Time to Get Out of Afghanistan?

Well I really must wonder how effectively we managed to hunt down and destroy the terrorists who caused 9/11 and would appreciate it if someone could provide statistics for how many resources went into bombing missions vs. reconstruction efforts. If you had to spend a billion dollars to repair collateral damage for each million that went into destroying the enemy, then you need to take reconstruction into consideration before you actually decide what it would take to wipe out an enemy.

 

I think that your posts belie the fact that you don't know a thing about a COIN operation. The U.S. Marine Corps originally published The Small Wars Manual in 1921, with revisions in '35 and '40. It's a gross red herring to declare that the armed forces have existed in a netherworld of nonexistant Soviet counteroffensive for their entirety. For more recent reading, try The Counterinsurgency Manual, which borrows heavily from The Small Wars Manual. If we're so grossly incompetent at waging COIN ops, what about our role in forging an independent Mongolia, free from Russian graft or Chinese encroachment? How about El Salvador? Macedonia? Just because success is neither immediate or permanent doesn't mean it's nonexistant.

 

Are you aware that a Persian army of over 100,000 (upwards of 300,000) was held up by only 1,500 Spartan and Thespian troops over the course of a few days. Although the Persians suffered heavy losses at the hands of those few troops, they did inevitably accomplish their goal. That goal was to raze Athens and they did.

So would you credit Persia for having succeeded in their task? Were the Persians so clearly superior to the Greek Forces at Thermopylae because they outnumbered their adversaries a hundred to one? That is a prime example of a Phyric victory.

 

That simply is not going to occur. Losing a hundred thousand soldiers would take around 400 years, even at this escalated casualty rate.

Not only are Coalition total casualties very low by historical standards, they are spread out over a long period of time.

Lack of infrastructure is not the worst concern for the average Afghan. Security and lack of good governance are their main concerns.

Lack of security, we are trying to address through military means, by trying to prevent the Taliban from killing or terrorizing civilians. Good governance is a bit harder; we can't just dictate to the Afghan government, so we have little ability to affect its corruption, waste and overall effectiveness.

We do spend a lot on (mostly new) construction, but that isn't a major concern for many Afghans, who simply want to live in peace.

 

What the heck is your point? I'm sure not seeing one. The Persian-Greco wars were fought by conventional means on both sides.


GAJ: I sited the Mandate of Heaven as being rare in that most countries who had kings never developed anything similar. Yes, it worked for a long time in China, but China's one country basically.

I'm not even going to get into debating whether or not dictators are really all that amenable a solution during nation-building. Mostly because I don't think they are, and you think they would be fine, and we're probably not going to change eachother's opinions on the matter.

 

Sure!

But I'd stay away from any tall buildings if I was you because I can guarantee you a load more 9/11s!

 

Yes, but we don't live a few centuries earlier. Recent history's record of dictatorial leadership is not crowded with good examples at all.

And yeah, the Mandate of Heaven lasted a good long time and did a pretty good job-but it's still just one country. Rules like that are exceptionally rare when you look at overall history, and virtually unheard of today.

 

Question: Why hasn't there been another 9/11?

Before some pro-war jock says it's because we went in and bombed the hell out of the ones who brought about 9/11, I'll counter that with a much easier and effective countermeasure. It was having a door between the pilot compartment and the passenger section. Tighter security screening at airports. In some cases arming pilots.

This was by far much more effective than anything else at preventing another 9/11 and much more subtle than invading a sovereign state. Now instead of fighting Al queada, we're fighting a completely different enemy from the one we sought to destroy. The taliban WERE NOT the ones who attacked us on 9/11. The insurgent forces in Afghanistan came about because of our invasion. The whole war had put the US in a far worse position than we were before it started.

 

One reason there not having been a single new al-Qaeda attack in US is that there hasn't been any need for it. Al-Qaeda wanted US to enter a trap in Afghanistan, which now is working as intended, putting US in the same position as the Soviet Union was in the 80s. Iraq is an unexpected bonus for them. And as long as US and it's allies are losing troops, money and support of their own citizens in foreign battlefields, there's no need for al-Qaeda to attack US. Only if US would disentangle itself totally from these wars and the trap it's troops are in, would the need arise for al-Qaeda to make a strike in US soil - to get US to rush into another foreign war and trap, in whatever country.

 

So? There's dozens of well-functioning democracies across the globe. The places that are absolute garbage to live are usually dicatorships or faux democracies who pretend to play by the rules but honestly don't. The most powerful societies on the planet are all democracies, with the exception of China. And China is so consumed with it's own internal issues that it's foreign policy is largely defined by doing nothing that would allow other countries to criticize it's internal policy.

Dictatorships are a trait of the Third World now. It frankly does not matter that Rome was stable for centuries, or that China was; times and situations have changed, and democratic government has clearly shown itself as the most preferable system for countries that actually matter on a global stage today.

 

This is exactly the reason that we have to get out of Afghanistan. We are doing exactly what the terrorists wanted us to do and that's why I don't want the armed forces to be put in danger needlessly.

The whole 'taking the war to the enemy' is exactly what they want. Do any people seriously think that al quaeda would publicly take credit for what they had done on 9/11 and not assume the US military would pursue them?

 

Emphasis mine. The US war in Afghanistan is not like the Soviet war in Afghanistan. Soviet forces were facing military defeat; they were taking losses they couldn't sustain, especially in aircraft, which led to an inability to supply the forces they had in the country. In a similar period of time, the Soviets suffered 15 times as many deaths as the US has suffered. These losses, combined with high military spending and general economic failure, led to the dissolution of the nation.

The United States is not in a similar situation. The United States is military and economically able to carry on the war in Afghanistan indefinitely.

 

Soviet Union could have carried the war on for a long time, the communist government in Kabul survived until 1992 after their withdrawal even when the mujahideen got continued support from abroad, especially from US and Pakistan. So the situation wasn't military that dire for Soviet troops - they could have kept up a stalemate. And just putting down democracy movements in Eastern Europe in the style of 1956 and 1968 would have bought more time for the Soviet Empire. They lost in Afghanistan and overall because they gave up, not because they had to. Which is a relatively common way for Empires to go.

Of course their casualties were on a higher level in Afghanistan, but then the taliban and other armed groups fighting against the current Kabul government don't enjoy the support of any superpower. There's nobody giving them huge amounts of Stingers this time, for example. Yet, military casualties are rising, attacks have spread to areas of the country that were peaceful still a few years ago, main roads that act as supply lines have become unsecure and the Afghans see the foreign troops in a more negative light. Yes, the war can't bring US on it's knees like al-Qaeda dreams, but it can have negative influence on US power on the area, globally and in the US, where the war could have a prominent role in future elections.

Add to that the fact that the goals of the fighting side are different: US and other foreign governments want to win the war, and make sure that Afghanistan can no longer serve as a basis for militant operations agains them, when the Taliban, Hekmatyar and the others don't have to win the war, they just have to survive until the foreign troops leave, after which they can fight with the Kabul government (and against each other) for supremacy. Karzai seems mostly interested in surviving.

 

What are you on to think this? The US isn't paying as much in lives as it is in military equipment. We might be able to sustain the war based on having an abundance of troops, but the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are costing the US dearly for really very little in return.

Sure the US is not being attacked by terrorists, but the troops in the Middle East are now in the line of fire. If you were to evaluate the war in Afghanistan ALONE, maybe we could carry it on indefinitely. The flaw in your argument is that it's only addressing one symptom of a greater problem. In a time when the US has tens of trillions in debt, there really is no economic sense in adding to that the cost of another war.

 

9/11 doesn't have to be with airplanes, as the bombings in Madrid, Bali etc proved. AQ have been severely disrupted by the invasion of Afghanistan and by continuing to kill them there they can't act against us here.

The Soviets were defeated in Afghanistan partly due to the massive backing of their enemies by the CIA and other western intelligence agencies. AQ doesn't have that, to draw the comparison they're like the Viet Cong during Vietnam, formidable but without the North Vietnamese Army behind them they're never going to be going to Saigon. And AQ don't have the NVA

 

Maybe, but that doesn't mean that the US will do any better. No one can deny that we are having a very difficult time trying to bring stability to Afghanistan and this is the US we're talking about. The adversities the US is confronting may not be EXACTLY the same, but it's ultimately another superpower trying to accomplish the same thing and not succeeding.

 

I still want to know how you define success and over what timescale. We accomplished, "arguably the most successful counterinsurgency campaign of the modern age" in the Philippines from 1899-1902 and sustained triple the casualties over less than half the time. And yet, it was a resounding success. Continued joint operations between the U.S. armed forces and the Philippine military are dismantling southeast Asia's largest enclave of radicalized Islamic terrorism through the work of JSOTF, despite the closures of Clark and Subic Bay.

What are your goalposts? Increased literacy and civil liberties? Greater liberalization and increasing signs of self-determination? Expanded infrastructure and higher quality of life? Because we're doing all that, but you're intent on patently ignoring it while absurdly comparing the campaign against Al qaeda to the Greco-Persian War. It should be starkly obvious that the two conflicts have almost nothing in common.

How about severing Al qaeda's main financial lifeline in Afghanistan: The opium. Last time I checked, we had a couple of thousand U.S. Marines & Royal Army soldiers wrapping up a resoundingly successful operation to secure them and provide aid to the villages in the area to provide them a source of income other than naroctics. When we deny income to our enemies and improve the quality of life for the locals, thereby turning them against the insurgency, how can you tell me with a straight face that we're losing?

You're also failing to take into account casualty exchange rates. Yes, we're losing people. It happens. But we're diminishing our enemy at a much higher rate while depriving him of the ability to replenish his losses.

 

Possibly hundreds of thousands of people died in the war in the Philippines. Was it worth it? Successful war might be morally utterly wrong.

And in the case of Afghanistan, US isn't fighting to conquer and keep a new colony, a war in which it wouldn't have to care about the sentiments of the population of that country as it is just trying to oppress them. In Afghanistan US is of course trying to secure a foothold in Central Asia where it has never been in that strong a position, but it isn't in the process of creating a colony, but instead trying to create a stable state and government allied to the US, and can't go on a massive killing spree like in the Philippines, because at that point it would certainly lose the war.

Locals and the world opinion would all turn against it. And the situation is utterly different. Afghanistan, after all, isn't an archipelago whose closest neighbours would be mainly colonial possession of imperialist states, where insurgents couldn't get much help, and the opinion of the world does matter, unlike in 1899-1902, when the Boer war took the limelight. Iraq War, fought also by US, being the closest equivalent to that in our time, which of course doesn't help the US.

 

Kaplan cites Max Boot in stating: "...the success of the U.S. counterinsurgency effort was due not to committing atrocities--24,000 soldiers [in the field] could hardly hope to terrorize 7 million people into submission--but to paying attention to the rudiments of counterinsurgency strategy. In Vietnam...the army [sic] squandered its resources on fruitless search-and-destroy missions. In the Philippines, by contrast, it concentrated on cutting off the guerrillas from civilian assistance by garrisoning the countryside. While the men grumbled about the monotony of life in the boondocks (an Americanization of the Tagalog bundok, meaning "mountain"), their very isolation forced them to become well acquainted with their area and the people who lived there."

Historian Stanley Karnow describes the American rule of the Philippines as, "a model of enlightenment," compared to traditional European colonialism. Even Samuel Tan--a Filipino historian generally critical of America--agrees, arguing that it was a great enabling device to bring liberalism and modernity to the Philippines. Under American rule, the Filipino population doubled from 1900-1920, thanks to advances in medicine, infrastructure, and education. Experience in the Philippines forged historical colossi such as Arthur and Douglas MacAruthur, "Blackjack" Pershing, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and others.

Why the distorted view that none of that matters save for the butcher's bill?

 

A CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released Tuesday morning indicates that 39 percent of Americans favor the war in Afghanistan, with 58 percent opposed to the mission.

Support is down from 53 percent in April, marking the lowest level since the start of the U.S. military mission in Afghanistan soon after the September 11, 2001, attacks.

The poll suggests that 23 percent of Democrats support the war. That number rises to 39 percent for independents and 62 percent for Republicans.

More important than the number of Americans who support the war is how they prioritize it. At this point, I doubt that there are many Democrats who would oppose Obama's reelection on the basis of his Afghanistan policy or many Republicans who would vote for Obama's reelection because of his Afghanistan policy.

So far, however, Obama has been a nearly perfect Republican president on foreign policy.


John McCain has "seen this movie before."

 

Ehh, I think McCain's honestly wrong on that one. It was irregular militia forces loyal to Iraq over AQI that turned out to be a key part of what destroyed Al-Qaida's efforts there.

Sons Of Iraq