Quote Originally Posted by marct View Post
...because I suspect most Americans don't really have an easy time of intuitively thinking as if they were the insurgents.
I'm quite sure you're correct in that. I, OTOH, having been a rabble rouser for over 70 years -- and particularly so while in uniform -- am quite conversant with the thinking process, it's instinctive...
So, by way of extension, what do the Afghans (in general) perceive the "root problem" to be? The Taliban are selling a problem-solution set that is quite old (it's technically called a Revitalization Movement and it's been used thousands of times). What is the government selling? What does the population want? Split out by which segments? At the same time, are those wants acceptable to US, NATO and Afghan politicians?
Truly excellent question -- but, no derogation intended -- one couched in western terms. I believe the Afghan perception of root problems is extremely transitory and imminently fungible, that it will vary not only from week to week but also from district to district. More importantly, from tribe or clan to clan or tribe and is based on perceived need at the time. There are some exceptions, obviously -- security of a sort (not the western norm but a lesser variant the west is loth to accept, a separate problem within itself... That's really sort of important...) being one that's fairly obvious and certain -- but broadly it's a dynamic. That it is a dynamic is a factor that makes Afghanistan a tremendously complicated conundrum for the west.

I suggest that your excellent and pertinent question appeals to logic and western norms and deserves an answer but that most Afghans would not fully understand it, would answer with what they thought you wished to hear -- or with what they wanted to occur (and that could / would vary frequently) and that this dichotomy is large part of the problem with achieving understanding in the west for things occurring in the east... Thus I think you asked a fair question that we cannot answer and that no one is likely to answer accurately and honestly in the western sense of those terms.

Note the foregoing applies to Afghanistan. Iraq was and is very different. The Philippines are even more different. An African nation, as a further but theoretical example, would be again quite different from either of those three. My belief is that the bulk of western perceptions on what should happen in any of those nations would roughly coincide. Not possible, I think...

My personal belief is that the norm of all western desires or goals for Afghanistan will not be achieved to the satisfaction of most; those for Iraq will be partly achieved to the satisfaction of most; the Philippines will be achieved to the satisfaction of almost all but that will take much longer than Iraq; and that the African nation, as a theoretical is not predictable at this point. Those difference are due to environmental (in small part and to include external -- i.e. western -- impingements) and local human factors (mostly) variations.
Sorry, my head is in theoretical clouds at the moment...
Me too, as always...