It would be nice to believe that the president, faced with "What to do about Afghanistan", would be getting the best advice from the best informed and cleverest advisors, and be weighing that with his own non inconsiderable intelligence against the costs and political realities to come up with the best possible, or at least the least bad possible approach.

"I don not say that things are necessarily as I describe them, only that this is what seems apparent at the time"

What seems apparent to me (but then, I'm a paranoid upper west sider), is that "The fix is in"
and that the war party has already decided to go the full monty in Afghanistan, but perhaps to bring it on in stages so as not to freak out the public.

Please somebody, show how I'm wrong. I really want to be wrong here.

It would be nice to be wrong, but the picture painted by Scott Horton's interview of Debra Sweet (director of World Can't Wait) on AntiWar Radio would have to agree. Warfare, like the ship of state in general, has a momentum all its own where it doesn't matter who's in charge. What's worse now is that half the country supports the president and the other half supports his wars. That's political gold.

ref #2
Sigh! I just heard Brooks (as in Brooks and Sheilds) say something to the effect that the conversation in Washington is being held along slightly different lines than the conversation in America. Outside Washington people are asking "Why are we in Afghanistan and why shouldnt we be saying good-bye" whereas in Washington the discussion is about is whether to fight to hold the cities alone or to hold the cities and the countryside too; and whether to send 40k more troops or 60K more.

Did anyone hear Rorry Fowler speaking about Afghanistan? He thinks is "mission impossible" and that the best we can hope for there is to deny Al Q the use of major bases there. Beyond that you get "half as far in four times the time as you think"

Sõnum on autori poolt redigeeritud, okt. 23, 2009, 7:38pm.

In addition to "Is it possible?" we should also ask "Is it desirable?"

If the United States could, through a great expenditure of military force, kill lots of jihadis, and subdue the Taliban, and bring about over the next decade or two a relatively stable, pro-Western Afghan government, based on reasonably democratic elections (for that part of the world) ... would this be a desirable thing? Would it even be a desirable thing if done with a minimum of military force?

The folks in "World Can't Wait" (mentioned in #2) believe that it would not be. They want to see an Afghanistan governed (if that's the word) by the Taliban, just as they wanted to see Iraq continue to be ruled by Saddam Hussein. So for them, it's an easy question.

But Doug, we only invaded Iraq because they had Weapons of Mass Destruction. Ousting Saddam had nothing to do with it whatsoever.

Oh, did you fall for that story? Large numbers of people did, including most of the current leadership of the Democratic Party, so it's understandable.

Myself, I thought what we did was most unfair. We should have dropped all sanctions, as the anti-war folks also wanted us to, and let him resume his nuclear and biological warfare programs. Then, in ten or twenty years time, when he really did have weapons of mass destruction, we could deal with him ... but then it would have been a fair fight.

Oh, did you fall for that story? Large numbers of people did, including most of the current leadership of the Democratic Party, so it's understandable.

Yeah, kind of odd how many people "fell for the story"? It's an interesting way to run a country, I guess. Sell people one story and swap it out for another a few months later. Amazing how many people were a bit upset to realise that they'd taken a fall, no?

Well, I'm not surprised. People are too liberal-minded and trusting of their leaders. Better they should adopt some conservative cynicism and suspicion, if not paranoia. If they knew any history, they would know that leaders have been dissimulating and manipulating their followers since we were chimpanzees.

As I recall from Joseph Ellis' Founding Brothers, George Washington was less than candid about the disadvantages of Jay's Treaty. FDR maneuvered the Japanese into firing the first shot so that he could get the US into the Second World War. JFK didn't ask Congress for permission to invade Cuba. LBJ and the Tonkin Gulf incident. etc etc.

It's a nasty, dangerous world. Once the free market and the rule of law have taken root everywhere, and have had a few generations to work, maybe things will change, and we can all become like Luxembourg. Speed the day.

And yet you don't seem to realise that your dishonesty does little more than damage your own credibility. Cry wolf, brother.

Once the free market and the rule of law have taken root everywhere, and have had a few generations to work, maybe things will change, and we can all become like Luxembourg. Speed the day.

That's Fukuyama, right? Liberal democracy as the end of history? I like Fukuyama -

"The End of History was never linked to a specifically American model of social or political organization. Following Alexandre Kojève, the Russian-French philosopher who inspired my original argument, I believe that the European Union more accurately reflects what the world will look like at the end of history than the contemporary United States. The EU's attempt to transcend sovereignty and traditional power politics by establishing a transnational rule of law is much more in line with a "post-historical" world than the Americans' continuing belief in God, national sovereignty, and their military."

Guy sounds smart.

My dishonesty, and that of every leader who has ever existed and had to take decisions in the real world. Or that of every person who has sat by the bed of a probably-terminally-ill person, and has not mentioned the dreadful truth.

For sure, the US does not present a detailed model for the world where the future community of nations will indeedl probably look more like the EU. Hey, I'll see you and raise you ten: liberal democracy on a foundation of material prosperity will probably take forms we cannot now predict: the Hindus, Arabs, Chinese etc will each do it a bit differently, maybe with improvements.

My dishonesty,

Hey, Doug's being honest about something. What a nice change of pace.

Or that of every person who has sat by the bed of a probably-terminally-ill person, and has not mentioned the dreadful truth.

You know, Doug, there's a certain sect of Buddhist monks whose standard greeting is, "Brother, you are dying." I've always liked that. Please don't confuse your inability to face the truth with anything pertaining to me. Mayhap your dishonesty at bedside has less to do with the ability of the person to whom your speaking to handle it, and more to do with your ability. Oddly enough, it's a metaphor that you've used multiple times. It's also one that modern psychology seems to spend more and more time invalidating. Try some Kubler-Ross, brother.

Selling people stories? How's that working out for you?

But these monks say it to everyone, so in this case "dying" doesn't usually have quite the same meaning as it does to a person withan inoperable brain tumor.

Let's get concrete: if President Obama learns that the top command of Al Queda are assembling in, say, Syria, should he ask Congress for permission to do a targetted assassination? Or if you don't like speculative questions, then do you think FDR was a war criminal for maneuvering the Japanese into firing the first shot, so as to galvanize America for war?

But these monks say it to everyone, so in this case "dying" doesn't usually have quite the same meaning as it does to a person withan inoperable brain tumor.


You're starting to sound suspiciously leftist here, Doug. If you're arguing that meaning is context/perspective dependent, I'm going to have to wonder how long it's going to be before you start quoting Derrida at me.

You clearly haven't read my Collected Works, Jesse. I would lend you a few relevant volumes, but when I lent Derrida some a few decades ago, the bastard went and stole my ideas, so I have become more conservative about letting others borrow my books.

They want to see an Afghanistan governed (if that's the word) by the Taliban, just as they wanted to see Iraq continue to be ruled by Saddam Hussein. So for them, it's an easy question.

As if the Taliban and Saddam Hussein weren't products of American interventionism in the first place? I'm not saying that I or anyone wants to see them back in power. I'm just saying that your glorious counterinsugency is going to screw it up worse than it already is just as it historically always has. For one who waxes poetic about other people's gullibility regarding their political leaders, you should know better than to think your government can work social miracles abroad any better than at home.

Let's get concrete: if President Obama learns that the top command of Al Queda are assembling in, say, Syria, should he ask Congress for permission to do a targetted assassination?

Somehow I doubt that you're anything but jealous that Obama rather than Bush ramped the war up in Pakistan. Of course, this talk about what you think the president should have the power to do with or without Congress evades any consideration about whether such interventions are a good idea to begin with.

Oh, would it were true that Saddam and the Taliban were simply "products" of American interventionism in the first place. It's the Hollywood view of the all-powerful CIA.

The truth is a lot more complex. Why have the Arabs and Pakistanis and Afghans been largely locked out of the process of modernization which has been taking place in most other regions of the world? How can we help them overcome their backwardness and begin the transition to becoming modern, free societies?

Not easy questions, and for sure the answers do not simply involve the application of military force. But they are not to be found in American isolationism either.

Oh, would it were true that Saddam and the Taliban were simply "products" of American interventionism in the first place. It's the Hollywood view of the all-powerful CIA.

Not so funny thing about that is that when bin Laden (another beneficiary of American interventionism) attacked the World Trade Center on 9/11, many people remarked that it was like watching a movie. But if you pinch yourself, you won't wake up and smell the popcorn. I'm sure you must find it consoling to think that all your good intentions to stamp out the evils of the world could never backfire on you, but it's the very fact of being blinded by your own intentions that makes you just like the Lefties.

Oh, and I see you're back to invoking the false dichotomy of interventionism vs isolationism. How's that working out for you?

Sõnum on autori poolt redigeeritud, okt. 29, 2009, 3:31am.

What makes you think, Doug, the Arabs. Pakistanis, and Afghans want to modernize? If they really wanted a modern society they would have one. I think they like their lives just fine and wish the rest of us would leave them alone. Until the Arabs, Pakistanis and Afghans decide they want to modernize, we aren't going to be able to make it happen. We need that money over here, as it turns out. We should just butt out and let them solve their problems themselves. If we are attacked from their territory again, then we will have business with them. Until then we should leave them alone.

Gene: "The Arabs" is an abstraction. If we don't probe further into who the Arabs are, we will be left with an Orientalist stereotype of a people happy to live restricted lives under murderous dictatorships, content to have a low standard of living, a high death rate, and so on.

I don't believe it. "The Arabs" are a diverse collection of social strata, age groups, sexes, nations: some conform to the worst Western stereotypes. Others are as modern as you and me, (maybe more so, since we're both old men: I had to ask a helpful Lebanese waiter in California two weeks ago to use his magical Iphone to get directions for me -- who was more advanced?)

There are contending forces within the Arab world. Few of them, in fact, want to remain stuck in backwardness. Even the radical Islamists embrace science; and the moderate Islamists embrace, or are moving to embrace, democracy.

Consider the Germans: war-like authoritarians by nature? Or peaceloving individualists? Depends on what decade you consider. And what we see now in Germany did not happen by the unaided efforts of the Germans themselves.

"The Arabs" are a diverse collection of social strata, age groups, sexes, nations

So, too, the "Afghans," who are not a single entity but comprise a variety of ethnicities (Pashtun, Hazara, Uzbek, Tajik, Turkmen, etc.) and sects (Sunni, Shia, etc.). Some of these have been, and are, bitterly and brutally opposed to one another. Pakistan, too, is composed of different ethnic groups, sects, religions, castes, etc., as well as urban/rural and rich/poor dichotomies.

Sometimes in discourse people become lumped together and/or turn into generic, faceless "others." It's easy to lose sight of the complexity. Do the heads in D.C. take such factors into account in their planning? I wonder.

Lip service is paid, but not much more, so far as I can see. Then add in the factor that things are changing all the time -- the implacable secular trend which is dragging everyone into modernity, brilliantly foreseen a hundred and fifty years ago by Marx and Engels. (How I wish that there was some real Marxism represented among the trendy lefties advising Obama.)

Marx & Engels are hardly the only people to talk about capital-H History pushing us in this or that direction.

Indeed. At about the same time, we had the Whig view of history as the progress of liberty, of which Marxism is just a variant. But Marx and Engels saw as no one else did, the powerful materialist engine driving this progress, namely, capitalism, which would transform the whole world. A large part of The Communist Manifesto is a paean of praise to capitalism. No one believes this, until they read it. Go on, do it.

I was forced to read it in at least one class from each of the following fields: Sociology, History, Economics, Philosophy. Its principal virtue is that it's short. Nothing in Marx makes any sense that I can think of, excepting the stuff that it shares in common with other worldviews. E.g., the notion that production technology is always improviong. True, but not unique to Fred & Chuck.

You take this for granted today. In the mid-19th century, it was not really common belief --"East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet" and all that.

Interestingly, M&E's optimism and support of human progress, their desire to uproot and destroy primitive cultures and drag their inhabitants into modernity, is abhorrent to the mystical, pessimistic, green-worshiping , nationally-limited Left of today.

If you listen to this fellow Hoh, the Taliban are a threat to the Karzai government, but they're not a threat to the US.

I gather that he believes that the best way to keep the Taliban out of power would be to see to it that Pakistan does not support them, and to have a vanishingly small presence of US/NATO forces.

He thinks that al Queda has "evolved" significantly in the last eight or ten years, and is now more of a "cloud" presence, not really needing or seeking a permanent state in which to base its operations.

In any case, much of the preparation and planning for successful operations, including 9/11 took place in Western Europe and the US itself; at least the way he's telling the story.

Sõnum on autori poolt redigeeritud, okt. 29, 2009, 7:19pm.

Nicholas D. Kristof had an interesting column Thursday that discussed Afghanistan. Maybe he's a flaming Marxist or something for all I know, but the column was food for thought.

(from the column)
Schools are not a quick fix or silver bullet any more than troops are. But we have abundant evidence that they can, over time, transform countries, and in the area near Afghanistan there’s a nice natural experiment in the comparative power of educational versus military tools.

Of course, education is absolutely central to the sort of social transformation we want to see. That's why the Taliban blow up schools and throw acid in the faces of schoolgirls. If you want to see education take root in Afghanistan, a necessary condition is defending them. This means men with guns.

Now, liberals, conservatives, anarcho-capitalists, libertarians, and everyone else reading this: if you want to support education in Afghanistan, click on this link -- my favorite charity, Afghan Connection -- find the DONATE button in the upper right corner of the screen, and help build schools in Afghanistan.

(Liberals: your money will go for textbooks for the kids. Conservatives: your money will buy bullets for the guards.)

The US seems to be faced with the following stark alternatives in Afghanistan

1. Run away. (Not bloody likely) Nobody american gets hurt because nobody american is there. But on the down side, the US has no leverage from inside the country and diminished leverage with Pakistan. Hawks will hate it (cutting and running), Liberals will hate it (abandoning the population to their fate, leaving them in a stew of medieval backwardness and corruption) and realpoplitik policy wonks will hate for the reasons given above.

2. Do counter terrorism. Have just enough military presence to keep Al Q or anyone for having actual phsical training bases or working openly in the country. That will take intelligence operatives, CIA black ops people, possibly augmented (make that surely augmented) with Xe (Former Blackwater) or some other private contractors.

Its a bit of a cheap out, and it pretty much leaves Afghans to the tender mercies of the various warlords, or to the mayor of Kabul, who may style himself "president". It also leaves the culture intact to grow or fester as it will. But it does keep al Q away and it does
leave the US in position to influence things in Afghanistan and to "lean" on Pakistan.

3. Do counter insurgency (aka "Nation building").
The US does not have such a hot record of success on nation building, at least not recently. Knowlege of and sensitivity to the cultural niceties of exotic peoples is not exactly what we're known for.

The US counter insurgency manual, recently written (or was it only re-edited?) by General Petreus (and others?) recommends a ration of soldiers to population
that would translate to something like 600,000 troops
more or less to "get it right".

Does the US really want to get into the nation building business at that level of money troop commitment?

I suspect the war party wants it, for reasons of its own, and I suspect "whatever Lola wants, Lola gets,
and little man, Lola wants you"

My alternative? Buy the place outright. Its GDP is a big
30 billion or so? Or is it only 22 Billion. Chump change for Uncle Moneybags even it its 33 billion. Buy up some warlords, make them an offer they cant refuse, take over the Opium trade (and pretty much everything else) and make it so nothing moves without the big boss (that would be Uncle Sam) gets his cut. Freeze out al Q or anyone else who wont play ball.

I believe it was Milton Friedman who proposed buying out the landlords of South Vietnam and redistributing their land to the peasants, thus undercutting support for the Communists. I think he calculated it would be much cheaper in money, not to mention blood, than trying to militarily defeat them.

Regarding the two postings above this one: I read a short story once, with Hitler & Co in the "Eagle's nest" planning war when in steps an American offering to buy them the needed "lebensraum" for a much lower price than the cost of waging war. Not sure whether it was an attack on, or a defense, of Capitalism, but it was a good story - or at least a good story idea. Anyone here has read it and can tell me the title or the name of the author?

Sõnum on autori poolt redigeeritud, okt. 31, 2009, 7:11am.

ref 30, 31

I'm pretty sure that someone sufficiently clever could find a way to uh "leverage" (gotta love that word) the enormous economic resources of the US so that we can get what we need (whatever that is, exactly) in Afghanistan and Pakistan without massive and long lasting military engagement.

But it really does seem as if the war party has the bit in its teeth, and what we'll actually get is Vietnam mark II.

The cost will most likely be pitched to the public as way lower than will be the case (The lads will be out of the trenches by Chistmas ...oh sorry, that was a few wars ago, right.) and the necessity for the war will by "hyped", possibly not quite so grossly as the Iraqi war with images of Saddam coming to your neighborhood to kill your puppy dog, but such as to make area specialists wince at the distortions.

Course, what do I know? Nothing much, except I can tell a pattern when I see one. So stay tuned. If our brave leaders come up with something different, you can all blow me a rasberry. But I think I'm pretty safe.

Modal: Is not your argument:

(1) The war party promises, through use of military force, to achieve a good end, at a low cost. But the cost will be high, and the end not achieved.

(2) The peace party promises, through means not specified but apparently knowable to someone "sufficiently clever", to achieve the same good end, at a low, or lower, cost. ("Cost" being here in part a euphemism for American blood.)

If so, no decent person could hesitate in choosing (2) over (1).

Now all you need to do is produce the sufficiently clever person, or rather, their proposal.

ref #33
Well, close. I would fully agree that you've captured my position in point one, if you allow me one small amendment: For "...the end not achieved ..." substitute "...the ostensible end not achieved..."

I believe the war party's ostensible "end", to make the US safer from further terrorist attack in the future, is a sales pitch, pretty much in the same class as "Our beer refreshes parts that other beers cant reach".

The problem with point (2) is that there IS no peace party. Any proposals that have a fair shot at making the US safer against terrorist attack in the future without using substantial amounts of combat troops, hardware and cool cash, will be ignored, rejected, quashed, marginalized, deflected, and dropped down the memory hole.

The proof is, that if even I can come with something
along the lines that I'm sure Uncle Milty Friedman did much better, then surely there are people in Washington who top that without half trying.

So its not ideas that are lacking In politics, cleverness is not the main thing, its political clout, the ability to make it happen.

I may be wrong of course, and if the war party gets its way, it might be because thats really the best way to fly (hah!). So that outcome doesnt proof me right or wrong.

But if the war party loses this one, if the administration decides to go with (and sticks to) something less dramatic, then I'm wrong wrong wrong and there's no wiggling out of it.

Okay. If the genuine end of the "the war party" (which at the moment, I believe, nominally includes the great majority of Democratic Party politicians, although of course this may change) is not a stable, and thus amenable-to-long-term-change-for-the-better -- Afghanistan/Pakistan ... then what is it?

If the Taleban succeed to driving us out of Afghanistan, it seems to me that there is a real chance that they will greatly increase their influence in Pakistan, where at the moment the radical Islamists only get 10-20% of the vote. This could be very bad.

Here's something I've noticed: people who opposed the invasion of Iraq usually maintained that Saddam Hussein was a hollowed-out paper tiger, not able to sustain a WMD development program, because of our sanctions on Iraq. But I also noticed that many of these same people had opposed our sanctions on Iraq, which, according to them, took a heavy lethal toll on ordinary Iraqis, especially children. (I think the figure of 500,000 dead children resulting form our sanctgions was the accepted one.)

It seems to me that a similar game is being played with respect to Afghanistan: people say -- we can achieve our ends via long-range missile strikes and targetted assassinations and sanctions. No doubt the conservatives who say this, being hard-hearted, are sincere.

But I believe that many liberals who say this don't really, in their heart of hearts, believe it. They wouldn't approve even of a Clintonian policy of occasionally blasting hotels and aspirin factories and imposing sanctions.

Lurking, perhaps, just below the level of consciousness, is the Chomskyan notion that the main, indeed sole, source of evil in world is the US: and nothing really bad would happen, at least to us, if we just stood down the military-industrial complex altogether. Indeed, I think they believe that if the US reverted to the military strength of, say, Denmark, that this would be an altogether good thing.

I think this idea is wrong, and it's really the debate we should have.

Sõnum on autori poolt redigeeritud, nov. 2, 2009, 1:44pm.

Pay me. If Europe and the far east (except China) and Israel want America to be the policeman of the world I don't mind. Pay me.

What is our umbrella worth to those regions? $100,000,000,000 or $1,000,000,000,000? Figure it out and PAY ME.

If a house near mine catches fire, and it looks like it might set others alight, and maybe eventually burn down mine, I'm going to try to put it out.

If my similarly-endangered neighbors don't help, I'll be mighty angry at them, and contemptuous of their cowardice/lack of foresight/parasitism ... but I won't just set back and watch everything burn down and hope my house is safe. (Okay, it would be a temptation, I admit.)

On second thought ... doesn't racist/imperialist/colonialist Amerikkka already suck the blood from all the other world's nations? So they're paying us already.

If only water could cure the fandangos of their unremitting ignorance of the cultural, political, ethnic, and racial divisions which characterize Afghanistan and Pakistan, then the task of nation building would be as simple as putting out a house fire.

ref #35
What does the war party want? Business opportunities. No bid contracts. Transfers of wealth from the public side to the private side, specifically to their personal private pockets, preferably without the pesky overhead of having actually to produce quality goods and services, and, if they could arrange it, lax oversight and Enron accounting. Crony capitalism. Why wouldnt they want that?

The question is not whether they want to swill at the public trough but why the public should allow them to do so.

As for the stories promoted by the war party about how the Afghan adventure is "necessary", here's another story, this time from a fellow who claims to have resigned as a matter of principle (so far, nobody has come forward to cast doubt on his bona fides) who says:

"Our troops are fighting people who are fighting us because we're occupying them. ... What we are doing there doesn't attain any strategic value or any goals for the United States."

See:
http://rawstory.com/2009/11/hoh-afghanis...

Now maybe Hoh doesnt have it completely right; but there seem to be enough informed people who think there's something to his position that we can suspect that the war party's story may not be exactly 100% either.

War is a racket. The story told by the people who stand to gain personally from that racket in order to convince us that we need them and their "product" shouldnt be allowed to carry the field by default.

Sure, the Taliban are a nasty piece of work and wouldnt it be nice if Afghanistan , or anywhere, had limited government, the rule of law, an independent judiciary, free press, squeaky clean administration, civil rights, and a free market.

Is the US in mortal danger if Afghanistan lacks any or all of the above?

Can the US make a drastic improvement along those lines at any price?

How much progress could be made for what price?

What changes on the ground or in the political situation in Afghanistan would make the US safer against terrorist attack? Can we get there from here and if so, what would it cost? Is the gain comensurate with the cost?

Why is it that we're only hearing sound bites and advertising slogans, but not a serious accounting of what's what and who's who, what's a "must to" and whats a "nice to" with respect to the Af-Pak situation?

Sõnum on autori poolt redigeeritud, nov. 2, 2009, 10:29pm.

Let's start with basics.

I am sure that every person in the world, save thee and me, would like some sort of arrangement whereby he could pursue his trade via a guaranteed contract from the government ... welfare recipients, civil servants, farmers, manufacturers (arms and otherwise)... I take that as a given.

And all of these constituencies, to the best of their ability, advocate policies to maintain and extend their receipt of government money.

As to whether arms manufacturers advocate actual war, as opposed to war spending, that's an empirical question. I am sure they play up as much as they can, the dangers we face if we do not buy their products. But whether they want to see the efficacy of their products tested out, is another matter. This probably varies from one time and place to another.

The question is: are there ever any real dangers, such that we would be well advised to buy their products? Do we actually need a serious military?

I know there are those on the Left who believe we do not, or at least have not needed it since WWII.

They think that if we stood down our military at the end of the war, to essentially the small skeleton force which has been traditional for our country, that much unpleasantess would have been avoided, and the world would have evolved in a good (socialist) direction. (I don't mean that they necessarily wanted the Communists to triumph everywhere -- they see the worst aspects of Communism as a reaction to American hostility.)

There are those on the Right who share this worldview in its essentials. (Although they tend to extend the analysis backwards where most of the Left does not: the Left was very happy to have us ally with Joseph Stalin against Hitler, while some on the Right question even that. "Most of," but not all: To my knowledge, only Howard Zinn on the Left thinks that fighting against Nazism was wrong.)

I think this is a very wrongheaded view, although it does contain some grains of truth.

Maybe it's not your view though. You may just think that the Afghan enterprise in particular is futile, while believing that of course in the world as it is today, we need to be militarily strong. That would be close to the views of certain mainstream conservatives, such as George Will. But I sense that your unease with American power is more fundamental than that.

#ref 40
Yes, everybody wants to get as sweet a deal as they can, myself included.

I'm enough of an Adam-Smith-ian to buy the idea that essentially "selfish" or at least "self iterested" actors interacting through a free market (suitably defined) mutually check each others greater ambitions and can wind up generating a relatively fair and efficient distribution of goods.

Its actually fairly good news, that there can be simple mechanisms by which a society of distinctly non-saints can achieve a better than hellish outcome.

The problem, as I said before, is not that some people might ask for the moon, but that we might give it to them out of fear, ignorance, or laziness, rather than out of sober consideration.

My attitude about Af-Pak might, I suppose, seem to bespeak a wider set of assumptions and conclusions about life, the universe and everything; but my Af-Pak position is actually way simpler than that, in some regards.

Interesting as the topics are, there's no need to revisit the thrilling days of yesteryear...the rise of Benito and Adolph, the anti fascist front, the big moustache and the little moustache, the western intellectuals romance with communism, WWII, the cold war, "neo colonialism", the whole schtick. The old USSR is 20 years in the grave.

Maybe there are implications in Af-Pak about US power and its place in the world, but we can start "small".

Drop the baggage for a moment and just tell me in words even us ordinary bears can understand...what exactly does the US need there and how exactly do we go about getting it?

Now it may be that the taliban and al Q in Af-Pak present a greater danger of a new terrorist attack in the US. I'm no expert, I dont know enough to say from my own knowledge and experience that its so, or that its not so. But I do know that those who are saying so have a vested interest in stampeding me, if they can, into agreeing with their schemes. Now maybe the opponents, who telling different stories, have their own nefarious reasons for preferring their stories to the war parties stories. But the problem isnt why this or that agent would prefer the story, the problem is, "which story is closer to that which is the case?"

Perhaps different parties, telling different stories and having different motivations, will be able to transcend their personal preferences and market like, each checking the other, allow us to come up with a version which while no closer to hearts desire, is closer to the truth.

My big "kvetch" here is that all we're hearing from the administration and its opponents are series of sound bites and advertising slogans, not serious discussion of whats in it for whom and what that might cost if we do or do not pursue any given course of action.

Last night we had Gorbachev on television, urging us to leave Afghanistan. “There is nothing for you there” and “Let the Afghans solve their own problems” and “You can’t win”.

Dutch troops are leaving in 2010, although our Minister of Foreign Affairs will come with a scheme and try to keep them there.
Since last elections I am complete certain I want us (Dutch soldiers) out now (which will not happen), as an answer on that elections. We are laughing stock for corrupt Afghan powers (as we could have known).

#41:"Interesting as the topics are, there's no need to revisit the thrilling days of yesteryear...the rise of Benito and Adolph, the anti fascist front, the big moustache and the little moustache, the western intellectuals romance with communism, WWII, the cold war, "neo colonialism", the whole schtick. The old USSR is 20 years in the grave"

I agree absolutely that the events of these times --- the conventional lesson of which is, get 'em (Nazi dictators) when they're small, through pre-emptive war --- are not to be taken as a template into which we mechanically press all subsequent events. Neither are the events of the 60s, with respect to Vietnam.

But I disagree strongly that we cannot learn anything from studying the past -- not that you are necessarily arguing that -- which shows us that military force has always been the decisive ever-present factor among nations. Weak nations were subordinated to strong ones, or just eaten up.

The main lesson I take from the 1930s is how so many well-meaning and intelligent people -- liberals, socialists, American Republican isolationists -- just refused to see what was coming. "Let the Europeans solve their own problems." "Nothing for us there," "Down with war and fascism", etc. All the nice warm-fuzzy sentiments, even some apparently hard-headed realistic sentiments -- utterly useless in the face of the Nazi evil.

I had an acquaintance, now dead, who was a young man in the late 30s, just starting his career in the City of London. He told me that when Hitler began rearming, and making claims on territory outside Germany, that the reaction of him, and his friends, was: "We just couldn't believe that the Germans, who had suffered so terribly as a result of WWI, were going to do it again. We just couldn't believe it." But soon enough, they had to believe it.

It may be that we cannot win, in any sense, in Afghanistan. If so, we must retreat. But I think we will then pay a huge price, at some point in the future.

Sõnum on autori poolt redigeeritud, nov. 7, 2009, 5:04am.

The lessons of Vietnam surely include having a clearly defined, realistic mission, limited in scope to the issue at hand, and with a strategy for any foreseeable exit. We started out with these goals clearly in mind. We had the target bottled up in rough terrain. We were about to execute the final thrust which would have allowed us to withdraw with victory, but... Ah well, we took our eye off the ball.

To continue with out current strategy, whatever that may be, just tangles us in this briar patch that much deeper. Afghanistan is a tar baby. I think that's what Grobachev is trying to tell people.

The true tragedy, and one I don't see how we can prevent, is what will happen to the future victims of the Taliban? Had we just executed the mission, rather than try to remake the place in our image (or at least talk this game), the same, possibly less harsh life might have been possible for Afghani's. The Taliban is a problem they need to deal with, not us. When those people want what democracy is selling they will grab for it (see Iran), until then all the lives and treasure in the world won't make it so.

Each life lost to the war in Afghanistan is a monument to American arrogance, greed, and stupidity.

Doug, WWII and the wars we fight now are two completely separate things. Afghanistan doesn't have any territorial designs, there's no lebensraum at issue, no hatred of outsiders, except the foreign troops occupying their soil. If anyone represents the Germans in this little mental exercise of yours, it's US and our allies. As for Iraq? Let's just say that had Barbara Tuchman been alive she would have one more tale to chronicle in The March of Folly.

We stepped on our own d*ck in Iraq and it still hurts all the way to Afghanistan.

Had Bush captured OBL at Tora Bora and withdrawn, he would have been a hero instead of a goat.

If the Dutch leave, the war is lost.

> 45

http://www.davidmixner.com/2009/03/dutch...
http://www.netherlands-embassy.org.uk/ab...
http://www.nrc.nl/international/article2...

Sõnum on autori poolt redigeeritud, nov. 7, 2009, 1:35pm.

21 Dutch soldiers have died in Afghanistan since the Uruzgan mission began in 2006. As a member of NATO, this country of fewer than 17 million understood an attack against one state (9-11) to be an attack against all. I wonder if the future of NATO--as well as Afghanistan--will depend on how this war ends?

ETA: Lest we forget this Remembrance / Veterans’ Day, here are names of Americans, Brits, and Canadians (the latter with photos), who have died in Afghanistan:

http://icasualties.org/oef/ByTheatre.asp...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_For...

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/afghan...

Sorry that I couldn’t find names from other countries, but they are not insignificant—none of them are:

Coalition Military Fatalities By Year
Year US UK Other Total
2001 12 0 0 12
2002 49 3 17 69
2003 48 0 9 57
2004 52 1 7 60
2005 99 1 31 131
2006 98 39 54 191
2007 117 42 73 232
2008 155 51 89 295
2009 286 94 86 466
Total 916 231 366 1513

Sõnum on autori poolt redigeeritud, nov. 8, 2009, 2:22pm.

Dutch soldiers that have died in Afghanistan: 163 - 183.
http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lijst_van_N...

Veterans' Day is very much alive in my country, as is the question wether we should stay in Afghanistan.

Thanks for posting that, marieke54. Sometimes we forget that there are names behind those numbers.