Also, why do you term it short term security, mid term capacity building, and long-term economic development? How can you have long term economic development without long term security? One leads to the other? Anyway, am enjoying reading your comments here.

The problem I have with your phraseology is that some muslims might misunderstand and find it offensive. This is why I call them Takfiri extremists. I don’t even call them Salafi, Wahhabi (a subset of Salafi) or Deobondi Salafi extremists; because they are millions of very good and spiritual Wahhabis, Deobondis and Salafis who shouldn’t in any way be associated by anyone with the extremists. The extremists also shouldn’t get the title “Jihadi” since that term should only apply to muslims involved in religiously sanctioned struggle.

Few things offend me as much as the widely held view by many that Takfiri extremists mass murdering hundreds of thousands of muslim civilians isn’t as abhorrent as extremists killing westerners, Chinese, Indians or Russians.

FDChief, I thought you were trying to insult the ANA. If you weren’t, then my apologies. Some of your words do not seem respectful to Afghans: “Afghanistan is and will be a chaotic backwater for decades. We can either bite off a piece of that or recognize it for what it is, a landlocked tribal wasteland” I know the Afghans have problems, but they really aren’t as different from you as you implicitly seem to assume.

Afghanistan was a province of the (Mongol) Moghul empire until around 1700, just like India, Bangladesh and Pakistan. Afghanistan was a province of the Persian empire between about 1700 and 1747. To assume that Afghans cannot achieve what Iranians, Indians and Bangladeshis have is plain old offensive.

I believe that long term economic development in Afghanistan can work. The last province of the Moghul empire (which emanated from Uzbechistan and Afghanistan) dissolved in 1948 in Hyderabad, South India. {similar to how the Roman empire ended in 1453 in Constantinople.} Today Hyderbad (which has many traditional orthodox muslims) is a major global software, semiconductor and industrial center. I believe the Afghans are capable of so much more than many believe.

I am an American like you, and I don’t want US combat troops to stay in Afghanistan much longer. I think we should transition to an Afghan capacity building mission ASAP. Let the Afghans fight the AQ linked networks mostly on their own.

To me the most important of the three international missions in Afghanistan is the long term mission of economic development. (The other two being short term security improvement and medium term Afghan capacity building.) I believe this to be strongly in America’s national interests.

“You’re saying the Talibs – a defeated faction out of national power, pursued by the entire might of the Western coalition, pays their footsoldiers MORE?” Yes. Ask yourself where Taliban financing and support are coming from.

The Afghans were fighting the Taliban. But the world called it “warlordism” and “tribal confederacies” and demanded that the GIRoA dismantle them, which it mostly did. The world is demanding that the ANSF and GIRoA maintain a monopoly of force and not support war lords or tribal confederacies. The only way Afghans can legally fight the Taliban is by joining the ANA or ANP. And many more want to join them than the ANA and ANP will hire.

And there’s really no reason to attack, anand said why the Taliban can pay people more: “The entire GIRoA collects $600 million a year in revenue, or considerably less than Afghanistan’s education budget alone.” I’m not sure where his source is, but he seems like a smart guy, like everyone else here, so I’m inclined to believe him.

Basically, I disagree with you on some of your thoughts on the region. Mostly the idea that Afghanistan is a sideshow. I’m betting my future paychecks on Central Asia being incredibly important over the next few decades, so I think that the energy and resources there will become absolutely vital as resources elsewhere fall short. And if Russia and China (and certainly, India and Iran) are important, one would imagine the huge chunk of land between the few of them is, too.

I can’t imagine the good folks at Registan want us taking over their comments page bickering. As Abu M said, “that is a conversation I would be happy to have — just not in the comments section of a blog.” My blogspottastic blog is incredibly quiet, if you drop a line over there with your e-mail attached, I’d be glad to shoot e-mails back and forth with you.

Your analogy is poor. Did STALIN have the right to rule the former USSR? He was a brutal, undemocratic despot determined to bury us. But we didn’t send ten brigades to help the Hungarian rebels or to roll back Soviet rule in the Ukraine. We waited, used our covert and indirect power to thwart him when and where we could. And guess what? We won in the end.

The Talibs are a local faction in Afghan politics, one we dislike. IF we want them gone, in the final analysis, we can’t do the work – the Afghans themselves will have to reject them. And I mean the Pashtun – just paying off a bunch of Tajiks and Hazaras to do it won’t wash, in the long run.

Second, so you’re saying that despite their intense, violent hatred for the Talibs, the ordinary Afghan isn’t flocking to the Karzai banner because…they won’t get PAID? You’re saying the Talibs – a defeated faction out of national power, pursued by the entire might of the Western coalition, pays their footsoldiers MORE?

What are you smoking? And can I have some?

Read my posts. I’m arguing for MORE support for our local Afghan proxies, not less. I’m arguing that the PROBLEM is that we’re jumping entire battalions of Western troops into what is now a local political squabble. I’m suggesting that we back off the Western troops, jack a bunch of money and trainers into the Afghan Army and let Afghan boys fight what is an Afghan fight.

If Afghanistan is a backwards 18th Century dump, it’s an Afghan problem, not a NATO problem, not a U.S. problem. The only problem is when an Afghan faction reaches out to attack U.S. interests. They did, we slapped them out of power. We now have two choices; to spend the next hundred years fiddling around in central Asia trying to make our proxy the power in the Afghan/Pakistan region, or doing what smart imperial powers have always done – apply a little force here, a little bribery there, and ensure that the barbarians are only a danger to each other.

It took two hundred years, an industrial revolution and two world wars to create the modern U.S. economy. I’m not sure how you figure that “funding, training and equipping” ANYthing in Afghanistan is going to replicate that in a human lifetime.

Afghanistan is and will be a chaotic backwater for decades. We can either bite off a piece of that or recognize it for what it is, a landlocked tribal wasteland of peripheral strategic interest to us and apply an appropriate level of money and power to it. Great powers flourish by recognizing what is central to their interests and what is not. The EU is important, Russia and China are important, Mexico is important (if only for it’s proximity).

Afghanistan is a sideshow. To throw lavish money into central Asia while Mexico falls to chaos and the narcotraficantes is the definition of foolishness.

Thinking that might makes right rather than justice or the will of the people is so medieval and so “western.” Do you think Hilter had a right to rule the former USSR? He likely would have if America didn’t help the Soviets during WWII.

To repeat something else that most readers know, the primary long term challenge in Afghanistan is economic development. The entire GIRoA collects $600 million a year in revenue, or considerably less than Afghanistan’s education budget alone. The GIRoA steady state budget is about $6 billion a year or ten times annual Afghan revenue. Finding a way to promote private sector Afghan growth, and increase GIRoA revenue ten fold is the largest challenge in Afghanistan.

There’s a name for what you are suggesting. It is called crusading, and the last time the West tried what you’re suggesting the end result was the Ottoman Army hammering on the gates of Vienna. Only a fool or a madman would suggest that we begin a 14th Crusade in an era of Atomic Weapons.

Islamic fundamentalism is a throwback to medieval theocracy. It can only be defeated by the Muslims themselves much as we Westerners defeated our own theocracies, by a Muslim Enlightenment. We cannot bring that to the middle east by force. We can help through exchanges of ideas, social networking…all that soft power stuff you’re laughing at

But if we try and do it with a soldier, they will close up behind the Islamists. We’ve already shot ourselves in the ass by ousting Saddam and showing the Muslim world that secular strongmen are helpless against the infidel, that only the muj fight and kill their enemies.

There’s a place for Western spies, diplomats and soldiers. But what is being questioned here is whether Afghanistan is a place for the “big battalions”, or whether our kinetic operations there are 1) more expensive that any return can every justify, and 2) more likely to led to a weak, corrupt autocracy propped up by foreign bayonets than a less intrusive, economy of force politico-military assisstance program would be.

I realize that that’s a hard picture to draw with crayon.

anand: If all those Afghans hate the Talibs, then why the hell aren’t they storming the ANA recruiting stations to take on their enemies? This is Afghanistan, right? One of the world’s most warlike societies?

So. Bullshit. The “right” to rule the Afghans goes to whoever the Afghans – not us, not the British, not NATO – will fight for, as it always has.

I am sure you know that the Feb 9, 2009, public opinion poll of Afghans found that 91% of Afghans had an unfavorable view of the Taliban. The June, 2009, poll showed similar results. I am sure you would agree that the ANA is by far the most beloved and respected institution among the Afghan people.

Do you think the Taliban has the “RIGHT” to rule the Afghans who don’t want them; and to kill the ANA and GIRoA at will?