Afghanistan. Solutions?

[Tim01]

For all you people who want us to not increase troop strength in Afghanistan, what is it you suppose we should do?

I don't think it would be a good idea to just collect our shit and leave."Sorry for the inconvenience, carry on".

I don't actually see a "better" solution at this current point in time. We ARE in Afghanistan now, no matter who's fault it is or whatever.

So, what do you think should be the plan?

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

1. "To not increase?"

Do you mean "decrease?"

[Tim01]

Um, well , sort of.

Everybody is currently mad because troop numbers are being increased.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

2. k

[Tim01]

4. No answer, huh? nt

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

5. To what?

[Tim01]

9. That's a pretty solid "no", Thanks for playing. nt

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

52. See post #23

[walldude]

3. Learn from history. That should be the plan.

But we can't do that.. because we're already there. So we should just kill a bunch more people, spend a shitload more money, prop up another illegal government and then pull out.

[Tim01]

6. You've lodged your complaint. Do you have a solution? nt

[walldude]

23. You want a real working solution? It's pretty fucking simple.

Pull out. And give the Afghani's the money were were going to use to bomb the crap out of them to help build an infrastructure, a working military and a legitimate government.

This isn't fucking rocket science. Why do terrorists want to kill us? You really think it's because we are infidels and they hate our freedom or might it be because in our quest to control all the money and oil in the world we have slaughtered millions of innocents with our wars and our foreign policies?

There are only two ways to "defeat" terrorists. One is to remain greedy blind fucks and kill them all, which is the side you are apparently on. The other is to find the real cause and put a stop to it. But that's too much work, that would require thought, humanity, and compassion. It would also require politicians and the media to tell the truth, and that will never happen. So you go on with your war for money and I'll go on screaming that it's a really fucking stupid way to "secure our nation".

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

14. That's not a plan.

That's a single sentence signifying nothing. History isn't monolithic.

[walldude]

Well I posted my plan.. I'm sure you'll hate it.

Most Americans do.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

47. I must have missed that post.

Where did you propose your plan?

[walldude]

24. dupe... again WTF?

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

51. I've been getting a lot of that lately.

Can't say I have a solution, though. Seems like this problem occurs every couple of months on DU.

[EFerrari]

21. It's surreal to me and reminiscent of my few acid trips

that people don't get that.

[walldude]

29. It's not called the Graveyard of Empires for nothing... n/t

[arcadian]

7. Afghanistan is the gateway to Iran

Obama is just keeping that door open for the next GOP President.

[tekisui]

8. Phased withdrawal.

The place has been a cluster-fuck since before we came, and will be after we leave--no matter when we leave.

We should have started from the premise-the best and quickest way to leave. Not, how to win or how to build an Afghan army, or how to destroy the Taliban. None of those are achievable objectives without a decades long commitment.

Had Obama ordered the war planners to devise the strategy for withdrawal. They would have made one. They weren't asked that question. They were asked how to achieve other objectives, and compromised on a very loose and elusive withdrawal plan.

Now, in a year, when they re-assess, they will still be looking at the frame of achieving those aims, instead of evaluating how well the withdrawal is going. The goals can be easily disrupted. Withdrawals can only be delayed or on schedule. When the assessments come back, I hope the same questions aren't asked. Because, the answer could very well be: we need more troops.

[Tim01]

26. Ok.

Well, I guess are saying you think the best thing at this point would be to leave and just let them sort it out. I'm not sure I can agree with that. Though I'm not saying I think anything else would necessarily be better.

[panader0]

10. Bring the troops home

Perpetuating a wrong won't turn it into a right.

[EFerrari]

11. Listen to the Afghan people who do not want us there?

Or would that require a 10 year study by Rand?

Instead of a surge, we buy the poppy crops, there's a world wide need for morphine. We make jobs and cut the drug lords out of the action.

The international community monitors human rights.

What is so difficult about that? I'll tell you what: there's no profit in doing the right thing.

[janx]

15. I like the idea of buying the poppy crops!

I DO! I don't know if the people in Afghanistan would like the idea, but it sounds good to me.

[EFerrari]

18. If we gave Pfizer or Glaxo the contract, we'd be so much farther ahead

and the Republicans would love it.

The people shooting at us are shooting at invaders. They didn't do 9/11. They're mostly working for wages.

Let's give them a better way to earn a living. :shrug:

[Bluerthanblue]

32. I don't believe we could pay what the poppy growers get for

their crops indefinitely- We actually DO purchase much of their crop, we just do it illegally.

This is an interesting read:

<<<<<<...In '87 alone, the US military aid to the mujahideen amounted to $660 million. The US also muscled the Saudis into matching its Afghanistan aid dollar-for-dollar. Another chunk came from opium trading which the CIA encouraged de rigueur. Opium fetched five times the price of wheat and the mujahideen ordered the peasants to plant it, handing out opium quotas to all landowners and greatly expanding production. It was taken to literally hundreds of heroin processing centers at the border in Pakistan, where they were run under the aegis of the ISI. Before the US involvement in Afghanistan, there was no heroin production in this region at all, but soon it became the largest producer of heroin in the world, amounting to a multi-billion dollar industry (today it supplies 95% of the world's heroin).

To create additional, frontline recruits, the ISI helped turn local madrassas into ideological training grounds that integrated the authority of Islamic teaching with guerrilla warfare. This fused religious fundamentalism with militant terrorism like never before. Because this innovation only helped the immediate US goal of killing Russians, the CIA turned a blind eye to the central teaching in these schools: Afghanistan was only the staging ground for a holy war that would grow into an international Islamist movement.

Well, not exactly a blind eye. In the 80s, the mujahideen ran an Educational Center for Afghanistan that had “children's books designed for it by University of Nebraska under a $50 million USAID grant ... A third-grade mathematics textbook asks: ‘One group of mujahideen attack 50 Russian soldiers. In that attack 20 Russians are killed. How many Russians fled?’ A fourth-grade textbook ups the ante: ‘The speed of a Kalashnikov bullet is 800 meters per second. If a Russian is at a distance of 3200 meters from a mujahid, and that mujahid aims at the Russian’s head, calculate how many seconds it will take for the bullet to strike the Russian in the forehead.’ The program ended in 1994 but the books continued to circulate: ‘US-sponsored textbooks, which exhort Afghan children to pluck out the eyes of their enemies and cut off their legs, are still widely available in Afghanistan and Pakistan, some in their original form.’”<13>

The Americans and the Soviets, having thoroughly used and abused Afghanistan for their Cold War ends, abandoned it completely in the late 80s. Their withdrawal was followed by a civil war that was won by the victorious Islamists, who alone could provide a measure of cohesion and stability amid the chaos. A million Afghans had died, millions more were disabled, maimed, or orphaned. The chief economic product was still opium and heroin; the only schools operating were the madrassas once funded by the US to mould recruits for the holy war against the Russians. The global recruiting and training infrastructure remained, as did the financial networks and Saudi aid. After the war, the ideologically charged mujahideen didn’t just go home and become baby boomers. They had driven the Soviets out and their victory emboldened them to expand their militant jihad. From this cesspool arose the Taliban and “the forces that carried out the operation we know as 9/11.”<14> In a recent article, Pervez Hoodbhoy wrote the following: ......>>>>>>>>
http://www.shunya.net/Text/Blog/AmericaColdWarTaliban.htm

[EFerrari]

33. It won't happen anyway because CIA and other actors

don't want to be sidelined.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

16. The international community...

...is not going to monitor a damn thing if their observers are being kidnapped and shot at. That's laughable.

[TexasObserver]

12. How could you NOT know our position?

Most of us think the war is a bad idea, and leaving is exactly the plan we think is best.

Some may feel a more gradual withdrawal is required, but the overwhelming position of those at DU who oppose the escalation is to get out soon and stop increasing troops immediately.

Why is there an endless procession of pro escalation posters who act as if WE have not made clear that we do not support the war and want it over, period?

You seem to suppose that we need some plan for Afghanistan other than simply getting out.

[G_j]

27. I don't believe there is a military solution, period.

I'm sure there are lots of other ways to help the people of that region.

[TexasObserver]

28. Agreed.

This notion that killing people in another country to make them be more like us is stupid.

There are 6 billion people in the world, only 25 million of whom live in Afghanistan. How is it THEY need our constant oversight?

[MerryBlooms]

37. There's never been a military solution for Afghanistan. n/t

.

[Tim01]

35. Oh, war is bad? Thanks for clearing that up. nt

[TexasObserver]

38. That is not what I wrote, is it? I said THIS war is bad.

And your response proves you didn't start the thread in good faith.

You know the answers already. You just want to whine about it.

[L0oniX]

13. Infiltrate terrorist groups over a long period of time, then take em out.

[kenny blankenship]

19. Or you could just kill everybody now

after all, how can you be sure in a place like that who the enemy is?

If we're looking for a solution and we require final certainty and security then that's the only guaranteed and final solution. Kill everybody. All the other possibilities are pretty hopeless (nation building in Afghanistan?? May as well try nation building in Uranus!) and they do not offer any comparable degree of certainty. And without certainty there apparently can't be any security (at least, not to judge from the attitudes and actions of our leaders) There's no going to bed at night confident that terrorists won't kill you while you sleep unless you get all the people who could possibly want to harm you. And then Uncle Dick will come by to tuck us in, with a glass of warm milk.

[L0oniX]

25. If we would leave all Islamic countries they would not have a big reason to hate us.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

17. Send in more troops to burn down the pottery barn so there's nothing to "fix"?

Which seems to be the "New" strategy now.

[Blue-Jay]

20. I honestly can't think of a good "solution".

More troops, less troops, no troops.... I don't think that ANY of these ideas will result in a better Afghanistan. Then again, I don't view Afghanistan as an actual country. Neither do most Afghans, if I had to guess.

I'd like for us to get the fuck out of there, but I don't know if that would be better or worse for the people who live there. I'm opposed to more war, but I'm also against leaving the Afghan people to the mercy of whoever is the strongest among them.

In other words, this entire clusterfuck is neither a for/against proposal. If we leave, people will die but if we stay, people will die.

[anonymous171]

22. Leave. We have no interests there. nt

[timeforpeace]

30. Get out now. Otherwise we will get out later having "lost" another war. On Obama's watch.

[Tim01]

39. Yeah. I can't argue with that.

Pull out and declare defeat? That doesn't seem like a good plan either. But I can't argue that dicking around with this longer, spending more money and blood, is better if the outcome is going to be the same. That's throwing good money after bad.

Once again though, no "good" solution.

[cornermouse]

31. Pack up and get out.

Immediately. They aren't children who can be swayed or told what to do. They're going to to go ahead and do what they want as soon as we leave, if not before. We aren't saving any Afghani lives by being there. In the meantime, we're spending money we don't really have and allowing our soldiers to die.

A lot of us have seen this movie before. It was called Vietnam and later Phnom Pehn. Our presence there is not accomplishing anything positive.

[Oregone]

34. "I don't actually see a "better" solution "

Why is 30 K increase essentially the best solution? Do you understand this is an arbitrary number, based on the political situation in the states rather than the conditions on the ground in Afghanistan?

If you are going to increase troops, why some arbitrary and rather small number that is merely symbolic? You honestly think in a region that large, with that may people, anything less that 300-400K or more soldiers will contain violence and be able to fight a guerrilla war?

If you can recognize the arbitrary nature of the increase, then you recognize the political expediency of the decision. While there is symbolic (and minor material) escalation that commits the nation further, it is not enough to have a real impact in this type of a war, in this type of country. Its merely a gesture that has consequences (such as, it may increase resistance and entrench the nation further).

How could this be the "best" solution for the war when it is also the best political solution for a president?

And no, in 18 months there will be no real withdrawal

[Tim01]

36. And your better solution is what? nt

[Oregone]

41. Leave. Now

Maybe attempt to bribe goodstanding Muslims nations to participate in a replacement peacekeeping/training force.

Provide money for rebuilding with some type of accountability system to keep the money out of the hands of Karzai's corrupt cronies.

Say "SORRY, we fucked up and we can't fix it"

[Alamuti Lotus]

40. There is only one real 'military solution': NATO defeat

That would be a move in the right direction for the world.

[Edweird]

42. Leave. If OBL isn't there, we shouldn't be either.

If he's there and alive, kill him.
Then leave.
If he's there and dead.... what the hell, kill him again.
Then leave.

If he's not there, and I think it's probably obvious to a lot of people that he isn't, then we should be on the next transport out. Yes, we broke what was left of their shitty place. That doesn't mean that they want us around to 'fix' it. Much like how it would be hard to imagine a victim of violent assault wanting the perpetrator around to 'make it all better'.

There's nothing there to 'win'.

[IrateCitizen]

43. It's called the "graveyard of empires" for a reason

And, as much as it may offend liberal sensibilities, there's not really a damned thing we can do to encourage anything resembling a liberal democracy there. It's a patchwork nation made up of countless valleys that maintain significant degrees of autonomy -- and will fight to the last man to defend that autonomy.

As for the Taliban, they will moderate to a large degree over time, simply because circumstances will dictate it. Most of the current members of the Taliban are men who were forced from their homes during the Soviet invasion and its aftermath, and left their traditional villages to study fundamentalist Islam in the border region with Pakistan. As a result, while they learned religious orthodoxy, their religious belief was not tempered by the village relationships and obligations that Afghans had previously experienced. Given that, there is no way that we can possibly expect things to "turn on a dime." However, over time, these Taliban who return and initially institute a harsh version of Sharia Law will eventually moderate, because the reality of village life will necessitate it. What comes out on the other end in another 20-25 years -- especially when a new generation comes along -- will probably not be much different from the typical Pashtun society that existed before the Taliban.

Of course, such a path tends to go against liberal sensibilities, and the importance they place upon human rights -- as well as the need to submit to time rather than force a desired outcome. So, I'm expecting such an outlook will not be well received by some. But, it seems to be the least damaging option in the long term, given the historical experience of Afghanistan and the insanity of trying to socially engineer a better society there.

If the goal is preventing al Qaeda from re-establishing a stronghold there, then to continue on in order to get something like 100 people is just plain nuts, no matter how you try to justify it.

[Tim01]

46. Damn. Great post. Thanks. nt

[Vinnie From Indy]

44. Well, here's a thought!

How about we commit to a speedy phased withdrawal and let the Afghani's do sooner rather than later what they will do regardless of how long we stay and how much money we spend. The fact is that we will NEVER impose our will on these people without continuing to kill them by the truckload. And, that will only be a temporary thing.

I am confident that regardless of this surge or ten more surges that Afghanistan will return to being a country run by regional warlords and tribal factions. Let's not forget that the Taliban were never able to do what we are trying to do - unify and pacify the country. The Taliban and the Northern Alliance never did come to terms and they fought endlessly. At the end of the day, we will have accomplished nothing except whole lot more killing at a very, very high cost in lives and money for our country.

As far as the bogeyman about the return of the TAliban, I think we can certainly devise strategies to keep them contained and we can certainly arrange to project a crapload of power without the huge footprint we have now if the situation demands it.

I believe that the decision to surge was done for domestic political considerations. The national security aspect of the war, while being touted by both sides as the main reason for fighting this war, is just window dressing at this point.

Just a thought!

[Oregone]

48. "I believe that the decision to surge was done for domestic political considerations"

It really seems like Obama is trying to make everyone happy at once. Its really tough to see it any other way. And once you do, you realize quickly that its not a solution that is designed to suffice for military purposes.

One thing that surprises me, is how few troops the military was actually asking for (maybe they are asking for a few to warm him up). Ive read a counterinsurgency strategy that calls for up-wards a half million troops for a country of that size and population. So it seems like the military may of been asked to ask for so few. And Obama may of planned to give less than that number before they were even told to asked for it (all theory). In fact, what the military asked for may of been derived on what was first determined the politically expedient number to send (30K). By doing so, an arbitrarily small number is sent, such that as few of people in the US see it as a major commitment, yet Obama still satisfies 75% of what the military asked for (but does anyone doubt they need 10X that many in reality).

Then he drops the bomb to the doves that they are beginning a withdrawal in 18 months? Come on now...if anyone is serious about fixing a problem, why would you withdrawal before you know its fixed? Thats absurd. It was just a carrot to bait the morons, OR, Obama doesn't really care to fix the problem there (which conflicts with sending troops in the first place).

I think he is trying to make everyone happy and walking an unforgiving tightrope over the graveyard of nations.

[kenny blankenship]

49. One of these sides will turn out in the end to be targeted for shafting

Since we're already feeling it, I suspect it's us.

[pscot]

45. GET! OUT!

N/T

[ConcernedCanuk]

50. 'zactly

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:thumbsup: