Why Afghanistan will never be Vietnam

[beachmom]

I am extremely worried about the war in Afghanistan. Yet, I cannot endorse a kind of anti-war nostalgic notion of Afghanistan morphing into Vietnam. And it is for one reason, and one reason only: the Vietnamese never went on American soil to attack civilians in a massive slaughter. Because Bush/Cheney cheapened 9/11 with their misleading propaganda to push for and then defend their war in Iraq, it is easy for people to scoff at any assertion that sometimes we have to get involved militarily in other places in the world on account of preventing another 9/11. But the fact remains, that the Af/Pak border region is infested with al Qaeda operatives and new recruits, who are fighting NATO there, while still training to attack Western targets. I would love to get out of there tomorrow, but a story like this is what holds me back:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/07/30/robertson.al.qaeda.training/index.html

Al Qaeda's training adapts to drone attacks

(CNN) -- The interrogations of two accused Westerners who say they trained and fought with al Qaeda in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region provide an inside view of the terror group's organizational structures.

Arguably, they shed more light on the state of al Qaeda than any material previously released into the public domain.

...

Othmani's account made clear that al Qaeda has had to decentralize its operations in Pakistan in response to the growing effectiveness of U.S. Predator strikes.

However the wide number of training courses described by both Vinas and Othmani suggest that al Qaeda has been able to adapt well to the new security environment.

By operating a larger number of smaller facilities, al Qaeda would also appear to have increased its resilience to attack.

While the classrooms are safer from drone attacks than the pre-9/11 sessions on the mountainsides the content seems to have changed to match new targeting plans.

Suicide vest and IED construction show how the curriculum is being modified for today's combat with U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Making and handling explosives, as well as fuse construction, show the sessions may also be geared for killing in Europe and the United States.

I found this to be chilling:

During a mountain walk with Zrioul one day, Vinas says he was told about a new course being taught by al Qaeda called "international operations" set up by al Qaeda's head of international operations whom Vinas later identified as Abu Hafith.

Hafith, he stated, was responsible for recruitment and direction of terrorist cells, and attacks outside Pakistan and Afghanistan. Hafith was identified by his initials in the legal document but CNN obtained his name from a source briefed on the case.

He is believed to be still at large in the Pakistan-Afghan border area. Vinas was told that the training course that Hafith set up focused on kidnapping and assassination, including instruction on the use of silencers and how to break into and enter a property.

The revelations raise the possibility that al Qaeda was developing a program of targeted assassinations. Though al Qaeda has carried out some assassinations in the past, most of its attacks in the West have not targeted any particular individuals but crowded areas, such as mass transport.

According to Othmani, al Qaeda fighters totaled between 300-500 in Pakistan's Tribal Areas - spread out in groups of 10. Such decentralization was a function of the growing deadliness of U.S. Predator strikes.

...

The decentralization of al Qaeda's structures appears to have created some costs for recruits.

Although the drone attacks have been unpopular and caused some damage to America's (and Pres. Obama's) reputation, it appears they have been effective.

So how did this arrest happen in Belgium?

http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/07/30/robertson.al.qaeda.threat/index.html

According to Belgian counter-terrorism sources, the trigger for the Brussels arrests was an intercepted e-mail sent by one of the alleged recruits, Hicham Beyayo, in early December shortly after he returned to Belgium.

The e-mail allegedly suggested that Beyayo had been given the green light to launch an attack in Belgium. However no explosives were recovered by Belgian police, and some terrorism analysts are skeptical that an attack was imminent.

...

He issued this threat to Belgium authorities on his wife's Web site on May 11 this year. "If you thought that you could pressure me to slow down through the arrest of my wife, you were wrong. It won't stop me fulfilling my objectives...the place of my wife in my heart and the heart of all the mujahedeen is greater than ever. ... Surprises are sure to be in store for you in the days ahead. Those who laugh last, laugh more."

Such threats will have caused concern because of Garsallaoui's wide connections in European militant circles.

I am all for being smart and strategic here. We don't have to be big time involved in nation building. But I simply do not think we will be able to leave that region of the world for a very long time, until the words "Al Qaeda" truly become a relic of history.

[TayTay]

1. War cannot defeat poverty

and poverty feeds ideology. America will not "win" against Al Qaeda or the anti-modernism strain of Islam by force of arms. Nor will that strain of anti-modernism go away if we kill every last Al Qaeda on this planet. It will rise again in another form with another head like some unkillable hydra.

The world will have terrorists and terrorism in it forever. We cannot defeat that. We are also not going to ever defeat greed or any of the other great sins that flesh is heir too. We can hope to contain it and use the weapons we do have to "manage" terrorism. We can help make people feel less afraid so that they will, in their own self-interest, inform on activities of others that are suspicious and dangerous to the lives of others. We need good police work here, as someone said once when running for President.

Most of Pakistan despises the Taliban. Most Afghans do as well. They embraced Taliban rule because it was better than the evils of warlordism. Warlordism, and all the corruption it entails, has come roaring back to Afghanistan and it has the backing of the US. We are backing Karzai who is corrupt. The bribes for doing anything in that country have returned. The price of trying to live any kind of life is becoming too high for the people to pay. It is becoming intolerable. If the Taliban offers a rule of law, however barbaric, that is consistent it will get a hearing. Then the cycle will start again.

We cannot bomb our way out of that. We end up aiding and abetting those we claim to be fighting. We can kill countless alleged Taliban and their wives and children and the innocent by the droves and it won't help our cause at all. In that sense, Afghanistan is like Vietnam. We are applying the wrong solution to the wrong problem.

We do not have the people to infiltrate Pakistan or Afghanistan. We do not have the native speakers or those who understand the local culture in any kind of numbers that would make a difference. What we can do is bomb the hell out of the place, install a "president" who will not be able to preside over much more than a city-state and try and give the locals a better way to make a living in hopes that this will defer them from listening to the crazies.

We could not win in Vietnam because it wasn't our country and there weren't enough bombs in the US arsenal to make the local people support the war. There are not enough drone planes, guns, bullets or bombs to subdue Pakistan or Afghanistan. We cannot win against a backward ideology by blowing the hell out of people. It does not work. America, the wealthiest country on earth, cannot bomb poorer countries or their people into submission. Those people won't submit. Why would they? What does that get them? More misery? More warlords who make their lives unlivable? What do we offer the people that Al Qaeda does not? Why would the people want to join us instead of those who at least know them and their culture? Americans came before, financed the Mujaheddin, made promises to build schools and share the secrets of wealth and power and then abandoned Afghanistan to petty warlords. Are they going to do this again? Those questions have to be asked. They are greater keys to getting rid of Al Qaeda than bombs and hopeless incursions into lands we know nothing about.

[beachmom]

3. I do not think that al Qaeda was caused by poverty. I think it is only

that in an impoverished area, extremists can live there and get away with it. I also think you need to kill terrorists. It shouldn't be the only weapon in your arsenal (I believe in soft power, of course), but it needs to be part of the mix. Speaking of Vietnam, I just talked a woman who came from there (she came to the U.S. in '89), and Vietnam is still very, very, very poor. 3rd poorest country in the world, she said. And yet, no terrorists that I am aware of reside there. Why? Because violent islamist extremists don't live there.

I believe in a light footprint targeted program and good intelligence gathering. As far as all the problems you bring up, I feel like that is getting us further and further away from America's interests.

[sandnsea]

5. Three Cups of Tea

This is a must read for the most ground level understanding of that region of the world. Poverty and ignorance and corruption most certainly created al qaeda, along with being tired of being manipulated and abandoned for the world's oil.

http://www.threecupsoftea.com/

https://www.ikat.org

[TayTay]

2. I think the lines are blurring now

and the Repubs are making the arguments against Afghanistan that Dems made against Iraq in 06. Interesting. Except that Repubs want to go back to just killing people because they never valued nation-building or doing the real work that of counter-insurgency. Dems want to have the national-security cred that comes from committing to the "right war" in Afghanistan that will keep the US safe but don't want to talk about the futility of war anymore. (It is still futile. We can help Afghanistan. We cannot win a war there. No one can.)

Same thing, only different.

[beachmom]

4. There is the cost issue. Yeah, targeting terrorists and helping

out Afghanistan (a la nation building) is extremely expensive. It seems to me that Republicans are reverting back to their old ways; wish they had done that during the Bush years. That kind of opposition is at least honest, whether one agrees or disagrees.