A problem with criticism of the Afghanistan War:

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

There are a lot of legitimate criticisms to make of the US intervention in Afghanistan. Some targets of legitimiate criticism are such things like use of UAVs that end up missing targets and killing innocent people, things like eschewing an offer to co-operate with the Islamic Republic of Iran on an issue (which in hindsight takes on an uglier edge than it did at the time) and to a very real extent bailing out of this war to go fight Iraq a second time. Another reality is that he's risking either war or much greater involvement of Pakistan, and if we go to war with Pakistan it magnifies every disastrous consequence of a war with Iran sixfold or more.

One area that I neither understand nor consider legitimate is to attack the current President over how he's handling things like the (complete lack of leadership on the part of) the government run by Hamid Karzai. Afghanistan's been in one or another war since Leonid Brezhnev approved the Soviet Armed Forces' invasion of it. This was a long and bloody conflict, and once the Soviets withdrew there was a civil war that the Taliban proved the most formidable faction in until we came in. Either way, this will be in December 30 years of war in Afghanistan.

Thirty years of war in Germany were sufficient to level the place and critically weaken it. Germany didn't recover for a matter of centuries. 27 years of war in what is now the People's Republic of China arguably contributed a great deal to why the PRC is what is today. Long periods of war tend to malform societies affected by them, and they tend also to encourage corruption, graft, and to weaken over time desire to participate in or to even bother with the infrastructure of society. Afghanistan's already seen the results of one superpower fighting in it, and in October the USA will have spent eight years there. And if we still have significant number of troops there in October 2011 then we will have been at war there as long as the Soviets were.

President Obama is an average leader. He's capable of more than even his supporters sometimes profess that he is, but he's also capable of seeing through at least enough of a military victory to suppress the Taliban. President Obama has inherited a crisis 30 years in the making, and IMHO, while as noted there are many legitimate criticisms of his war effort there to make, I feel that the President should be given some leg room to fight the war as he wishes, by both his supporters and his critics, to shape up what's not working and to improve what is. Because to expect an average leader to improve on a legacy that started with Premier Brezhnev is frankly to expect him to work miracles. The President is just a man, and he does make mistakes.

I suppose if I were to sum this up in a sentence or two it would be that Afghanistan's been in chaos for 30 years. President Obama as an average leader has more promise to work through the legacy of 30 years of war than his predecessors. Yet it is not fair to blame him for all the mistakes dating back to President Carter and the leadership of Leonid Brezhnev.

Comments

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Given that a fair portion of his election campaign was how Bush had loused up the War on Terror with regards to a diversion to Iraq, it was not like he was going to suddenly up and leave. He's been fulfilling campaign promises with what he's been doing.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

War isn't a just way of solving problems. By 12/2002 America had slain more civilians in Afghanistan than we lost on 9/11/01. You'd have thought we'd be even by then.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

The Romans making Britain a desert and calling it peace and Germany turning into the surface of the Moon and calling it peace resolved the issues of colonial revolts in Britannia and Germany's penchant to aggressive wars much more clearly than diplomacy ever did. Albeit in both cases the price was steep enough that such a "victory" didn't really matter in the long run in some ways, but at least in Germany's case defeating the Arbeitslager and the Totenlager was more obviously a good thing than with Britannia.

[frenchpresser.livejournal.com]

The difference is that the US military doesn't make it a policy of intentionally hunting down and murdering civilians, whereas that was the whole goal of 9-11.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Not in these wars, no.

[ryder-p-moses.livejournal.com]

Wasn't, like, the whole idea of the invasion to hunt down and kill Osama?

[mrsilence.livejournal.com]

Sure, that is a moral difference, but but at the end of the day, does it really matter if you (i.e. by which I'm speaking of the U.S.) killed them intentionally or not, given that you knew it was going to happen?

I'm sure the dead Afghan people, and their families (just like those killed in 9/11) don't really care about whether it was intentional or not, or if they were just an obstacle in the way of the goal between you and your goal

[anadinboy.livejournal.com]

no-one in the history of afghanistan has had more of a free reign than obama/bush/the usa of today. The british and russians had to put up with all kinds of crap, the americans can just blast it, pay it, pet it or leave it. Therefore america is responsible for the problems there. To be such a massive shit hole after 8yrs is a disgrace

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Not quite. The British fought the war in the age of the telegraph, but all three Anglo-Afghan wars predated the contemporary media wars. The USSR had more surveillance but people in say, Perm didn't really know how the Red Army was even *doing* in the war. In today's world the New Media make the war a much more vivid presence and make concealing wrongdoing even harder.

And to some extent, yes, the USA is almost at 1/3 the thirty years by now. But to another extent if the USA had let Ivan wage the genocidal war that the first years of the Soviet war involved the Mujahideen would have been destroyed and 9/11 would never have happened.

[enasisabitch.livejournal.com]

we should just set a time table so the government in Afghanistan is pressured into controlling their own country and rely on americans less.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Because that worked so well in Vietnam....

[terminator44.livejournal.com]

What else had a chance of working when the government was corrupt and unlikeable?

[ryder-p-moses.livejournal.com]

It'd be unfair to blame him for not showing much progress towards victory in a war that has no winning condition. It'd be fair to blame him for not setting some goals for us to achieve so that we can accomplish something positive and get the hell out.

He's shown only marginally more interest in actually catching bin Laden than Bush had (which was zero), which was the only achievable objective we had in Afghanistan from the start, and seems to be swinging wildly from actually believing that we're there to crush the brutal reign of the Pushtun people over the helpless Pushtun people and install a noble democracy ruled by the Pushtun people, and trying to install a British-style divide-and-conquer colonial occupation government using the Tajiks that'll inevitably result in genocide should we ever stop dumping money and soldiers into the country.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

The problem with such goals is that catching Bin Laden (if the old man with the failing kidneys is even still alive by this point) won't erase all the deaths we've caused, the destitute situation after all the years of warfare, and the general mess will be even greater if the Taliban retake the place. And an even greater problem is that his whole campaign involved how the Bush Administration's war in Iraq had harmed the GWOT and more focus on Afghanistan would permit us to win the war on the strong emotion.

The only way to "win" Afghanistan is contrary to all respectable and civilized means, as well as the entirety of the development of the laws of war since the 19th Century. And victory by that means, as mentioned earlier becomes hollow enough that one can easily question if leaving ruins and starving masses that no longer have the stomach to fight qualifies as a victory to any save the Curtis LeMay types.

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

A few years ago Canadian gov't pledged to make a complete withdraw from Afghanistan in 2011. Our military has been there since Dec 2001.

The situation in Afghanistan is completely FUBAR. It can no longer be thought of in terms of winning or loosing. It's obviously not a sprint but a marathon. Either you've got the endurance to be the last man standing, or you don't. Top generals and other military minds seem to suggest outside forces will be needed there for decades. I don't know much but I think they underestimate what's required by centuries.

Turning tail and running probably isn't the best thing to do. But doing what the international forces have been doing with no foreseeable end in sight isn't a much better option. Therefore the solution has got to be outside the box.

Outside the box is full of radically extreme ideas, none of which comes without consequences.

On the one hand, you suggested elsewhere that pyramids of skulls seemed to work once before. It would be cheaper and faster just to turn the place to glass. Not sure that dealing with the protesters at home would be much fun, but you could cross that bridge when you come to it I guess.

On the other hand since without international support the country is basically lawless chaos, we could pull a "Bugsy Siegel" and take advantage of the opportunities. Not sure turning Kabul into a Mecca for gambling and prostitution would work, but it's a thought. Perhaps the opportunity lies with the cheap union-free labour. I mean why buy bricks for 2$ each when you can hire a kid with a chisel for eight cents a day?

I think Canada has the right idea. We GTFO now, and wait to see what happens. If they need a loan, some engineering, some tech support, more bullets or just a shoulder to cry on we can still respond to these requests without being in-house babysitters. If the situation really starts to get out of hand we can always stage a short re-invasion in a few years. But hopefully by the time that's necessary somebody else will have beat us there and be their problem, not ours.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I noted that pyramids of skulls worked, but I'd also note that Timur remains one of the most hated warlords of Central Asia for using them, and that his ethos is entirely contrary (in theory) to liberal democracy. Bring in how the USA and Australia got to where they are, that becomes a lot greyer, but I'm speaking of ideals here.

And in any case, it's not the case that such methods *do* work anymore. Witness the fate of Nazi Germany, one of the last European powers to use Tamerlane's methods to the gusto. And then the Soviets marched to the Elbe and shattered Germany's power until the present day. So....

[ghoststrider.livejournal.com]

I think its fair to criticize the President for not getting us the hell out of that country and wasting more American blood. In fact, I think its fair to blast the man. Verbally, of course.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Except we more or less broke it when we made Bin Laden what he is today, so leaving him around left unfinished business....

[mikeyxw.livejournal.com]

The President can fairly be blamed for people's opinions about the war. He's the President after all.

He knew what he was getting into and either hasn't been able to deliver what was expected or didn't set people's expecations properly. He's done this pretty well on the economy, he's been terrible at foreign policy, at least in my opinion.

Misleading assertion

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

You assert, "Afghanistan's been in one or another war since Leonid Brezhnev approved the Soviet Armed Forces' invasion of it." This statement misleads the reader into thinking that Brezhnev started the conflict in the first place. Also, your focus on the premier distracts from involvement of other people in the fateful decision to invade Afghanistan.

The conflict started before the Soviets got suckered into getting involved. They stuck their noses into a civil war between the proxies of the CIA and Soviet proxies. The true instigator behind Soviet involvement rests with the stuff that went on behind the scenes.

Re: Misleading assertion

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

The USSR required no suckering. Once the likes of Khomeini rose in Afghanistan, the threat of another Islamist state south of the border which might start using the Uzbeks to spread Islamism through the USSR was too great a threat to leave unchallenged. The Soviet version of the Domino theory, aided by Soviet-style Communism's antipathy to Islam that was at least equal to its hatred of the Church.

[root-fu.livejournal.com]

Well said.

What a mess...

[papasha-mueller.livejournal.com]

"Because to expect an average leader to improve on a legacy that started with Premier Brezhnev is frankly to expect him to work miracles."

R.I.P., Leonid Brezhnev.
Brits were there a century before.
After all, wasn't it Alexander The Great who turned on this mess ?