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

[Dayuhan]

The word abandon is a simple description of an act. You promise to stand by something and you don't, you have abandoned it.

I don't buy it. A simple description of an act would be "a withdrawal of troops and other resources", or some such thing. "Abandon" assumes an absolute, eternal, and irrevocable commitment, and no such promise was ever or could ever be made. Of course any commitment made has to depend on corresponding effort from the Afghan side. No government on the planet can be expected to fling money eternally at people who seem mostly interested in stealing it, or to provide eternal support for a government that shows few signs of interest in standing on its own. All commitments are limited, just as all resources are limited.

When we say we are going to stick with somebody we should, at least to the point where we make a good faith effort to try. We never did because we never recognized and dealt with realistically the Pak Army/ISI.

I don't buy it. How many lives, how many years, how many hundreds of billions of dollars - much of it stolen by the people we're allegedly abandoning - are needed to constitute a "good faith effort to try"?

There's no way the US can deal realistically with the Pak Army/ISI until we withdraw from Afghanistan: the need to supply forces through Pakistani territory is the single biggest constraint of the revision of that relationship. Absurd to say we shouldn't leave until we deal with Pakistan when we can't do anything about Pakistan until we leave.

Even after leaving, of course, all the US can do is stop giving money and threaten various actions if they do things we don't like. Whether or not that will change their policies is debatable: they are not a vassal state and they are not required to bow to our will.

So now we are going to bug out.

And why should we not? It's pretty clear that the Afghan Government is not going to put any effort into defending or sustaining itself while the Americans are there to do it for them.

Since that is a done deal seemingly we should keep the money going to the ANSF and we should make arrangements to take those who worked with us, with us, when and if they need to go. We won't of course. To damn difficult to assimilate people like that (the word that is to be uttered disdainfully with slightly curled lips).

I would personally have no objection to providing continuing military and civilian assistance, with some provisions. It should be clear that the assistance will be gradually phased out. It should be clear that any organization that doesn't make very visible progress on controlling corruption, meaning specific individual consequences, gets nothing. It should be made clear that if the people training the military get shot, military assistance will stop. I have no personal objection to taking in people who worked with us if they lose - which doesn't have to be a foregone conclusion - with the provision that anyone with a record of stealing public money, dealing drugs, etc is not going to be included.

We have incurred, I think, certain moral obligations. (I know what's coming so please don't present me with the argument that nations only have interests, not moral obligations. I don't agree.)

And the government on the receiving end has no moral obligation to make a visible effort to step up and carry their share? How long do you throw money and lives down a black hole?

Your last paragraph I heard before, almost 40 years ago. Only then instead of Afghans, it was South Vietnamese. The argument facilely ignored outside actors then, just as it does now.

I don't buy it. The Taliban aren't the NVA, not by a long shot. If Afghans want our help in suppressing them, they need to show that they have the will - they've been given the means - to step up and make real substantive effort to carry the fight themselves. We all they know how. If that will is shown, they deserve support. If not, they don't.

There are no blank checks or open-ended commitments in international affairs. None. Never have been, never will be.