Military, Civilians at odds over Resource Needed for Afhanistan

You are not going to be able to turn Afghanistan into Sweden, not in six months, six years or six decades. This should be totally viewed through the prism of security of the western world. As the Taliban have said, they have no beef with the west as long as our troops are not in Afghanistan (and remember, the Taliban have never attacked a western country, unlike nationals of the United Kingdom, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Somalia). Special Forces, black ops, Blackwater, CIA, rendition, drones: this full spectrum approach works and is the way to go. But lets divert the money being wasted on turning Afghanistan into Sweden into security. 

Great story

good story ty

GOOD Story but is it " advised to way the pros and cons carefully"  OR "advised to weigh the pros and cons carefully" ?  (when you weigh things for a living you can't miss the diff.) :)

Anyway, until the corruption that I keep hearing about & the abuse of civilians ends it will continue to be a cluster fu**.

cowpoke

Very good overview of the situation.

I would like to see a combination stratedy of military interventions with the least risk to military personnel and civilians and nation building that supports the Afghan people to structure their own lives.  There has to be a cohensive effort including responsible governace, infrastructure development, education, and jobs for Afghanistan to move forward.  And it will take a long time, perhaps twenty years. 

The prevailing American point of view is "win the war," and all the problems will be solved in Afghanistan.   I still do not know what a clear definition of "winning" really means.  The more I read about Afghanistan and its people, the definition of "winning" militarily seems hollow because whether it's defeating Al-Qaeda or the Taliban, the people are left with a corrupt government, no jobs, few schools, bombed out roads and villages, and little hope for their children having a better life.    What is more important? Us winning, or the Afghan people having a country they can believe in and, therefore, believe in themselves?

..which will include, Pakistan, Iran and Iraq.  All of this is part and parcel of the whole package

Along with theAfghans and unaligned Pashtuns too, so very true, and we need other regional players involved in any end solution Turkmenistan, Russia, China et al. It is a broader regional issue IMHO and not ours to "solve" without much broader buy in.

cowpoke and rng

I agree wholeheartedly with stabilization of the entire region, and it is unrealistic to believe that we can do it alone.  However with recalcitrant leadership in Iran for at least the next five years and their fuel energy agreements with China, the barriers for stablizing the balance of power in the region are formidable.     

The pressure is definitey on the president; but no matter what he decides; it will be wrong to someone.  I am going to use a word now that many consider to be an oxymoron when linked to governement.  Trust.  As a nation we are going to have to put our trust in the president and his advisors to make the best decision they can, and it's our responsibility to have some faith because most informed people know this is going to be a gamble either way.  

ACP,

A very fair and balanced opinion piece. Kudos. As we discussed back and forth the last time we visited this topic, the president has to make a very difficult choice. Critics on the left and critics on the right will probably not be satisfied by the decision. 17,000 additional troops earlier in the year, and now a request for another 40,000. Is it a hard number, or was the request for up to 40K? Is the president reconsidering his new statement of policy issued in March of this year?

I couldn't help but notice in the Washington Post Story, the sub by line called the conflict Obama's war. 8 months in, and the War on Terror is now Obama's war. No, it is America and its allies war.

I did notice your comment on what you think constitutes winning the conflict. I think that the McCrystal plan calls for training up to 400,000 police/security forces. I believe that to date, we've trained less than 60,000. (I could be wrong on this score.) That's a lot of training, and I haven't seen the timeline on how long that will take, or if it is a achievable objective. As far as the other point with respect to a government that the people of Afghanistan support: Does that include a legitimately elected Taliban or other form of theocratic government? Call me a pessimist, or maybe a realist, but I just don't see the possibility of stabilizing this "country." There are too many tribal rivals, and the border with Pakistan in particular, is not capable of being secured.

I have one final thought on this subject.

Are we prepared to be wrong?

Being right in decision making, while bearing the burden of a centain amount of rectititude, it can lighten the load of responsibility especially when it comes time for pats on the back and celebrations all around for being "Right."

Wrong decisions can weigh heavily for a conscious individual and is not something we like to consider, but nevertheless we should prepare ourselves for the possibility.  The government was not prepared to be wrong about Viet Nam, nor was the possibility broached until we all watched on television as the evacuees fought and begged to be taken away by helicopter from the roof of that building.

If I am wrong in my evaluations of how we should proceed in Afghanistan, I am prepared to admit it to myself and the oppossion as well.  My hope is that whatever avenue is taken, if it is wrong and a timely determination can be made to change strategies, I would support it in the best interests of the Afghan people.

Let's be clear about one thing: Afghanistan's long-standing underdevelopment and backwardness has nothing to do with America, NATO or the west. We need to stop beating ourselves up about that. This needs to be viewed as a security problem because it was Afghanistan that allowed itself to become a terrorist training base for attacks on the west. From the security view, poverty etc. is not the cause of terrorism: fanaticism and networks are the cause of terrorism. Target the networks and the fanatics and the terrorism goes down. Waste your time and money on trying to give poor people things they don't even want, and you miss the security problem. Afghanis need to own and build their country to the standards they want for themselves. If they in the future allow terrorists to turn their country into a base again, then you attack again.

Afghanistan that allowed itself to become a terrorist training base for attacks on the west.

The United States does share some responsibility for supporting Mujahideen and the rise of the Taliban. Following the invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union in December 1979, the U.S. administration, first under Carter and then under Reagan, launched a massive support and training campaign for the Afghan freedom fighters, or "mujahideen" (holy warriors), as they came to be known. In addition to overt and covert funding operations by various U.S. governmental agencies for the mujahideen, a plethora of private "aid" agencies, think-tanks, and other odd outfits joined the fray, with the ostensible aim of helping the Afghans to liberate their nation from the clutches of the Soviet invaders.

Also, if I am correct, and cowpoke will know this.  The United States president Bill Clinton sent mujahideen fighters the U.S. trained  to the Balkans, so trying to sever ourselves from responsibility for what is happening now is not correct assessment on several fronts.

Humanitarian efforts to underdeveloped countries respecting their culture and needs is the right thing to do.  To force our culture, religion, beliefs, etc. onto them is not. 

When you get armchair warriors ie: Politicans running the show dictating terms of reference for our troops, nothing will ever get done, when liberal media are always out there trying to sway public opinion, politicians need in order to run this puppet show. No one will be the winner in all this ever!

Barry: A down to earth analysis! Yes!