Pakistan's ISI major supporter of Afghan Taliban

[Wrath of Dagon]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100613/ap_on_re_as/as_pakistan

 

IMO, if we're so weak and incompetent that we can't even prevent our supposed ally from sponsoring our enemy, we ought to just quit and stop wasting American lives.

[Rostere]

It's not really about being weak. The US is widely despised in Pakistan. Monetary aid will perhaps gain the lip service of Pakistani politicians but they can't do just anything without the support from their people. Naturally, Pakistan will want the US away from Afghanistan, both because they care for their neighbour's national sovereignty, but also because they want to expand their own influence on behalf of the Western powers.

 

The sunni-islamic people of Afghanistan would rather align with Pakistan than Iran, but if they find that Iran is willing to support rebellion against the peacekeeping forces in their country, radical element might instead align with Iran, which would lessen Pakistan's influence considerably. Whether to end the American cooperation with Pakistan or not is therefore a tough question which has no easy answer.

[Walsingham]

Good idea WoD. If we walk away whistling and not looking back I'm sure the entire region will fold up in on itself and we'l never hear from it again.

[Wrath of Dagon]

Good idea WoD. If we walk away whistling and not looking back I'm sure the entire region will fold up in on itself and we'l never hear from it again.

It'll happen anyway, just watch. Karzai is already trying to cut a deal with the Taliban.

[Volourn]

"both because they care for their neighbour's national sovereignty"

 

No, they don't. Your second line of thinking is likely more true.

[Walsingham]

Good idea WoD. If we walk away whistling and not looking back I'm sure the entire region will fold up in on itself and we'l never hear from it again.

It'll happen anyway, just watch. Karzai is already trying to cut a deal with the Taliban.

 

I'm not sure anyone knows what the hell Karzai is playing at. He seems to be hell bent on pursuing grubby familial nest lining when he's been handed an opportunity to become legendary by forging a nation out of a thousand valleys.

 

Cutting a deal with the Taliban isn't as daft as you make it sound. The Taliban aren't Ba'athists. They don't have a central authority or membership lists. It is a long standing tradition in Afghanistan - and I'd wager in most very weak states - that ideology takes a distant second seat to pragmatics. Negotiation isn't a distraction from the war. It IS the war.* To paraphrase Lincoln: destroying your enemies by making them your friends. Personally I think this means instituting very direct very local democracy. Democracy which pre-industrial people can get their heads around; and which appeals to the Afghan virtue of personal pride, and tradition of communal debate.

 

But this is different from the situation in Pakistan, which I don't understand.

 

 

 

*Which isn't to say that the opposition won't use negotiation to avoid us capitalising on military success. This happened repeatedly during the Soviet-Afghan war.

[Wrath of Dagon]

He's negotiating behind the back of NATO, since he's become convinced they're on the way out. Add to it Pakistan's sponsorship of Taliban and Obama's fecklessness, and it's hard to see a good outcome here.

[Walsingham]

It certainly is hard to see a good outcome. But I come from a background of not treating a tough situation as an excuse to quit.

 

I sometimes think the hardest thing about Afghan is that we expect the blooody Afghans to have to make all the compromises. By which I mean we expect them to 'bing' and be a 21st century western democracy overnight. Whereas it seems perfectly obvious that what is needed is a transitional democracy like we had in teh UK, which acknowledged the importance of the rich and practically powerful through the house of lords. Whereas instead we are doing exactly teh same thing Britain did when it was in charge last time, and try to replace woring pwoer structures with a purely elected power structure that is naturally neither as cohesive or as well armed as the one it is replacing.

[HoonDing]

USA should do what they used to do when the going gets tough: send Captain America.

 

[Wrath of Dagon]

It certainly is hard to see a good outcome. But I come from a background of not treating a tough situation as an excuse to quit.

I meant my original post in the sense of "**** or get off the pot". If we can't even stop our putative ally from arming the enemy with the billions of dollars we send them in aid, how in the hell are we ever supposed to actually defeat that enemy?

[Walsingham]

I love hate to sound like Moff Tarkin, but I grow tired of saying this:

 

We will win by a long term process, matching military security with economic development, galvanised through a dynamic political movement. Like the wood, oxygen, and the spark.

 

Of course we refuse to deliver on the economic development, and Msr. Karzai seems to lack a certain dynamism so far as actual Afghans are concerned.

[Rostere]

"both because they care for their neighbour's national sovereignty"

 

No, they don't. Your second line of thinking is likely more true.

 

Please. I'm very convinced that there is a large portion of people in Pakistan who hold a grudge against the American "infidels" who occupy their neighbouring country. Strategically, it must matter little to the everyday Pakistani whether Afghanistan is "occupied" or not, however people are, as shown throughout history, not rational. I'm sure that as you point out, the leaders will most likely have different motivations for intervening in Afghanistan but they must also make certain efforts to please the ordinary people if they want to stay in power.

[Walsingham]

Well, Rostere has a point in dragging us back to pure geopolitics.

 

Pakistan is a country with many inherent weaknesses. It is geographically and culturally a mess, with a naturally insecure eastern border with a huge and angry neighbour on it. This absorbs every possible attention and as a consequence I think Pakistan plays the game to keep Afghan in a state of flux. Since classically this would have effectively neutralised that border for teh Russians or Persians who might otherwise seek to move in. Unfortunately this thinking is a bit 19th Century. The advent of terrorism means that the Afghans themselves can pose a strategic threat to Pakistan by applying political violence as they are.

[Calax]

Well, if they keep Afganistan in Turmoil they could theoretically create a meatshield between them and a possible russian move, because the russians would have to plow through two armies rather than make peace with a central government and slow em down. Also it prevents Afganistan from even TRYING to become a power in the region and secures the western approach to a degree because a country at war with itself, generally doesn't fight with outsiders that much.

[Wrath of Dagon]

All is not well in Obamaland: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0610/38852.html

 

Edit: Here's the link to the Rolling Stone aricle in question: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/119236

Edited June 22, 2010 by Wrath of Dagon

[Monte Carlo]

Ha, Wrath I was going to link to that!

 

The article is interesting on several levels:

 

1. The General's naivety in media management (best encapsulated as 'The First Rule of Fight Club is: You don't talk about Fight Club')

 

2. The coruscating sense of truth that comes out of the article, the idea that Afghanistan is a towering piece of foreign policy bull****, we are sucked into it by default, it's hopeless and the best thing we could do is police it like 1920's Mesopotamia, from the air, with bombs

 

3. The idea that people I know and value are risking their lives for people like Karzai

 

4. The shiney-eyed faith of the General's posse in their doctrine, reminds me of reading about the 'True Believers' in Vietnam

 

5. Although I will admit to be being taken with the General's macho, no-BS, I've-got-nun-chucks-in-my-bag attitude, if I'm honest I like my generals to be a little more cultured and cerebral

 

6. The journo's assertion that this is a totally US affair despite the ten thousand British service-people in theatre - we really do need to leave the Americans to Chuck-Norris their way out of this one I'm afraid.

 

Pakistan is going to be a failed state, and yet all we do is it give her money. It's the politics of appeasement, personally I'd be aggressively forging strategic alliances with India, the safest and most progressive nuclear-armed state in the region.

 

Cheers

MC

Edited June 23, 2010 by Gorth
****!

[Walsingham]

Running away simply isn't an option, Monte. I can see the appeal viscerally, but want isn't can; nor is it should. Very rarely is, come to that, as I know you'll agree.

 

You comment about true believers is probably as pointed about me as it is anywhere. I thin the problem is that a military true believer can only deliver on one side of the triangle. They need to deliver on that side, but by itself it's no bloody good. As you say, Karzai and his mates are holding one of the other two sides, and they're as inspiring as a dose of groin fungus.

[~Di]

As supportive as I was about Afghanistan for many years, that support took a hard hit when we alienated India, our closest ally in the area, by climbing into bed with her arch-enemy... and ours, if we were being honest... Pakistan. Now Karzai's true colors have shown him to be a viper available to the highest bidder, the Taliban has found a new home in Pakistan and are again running roughshod over Afghanistan.

 

We cannot change a society that is based upon a warlord mentality. That mentality isn't going to change in our lifetime. I'm afraid that our initial mission, to route Al Qaida and destroy bin Ladan, failed long ago. Now I don't know what we are doing there except watching things go from bad to worse as we... as we what? What is our mission there? I certainly don't know what it is. Kill the bad guys? Who are the bad guys? The Taliban? Al Qaida? They don't wear signs on their foreheads, so any time we end up killing someone, they scream "civilian" (technically they are all civilians) the world shouts "naughty soldiers!" and Karzai holds a press conference to villify us.

 

We need to pull out. Now. This can only end in a bigger disaster than we already have. We simply cannot occupy and control two countries who do not wish to be occupied and controlled and expect anything good to come of it.

Edited June 25, 2010 by ~Di

[Walsingham]

You, and a lot of other people, keep saying that; but I don't think you realise what you are arguing for. You are arguing that we should abandon the country of Afghanistan to a foreign group of terrorists who have an agenda predicated on world Islamic revolution and a continuation of terrorist attack against the West. Can we really have actually forgotten 9/11? What happens in Afghanistan touches us in New York. It touches us in London. It can touch us anywhere*.

 

What you advocate is an end to the conflict and a return of the troops. But I agree that is precisely what we should be intending to do; and to the best of my knowledge we ARE intending to do. This will be predicated on three factors in country and one factor outside the country.**

 

In country:

 

1. Baseline physical security

2. Economic development

3. Political renaissance

 

Out of country:

 

1. Maintain support for the above efforts, and legitimise the expense in 'blood and treasure'.

 

Now, I'm telling you to support the effort unequivocally. There'd be no point anyway, since blind faith would snap eventually. But I am asking you to consider exactly what you don't like about teh effort, and to follow up by asking how to fix it rather than drop it entirely. Because if you drop it the mess will land on your own feet.

 

 

 

 

*Yes, even there, Krookie. But not in a nice way.

 

**Of course, this is basically what McChrystal has been arguing, and actually achieving. But because the US President is afraid of seeming weak domestcially he has thrown out a commanding officer and all his staff at arguably the most crucial point in the entire campaign. God forbid you should take a decision based on military reality. Go Obama, go.

[Wrath of Dagon]

The switch to Petreus may be good thing though. I keep reading McChrystal's policies were so restrictive our troops felt like they were fighting with their hands tied. Some stopped even calling for air support because air support was afraid to do anything.

[ShadySands]

**Of course, this is basically what McChrystal has been arguing, and actually achieving. But because the US President is afraid of seeming weak domestcially he has thrown out a commanding officer and all his staff at arguably the most crucial point in the entire campaign. God forbid you should take a decision based on military reality. Go Obama, go.

 

I can't argue against the awful timing of it all but McChrystal and his staff violated several articles of the UCMJ and in such a high profile case such as this there really isn't a whole lot that could have saved them. Free speech doesn't really exist in the military and while I can fault Obama for a lot of things, this isn't one of them.

[Monte Carlo]

Modern warfare tries to be humane, as if rules of engagement will persuade your medieval, religiously-indoctrinated guerilla foe to put down his RPG and stop making IEDs. The more you 'peace-keep' the longer you prolong the agony. The Balkans. The Iraq insurgency. Lebanon. Africa ad nauseum. Wars are actually an efficacious way of resolving disputes. Side 'A' wins and imposes reparations on side 'B'. We need less UN and more Vienna convention. Talleyrand would be spinning in his grave.

 

The principles Wals articulates are the apogee of Blair school 'Chicago Doctrine' which I suspect will be seen as a low point in late 20th Century Western foreign policy. If only we can build enough schools'n'clinics these people will be just like us! No wonder they hate us. If you invaded my country and built a Starbucks in my village when I didn't want one I'd be getting the family rifle from underneath the floorboards.

 

Leave Afghanistan alone, with a friendly warning: let those terrorists back in and we'll send in the Predator drones. Pakistan? Seal your borders or we will apply sanctions and unleash covert warfare on your home-grown terrorists. Apart from that, please crack on and build your countries as you see fit. We'll support the NGOs and aid and all the other things that keep Scandinavian liberals in long and well-pensioned careers.

 

Just don't expect us to sacrifice the best of our young people, our blood and treasure, on trying to build nations when the foundations are built on shifting sands. I am heartily sick of Afghanistan.

[Walsingham]

Something I've picked up on is that Shady has actually been in country, so I'm going to mind my language a bit.

 

My point with McChrustal is that when war is taken seriously by an administration it puts military effect, and the cost of disruption above domestic political opinion. Look at Eisenhower in WW2, or MacArthur in Korea (to begin with).

 

The point McCrystal has made repeatedly about air power, WoD is that enthusiastic use of air strikes has turned whole regions against us who were fine before. If using a jet to kill the enemy rather than bayonets saves lives but loses the war then you must use bayonets.

 

Monte, I accept that 'building starbucks' isn't a solution by itself. I used the analogy of building a fire. Wood, oxygen, and matches are all necessary. The fact that one on its own doesn't make a fire doesn't mean it isn't part of the true solution. What I would say is that gunboat policing or drone policing or whatever you want to call it doesn't bloody work. It didn't work for us back in 1850 when we were happy to dynamite whole districts to prove a point, it hasn't worked for the Russians in central Asia, and I don't see it working for us. Sick countries breed terrorism the way a sick person bacilli. Simply sloshing the occasional bucket of quicklime over them isn't a solution.

[Monte Carlo]

Remember the bit in Silence of the Lambs where Clarice, armed with an agreement to give concessions to Lecter in return for intelligence, offers him a new prison? On an island (an ex-chemical weapons facility, IIRC)? Lecter looks around his cell, sniffs the air and considers the offer of an hour a day outside.

 

"In a truly civilized society," he says, "you'd execute me."

 

We are doing the same thing. We offer these small, low-intensity wars to solve big problems, i.e. religious terrorism based partly on the collapse of the Soviet Empire almost twenty years ago. These wars are like the ones in Orwell's 1984, they provide a small, inobtrusive struggle far away where we pretend to offer our demons an hour's exercise a day in a secure facility of our choosing.

 

If we genuinely wish to wage war on Terrorism (although, as Terry Gilliam said, you can't declare war on an abstract pronoun) then have one. Yep. Conscription, mobilization, objectives, offensives, rationing... have a war and win it.

 

But nobody wants that. I don't. I'm fairly sure you don't. War's little brother, the nine year old insurgency campaign, is in the ascendant instead and it doesn't appear to be working. Between 1939 - 1945 the entire world had a scrap and actually nuked a country. Twenty years later they were enjoying peace, democracy and economic prosperity. Hell, by WW2 terms we should have won in the 'Stan in about 2006, just when it was hotting up, and three whole years into reconstruction.

 

Instead we see Iranian-backed bomb-makers murder more of our troops and stick our fingers in our ears and say Nyah Nyah Nyah.

 

As I say, I am heartily sick of Afghanistan. In a truly civilized society we would either retreat and make our peace, or prosecute war.

[Wrath of Dagon]

The point McCrystal has made repeatedly about air power, WoD is that enthusiastic use of air strikes has turned whole regions against us who were fine before. If using a jet to kill the enemy rather than bayonets saves lives but loses the war then you must use bayonets.

But it's gone way to far in the other direction, the Taliban know there's isn't much we can do against them. In the end, people will side with whoever they perceive as being stronger and will be around longer.

 

To Monte's point, securing the civilian population is part of the counter-insurgency strategy and seems to have been successful in Iraq. We do need to deal with Iran and Pakistan problem to have a chance of success though.

 

Edit: Here's a pretty interesting article on the new situation: http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/0859919992510...W1hcGV0cmFldQ--

Edited June 25, 2010 by Wrath of Dagon