Now, it is all about Afghanistan.
In testimony before Congress today, Defense Secretary Robert Gates labeled Afghanistan as America's "greatest military challenge." Meanwhile, last week, there was considerable brouhaha over a liberal group's stand against U.S. military escalation in Afghanistan. It was talked about as a big story -- the left, again, seemed to be the vanguard for public opinion, pushing the envelope with an extreme position that could ultimately emerge as the mainstream view?
But this would suggest that there is a consensus about the need to prevail in Afghanistan. I missed that national debate.
It might be more helpful to ask just how it is that U.S. public opinion decided the war in Iraq was something Washington could walk away from, but Afghanistan, as the original nurturing ground of Al Qaeda, had to be definitively won. When -- but also why -- was this supposed consensus reached?
Granted, at the start of the 2008 presidential campaign, withdrawal from Iraq was the essential issue. It was Sen. Barack Obama's stand on withdrawal that successfully set him apart from most other candidates -- most notably the Democratic front-runner, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.
From the first, the young Illinois state senator spoke out against the war. This was a war of choice, he noted, a preventive action against a nation that had nothing to do with Al Qaeda and 9-11 -- no matter how often the Bush administration asserted this link. It was a sideshow of the "war on terror" that somehow filled the center ring.
Meanwhile, Afghanistan, which had been the proper focus of America's attention immediately after Sept. 11, slid out of sight. The U.S. gaze had drifted southward -- and so bin Laden had escaped capture, the Taliban had regained a foothold, the warlords clenched tighter control and the heroin trade boomed.
But this grave wrong, the argument went, would be righted once Washington got the hell out of Iraq. The troop surge in Iraq had dangerously stretched the U.S. military capacity. But once withdrawal started, these subsequent cascading errors could be addressed. The needed American troops could at last be sent into Afghanistan, and the correct focus be restored.
But why is this the correct focus? Who decided that America had to "win" Afghanistan in order to prevail in the war of terror?
No occupying power, from Alexander the Great through czarist Russia, the British Empire and the Soviet Union, has been able to exercise full control in Afghanistan. When did this become Washington's essential, its indispensable aim?
When invading Afghanistan was first discussed, this historical fact had been part of the discussion. But it was one of many points lost amid the fog of war.
Last spring, Thomas Powers, who has been thinking about war and conflict for more than 30 years, wrote a terrific piece for The New York Review of Books that made this argument. In talking about Iraq and Afghanistan, he said that the latter was "an even more intractable problem."
Powers wrote:
What is remarkable about the situation in Afghanistan -- even astonishing -- is that the Americans, after watching 100,000 Russians fight Afghans at great expense with no success for nine years, have signed on for a dose of the same. ... The Russians walked into Kabul with ease, as invaders of Afghanistan invariably do, but after that it was mounting trouble all the way. The Russians paid a substantial price for thinking they could "win" if they stuck to it -- a still-hidden number of dead soldiers, probably exceeding 20,000, and perhaps five times that number of seriously wounded; loss of 500 aircraft, including 350 helicopters; huge quantities of other equipment destroyed....
Shrugging off the lessons of history is the preface to disaster in Afghanistan. The Afghans seem so weak -- an impoverished people living in mudbrick houses making a hardscrabble living; shepherds, farmers and nomads answering to feudal lords ruling tiny villages connected by dirt tracks over rocky mountain passes. How tough can it be to whip these skinny men in rags and occupy their country?
So why must Afghanistan be America's "greatest military challenge?" Why is the war on terror now all about Afghanistan?
Capturing bin Laden, who is supposedly lurking in the mountains between Afghanistan and Pakistan, is one thing, but looking to subdue a nation that, over centuries, has not yielded to outside power seems a fool's errand.
And if the new president is one thing, he is the opposite of a fool.
Answer: The world.
U.N. Security Council Resolutions
1267-"demands the Taliban turn over Usama bin Laden, poses a series sanctions against Taliban-controlled territory.
1333- "Repeats demand that the Taliban turn over bin Laden and imposes further measures on their territory pending concurrence with the demand."
1386- "Determining that the situation in Afghanistan constitutes a threat to international peace and security,
Authorizes the Member States participating in the International Security Assistance Force to take all necessary measures to fulfill its mandate."
http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/Digital-Library/Primary-Resources/Detail/?ots591=69F57A17-24D2-527C-4F3B-B63B07201CA1&lng=en&ord520=grp2&id=21611
I hope this answered your question.
Because it has ALWAYS been about A-stan. Before Bush took his misguided detour to Iraq.
2.One must be extremely careful about making irresponsible claims about " lessons of history."
As one historian stated, the only thing Vietnam war taught is the consequence of a war against Vietnam during the middle of 20th Century.
If Afghanistan falls for Islamists, that means it has been arranged for by the outsiders (Pakistanis). If Afghanistan is left to Afghans (very difficult to happen considering the juiciness of their territory), their country will turn into a model democracy in no time.
Afghanistan is one of the world's most ancient republics, right alongside ancient Greece. Megasthenes has specifically mentioned the word "demokratia" with regards to the social structure in these lands. Even today, the principles of egalitarianism and communal discourse are vital in the Afghan politics. All villages and towns hold councils known as "jirgahs" to take decisions.
The fact is these people have democracy in their veins, much more so than any Europeans save the Greeks.
These people have also had one of the most towering leaders of modern times : Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan (Bacha Khan) who ranks right up there along with Mahatma Gandhi. His followers have built a grassroots movement based on secularism, democracy and egalitarianism. After the partition of India, these followers (called Khudai khid-matgars) were decimated by Pakistan under state orders .. For example, please read about Babrra massacre.
Pakistan has nurtured violent Islamists to keep Pashtun/Afghan nationalism under check (otherwise the NWFP would either declare independence or join their brothers in Afghanistan). The USA has directly helped Pakistan in nurturing violent Islamists - by sending loads of weapons and money. This has served American geopolitical objectives at that time. To hell with the aspirations of Afghan people.
A republic? An ancient republic? Democracy in their veins? Puhleeze.
It became a single, political entity with the reign of Ahmed Shah Durrani, who in 1747 founded the monarchy that ruled the country until 1973.
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Ok, fine.
And NOW US and others decided to dismantle whatever Taliban and Al Qaeda structures exist.
And your problem with dismantling of Taliban and Al Qaeda is ...?
Cause the Taliban will come back into power, and we don't like the Taliban??
Guess what?
The American People wouldn't like foreign countries coming and imposing illegitimate leaders and government systems on them either.
Didja know that there's people in this world who DON'T want western style "democracies"??
Afghan people have seen Taliban regime and wish to take no part of it again.
Taliban can come back only because they're ruthless that other Afghan groups.
Not because Taliban is more popular.
I doubt that burning schools and murdering women for attempting to get education is all that popular among ordinary Afghans.
Is it?
However, I wish you mention that it was the US and NATO that freed said warlords after the invasion. Also, it was the Taliban who destroyed the heroin crop at the end of 2000. Drug money funds black ops as well as Wall Street. We need people like you Ms. Silver to give us this information. We need truth.
- pay a large sum of taxpayer money for the corn which fattens that hog. ADM will skin it, Haliburton will ship it, and a recently pink-slipped US 'volunteer' will field apply the casing.
Huge win - team america.
Your analysis of central asian geopolitics is partially correct. But USA has no magnanimity to offer to India . All the goodies, it will keep itself. In fact, USA has been actively preventing India from reaching out to Afghanistan for the last 60 years, because it is deeply worried of Indian influence spreading into central Asia. This is the primary motivation why it supported Pakistan all these years.
About Muslims uniting under a single state, the age of religious theocracies has long ended. It is better if Muslims start thinking beyond the prism of Islam. Each ethnic group and linguistic nationality should first unite and form secular and democratic governments. The Arabs should unite into a single Arabia. Muslim unity is a non-starater, there are too many areas of conflict between Muslims of several regions. Moreover, religious states do not belong to the future.