Ever marvel at why the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan seems so, I don’t know, empty? One clue is found in the U.S. really starting to get serious about cross-border violence with Pakistan only six years after we first noticed there was a problem and asked Musharraf to pretty please undermine his own political base in stopping them. Or maybe it’s realizing that the reason military activity in the country seems to very disconnected with reality on the ground is that the West’s entire military relationship with the government of Afghanistan fits on a (duplexed) sheet of paper. This was supposed to change in 2005. Why didn’t it?
The prospect of codifying the ad hoc rules under which U.S. forces have operated in Afghanistan since late 2001 sends shudders through the Bush administration, which has struggled to finalize its agreement with Baghdad. “It’s never been done because the issues have been too big to surmount,” said one U.S. official who was not authorized to discuss the subject on the record. “The most diplomatic way of saying it is that there are just a lot of moving parts,” the official said.
The Afghan government “is not the most streamlined and efficient system,” he said. “So you’d have a multiplicity of players on that side.” Less diplomatic U.S. officials frequently describe elements of Karzai’s government as deeply corrupt and incompetent. Although most civilian war deaths in Afghanistan are caused by Taliban forces, those resulting from the highly visible airstrikes are a particular cause of public outrage that neither Karzai nor the administration can afford to ignore.
Oh well, there’s no way that could fail. Luckily, Afghan forces are taking over security in Kabul. Clearly having no real way for them to interact with American or international forces won’t cause any issues in operations, planning, or needless civilian death, right?
Right.
Bonus Stat: Kip talks sports, shows that China came this close to spending on the Olympics twice what the U.S. has spent on Afghanistan in seven years. U.S. spending on Afghanistan, 2001-2008: $26 billion. China spending on Olympics, 2000-2008: $44 billion. At least the Olympics were a success.
This post was written by...
Joshua Foust – author of 1771 posts on Registan.net.
Joshua Foust is a Fellow at the American Security Project and the author of Afghanistan Journal: Selections from Registan.net. His research focuses primarily on Central and South Asia. Joshua is a correspondent for The Atlantic and a columnist for PBS Need to Know. Joshua appears regularly on the BBC World News, Aljazeera, and international public radio. Joshua is also a regular contributor to Foreign Policy’s AfPak Channel, and his writing has appeared in the New York Times, Reuters, and the Christian Science Monitor. Follow him on twitter: @joshuafoust