Comments on: Please, Please Think Before You Punditize

By: dennis

dennis — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 22:27:37 +0000

way off topic,but over at danger room they have a video,done by PBS. about 24min,long. it’s a good story. and fits somewhat. in this post. joshua i thought you like to know.

By: DE Teodoru

DE Teodoru — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 20:29:32 +0000

The trouble with warlords is that they hog capital, holding on to it, and isolate economically their region. Taliban enjoyed some success specifically because it *seemed* to overarch them. Building US/NATO run manufacturing cities that train an indigenous government and population, paying them at a loss to develop would compete with warlords and could be better defended. Immigration of youth to cities into carefully monitored and comfortable housing could succeed in creating a new Afghan culture. But here the problem is the corruption of our privateer corps. that would steal a lot of the money as they did in Iraq. This is what China will do if we don’t.

By: Joshua Foust

Joshua Foust — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 19:25:49 +0000

That’s a fair statement — though surely as a political scientist you’re familiar with path dependence and how badly that distorts our choices — but it’s also not the point of this post

By: Bernard Finel

Bernard Finel — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 19:22:33 +0000

Fair enough… and I wasn’t suggesting a sterling success.

In the weeks after 9/11, I am pretty sure that we would have wanted more than a temporary disruption in AQ activities. But in retrospect, I wonder if disrupting AQ for a decade or more would not have been a reasonable and adequate goal.

I just keep getting back to the basic issue. Our goal was to disrupt AQ. We disrupted AQ. Now our hope was this would prove permanent, but I am not wholly sure 10-15 years of disrupting isn’t either “good enough” or “the best would could have hoped for.”

By: Joshua Foust

Joshua Foust — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 18:41:16 +0000

Bernard, the reason the Taliban is busy replacing the Afghan government as the country’s legitimate governing authority—exacerbating the problems of transnational terrorism, since the safe haven thing works both ways—is because of the limited goals we had in the beginning. Similarly, given the way a mostly hands-off policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan affected London and, increasingly, Germany, I don’t think there’s much patience for writing it off as a sterling success.

It’s like incurring mortgage debt during the same time period. Things seem awesome in the short term until the interest kicks in. Then you lose your house.

By: Bernard Finel

Bernard Finel — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 15:57:45 +0000

>>Oh right, she wants us to go back to our super-successful strategy in 2004. <<

But why was it not successful? I mean, AQ has hardly been a terrorist powerhouse since 9/11. And in particular, there have been no spectacular attacks since then. I know that Islamist violence has increased around the world, and the Taliban (and associates) are resurgent. But if the goal was to prevent other 9/11s, and there have not been any new 9/11s, then why be so quick to dismiss the strategy as a failure?

By: RScott

RScott — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 15:35:36 +0000

“…either Canadians soldiers are out doing the messy and annoying work of counterinsurgency, or they are not. I don’t see how they could both do it and not do it at the same time.”

They have the illusion that they are doing it but overlook one key point: in the minds of most Kandaharis, we remain a foreign, non-Muslim, military occupational force replacing the Soviets. The central government does not have the support or confidence of most of the local people nor does the foreign forces. A foreign military occupational force cannot win the “hearts and minds” of these people. And they share most of the values voiced and enforced by the “Taliban” who originated from this region. Are the elements to “win” the counterinsurgency effort present? Not likely.

By: M SHANNON

M SHANNON — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 15:02:38 +0000

An IED hit a Canadian Forces (CF) vehicle near the showcase village the other day as well as a RPG frag hitting the convoy of the Canadian TF Afghanistan commander, BGen Vance. He went on to threaten the locals with cessation of development if they didn’t dime out the Taliban. I wonder where the next IED will be?

Vance also recently stated that the election in Kandahar was a success due to CF efforts and a while ago chased a kid on foot to chastise him for throwing a rock at a LAV so I’m not sure if he’s completely with it.

The other Canadian showcase, the Dahla Dam has gone nowhere and their cash for work program in Arghandab is reported to have hired 199 unskilled laborers over the past year. A similar program run for USAID by a single expat in Nangarhar had 4,000 workers on the job in one week.

All the while rags such as the Globe and Mail, Wente’s employer, are printing pieces claiming McCryhstal’s plan is modeled on the successful Canadian effort in Kandahar! God help us.

Currently the Canadian government is preparing the public for the news that the only “combat troops” in Afghanistan are the members of the battle group and that the PRT and others will stay past 2011. If I was Obama I’d ask Harper to remove all of his troops as soon as is feasible.