My apologies to hammer for moving his post to a new thread for response, but I am growing weary of seeing that old thread title refuse to roll off into the old bit bucket and die. When IMO the ongoing posts have little to do with that one incident. Of course if I am wrong, the old thread is still there so post away.
The world operates on several different levels (political, economic, military force, etc). Popular opinion, or what the arab street thinks, is nice to win favor with, but how do we assign priority of this over other very important interests and factors.
I perceive a little too much weight assigned to political correctness as we view this from a distance, and less weight given to the realities on the ground, where they live.
This mission was pretty much accomplished in weeks using the western alliance and minimal US special forces. Rooting out all the terrorists was like whack-a-mole since every time you smack one, another pops up somewhere else.. but that is not a military campaign per se. A hybrid between cross border police action, kind of war/policing without borders.
This did not get ramped up significantly until this administration attempted to copy the "surge" strategy that worked in Iraq, but with less resources, and without a real partnership with the Afghan people to finish the effort.
This never became an all out war... We could easily win a simple well defined ballistic "kill everything that moves" effort. Instead the rules of engagement for americas finest are dangerously limited. Almost a don't engage until somebody kills you first. The mission is about creating peace on the ground so a local police force and military can stand up to maintain that peace. The nasty catch to that plan is Afghanistan does not have the resources to support this police force and army, so the only chance of success is long term financial support from the west, which I don't see happening.
Without long term support is is just a matter of waiting us out, for the tribal war lords in the North and Taliban in the south to regain control of the country side.
The Pashtun Taliban consider themselves the local people, at least in the south. Country borders mean little to tribal people.
The people who have suffered under decades of fighting and instability only respect one thing "power". Since our ability to extend that power into the country side is being withdrawn, our respect will fall as should be anticipated. The real world is not a tea party, more like a street fight. When the US bully leaves the Taliban bully will take over the schoolyard (bad choice of words, probably less school yards in afghanistan today than several decades ago.
It isn't really an issue (nor the recent Koran incident), just excuses to attack our declining influence. The Taliban already announced that they wouldn't delay negotiations, over the release of some high level fighters currently vacationing in Cuba, because of this incident. It only seems important still to some from a distance who don't understand the real power struggle going on.
The real mechanism at play is like the sickly chicken in the barnyard getting pecked to death by the other chickens. As we announced our withdrawal/retreat, we are looking "peckish" and people are more willing to pile on in this atmosphere of weakness and declining power/influence.
I don't claim that there is some simple answer, and surely just being more PC or pulling out completely will not make everything wonderful (I don't believe in magic). It took "us" years to create this mess, and the trend looks like the near future will just get worse from what I see. It is hard to look at Afghanistan without factoring in Pakistan and India, two nuclear powers. AFAIK we still have an OK relationship with India, but our relationship with Pakistan has declined steadily since Musharreff stepped down (IMO).
i really really really hope I'm wrong.
JR
PS for more news, the US and western pro democracy advocates on trial in Egypt were released after posting a $5 million dollar bail (like they're going to return for that trial). Since we give Egypt some $1.3B in military aid, i suspect it will be a simple matter to subtract the $5M from that, or from the $250M in food aid. But this is IMO another sign of declining influence in the region. Democracy is messy and hard. Nature abhors a vacuum, and power vacuums don't persist very long. Lots of bad actors in the region ready to take advantage of the uncertainty.
Perception is something, but not everything. IMO
The world operates on several different levels (political, economic, military force, etc). Popular opinion, or what the arab street thinks, is nice to win favor with, but how do we assign priority of this over other very important interests and factors.
I perceive a little too much weight assigned to political correctness as we view this from a distance, and less weight given to the realities on the ground, where they live.
Basic mission was to deny haven to alkaidea and hopefully capture or kill the terrorists who killed thousands of western citizens with the WTC attack.
This mission was pretty much accomplished in weeks using the western alliance and minimal US special forces. Rooting out all the terrorists was like whack-a-mole since every time you smack one, another pops up somewhere else.. but that is not a military campaign per se. A hybrid between cross border police action, kind of war/policing without borders.
and then???
This did not get ramped up significantly until this administration attempted to copy the "surge" strategy that worked in Iraq, but with less resources, and without a real partnership with the Afghan people to finish the effort.
This never became an all out war... We could easily win a simple well defined ballistic "kill everything that moves" effort. Instead the rules of engagement for americas finest are dangerously limited. Almost a don't engage until somebody kills you first. The mission is about creating peace on the ground so a local police force and military can stand up to maintain that peace. The nasty catch to that plan is Afghanistan does not have the resources to support this police force and army, so the only chance of success is long term financial support from the west, which I don't see happening.
Without long term support is is just a matter of waiting us out, for the tribal war lords in the North and Taliban in the south to regain control of the country side.
The Pashtun Taliban consider themselves the local people, at least in the south. Country borders mean little to tribal people.
This is pretty much a red herring, IMO offered as an excuse for failure.
The people who have suffered under decades of fighting and instability only respect one thing "power". Since our ability to extend that power into the country side is being withdrawn, our respect will fall as should be anticipated. The real world is not a tea party, more like a street fight. When the US bully leaves the Taliban bully will take over the schoolyard (bad choice of words, probably less school yards in afghanistan today than several decades ago.
It isn't really an issue (nor the recent Koran incident), just excuses to attack our declining influence. The Taliban already announced that they wouldn't delay negotiations, over the release of some high level fighters currently vacationing in Cuba, because of this incident. It only seems important still to some from a distance who don't understand the real power struggle going on.
The real mechanism at play is like the sickly chicken in the barnyard getting pecked to death by the other chickens. As we announced our withdrawal/retreat, we are looking "peckish" and people are more willing to pile on in this atmosphere of weakness and declining power/influence.
I don't claim that there is some simple answer, and surely just being more PC or pulling out completely will not make everything wonderful (I don't believe in magic). It took "us" years to create this mess, and the trend looks like the near future will just get worse from what I see. It is hard to look at Afghanistan without factoring in Pakistan and India, two nuclear powers. AFAIK we still have an OK relationship with India, but our relationship with Pakistan has declined steadily since Musharreff stepped down (IMO).
i really really really hope I'm wrong.
JR
PS for more news, the US and western pro democracy advocates on trial in Egypt were released after posting a $5 million dollar bail (like they're going to return for that trial). Since we give Egypt some $1.3B in military aid, i suspect it will be a simple matter to subtract the $5M from that, or from the $250M in food aid. But this is IMO another sign of declining influence in the region. Democracy is messy and hard. Nature abhors a vacuum, and power vacuums don't persist very long. Lots of bad actors in the region ready to take advantage of the uncertainty.
