Hart seems to agree with Biden on Afghanistan

[eridani]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gary-hart/does-afghanistan-offer-le_b_342265.html

However this turns out, there are lessons to be learned in the meantime for future Afghanistans. The first is: Do not interrupt a surgical counter-terrorism operation until it is completed.

With the possible exception of George W. Bush and Richard Cheney, virtually everyone agrees that the 2002 pull-out of Tora Bora, where bin Laden & Co. had their backs to the wall, was a mistake of epic proportions. Don’t suspend a fixed military objective midway.

The second lesson is: Know the history of the country you are invading. As we did not study the French experience in Vietnam, we did not study the British or Russian experiences in Afghanistan. It is one thing to invade a country to find and exterminate a villain. It is quite another to launch a long-term occupation. Almost nine years later we are still trying to figure out who our friends and enemies are there. And the Afghans, given our flighty on-again, off-again operations there, are justly skeptical about our long-term reliability.

The third lesson is: Do not expect to defeat an enemy militarily which has the advantage of cross-border sanctuary. This lesson is as old as Sun Tzu. Anyone who can hide across a nearby border cannot be defeated in any literal sense of the word. Drones are no substitute for combat forces. Pakistan is a sovereign nation that will not forever tolerate the death of its citizens at our hands.

..........

[AllentownJake]

1. Joe Biden is an incredibly smart man

The President should listen to him. A general will always tell you he can win if you give him more troops.

[elleng]

3. I think Prez O does listen to VP Biden.

That's why he chose him.

[AllentownJake]

4. Joe was my first pick

Shame he screwed up in 1988....he could have been a contender.

[elleng]

2. I think we all should read this:

David Loyn
Journalist and Foreign Correspondent, BBC; author "In Afghanistan: Two Hundred Years of British, Russian, and American Occupation"

[eridani]

5. Book or URL? n/t

[Kolesar]

6. "a nation whose men are not ready and willing to fight and die to protect their wives and families"

The fourth lesson is: Do not try to occupy or pacify "a nation whose men are not ready and willing to fight and die to protect their wives and families". Too many Afghan men are willing to let U.S. troops try to provide their security and, if we don’t achieve it quickly and permanently, (they) strike their bargains with Taliban thugs. To create the Afghan army and police force of 400-425,000 that experts believe necessary to achieve internal security is the work of another decade or two and, even then, not financially sustainable by the Afghan government

I don't see a solution here.
...

Nation building in an economy dependent on narcotics is virtually impossible.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gary-hart/does-afghanistan-offer-le_b_342265.html

What would it cost for a worldwide program to reduce opium consumption? It could be legally distributed by governments, thus taking away the high profits of the underground industry. Governments could intervene and try to get users off of addictive narcotics and help them begin normal lives.

[eridani]

7. There is some imperial blindness here

Maybe it's the other side that thinks they are fighting to protect their wives and families.

[Kolesar]

8. The previous government blew it at Tora Bora, so let's go home

There is really no point staying.
(Help me finish this letter to the President.)

[ClarkUSA]

9. I hope Pres. Obama ignores Hillary's advice, since she favors a troop surge a la Gen. McChrystal.

Nice to see saner voices siding with the VP and Senator Kerry. You can really see who has the foreign policy experience on this issue.

[karynnj]

11. Hart heads the American Security Project

http://www.americansecurityproject.org/about/letter This is a national security think tank that Kerry had a lot to do with starting. It is bipartisan and it is interesting to see that George Mitchell and Susan Rice were there before joining the administration. Hagel is one of the Republicans.

I would love to see Hart write a companion post to this on what he thinks can be done. Here, he cites mistakes in the past and hints at problems with both counterinsurgency and counterterrorism. There is nothing on whether he perceives the need to stay - though there is also nothing that suggests that he favors puling out. His credentials in this area include having worked with Rudman on how to deal with non-state terrorism - their report put out in 2001 was ignored by Bush. In September 2006, when Kerry gave a Faneuil Hall speech on national security, Gary Hart was the person chosen to speak before him and to introduce Senator Kerry. (As one who was there, he was great)

[karynnj]

10. I don't see this as favoring the Biden approach or any approach for that matter

All those comments go to what has already happened. He is saying that Bush was wrong at Tora Bora, something Kerry, a Hart ally, said from the day it was clear that Bush was doing this - Kerry took a lot of flack from most Democrats for his comments in 2002. He is also saying that after 9 years, it is not clear they can trust us. He also is the only respected expert I have heard address the use of drones as he did.

Biden's plan is very very heavily dependent on drones. He prefers combat forces. I would assume that Hart might say the same thing about Afghanistan that he says about Pakistan - it will not forever tolerate the death of its citizens.

Here is where he sees Obama going:

Very soon President Obama will announce a new strategy. Very likely it will include the following features: a troop increase of some 15-20,000; troop presence focused on population centers; an increased training mission for new Afghan military and police forces; and intensified cooperation with Pakistan to root out radical Taliban and al Qaeda elements on that frontier.

This will represent an altered, but not a fundamentally changed, mission. Presumably we will still have as our ultimate goal a stable, democratic, and increasingly Westernized Afghanistan. If so, unless we strike some grand bargain with less radical Taliban elements (as we did with some Sunnis in Iraq) this is still the work of decades, not to say also tens of billions of dollars.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gary-hart/does-afghanistan-offer-le_b_342265.html

Here, I would infer from the later comments you quote, that he does favor the fact that Pakistan is moving to eliminate the sanctuary. Aiding Pakistan and pushing them to end this haven were goals of Biden, Kerry, Hagel and probably Obama. This was NOT as clearly part of Bush's goals.

Hart is very skeptical of what he presumes is Obama's goal - "Presumably we will still have as our ultimate goal a stable, democratic, and increasingly Westernized Afghanistan." I don't think the Biden plan is concerned with the type of government that Afghanistan gets. Kerry in his plan takes pains to say stable and providing services, "good governance" - not necessarily democratic or western. Obama's plan is still under development.

I would love Hart to go further and articulate what he would propose. From this, I really can't tell what he would propose, but his summary of the lessons learned are ones I think all Democrats (and maybe most Republicans) can agree on. They don't however address the question of what we should do.

Hart currently heads a national security think tank, allied with Kerry, who is on the board. It is bipartisan and Hagel is now with them. Before they joined the administration Mitchell and Susan Rice were too.