What say the board? Afghanistan - time to withdraw?

[Master of Ossus]

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."

I'm also a little incredulous that the Coalition can do a better job at protecting Afghan civilians. The latest statistics suggest that Afghan civilians basically haven't been killed by either side in the fighting while we've been maintaining these "outposts.' You're more likely to be murdered in the US or London than an Afghan civilian is to be killed by the War.

[Aaron]

snip

He'll snap out of it after his first tour, or when his first buddy comes back maimed.

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.

I think I've mentioned before that we're likely looking at at least a generation before things start to truly take root and probably until the current generation in power is dead and gone for strident resistance to what we are attempting to do to stop.

Do we have the patience for it? I fear we don't.

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?

Like you say, it depends. In this case what form of oppression are we talking about? If it's violent, then it would be best for them to just limit their contribution to engineering and administrative units, along with cash.

I'm also a little incredulous that the Coalition can do a better job at protecting Afghan civilians. The latest statistics suggest that Afghan civilians basically haven't been killed by either side in the fighting while we've been maintaining these "outposts.' You're more likely to be murdered in the US or London than an Afghan civilian is to be killed by the War.

Perhaps, but it wasn't to long ago that the AFghan government was complaining about civvie deaths from airstrikes. So while it may be more dangerous to live in the US or London, someone over there obviously feels differently.

[Master of Ossus]

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?

Like you say, it depends. In this case what form of oppression are we talking about? If it's violent, then it would be best for them to just limit their contribution to engineering and administrative units, along with cash.

Until the recent rioting (which, like I said, it seems to me the Uighurs started and then continuously exacerbated) the worst the Human Rights Groups were able to come up with was that China had been suppressing their culture by doing things like moving an out-door market and paying ethnic Chinese settlers to move into the region.

Perhaps, but it wasn't to long ago that the AFghan government was complaining about civvie deaths from airstrikes. So while it may be more dangerous to live in the US or London, someone over there obviously feels differently.

People in the US and London complain about their crime rates, too. That doesn't mean that we should remove police from rural areas and move them all in to protect the city. (Also, I think that the majority of those complaints were from before the last year or so, which is the period covered by my statistics--clearly if it ever were a problem, the airstrike issue is gone, now, since it poses no credible threat to civilians in the country).

Moreover, the government's complaining about death-by-airstrike, but that's not equivalent to thinking that it's safer for all non-urban areas to go without a Coalition presence.

[Simon_Jester]

There's a psychological difference in the public mind between someone who drops a big expensive bomb and kills thirty people and some unconnected murders that kill thirty people. Dropping a bomb is a very deliberate act that (indirectly) requires many people to cooperate, so it's harder to interpret as bad luck. It winds up looking more like a deliberate policy on the part of the bomb-dropper and less the result of perfectly ordinary everyday bad things happening.

"Thirty people murdered this week" could just mean that thirty individual people got very drunk and went berserk or something, separately and independently. It's bad, but there's no specific entity you can blame for it. But when an Air Force bomb kills thirty people you DO have someone to blame: the Air Force.

It doesn't help that the US has spent the past twenty years building up a reputation as the guys who never miss. If we never miss, then any time we kill a big pile of civilians, it must have been on purpose, right?

[Aaron]

Until the recent rioting (which, like I said, it seems to me the Uighurs started and then continuously exacerbated) the worst the Human Rights Groups were able to come up with was that China had been suppressing their culture by doing things like moving an out-door market and paying ethnic Chinese settlers to move into the region.

If that's the case, then fair enough. Invite them in.

People in the US and London complain about their crime rates, too. That doesn't mean that we should remove police from rural areas and move them all in to protect the city. (Also, I think that the majority of those complaints were from before the last year or so, which is the period covered by my statistics--clearly if it ever were a problem, the airstrike issue is gone, now, since it poses no credible threat to civilians in the country).

Again, fair enough.

Moreover, the government's complaining about death-by-airstrike, but that's not equivalent to thinking that it's safer for all non-urban areas to go without a Coalition presence.

The abandonment of rural areas isn't the worlds greatest idea I grant you, considering the last I heard was that Kabul and the area around Kandahar was fairly safe. Unfortunately we don't seem to have enough troops to go around. The solution to that is pretty obvious; get more men. Unfortunately most NATO has been reluctant to deploy more. I'm hoping that this withdraw is going to somehow increase recruitment for the Afghan Army/Police, because that seems to be the only way of addressing the issue of not enough guys to go around.

[The Spartan]

Not just the Uighurs. The Taliban had tried to start several militant campaigns into China before the US invaded.

I was not aware of that.

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.

That's kind of what I was wondering.

But in any case, why wouldn't we want China involved if they suppress Uighurs?

My comment to that effect is dependent upon the Uighurs being innocent, in so far as a group of people can be. My thinking was avoiding the kind of long term problems that can crop up when we allow or actively help a group of people who are not overtly hostile to us be oppressed because the oppressor happens to be a convenient ally. It seems to me that we'd end up shifting the problem from where it is now into Uighur territory or basically expanding it include said territory.

On the other hand, if they're already actively siding with the Taliban, well, at that point, why not get the Chinese to move in.

[Garibaldi]

If you define "winning" as "Eliminating the Taliban", that will only happen if we can eliminate the safezones in Pakistan and that's something only Pakistan can do. Until they get their shit together the best thing to do would be to define "winning" as "keeping Afghanistan out of Taliban hands", start cutting deals with warlords and the more amenable Taliban leaders and basically granting them various provinces as fiefdoms if they can keep the Taliban out. Keep some troops in the area to prop up Kabul and a few airbases to make sure the Taliban can't mount any conventional offensives like they did back in the early 90's. This way we reach an acceptable result with minimum expenditure while we work on brokering some sort of political solution, either by reconciling the majority of the Taliban or convincing the Pakistanis to launch a full-court press.

[Guardsman Bass]

The Taliban only took most of Afghanistan in the first place because Pakistan was supporting them to the hilt with intel, money, training, and weapons via the ISI. Even then, they were never able to take the entire country (there were hold-outs in the northeast) - and their government folded fairly quickly when the US started backing up the warlords.

Could we do something like that again, if necessary? Get out, but prop up whatever coalition or groups that arise to fight the Taliban with money, weaponry, and so forth? It'd be bloody, but it would probably be something you could get the Chinese and Russians to assist in - and you might be able to keep the Taliban struggling to simply take over the pashtun south of Afghanistan, much less the entire country.

Otherwise, it just sounds like a helluva long haul, since unless you can convince the Pakistanis to join in a massive effort to clean out the FATA and NWFP of the Taliban and their ilk, you're basically stuck trying to do population-centric counter-insurgency in Afghanistan until the government can get their asses in gear - and even then, we'd still probably be paying to prop up that government forever (Afghanistan's government has anemic sources of revenue, so good luck supporting a large military without outside funding).

[JME2]

Should the US withdraw from Afghanistan?

Well, the British couldn't do it, the Soviets couldn't, and the third time's not the charm, either. Let's get the fuck out of there and end yet another wonderful quagmire courtesy of the US military industrial complex....

[Jim Raynor]

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?

Agreed, sunk costs is not a good argument. A better way to interpret Sea Skimmer's point (and which I believe is what he was actually trying to say) is that we're talking about pulling out when the coalition forces haven't exercised all possible options yet.

The US has applied just a fraction of its military power in Afghanistan, thanks in large part to Bush's dumbass diversion in Iraq. Even with an Iraq pullout guaranteed, and the allied Iraqi government wanting us out of their country within a couple of years, there are more US troops in Iraq right now than Afghanistan. The war against the Taliban hasn't exactly been large scale by historical standards. The coalition has suffered about 180 deaths per year there since the fighting started in 2001. We lost several times as many troops in Iraq within a shorter period of time. Are the losses in Afghanistan too much that too much? If they are, what kind of war in the future won't be too much to handle? I don't want to sound heartless; even a few deaths are tragic. But there is a mission in Afghanistan, and these are the people who harbored Al Qaeda while they plotted terrorist attacks around the world (as opposed to Iraq, which had no ties to Al Qaeda contrary to Bush's lies). This isn't just a US mission, it's a NATO mission plus a number of other countries from around the world (as opposed to Iraq, which was a US war with a few allies pulled in by Bush against the will of the world community). If we leave Afghanistan the world community will look even more impotent to effect change in various shithole countries. It's not outlandish to think that ignoring Afghanistan will galvanize the terrorists and just lead to the same problems arising again in a few years.

I'm not saying to fight on no matter the cost. I just think that there is a worthy reason to continue the fight in Afghanistan, and that the coalition hasn't given its best effort yet. And if we must pull out at some point? I'd like to see small numbers of troops remain in the country to ensure that the Taliban never take control of it again, along with perpetual UAV attacks.

[irishmick79]

What would an adequate amount of manpower be for coalition forces? If the strategy is to deploy fire bases in the rural areas and entice direct attacks from the Taliban, what kind of strength would you need to make that strategy work? If you're focusing on holding Kabul and Kandahar and some of the major cities, do you need as much strength? How the heck do you calculate this kind of thing?

[Darth Wong]

I'm afraid I'm too busy lately for much extended participation in what is clearly a very difficult subject area. This is one of those few areas where I feel compelled to use that terribly overused "Mindless Middle" line where you say that both sides make good points, even if it makes me cringe as I say it.

[Setzer]

I feel as if we pull out now the only people able to impose order will be the Taliban. After a decade or two of warfare, Sharia Law looks like a respite from all the chaos. We look on it as horrible, but if your neighborhood had been fought over by various warlords for years on end, you'd probably welcome someone imposing order, even if having a close cropped beard can now land you in jail.

Frankly, the Taliban want us to withdraw. Their whole warfighting strategy is built around outlasting us, and if we withdraw with no native Aghfan government able to govern the country, we're just going to be back where we were before 2001, except now the Taliban have the prestige of having fought the Americans and won.

[Darth Wong]

Of course it would be a disaster if we simply pull out. But there is a real feasibility issue here: the hard fact is that the people have a limited tolerance for overseas charity. If they thought they were doing it to defend themselves in some way, that would be different. But if they think they're doing it entirely for someone else's benefit, they will eventually lose patience, and when they lose patience, they will politically force the civilian leadership to bring those troops home.

The citizens of the British Empire accepted that they might end up occupying foreign lands for a hundred years or more, but the citizens of America want finite, short commitments.

[erik_t]

Well, a key difference is that the British did not seem to think that, by the end of those hundred years, the lands should/would be "foreign" anymore. They surely saw it as a commitment, but it was a commitment to the larger Empire of the future, not to a bunch of uncivilized yahoos.

[Jim Raynor]

What would an adequate amount of manpower be for coalition forces? If the strategy is to deploy fire bases in the rural areas and entice direct attacks from the Taliban, what kind of strength would you need to make that strategy work? If you're focusing on holding Kabul and Kandahar and some of the major cities, do you need as much strength? How the heck do you calculate this kind of thing?

They're abandoning the strategy of maintaining at least a low level of control over the rural areas, instead handing over the territory to the Taliban as coalition forces are pulled back to secure the major population centers. The top general in Afghanistan believes this strategy will need more troops, and is requesting an additional 40,000 US troops. Right now thereare about 62,000 US troops (6,000 more on the way), 35,000 non-US coalition troops, and 80,000 Afghan national army troops in the country. From what I've been reading Obama isn't very fond of the idea of sending in tens of thousands more troops.

I mentioned that small base where 8 US troops were killed a few days ago, a few days before it was to be abandoned. Well, here are the estimated Taliban casualties:

The firefight in Kamdesh left eight Americans, three Afghans and an estimated 100 insurgents dead, according to NATO. Insurgents fought their way into the base during the battle, a rare breach of security that underscored how thinly manned the post was. It was the largest loss of U.S. life in a single skirmish in more than a year.

The Kamdesh base was largely burned down during the violence. But U.S. Master Sgt. Thomas Clementson said the damage did not affect the timing of the withdrawal and the U.S. was "just days" away from pulling out when the attack happened.

Clementson said coalition forces destroyed what was left of the outpost. The action was likely taken to prevent insurgents from using the base.

Speaking by telephone from an undisclosed location, Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said the U.S. bombarded the outpost with airstrikes after leaving, as well as the local police headquarters.

"This means they are not coming back," Mujahid said. "This is another victory for Taliban. We have control of another district in eastern Afghanistan."

"Right now Kamdesh is under our control, and the white flag of the Taliban is raised above Kamdesh," Mujahid said.

So the US and allied Afghan forces fought back the attack with approximately a 10 to 1 kill ratio, yet still allowed the Taliban to declare victory over the area. To be fair, I'm not a professional strategist and I haven't been there, so I can't speak in certain terms about what should have been done. It does sound pretty bad that the base was actually breached, and I've read that in addition to the 8 dead there were 24 wounded Americans (out of an original total of 49). If they chose to reinforce the base with just another platoon or two, I seriously doubt the Taliban would be able to threaten them like that again.