Obama & Afghanistan

[TASmith]

in 2001, terrorists training in Afghanistan carried out several nasty attacks on the US. A US response was necessary. In response, our president ordered a campaign of bombing, and encouraged a civil war, in which the northern tribes defeated the southern ones, pushing the Taliban out of power, and into the mountains of Pakistan. The north then established a new democratic government with a parliament and president, and, at least officially, equal rights.

It was a good, solid beginning. However, the country was then neglected, its new government powerless, as regional warlords were given new titles as "governors" and allowed to maintain their power and corruption. Foreign aid came in, but not nearly enough to build the infrastructure needed for the country to rise from poverty. This is the same poverty that made Afghanistan the world leader in heroin/opium production. The people of Afghanistan have largely grown impatient and weary of their new government.

Our new president, Obama wants to commit America to these problems, asking for another 83 billion from Congress, but I have yet to hear what his goals are, and this worries me. He says he wants to defeat the Taliban. The Taliban are now in Pakistan. So what constitutes a defeat? If all the Taliban go into neighboring Pakistan and trouble that country instead? Or, do we need to invade Pakistan as well, to truly end their capacity to make war? What are the ramifications of this approach? How would the people of Pakistan react? Would this lead to greater instability in the region? How much would it cost? How long would it last?

Most importantly, is the money being requested now for an actual strike at the Taliban, or just to maintain a police presence, as we wait to hand over full control to the Afghan government, under Hamid Karzai? Is our strategy to play a waiting game like that in Iraq, to wait for the fledgling government to become strong enough to pull its own weight? So far, all I can find from US commanders is an idea to use soldiers to teach farmers how to grow wheat instead of opium, and an increase of remote controlled drones, for an ineffectual, "videogame" style war along the border that's just as likely to kill children as combatants.

This isn't what I want to see my money spent on. Meanwhile, this fledling government is showing itself to be not only corrupt, but nearly as backwards and oppressive as the original Taliban. They've just signed a law stating no married woman can charge her husband of rape. Every married woman is legally required to sexually satisfy her husband at least once every four days, unless she's just given birth, menstruating, fasting, preparing for a pilgrimage, or it's Ramadan. The law also stipulates specific reasons (emergencies) when a woman is allowed to go outside without her husband's knowing. This new government is quickly turning into the Taliban Lite, where the only differences are:

1. you're still allowed to voice dissent without beheading
2 They're pro-USA.

These two points are subject to change, and it's all very disheartening to me, as the worst case scenario is the Taliban surges forward, using a wave of violence to regain power, and the best case scenario is that Karzai defeats them militarily, makes a peace agreement with them, and then his government grows, becomes anti-American, and develops its own secret service akin to Pakistan's ISI, and America (and its allies) still suffers terrorist attacks like those on 9/11. In addition, the newest, no. 1 training ground for terrorism is Pakistan, as the latest Mumbai shootings show. Stabilizing Afghanistan does nothing to prevent the terrorism growing there. Pakistan's government is extremely weak, and its leaders refuse to acknowledge the extent of their problems. Despite their common problem, and religion with Afghanistan, they prefer to view Afghanistan as an enemy, because of the Afghan's current alliance with India...

Does anyone else have the sinking feeling this is all in vain?

[Sidharth Chaturvedi]

Yeah, the sinking feeling's mutual. I'm all for self-determination, but it's still incredibly annoying that after marching in to bring freedom and equality and all that jazz, most of the world is sitting by quietly while they revert to the old ways.

And yeah, Pakistan's becoming a clusterfuck pretty fast. Incredibly sad that when the Taliban say they'll kill young girls if they go to school, the government skips over the logical step of fighting them out and imposes Sharia law in the Swat region. This will continue to happen in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and is exactly why all this talk about peace with the Taliban is short-sighted and stupid.

Wouldn't say there's anything new about Pakistan being the world's biggest training ground, incidentally... Pakistan-occupied Kashmir's been full of those camps for around as long as they've controlled it.

-Sid

[Dimension]

I could have told you this war was a sick waste of lives, tax dollars and time eight years ago. Now they want to send another 100,000 troops and make a ten year commitment. Well at least heroin production is back in full swing.

[Wiggles]

This is such a controversial subject and I should refrain from posting on this, but I will make it short and sweet.

I see some justice in the attacks against terrorists for one reason: It eliminates the threat of an attack - which sounds like a paradox, but please let me explain.

If we just sit down and sip our tea we will have a major problem on our hands when we are suddenly attacked with something far more damaging than 9/11. And who is to blame then? Obama for not attacking known terrorist groups? Bush because he began the War on Terror? And please tell me, what did Bush do to have 9/11 pinned on his head? It was Clinton that disassembled our military allowing a clear opening for an enemy attack. So then is it some one's action to fight off, or action to not fight off? Looks like to me an action to not fight will inevitably lead to fighting while fighting until there's an accord there will be no end.

I hate war, hate it, hate it, hate it! I refuse to join the armed forces because I would not be able to live with the guilt of killing another human being. So then why support war? Because there are plenty of individuals who are more determined than I to join the armed forces to defend the people, the country and the life they love!

-Wiggs

[kev ferrara]

First of all, epistemology should tell us that what we think we understand about geopolitics is based on a teeny tiny pathetic little managed subset of the relevant information... the bit that is allowed to trickle out to us, so as not to cause panic or overload. And this trickle is usually highly biased in one direction or other, toward nationalism, toward one world socialism, toward pacifism, toward realism, toward donkeys or elephants, towards broadcastability, popular interest, multicultural political correctness, etc, etc etc.

My guess, is that personally I have an approximate appreciation of maybe 1 percent of the relevant information that our government is acting on. I would say the folks at the New York Times have more than that, much of which they sit on as "background" info from anonymous sources. But this will be biased toward the State Department's take on things, rather than the CIA or the Pentagon, because the Times is cozy with the UN and the State Department, and is against the CIA and the Pentagon, unless they find a Plame or Wilson in there to hit for their team, okay? A guy like Bob Baer or John Bolton may have a lot more info, most of which they are not at liberty to disclose. Point being, let's not pretend we have enough information. Because we don't. We're just sitting in the audience watching the explicate order unfold, while the implicate order goes about its business far beneath our radar.

Anyhow, having said that, TA, I think the quaint lil' mountain village you're not naming is called Waziristan... which has been the stronghold of radicalism since at least Lord Curzon's era. Al Quaeda didn't just discover this fact, they came from this fact. When you find out how Waziristan survives within Pakistan you will know a lot about Pakistan and the wider Islamist movement. The idea that suddenly the tribal regions of Pakistan are a terrorist training ground... that's like, News Flash ... Sun causes Daylight!

The problem with Afghanistan is that the land offers little by way of free and easy bounty. The only way to generate an economy is by herculean trade, industry, and education efforts, which is an extremely difficult thing to simply import. Add poppy, tough neighborhood, and radical Islam into the mix and you have a huge challenge on your hands. Give up that challenge and you have an even bigger problem on your hands with ramifications throughout the world markets. At this point, our markets are shaky enough, thanks. Just imagine if Afghanistan blew up again, destabilizing Pakistan, which is already teetering on the edge, and with nukes... and with India with Nukes and still fighting over Kashmir... This spirals out big time in all directions. And India is a very big part of the global economy going forward. We need them on board if we're going to "manage" the burgeoning of China (who in turn are "managing" the emergence, eventually, of Africa), and help us deal with the upcoming Russian demographic-economic-imploding empire-collapse-panic (Which, given their nuke stockpile and "issues" with Islam, as well as partnership with Iran, may be damn scary).

We've been giving Egypt 2 billion dollars a year for quite a while now to simply keep them from going to war and there's nobody who doesn't realize the value of that investment, even though you can't see the "not going to war." We may be in a similar situation in Afghanistan. Just paying dues year by year to avoid all out carnage. And if warlords are the ones that need to keep order, if warlords are the only leaders stepping up to the plate, what are you going to do? Let the Afghanistan become an opium fueled terror haven? A new AQ Kahn network will be up and running in that country in a hearbeat.

This is a long term commitment. The world isn't a nice place and we're the only police force that is actually willing to commit bodies. The funny thing is China has been taking great pains to screw us economically in the last few years, just as much as we've screwed ourselves, and they are the greatest beneficiaries of our actions in the middle east. It's just we're so linked up with their economy that helping them helps us. Its like our military is working for China. Weird.

Sec State Clinton very accurately described Obama's campaign when she said, campaigns are run on poetry, but countries are governed by prose. I assure you, Obama does not beam that great smile of his when he sits in his morning briefings. There is nothing more complex, tangled, propagandized and maddening than geopolitics. String theory isn't even a close second because it'll be solved long before Israel Palestine is settled. :/

Peace,
kev

[Bill]

...she's just given birth, menstruating, fasting, preparing for a pilgrimage, or it's Ramadan.

I can't tell you how many times I've been denied because she said she was preparing for a pilgrimage, and don't even get me started on the Ramadan thing.

[BenHeine]

Interesting discussion

[Interceptor]

So are you planning to do anything, or just whine about politics all the time?
It seems like everyday there's a new thread here complaining about something, but more than often everyone's just going to sit around, do nothing and wait for the next trend to complain about.