Warnings From The Russian Ambassador About Afghanistan

An Afghan elder speaks with U.S. Marine Corps 1st Lt. Zachary Bennett, right, during a road reconnaissance patrol in Helmand province's Nawa district, Afghanistan, Sept. 6, 2009. Bennett is assigned to the 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Staff Sgt. William Greeson

From AP:

KABUL — Russia's ambassador to Afghanistan has some advice for top NATO commanders fighting the Taliban based on the Soviet Union's bitter experience battling Islamist insurgents here in the 1980s: Don't bring more troops.

"The more troops you bring the more troubles you will have here," Zamir Kabulov, a blunt-spoken veteran diplomat, told The Associated Press in an interview.

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My Comment: At the beginning of the Afghan invasion in 2001, I was an advocate for keeping force numbers low. Many bloggers and COIN experts disagreed .... and I confess that they have a gazillion times more experience and knowledge on this topic than I do .... but I have always felt that it was the right policy at the time. What influenced me to think like this was what former Russian Generals and officers said about their experience in Afghanistan (many of them my own relatives) .... and what is now being said by the Russian Ambassador himself.

Afghans hate foreigners and the morals, culture, and religion that they bring in. It is a very conservative society, and they will not change who and what they are. They only thing that they will accept is aid to build roads and bridges, water/electrical projects, and the means to improve their education system.

This situation was stable until 2003-2004. Pakistan's support of the Taliban has precipitated this growing crisis not only in Afghanistan itself, but within Pakistan's frontier regions. The Pakistani Government should have closed down these safe havens and the madrassas that preach hate a long time ago. Their refusal to do so has now created a state within a state .... and a determination to now create and expand war throughout the area.

In response to these events. the ground work is now being laid to expand the foreign footprint throughout the country. The Afghans .... who would have been quiet and non-committal before .... are all going to rebel against this.

The Russian Ambassador is right because he is reflecting on his own personal experience. But he also knows that our options are now very limited, and that war and bloodshed will be applied to crush an insurgency that is supported by many Afghans and by their cousins in Pakistan. His worry is that he knows that President Obama and the Democrats are going to bail our of Afghanistan when they realizes what he is seeing .... and hence leaving the mess in the hands of Afghanistan's neighbors .... of which Russia is one of them.