The Great Gamble
Gregory Feifer’s The Great Gamble: The Soviet War in Afghanistan is the kind of book you read to feel worse about the idea of escalating the US troop deployment to Afghanistan. But it mostly made me feel better. You read something like this and you really are struck by all the parallels to our current predicament. But at the same time you’re also really struck by the extent to which the situations tend to be parallel, but not at all the same in terms of their quantity.
The Soviets, like the Americans, had some trouble understanding Afghan situations on their own terms in part because the Soviet government (like the American government) understood its role in the world in grandiose, highly ideological, propagandistic terms. But while the shape of the problem was comparable, the extent of it really isn’t. The US isn’t even close to being as ideological or propagandistic as the Soviet one. And it’s like this down the list. The Pakistan border situation is a problem for us, but was a disaster for them. The mujahedeen ideological coalition was broader than the one we’re facing, they were better-funded than the people we’re facing. We’re much richer than the Soviets were, have much better techology (consider how much richer and more technologically adept we are in 2009 than we were in 1979), have way more international legitimacy, more allies, more of everything. The only advantages the Soviets had relative to us are more straightforward supply lines and the mixed blessing of being able to play cute games with all-Muslim units from the Soviet ’stans.
This is important because if you read the book you’ll a point Steve Coll has been pressing—for all their errors, what the Soviets were doing really kinda sorta worked in the end. Najibullah’s government survived Soviet withdrawal and even slightly outlasted the Soviet Union itself. If we push the parallel but assume the United States of America continues to exist, things could look very different.
The one doubts-raising parallel is that the Soviets put almost laughably little thought into why this was important before they invaded. They never asked pro-Soviet forces in Afghanistan to mount a coup, and there was no real reason to think that the coup failing would damage their interests in any way. The invasion became a disaster not so much because the Soviets weren’t able to succeed in a satisfactory way, but because keeping the war up was so costly in times of money, personnel, attention, prestige, etc. while the US countermeasures were very cheap. Which is to say that something can be doable and also not necessarily be worth doing. But a lot of the debate has focused on whether or not the kind of mission General McChrystal has proposed is even possible, and I think the Soviet experience should increase, rather than decrease, our confidence that it is.
In particular, it’s hard to capture the full scope of this in the blog post, but the Soviet war in the early phases was dominated by really nutty operational conduct. For example, they opened their intervention on behalf of the pro-Soviet Afghan government by shooting the leader of the pro-Soviet Afghan government and replacing him and everyone in his regime by leaders of a rival Communist faction. Obviously, that set a bad tone for the whole thing, but somehow they convinced themselves that this move would be welcomed by the local population. I could go on.
46 Responses to “The Great Gamble”
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October 22nd, 2009 at 1:09 pm
Yeah, it is unknowable how long the conflict in Afghanistan will last. It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months.
You do remember you used up a lot of bandwidth cheerleading the Iraq War, don’t you? And you do remember that you’ve been forced to do multiple mea culpas admitting how utterly fucking stupid that support was in hindsight, right?
Are you really this fucking stupid, or are you just a warmonger by nature?
October 22nd, 2009 at 1:09 pm
Do you (or does anyone else) know how the Russians feel about our actions in Afghanistan? Shouldn’t they be freaking out about encirclement or something?
October 22nd, 2009 at 1:13 pm
[insert lazy argument about empires crumbling in Afghanistan]
October 22nd, 2009 at 1:17 pm
I actually don’t disagree with much of anything in Matt’s assessment, but I’d place at least 100 times as much emphasis on this sentence as Matt does:
“Which is to say that something can be doable and also not necessarily be worth doing.”
I have no doubt that the United States can afford to prop up a pro-American government in Kabul indefinitely, with no fear of a Soviet-style collapse at home or a fall of Saigon scenario with American officials fleeing from rooftops on helicopters. I have little doubt that this war will continue to be less costly in lives and treasure than even the Iraq War, let alone the Soviet experience in Afghanistan.
But is it worth doing? Of course not.
October 22nd, 2009 at 1:18 pm
So, there’s a country full of brown people who can’t seem to get along. To Matt, this is a green light for America or the Soviets or, you know, somebody actually smart to go in and force them to get along. Because, you know, we smart people are really good at that. Getting along.
Snark aside, I don’t think Matt actually believes all this shit. But, he’s employed by one of the premier liberal think tanks, and their job at the moment is rationalize away every murderous whimsy of the Democratic president.
October 22nd, 2009 at 1:19 pm
Russia has recently given the coaltion some overflight rights for logistics so they’re apparently not too worried.
They’ve also recently done the first major miltary exercise in the Stan’s for quite some time, so they have that.
It’s a rather long way between Afghanistan and the present Russian border; you still have to go through no less than 2 addtional countries, and via the most direct route, Kazakstan is enormous.
October 22nd, 2009 at 1:30 pm
I think you have to go back to the question of why did the Soviets care about Afghanistan’s being communist in the first place? And the answer is that they didn’t all that much, because they knew that Afghanistan wasn’t ready, and that it was a recipe for a disaster right on their doorstep. But they went ahead with the invasion because they felt compelled, although Brezhnev was apparently not enthusiastic about it.
But also there’s the question of what would have happened had Brezhnev not taken the bait? How long would Najibullah’s government have survived then?
October 22nd, 2009 at 1:32 pm
Does anyone have anything to say about the prospects of many of the women in Afghanistan who can now attend schools (etc) if we decide to abandon our efforts there?
October 22nd, 2009 at 1:34 pm
For example, they opened their intervention on behalf of the pro-Soviet Afghan government by shooting the leader of the pro-Soviet Afghan government and replacing him and everyone in his regime by leaders of a rival Communist faction.
That’s not quite accurate. They assassinated Amin because they weren’t sure about his loyalties, on account of that he had assassinated Taraki, who was the guy desperate for Soviet intervention. You can tell by the fact that they had already tried and failed to kill Amin that they didn’t like him. But by that time the Soviets already had deployed troops and tanks and helicopters, so calling it off was not really an option in their minds.
October 22nd, 2009 at 1:35 pm
Ya sure. I have no doubt that American military operations will succeed. Our “friends,” chosen because they’re not the Taliban, will govern for a time. But political fortunes wax and wane, and when theirs (or ours) wanes, the Taliban or some other anti American tribe will still be there.
The whole damn exercise will amount to throwing $50 worth of softballs to win a $0.50 stuffed animal prize. The prize will fall apart 3 days after the fair, and your spoiled brat children will move on to the next colorful object.
October 22nd, 2009 at 1:38 pm
When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An’ go to your Gawd like a soldier.
Go, go, go like a soldier,
Go, go, go like a soldier,
Go, go, go like a soldier,
So-oldier of the Queen!
(Rudyard Kipling)
October 22nd, 2009 at 1:49 pm
Snark aside, I don’t think Matt actually believes all this shit. But, he’s employed by one of the premier liberal think tanks, and their job at the moment is rationalize away every murderous whimsy of the Democratic president.
Matt’s views have been pretty consistent (though evolving) since his days at the Atlantic and Tapped.
October 22nd, 2009 at 1:50 pm
Democratic leaders need wars to seem tough and serious about. Afghanistan may be worth continuing with just for that: so Obama can seem manly in politics at home. After all we’ll never demonstrably lose. Withdrawing is far more of a risk for him than staying.
We will not leave until the situation becomes politically impossible at home or until we seem to ‘win’ and we will never leave entirely, what with our bases. I don’t know how the political impossibility would happen, but I doubt it’ll be too many dead troops. The Taliban are an indefatigable enemy but not a formidable one.
What Obama needs is a strategy to make it look like we prevailed. He should start paying out some Iraq-scale bribes. If he wants to get out as he rationally should he needs an uptick as cue.
He can’t let it appear he lost the war, that he gave up. He needs to cash his shares at the peak of the bubble.
October 22nd, 2009 at 1:50 pm
What the US can do (and what the Soviets could do) is to hang on to Kabul indefinitely, and leave the rest of the country alone.
But that’s not enough. So, what the US is going to do is making deals with the Talebans, or some of them anyway. The US will pay them some (of your) cash and get something in return. But not much, I don’t think.
October 22nd, 2009 at 2:03 pm
David @12,
Fair enough. My reason was set aside by rage.
B @13,
You are the problem with the world. Instead of asking “what is the best thing for the world,” you ask, “how can Obama politically capitalize on the Afghanistan situation?”
I personally have a bit more faith in the American public’s ability to empathize with an Obama who decides to live up to his peace-candidate-era image, but so long as you’re assuming America is full of a bunch of John McCains, I say fuck Obama’s political capital. He should do what is right, not what Nancy tells him to do because it’ll help in the polls.
God damn, I can’t believe “liberals” are standing up for him in this.
October 22nd, 2009 at 2:05 pm
The key to the soviet failure was the way Soviet troops treated the Afghans. Enlisted men were basically forced to steal and pillage to survive. This and the military doctrine of mass retribution against civilians is what motivated the Afghans to fight.
Under Obama, the US forces are bending over backwards to not make these same mistakes. In 2002 when I was in Afghanistan the BUsh people were pushing “Rambo” tactics to disarm the Afghans. Field soldiers, both officer and enlisted, were appalled. Units would storm a village and demand all weapons be turned over, elders would offer larger weapons in exchange for building materials. The bush team forbade these swaps, but the ground units made exchanges and friends.
Ex-mujahdeen I spoke with and accounts I have read talk of fight exhaustion just before the flood of US arms started to arrive and revive their fighting spirit. Fighting exhaustion is common and if the Obama admin is open to including the moderate Taliban in the future of Afghanistan, I think a positive outcome to this conflict is possible as long as the focus stays on treating the Afghan people respectfully and honestly ( forcing Karzai into a run off is a good start).
The way US forces are behaving in Afghanistan is radically different that the way Soviet forces behaved and any discussion of parallels between the soviet invasion and the US actions needs to take this into account
October 22nd, 2009 at 2:07 pm
Does anyone have anything to say about the prospects of many of the women in Afghanistan who can now attend schools (etc) if we decide to abandon our efforts there?
Yes, it’s a terrible thing.
On the other hand, there are millions of women in the Congo, say, who currently can’t attend school, or even have any kind of a daily life, and suffer greatly from horrific war crimes such as rape. Does that necessarily mean that the US has to invade and occupy Congo for years with hundreds of thousands of troops at the costs of hundreds of billions of dollars?
Personally, I think we should fix all the ills in the world. But we can’t — we don’t have enough men or money. We’re not strong enough — no one is. Give that, we need to decide how best to allocate our resources to alleviate suffering around the world. Keeping up a de facto military occupation of Aghanistan may be the best way to do it — or it may not.
October 22nd, 2009 at 2:12 pm
They wanted Afghanistan securely in their orbit in order to take advantage of the revolution in Iran, if an opportunity arrose. There wasn’t much chance of working with the Iranian government at the time, but they wanted to be in a position to deter any potential US invasion of Iran. Just before the abortive hostage rescue mission, the USSR interpreted the US military activity in the area as a possible prelude to invasion. They moved 50k-100k of their troops in Afghanistan to the Iranian border.
You must keep in mind, this was a time shortly after the USSR lost their influence with Egypt, and was losing the little influence they had with Iraq. The fall of the Shah allowed for a resurgence of Tudeh, whose leadership were almost entirely KGB resources. They probably entertained hopes that Iran would stay chaotic, and the Tudeh would get a chance to take power.
October 22nd, 2009 at 2:19 pm
What I expect to happen is this:
– The administration won’t commit the forces that are being asked for by the generals
– The administration will also not pull out
What they’ll do is pull a 2009 version of LBJ’s adventure in Vietnam – fight a half baked campaign because they fear the escalation levels required to “win” (whatever that means here), and also fear being called weak for just pulling out.
They painted themselves into a rhetorical corner during the last few years (along with the Congressional Democrats) by asserting that Afghanistan was the “good war” that they could win. Now that they own it (by dint of being the ruling party), they aren’t at all happy with the choices.
October 22nd, 2009 at 2:25 pm
RE: #8
Do any of the people who love to use Afghan women as props to support the escalation of military action in Afghanistan have anything to say in response to this?
October 22nd, 2009 at 2:31 pm
While I don’t necessarily agree with Mr. B @ 13 that it’s a good thing, I do also have the feeling that the underlying, and likely unconscious, motive for escalating/surging in Afghanistan is so that Barack Obama can win a war and thereby prove that his dick is bigger than George W. Bush’s.
To see it more favorably from a liberal perspective, look at it as a giant humanitarian/altruistic project in the guise of a war.
October 22nd, 2009 at 2:39 pm
Exactly. And I raped your wife last night to protect your children from her alcoholism.
America is the good guy! America understands how Afghanistan should be organized politically better than Afghans do! So that legitimizes us bombing the shit out of them!
October 22nd, 2009 at 2:47 pm
To: LaFollette Progressive
I hope your aren’t offended, but I completely agree with your comment #20.
October 22nd, 2009 at 2:53 pm
No, of course I’m not offended. Nor am I surprised that we agree on that point.
October 22nd, 2009 at 2:55 pm
Amazing that the word “pipeline” hasn’t come up. The idea that the U.S. has such a compelling strategic interest in freedom for the people of Afghanistan that war is justified is one of the most preposterous things I’ve ever heard. The powers that be are using baby-tricks to get liberals to support war and it’s working. Very sad.
Destruction and trauma does not enrich any nation. It empowers sociopaths and brutality. It increases poverty and oppression. I was hoping the majority had gotten past the notion that we bombed people for their own good, but that doesn’t appear the case.
October 22nd, 2009 at 3:10 pm
LaFollette Progressive
We’re not leaving, LaFollette. We are going to be in Afghanistan, regardless of whether we put in 40,000 extra troops or not, in strength, for at least five years. Probably longer. This is the reality.
What are we going to do while we are there? That is the only question that really matters. In Vietnam we escalated to escalate the violence. That was policy. In the consecutive years of 1966,67,68, we escalated troop strength, every single month, so that we could kill, on a monthly basis, more and more people. That was our ONLY goal.
I think it is fair to say our military policy in Afghanistan is to avoid killing people whenever possible. The inkblot strategy that has been officially adopted by McChrystal and the administration is an overall strategy of NON-VIOLENCE.
In my opinion, there are no parallels to Vietnam if the military adheres to their stated goals. And I firmly believe they will, because it is in their best interests. In this particular war, with this particular strategy, escalation of forces will help deescalate violence.
And if being in Afghanistan can help the advancement of Afghan women, however little, this would be an added bonus. And if the women of Afghanistan can shed their burqas, and keep them off after we leave (an extremely doubtful proposition), we WILL have achieved a great victory.
October 22nd, 2009 at 3:25 pm
An empirical observation about the US government and the Afghan women:
The Soviets liberated Afghan women, gave them equality, education, human rights. It didn’t stop the US from arming and financing the mujahadeen, the freedom-fighters, equivalent of the founding fathers. The Taleban.
October 22nd, 2009 at 3:26 pm
I think it is fair to say our military policy in Afghanistan is to avoid killing people whenever possible. The inkblot strategy that has been officially adopted by McChrystal and the administration is an overall strategy of NON-VIOLENCE.
The first sentence is more or less true, and is the reason why I’m not angrily agitating for an immediate withdrawal from Afghanistan. The second sentence, however, is a laughable exaggeration.
We’ve officially adopted a COIN strategy that attempts to build relationships with the locals and only use violence in a limited fashion, when deemed necessary. But that’s cold comfort to the “collateral damage” who are killed when we bomb houses to kill individuals, or the families of dead NATO soldiers.
And while I appreciate the efforts of Senator Kerry to strong-arm Karzai into putting on a more credible show of democracy, it’s still a dog and pony show to cover the fact that we’re enabling the continuation of a corrupt, tribal, misogynist, heroin-trafficking power structure, and fighting the Taliban to a stalemate because we can’t hit them on the other side of the border.
At some point, be it next year or 2045, we will leave. The odds of us completing any fundamental liberal democratic transformation in that country with the current strategy are essentially zero. Therefore, I oppose escalation and believe that we should start planning now to leave in the not-so-distant future. If Karzai or his successor wants aid to fight the Taliban, he can have it. But it is not worth a fraction of what we’re currently spending to prop up that regime.
October 22nd, 2009 at 3:30 pm
They wanted Afghanistan securely in their orbit
Well sure, but they were realistic enough to know that godless communism and traditional Afghan tribal culture don’t mix very well.
October 22nd, 2009 at 3:36 pm
Amazing that the word “pipeline” hasn’t come up.
because it’s a truther or pseudo-truther crock of shit.
October 22nd, 2009 at 3:50 pm
According to wikipedia:
October 22nd, 2009 at 3:50 pm
@20:
She says that the situation in afghanistan for women is a ‘bad as ever’ – presumably meaning that it’s as bad as it was under the Taliban.
Well, if that’s what’s she saying that ain’t true. Like the saying goes, she’s entitiled to her own opinion but not her own facts.
Her opinion appears to be that if the coaltion were to leave tomorrow, the insurgency would end forthwith, and the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan would be able to establish peace and justice (for both men and women) in short order.
Well, maybe. She’s live here all her life, so maybe she’s seeing something I’m not. In fact she’s not in that much disagreement with current coalition strategy, which is to partner and huild up GIRoA capacity to try to achieve self-sufficiency. Maybe she’s right, that the capacity to displace the shadow governance is right here right now.
But I doubt it.
October 22nd, 2009 at 3:51 pm
James “I’m so fucking stupid I think Woodrow Wilson is responsible for Bush assaulting the innocents in Iraq” Robertson demonstrates yet another incredible facet of his ignorance – he now claims that we could have “won” in Vietnam if only Johnson had been willing to be more brutal.
How much fucking blood does it take for you James? What the hell is wrong with you? Did you have a brown nanny who beat you every day for the first 27 years of your life? Seriously dude, you need to get over your inability to see the slaughter and brutalization of human beings as some kind of game.
This notion that Afghanistan is a “good” war is the same notion that led to the United States assembling a huge coalition to restore monarchy to Kuwait.
October 22nd, 2009 at 4:06 pm
Don’t we have a habit of fairly regularly bombing funerals, weddings, and random gas trucks in the course of our Gandhian, NON-VIOLENT enterprise in Afghanistan? But I guess we can keep telling them that we didn’t mean to do that, it was just a mistake, bygones, democracy, whiskey, sexy. Gotta love Matt’s post, though, and its morality-free approach – let’s study the brutal Soviet occupation and see how we can do ours more effectively. Cheers!
October 22nd, 2009 at 4:09 pm
#33 – you aren’t even bright enough to understand my historical references. Wilson isn’t responsible for what Bush (or Obama, or anyone) did, or even will do – however, the British and French (go Google Sykes-Picot, and read “A Peace to End all peace”) did lay the groundwork between 1916-1924 for much of what’s currently wrong with the middle east.
When the Ottomans were driven out, the European powers swept in and set up colonial regimes. The borders they set, and the policies that they (and we) have followed ever since have delayed the inevitable: regional conflicts that will settle the borders along more rational lines.
What we’ve been doing since the end of the short European hegemony is trying to balance the spinning plates. Ideally, we would just stop, and – regardless of how ugly it got – let the plates fall.
You might also listen to Dan Carlin’s podcast, “Common Sense”. He’s gone over this subject more than once.
Not to mention this: were you capable of reading with comprehension, you would notice that I didn’t call Afhganistan a “good” war – I’m not at all convinced that anything positive will come of it. The best we can do with that region is hope that the violence stays local, and stay out of their affairs to encourage them not to vent in our direction. The tribal regions between Afghanistan and Pakistan are not peaceful now, and haven’t been peaceful in a very long time.
What I did say is that Congressional Democrats – and Obama – have called this a “good war”, and have spent years telling us how they were going to focus on it and win. I’d say that was a mistake, because declaring victory, leaving, and letting the tribes there know that any attack on the US that originates from there will result in punishment is the least bad option.
But hey – go spin your fantasies. It’s what you do best, seemingly. That and swearing, because you can’t seem to string sentences together without doing so…
October 22nd, 2009 at 4:12 pm
“Well, if that’s what’s she saying that ain’t true. Like the saying goes, she’s entitiled to her own opinion but not her own facts.”
Hmm. Whom should I rely on for the facts regarding the situation women face in Afghanistan? An Afghan woman? Or some random American war-supporter on the internet?
I wonder.
As it happens, I briefly met Malalai Joya at the Silverdocs festival, where a documentary about her, called “Enemies of Happiness,” aired a couple of years ago. I recommend the film if you can get a hold of a copy.
She’s a bit of a radical hellraiser who was not temperamentally suited to a role as a national politician, she nearly got herself killed by powerful people she publicly insulted, and her comments should be interpreted in that light. That said, she might have a wee bit more insight into how the daily lives have changed for women in remote parts of Afghanistan over the past decade than you do.
October 22nd, 2009 at 4:25 pm
abb1:
A good reason not to believe everything you read on Wikipedia.
Take a good look at those pipeline maps. They show proposals that precisely track the existing transportation routes through the mountainous country. And for good reason. There are only so many passes in the mountains, only so many riverbeds to follow. The major part of the route runs from Herat to Kandahar, along the track of the A01 highway, perhaps the most important road in the country. So, yeah, the pipeline route runs next to a lot of bases. It follows the crescent path of the highway that ties together every major population center in the southwestern half of the country.
This sort of argument really makes my blood boil. Afghanistan is not a conflict about oil. Call it hubris, overreach, revenge, and you’ve got an argument. But oil? There isn’t a productive energy field in the country, and there are better and more secure ways of getting product from neighboring states to market. If you think this one’s about oil, you’re simply not paying attention.
October 22nd, 2009 at 4:41 pm
That said, she might have a wee bit more insight into how the daily lives have changed for women in remote parts of Afghanistan over the past decade than you do.
I don’t talk with many Afghan women because of cultural sensitity issues. I do meet with coalition women on a regular basis who meet with afghan women on a regular basis.
Again she said:
Not ‘women in remote areas’ Just ‘women’. As bad as it was under the Taliban.
Not.
True.
Is bad shit still happening? Yes.
Does it suck? Yes.
Is it as bad as under the Taliban? Well, in some places it *is* basically the Taliban, but a lot more places, no a lot less bad shit is happening. I mean many women in Kabul still wear burkas, but the median woman is better off than she was 9 years ago, and that’s true in the majority of the country
You pretty much said it yourself already: she’s a politician telling her audience – in this case Guardian readers – what they want to here. To be fair, yes, she really believes that ending support to the current GIRoA politicians is the best way of restoring peace and justice.
I just don’t see how GIRoA is able to replace ‘conservative elements’ with new elements that are both more liberal, and at the same time more credible to the population at this time. The reason why the shadow govenernace is effective in some places is because the local real government presence is either hopelessly corrupt or inept or both. Coalition going away tomorrow ain’t going to change this dynamic. Coalition civ-mil helping GIRoA achieve more effective governance has a shot, (but not a guarantee) of breaking this cycle.
Heck even Code Pink agress with this to some extent.
October 22nd, 2009 at 4:45 pm
Cynic 37, I understand how you feel, and you may very well be right.
Nevertheless, there was this company called Unocal that wanted to build this pipline, company with a revenue of $8 billion (wikipedia tells me), and that’s a lot of dough. Unocal is a part of Chevron now, company with a revenue of $270 billion and that’s a helluva lot of dough. With $270 billion in your pocket you can call the white house and order pretty much any war you want. So, who the hell knows.
October 22nd, 2009 at 4:53 pm
Can someone tell me why it is that this Congressional meeting held in the nineties is so indistinguishable from today’s talk about Afghanistan? That the rights of women in Afghanistan is more important to our government than our declared and documented interest in the oil transport routes of Central Asia is nearly as laughable as the smug, patronizing tone of those who support this drivel.
October 22nd, 2009 at 4:59 pm
link
October 22nd, 2009 at 5:04 pm
Kolohe, for the sake of argument, I’ll just say that your response in #38 is a generally reasonable counterargument. It was the lazy, self-justifying aspect of your initial response that got my goat, along with your ridiculous characterization of what Joya believed would happen when the NATO occupation ends.
I’m quite sure that some women in certain parts of Afghanistan have a better lot in life than they did under the Taliban. Whether those improvements could feasibly be spread throughout the country and be sustained after our troops leave (whether they leave tomorrow or 50 years from now) is an entirely different matter. Let’s just say that I don’t share your optimism that the effort would be worthwhile.
But I also think you’re missing the point badly when you say “To be fair, yes, she really believes that ending support to the current GIRoA politicians is the best way of restoring peace and justice.” One cannot restore peace and justice where they never existed. What she believes is that our occupation and overt support for the current regime are counterproductive toward the extremely-long-term goal of liberal democracy in Afghanistan. I’m inclined to agree with her.
October 22nd, 2009 at 5:05 pm
Matt you need to read Ray Garthoff’s classic Detente and Confrontation, in particular his chapters on Afghanistan, which are great. Your recounting of the story here is somewhat off.
October 22nd, 2009 at 7:46 pm
@34 scott: “Don’t we have a habit of fairly regularly bombing funerals, weddings, and random gas trucks in the course of our Gandhian, NON-VIOLENT enterprise in Afghanistan?”
Actually, in some ways it is a lot worse that, Scott. American drones hover menacingly over Pakistan’s tribal regions 24/7 and then release holy hell whenever some major looking at a video screen thinks he sees a target -and gives clearance. The tribal regions are old fashioned American war making, kill people on the ground from the air and hopefully among the smoldering dead you can find the bodies of some “bad guys.”
I have NO illusions. The American military brings violence. But, our policy in Afghanistan, as stated, is one of NON-VIOLENCE. Not Gandhian passive-resistance. We are still going to kill people. And unfortunately, we are going to kill innocent people. But the idea of an ink blot strategy is to get out among the small towns and villages and create an environment where the local population can go about their daily business without being harassed-kidnapped-killed by the Taliban or any other war making tribe.
And while we pursue this strategy, fully armed Army and Marine platoons are going to get shot at. They will probably take, at minimum, long range fire on a daily basis. And they are going to engage, and return fire. It sucks. But it is what it is.
But the essence of the strategy is this: the more you get to know people -the villagers and townfolk, the less likely it becomes for a 2nd Lieutenant to order his platoon to turn its weapons on the villagers and slaughter them out of sheer frustration.
October 22nd, 2009 at 11:42 pm
Max424 @44 said:
Except, as you yourself admitted, the “war making tribe” known as the U.S. marines. But then, they’re morally exempt. Jesus told me so.
October 23rd, 2009 at 8:38 am
Good to know. It may “suck” and be “unfortunate,” but we’ll continue to inadvertently kill innocent people (as part of our policy of NON-VIOLENCE) until the unspecified point when it becomes less likely that we’ll slaughter whole villages. I guess in this scenario it will “suck” and be “unfortunate” for the Afghans involved, if not for us.