What say the board? Afghanistan - time to withdraw?

[hongi]

People have been stumbling from one corner of Afghanistan to another, suppressing the Taliban where they show up but not really achieving anything of value. That's no way to win a war. The government is hopelessly corrupt (for God's sakes, Karzai and his cronies practically stole the election) and I trust their competancy as far as I can throw them. The Taliban seemingly have an endless spawn hack, and with their safe havens effectively beyond the reach of Coalition forces, not to mention Pakistan, we'll never get rid of them.

So at the end of the day, there's a metric ton of problems and seemingly no solution to any of them. Just take the example of the rampant opium trade. It was bad in 2004, it's worse in 2009 and no one can dislodge it without upsetting the warlords and sending them to the Taliban's side. What can be done?

[Simon_Jester]

None of those reasons for involvement have changed. Atheist Rhetorical God knows I'm not a fan of war, but the alternative to continuation is absolute complicity in the creation of an immediately failing nation-state in the most politically sensitive area of the world. If we pull out now, the Karzai government will fail almost instantly and collapse into a seething mass of corrupt looters trying to seize whatever they can, while regional warlords maneuver for control of drug trafficking and local power. ("But isn't that what we have now lol?" Please no straw men this early in the thread.) After the fighting is over, you know who'll be on top? That's right, viciously anti-Western militant Islamic fundamentalists. Iran has problems of its own, but does anybody want a multinational tumor of fundamentalism worming metastitic tentacles into Pakistan and Iraq like some kind of... I don't know, Axis of Evil?

The Afghan fundamentalists are Wahhabis, who think of Shi'ites as being the cockroach in their delicious holy Islamic community salad, so they probably won't be metastasizing into Iran. But Pakistan is fair game, and is probably more important because its government is wobblier.

If Iran's government collapses it will be because of a revolt against fundamentalism, not towards it.

Stay till we get Bin Laden, then pull out saying the jobs done. The only way we can win a good PR victory is to drop or capture(much better alive) Bin Laden then start pulling out and switch to aid only. If Afghanistan goes back to being a third world shit hole, sorry but oh well. I'd rather have a friendly Pakistan than a dozen America Junior Afghanistan.

But as far as we can tell, bin Laden isn't in Afghanistan; he's on the Pakistani side of the border, where we conspicuously do not put boots on the ground.

[Sea Skimmer]

The Afghan fundamentalists are Wahhabis, who think of Shi'ites as being the cockroach in their delicious holy Islamic community salad, so they probably won't be metastasizing into Iran. But Pakistan is fair game, and is probably more important because its government is wobblier.

The Pakistani hill tribal areas are the same peoples as Afghanistan, and have no real ethnic link to the rest of the Pakistani valley populations. The British damn well knew this when they drew the boarder, and indeed many British officers didn’t want to incorporate the area into Indian because they knew it’d mean constant fighting (and it did, it’s just the populations involved were a tiny fraction of what they are now). However as the British feared Russian invasion through Afghanistan, they decided they HAD to have a boarder along the high line of the mountain passes, or else they might not be able to hold those passes in wartime. So when it was decided to create Afghanistan as a buffer state, they carved those hills off and kept them.

As a result you can’t have a war which respects the boarder, because the people never have and the boarder makes even less sense then most the British drew. This 30 year lack of any combined military operation that acknowledges this problem is half the reason why the fighting is seemingly unending. Its not that the enemy is all that strong, it’s just they can always literally walk ~20 miles across three or four ridgelines and find safety going east or west. This takes just a few days to accomplish even if you can only move in short hops between hiding spots.

On the Iranian end, you could walk right across the boarder, though Iran is at the moment building a rather large fence and wall system, but it would do you no good because you’d then need to walk another 350 miles to reach any area with a major population. The terrain is also open enough that the Iranians can easily employ tanks and heavy artillery too.

[RedImperator]

So at the end of the day, there's a metric ton of problems and seemingly no solution to any of them. Just take the example of the rampant opium trade. It was bad in 2004, it's worse in 2009 and no one can dislodge it without upsetting the warlords and sending them to the Taliban's side. What can be done?

Legalize it in the West. Or, failing that, just buy the opium ourselves and dump it in the ocean.

[Themightytom]

Not to defend Cheney/Bush, but I think it's a huge huge stretch to say that the main problem was ignoring the place in favor of Iraq.

Well ideologically we would have had a stronger campaign, both to the people in Afghanistan and to the world at large. We might have a larger degree of support from others if we were legitimately weeding out terrorism and addressing a sneak attack that killed thousands. We also dumped considerable resources into Iraq that couldd have been well used in Afghanistan.

All of these things are true, but how does (eg) worldwide political support for our efforts compare to the basic problem of bringing central government to a large rugged wilderness of a country that has never really had it and does not appear to want it?

Well if you treat them as seperate problems then its true that Afghanistan has historically been a tough nut to crack for the reasons you describe.

On the other hand worldwide political support makes the problem that much easier to solve. logistically and ideologically. We are in a recruitment war as far as the Afghani people are conccerned we have to be more persuasive than the Taliban and make the Afghani not only NOT sympathetic, but active participants in fighting the taliban. Thats easier to do when our motives aren't questioned. That is where international validation and participation comes into play. Sure you can discount the meddlesom brits, and the imperialistic brits, but if the Chinese and the russians show up saying "Uh we don't like the Americans either but the Taliban is REALLY a problem" you have to stop and take notice.

Plan B, ZOUNDS of troops EveryWhere for Decades and eventually a whole generation grows up with exposure to international ideologies and starts rebelling against narrow minded parents.

[Sriad]

None of those reasons for involvement have changed. Atheist Rhetorical God knows I'm not a fan of war, but the alternative to continuation is absolute complicity in the creation of an immediately failing nation-state in the most politically sensitive area of the world. If we pull out now, the Karzai government will fail almost instantly and collapse into a seething mass of corrupt looters trying to seize whatever they can, while regional warlords maneuver for control of drug trafficking and local power. ("But isn't that what we have now lol?" Please no straw men this early in the thread.) After the fighting is over, you know who'll be on top? That's right, viciously anti-Western militant Islamic fundamentalists. Iran has problems of its own, but does anybody want a multinational tumor of fundamentalism worming metastitic tentacles into Pakistan and Iraq like some kind of... I don't know, Axis of Evil?

The Afghan fundamentalists are Wahhabis, who think of Shi'ites as being the cockroach in their delicious holy Islamic community salad, so they probably won't be metastasizing into Iran. But Pakistan is fair game, and is probably more important because its government is wobblier.

If Iran's government collapses it will be because of a revolt against fundamentalism, not towards it.

You're right; I too busy laying out purple prose left and right to be precise: Iran is a problem because it's next door to Iraq, lending a hand to insurgents (also because they allegedly want to turn Israel into radioactive dust, but that is for another thread); right next door would be Afghanistan which if we left now would be a problem because it would collapse into a Wahhabi fundamentalist regime and kamikaze the living hell out of Pakistan.

The easy way to define Victory is in the negative: establish a situation where the above WON'T happen when we leave. The devil in the details is that about a dozen very hard things need to happen to make it likely, including weed out corruption in their government, establish faith in that government, extend security across the country instead of a couple miles out of Kabul, make opium farming less profitable than growing food (or else subsume it into pharmacological production of morphine), raise the standard of living in rural Afghanistan to the point where killing yourself for promises of paradise seems like a bad idea, and flush the remains of Al'Qaeda out of the Pakistan border. No problem, right?

I can see why we should remain realistic about our chances, it's just that walking away leads directly to catastrophic (further) regional destabilization.

[Elfdart]

So at the end of the day, there's a metric ton of problems and seemingly no solution to any of them. Just take the example of the rampant opium trade. It was bad in 2004, it's worse in 2009 and no one can dislodge it without upsetting the warlords and sending them to the Taliban's side. What can be done?

Legalize it in the West. Or, failing that, just buy the opium ourselves and dump it in the ocean.

That might be the best long-term solution to the problem: the Afghans get money, the opium is under strict control, and it won't cost any lives to do it.

Otherwise, it's time to either shit or get off the pot: either send in half a million troops to police every border and every village and effectively make Afghanistan another star on the flag, or pull out completely and immediately.

[Sea Skimmer]

So at the end of the day, there's a metric ton of problems and seemingly no solution to any of them. Just take the example of the rampant opium trade. It was bad in 2004, it's worse in 2009 and no one can dislodge it without upsetting the warlords and sending them to the Taliban's side. What can be done?

Legalize it in the West. Or, failing that, just buy the opium ourselves and dump it in the ocean.

That does not work, not at all, without a major consistent effort to first separate the Taliban from the population… at which point the drug problem goes away already. You see in most cases the farmers growing opium are not doing so free lance, instead they are doing so on contract from the Taliban, often because they have gotten loans from them after other corps failed. Either they deliver drugs, they repay the loan, or else the Taliban will simply take children or women as payment instead. Assuming they don’t just kill the farmer and his whole family to make an example. A large number of independent drug gangs also run rackets like this, and give a portion of the funds to the Taliban not as tribute but simply to ensure the Taliban runs interference against counter drug operations. So the US buying opium isn’t stopping the Taliban from making money at all, in fact it would be short cutting the entire process and making life easier for them. They just walk up and take the farmers money at gunpoint, no need to go to the trouble of drug smuggling at all.

Unfortunately population control methods have been almost entirely lacking. The US has attempted a small outpost strategy in the last several years, but it has failed for insufficient manpower and because the US is not also pursuing a policy of removing populations in areas which are too exposed, and of fortifying villages and arming local defense forces (people are far more likely the fight reliably to defend a home village then as part of a national army). We need a large cross boarder offensive meanwhile, to crush the larger armed groups the Taliban have been forming recently. This would ensure that fortified hamlets, which worked very effectively in Vietnam and Thailand, do not face especially large attacks they could not withstand for lack of heavy weaponry.

[Simon_Jester]

The Pakistani hill tribal areas are the same peoples as Afghanistan, and have no real ethnic link to the rest of the Pakistani valley populations... So when it was decided to create Afghanistan as a buffer state, they carved those hills off and kept them.

As a result you can’t have a war which respects the boarder, because the people never have and the boarder makes even less sense then most the British drew. This 30 year lack of any combined military operation that acknowledges this problem is half the reason why the fighting is seemingly unending. Its not that the enemy is all that strong, it’s just they can always literally walk ~20 miles across three or four ridgelines and find safety going east or west. This takes just a few days to accomplish even if you can only move in short hops between hiding spots.

Yes, I know. I feel the same way, and I think it's stupid too.

On the Iranian end, you could walk right across the boarder, though Iran is at the moment building a rather large fence and wall system, but it would do you no good because you’d then need to walk another 350 miles to reach any area with a major population. The terrain is also open enough that the Iranians can easily employ tanks and heavy artillery too.

If anything, the political terrain that Afghan fundamentalists face going into Iran is even worse than the physical terrain, as I said before.

[Master of Ossus]

The Iranians absolutely hate the Taliban. They almost got into a shooting war after the Taliban lynched some of their diplomats in 1999 or 2000.

The real problems I see in Afghanistan are:
1. Conflicting missions with regards to economic development and opium poppies--it's hard to develop a country by eliminating its main source of income (indeed, it's not even clear to me what Afghanistan would export if the country were completely secure).
2. Inability to distinguish effectively between tribal militias and Taliban forces--in many areas there is no practical difference but they are treated completely differently, and the tribal militias are in fact necessary because the ANA is not anywhere near large enough to police the area
3. Lack of willingness on the part of Pakistan to effect anything sensible to eliminate the Taliban or Al Qaeda
4. An undeveloped government hat provides no clear benefits, such that people really have no desire to be governed
5. Total lack of infrastructure

I'm not sure which of these problems the Coalition is trying to remedy, and some of them seem not to be reparable. I'm not terribly invested in Karzai, personally, but I'm also not willing to write off any attempt at an Afghan government--even if it merely comprises the main cities--provided that they're willing to eliminate Al Qaeda and their stupid jihadists.

I think that China should play a much bigger role in Afghanistan than they're doing, so if I were Obama I would call them up and see if they want to help out.

[Surlethe]

Does anyone know how good the Afghani court system is, or where I can find out about it?

[Count Chocula]

The US has attempted a small outpost strategy in the last several years, but it has failed for insufficient manpower and because the US is not also pursuing a policy of removing populations in areas which are too exposed, and of fortifying villages and arming local defense forces (people are far more likely the fight reliably to defend a home village then as part of a national army).

A chicken in every pot, and an AK-47 beside every pot, perhaps? This actually sounds like a workable strategy. From what I know from browsing the CIA factbook, Afghanistan is a piss-poor country. However, the people of Afghanistan certainly don't lack for spirit and seem to be cooperating with the US/UK/Canadian/Other forces as best they can. I could easily see better results WRT both the extortion-of-opium and the Taliban-opposing majority of Afghanistan if they had the means to resist armed gangs. A few million dollars worth of rifles, ammunition and training in a state where the per capita income is only $700 per year would go very far, especially if as Sea Skimmer suggested we kept heavy forces on hand to counter Taliban or drug gangs with heavy weapons.

[Jim Raynor]

I've been reading a lot lately about the military's plan to abandon small rural outposts (which will obviously surrendur territory to the Taliban) in order to concentrate forces in the big cities like Kabul in order to provide security the majority of the Afghan civilian population. Yet I recall reading an online Newsweek article as recently as last year by some "expert" stating the complete opposite: that the US should forget about the big cities and go for a small outpost strategy that would control the Taliban's rural territory and encourage open attacks on smaller, supposedly more manageable groups of US forces. Because insurgent forces tend to fail hard whenever they come out to play with real armies. According to that article Afghans have historically not given a shit about the central government in Kabul anyway, which was all the more reason to go for a small outpost strategy.

A lot of the war coverage over the last few days have focused on the battle at Forward Operating Base Keating, where 8 US troops were unfortunately killed. But how many Taliban lost their lives in the fight? Is the military pursuing the correct strategy right now?

[hongi]

I've been reading a lot lately about the military's plan to abandon small rural outposts (which will obviously surrendur territory to the Taliban) in order to concentrate forces in the big cities like Kabul in order to provide security the majority of the Afghan civilian population.

Bad decision,. What about those people in the rural areas?

"Sorry chums, you're going to have to wing it on your own. When the Taliban comes knocking, try not to be friendly. Bye."

[weemadando]

David Kilcullen during his Pritzker Military Library lecture talked about a point which I feel is relevant - when the Allied forces had the greatest success was when they were there in a supporting role - it was the anti-Taliban Afghans who took the territory, the cities and fought most of the battles.

Since then - following more than 7 years of neglect by the main contributor (and original instigator) it's impossible to get it back without radically altering the gameplan. The Afghan army and police need to be top notch and be doing most of the legwork. A counter-insurgency campaign really can't be won with foreign troops - Iraq only started to become functional when local resources and forces were able to be brought up to scratch.

Then there's the Pakistan problem. If we pull out of Afghanistan entirely and cede it to the warlords (and lets face it, we will be, regardless of how many votes Karzai can fake from his office in Kabul) then there is a high likelihood that the Pakistani gov't will have to step up it's anti-Taliban campaigns to a level where it's going to further radicalize it's population and risk becoming the new Iraq as a haven for foreign fighters. Worst case, India loses it's shit and it's on for young and old following a second Mumbai style attack.

My thoughts would be to pump an ungodly amount of resources into generating a trustworthy, reliable and efficient ANA and ANP. Support them by all means, but we can't be on the frontlines continually. By the same measure, like Kilcullen talks about in that lecture - we're aiming too high. We want to establish a High Court and Legal System when what they are crying out for is a local policeman. They want to build massive infrastructure projects but overlook local quickfixes which may be enough to sway the locals in the area enough to tip off ISAF next time the Taliban roll through.

[hongi]

I think that China should play a much bigger role in Afghanistan than they're doing, so if I were Obama I would call them up and see if they want to help out.

What incentive does China have to get involved?

[The Spartan]

What incentive does China have to get involved?

Do the Taliban offer any support (money, training, what have you) to the Uighurs? If so, China might be inclined to go after the Taliban.

That said, I seem to recall that the Chinese government suppresses the Uighurs and that is what's leading to the problems with them, and if I'm correct about that, getting the Chinese involved might not be what we want to do.

[open_sketchbook]

I'm joining the military once I get out of college. That's going to be, what, two, three years? When I do, I hope we're still in Afghanistan. We are talking about one of the poorest, most oppressed and generally more fucked up country in the world... or at least, we were. Despite setbacks from both outside and in, the country has improved in leaps and bounds ever since we arrived. Sometimes, I think you just need a bigger power to sit on the fucking crazies and give an incentive to improvement, because if my knowledge of history has taught me anything, it's that things don't just magically get better. If we want to stick to our humanist creed of reducing suffering, we have to ride it out and we have to step up and be ready to accept what that means, for years or decades if necessary. Despite all of our problems at home, it would be so foolish of us to say that some economic hiccups in the richest countries of the world outweighs our responsibility to the global reduction of suffering, which includes, as much as some of us loath to admit it, military action.

[Knife]

I'm joining the military once I get out of college. That's going to be, what, two, three years? When I do, I hope we're still in Afghanistan. We are talking about one of the poorest, most oppressed and generally more fucked up country in the world... or at least, we were. Despite setbacks from both outside and in, the country has improved in leaps and bounds ever since we arrived. Sometimes, I think you just need a bigger power to sit on the fucking crazies and give an incentive to improvement, because if my knowledge of history has taught me anything, it's that things don't just magically get better. If we want to stick to our humanist creed of reducing suffering, we have to ride it out and we have to step up and be ready to accept what that means, for years or decades if necessary. Despite all of our problems at home, it would be so foolish of us to say that some economic hiccups in the richest countries of the world outweighs our responsibility to the global reduction of suffering, which includes, as much as some of us loath to admit it, military action.

I find this statement a little odd. First of all, you hope they are still dirt poor and suffering under insurgents and rebels three years from now so you can catch some of the fun and glory when you graduate and join the military? You may not have directly said that, but one can infer it readily enough from your statement. Second, perseverance is truly a noble trait, and yet doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different outcome and not getting it is just insanity. Lets not forget, this is the start of year 9 of this thing.

[open_sketchbook]

... obviously that's not what I mean. As it is, we're looking at leaving before the job is done. Hey, if we magically fix the place up before I join up, hooray! Less chance for me to get blown up. But odds are that won't be the case.

Year nine is it? Le gasp! Things that are worth it take time, and effort, and lots of money, and the deployment of fighting men and women halfway around the world! We've never really tried to do something like this before, to honestly fix up a whole country. It's probably going to take some time. However, things have improved since we've booted the Taliban and generally have gotten steadily better ever since. Meanwhile, to use your example of doing something over and over and expecting the same result, every time Afghanistan has been left to it's own devices as a dirt-poor, warlord infested opium exporting shithole, it ends up being a horrible place to live. Surprise, surprise.

[erik_t]

By what measure have things gotten steadily better in Afghanistan since the allied nations invaded? How is it not a dirt-poor warlord-infested shithole now?

Your post reads like a lot of RAH RAH WE JUST GOTTA TRY HARDER flaghumping.

[open_sketchbook]

Lets get the obvious out of the way; there isn't a crazy theocratic dictatorship in charge anymore. Warlords are steadily being replaced with (or occasionally becoming) elected local officials. Corruption has been decreasing (though very slowly, unfortunately), there is a fairly professional and trained military that is increasingly able to defend the population, and a trained police force is taking steadily taking shape (a real step up from the gangs of religious fanatics with sticks). There are schools for girls that are actually attended by a surprisingly large percentage of the population, not to mention a more robust educational system in general that is and has been falling into place; arguable this is the most important bit. Infrastructure, mostly in the capital, is getting a lot better, and the country has a cell-phone communication network now making economic and humanitarian efforts more effective through better communication. Communities that used to be isolated are increasingly in contact with the rest of the country. Hospitals have improved drastically in their ability to care for patients due to better access to medical supplies. Their are women in government. There is a constitution, and, of course, regular elections (so far) While I wouldn't qualify this is good as it is all fairly fragile, you have to admit this is a serious step up from Taliban rule.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Its be really really really stupid to fight for eight years and then withdrawal without having ever even once launched a coordinated offensive on both sides of the boarder. This has never happened in 30 years of fighting in Afghanistan. That is a rather huge factor in why its been able to go on so long.

Sunk costs has been a classic fallacy in economics for how long...and this is a legitimate argument?

[Tiriol]

... obviously that's not what I mean. As it is, we're looking at leaving before the job is done. Hey, if we magically fix the place up before I join up, hooray! Less chance for me to get blown up. But odds are that won't be the case.

Year nine is it? Le gasp! Things that are worth it take time, and effort, and lots of money, and the deployment of fighting men and women halfway around the world! We've never really tried to do something like this before, to honestly fix up a whole country. It's probably going to take some time. However, things have improved since we've booted the Taliban and generally have gotten steadily better ever since. Meanwhile, to use your example of doing something over and over and expecting the same result, every time Afghanistan has been left to it's own devices as a dirt-poor, warlord infested opium exporting shithole, it ends up being a horrible place to live. Surprise, surprise.

First, congratulations if you truly join the military and place yourself at the service of your country, as long as you understand that you may be required to make several sacrifices, maybe the greatest of them all, at a moment's notice.

Secondly: try to think about this from an Afghan's perspective. He doesn't care about world politics or what part his country (or tribe) plays in them. Your average Joe over there wants to finally live in peace and preferrably without having to fear bombings, raiders or local wars. And he hasn't probably noticed any change, besides that he can vote from time to time and that now Western troops are fighting warlord troops who are also fighting among themselves. I don't want to sound rude, but your attitude in your first post DID smell a little bit like some adolescent bragging about honor and glory and fortune to be found in war. I don't think it was intentional, but try to remember that these are real people whose homes are at stake here at all the time. It sounds odd and even perverse to hope that when you graduate from college, the war would still be going on over there. To you, it is (yet) just numbers, statistics and maps; to the people involved, it is hardship, suffering, loss and pain.

Quite frankly if we, the Western world, want to remain in Afghanistan, we have to decide what we want to achieve there and also to remind ourselves that "To get the job done, no matter what the cost!" shouldn't be that reason. Rather the freedom and safety of the people of Afghanistan should be a much more important reason. We want to stop terrorists? We can either blow the entire country up or try to remove the conditions which breed terrorism. The first option is easier, but it would also make us monsters; the second option is much harder and it will require more resources.

[Master of Ossus]

Do the Taliban offer any support (money, training, what have you) to the Uighurs? If so, China might be inclined to go after the Taliban.

Not just the Uighurs. The Taliban had tried to start several militant campaigns into China before the US invaded. Keep in mind: where the US is described by the Taliban as an atheistic state, China is literally an "atheistic state" in that its official position is to oppose religious practices. China also has a reasonably sizeable Islamic population that they're frequently accused of oppressing.

That said, I seem to recall that the Chinese government suppresses the Uighurs and that is what's leading to the problems with them, and if I'm correct about that, getting the Chinese involved might not be what we want to do.

It depends on who you talk you. The Uighurs don't strike me as being particularly innocent, for example, in the recent spate of bloodletting. But in any case, why wouldn't we want China involved if they suppress Uighurs?