US Declaration of Independence and the current situation in Afghanistan

[Bob's World]

That would depend on who is doing the putting and the creating. If Afghans are doing if, on their own initiative and for their own purposes, that's a natural evolution. If we try to do it or we try to compel them to do it, on our initiative and for our purposes, that's imposition and it will not work.

If the only way we can achieve our goals in Afghanistan is to introduce US-style "good governance", then we're in deep scheisse and we need to reassess our goals, because that's something we can't do.

For the UMPTEENTH time, I have never promoted "US style good governance" for anyone except the US. This is your paradigm, to argue continuously against something that I have never advocated for.

What I have argued, is that there are tremendous lessons to be distilled from the US experience.

What I have argued is that the US Constitution is in fact a masterpiece of COIN written by a uniquely qualified group of men who had in their adulthood been leaders of resistance under an oppressive government; been revolutionary insurgents, and at the time of the shaping of the Constitution found themselves increasingly in the role of the counterinsurgent.

One could argue that GIRoA shares that history, and true enough, except that France did not stay in the US and dedicate the lives of the their military, their national treasure and reputation to staying and protecting a fatally flawed US government under the articles of Confederation against the violent protest of the American populace. France wisely recognized that their interests had been served, and went home. By our staying and dedicating ourselves to GIRoA's survival we enable them to cling to a flawed model that is beneficial to the core founding members, and few else, in their society. We enable the insurgency by trying to defeat the insurgency.

This leaves us two options. Pull a France and just go home is one option. It's not "quitting" or "losing" any more than walking away from a gaming table in Vegas is "quitting" or "losing." It's hard to know when you are at peak winnings, usually one loses more than one gains before they walk away, and those that commit to staying until they are "up" almost always lose it all.

The second option is to focus on the primary source of causation in virtually all insurgency situations: The national government and the unwanted foreign presence. One must identify and address reasonable fixes in the first that are most egregious to the Afghan people; and one must minimize the second.

We have adopted a strategy that does the opposite on both counts. We create a functional sanctuary around GIRoA and protect them; while increasing our foreign presence to make that happen. The first fuels the Revolution; the second fuels the Resistance.

"Respect" is not a US concept. "Justice" is not a US concept. "Legitimacy" is not a US concept. The natural tendency to act out illegally and often violently against government when one has no trusted, certain and legal means to affect government is not a US concept. Happy to field any arguments from any who thinks they are.

What is a US concept in many ways is for government to put checks and balances upon itself to guard against abuses in all of these key areas; and to design and protect the populace's legal options to affect government in reasonable ways. That is the COIN genius of the US Constitution. The specific measures adopted? Those are what was right us then, and the interpretation has modified over time to stay current with the US society. Afghans will need to sit down and apply their own culture to their own situation to guard against these same critical human dynamics.

But they won't do it if we guard the status quo; and it won't work if just the Northern Alliance participates to the exclusion of the Taliban either. Someone needs to force the issue to bring everyone to the table and sort this out. Or we can go with option one and just go home. But to stay and protect GIRoA and enable a dysfunctional insurgency-causing form of government, while suppressing their rebellious populace and building their own capacity to go out and do the same is frankly both grossly American, and grossly un-American at the same time. The first because it is what we always do when in someone else's country. The second because it is something we would never do at home.