The Taliban collection (2006 onwards)

[Dayuhan]

Im sure the author will be absolutely delighted to hear that...

I'm sure my approval means as much to him as yours, which is to say nothing at all.

Well that is probably because the article was a counterpoint to the one mentioned in the text. So his argument was plain and simple ... don't trust the Taliban.

"Don't trust the Taliban" is an easy enough thing to say, and not quite rocket science... has anyone proposed that we should trust the Taliban? I'd add "don't trust the Karzai Government", "don't trust the Pakistanis", and possibly a few others.

I'd be interested to hear your opinion of the other cited article by the same author, the one in which he offers a prescription. This one:

http://www.defenceiq.com/air-land-an...-nation-build/

...but, hey, don't let that stop you from putting a few hundred words together to express what you think should be done.

Give it a try...

I've never made any secret of what I think should have been done. I think the effort should from the start have focused entirely on finding and destroying the Taliban and AQ, with no effort at all to govern or to build a nation, beyond providing opportunity for Afghans to figure out for themselves what they wanted as a government. Once the finding and destruction was deemed adequately done I think we should have left, while we still had the upper hand, with a simple message: don't make us come back. I don't think we ever needed to install democracy or build a nation in Afghanistan. We needed to assure that whoever ended up governing after we left knew that attacking us or sheltering those who did would bring inevitable and awful consequences.

We didn't do that, of course, and the policy that was adopted has backed us into a corner from which I can propose no attractive exit. If "winning" means transforming the Karzai regime into a functioning government, we've set the bar for a win in a very unrealistic place. It's a bad place to be and we shouldn't have put ourselves there.

I don't think anyone is proposing negotiations or a settlement because they trust the Taliban. I see it as a device to contrive some sort of superficial settlement that could give an excuse for a (not very) face-saving exit. It's not a great way out, but what's better? As long as the Taliban have sanctuary in Afghanistan they can be suppressed but not fully defeated. As long as US forces in Afghanistan are large enough to require supply through Pakistani territory, leverage on Pakistan is limited, and even if forces were reduced to a level not requiring that support it's not clear that Pakistan would be willing or able to shut down sanctuary.

It's just a bad place all around and the best way to manage it would have been to not get into that situation in the first place. Too late for that, obviously. Sooner or later we will withdraw, with or without a face-saving strategy. The place will probably fall to pieces. Maybe next time round we'll be smarter.

In short, I don't think we should be looking for better ways to install governments and build nations, I think we should be looking for strategies that don't involve installing governments and building nations.

[Bob's World]

I've never made any secret of what I think should have been done. I think the effort should from the start have focused entirely on finding and destroying the Taliban and AQ, with no effort at all to govern or to build a nation, beyond providing opportunity for Afghans to figure out for themselves what they wanted as a government.

Dayuhan, on this I agree on all but one point: Why do you include the Taliban on your target list?

I suspect if we would have been even a little bit more savvy on the nature of Afghan culture and Pashtunwali, that we could have worked a deal with Mullah Omar regarding his AQ guests that would have resolved much of this before it ever really began. That is equally true of what President Clinton did/failed to do prior to 9/11 and what President Bush did/failed to do after.

We have made this all about us as we choose to understand and define the problems on our terms. But of course, as you well realize, it isn't about us at all. Nor is it about Islam. We brought this to the people of Afghanistan and dragged them into our world. Now they are making us deal with theirs.

A lot of bad understanding and bad decisions have been compiling for over a decade now. There is no graceful way to walk away from that. Now we worry more about our grace, and our honor. This is one where need to just swallow our pride and walk away. The reasons we use to justify why we must stay were never accurate, so there is no reason we should allow them to hold us there any longer. That is one comment that Clint Eastwood probably got about right in his conversation with a chair the other day.

[Dayuhan]

Dayuhan, on this I agree on all but one point: Why do you include the Taliban on your target list?

I suspect if we would have been even a little bit more savvy on the nature of Afghan culture and Pashtunwali, that we could have worked a deal with Mullah Omar regarding his AQ guests that would have resolved much of this before it ever really began. That is equally true of what President Clinton did/failed to do prior to 9/11 and what President Bush did/failed to do after.

I include the Taliban because the rule should have been (IMO of course) that those who attack us or those who shelter those attackers will face awful and inevitable consequences. Of course the Taliban should have been - and were - given a chance to turn over bin Laden and his group voluntarily. I see no reason why savviness of Afghan culture or Pashtunwali needed to be an issue there. It is always good to understand others, but there are also times for making ourselves understood. This was one of them. I think if we'd cast our mission purely and explicitly as revenge, a concept well understood in that part of the world, and made it clear that we'd be out of there as soon as our business was finished, we'd have had an easier time.

Of course nobody knows where the path not taken would have led, and I could be wrong.

[carl]

I see no reason why savviness of Afghan culture or Pashtunwali needed to be an issue there. It is always good to understand others, but there are also times for making ourselves understood. This was one of them.

Good point. Sort of like what Napier told the people who were complaining that the suppression of suttee was not respectful of a different culture. I believe he said more or less you go ahead and follow your cultural practice, and if you do we will follow ours which will be to kill you. We sort of did that but didn't go far enough.

But as you say, we will never know. And it is a pretty big distortion of the concept of sanctuary to say they couldn't give up AQ.

[Ken White]

A lot of bad understanding and bad decisions have been compiling for over a decade now.

Nixon's panel on Terrorism in response to the attacks in Munich provided a road map -- but he got busy with domestic politics; Ford's hands were tied; Carter's handling of the Tehran Embassy seizure was disastrous; Regan blew it with Lebanon; Bush 41 decided to pay later; Clinton bombed or attacked four sovereign countries to no avail, Bush 43 let his Christian charitable instincts overrule his duty to the nation; Obama started by presenting an apology to the world's supreme hagglers who will rapidly exploit the slightest sign of weakness and he's gone down hill since...

That's four decades of flawed ME / Islam policy.

There is no graceful way to walk away from that. Now we worry more about our grace, and our honor. This is one where need to just swallow our pride and walk away...

It's not honor or pride -- those are understood in the ME if less so here in the west, those folks would understand and accept that but they're smart enough to know that's not the reason -- it's domestic political pressures. Venal, stupid, self and party over national interests...

The Intel Community insists they had no 'actionable' intelligence prior to the attack; I note our ambassador to the UN who I believe works in New York is overruling the Libyans by insisting that the attack on the Consulate in Benghazi was not planned.

Sheesh. All that US domestic political foolishness as a driver let's those who wish and their fellow travelers know they can get stupid with no repercussions.

Crass stupidity. Bill Moore's got it right: "..it is somewhat difficult for any politician at this point to say oops we got this one wrong. It would go entirely against the narrative we created..."

He also said " I suspect the only hope for disengagement from nation building to diplomatic engagement and assistance is to gradually change the narrative over time, which it appears we're doing." I hope that's right -- but I'm terribly afraid it is not -- the foreign policy establishment in both parties have different priorities but both have really bad messianic complexes...

[Bob's World]

Ken,

No arguments here. I highlighted the past 10 years, but yes, this has indeed been a slippery slope that we have been advancing along for quite some time.

Speed and slope are increasing, as are our narrative rhetoric and reactive actions aimed at the symptoms that challenge the "logic" of our framework of understanding, our self-serving narrative, or our invasive approaches to mitigate the problems.

The "victim mentality' that government is apparently working so hard to nurture among the populace is equally rampant across the government itself. Personally, I have a hard time seeing the attraction of playing the victim. It is a tactic of the weak. It is a mindset adopted by addicts of every ilk. They cannot accept the reality of their destructive behavior, so they play the victim to the effects caused by their very actions.

The US needs to ask itself, "what is it we are addicted to, and what must we change about ourself to break this cycle"?

That will very much run counter to our current victim-based narrative, but as you point out, how we got here is perhaps one of the most bi-partisan "success" stories of recent times. I only half-joke when I say that the first step for governments faced with such challenges, at home or abroad, is to undergo a 12-step program. Some hard truth in a circle of plastic chairs in some community center or church basement would take us a great deal farther down the road to success than any other options I've heard discussed.

It's easy to blame/lash out at AQ, or ideology, or the Taliban, or the ISI or Saddam or any other such "threat." But it is when we get honest with ourself that we turn the corner. All addicts have a "narrative," and as a prosecutor working with felony drug users listened to literally thousands of them. They are all variations on a theme of blaming anything and everything except their self. I also noticed that those who turned the corner and began to make true progress all adopted a new narrative that was also a variation on a theme of self-responsibility.

That used to be the American theme, one of self-reliance and personal responsibility. It still is for most Americans, most Pashtuns as well... .but we appear to be trying to quash that spirit at home and abroad.

[Dayuhan]

The US needs to ask itself, "what is it we are addicted to, and what must we change about ourself to break this cycle"?

I understand the point, but I also think that assuming that all bad things that happen are simply a reaction to things we did, and that all can be made well if we just change our behaviour, is every bit as seriously flawed as the assumption that we are devoid of all responsibility and are simply victimized by bad people that we must kill. Both extremes are overly self-obsessed, whether we see ourselves as innocent victim or as responsible for all that happens to us, we're adopting a narrative with us at the core. Whether we see the solution as "strike back and kill them all" or as "if we're nice to them, they will be nice to us" we assume that the solution starts and ends with us.

Both these narratives are excessively simplistic, one dimensional, and fail to consider the possibility that we are neither a central causative factor nor a key element to solution in many of these situations.

Not everything that involves or affects us has to be all about us.

[Bob's World]

D,

You have a bad habit of translating any statement made by someone else as their all-inclusive position on a topic.

I never said this was all our fault. But I think you agree that agendas aimed at "fixing" others are not the best approach. I stand for a program of being honest as to our own contribution to causation, working to fix ourselves, and then only applying a supporting effort to that of mitigating the actions of others who seek to exploit any perceived vulnerabilities.

We have the balance of this equation inverted, IMO.

[Dayuhan]

I never said this was all our fault. But I think you agree that agendas aimed at "fixing" others are not the best approach. I stand for a program of being honest as to our own contribution to causation, working to fix ourselves, and then only applying a supporting effort to that of mitigating the actions of others who seek to exploit any perceived vulnerabilities.

I agree that we should not try to "fix" others... whether they be antagonists or allies/neutrals with ways other than ours. I'd extend that to specifically include the folly of "countermeddling": meddling designed to reverse or compensate for the impact of past meddling.

Honesty as to our own contribution to causation requires... well, honesty. Declaring 9/11 to be a "backlash" against American provocation is in no way honest, but it's something we often hear. It's not an issue that will ever present 100% clarity, but all perspectives need skepticism and critical evaluation.

If we're talking about how to "fix" ourselves, we have to first assess what's broke, and then what we want it to be, and then what has to be done to get it there. All of those are complicated questions that require detachment from fixed assumptions and consideration of multiple perspectives.

[Fuchs]

Obama started by presenting an apology to the world's supreme hagglers who will rapidly exploit the slightest sign of weakness and he's gone down hill since...

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-me...is-presidency/

[Ken White]

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-me...is-presidency/

constitute a refutation of my statements.

The real problem with your great find is that, while accurate, it is a western interpretation of events. The supreme hagglers who inhabit the Middle East all inherited Ta'arof from the Persian Empires and thus grasp not the crux of a statement but the meaning they wish to ascribe to that statement. IOW "what the President really meant" -- or said -- is not important, the use they choose to make of it is important. These are folks who do not place price tags on merchandise they intend to sell so they cannot be pinned down with ANY specificity. Accuracy in the telling or usage is never an issue...

Further, consider that the Newspaper truth-sorters all play with words like so many lawyers or economists...

[Fuchs]

[Dayuhan]

The real problem with your great find is that, while accurate, it is a western interpretation of events. The supreme hagglers who inhabit the Middle East all inherited Ta'arof from the Persian Empires and thus grasp not the crux of a statement but the meaning they wish to ascribe to that statement. IOW "what the President really meant" -- or said -- is not important, the use they choose to make of it is important. These are folks who do not place price tags on merchandise they intend to sell so they cannot be pinned down with ANY specificity. Accuracy in the telling or usage is never an issue...

The problem with this of course is that any words can be twisted. A Middle Eastern leader who wants to be aggressive can cast apologetic words as weakness to be exploited. He can also cast truculent and aggressive words as threats that require response. If an American leader tries to calibrate statements to avoid any possible misinterpretation or twisting of meaning, that leader won't be able to say anything at all, because anything said will be twisted.

Actions, in the long run, speak louder than words. We can say that we intend to meddle as little as possible in the internal affairs of ME nations. A lot of people won't believe it, but if the actions consistently support the words, over time the credibility of those who twist the words will be reduced. We can also make it clear in both word and action that while much is negotiable, the fate of those who attack us or shelter those who do is not.

In general I don't like the idea of laying down red lines or declarations of what we will or will not tolerate... too often hey invite testing, and there are few things worse than laying down a red line you aren't willing to enforce. On exception would be the red line on attacking us. That's not something to haggle over.

[Ken White]

The problem with this of course is that any words can be twisted.

True -- but there are those that absolutely revel in all such twisting as opposed to those that merely do it on occasion for temporary advantage...

Actions, in the long run, speak louder than words...

Indeed.

...We can also make it clear in both word and action that while much is negotiable, the fate of those who attack us or shelter those who do is not.

True also. In that, consistency would be advantageous however consistency is not a hallmark of American foreign relations.

While I agree with what you say, there are those who apparently do not. That disagreement percolates and causes the inconsistency and a concomitant reluctance to allow the Intel folks to properly suss out the unkindly intentioned or the various forces and agencies of the US Government to respond rapidly and forcefully. A mixed message is often worse than no message...

[JMA]

I'm sure my approval means as much to him as yours, which is to say nothing at all.

touche

"Don't trust the Taliban" is an easy enough thing to say, and not quite rocket science... has anyone proposed that we should trust the Taliban? I'd add "don't trust the Karzai Government", "don't trust the Pakistanis", and possibly a few others.

No, you are missing the point again.

The US is about to cut-and-run once again. Precedent indicates that the US politicians will attempt to cover their withdrawal through some sort of negotiation process real or bogus.

So the message should go out to the US government and those supplying troops to ISAF that, yes by all means pull out of Afghanistan, but don't try and sell the world a crock in the process.

[Dayuhan]

No, you are missing the point again.

The US is about to cut-and-run once again. Precedent indicates that the US politicians will attempt to cover their withdrawal through some sort of negotiation process real or bogus.

The US has belatedly realized that it's pursuing a pointless effort with slim to zero chance of achieving the inflated objectives posed by mission creep. Efforts to reverse that policy are in progress. If that's "cut-and-run", so be it. What would we have them do, bang their heads against that wall for another decade to demonstrate persistence?

Yes, there will probably be some effort to prop up some kind of (not very) face-saving resolution. This is not unique to the US, nor will it surprise anyone.

So the message should go out to the US government and those supplying troops to ISAF that, yes by all means pull out of Afghanistan, but don't try and sell the world a crock in the process.

No, you are missing the point again.

They aren't trying to sell anything to the world... why would they? They only need to sell it to the American voter, and the American voter is perfectly willing to buy the crock. They want to get out of there, and any charade that creates a justification for getting out of there is good enough

[JMA]

I'd be interested to hear your opinion of the other cited article by the same author, the one in which he offers a prescription. This one:

http://www.defenceiq.com/air-land-an...-nation-build/

My position was clear from the outset. The jump from striking out after 9/11 at the AQ and their hosts the Taliban to nation building for Karzai was an error. A costly error.

There are those who have the time to discuss just how badly the US has got this nation building wrong - or how it should have been approach - and good luck to them. The next US Administration in a few months or in four years comprising with a new set of "smart guys" will wipe the slate clean and start again from scratch ignoring the past. The cycle will repeat and continue.

I am more concerned - given my area of interest - just how badly the military - both US and Brit - have got the campaign wrong. Once again it is those at the coal face - below the rank of Lt Col - who pay the price. Tragic.