Bin Laden is as the Faqir of Ipi. He's in the wind. If we are going to keep fighting until we "get him", we are going to be there for a long, long, long time. The Faqir of Ipi basically lived out his entire adult life (40+ years) hiding from, evading, and fighting back against a concerted British effort to get him. Emotionally satisfying reciprocity is not a hallmark of wise foreign policy. If we went to war to "get" everybody who wronged America, we would be very busy. The general thinking that I'm seeing from the people who want to continue in Afghanistan, is what I believe to be the mistaken assumption that any problem which we really want to fix, we can fix if we just try hard enough and want it really badly. If it was really that easy to "fix" Afghanistan into a western democracy, it would have been done long before now by any of several countries who spent all their wealth trying.
This is very indicative of the war supporters. Also, they greatly exagerate the threat of Al Qaeda and take an absolutist position that we must continue the war as long as any Al Qaeda who want to harm the US are still in the region. This may be emotionally satsfying but in reality the perpetual war at a costs of trillions and trillions leading to poor health, education and welfare and technological innovations for the US, which is engendered by this fallacy will harm America much more than any action Al Qaeda could take--including even another 911 attack, remote as that may be.
That kind of complacency and short sightedness led to the first 9/11. To call the chances of it happening again "remote" is ignorant at best.
Ottomaton, I really don't disagree with the gist of the essay. I have near zero hope that a democracy will be established there in the forseeable future. Helping to establish a ceremonial monarchy would have been a good idea and I'm concerned that the Obama Administration has, up until now, largely followed the failed Bush policy towards Afghanistan. I'm under no illusions that we are going to be able to set up a government that works. That ship sailed under Bush's watch. We are doing far too little to provide aid to the people. Instead, there is a constant problem of innocents being caught in the crossfire, producing more Afghans that hate the "occupiers," as if they need encouraging. I suspect the bulk of the development aid is going into the pockets of one warlord or another, some with Afghan government titles. The aid ship sailed under Bush as well. The best we can probably hope for, in the near term, is a suitable government propped up by us that allows the US and our allies to continue the hunt for those responsible for 9/11. In that fight we are having some success. Drones have hit increasing numbers of AQ and Taliban leaders, some pretty high up in the food chain. I'd like that to continue. In the mid-term, maybe we'll get lucky and bump off the people at the top. If so, I wouldn't be adverse to declaring "victory" and pulling out. In the meantime, I want to keep those people running with their heads down, fearing a missile strike. That makes it harder for them to hit us. We also need to do a much better job of cutting off financing for AQ and the Taliban from outside the region, mainly from the ME. In the long run? The Afghans will do what they will do and good luck to them. I'll be glad to see them in our rearview mirror. And I'll always wonder how things might have been different had Bush not invaded Iraq and had, instead, done what should have been done in Afghanistan.
Your statement is conclusory. . BTW Al Qaeda is not equivalent to the Nazis and withdrawing from Afghanistan is not tantamount to appeasing the Nazis either.
I never brought up the Nazis. I do not believe that the Taliban will occupy Poland or France. I do believe that they will appease and harbor the training of those that seek to do us harm. The Taliban did it before. Why would I think that they have magically had an epiphany and will not do it again?
As pointed out by Ottomaton, we can control any reattempt to restart training camps by air power which is basically how we are avoiding defeat in the ground war, given the politcally impossiblity of putting hundreds and hundreds of thousands of ground troop into Afghanistan. Even though the Pasthuns and the Taliban feel they have no alternative but to continue the fight against the American aggressors, that does not mean that they do not realize that they made a grave error in harboring Al Qaeda. As pointed out Al qaeda is virtually non-existent in Afghanistan as we have driven the remnants into Pakistan. Hopefull you are not sanguine about the prospects for subduing Pakistan, too.
Actually, it was Obama that spoke of going into Pakistan. Pakistan is scary as hell to me. It is a powder keg. As for the Taliban realizing they made a grave error in harboring al-Qaeda, I will count you into the "magical epiphany" camp.
And you know how many people died because of these stupid wars? The chances of dying from terrorism in this country are very low even pre 9/11.
There is absolutely no functional difference between Pashtun Afghanistan and Pashtun Pakistan. They are a functional, undifferentiated continuum. The fact that one scares you and the other is apparently no big deal is kind of absurd. When you are walking around the mountains, you won't find a giant wall in place of the Durand Line on your maps. You should have watched Fareed Zakaria GPS on CNN today. Apparently there is a massive case of "magical thinking" going around. Either that or you are belittling a legitimate position that professionals who've spent their entire career studying the region consider a legitimate position and which some even strongly and forcefuly council as the wisest course of action.
While I don't necessarily agree with it, there is a certain logic to giving the country back to the Taliban because it exposes the leadership. Now, the US knows exactly where they are if they cause any problems. You can run and hide as insurgents, but not so much as leaders. The Taliban would know that their leaders would be obliterated by cruise missiles if they give Al Qaeda any safe harbor going forward. On the downside, there would probably be serious reprisals by the Taliban and killings of the other side that supported the US over the past many years.
Well the Pasthuns are the majority tribe in Afghanistan so it stand to reason that they should be among the leadership whether they intend to follow imho bizaare Taliban customs or not. Of course there will be reprisals by the majority against the minority that we have supported. That is the downside of picking out pliable minority groups to favor. I do agree that we can obliterate the out in the open training camps that played a role in Al Qaeda pre 911 Our recent effort to get the Pakistanis to fight among themselves did create a million or two refugees, but I doubt it has done much to dampen down extremism or hatred of Americans, which should be one of our main goals.
Democracies struggle to fight long-term wars. War is going to take place. These soldiers chose to join the armed forces. Many of them at this point joined knowing they were going to Afghanistan. Lets see what happens when we are only fighting one war.
Troops can't win in Afghanistan. The only thing this war is doing is keeping the Taliban and terrorists busy over there. Somehow, I don't think that is the goal of this war. We have not learned a damn thing from the Soviet-Afghan war...or the Vietnam war. It is like I read earlier in an article...all the Taliban and those folks have to do is not lose. They can keep this up for years and years and years. There will always be another suicide bomber to disrupt things or another roadside bomb to blow up people. I don't even believe in rebuilding Afghanistan...because it will just crumble again. This war was lost when Bush decided to invade Iraq...and approach the Afghanistan war like it was a picnic or something. We went to war in Afghanistan for them harboring Bin Laden and associates after 9/11. Our main goal was to defeat Al Qaeda...not occupy Afghanistan for many years to come. Bush even said we are not into nation-building...but that is exactly what is happening...and during a war no less. It just doesn't work. If we are looking for an exit date, then just when would that be exactly? It's been nine years and their own security forces are nowhere near competent nor ready. Rebuilding for a brighter future during a war is a joke. Anything we build will be destroyed eventually by the enemy. This is just another drag out war and public support is at an all-time low. The only thing we seem to be accomplishing is breaking troop death records. If things don't markedly improve in the next year and a half, then this war is completely lost...as if it isn't already. You can't fight an enemy who can seek shelter in Pakistan and go unchallenged. Pakistan is not even going into those mountains. The problem is if we withdrawal...we really lose because Afghanistan will go back to a Taliban/Al Qaeda haven with them being even more emboldened because they basically defeated us if we withdraw. So, now you can't win the war and you can't withdraw. That's just great. Great situation all around.
