Among others, among others...
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Originally Posted by
Bob's World
We were so fixated on what we wanted and what we thought was "right" that we never saw that we were being played the entire way by the Northern Alliance...We are babes in the Afghan woods.
Syngman Rhee suckered Truman (and MacArthur...), The Diems played the Kennedy brothers like a fiddle. They and others played us before there was a Northern Alliance. The Kosovars were the most blatant but fortunately did little damage -- only because no one paid much attention to To Wesley Clark and Clinton didn't know what to do...
Those who want to save the world cause considerable harm. More harm than good, as always...
Where's the "bash head on wall" emoticon?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Bob's World
The constitution as written is what disrupts the Patronage process. Equally disruptive (and part of the constitution) are the centralized form of government and the centralized national military and police.
Again, I don't think so. yes, the patronage system is distorted, but it's not by the Constitution, it's by our guns and money supporting Karzai. Without that, Karzai would have to reach an accommodation with the regional power brokers no matter what the Constitution says. Even with all the power vested in him by the Constitution, how long do you think he'd last without us?
I know that to an American and a lawyer it's akin to blasphemy, but in much of the world what's written on paper has little or nothing to do with actual power relationships. Those are determined by guns and money, not by words on paper.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Bob's World
If we were there protecting such a regional, bottom-up system of locally legitimate leaders and locally raised and trained militias there would be no disruption of the patronage system. We could have provided the checks and balances to ensure that no region used its force to dominate another, and none would have the power on their own to threaten any neighbors as well.
Do you really believe that such a system would be so easily manageable, or that "we" could realistically provide meaningful checks and balances?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Bob's World
We are babes in the Afghan woods.
Now you make sense. Yes, we are babes in the Afghan woods: babes with guns and money, a dangerous combination. We will be played no matter what system we install. We will be manipulated no matter what system we install. The problem is not that we installed the wrong system, the problem is that we think we can install a workable system at all. We can't. There isn't one. The Afghans may be able to evolve one over time, but we can't impose one and we can't simply force everyone to sit down and make one. It will emerge gradually from a period of competition and conflict, like most political systems.
The answer (IMO as always) is not to install better governments, the answer is to stop trying to install governments. The local political culture will emerge no matter what we install, and we have a very hard time walking away from these projects once we embark on them. That leads us to a place where we're supporting a government that cannot stand, but that we refuse to let fall, close to a worst case scenario. Note that our refusal to let it fall is not a function of vital national interests - there aren't any - but of reluctance to drop a project once we invest ourselves in it. That's our habit, and because of that habit we need to be very careful about what projects we invest ourselves in. The last thing I'd want to see is us investing ourselves in an effort to produce a new and improved Afghan government, because I think in 10 years time we'd be right back where we are now: that government will be overtaken by the political culture no matter how it's structured.
How many elephants in the strategic space?
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Originally Posted by
Entropy
My comment was an implicit criticism of our own strategy. It's success is based on Pakistan playing ball and they haven't played ball for 10 years, yet we continue to try to change Pakistan instead of changing strategy. And the reason, I hate to say, is domestic politics. Our politicians, for obvious reasons, do not want to own the perception of us "losing" in Afghanistan. They keep hoping that someone will deliver something like we got in Iraq - an honorable disengagement.
Entropy,
In another post you referred to:
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It seems to me the elephant in the room is, and always has been, Pakistan.
I would argue that there are two elephants in the Afghan policy arena or strategic space. Pakistan and domestic politicians, mainly in the USA.
What is clear in the UK is that a significant factor in the informal, conversational airing of the issues around our Afghan involvement is that "losing" means all the nearly four hundred dead's lives have been wasted. A point that is beginning to appear in TV documentaries. Given our history with Afghanistan and the "kith & kin" impact of South Asian affairs I doubt if there is any prospect - for the UK - of an 'honourable disengagement'.
I have noted almost no reaction in the UK amongst our Pakistani-related communities (which are mainly Kashmiri) to the recent border post attack; probably a reflection of their negative attitude to the politics of Pakistan.