Afghan Exit:why, how and more in country and beyond

[Entropy]

I keep hearing this and have yet seen any evidence that there anything we should have done in the early 90s.

The lack of interest at all levels with respect to Afghanistan in the early-mid 1990's came back to bite us in the ass. We had almost no one in the government who could speak Pashto or Dari. We had no insight into what was going on in the country. We had few contacts and those we had we generally ignored. All this left us with fewer options and less influence than we would have had when UBL became a threat, and it left us scrambling when 9/11 occurred.

I'm simply suggesting that we not repeat the mistake. We should certainly withdrawal military forces, but we need to be able to know what is going on in the country afterward and be positioned to influence events if necessary.

[Entropy]

Assuming we remove all GPF from AFG on schedule, but do continue to try our hand at the ANSF development line of operation on a limited scale and we have some SOF tie-in to deal with AQ, what strategic national interests remain in the support to the country?

That's a good question. Personally, I think Congress will probably repeat what we did after the withdrawal in Vietnam and cut off support to whatever remains of Karzai's government. I think our interest is mainly to prevent the reemergence of the kind of support and infrastructure AQ had in the late 1990's.

[Bob's World]

I don't particularly like having the genesis of this thread attributed to me. I simply made the following observation in a thread that proposed that we had "lost two wars":

It's just time to recognize that we don't need to control, directly or indirectly through the Northern Alliance, Afghanistan to prevent it from being an AQ sanctuary. To recognize that the Northern Alliance has absolutely no interest or desire to be the government we want them to be. To recognize that we are better off simply packing up and going home than we are executing any kind of phased out exit plan

Certainly there was a "war" phase to both Afghanistan and Iraq, but they were short, and largely one-sided. A UW war in Afghanistan where we shifted the balance of power to leverage the Northern Alliance into power. Not because we believed in the Northern Alliance, but rather because we wanted to punish the Taliban for providing sanctuary to AQ and not turning them over to us upon our demand. Then a conventional war in Iraq to defeat the government and military of that country.

It is what we convinced ourselves we needed to do after those short wars that has caused us problems. The reasons for this are myriad and disputed. For any smart answer someone else thinks they have a smarter one. Fine. We should at least agree that we really don't understand these things very well, and are so in love with our own narrative we can never grasp that others would simply reject solutions to their problems that we offer, particularly when both the problem and the solution are defined by us to suit our interests and perspectives.

In many ways there is a tremendous resistance to such meddling by the US in many places. Our intentions are largely moot to the populaces they affect, particularly when they are reasonably working to get their own governments to evolve to meet their evolving expectations of governance. We don't know if we should provide CT and BPC support to keep the old regime in power, or UW support to help some popular movement prevail. So we do a bit of both without much rhyme nor reason to our approaches. We go where the Intel guys tell us to, which means AQ leads us about by the nose as they leverage our fears of what a changing world means to US influence and power.

This was never about Afghanistan. It was never about Iraq. Even AQ is as much a symptom as a problem. It is time to stop agonizing over specific places or organizations or individuals and begin thinking about who we are and how we best define and secure our interests in the changing world emerging around us.

Debates over who "won" or who "lost"; or excessive hand-wringing over a particular place such as Afghanistan where we happened to act out on these fears is not that helpful.

[Ken White]

I don't particularly like having the genesis of this thread attributed to me...

Heh. Stuff like that happens when and where ever well intentioned persons meddle when there was no real cause to do so...

This was never about Afghanistan. It was never about Iraq. Even AQ is as much a symptom as a problem. It is time to stop agonizing over specific places or organizations or individuals and begin thinking about who we are and how we best define and secure our interests in the changing world emerging around us.

All true but agonizing over spilt milk apparently makes one feel good. It also seems to focus one on the symptoms rather than the causes...

Debates over who "won" or who "lost"; or excessive hand-wringing over a particular place such as Afghanistan where we happened to act out on these fears is not that helpful.

Even more true -- in fact, it's instead harmful and a distraction from what's important.

[davidbfpo]

Originally Posted by Bob's World:

I don't particularly like having the genesis of this thread attributed to me...

Then Ken White:

...when there was no real cause to do so...

Such delicacy and to meet Bob's concern I have amended the Moderator's Note in the first post, the last line now reads: this thread was not started by Bob's World, rather I used it as the starting point.

This thread may venture into who "won" or "lost" Afghanistan, the key, uncomfortable theme is 'Afghan Exit:why, how and more in country and beyond'. A theme that SWC should consider and discuss - it might actually help!

[Bob's World]

No worries Dave. I appreciate very much what you do to keep this site what it is.

[Ken White]

Very much so.

No delicacy involved -- I've been accused of many things but that's a first -- just taking advantage of what I thought a non-issue as a reminder to all that the best of intentions (as in Afghanistan) can have unintended and sometimes not at all humorous but sometimes mildly humorous effects.

My apologies if you or anyone else was offended, no insult intended. The thrust of my comment was not that minor aside and poor attempt at humor but the contention that we tend to attack symptoms rather than the root of problems and, in the case of Afghanistan, my opinion stated in the last paragraph:

"...in fact, it's (Debates or excessive hand-wringing over a particular place such as Afghanistan) instead harmful and a distraction from what's important."

[flagg]

That's a good question. Personally, I think Congress will probably repeat what we did after the withdrawal in Vietnam and cut off support to whatever remains of Karzai's government. I think our interest is mainly to prevent the reemergence of the kind of support and infrastructure AQ had in the late 1990's.

Your post leaves me thinking about the Soviet withdraw from Afghanistan.

IIRC, it lasted approx 3 years.

But it fell in approx 3 months from the time the cash/aid tap got turned off.

Current day Afghanistan has approx $16-20 billion in spending(largely foreign aid), but only approx $2 billion in tax revenue.

[davidbfpo]

A short article by a novelist, which starts with:

The first British invasion of Afghanistan in 1839 ended three years later in disaster. In an exclusive extract from his new book, William Dalrymple draws parallels with the current campaign

There are some odd passages, more like a travel article, but at least he talks to Afghans and citing one tribal elder, from Gandamak:

Last month some American officers called us to a hotel in Jalalabad for a meeting. One of them asked me, 'Why do you hate us?’ I replied, 'Because you blow down our doors, enter our houses, pull our women by the hair and kick our children. We cannot accept this. We will fight back, and we will break your teeth, and when your teeth are broken you will leave, just as the British left before you. It is just a matter of time.

“What did he say to that?”

He turned to his friend and said, 'If the old men are like this, what will the younger ones be like?’ In truth, all the Americans here know their game is over. It is just their politicians who deny this.

Link:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...the-world.html

[Bill Moore]

The first British invasion of Afghanistan in 1839 ended three years later in disaster.

At least they saw the light three years into their campaign, they didn't have wait 10 years plus to experiment with a better way and in the meantime continue to sacrifice our best people, our financial wealth, and our international credibility.

[davidbfpo]

A nice catchy headline, based on an internal UK MoD paper:

Both the Nato campaign and the 1979 invasion were initially attempts to impose "ideology foreign to the Afghan people", whose aims were quickly dropped when they ran into difficulty.

Nato, like the Soviets, has been unable to "establish control over the country's borders and the insurgents' safe havens", or "protect the rural population"....
"The [Soviet] 40th Army was unable to decisively defeat the Mujahideen while facing no existential threat itself, a situation that precisely echoes [the Nato coalition's] predicament"

The paper, Lessons From the Soviet Transition in Afghanistan, was prepared for the MOD's Development, Concepts and Doctrine Centre (DCDC), to provoke internal debate and challenge current military thinking.

Link:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...-invasion.html

For political reasons the UK, like I suspect most ISAF contributors, does not want a public debate around what has happened in Afghanistan.

[Bill Moore]

The lack of interest at all levels with respect to Afghanistan in the early-mid 1990's came back to bite us in the ass. We had almost no one in the government who could speak Pashto or Dari. We had no insight into what was going on in the country. We had few contacts and those we had we generally ignored. All this left us with fewer options and less influence than we would have had when UBL became a threat, and it left us scrambling when 9/11 occurred.

I'm simply suggesting that we not repeat the mistake. We should certainly withdrawal military forces, but we need to be able to know what is going on in the country afterward and be positioned to influence events if necessary.

Agreed, I thought you were implying we should have intervened in a substantial way after the Soviets pulled out as many have implied (the Saudis, Paks, and others never quit intervening). Although based on open source reports on the initial operations in Afghanistan it appeared that at least the CIA had some contacts in Afghanistan going back to the 90s, so I don't think we were completely blind. On the other hand we were paralyzed politically and failed to act before 9/11. That is another story altogether.