Interstate pushed through. The first thing they want to do is set up a road block and impose a transit tax on anyone using the road. The second thing they do is threaten to blow it up unless they get protection money.

Jul 9, 2009 - 8:33 am 30. erc rodson:

This is reminiscent of the American West, circa 1870. Many disparate tribes, speaking many languages, widely scattered, using Stone Age technology, except for the modern weapons they traded for or took in battle. Small garrisons of modern soldiers, forted up in isolated outposts, making occasional sweeps or punitive forays, missionaries in a few isolated villages.

The difference is that there is no expansionist power moving into the Afghan hinterland. The coalition forces are temporary and must work thru the Afghan government. A similar situation pertained under the British Raj, in which the tribes were pretty much left alone as long as they stayed home.

Similarly miserable poor people live in a large part of the world. The Afghans had the fortune or misfortune to call the attention of the US upon them. This offers the possibility of change, for the better or worse. But the Afghans are only one isolated instance of people living in primitive conditions.

Kipling called on his countrymen to “pick up the White Man’s burden”, which he saw as the duty to raise the standards of living of the primitive people of the Empire, to introduce them to modern ways and bring them law and literacy. This seems to be an unspoken goal of the West today, with the Americans the most active in pursuing it. (Unspoken because it is no longer politically correct to speak of the “White Man”as a role model, which is also factually correct, since there are non-white nations which are part of the modern world now.) The French,also a colonial power, saw a mission to bring civilization to their colonies. Neither mission worked out as well as they might.

Barring a clear mission statement in Afghanistan, it is unlikely that much is going to change soon. In Viet Nam, we saw that by choosing the tools that we did, we often made achievement of the mission impossible. Are we using the correct tools in Afghanistan? “When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.” (Mark Twain, more or less)

I’m an engineer. I like roads and dams and wells and electricity. They make life better for people, but they do not, in themselves change a society. What is going to be the unifying movement that will bring Afghanistan up to the level of Nepal? I don’t think we or they have identified it yet. Is anyone looking for it?

Jul 9, 2009 - 8:54 am 31. Roderick Reilly:

#7 ADE:

“”"”"But 9/11 could have been prevented by better airport security, and we now have it.”"”"

Really? Airport security at the time was good enough to prevent the sneaking onboard of multiple firearms, which is why the hijackers used concealable knives and mace. 9/11 would have been preventable with better intelligence and coordination of intelligence and law enforcement resources. It wasn’t airport security that was incompetent in this case, but all the other authorities who knew of the bits and pieces of what was about to happen, despite the fact that a number of the highjackers were unstable clowns, making themselves highly visible locally on a number of occasions.

Aggressive, ruthless, consistent and persistent covert action against terrorist organizations while they were still relatively small and weak would have also prevented 9/11, and perhaps the invasions of both Afghanistan and Iraq. This may be hindsight on the part of me, a private citizen, but it shouldn’t have been on the part of our leadership.

Jul 9, 2009 - 9:25 am 32. Leroy Jenkins:

One day I was driving to the Kabul airport, but had to take a detour off the main road because of a security incident. Our route took us through a warren of mud brick houses and dirt roads; an area of tiny hovels where the people lived most of their lives immediately outside their homes. The thing that struck me was the children. There were hundreds of young boys and pre-teen males around, and almost to a one, they were busily engaged in beating the hell out of each other. Not playing tag, hide and seek, cops and robbers, etc., nor even playfully wrestling. No, they literally, as I said, were beating the hell out of each other, in groups of two to four. That is the daily routine for the average Afghan youth. They are young rams butting heads in practice for the real thing.

These people don’t want peace. You can ascribe whatever social/religious dysfunction you want, but we will not and cannot lead them to a peaceful and productive society no matter what strategy we pursue. It is outside their worldview. They don’t want it. It will NEVER happen.

Jul 9, 2009 - 9:32 am 33. JMH:

There’s a saying among the Taliban that the Americans have all the watches but the Jihadis have all the time

Perhaps this is the issue. We’re assuming that we have a limited amout of time to solve our problems. What we ought to do is turn it around and make it clear to the Aghanis that they have a limited amount of time to stop being our problem.

Jul 9, 2009 - 9:47 am 34. Tom Holsinger:

Social change in Afghanistan is measured in geologic time.

Jul 9, 2009 - 10:12 am 35. Dave the Kapampangan:

There is nothing new under the sun.

Solutions that have worked before:

1) “Sherman’s March to the Sea” type Solution. Make war on society, not on individuals. Exterminate the women and children and the men will sue for peace.

2) “Frontier” type Solution. Establish trading posts and medical centers throughout the frontier until natives agree it is a good thing. Then connect the trading posts to other posts and the outside world by roads, canals, railroads and other links until the villages that benefit from trade outnumber the villages in the Stone Age and will fight to the death to maintain the new system. Send the kids of the warlords to University to experience court life and be held prisoner if any mischief happens. Use many means to flood the region with new outside ideas, and un-isolate the area.

3) Nanny Obananarama solution. Control the media to hide the problem and spin all disasters as victory. Tell the public that victory is easily obtainable without the need to make harsh decisions.

Jul 9, 2009 - 10:16 am 36. Mark in San Diego:

My opinion after recently spending time in country is that it’s really not important if we ever “change” Afghanistan. What’s really important, to us anyways, is that the folks we wish to stay out of the country, stay out. We’ll be there until that no longer matters. After that, Afghanistan can continue to be what it always has been and most likely always will be; primitive, backwards and tribal.

Jul 9, 2009 - 10:23 am 37. RWE:

Roderick #31 takes my same point and furthers it, now let me further it some more.

9/11/01 happened because of Societal Viewpoints, not just Theirs but Ours as well.

In the 90’s we were very careful to not look aggressive even when using or military. When we attacked the Serbs we were careful to, for example, crater a runway without hurting the airplanes or the people. They laughed at us. When we went to war for sacred Kosovo we dropped bombs from 15,000 ft to stay out of danger. We were careful bomb places at night in Iraq and Afghanistan and Africa to limit the hazard to humans. Even when we captured terrorists we did it quietly and through extensive use of rendition avoided getting our hands dirty.

Domestically, we prosecuted honest people for defending themselves, opened up the nuthouses and let insane run loose, had groups arguing that we needed to give up various hard won individual rights, and were scared to lock up a former football player because a portion of our populace would get upset.

So the Islamic Fascists looked at us and decided we were pushovers, or least presented no real personal danger to them. Whack us some for fun and who knows, maybe the Union will fall, and if it doesn’t it was still fun.

We have to change our entire outlook back to something that reflects the real world, domestically and internationally. The likes of Iran, N. Korea, and Syria should tremble when they see the Stars and Stripes. Both domestic criminals and international terrorists should look at our citizens not as sheep but as a barely restrained pack of wolves. Afghanistan at peace or not, that is the world we live in and how we must react to it.

Jul 9, 2009 - 10:54 am 38. vanderleun:

The reason that Afghanistan is the Obama war of choice is that it will be much easier to leave it.

Jul 9, 2009 - 11:41 am 39. vanderleun:

wretchard notes correctly, “Pakistan and the whole region are part of the problem. The region itself needs a solution because that was the canker from which 9/11 sprung.”

The solution then, as now, is one and one only: fire. And it will come to that in the end.

Jul 9, 2009 - 11:43 am 40. Herb:

I must disagree with the Boss @ 4.

Afghanistan was the dish in which it fermented. It grew from our friends the Saudis.

Barry 0351 is pungently on point. I suspect that left to their own devices, the Afghans would be content to merrily kill each other for another 3 or 4 thousand years. Pressfield argues that the tribal system is supported by islam and that that system is oriented toward firm resistance to any sort of change.

They don’t want to travel so they don’t need roads. Besides our interests are served by keeping them down on the farm and encouraging their internal tribal warfare.

LOTM has the exit strategy laid out perfectly. (after a Decent Interval , or at least a Reasonable Time.)

Jul 9, 2009 - 12:16 pm 41. Herb:

That’s not to say that we shouldn’t keep a close watch on who’s there and what they’re up to. It could form a good training ground for Spec Ops.

Jul 9, 2009 - 12:20 pm 42. veracious:

W et al,

Agree with improving the trasportation system. I think I originally liked this idea in a comment by Blert months ago. Perhaps he or other would cut and paste it here. It was WRT sending more troops and that building infrastructure is a better solution.

However, building foreign infrastructure at the expense of USA is starting to bother me. Three years after Katrina even good folks haven’t been able to rebuild their homes?

Jul 9, 2009 - 12:50 pm 43. Robohobo:

ADE @ &: “But 9/11 could have been prevented by better airport security, and we now have it.”

I call BS! You have kabuki theater of the worst sort. If there were a terrorist concentrated on doing mischief in one of our airports he could do so with impunity. Security systems like the FAA/TSA ones are designed to do two simple things:
1. Keep theft from inside to a minimum.
2. Stop the casual tourist from causing mischief.

A professional wanting in will go in and not through the front door. A terrorist wanting to cause high death counts would walk into the security check zone at the busiest time of day and self-detonate. The security check zones are abattoirs.

For Dave the K and others: “A smaller idea is to reform the isolation, i.e. put in roads and encourage trade.”

That seems to be the better choice of worse to horrible ones that could be made. Evil cannot stand the light of day, as it were.

Jul 9, 2009 - 12:58 pm 44. buddy larsen:

One wonders how the global crime syndicate –Genoveses, Rus mob, Tongs, et al, would adjust re the poppie fields if anything ever really changed in Afghanistan. Among other things of course, the place is a gigantic shadow-government dark-cash machine.

Jul 9, 2009 - 1:29 pm 45. Herb:

Robohobo See Fabius’ research on Security Theater. Particularly the Atlantic article.

Thats fighting a “Last War” if I ever saw it.

Jul 9, 2009 - 2:09 pm 46. whiskey:

Oh please ADE. 9/11 could have been prevented ONLY:

1. If America let in NO Muslims at all, from anywhere.
2. IF America had interned ALL Muslims in it’s territory.
3. If America had in place a summary “no board” policy that allows Gate agents and crew to kick off ANYONE who they don’t like, no penalties or lawsuits whatsover.
4. If America was a nation with almost no civil rights laws and legal overstructure in society.

Since none of those things are anything but a fantasy, given political constraints you’re speculating along the lines of the time-travel fantasies where South African Apartheid backers use AK-47’s to help Lee win the Civil War. It’s not serious.

9/11 is the barn door and horse. The next attack, which will come, and a hanmstrung and persecuted CIA will do nothing to stop (Congress just passed legislation requiring videoing of all interrogations, with copies preserved for Congress’s inspection) will be of the shipping container nuke variety. Probably several.

And the solution will be quite simple and terrifying: nuke out of existence Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iran. Problem solved! THAT is where we are going and there’s nothing to stop it now.

Jul 9, 2009 - 2:09 pm 47. ADE:

whiskey, Robohobo, et al

In the cost/benefit analysis that I was looking for, nobody has given me the benefits of moving Afghanistan out of the stone age.

I agree that Islam requires the death of the West, and that Islam will continue to pursue this, from home soil to boot.

But why bring “hope and change” to a bunch of neanderthals in the Hindu Kush?

Because it will stop the Stealth Jihad, perhaps?

Dream on.

ADE

Jul 9, 2009 - 3:08 pm 48. NahnCee:

Stephen Hawkings has recently been quoted as saying that humanity has entered a new stage of evolution:

This means Hawking says that we have entered a new phase of evolution. “At first, evolution proceeded by natural selection, from random mutations. This Darwinian phase, lasted about three and a half billion years, and produced us, beings who developed language, to exchange information.”

But what distinguishes us from our cave man ancestors is the knowledge that we have accumulated over the last ten thousand years, and particularly, Hawking points out, over the last three hundred.

“I think it is legitimate to take a broader view, and include externally transmitted information, as well as DNA, in the evolution of the human race,” Hawking said.”

Given this theory, it seems to me that a distinction might be made between humanoid-types in Afghanistan, and neo-humans of the West. And whether or not the sub-humans are even capable at all of being “nudged” into being something they are not suited to be DNA-wise.

If we *are* two different species, then wouldn’t Star Trek’s Prime Directive make more sense than going in and blowing the hell out of a “civilization” that just can’t help itself doing what comes naturally?

The Prime Directive dictates that there can be no interference with the internal affairs of other civilizations, consistent with the historical real world concept of Westphalian sovereignty. It has special implications, however, for civilizations that have not yet developed the technology for interstellar spaceflight (”pre-warp”), since no primitive culture can be given or exposed to any information regarding advanced technology or the existence of extraplanetary civilizations, lest this exposure alter the natural development of the civilization.

So that we need to pull all the red-shirt soldier/warriors out of this territory immediately (before they are killed off by a poorly-written script and barbaric treachery) and leave the indigenous to develop naturally with no contact with the outside world until they have proven that they can manage such access.

Jul 9, 2009 - 3:36 pm 49. ridgerunner:

re #32
Wilson and Lumsden’s thousand year rule (stating that natural selection acting over fifty human generations is sufficient to adapt people to their eco-social environment) would predict a war-like temperment in a landscape so divided, as Pashtun Afghanistan is, into geographically small habitable patches.

Jul 9, 2009 - 4:18 pm 50. Charles:

New Al Qaeda Book on ‘Muslim Spies’ Paints Picture of Weakened Group, Experts Say
A new book published by Al Qaeda shows that the terrorist group is under intense pressure and in “deathly fear” of U.S. counterterrorism efforts in Pakistan, terror experts say.

Jul 9, 2009 - 5:16 pm 51. Charles:

Extremist group announces split from al-Qaeda

A North African extremist group, whose senior leaders were crucial allies of Osama bin Laden, has denounced terrorism and become the first organisation ever to leave al-Qaeda.

Jul 9, 2009 - 5:18 pm 52. E. Nigma:

Roads, telephones, railroads, electricity are nice (does Henry Waxman know this, huh?), to say the least. They can make life easier and more comfortable, and allow people to more profitably use their time.
But this, I fear, is a cargo cult mentality applied to the Afghans. There are surely people in that country that yearn for modernity. But as whole, I don’t think so.

As individuals, a lot of the US GI’s and Marines in Afghanistan like the Afghans, because they are tough, resourceful, not as fatalistic as the Arab, independent minded. As individuals.

When you step back and look at them as a social group, they are tribal, trusting only familial ties. They live in a harsh and poor country and are predisposed to be warlike and be raiders. There is no clear path an individual can follow to achieve some kind of personal achievement or fulfillment; it is all in the context of the family, clan, tribe and extended tribe. And it’s been this way since before Islam came on the scene. Islam just gave them the doctrinal excuse to rationalize the way they have been behaving for thousands of years. Traditional Afghan culture and the most reactionary aspects of Islam reinforce each other.

My suggestion is to build a lot of big outdoor movie screens, and make a lot of Afghan movies that are funny or entertaining, but with subtle clues to begin to guide them away from the violent tribal life they have lived for millenia.
Encourage literacy.
Subtley encourage treating women more fairly.
Make random violence and clan violence seem a little absurd; just a little, at first.

Start small, with small expectations. A hundred years may be too soon. Go visit a Sioux Indian reservation in South Dakota and observe how little things have probably changed for them in a century, despite living inside one of the most modern countries in the world. They choose to live that way, because that is the way they have been behaviorly conditioned by their culture, that is far older than ours.

Jul 9, 2009 - 6:00 pm 53. Herb:

LOTM provided the exit strategy Nahncee @ 48 the social theory.

Plan set. Somebody draw up the OPORDER.

Jul 9, 2009 - 6:06 pm 54. JMH:

So that we need to pull all the red-shirt soldier/warriors out of this territory immediately (before they are killed off by a poorly-written script and barbaric treachery) and leave the indigenous to develop naturally with no contact with the outside world until they have proven that they can manage such access.

Unfortunately, the Klingons or the Romulans or the Russians or the Cardassians or the Chinese or some group of troublemakers is always going in and arming the savages, trying to further their own expansionist empires.

Jul 9, 2009 - 6:24 pm 55. Wadeusaf:

Michael Yon, has eyes and ears and a manner of detailing what those eyes see, and ears hear that conveys a lot of critical information. More than most other writers, I value that contribution of his to the art of correspondence.

I would not accept his political interpretation of what he has heard and seen as the final word however. If that were the case we would certainly have lost Iraq. His experience tells him much about what he sees, not what its to be seen tomorrow. But the ques he leaves in his writing tell something about the pride and resilience of this Afghan People, that has the where with all to out fight out last and endure. They are not a backward nor a stupid people, and would and do excel in most areas of modernity when given the opportunity. make taking advantage of the the opportunity more palatable than not, it will not take long after. Heck we’ve only been in there for seven or eight years and finally just gotten the Pakistani’s to take on the Taliban. Heck that is and was the biggest obstacle to winning hearts and minds. It will not be so easy, but the Taliban have to be discredited within the Afghanistan and Pakistani areas of Pashtunistan before any more or any major progress can occur or be seen to occur. It is within sight, if not within our grasp. Patience the Taliban, a movement made after its time is nearly out of time. Give them time.

And give our guys the time and the supplies too.

Jul 9, 2009 - 7:36 pm 56. Robohobo:

Herb: re: Bruce Schneier’s book on security. I do not have it. Oh, I am familiar with Fabius’ site. I visit regularly. I do own an old 2nd edition of “Applied Cryptography”. That book was once deemed as a “munition” and could not be taken outside the US. I used to design security systems for intrusion detection and access control. That is why I said what I said. Do you know about the 97th percentile ‘person’? = female, 4′10″, 95# and able to scale an 8′ chain link fence? That is what you have to design a MilSpec intrusion detection system to detect 20 years ago.

ADE @ 47: “In the cost/benefit analysis that I was looking for, nobody has given me the benefits of moving Afghanistan out of the stone age.”

I see it as two choices:
1. Move them out of the stone age. Cost? I have no idea. A couple of billion gets Afghanistan roads and electricity and local jobs?
2. Take paradise and put up a parking lot? BOOM! As opposed to maybe a 100 billion bucks in damage to the US when they do finally get lucky? Maybe a trillion bucks if they can hit say 6 cities with container nukes? Plus the billion or so lives and countless dinars or whatever when wretchard’s 3 conjectures come into play?

Personally, I think we are better off making nice and trying to help build them up rather than destroy the place.

Jul 9, 2009 - 11:39 pm 57. Fletcher Christian:

Robohobo – So the Afghan war is intended to exorcise the spectre of nuclear terrorism by moving the country out of the Stone Age? I agree entirely with that idea except for the direction of the change. They ought to go back FROM the Stone Age. All the way back to the Archaean.

Or to put it another way, accept the logic of the Conjectures and act to remove the 1E6 from one side of the inequality.

Jul 10, 2009 - 12:04 am 58. Fletcher Christian:

Robohobo – So the Afghan war is intended to exorcise the spectre of nuclear terrorism by moving the country out of the Stone Age? I agree entirely with that idea except for the direction of the change. They ought to go back FROM the Stone Age. All the way back to the Archaean.

Or to put it another way, accept the logic of the Conjectures and act to remove the 1E6 from one side of the inequality.
Sorry, forgot to add great post! Can’t wait to see your next post!

Jul 10, 2009 - 2:12 am 59. blert:

Gentlemen…

May I suggest movies ?

Hollywood demonstrated in WWII training films that the fastest education is film.

Whip out the plasma screen:

2001 A Space Odyssey

How It’s Made ( TV series )

Dallas

Dynasty

Planet Earth

Apollo 11 the moon shot – footage and background

The Military Channel – SSBN, SSN, CVN…

Nuke test footage

Shepards in New Zeeland ( mega flocks )

Iowa farming ( mega crops )

Wisconsin dairy ( mega herds )

Colorado feed lots ( mega cattle )

Arkansas chicken ranches ( mega poultry )

Footage from the Emirates

Trains – all about them

Cities – what they look like

NFL Football – pre-game barbeque through to finish…

Residential construction footage: how we live, the nuts and bolts…

Instead of circle-talk: screen and tell…

A ‘society’ built on boredom is going to f*** and fight.

Boredom is the number one problem for Afghanistan.

The Taliban’s entire cultural focus is on ensuring boredom:

No music, soccer, TV, dating…

Victory is Fun !

Jul 10, 2009 - 7:40 am 60. Doug:

“Residential construction footage: how we live, the nuts and bolts…”
—
Yeah, get them hooked on Real Estate and they’ll be busy for years.
After the pop, they’ll be too broke to bother anyone.
Like Stockton!

Jul 10, 2009 - 5:17 pm 61. Doug:

U.S. Said to Have Averted Inquiry Into ’01 Afghan Killings
The mass killing of Taliban prisoners was carried out by the forces of an American-backed warlord during the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan.

Jul 10, 2009 - 5:34 pm 62. Doug:

Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum

Jul 10, 2009 - 5:34 pm 63. Cannoneer No. 4:

Tim Lynch predicts http://blog.freerangeinternational.com/?p=1778“>Heavy Weather in Afghanistan.

Jul 11, 2009 - 3:43 pm 64. Cannoneer No. 4:

The fundamental assumptions remain that an ungoverned or hostile Afghanistan is a threat to global security; that the West has the ability to address the threat and bring prosperity and security; that this is justified and a moral obligation; that economic development and order in Afghanistan will contribute to global stability; that these different objectives reinforce each other; and that there is no real alternative.

– Rory Stewart

Jul 11, 2009 - 4:02 pm 65. Wadeusaf:

Afghanistan was governed, by the Taliban so government in and of itself is not the answer. But what Rawlinson recognized was the fact of a stubborn individualism mixed in the social fabric of the tribes. That independent being is not going to be corralled and broken, but he can be liberated and allowed to compete in a marketplace. Today the market is drugs and arms and players want to corral the Afghani without being seen as doing so. But whether corralled or simply cornered the Afghani can decide for himself which is the better option long and short term. What will it take? Lots of Chai, and lots of patience and zero tolerance for BS.

Jul 11, 2009 - 5:30 pm 66. Wadeusaf:

Dave the Kapampangan: @35

1) “Sherman’s March to the Sea” type Solution. Make war on society, not on individuals. Exterminate the women and children and the men will sue for peace.

Sherman did not exterminate, and the wink and nod to the scavengers and bummers were not for rape or for murder. Sherman’s march to Atlanta was to prove he could. From Atlanta on the goal was to destroy not only the food basket of the southern armies to make it impossible for the south to support the fight. But further to destroy their will to fight. Starving themselves further was not an option. In Afghanistan the will to fight will flag in us long before the Afghani’s gives up.

If we exterminate the women and children the men will certainly come after us. That is what we are trying to avoid.

However if the supply lines fall apart, and if the Pakistani’s fall to the warlords, then the option to forage off the land while fighting and marching out of that place is appropriate. Resupply of Ammo of course as best can be done.

My question in such an event, would be if we should march out via Islamabad or Tehran?

Jul 11, 2009 - 6:00 pm 67. blert:

George Washington himself went after the tribes hammer and tong. He is the general that established American counter-tribal doctrine.

Washington went after the hostile tribes with total warfare. It worked. After his campaign no tribe long remained allied to the Crown.

If he had chased the actual perpetrators of frontier warfare none would have been found. Instead Washington went after the less mobile tribal members: the elderly, the women, the children.

Making their families pay for their heroics put the warriors out of business.

Collective guilt and retribution resonate in tribal logic. Our Geneva norms are at complete variance with tribal warrior logic and norms.

Jul 11, 2009 - 7:09 pm 68. Wadeusaf:

Blert,

Washington wasn’t fighting in Afghanistan.
While some of it parallels fighting in Pakistan, from Afghanistan. It was still on the continent. That dictates a difference in tactics, I think.

Jul 11, 2009 - 7:18 pm 69. presbypoet:

I am disappointed at the ignorance and defeatist attitude expressed by some of these posts. Lack of roads is a major problem in Afghanistan. Trade is impossible. High value items like poppies are what can be grown. All you have to do is look at the Mary Jane grown in California’s northwest territories. Areas that are hard to get to make a fertile field for illegal crops.

The history of this part of Asia shows it was part of the silk road, and a major trading center. It has people who are energetic, and could be partners in the region. The bay area has a large Afghan immigrant population in the Fremont area, they have been an asset to the area, and show what Afghanistan might become, if peace can provided.

A homework project. Go to Google Earth. Look up Karachi. Go west on route N 25, along the shore of the Indian Ocean. Note an inlet a few score miles west. A port could be built there, and roads go north from there through much of Baluchistan to Afghanistan. The terrain is much easier that through the rugged mountains of Kyber Pass. Now there isn’t any good road access to Afghanistan, but it should not take much time to build good two lane roads to provide access. You can use Google Earth to go down to a thousand feet, and see how it would be possible. This would provide access to southern Afghanistan, through an area of fewer people, and avoid Karachi. The area while still hilly, is much more open terrain, less subject to interdiction. It also could be the basis for future oil pipelines, by providing access during construction. By providing work it would provide jobs for locals.

A second area I am appalled by the lack of knowledge is in the irrigation works of Afghanistan. The wars since the Mongol invasion have damaged what were very extensive irrigation works. Afghanistan has the potential to not only feed itself, but surrounding areas, if we only give them a chance.

I figure the Afghan people did us a big favor by helping to defeat the Soviet Union. The least we can do is not abandon them again. Think Marshall Plan.

Jul 12, 2009 - 11:22 pm 70. Fletcher Christian:

“If we exterminate the women and children the men will certainly come after us.”

Not if we exterminate the men as well, they won’t. “War does not decide who is right – only those who are left”. Time to make sure that who is left are not Dark Ages barbarians, but us.

Jul 13, 2009 - 7:52 am

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