James Cunningham, National Interest: I Was U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan. The Military Can't Fix This Mess Alone.
There is no guarantee that America can “win” in Afghanistan, but it is quite clear that it can lose.
President Trump’s June 13 decision to delegate authorities on troop levels and operations in Afghanistan to Secretary of Defense James Mattis set the correct and essential condition for beginning to improve security and to enhance the prospects of success in Afghanistan. It was taken in the context of doubts in some circles around the president and in the commentariat that continued U.S. commitment to Afghanistan is worth the candle, and that the relatively small number of additional U.S. and coalition forces under discussion will in fact turn the tide. But if the United States couldn’t win with one hundred thousand troops in the fight, what difference will another couple thousand make now?
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WNU Editor: The case on why we must continue to be engaged in Afghanistan.
"In America's Afghanistan, it’s all history -- the future as well as the past, what’s going to happen, as well as what’s happened in these last nearly 16 years of war. You’ve heard it all before: there were the various “surges” (though once upon a time sold as paths to victory, not simply to break a “stalemate”); there were the insider, or “green-on-blue,” attacks in which Afghans trained, advised, and often armed by the U.S. turned their weapons on their mentors (two such incidents in the last month resulted in three dead American soldiers and more wounded); there were the Afghan ghost soldiers, ghost police, ghost students, and ghost teachers (all existing only on paper, the money for them ponied up by U.S. taxpayers but always in someone else’s pocket); and there was that never-ending national “reconstruction” program that long ago outspent the famed Marshall Plan, which helped put all of Western Europe back on its feet after World War II. It included projects for roads to nowhere, gas stations built in the middle of nowhere, and those Pentagon-produced, forest-patterned camouflage outfits for the Afghan army in a land only 2.1% forested. (The design was, it turns out, favored by the Afghan defense minister of the moment and his fashion statement cost U.S. taxpayers a mere $28 million more than it would have cost to produce other freely available, more appropriate designs.) And that, of course, is just to begin the distinctly bumpy drive down America’s Afghan highway to nowhere. Don’t even speak to me, for instance, about the $8.5 billion that the U.S. sunk into efforts to suppress the opium crop in a country where the drug trade now flourishes."
ReplyDeletehttp://www.tomdispatch.com
Good post Jay.
ReplyDeleteWe sure did learn how to control the Opium trade. The Chinese hate us for that.
The Russians failed there and we we fail there also. Nothing there to gain for all the money and blood spent. It will never change. Never. Where did we ever get the idea that we could get people to love us by putting them on a reservation.
Oh, sorry, I forgot about the plan to reroute the Silk Road. A big toll booth in Afghanistan. We should be able to manage that. Like a little opium for your drive?
"The last 84 soldiers left Afghanistan on 15 March 2014, ending Canada's twelve-year military presence in the country." - WIKI
ReplyDeleteI DO NOT SEE THE WE HERE.
What reservation?
ReplyDeleteThat part of the post makes no sense.
Are some foreigners moving in, taking over the land and moving Afghans onto some subset of Afghanistan?
The Marshall plan was begun after hostilities ceased. In Europe people wanted to rebuild.
ReplyDeleteThe Taliban might want to rebuild or build in some fashion, but they sure have not ceased hostilities.
Concrete and other stuff is bought at a premium in a war zone. It would be a lot cheaper to rebuild, if there were no war, but JabberJay the magnificent does not seem to grasp that fact.
It is very hard to win a war when you have not fought some combatants in any significant way. The Iranians and Pakistanis have not been fought. So although they are engaged in war and are part of the hostilities, they do not want to come to any peace table. Why should they? They have not been hurt.
It comes down to how much more Treasure do we want to spend, the Middle east thing has been the biggest waste of money I have ever seen, Trillions and no end in sight. I only see 2 outcomes, Victory or Bankruptcy, I'm betting on Bankruptcy.
ReplyDeleteThank you Jay for your comment. I for one in this blog have outlined (for years) the folly and incredible waste of Afghanistan. But I think we are now at an inflection point .... in this conflict and in many other conflicts .... where the trend-line can be changed .... and without the commitment of resources that the U.S. and it's allies have committed in the past. I will be elaborating more on this tomorrow in a commentary on this very subject.
ReplyDeleteI am good with leaving Afghanistan and letting there be a 5 way knife fight.
ReplyDeleteThe USSSR intervened in Afghanistan in part because ideas and people were leaking across the border causing unrest.
Iran and Pakistan do not play well along their border now. What would happen, if their spheres of interest overlapped in Afghanistan?
Libtards called Afghanistan the good war and Iraq the bad war.
ReplyDeleteMaybe they did not mean it when they called Afghanistan the 'good' war. Maybe it was done for mere rhetorical effect in political debate. that would be the tard speed.
So we are left with one 'official' war and the Libtards have no policy on how to proceed.
Figures