My thoughts on Afghanistan

[NJmaverick]

First off let me say that I think George Bush screwed up when he demanded the Al-Qaeda terrorists from the Taliban and refused all efforts to negotiate. There is a moral and practical implication to the saying that war should always be the measure of last resort. Obviously war is a terrible endeavor that kills many good and many innocent people and wrecks terrible havoc. Secondly history is full of lessons that show war is unpredictable and an expensive endeavor that has laid low empires and sometimes bankrupted them in victory.
Secondly Bush failed to give the Taliban any way to save face or appear to be acting honorably. The demand for proof of their crimes was not an unreasonable one and providing it would have allowed the Taliban to turn the terrorists over while saving face in the Muslim community.

That said there was not assurances negotiation would have been effective. In fact odds are they would have failed (based on the nature of the Taliban) However even failed negotiations would have given the invasion much greater moral support and would have allowed it to be viewed as the US making war a last rather than a first result (as we like to tell the world we do). So Bush is responsible for serious failings both from a practical as well as a moral standpoint.

Now that being said the invasion took place and Al-Qaeda is a real threat to our nation as 9/11 was a terrible attack that killed more Americans and destroyed more property than Pearl Harbor.

Bush failed in a second way by neglecting the conduct of this war while he went on his illegal wars in Iraq. Many needed resources were pulled from Afghanistan in order to prop up the failed invasion of Iraq. This neglect allowed all the early gains of pushing the Taliban out of Afghanistan to wiped out and put us nearly back at ground zero.

That leaves us in the situation we are in today. Afghanistan's government is weak and would topple immediately if NATO were to pull out right away. In addition there are areas of Pakistan that are lawless and Al-Qaeda and the Taliban operate with near impunity. These groups must be weakened by strikes at their leadership, before they grow strong enough to threaten the nuclear armed government of Pakistan. Having the ability to strike from Afghanistan does help keep those groups in check.

Now there are a few rules of insurgency warfare that say the longer an occupying force stays, the less welcome they become (not unlike house guests). So the longer our fores stay in the Country the more difficult victory is to achieve. I will also say though that the conventional wisdom of insurgency ware fare were turned on their head when the "surge" in Iraq worked. The standard doctrine stated that the increased troops would have simply caused the insurgents to relocate or lay low until the surge was over. However the wholesale use of brides proved to be an effective way to pull support from an insurgency and isolate and weaken them. The same surge plus bribes strategy may work in Afghanistan.

Beyond the ability to succeed, we also need to consider what would happen to all those Afghans that supported us. If were to immediately pull out of that nation those people would be at the mercy of the Taliban (who have shown they are lacking in mercy). So we would be responsible for their deaths and it would be nearly impossible to get support in future endeavors.

So basically if we were to pull out of Afghanistan the Taliban would take over. Women would stop being educated, our supporters would be killed, Al Qaeda would once again have a safe haven to operate from and nuclear Pakistan would face a threat from a neighbor as well as their own lawless regions. This is all a rather bad scenario that poses serious risks to our national security and the safety and well being of our citizens.


That leaves the question- Can something be done to affect a better outcome? Well the good news is we have much better people in the White House. There have been some recent articles about the short comings of our intelligence services that seem truly clueless as to what the Afghan people think or what's going on with them. Deal with an insurgency requires cool calm thinking leadership, not overly emotional from the gut type leadership (sound like anyone you know). By getting to know the people you can start to really win over the hearts and minds of Afghans that don't like or care for the Taliban and their iron fisted rule. With select bribes to sway the people that could go either way, it is possible (not assured) that the surge plan could work to weaken the Taliban and give the Afghan government time to strengthen itself to the point that they can deal with the situation.

Now I understand there are people that may feel that this plan just can't work or the cost in lives is too much, but I ask that you consider the consequences of leaving and at least appreciate that there is a lot at stake here and it is nor unreasonable to be supportive of efforts designers to try and prevent it from happening.

Finally I would like to talk about the drone attacks in Pakistan. I know they are unpleasent in the sense that most good people don't like to rain death on others and innocents can get caught in the cross fire. However the real question is what is the alternative? Let Al-Qaeda grow stonger by leaving them to do as they please? Send in manned planes and risk pilots? Send in special forces strikes and risk troops being killed or captured? Woudl the Pakistan people like these choices better? The government is not on the stongest ground and their nukes make them a huge threat.