The Afghanistan Challenge

"The Joint Chiefs of Staff believed that a protracted ground war would be difficult to win -- a key lesson from Korea -- and that the way to get the North Vietnamese to give up its fight to take over South Vietnam was to mine and blockade its harbors and bomb Hanoi, its capital, until they sued for peace. After failing to persuade McNamara, the five senior officers took their recommendation directly to the president in November 1965.

As recalled by retired Lt. Gen. Charles Cooper in his 2002 memoir, "Cheers and Tears: A Marine's Story of Combat in Peace and War," Johnson was blunt. He called the chiefs naive, telling them he "was not going to let some military idiots talk him into World War III. He ended the conference by shouting, 'Get the hell out of my office!'¤"

"McNamara admitted in his 1995 book, "In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam," that he and the president were "wrong, terribly wrong," about Vietnam, but that they feared such strong American action would bring China or the Soviet Union, North Vietnam's allies, into the war, perhaps even with nuclear weapons."
Dale Davenport

Wrong, terribly wrong repeats itself. The problem is that Afghanistan chews up resources and the return on what's invested keeps diminishing. The costs are high and the benefits are low. It's full of low value targets so isolate, monitor and track. Have clear and realistic objectives. Man proposes and God disposes.

No Afghan or Taliban was ever involved in any terrorist activities against the West.

The bottom line is that Afghans have never liked anyone to tell them what to do, since the invasion of Aryans 4000 B.C. over 200 invaders have tried and failed.

Al Queda was American baby foisted on Afghanistan from Sudan in 1996.

Till 9/11 Talibans were been feted and dined in Washington.

Only a fool can believe that 9/11 was planned in caves of Afghanistan.

This was a more complex operation than D-Day landings in Normandy

No Afghan or Taliban was ever involved in any terrorist activities against the West.

The bottom line is that Afghans have never liked anyone to tell them what to do, since the invasion of Aryans 4000 B.C. over 200 invaders have tried and failed.

Al Queda was American baby foisted on Afghanistan from Sudan in 1996.

Till 9/11 Talibans were been feted and dined in Washington.

Only a fool can believe that 9/11 was planned in caves of Afghanistan.

This was a more complex operation than D-Day landings in Normandy

The goal was to remove Al Qaeda and its supporting Afghan government. This opportunity was lost when Rumsfield, with his nose bent out of shape because Bush appointed the CIA as the lead, delayed the deployment of troops for 3 weeks until he was appointed leader of the war. See Frontline "Bush's War".

The question now is, are these goals still achievable?

Complex operation, track backwards.
Hendropriyono, the Indonesian chief of intelligence, will later claim that, “[we] had intelligence predicting the September 11 attacks three years before it happened but nobody believed us.” He says Indonesian intelligence agents identify bin Laden as the leader of the group plotting the attack and that the US disregards the warning, but otherwise offers no additional details. The Associated Press notes, “Indonesia’s intelligence services are not renowned for their accuracy.”

http://www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp?warning_signs:_specific_cases=foreignIntelligence&timeline=complete_911_timeline

Afganistan is a tough nut, I suppose, because it is home to people who, historically, have little connection to the rest of the world and other, different people. This makes them extremely xenophobic and creates communities that will be highly motivated to resist any and all incursion of the outside world into their lives. It also sets them up for tribal infighting.

The most fundamental goal of the Taliban is to turn the clock back and resist the incursion of "foreign" ideas and culture. "Foreign" would mean anything new or progressive, not just geographically foreign. This means that they can't really make much progress in places where people have already been exposed to "foreign" culture or do actually have a connection and relation to the rest of the world and other people. They can certainly rule such places, but those places will never be a recruiting base, at least for the span of a generation.
Likewise, the home areas of the Taliban will be a good recruitment base as long as the people there remain ignorant of the world and have no relation to other people.

So, in the long run, the real goal should be to expose the people in the hard-core Taliban areas to the world, and the world is attractive enough compared to what they have. Hard to do, when it comes to people who don't have electricity, TV and can't read.
The simplest thing that comes to mind is to repeatedly airdrop them some printed porn (with people who do _not_ look Afgan).
And if the local authorities decide to take severe measures against anyone collecting such cards, then they will antagonize their own future fighters. Either way, it would probably reduce recruitment numbers, if I'm right in my view about the root of the problem.

Airdrop porn stars too and open cheap bars with exotic dancing. Supply plenty of cheap moonshine and keep 'em hungover for the next 50 years.

Afghanistan is where empires go to die. There is a reason for that saying. Leave by the end of 2009.

Ev911 hit the nail on the head. it's the land of lost opportunity, especially for those born there. Not worth a pot of warm p.

Historically Afghanistan has been at war for centuries due to its strategic location as a hub between the East and West. It has been invaded by colonial powers from well before the English and Russian attempts to control that region, which failed miserably.

The country is home to the poorest soil and the poorest people with the most rugged terrain imaginable, and it cannot be conquered by force, even the mighty war machine of America and its allies have no way of defeating any widespread discontent. If Vietnam was viewed as difficult Afghanistan should be viewed as impossible.

Without the Taliban being subdued by diplomacy there will be no end to the conflict, eventually the waste of American resources will become overwhelming as allies pull out of this unwinable conflict. How exactly this all happens, and when, is the only unknown, though I would suggest that American military overeach will come sooner than later, and probably coincide with America's fiscal bankruptsy - due any day now.

Where were all these opinions when Bush started the war in the first place? People who questioned or did not support the war were completely ignored, ridiculed or had their patriotism called into question. Now all of a sudden, after 8 years, and a new President, we have all these people coming out of the woodwork questioning the wars legitimacy. Where were you 8 years ago?

Because this is 'Obama's war', maybe he should go to Afghanistan and manage it himself. He would look spiffy in tailored mufti, somewhat like Napolean redeux. And, being on the ground as Commander and Chief, surrounded by the day-to-day of life and death, he would get a more immediate grasp of the situation, perhaps making his view of the outcome a little less optimistic. And being able to see the great waste of money, that could be applied to a more efficient means of deterrence, he would be able to make those dreams he sold to become president come true.

The political strategy is to demoralize the military. They want to keep this going forward, so everybody keeps fighting over a pile of crap and the pile gets bigger. The donor base gets fatter, so more electioneering cash to play with. It ain't worth the fuel we are burning. Next they'll be saying we need to provide Afghan health care and want billions to build new hospitals as ours close down. They're closing here already. Send the people Homefront.

It is just like someone said here you can not WIN a War on the Cheap.

You either Fight the War to Win or you are not.

So Far American leaders seem to have a problem with fighting this War to Win. For if they did not then there would be more then enough resources cammited to do the job, for their clearly are not enough to do the job yet after how many years now, and how many lives have been wasted on this half hearted atempt. Either fight to Win with More Resources then are needed or forget it and Run Home. We will not need to wait long for the enemy to attack here agian I am shore of that !

Q: What's wrong with Afghanistan?

A: Wrong question. What's right with it? Answer: nothing.

Q: So why are we there?

A: Because we are self-deluded and stubborn.

Since 9/11, the single goal should have been to kill or capture al-Qaeda. At worst, the Taliban are guilty of aiding and abetting. To solve the problem, give the Taliban what they want: their own autonomous region, as called for in the negotiations leading up to the establishment of the "temporary" Durand line, over a hundred years ago. The new, expanded Pushtunistan would be carved out of hapless Afghanistan, the heart and soul of which IS the Taliban/ Pushtun ethnic group. Let the rump Afghanistan fend for itself. In return, the Taliban give up Osama and as many al-Qaeda members as they can corral to NATO forces, to be dealt with on our terms. The foreign-born fanatics of al-Qaeda hold no special place in the hearts of the Taliban/Pushtun anyway, and they will gladly be sacrified so that the promised land of Pushtunistan will finally become a reality.

corruption in the defense department..

and they beat the russians too, remember? they had the lastest weapons, fighting a guerilla war..
dont forget vietnam..

We now have a two mom monkey and no money. I guess defense can make a two dad monkey and with offspring start a new branch of the military for us and call it the Monkey Corps. Teach them to fly and you are talking french cooking with Julia. Ha Ha!