Yes, We’ve Lost Afghanistan
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Foreign Policy, The War On Terrorism
The AP is reporting that Bill Frist has suggested today that we fold elements of the Taliban (i.e. terrorists) into the Afghanistan government because the war is unwinnable. More on the specifics of that statement later…
The significance of this is particularly frustrating as somebody who was saying that we shouldn’t commit so many troops to Iraq before Afghanistan was finished.
In short, as I read this…I want to throw things.
QALAT, Afghanistan U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said Monday that the Afghan guerrilla war can never be won militarily and called for efforts to bring the Taliban and their supporters into the Afghan government.The Tennessee Republican said he had learned from briefings that Taliban fighters were too numerous and had too much popular support to be defeated by military means.
“You need to bring them into a more transparent type of government,” Frist said during a brief visit to a U.S. and Romanian military base in the southern Taliban stronghold of Qalat. “And if that’s accomplished we’ll be successful.”
And to answer your question Sideways, yes, we just lost.
Now, for his part, Frist is saying that the AP distorted his remarks and took them out of context. Fair enough. It wouldn’t be the first time.
So in fairness…we’ll give him his fair shake on what he said…
Having discussed the situation with commanders on the ground, I believe that we cannot stabilize Afghanistan purely through military means. Our counter-insurgency strategy must win hearts and minds and persuade moderate Islamists potentially sympathetic to the Taliban to accept the legitimacy of the Afghan national government and democratic political processes.National reconciliation is a necessary and an urgent priority … but America will never negotiate with terrorists or support their entry into Afghanistan’s government.
Still…what I get out of all these statements is that our lack of troops (i.e. our neglect) in the country is finally forcing our hand to make other arrangements that we really shouldn’t have to make. Hearts and minds indeed, but had we finished the job and not slipped into Iraq without a plan to win the peace, perhaps we could have done more in Afghanistan.
This is what incompetence, arrogance and singlemindedness brings us. I think it’s time to try something new.
This entry was posted on Monday, October 2nd, 2006 and is filed under Foreign Policy, The War On Terrorism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
October 2nd, 2006 at 8:03 pm
“Our counter-insurgency strategy must win hearts and minds and persuade moderate Islamists potentially sympathetic to the Taliban to accept the legitimacy of the Afghan national government and democratic political processes.”
That, surely, should have been the starting point?
Mebbe Churchill was right -”America does do the right thing, after exhausting all of the alternatives”.
October 2nd, 2006 at 8:30 pm
Was he talking about CAIR? What the hell is going on with my country!?! Screw this I’m moving to Australia. ( although I see Probligo has no problem with Frist’s idea. )
Winning hearts and minds of moderate white supremicists sympathetic to the Nazis would have won WWII. The Taliban are human scum and must be wiped out. They are the Islamist state department to Al-queda’s DoD.
Maybe Churchill was right when he said - “ How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its devotees! …No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith“
October 2nd, 2006 at 9:52 pm
I am absolutely furious with this latest revelation by that political hack known as Frist, though I am not completely surprised because there have been stories bubbling-up since mid-August where Pakistan had the US’s blessing in negotiating with the radical Islamists in the province of Waziristan. Unless this hack has been mis-represented by the media, I will give some serious thoughts of tearing my volunteer papers for the next deployment - why the **** should I stick my neck out when the higher ups have already “cut and run”? I wonder how many GOP politicans are in the same corner as Frist?
October 2nd, 2006 at 10:00 pm
I am in Afghanistan.
Never in history has an indigenous insurgency been defeated except by draconian measures. The Viet Cong taught the US that in the 70’s, the US taught that to the British in 1776 and the Afghan people taught that to the Russians in the 80’s
These measures are ones that I do not believe the US public would accept. The expense in monetary and human lives lost would be simply too much to bear.
Often the USA has made peace with its former enemies. Germany, once a bitter foe is a staunch ally and trading partner. Same for Japan.
What is it about the American people who have to approach every problem by beating it with a big stick? When that doesn’t work try a bigger stick.
Why not try another approach because from where I am, the big stick is simply not working.
October 2nd, 2006 at 10:54 pm
The Taliban can only win if they are no longer opposed.
So long as someone is here and willing to play rounds of Darwin Roulette with them, they can do no more than harass the coountryside, and then only for the limited amount of time for them to be detected and engaged.
Each time they stick their heads up, they get lopped off, whack-a-mole style and that’s just the way this will go….until they run out of heads.
The answer isn’t a bigger stick. It certainly isn’t appeasement and accomodation. It’s simply patience and helping the Afghans rebuild their country.
It took 30 years for this country to get into it’s present condition. And people think it sholud be fixed overnight?
October 2nd, 2006 at 11:45 pm
What a right wing hack says 3 months before he leaves the senate does not mean anything. If by now Americans haven’t learned anything about the NeoConservative agenda of permanent war and their propensity to say any lies or propose any ideas no matter how idiotic or out on left field they may be , then we haven’t learned anything about these guys.
Right now damage control is in full throttle. Republicans want to bury predatorgate. This crap about the Taliban being too powerful is just idiotic. I would not be surprised that before the end of the month Osama will appear captured or dead.
October 3rd, 2006 at 1:27 am
Robert
Do you think that the US people will support the killing of some 15,000,000 Afghans?
Do you think that this will not create more terrorists and anti American sentiment throughout the Moslem world?
If more Moslems hate the US then how is the USA or the world made safer?
Right now the Taliban is drafting one son from every family. While this looks good in that a family cannot lose more than one son, in this part of the world revenge and honour killings are a major part of the culture. Kill the one son drafted and family honour demands that his brothers get their revenge.
Add in the fact that drug money is the major economic engine of this country’s economy (fueled in no small part by US domestic demand for these illicit drugs, another problem that the US is still losing by trying to put more people in jail than to solve a social problem with social means rather than criminal justice system methods, i.e. a bigger stick approach) and you have a situation that simply cannot be won by military methods, at least ones that the US population is willing to support and pay for both economically and in blood.
Much of the violence is not the Taliban but drug lords, war lords and common criminals. It is just a handy label to blame one group for all the problems here when there are many factions who fight each other as often as they fight the west. (Look at the fighting in Shahr-e Buzurg Badakshan province as an example of fractional fighting).
Do you want revenge against the Taliban or peace in this part of the world? If revenge they you will get a continuing escalation of violence until it again hits the US domestically. If peace then it requires aid, reconstruction and reconciliation. This means forgiveness for past acts by both sides.
The US reconciled with the Nazi’s in the late 1940’s. Why not with the Taliban now?
October 3rd, 2006 at 3:10 am
What did I say that could in any fashion ever be interpreted as indicating that I or anyone else would or should support killin 15,000,000 Afghans?
What I did say is that ultimate victory here is dependent on reconstruction. Your second-to-last paragraph indicagtes that you missed that point by arguing against what was a point of agreement.
US demand for ilicit drugs is not fueling the drug market here, Afghan poppy supplies the European market. I have my misgivings about current tactics on that front, by NATO, by he US and by the Afghan government, but no one is listening to me on that point just yet.
There is no need to reconcile with the Taliban. Simple patience and a long term outlook will solve the problem. Essentially one generation of Afghans has to grow up not thinking a state of war is normal. It’ll be a while, but it will happen.
October 3rd, 2006 at 3:49 am
Robert
Your comment about Darwin Roulette lead me to believe that you supported killing all Taliban. In this culture killing will simply lead to more killing. Our security people have estimated he potential pool of AGE (anti-government elements) recruits here at 15,000,000, basically every male in the country.
I am in agreement that reconstruction is essential to long term success here. That coupled with education, governance and other development activities is the key.
However I fear that the window of opportunity for this to be done easily and cost effectively is closing fast if not completely closed. The hardest part of the development work here is managing expectations. I have been told by locals that after the fall of the Taliban things would be perfect within a short time. They did not recognize that it took the western world centuries to achieve stable and prosperous economies.
The current ISAF and NATO strategy of meeting the threat in an almost pure military response has not and will not work.
The 2006 poppy crop will supply 160% of last years demand world wide. Some of it has to be going to the USA and even if not then this surplus affects US supplies, just as US demand effects the economics of Afghan poppy production.
I wish I could be as optimistic as you that the population will eventually think of war as abnormal. When you have ANA (Afghan National Army) officers selling weapons to the Taliban I would not be optimistic that peace will break out soon.
If you don’t mind my asking what sort of role are you in country for? I am working for the UN in reconstruction.
October 3rd, 2006 at 3:50 am
The US and its allies are not doing anything about the root of the problem: The radical elements in Pakistan, who are running Madrassas preaching jihad and training poor Pashtuns that they must liberate Afghanistan. The politico-military establishment in Pakistan has looked sideways at this development for years. Now, you cannot solve the problem in Afghanistan without doing asomething about the radicalised establishment in Pakistan. Correct me, if I am wrong.
October 3rd, 2006 at 5:12 am
I’m the commo guy for a SECFOR element at one of the Regional Commands (South).
I’m going to again take issue with some of what you’ve said.
Every male? That’s certainly a “most dangerous COA” estimate, but hardly realistic. Have you spoken directly to any of the locals?
Darwin Roulette is initiated bythe Taliban, not us. If we were out looking for anyone that scoweled at a US flag or an ISAF patch or wore a black turban that’s be one thing, but that’s nolt what’s going on. The Taliban periodically mass and harrass. Then they get cut down. That’s Darwin Roulette.
Purely military? Never has been. This is my second trip here. In 2003-04, I was in Kabul. We ran Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs). I have a friend from Illinois (http://miserabledonuts.blogspot.com) who was a CA officer and did a lot of reconstruction projects. Right now we are transitioning PRTs here in the South, to the NATO OMLTs, new name, same job.
Have you not seen any new schools, wells, irrigation, tractors, trucks, busses? How about electricity in Kandahar? Have you seen how green Helmand province is? That’s all PRT work.
Baishishtha, What would you have us do in that regard? We aren’t in a position to start closing Madrassas in a different country. This is partof that long term effort I refered to earlier. “Poor Pashtuns” will have to see for themselves which they think is better. You are correct hat this is a problem. Even an elemental problem, but we are addressing it in the way we can given the conditions we have. In addition, while I don’t know that President Musharraf is doing all he can do to fight this problem in his country, I must acknowledge that he is not doing nothing. At some point, in both respects, we have to practice what we preach regarding self-determination.
I also have no problem with the idea that a natural consequence of self-determining toward Jihaddi exteremism is a bullet in the head. With any luck, those facing this choice will factor that in.
At the same time, while we point out Pakistan, we also have very similar problems (radicalized or radicalizing populations sheltered by a government that is nominally friendly and cooperative toward the US and Coalition) in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan, to pick just a few. A pertinent question there, then, is not only how to engage the problem, but where first?
October 3rd, 2006 at 5:47 am
Great Conversation
Over at Donkelphant thre is a great conversation going on in the comments. While I am miffed at Justin Gardner for abdicating victory in Afghanistan just because of Sen. Frist’s comments it was words from “Rick in Afghanistan” that caught my att …..
October 3rd, 2006 at 6:21 am
An Advice for Mr Bush
After September 11, President Bush said he wants Osama bin Laden dead or alive. But he is sound, alive, and relaxes with Chinese green tea, Pakistani can sugar, and Afghani Palau. Go the Pakistan’s province of Waziristan and see Osama’s evil face and his gun everywhere. Last week he celebrated a peace deal with Pakistani generals and mullahs that how will be safe in his sanctuary.
There are signs that Mr Bush is facing a strategic defeat in Afghanistan by supporting a regime that cannot defend itself. In 2001, there were only 9,000, Americans troops inside Afghanistan, and now the total number of foreign military forces increased to more than 40,000, and the security inside Afghanistan is getting worse off on the daily basis. Why should American and other Western soldiers and thousands of innocent Afghans be killed? What for? To keep Karzai and his warlords? To make Pakistani generals and mullahs the ultimate winners?
Pakistani ruling elite knows very well that the Taliban’s perverted Islam and Al-qaida can save Pakistan as a country more than tens of their atomic bombs.
Here is a piece of advice for Mr Bush if he really wants to defeat the terrorist:
1. The US must cajole and provide all kinds of support to the Pashtoon secularist, moderate, and nationalist parties who have been buried alive by Pakistani notorious ISI. ISI has eliminated the smallest does of nationalism and secularism and secularism among Pashtoons, living in both sides of Durand line. The way the Bush administration can defeat Osama and his ideology of terror. This however, is what has been resisted by Pakistani generals and mullahs for more than thirty years. Pakistan successfully marginaled and suppressed modernism, secularism, and moderation among the Pashtoons. Loot at Baluchistan. One of its leaders the late Akbar Bugti who wanted to get rid of the rule of the mad mullah and duplicitous generals in his province. They killed him why? Because he was reading Nietzsche. Once the Taliban’s leaders and Pashtoons start reading Nietzsche that will be Mr Bush’s historical victory. This will be resisted by Pakistani mullah-general elite, because they see the death of Pakistan like Yugoslovakia.
2. Mr Bush must gets rid of warlords from the so-called Northern Alliance. Although Mr Karzai removed them from his cabinet, but his parasitic criminals are still ruling Kabul, and Mr Karzai is their captive. This was the US greatest strategic mistake to ally itself with the remnants of former communist and former Mujahideen warlords. Most of the Afghans hate this parasitic power hungry group, which was propelled to power by the US in 2001. Before the 9/11, this group was a proxy of Iranian and Russians. By bringing this group to power, the US made a huge unbridgeable moral gap. This is an important factor to boasted Taliban’s and Al-qaida’s moral.
Mr Karzai must be replaced by another good Afghan who can play a galvanizing role for peace and security in Afghanistan. This can be done if the Bush administration forms a council of famous Afghan scholars from around the world, tribal leaders, and moderate leaders among the Taliban.
Mr Bush now needs to take a deep breath and initiate a dialogue with the Taliban. There are some moderate elements among them who love Afghanistan, and now know very well what Pakistan has done to them and everyone else in this world.
The Bush administration must get serious with Pakistan and stop being fooled but generals and mullahs who wants to draw upon terrorism and the ideology of perverted Islam for their national interests. In a secret program Pakistani ISI continue to support some of the evil Taliban’s leader by giving them a safe haven in different areas of Pakistan. The ISIS now counts days for the second coming of these Taliban. If Mr Bush manages to kill the last Taliban, he cannot win the war on terrorism, because the progenitors of terror and Al-qaida are living in Pakistan and their leaders are ruling the country’s Pashtoon majority province. Any change of leader in Pakistan won’t cut an ice. No matter who rules in Islamabad, a general, a mullah, or even a lady with Western make-up, Pakistan’s real ruler is the ISI. The ISI functions as a self-serving double-agent; it pleases the US as their friend in the war against terror, and pleases the Taliban and Al-Qaida by pretending it is the true pillar of Islam.
It is a wake-up time for Mr Bush and his administration to save face in Afghanistan, or get defeated miserably like Russians.
Ehsan Azari, Sydney-based Afghan writer.
October 3rd, 2006 at 7:45 am
I know all about the PRT’s. Mostly useless because they are military trying to do something civilian. (This is not a slam against the military; a civilian agency trying to do something military would also be ineffectual.) They spend exorbitant amounts of time in planning and review but not much on actual construction. In this regard they are much the same as when I worked as a civilian for the air force in base maintenance and construction. The overhead was something like 2 to 3 time’s actual production. Civilian construction agencies try to keep overhead to about 15% not 200% plus.
I’ve also have seen a lot of the schools and clinics you speak of. Some good some bad. However there has been no follow up in staffing with teachers, doctors, desks, books, medicine, equipment etc.
There is a big issue here with capacity development. I have been in many offices of MoPW (Ministry of Public Works). They don’t have desks, chairs, computers or any office equipment. They sit on mats on the floor drinking chi (tea) all day because they don’t know what else to do or how to do anything or have any equipment to do it with.
Simply building structures, roads etc does nothing. These assets will rot quickly because there is not the money or knowledge to maintain them.
There is a need for a coordinated effort to develop the country.
Democracy cannot exist without a viable middle class. The middle class has something to lose. The poor have nothing to lose and the rich can take their money elsewhere.
The need is for anti-corruption efforts, education and capacity building.
October 3rd, 2006 at 8:10 am
I used to think Ted Stevens was the worst of the GOP Senators. I was wrong.
First Sen. Frist gives a bill a free ride past the full Senate without so much as a committee hearing by attaching it to a port-security measure that few dared vote against. Now this. And he wants to be the next President?! At this rate, if he does ever win the White House we’d all be left longing for the “good old days” when George W. Bush was President.
October 3rd, 2006 at 10:41 am
Since when has anything Frist says been even credible, much less the definitive last word? The guy says stupid things weekly. This is just the latest installment of stupidity from the Senate majority leader.
October 3rd, 2006 at 5:39 pm
Joshua, Brian, have you been reading all of the comments here? Or just the ones that say that America is winning.
Go back, read Robert, Rick, and Ehsan again. CAREFULLY. For Frist to be wrong, what I hear from these three gents is that the US MUST MUST MUST change the way it is doing things.
Without that change the US will continue to lose, and Frist will continue to be right.
Rick, Robert, Ehsan thank you very very much. What you are saying has been enlightening to say the least. Ehsan, your contributions in particular have been well worth the read.
Thank you from me to all three.
October 4th, 2006 at 10:08 am
Yes probligo, I did read all the comments - but none of that changes either (a) why we invaded Afghanistan in the first place, or (b) the message Frist’s proposal sends to the rest of the world, and particularly to the peoples of Afghanistan and Iraq.
The reason we invaded Afghanistan in the first place was to knock the Taliban out of power. 9/11 may have been the trigger for that, but keep in mind that the Taliban weren’t even recognized as the legitimate rulers of Afghanistan except by a handful of Muslim nations - they had come to power by usurping the legitimate government and forcing it into exile. In other words, the Taliban were already criminals even before they earned America’s specific enmity. To cut a deal that allows them even a limited role in the Afghan government now amounts to granting them legitimacy as rulers in spite of all that, and their partnership with al Qaeda on top of it.
In other words, what Bill Frist is proposing amounts to a conditional surrender to the Taliban. He may try to spin it differently, but it still looks, flies, swims and quacks like a duck. Or in this case, an ugly duckling. Frist may have designs on the White House in 2008, but he’s not acting very Presidential when it comes to confronting America’s enemies.
October 4th, 2006 at 11:08 am
Probligo, I hope I haven’t contributed too mightily tothe impression of having to change tactics here. That’s not what I beleive.
WHat I’ve been trying to point out is that we aren’t getting credit for doing the right things here that we are doing, that it is slow and will take much more patience on the part of absolutely everyone.
Here’s a “patience perspective.” Colonial America had a lot of advantages, especially in regard to commerce, money, resources and infrastructure than 2001 Afghanistan. Yet it took 8 years to win a war for independence, 6 more to devise a working government and a further 5 to develop a peacetime military establishment capable of defending it. In those 19 years, we underwent a failed government, 2 open rebellions, Indian wars, a near military coup and the sight of disaffected Soldiers running Congress out of Philadelphia.
19 years, all that adversity, and yet the general public is getting antsy because we have been involved here for 5?
Have you looked at Korea lately? They *think* they’ll be ready to be responsible for their own defense in another 6 years.
Rick: if you know of a firm that will come in to do reconstruction work that will also handle their own security, pleasr let me know who they are. I have contacts that would like to know. The securithy not as bad as portrayed, but it is still a dangerous place.
I got to drive through Kandahar again last night. Used to be when we traveled through there, you never saw a soul, let alone a lit lamp (how about that, electricity in Kandahar) after the sun went down. Since Operation Medusa, the city is open all night. You can’t tell me it’s a coincidence.
October 4th, 2006 at 2:41 pm
What a wonderfull and civil discussion going on here.
What makes me sick is that here we are caught up in Afghanistan and Iraq wars when a legitimate reason for war is SCREAMING for our attention and action:
We must enter Darfur and stop the genocide.
October 4th, 2006 at 4:17 pm
Lee:
Wait until a thousand U.S. troops die by suicide attacks, snipers, IEDs, ect… because of the inevitable bloody Jihadist Insurgency where every militant from Somalia to Morrocco will flood into the country to resist the evil Satanic occupier, all in the name of Allah. You’ll change your tune.
October 4th, 2006 at 6:07 pm
Hey Dimmi, how ’bout that!! We agree!!!! But for different reasons.
There are essentially two problems with “doing something” about Dafur.
You have the first.
The second is that the UN, sorry, … The African nations have had “a presence” there. Unfortunately their effectiveness is zero, not through any fault of the troops or the command but as a result of -
NO COOPERATION from the Sudanese government
NO MONEY. Yep, unfortunately other nations do not have the bottomless “defence” budget that the US has. That puts constraints on their ability to act. Unfortunately, 10% of $9 billion is still a whole lot less than 5% of $9 trillion.
Perhaps Lee Nelson can suggest why we (the West) did nothing for the 25 years Dafur was going prior to 9/11?