A Substantive Post About Afghanistan

Pithlord requested a substantive post about Afghanistan the other day, and I think he's right to call for one. The main contribution to the debate that I think needs to be made is that beyond concrete matters about weapons, money, etc. the United States badly needs to undertake some gesture of commitment and investment to the mission in Afghanistan. We need our NATO allies to do more in Afghanistan. My sense is that a lot of NATO government officials are sympathetic to that message. But as I saw when I was across the Atlantic, European (and, I believe, Canadian) politicians feel enormous from their publics to do less.

In this context, it's an incredible problem for politicians who'd like to be helpful to us that they can't very credibly point to Afghanistan and say "hey! look! this is a huge priority for the United States! it's really important to our bilateral relationship to show that we're valuable allies!" After all, not only is Iraq getting the lions share of American troops and money, it's taking up a wildly disproportionate share of the mindspace. Our commanding general in Iraq is a huge celebrity, relentlessly touted by leading politicians. Nobody can even name his counterpart in Afghanistan. And meanwhile, the president openly brags about how he likes to take the advice of his theater commander over the advice of all his superiors as to how US forces should be deployed.

It all gives the impression of a country that cares a great deal about Iraq and thinks of Afghanistan as a backwater. Well, no European country is going to roll up its sleeves and pitch in in Iraq. And insofar as we don't seem to care about Afghanistan, it's difficult for them to care more than us. After all, it was the United States that got attacked from Afghanistan, and it was from Afghanistan that the United States got attacked.

I can't speak at all to logistics, details, how many brigades would it be useful or feasible to switch from one theater to the next. But in broad political terms, I think it's crucial that the next president put down some very real markers of commitment, and even important that people running for president now indicate that this will be their policy.

Comments

Oh Matt, you and your typos. You wrote "mindspace" when clearly you meant "mind-grapes."

Posted by infirm | February 4, 2008 12:26 PM

there once was a blogger named matt
who was decidedly fat
he thought like he ate, just like an ape
boy oh boy was he crap

Posted by iron pimp hand | February 4, 2008 12:41 PM

"the United States badly needs to undertake some gesture of commitment and investment"

some gesture? WTF?

Posted by HyperIon | February 4, 2008 12:44 PM

I think it's crucial that the next president put down some very real markers of commitment

Commitment to what? What should the mission be?

Posted by Ryan | February 4, 2008 12:46 PM

the United States badly needs to undertake some gesture of commitment and investment to the mission in Afghanistan. We need our NATO allies to do more in Afghanistan.

All snark aside, I have no idea what the "mission" in Afghanistan is at this point. "Prevent chaos" or "Provide Stability" are a) too nebulous to pursue in any kind of effective way and b) not suitable tasks for the sledgehammer that is the US military. If NATO members are reluctant to invest time and resources, it might just be because they reason the futility in doing so. How many troops would really be necessary to really pacify Afghanistan? A quarter million? Half a million? Would doing so provide any benefits we're not getting now from a much smaller presence?

"Focus on Afghanistan" is a nice rhetorical technique for politicians to show that they're "serious" about foreign policy, but. I'm not sure it's wise as a substantive policy

Posted by Mike | February 4, 2008 12:50 PM

After all, it was the United States that got attacked from Afghanistan, and it was from Afghanistan that the United States got attacked.

No it wasn't

Posted by BP | February 4, 2008 12:52 PM

I've been supported the NATO mission in Afghanistan, but I am starting to wonder if there is not something essentially wrong with it.

The Politics. Karzai. The Kabul regime.
In short, why has this guy not been able to pull it together and govern with a minimum of competence and clean hands. I saw his little outburst against the British in Helmland and I detected a red herring in his arguments. He is hiding behing the foreign forces to rationalize his failures to bring a less corrupt government to Afghanistan. Now I think the worse thing we could do is depose him, that is up to the Afghans, but some straight and honest talk about what is going on politically in Afghanistan would go a long way to reassure the Canadian (and I suspect other) public.

http://www.antiwar.com/orig/lohdi.php?articleid=9229

Posted by Northern Observer | February 4, 2008 12:52 PM

OK. AFHG is the number one issue in Canada rigth now, and part of your analysis is off the mark.

It would help a great deal in Canada if the US poured in more troops (in fact the Manley report has additional troops from other NATO allies a condition of Canada maintaining its own committment). But its not the only factor.

See this from Pausl Wells:

I told you about Le Monde's passing mention on the weekend that 700 French paratroopers might be deployed to Kandahar. Now it's the Financial Times Deutschland reporting substantially the same thing ... The FTD's editorial worries that if France takes on a more active combat role, it will be difficult for Germany to keep its own soldiers relatively safe in Afghanistan's northern provinces.

Neither France nor Germany would be changing their Afghanistan policy out of a renewed interest in victory in Afghanistan, and still less out of any particular debt to John Manley, whose report to the Harper government calls for 1,000 new troops alongside Canada's in Afghanistan's south. Instead, both would be bargaining for future advantage. France is considering re-entering NATO's unified command structure in return for changes to that structure; an Afghanistan ante-up would be the quo to match that quid. Germany would like to sit on the UN security council one day (ISAF is, lest we forget, operating under a UN mandate) and is, in any event, often leery of doing more or less on a file than the French do.

The media coverage of the AFGH mission has been wierdly fragmented -- each country has its own mini-narrative (Brits in Helmand, Canadians in Kandahar, Germans in the North, French wanting in, Poland, Romania, etc).

An article, say in the Atlantic, bringing all these thread together and looking at the issue from a Pan-NATO perspective would be very useful.

Posted by PotBoiler | February 4, 2008 12:53 PM

Matt, Matt, Matt . . .

"After all, it was the United States that got attacked from Afghanistan, and it was from Afghanistan that the United States got attacked."

Really. I thought they were Saudis who trained in US flight schools and launched US planes taken over in US airspace at US targets in response to US troops being stationed in Saudi Arabia. Would you suggest we invade and occupy Saudi Arabia, instead?

Afghanistan is not in the North Atlantic. The US, apparently, has no treaty obligations any more. Why should Europeans join the US adventure?

Europeans are a little more sophisticated than the average American-war-mongering-logistically-illiterate blogger. Maybe they know better? Nah, how could that be? Damn foreigners.

Posted by Seedee Vee | February 4, 2008 12:56 PM

The Europeans realize that the Afghan war is just as ridiculous as the Iraq war. The Taliban did not attack us on 9/11. We were right to go after al-Qaeda terrorists and their training camps but not right to start a civil war in Afghanistan as we did in Iraq. I had previously thought we had learned our lesson in Vietnam.

Posted by Sabine Wales | February 4, 2008 12:57 PM

I can say that there's considerable concern in Canada about the Afghanistan mission, esp. as Canadian forces have picked up much of the slack from both American and NATO forces, particularly in highly-dangerous areas like Kandahar. Whenever our next election comes, it'll almost surely be a key issue in it.

Posted by Dr J | February 4, 2008 12:59 PM

Speaking as a Canadian, it's not clear to me what our soldiers are dying for. I say this for the reason Matt mentioned, your lack of commitment to the war, but for other reasons as well.

Your astonishingly bungled strategy (drug war operations which alienated the rural population, bombing villages and labeling those killed Al Qaeda) has lost the war. It's hard to imagine the mayor of Kabul lasting a week if NATO troops left, and that's unlikely to change.

The latest scandal in Canada is that when our soldiers have taken prisoners, we've been passing them off to our allies who have tortured them. I don't understand why we are allied to a country which likes to torture people.

Posted by Ian | February 4, 2008 1:06 PM

The most stabilizing thing the US could do in Afghanistan is to change its drug policies.

Posted by SamChevre | February 4, 2008 1:11 PM

With all due respect to our common hoped-for goals in Afghanistan, I think the time is up on this venture as well. Poorly conceived, executed abominably, Afghanistan is the antithesis of what "should have been". I supported this war initially; but in retrospect, it was a disaster because of Bush and the far-right minions of an ideologically blind far-right authoritarian. It seems now the only real option is talking to the Taliban and maybe power-sharing. What a f***king disaster brought to us from disasters-r-us.

Posted by della Rovere | February 4, 2008 1:17 PM

"It seems now the only real option is talking to the Taliban and maybe power-sharing."

That would be a decision for the elected government to initiate (they have attempted to do so many times), and besides, the Taliban have been repeatedly clear that they will not engage in talks of any kind with anybody until all foreign troops have left. So your only option is, in fact, no option at all. What else you got?

Posted by BruceR | February 4, 2008 1:23 PM

SamChevre is right. We need to at least start winking at farmers growing poppies. As per usual, the consequences of the West's love of drugs and unwillingness to fully legalize them get paid by not us.

Posted by witless chum | February 4, 2008 1:29 PM

I'll join the other commenters in the pile-on and encourage MY to revisit his position on Afghanistan. Was it really such a good idea to go in, after all? Afgh. has a long history of repelling invaders in bloody, drawn-out wars--why would we be any different? The last few years of our experience in that country were ably predicted by Michael Scheuer in Imperial Hubris in 2004, as will be the next several, up to and until we decide to leave that country. As others pointed out above, if Afgh., then why not Saudi Arabia? Perhaps it's time to stop trying to figure out how to meet "our goals" in Afgh. and start figuring how to get our troops out of that mess. I seem to remember a certain liberal blogger occasionally dispensing this same advice with regard to a neighboring country in the region.

Posted by yave begnet | February 4, 2008 1:39 PM

BruceR asks:
What else you got?

Afghanistan has an annual GDP of less than $10 billion. Combined with Iraq's $55 billion GDP that's, what, $65 billion?

The US alone is budgeting around $190 billion for the wars this year: that's three times the combined gross domestic products of Iraq and Afghanistan. Apparently that's not enough to "win". Need more cash. Need more men.

I would start by executing a few dozen generals in the US army pour encourager les autres, and airdropping what's left of the 2008 military budget in small- and medium sized denomination dollar bills over Afghanistan.

Posted by BP | February 4, 2008 1:45 PM

How many Americans are aware that in the past week the US asked Germany to send COMBAT troops to Southern Afghanistan - a huge expansion of the German Afghan military mandate.

Was the subject of huge news and discussion over there - didn't even get a blip on the Britny Spears/Clinton hates Obama and is trying to cheat in Florida media radar over here.

Merkel said "no" by the way.

Posted by Ethel-to-Tilly | February 4, 2008 1:52 PM

One of your worst posts ever, Matt. You're supposed to be a foreign policy expert, but the best you can come up with is for a strategic objective in Afghanistan is "to put down some very real markers of committment".

Committment for the sake of committment, in order to maintain our credibility...soon you really will be a Very Serious and Responsible Foreign Policy Expert.

Posted by mq | February 4, 2008 2:09 PM

One of your worst posts ever, Matt. You're supposed to be a foreign policy expert, but the best you can come up with for a strategic objective in Afghanistan is "to put down some very real markers of committment".

Committment for the sake of committment, in order to maintain our credibility...soon you really will be a Very Serious and Responsible Foreign Policy Expert.

Posted by mq | February 4, 2008 2:09 PM

We need to at least start winking at farmers growing poppies.

More than winking. How much would it cost to buy the whole crop at premium prices, even if you tossed it into a furnace afterwards? A lot less than to run a war, I bet.

And once we're their sole buyer, we can start turning them towards other ways of making money. Not that opium will ever go out of style, though. Even for legitimate uses, there's a good market.
.

Posted by sunsin | February 4, 2008 2:09 PM

We were right to go after al-Qaeda terrorists and their training camps but not right to start a civil war in Afghanistan as we did in Iraq. I had previously thought we had learned our lesson in Vietnam.
Posted by Sabine Wales

It's hard to penetrate the veil of willfull Lefty ignorance, but lets try. If not for your sake, for Atlantic readers.

1. Al Qaeda was never separate from the Taliban. When we whack Al Qaeda, we almost always take out Taliban fighting alongside then. That was true in 2001 and it is true today. They helped AQ attack us in the sense they gave Al Qaeda protection and full logistical support, resources and diplomatic defense to defy extradition - all to help them maintain their terrorist sanctuary and launch attacks killing not just us Americans, but the Shiite Haziri, moderate non-Taliban Pashtun clans, the Northern Alliance leaders.

2. I guess you never heard of the Northern Alliance, the Hazari, the independent Warlords, ex-communists and the Civil War in Afghanistan that has gone on in waves since the 1970s. No, to you, the USA "started everything".

3. I guess you never heard of the Shiite massacres of the 1960s, the Kurd revolt of the 70s, the gassing and bombing of Kurds in the 80s, the Shiite Uprising of 1991 ending in civil war massacre. The USA did not start a civil war. We removed the strongman who was both responsible for much of the past civil war as well as his holding hostile parties apart by fear of Saddam murdering them and their families.

4. The lesson of Vietnam is that we betrayed our treaty with the S Vietnamese and stabbed them in the back when liberal Democrats sold them out. That led to 70-100,000 S Vietnamese being murdered by the new N Vietnamese rulers, 400,000 refugees fleeing by land or boat...and in Cambodia, as consequence of them also being abandoned by Western democracies - 2,500,000 people killed by commies.

+++++++++++++
For the Canadian commentators: Thanks for your country's help. Even the Afghans, also commenting that the NATO strategy is flawed, say NOTO is helping to save lives and better their prospects. Canada's soldiers are few, their equipment is not as good as the American, German, or French gear - but what soldiers they do field are 1st-rate warriors.

Ian - Your astonishingly bungled strategy (drug war operations which alienated the rural population, bombing villages and labeling those killed Al Qaeda) has lost the war.

Now Ian, you combine a good observation with a brainless Lefty one. The brainless one is that we are bombing villages and losing the war. We are not bombing villages, Soviet-style. We are taking out houses, sometimes with family of the Jihadi inside. If Afghan civilians hang with and live under the same roof with the people out to kill Americans, or Canadians, or French soccer moms for that matter - they accept the risk. Some will get pissed off at us, but that is the only way they learn if they play with terrorists, they pay - and so understand it isn't a great idea to invite murderous Saudi fanatics to marry into your village clan and get aid and shelter.

The good observation is we are employing the failed War on Drugs strategy and only increasing the poppy crop and pushing over a billion dollars to the Arab terrorists, warlords, and resurgent Taliban leaders. Far better if we buy up the whole crop from the farmers at the price the bad guys pay (a pittance) and deprive the enemy of the revenue - while also starting a 10-year program to develop and market profitable legal Afghan crops to the West and Asia. And also pay the "friendly warlords" and Karzai's henchmen adequate money as long as they work to stabilze Afghaistan, institute reforms, and block radical Islamists out to kill both Afghans and infidels...

It is a unique country that can grow a huge amount of very desirable unique local crops, crops that grow in few other places, and much sought-after spices and seeds and perfume bases that are labor-intensive.

That may push the opiate growing back to the Golden Triangle or over to Iran, but then it is not funding Islamic terrorism and mass deaths...

Neither means the war is lost. Both your observations point to not just the US, but Canada, Europe, and the rest of the world ignoring the financial resources and manpower needed to lift Afghanistan from being a failed, violent nation into a stable 3rd world one with huge resources and promises for a better future as a valued part of the global community and global economy. And we also have to do more - and not just the West - to prevent Pakistan from becoming another Afghanistan..

Posted by chris ford | February 4, 2008 2:20 PM

Great post Matt, I've been in Afghanistan for the past month and couldn't agree more. I'm pretty stunned by the number of comments advocating for withdrawal. If there's a part of the world that could benefit from a more positive American influence, this is certainly it.....some might suggest a moral imperative.

Posted by Nate | February 4, 2008 2:26 PM

Lots of words, Chris Ford. I don't know where you get the time to write them all. Didn't have time to read it all. I'd still bet you your weekly paycheck against a bottle of stale Coors that, despite all these words, come 2009 the US will again have spent 200 billion dollars on Afghanistan and Iraq, and - like 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002 and 2001 - have achieved fuck-all.

Still that's 200 billion greenbacks spent: somebody 's having a good time somewhere, that's for sure. Maybe it's even you. It ain't the Afghans or Iraqis, that's for sure.

Posted by BP | February 4, 2008 2:41 PM

Chris Ford,

Wow, Chris.

You start with fallacious facts - "Al Qaeda was never separate from the Taliban" and "that we betrayed our treaty with the S Vietnamese and stabbed them in the back when liberal Democrats sold them out" - and combine it with a selective history of the world, and end up with us Americans as saviors of the planet if only we could kill enough people that all the bad guys died amongst the innocent. Way to go!

Posted by Seedee Vee | February 4, 2008 2:47 PM

Chris Ford and Sunsin both advocate putting poppy farmers out of business by increasing the demand for their crop. Not sure that's gonna work.

Yave Begnet says Afghans "have a long history of repelling invaders." As with all the countries with the same rep, like Russia, Britain, and Canada, that seems more a function of geography than anything else.

At least in recent history (last 200 years or so) no Afghan central goverment has ever enjoyed stability without continual massive cash infusions from a foreign power (Britain, Russia, etc.), bought with the promise of the country going to hell if they don't come through. That's your future of Afghanistan, too. Really, the only path to a long-term stable outcome is getting the Afghan army up to a point where it can win an occasional fight or two without Western infantry, and then get out and go back to staving off the inevitable governmental collapse with vast quantities of cash.

Posted by BruceR | February 4, 2008 2:55 PM

Great post, Matt. I am pleased to see you have riled up some of your more mindless commentators.

The objectives of the Afghan mission should be relatively straightforward. Minimally, keep the Taliban out of power. Maximally, destroy them altogether. Said mission is good for Afghanistan, good for the US, and good for the rest of us bourgeois Westerners who prefer not to think about security.

In fact, things aren't as bleak as the lefties pretend. The Taliban can't win a conventional offensive, but they are stupid enough to keep trying. Terrorism is harder to eliminate, but it doesn't do them any good unless it helps with popular support, and it hasn't.

So long as the West doesn't just lose heart and take off, Afghanistan is going to continue to progress and the Taliban will lose.

The trouble is that the public in the NATO countries doesn't like losing soldiers, and the mission keeps bleeding popular support. In Canada, at least, the elites are mostly on board, but a once-popular mission is losing in the polls.

If the US could make this a priority, both diplomatically and militarily, that would be great.

Posted by Pithlord | February 4, 2008 3:15 PM

Why should our NATO allies do more in Afghanistan when we have all the force we need nearby in the misbegotten Iraq War? If we are choosing to misdirect our Armed Forces in an attempt to run out the clock for Bush/Cheney and dump the mess on the next President, why should they bail us out?

Posted by bob h | February 4, 2008 3:25 PM

"European (and, I believe, Canadian) politicians feel enormous from their publics to do less."

Probably true, though not so much in France where I live (since in France military operations are less subject to public approval than in other countries). But let me offer a different reason for why this is so: it is because the US military has acquired, in record time, a reputation for cultural insensitivity (that's putting it lightly), disregard for civilian lives, and blind violence. Whether or not that reputation is justified is not for me to say, but it exists, and not many national publics would today be happy with putting their troops under US command.

The area where US media coverage and international coverage differ most sharply, and where the US public receives the most drastically different news from other publics, is that of US military behavior. In the US, the McCain line ("our men and women in uniform are doing a fantastic job") seems to be the rule - the same unquestioning mantra of destructive patriotism that forced people into line behind the Iraq invasion. The rest of the world gets a different picture.

French or German planes obeying a US order to bomb houses in southern Afghanistan? No way: bombing a country you occupy may seem normal to people in the US, but that doesn't make it so to the rest of us.

Posted by Hans B | February 4, 2008 3:59 PM

Listening to the CBC, where the Kandahar mission is actually headline news, you get a sense of the frustration. What is the mission? Is it stability or combat? Is it possible to be both, with distinctions across forces?

The objectives of the Afghan mission should be relatively straightforward. Minimally, keep the Taliban out of power. Maximally, destroy them altogether.

That's a facile reading. Do you mean 'exclude and/or destroy anyone wearing a turban?' Because in Afghanistan, you change your affiliation when you change your headgear.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | February 4, 2008 4:05 PM

The reason we won't hear about a significant commitment to Afghanistan from any Democrat is obvious: it hurts with the base. As is demonstrated above. And as we all know, Europeans are the non-voting part of the base.

While we're on the subject, boy wouldn't it be great for MY to explain how he thinks the US should have handled the threat emanating from Afghanistan in the days pre-9/11. I'd love to see the "no preemptive war" analysis on that one.

Posted by Thomas | February 4, 2008 4:06 PM

Pithlord,

"objectives of the Afghan mission" - I must assume you mean the US mission in Afghanistan.

It might be too much for you and MY to acknowledge that the Afghanis need to decide this themselves. We know what the problems that their Saudi guests have brought them in the past. We know the problems their NATO occupiers are bringing now. If you remember, the Taliban won a conventional offensive to take control of their country. The only holdouts were Iranian/US/Pakistani proxy warlords - our freedom fighters. Woo hoo.

You expect Afghanis to want to be overlorded by American proxies? Where has that been successful? In your pissing contest dreams all Americans are winners and the world always loses - it doesn't work that way. Never has, never will.

Posted by Seedee Vee | February 4, 2008 9:57 PM

The mission in Afghanistan is a NATO mission, and I am sure that PithLord, a Canadian like many others on this thread, is talking about Our mission, not the (related, but different) American one.

And he's right that a great deal of frustration in Canada comes from the fact we don't really know what the mission is. If it the long-term reconstruction of Afghanistan, then each NATO country needs to committ to contributing to this long term goal.

Even Stephen Harper had implied ( I think) that Canadians can't keep dying indefinetly for a goal that we can't accomplish on our own and that others aren't willing to pitch in (enough) to help (British, Dutch, and Americans excepted).

Posted by Ikram | February 5, 2008 12:08 AM

Chris Ford,

Because targeting and intelligence are never perfect, trying to bomb particular insurgent houses inevitably leads to blowing up innocents from time to time. That turns the population against you. That's not a lefty view -- that's standard counterinsurgency theory. Are you calling Martin van Creveld a crazy lefty pacifist?

Look, if we have to have Canadian soldiers over there I'd at least like to see them win. I think the troops should come home because I think that winning is no longer possible (Pakistan) but I'm open to argument to the contrary.

I don't know that I need to call myself a lefty -- I gave up my NDP membership card years ago. In Canada, the view that this war began for quite sensible reasons which have since gone up in smoke is quite mainstream.

Posted by Ian | February 5, 2008 1:02 AM

"Substantive post" in the sense that he typed out more words.

"Substantive" in any other sense?

Christ, it's brain dead...

Look, genius, you could transfer the entire frickin' 160,000 troops the US has in Iraq now to Afghanistan - and it won't make a fucking bit of difference in the ultimate outcome. It will just make Afghanistan into Iraq - albeit a bit more slowly since the Iraqis were very fast on the insurgency uptake being a more developed country.

This is one of Matt's more idiotic posts. He clearly has zero knowledge of insurgencies, Fourth Gen War, the history of Afghanistan or anything else. I've been sending him articles practically every night about Afghanistan and Pakistan about what is going on - and he demonstrates total ignorance with this post.

There is no such thing as "stabilizing Afghanistan". There is no such thing as "producing a non-corrupt government in Afghanistan." There is no such thing as "destroying the Taliban" (which basically means destroying a good deal of the Pashtun tribes in Afghanistan AND Pakistan.)

This is complete bullshit. Afghanistan has been a backward, violent country with a corrupt government for centuries. It isn't going to change via the US military. And it's not going to change with a few thousand NATO, US and NGO people wandering around building fucking roads and schools.

It has a population of 31 million people. You're going to pump enough US dollars into that mess to re-educate everybody, while still letting him adhere to their Muslim religion? You're going to shoot all the clerics who hate the US? You're going to brainwash 31 million people into changing their ways?

Get a goddamn clue! "Nation building" is NOT POSSIBLE! Certainly not by outsiders who's most recent activities were overthrowing the previous rulers, and bombing and shooting civilians!

I can't believe how stupid people are. They think whole populations are just pawns to be manipulated at will by whatever political theory they happen to believe in...

Pithlord: "The Taliban can't win a conventional offensive, but they are stupid enough to keep trying. Terrorism is harder to eliminate, but it doesn't do them any good unless it helps with popular support, and it hasn't."

You're a moron. The Taliban control a significant section of the country. They are advancing on Kabul. More importantly, nitwit, there is no such thing as a "conventional offensive" involved here! This is an insurgency! The fact that you can even mumble the word "conventional" demonstrates your utter ignorance of the military situation. And if you think the Taliban are just a bunch of terrorists, you know NOTHING about what is going on in Afghanistan or Pakistan.

Try to read up on the subject before you babble any more nonsense.

That advice applies to you, too, Matt!

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | February 5, 2008 1:26 AM

1) We weren't attacked from Afghanistan. We were attacked by Saudis and an Egyptian from Hamburg.

2) Anyone who's serious about improving our situation in Afghanistan should be pushing for the decriminalization of drugs.

Posted by Robert Powell | February 5, 2008 3:02 AM

The last week has seen a slew of political commentary and policy review on Afghanistan, with at least four major reports coming out in the US and elsewhere. None of them are optimistic and all say that NATO is losing the war.

US policy in Afghanistan is currently divided between two priorities: counter-insurgency and counter-narcotics. Neither are running smoothly, the former for lack of strategy and manpower and the latter because of a delayed understanding that eradication must be coupled with real economic alternatives and a functioning judiciary. Governance, political and judicial reform and economic growth are not priorities, but at the policymaking level there is increased realization that military failure is bound up with the failure to ensure government and donor accountability in other sectors. That is to say, the Taliban are increasingly legitimized in parts of the country that feel victimized by parasitic, ineffectual (and sometimes absent) government institutions; neither are increasing numbers of civilian casualties and haphazard reforms at the hands of international actors encouraging signs for the average Afghan.

For those paying closer attention, the US government is now pursuing the startling policy of co-opting people today who were yesterday active members of the Taliban (and distinctions need to be made about what constitutes a member of the Taliban, but that's another vexed question). This is in large part driven by the realization that Afghanistan is supposed to hold elections in 2009 and at least half the country is effectively disenfranchised because of the insurgency. Political expediency also dictates making friends of old enemies for the reasons others have pointed out -- the US and NATO realize that military victory is a pipe dream in Afghanistan, and I think quite a few now realize that long-term stability will be sacrificed at the cost of shorter term political and military gains.

The overwhelming mismanagement and failures in Afghanistan since 2002 are coming to a head. A measure of humility, coupled with serious reconsideration of military and aid objectives for all donors is badly needed, and in Afghanistan the job is no longer one of patching cracks, but rebuilding from the foundations -- yet again.

Posted by Fatima Ayub | February 6, 2008 4:25 PM

Fatima--
It's funny how these threads die out. Often I think it's because people don't go back and keep posting after the original goes back off the "front page".

Anyway, I guess you'll probably never see this, but in my view yours was the best post on the topic, including Matt's.

Posted by Robert Powell | February 10, 2008 4:45 AM

Robert--

It's the same old story with Afghanistan: off the front page and out of mind.

Posted by Fatima Ayub | February 10, 2008 10:58 PM