Do I sound like Harry Reid? The Nevada Senator referred to the Iraq war as lost during the debate on President Bush's surge in Iraq. Unlike Harry Reid and his exercise in wishful thinking, I have no desire to see the U.S. fail in Afghanistan. I believe failure there would mean someday we would have to return and pacify that country all over again. Also, unlike Harry Reid I do not wish the Obama Administration to take the wrong course in this war. I have made my thoughts plain as to what I felt was the right way: an increased force size backed by a larger U.S. Army with no timetable so our enemies could not plan around our thrust. Also, unlike Harry Reid, I believe we have chosen to lose this war, not been defeated on the battlefield.
It's been a little over two weeks since current President Obama visited Afghanistan in drive-thru fashion. Following the usual Obama lecture and a few pictures, he was gone. Sadly the few photos and the brief discussion of this vital issue quickly disappeared in the next issue du jour and then the next. First, came a phony off-shore drilling proposal, followed by an appeasement arms control deal with Russia and finally, a Potemkin village dressed up as nuclear security summit. These were calculated gimmicks all. Transitory fluff aimed at obscuring a train wreck in progress.
Bill Clinton and Dick Morris pioneered the issue of the day mode of operation back in the nineties. The big difference is that the Clinton issues were minor and at worst, guilty of the usual left wing condescension and time wasting. School uniforms springs to mind. With Obama, the ante has been upped. Minor distractions no longer suffice. If the issues that distract America from a war she will lose, be large and complex, then so much the better. It does not matter in Obama's mind that America has stripped itself of missile defense or that foreign energy dependence is disguised or that banter about Chile replaces confronting Iran. All that matters is that a war that will be lost in two years time is given a quick push to the side. Then we're off to the next propaganda item.
Make no mistake this war is not being lost by the troops. Even now, U.S. troops and allies have made large strides in controlling former hot spots, but this is for naught. President Obama has declared that the United States will give up, turn tail and run and leave our Afghan allies twisting in the wind in two years. It's no wonder that Afghan President Hamid Karzai is talking about joining the Taliban. In two years, Kabul will be back under Taliban control. Obama will try to time the withdrawal near the 2012 election. This may work politically, but after the election, Mullah Omar and his pal Usama Bin Laden will be back in their old haunts. This will obviously be a large complex problem for Obama's second term (provided he lies well enough to get one) but he won't really care. He'll never face the voters again.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Ruvy
Dock Ellis,
I found this article far more interesting than Jon Sobel's attempt to burnish up the miserable Obama foreign policy record. He sounded like he was off in DNC fantasy land somewhere, a sweet and happy place where Obama wears a top hap, twirls a cane and sings "The Candy Man".
At least you got a few things straight.
There is much one can say to this article, but to begin with, one should commend you to the first Sherlock Holmes novel A Study in Scarlet, and refer you to the comments about the Jezail bullet that is the reason for Dr. John Watson to be retired from military life and lounge about that "cesspool of empire", London.
The Pastun, the báni yisraíl who inhabit Afhanistan and Pakistan have been kicking white men's asses for millenia, starting with Alexander the Great.
Also, I suggest you get the players straight in the tragedy that is the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
2 - Ruvy
I had a lot more to say in a previous comment that my computer accidentally swallowed up, but I wanted to keep it short, sweet and simple - and not lose anything! Therefore, I also commend you to this blogsite, Pakistan's Balkanisation, for a view of the region that is very different from what you are used to seeing.
3 - cannonshop
Good article Dock, you gotta remember something though-the Left has been hungering for another Vietnam scenario ever since the last one, and now they have the chance to make that fantasy come to life again.
4 - Dr Dreadful
Cannon, don't be ridiculous.
Unless you can point us to a series of quotes from left-leaning figures, made at intervals over the last 35 years, which say anything of the kind, I call bullshit.
5 - John Wilson
This article sounds just like the ones we were reading in the rightist press 40 years ago about Vietnam and home politics.
6 - zingzing
"the Left has been hungering for another Vietnam scenario ever since the last one"
oh, god yeah. that first one was so fucking great. we really enjoyed it. you see how we flocked to it? how we said, "please, please go to war." we waited until after the war started to start protesting of course. didn't want to ruin the chances we had for a fresh war. always such a boon to our economy and young people. they can go kill and be killed. win-win! but not a peep before the war, of course. didn't see anyone marching on malls or leading 6-hour long protests a few feet from the congress. none of that. wouldn't want to scare you off from giving us our new vietnam.
7 - Ruvy
Cannonshop,
In Israel, I have met many Russians who now live here, and they discussed their experiences as soldiers in Afghanistan. And guess what they compared it to? Can you take a guess? It starts with a "v". A hint - it ain't Vladivostok.
Actually, while Vietnam comes to mind, the issue here is that Americans (as usual) do not know or understand the history of the players in Afghanistan (or Pakistan) at all. I admit to a similar ignorance. From 2001 to 2006, I really didn't give a rat's ass. But in 2006 I met this Pathán fellow from India who started telling me about his distant relatives, the Afridi who guard the Khyber Pass - and who have done so for millennia.
The Afridi are descendants of the Tribe of Ephraim who were exiled from the Land of Israel by the Assyrians 2,730 years ago. Other Pashtun tribes are also descended from the "Lost Tribes" of my people. So, you may have figured out that now I do give more than just a "rat's ass" when an American helicopter kills 20 odd Pashtun celebrating a wedding or something, or when American drones go killing Pashtun in Pakistan. I suggest you go to the website I mentioned in comment #2 for a different, a Pashtun, point of view as to what is going on in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
8 - handyguy
I stopped paying attention to the rest of this article when I got to
This fairly straightforward communist money grab ... Obama has reacted like a brazen hussy caught in a cat house by in effect saying "Who me a commie?"
No one who wrote that is likely to know very much about the US, the world, the current president, previous presidents, or anything else of consequence. More extremist know-nothing nonsense.
9 - Dr Dreadful
they discussed their experiences as soldiers in Afghanistan. And guess what they compared it to? Can you take a guess? It starts with a "v"
Vodka shortages?
10 - Baronius
Dock, how is the Afghanistan pullout any different from Bush's scheduled withdrawl of the surge forces?
11 - zingzing
"And guess what they compared it to? Can you take a guess? It starts with a "v"..."
my god. perverse.
12 - FCEtier
Dock,
Is there a reason you left out the part about Charlie Wilson?
13 - Deano
I think you need to be cautious in comparing the Russian experience in Afganistan to the current situation as there are considerable differences. The Russians were considerably more indiscrimate in both tactics and approaches. The US has far more flexibility and a much lower "footprint".
A similar level of caution is required in declaring either victory or defeat without defining what it is you want to gain from your strategy.
Afghanistan is not stable and is unlikely to be stable anytime soon. The ability of any foreign power to impose a stable, cohesive and encompassing level of governance over the country is limited at best - partially due to geography, partially due to tribalism and ethnocentrism and partially due to political, religious and ethnic divergence.
The primary goal of the west is to restore a central authority within the country that is not driven by ideological and religious extremism, and has the capacity and ability to prevent Al Quaeda and similar groups from establishing safe havens and staging areas within the country and using it to export terror. That's really all you want to get or need, to expect more is to fall victim to an illusion.
I don't think anyone is expecting a mass outbreak of Jeffersonian democracy. A sembalance of some legitimate governance, probably corrupt, but with the ability to broker deals with the local tribal warlords, trade favours, build limited stability and encourage development. That may happen with Karzai (although that looks more and more unlikely) or it may happen with a hodge-podge collection of provincial governers and warlords and even some of the more moderate Taliban factions. Bear in mind Afghanistan has never had a strong, centralized authority - it has always been a balance between the control of the markets and trade routes, bribes to the tribes in the passes and a fragmented, wholely local political mien.
A makeshift stability can only happen if the COIN strategy is effectively managed, Taliban access to funding through the drug trade is restricted and some level of security can be maintained. Building economic opportunity is an effective weapon that can help strip the Taliban of many potential recruits but it needs to go hand in hand with the other strategies and cannot fall back into the reflexive "bomb 'em" approach that has hitherto typified much of the security strategy in the country.
In any case, it is not a situation that is likely to be doable in anything less than five years - it will take that long to broker the deals, train the military and develop the infrastructure effectively.
It is potentially winnable. If.
14 - mrdockellis
Wisest comment is obviously the last by Deano. If winning is the goal then it's years. You say five. I'd say ten. Anyway you slice it, it's a long tricky slog, building up brand new institutions and fighting simultaneously.
OK now the run down,
Ruvy,
I'm glad you brought up Alexander the Great. Actually he's only guy to conquer Afghanistan. Know how? He married the Kings daughter. Problem solved.
Cannonshop,
Not sure the left is searching for another Vietnam since it destroyed their big progressive hero LBJ. Another might do the same to Obama.
Handyguy,
You can close your eyes to the truth, but sooner or later you'll walk into a wall. Get ready for your ouch moment this November.
Baronius,
It's pretty simple. We win then troops go home. Obama says in Afghanistan troops go home next year regardless. He could stretch it out, but other major powers are leaving next year or sooner. It looks to become a rush to the exit in the next one to two years.
FCEtier,
Democrat Charlie Wilson pushed the U.S. Government to step up supply to the jihadists. "an alcoholic former naval officer, who was sometimes accompanied by young models- including a former Miss World USA winner- when he flew on government paid junkets, some of them inside Afghanistan." -pg160
Ask and ye shall recieve
15 - Jordan Richardson
The biggest mistake here is in thinking that wars are actually "won." The only "victory" is in not dying.
16 - cannonshop
Lemme clarify my last post a bit...
The anti-war movement was the single biggest builder of the power of the American left, it motivated a massive body of people, and shifted the national culture to the left in this country-enough power, in fact that it made it legitimate to bail on treaty obligations and abandon an ally to invasion and conquest three years after U.S. ground involvement officially ended.
The American Left has been desperate for that kind of 'recharging' ever since-the comparisons to Vietnam every time the U.S. took military action (with the exception of hte nineties and the former Yugoslavia), Dorgan calling for a reinstatement of the Draft, accusations that the Draft WOULD be reinstated, and even the rhetoric this time around are recycled from, or inspired by, the rhetoric surrounding the Southeast Asian conflict of the 1960's. The natural outcome, of course, is that now that the Left has won, we will see a re-playing of the fall of Saigon shortly after the U.S. pulls out of Afghanistan, and a re-playing of Year Zero when we finish pulling out of Afghanistan.
17 - cannonshop
#15 Dunno about that, Jordan, I'd suggest you ask the H'mong refugees, or the three million or so Vietnamese that fled the fall of Saigon, or just visit the American War Crimes museum in Ho Chi Minh City. Seems to me there was a winner in that war...
18 - Jordan Richardson
Seems to me there was a winner in that war...
Yeah, the people who didn't die "won."
Wars aren't competitions or sporting events. They are costly behaviours based on our desires to dominate others. It's hard to see the victory in that, no matter what "side" you find yourself on. The only real "victory," I maintain, is making it home.
19 - Cannonshop
No, you're right, they're not competitions or sporting events, they're one group of people imposing their will, by force, on another, and that other resisting that imposition. War is the ultimate failure of diplomacy, and the ultimate outcome of Politics-as-usual.
It's also not going away any time soon, and like it or not, once blood is spilled, it's something you can't just say "This Sucks" and walk off in total safety, because War is a contest of WILLS- and displaying weakness invites it. It's a bit like wandering out in the bad part of town, picking a fight, then running away-if you don't win the fight, they're going to chase you down and kill you, or hurt you, or do other things to you which you do NOT want to experience.
20 - Ruvy
I see finally, how the Americans lost in Vietnam. At first it was sheer ignorance of the politics of the place. But with time, Americans had plenty of data on how to distinguish one Asian from another, and to learn to respect the historical divisions in Indochina that motivated the different peoples living there the way they did.
You've had 9 years to attempt to learn who is who in Afghanistan. The closest we get to this on your parts on this comment thread is this statement from Deano:
"I don't think anyone is expecting a mass outbreak of Jeffersonian democracy. A semblance of some legitimate governance, probably corrupt, but with the ability to broker deals with the local tribal warlords, trade favors, build limited stability and encourage development. That may happen with Karzai (although that looks more and more unlikely) or it may happen with a hodge-podge collection of provincial governors and warlords and even some of the more moderate Taliban factions. Bear in mind Afghanistan has never had a strong, centralized authority - it has always been a balance between the control of the markets and trade routes, bribes to the tribes in the passes and a fragmented, wholly local political mien."
America lost in Vietnam because they refused to look the politics in the area in the face from the point of view of those who had to live there. That's a nice way of saying they never took their heads out of their own assholes. I see the same tendency on this comment thread. I linked you to two Pashtun people, one an Indian scholar, and the other a Pakistani born journalist. You appear to have looked a the work of neither man. You, like your predecessors in Vietnam, refuse to look at this from the point of view of those who have to live in the theatre of combat!
You have learned absolutely nothing in the 35 years since the Vietcong kicked you out of Saigon. And your leaders are no better than you are. You will lose in Afghanistan, and you will be humiliated there; and you will deserve both the loss, and the humiliation.
21 - Cannonshop
Expanding on that a teensy bit...
In 1989, Iraq invaded Kuwait, the U.S. then spent two years fighting Iraq. Because we didn't finish the job, we ended up having to go back INTO Iraq more than a decade later, because the 'sanctions' weren't working, they were, in fact, being actively sabotaged by our supposed 'allies' including the European Powers whose fuel-supplies we went into that fight to secure in the first place, and the U.N. oversight body which was using the 'oil for food' programme as a handy source of embezzle-able funds. The only people suffering under the Sanctions were the run-of-the-mill Iraqi civilians, and because we didn't finish that fight the first time, we let several thousand bystanders (Kurds) get gassed in a fun little pocket-genocide. I sat there in a radar-control in Saudi, watching the damn aircraft fly in and drop the fucking nerve gas, dude.
War is to be avoided when possible or practical, but sometimes, you can't avoid it, and when it starts, you'd best finish it and be the only man standing, or you're going to have to do it all over again, only worse, and longer, and more horrible than before.
22 - Cannonshop
Dammit, I'm getting crazy here...
"Limited War" is a lie. It's a fantasy cooked up by guys who sit in comfortable offices far from the horror. Want to see the fruits of 'limited war'? Korea's been in a state of war since the 1950's, a permanent state of war, with permanent armies staring at each other over the DMZ, waiting for the other shoe to drop and occasionally exchanging small-arms fire. Israel's in a permanent state of emergency with areas in a permanent condition of being occupied territory with all the discomfort and suffering that implies, Kosovo will last about five minutes past the point that NATO pulls out, and Sudan has regularly scheduled genocides and Somalia is a haven for pirates and Khat-Dealers.
It's better to regret how you destroy an enemy, than to be destroyed by an enemy because you fear the regrets.
23 - Jordan Richardson
It's a bit like wandering out in the bad part of town, picking a fight, then running away-if you don't win the fight, they're going to chase you down and kill you, or hurt you, or do other things to you which you do NOT want to experience.
So don't pick a fight?
I refuse to believe that war is a foregone conclusion. Instead, like Chris Hedges, I think war is a force that gives us "meaning" and I think that's why we wage them, that's why we wander into the "bad part of town" and pick fights.
24 - Cannonshop
#23 Nope, war doesn't give us 'meaning' Jordan. (and if it does give someone 'meaning' then they're well-separated from it, watching it on CNN, and probably need to get a real life.)
But, until we can overcome the reflex of a Mammalian apex-predator in the species, war, like Crime, is going to always be there.
As for not picking a fight, I doubt you'd find many people on either side of the aisle would disagree with that idea.
However, once a fight starts, you either finish it, or it finishes you. The goofy idea that you can somehow fight a 'limited conflict' fails in light of how those end up-when you're lucky, you end up having to guard a border for the next sixty years to infinity (Korea), if you're not, you either see your allies over-run (Vietnam) or you end up having to do it all over again, only worse (Iraq).
25 - STM
If people think this is another Vietnam, they are very, very wrong.
There are lots of differences, not the least of which is that the US and her allies are fighting the war in a "smarter" fashion (if any war is smart) than was the case in Indochina.
That doesn't mean using more technology, either, although it helps. It's about boots on ground - but the right kind of boots.
They don't do what the Soviets did in Afghanistan or what the US did in Vietnam ... using massively superior firepower and conscript soldiers to tramp around in full view of their enemies hoping to squash any resistance like a bug, and leaving nothing but heartbreak for the non-combatants caught up in it, and then withdrawing.
Most of the actions in Afghanistan are CoIN operations, designed to counter insurgents, isolate them and then build a platform on the ground that denies the Taliban its normal recourse of threatening, bullying and killing other Afghans. A modern version of "Hearts and Minds" that actually might have half a chance of working.
Much of the fighting in Afghanistan is done by special forces units, which during Vietnam were looked down upon by crusty high-ranking US officers who'd learned about waging war American style in WWII ... large set-piece battles using huge numbers of cannon-fodder troops and overwhelming firepower that offer a quick result. Also known as battles of annhilation.
This isn't possible or desireable in Afghanistan, where actions by smaller units are the key and the US has learned the special forces lesson well in the years between Vietnam and now - and the kind of special forces employed are top-shelf compared to, say, the tactics of the Green Berets in Vietnam (with no disrespect to the men of that era). Secretive and smaller scale SAS-type tactics are the only ones that work in this environment, but they also require the input of very highly trained professional regular troops to fill the vacuum afterwards.
Counter-insurgeny takes time, which is the problem. Most Americans (and westerners in general) will look at Hollywood's war blockbusters and see a victory in an hour and a half. That's what we've conditioned ourselves to.
It's the same line of thinking people have when they see criminal investigations dragging on for months, sometimes years, while investigators compile briefs of evidence that are good enough to a) hold up in court and b) convince a jury beyond reasonable doubt of an accused's guilt.
Yet they watch shows like CSI or Law and Order and it all happens in one hour and they don't really understand the reasons.
The US has every right to stand up to this stuff and to protect itself. Pulling back now sends a clear signal: "We're paper tigers ... attack us in our country anytime you like." If Iraq and Afghanistan have shown anything to the enemies of western democracy, it's that it is very far from being a paper tiger.
Look at the years between Vietnam and 9/11 for the evidence if you're in doubt, and all the balls ups and stuff ups as the US dithered around in its foreign policy because of the antiwar hangover from the Vietnam era.
Terrorists and their supporters aren't going anywhere soon, they don't want to talk, and in this case, their stated aim is to take the entire world back to the dark ages. Olive branches should be the first resort, but only to those who want one. Standing around waving flowers at people who only want to kill you just means they will, and a bit sooner than they might have.
I find it quite bizarre that many of those of an American liberal bent who cry out about this stuff and how terrible it all is would be the first to be jailed or have their heads lopped off if islamic fundamentalists ever did achieve that unlikely goal - and that they can't see this paradox is madness.
I bet those who died on 9/11 were in equal numbers liberals and conservatives.
"Feminist? ... gay? ... privacy? ... free health? ... democracy? ... civil rights? ... free-markets? ... right to bear arms ... girls going to school? ... women working or driving?"
"Off with your head, you decadent infidel".
The trick with counter-insurgency is patience and commitment and has worked in the past. Yes, I would hate to see my own son over there (and he recently expressed a wish to join the Commandos, which would almost certainly have seen him there at some stage had he done so, and I managed to talk him out of it for now - but he's also an adult and is free to make his own choice and I would have to wear it if he did).
But if people are extremely well trained and well led by people whose motives go beyound the shoot 'em up mentality and are not thrown piecemeal into unwinnable battles as cannon-fodder by people who should have their slippered feet up in front of the fire at home, then they punch above their weight and cut the risk to themselves while achieving more of their goals.
Which is why the thing is being waged the way it is, for once. For once, this is quite different.
We don't get a lot of what it's about because we're not there, but even small things like making sure an afghan village has enough goats makes friends for life (no goat jokes thanks ... for once, I'm serious).
I can't for the life of me find any reason to wage war except this: that there are people out there who are intent on destroying a way of life that has no peer - modern western democracy - and all those who believe in that life (man, woman or child).
It's why our fathers and grandfathers fought, and why we should not let up. Afghans who don't want to be bullied are worth fighting for too, right?
Because if you stop the vigilance and the willingness to punish bullies, sooner or later, someone is going to commit another atrocity.
Their reasoning will be simple: "They have no will to fight us ... let's kill more of them".
Sad, but true. What we have is surely worth standing up for isn't it? And yes, despite not being American and being of a left bent, I include the US in that for all those who think America isn't really free or democratic.
It is, and it is as much as it can be given the way it operates politically, which is a damn sight better than some of the alternatives that have been thrown up over the years.
If I had the choice between living in the US or in a place the US had taken over, or under religious fundamentalists who'd like to send us back to the 7th century, I'd be choosing America every time.
Patience ... this is not simple work, despite how it seems sometimes coming at us out of our TV screens, and requires a meticulous approach.
Freedom IS worth fighting for (not just theirs, ours too). Just without all the flag waving and yelling, maybe, so we can all put it really into perspective.