[Critique of]The Winnable War
Khyber Pass, Afghanistan
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I came to Afghanistan skeptical of American efforts to transform this country. Afghanistan is one of the poorest, least-educated and most-corrupt nations on earth. It is an infinitely complex and fractured society. It has powerful enemies in Pakistan, Iran and the drug networks working hard to foment chaos. The ground is littered with the ruins of great powers that tried to change this place.
Afghanistan has been the playground of power for thousands of years and we know a lot about it. I take exception to the portrayal above, if nothing else than on the grounds that it is vague in details in a journalistic kind of way, and the rhetoric supports the status-quo (most favored current foreign policy direction) which always puts me on my guard. I'd just ask what measures are used to determine "poorest, least-educated and most-corrupt."
Furthermore, is the society being "infinitely complex" any different than any other society? Additionally, is the society fractured or "infinitely" fractured. Which of these fractures or which of the infinity of fractures is the "it" referred to as having powerful enemies in Pakistan, Iran and the drug networks? Lastly, we were one of those great powers, and without otherwise being proved wrong, I'd say presumption in this situation leads to every indication that the "great powers" that were in power to use Afghanistan in a proxy war, are still more or less in charge today (the proxy of the proxy who leads the proxy-ing). At least cursory examination is required:
From Wikipedia:
Afghanistan (pronounced /æfˈgænɪstæn/[4]), officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country that is located approximately in the center of Asia. It is variously designated as geographically located within Central Asia,[5][6] South Asia,[7][8] and the Middle East.[9] It is bordered by Pakistan in the south and east, Iran in the south and west, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan in the north, and China in the far northeast.
Afghanistan is a crossroads between the East and the West, and has been an ancient focal point of trade and migration. It has an important geostrategical location, connecting South and Central Asia and Middle East. During its long history, the land has seen various invaders and conquerors, while on the other hand, local entities invaded the surrounding vast regions to form their own empires. Ahmad Shah Durrani created the Durrani Empire in 1747, which is considered the beginning of modern Afghanistan.[10] Subsequently, the capital was shifted to Kabul and most of its territories ceded to former neighboring countries. In the late 19th century, Afghanistan became a buffer state in "The Great Game" played between the British Indian Empire and Russian Empire.[11] On August 19, 1919, following the third Anglo-Afghan war, the country regained full independence from the United Kingdom over its foreign affairs.
Since the late 1970s Afghanistan has suffered continuous and brutal civil war in addition to foreign interventions in the form of the 1979 Soviet invasion and the recent 2001 U.S.-led invasion that toppled the Taliban government. In late 2001 the United Nations Security Council authorized the creation of an International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). This force is composed of NATO troops that are involved in assisting the government of President Hamid Karzai in establishing the writ of law as well as rebuilding key infrastructures in the nation. In 2005, the United States and Afghanistan signed a strategic partnership agreement committing both nations to a long-term relationship. In the meantime, multi-billion US dollars have also been provided by the international community for the reconstruction of the country.
Government and politics
Politics in Afghanistan has historically consisted of power struggles, bloody coups and unstable transfers of power. With the exception of a military junta, the country has been governed by nearly every system of government over the past century, including a monarchy, republic, theocracy and communist state. The constitution ratified by the 2003 Loya jirga restructured the government as an Islamic republic consisting of three branches, (executive, legislature and judiciary).
Afghanistan is currently led by President Hamid Karzai, who was elected in October 2004. The current parliament was elected in 2005. Among the elected officials were former mujahadeen, Taliban members, communists, reformists, and Islamic fundamentalists. 28% of the delegates elected were women, 3 points more than the 25% minimum guaranteed under the constitution. This made Afghanistan, long known under the Taliban for its oppression of women, one of the leading countries in terms of female representation. Construction for a new parliament building began on August 29, 2005.
The Supreme Court of Afghanistan is currently led by Chief Justice Abdul Salam Azimi, a former university professor who had been legal advisor to the president.[58] The previous court, appointed during the time of the interim government, had been dominated by fundamentalist religious figures, including Chief Justice Faisal Ahmad Shinwari. The court issued several rulings, such as banning cable television, seeking to ban a candidate in the 2004 presidential election and limiting the rights of women, as well as overstepping its constitutional authority by issuing rulings on subjects not yet brought before the court. The current court is seen as more moderate and led by more technocrats than the previous court, although it has yet to issue any rulings.
Moreover, we simply do not know how to modernize nations. You mean we don't know how to mind-control sovereign nations' populations to make them economic colonies with pliant business partners, right? Western aid workers seem to spend most of their time drawing up flow charts for each other. They’re so worried about their inspectors general that they can’t really immerse themselves in the messy world of local reality. They insist on making most of the spending decisions themselves so the “recipients” of their largess end up passive, dependent and resentful.
This bit makes me wonder what Western aid workers he is referring to, and why he's painting them as exactly what most Western foreign policies seems to involve. We all know that the U.S. has had the option as a superpower to make practically any policy. Until our business partners became powerful enough to tell us differently, our GDP soared because of our relative position of power in the world. I'd claim that the events listed in the official record have more to do with difficulties in Afghan diplomatic relations than any wanker of largess at large with some flow charts.
Every element of my skepticism was reinforced during a six-day tour of the country. Yet the people who work here make an overwhelming case that Afghanistan can become a functional, terror-fighting society and that it is worth sending our sons and daughters into danger to achieve this.
Our definition of terror and Afghan perceptions of terror probably have unique differences, and I'm not sure we should send our sons and daughters anywhere to help create a "terror-fighting society" (does he really say we need to build jails in Afghanistan? Is that even a reasonable foreign policy goal, or just an opportunity to profit from asserting control over a sovereign population of human beings?)
In the first place, the Afghan people want what we want. They are, as Lord Byron put it, one of the few people in the region without an inferiority complex. They think they did us a big favor by destroying the Soviet Union and we repaid them with abandonment. They think we owe them all this.
1st: this 1st point, as Lord Byron would have put it when (egotistically superior) Britain controlled the Afghan people, is ferociously and infinitely vague or at least too far from being "infinitely complex" that it may be in fact laughably simplistic.
That makes relations between Afghans and foreigners relatively straightforward. Most military leaders here prefer working with the Afghans to the Iraqis. The Afghans are warm and welcoming. They detest the insurgents and root for American success. “The Afghans have treated you as friends, allies and liberators from the very beginning,” says Afghanistan’s defense minister, Abdul Rahim Wardak.
My skepticism leads me to ask, for every Afghan that has treated us "warm and welcoming" how many aren't - what is the ratio? I'd like to know.
Second, we’re already well through the screwing-up phase of our operation. At first, the Western nations underestimated the insurgency. They tried to centralize power in Kabul. They tried to fight a hodgepodge, multilateral war.
2nd: Coalition forces may learn how to fight wars better, but violence isn't going to learn to solve problems better. An impressive leader would know that.
Those and other errors have been exposed, and coalition forces are learning. When you interview impressive leaders here, like Brig. Gen. John Nicholson of Regional Command South, Col. John Agoglia of the Counterinsurgency Training Center and Chris Alexander of the U.N., you see how relentless they are at criticizing their own operations. Thanks to people like that, the coalition will stumble toward success, having tried the alternatives.
When militaries stumble along, people die.
Third, we’ve got our priorities right. Armies love killing bad guys. [Two sentences previous are Non-sequiter and morally repugnant]. Aid agencies love building schools. But the most important part of any aid effort is governance and law and order. It’s reforming the police, improving the courts, training local civil servants and building prisons.
Why the sudden shift from talking of military to talking of aid - are they the same things? Are we writing checks to warlords to buy powerful friends? I mean, we've done it before.
In Afghanistan, every Western agency is finally focused on this issue, from a Canadian reconstruction camp in Kandahar to the top U.S. general, David McKiernan.
Fourth, the quality of Afghan leadership is improving. This is a relative thing. President Hamid Karzai is detested by much of the U.S. military. Some provincial governors are drug dealers on the side. But as the U.N.’s Kai Eide told the Security Council, “The Afghan government is today better and more competent than ever before.” Reformers now lead the most important ministries and competent governors run key provinces.
Everything is relative, including your definitions of drug dealer, improving, better, and competent.
Fifth, the U.S. is finally taking this war seriously. Up until now, insurgents have had free rein in vast areas of southern Afghanistan. The infusion of 17,000 more U.S. troops will change that. The Obama administration also promises a civilian surge to balance the military push.
Does this refer to U.S. military (who would naturally be taking the only other war on the table other than the doomed Iraq war seriously) or the U.S. public (who voted for change - from war to no war - not from war to another war), or the U.S. political leadership (who are made up of politicians). Worse yet, I challenge Obama to tell us what the hell a "civilian surge" is.
Sixth, Pakistan is finally on the agenda. For the past few years, the U.S. has let Pakistan get away with murder. The insurgents train, organize and get support from there. “It’s very hard to deal with a cross-border insurgency on only one side of the border,” says Mr. Alexander of the U.N. The Obama strategic review recognizes this.
6th - Pakistan has been on the agenda, we just like India a whole lot better until Osama and Co. ran into the Pakistani hills and the cowboys of the executive branch tried to get after him.
Finally, it is simply wrong to say that Afghanistan is a hopeless 14th-century basket case. This country had decent institutions before the Communist takeover. It hasn’t fallen into chaos, the way Iraq did, because it has a culture of communal discussion and a respect for village elders. The Afghans have embraced the democratic process with enthusiasm.
Apparently Iraq has no culture of communal discussion or respect for village elders, and furthermore that must be why Iraq went so poorly. I'm all for protecting emerging democracy but the rhetoric surrounding using "military and civilian power to promote democracy, nurture civil society and rebuild failed states" is the exact same rhetoric that has justified the business of killing human beings since the beginnings of rhetoric. Critics and average readers beware.
I finish this trip still skeptical but also infected by the optimism of the truly impressive people who are working here. And one other thing:
After the trauma in Iraq, it would have been easy for the U.S. to withdraw into exhaustion and realism. Instead, President Obama is doubling down on the very principles that some dismiss as neocon fantasy: the idea that this nation has the capacity to use military and civilian power to promote democracy, nurture civil society and rebuild failed states.
Foreign policy experts can promote one doctrine or another, but this energetic and ambitious response — amid economic crisis and war weariness — says something profound about America’s DNA.
It says we still exhibit the DNA traits that animals all have - we kill each other for the mutual benefit of the survivors. Hopefully America rises above its profound DNA to live up to some profound ideals of peaceful, prosporous dialogue without mass violence.
