Afghanistan: More Troops are Only One Part of the Solution

Note: This is the last of a two-part series. Yesterday's piece took into account Afghan public attitudes in determining what the real issues are there. Today's piece will look at what we can and should do based on this information.

Yesterday I wrote about Afghan attitudes toward U.S. forces, al Qaeda, and the Taliban. Essentially, based on the results of the newly released BBC/ABC opinion poll, Afghans want help in securing their country against both the Taliban and al Qaeda. The question with which I left off centered on how the world could best provide that.

Simply put, we have to close the gaps: The gaps in security, in infrastructure, and in legitimacy. And this process must have an Afghan face. That's why the problem can't be solved by the U.S. military or NATO alone. To be sure, the U.S. military has a major role to play in providing security (along with Afghan forces), but other agencies must lead in helping to build the capacity of the Afghan government. Only then will the legitimacy gap be closed. And only then will the Taliban and their fundamentalist friends and warlords be marginalized to the point of irrelevancy.

Of course, the odds of successfully building capacity in Afghanistan are long. Not only is it not one of my areas of expertise, but I don't think many people at all have the wide breadth of experience that could save a complex place like Afghanistan. I'm reminded of Buttercup's plea to Westley before crossing the dreaded fire swamp in The Princess Bride: She says, "We'll never survive!" And he responds, "Nonsense. You're only saying that because no one ever has." Not to make light of the situation, but our position is similarly precarious and doubtful.

The cost of doing nothing, however--to include withdrawing--could be catastrophic. Prior to 9/11, one of Afghanistan's two chief exports was transnational terrorism. And if we leave now, there's no reason to believe it wouldn't be again. So it becomes a question of how the world can help non-Taliban Afghans achieve a minimal level of governance that won't present a threat to other nations--and won't further destabilize any nuclear neighbors.

Personally, I'm not interested in seeing my country become imperialistic with a military presence in every trouble spot in the world. Nor am I interested in seeing long-term troop presences in Afghanistan or Iraq. But more troops in Afghanistan for the immediate future is an imperative so long as the Taliban are massing at the gates of Kabul.

Fortunately, Afghans still largely support the presence of U.S. troops. They're still too terrified of a return of the Taliban not to. And while that support of a foreign military presence has lost some of its intensity over the past few years, 63 percent of the population still wants us there. And that gives us room to work--militarily, politically, economically, and diplomatically. But there still aren't enough troops in Afghanistan to provide either basic security or to train Afghan forces to do the same.

To put this in perspective, we're trying to assist in bringing stability to a country larger than Texas with a fighting force that would barely fill up a third of Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge. New York City has more police officers than we have American troops in all of Afghanistan. With a not-yet-robust Afghan security apparatus and so few U.S. troops, unfortunately, there is no political or diplomatic solution. The Taliban will never negotiate so long as they're allowed to freely terrorize the Pashtun heartland.

And therein lies the long-term answer--and it's something on which I think everyone, including most Afghans, can agree. We will never exterminate the Taliban, so a settlement must be reached. In fact, 64 percent of Afghans wish to see a negotiated end to the war with the Taliban. Only 25 percent oppose. But the caveat to that--at least coming from the Afghans themselves--is that 71 percent of Afghans don't want to negotiate with the Taliban at all until the Taliban stop fighting. Now, that might be a little unrealistic, but it's certainly telling. The Afghans are willing to work with the more moderate elements of the Taliban so long as they don't represent a threat. And that means we need to provide the necessary security to ultimately reach this point. Therefore, the primary mission of U.S. forces must be to secure the population, infrastructure, and government institutions of Afghanistan.

Once the Taliban are cowed into no longer marauding throughout the countryside, we can start talking. But for now, that means more troops in the immediate future.

Everyone wants to see U.S. forces leave Afghanistan as quickly and as safely as possible. In the survey, almost half of the Afghan respondents--while living in fear of a Taliban return--even answered that they wanted to see U.S. forces decreased in the country. But only 21 percent said they wanted U.S. troops out now (though that's up from 8 percent in 2005). And twice that number--42 percent--want U.S. forces to remain until security is restored (though that's down from 65 percent in 2005).

So it's clear that this is a losing battle. The numbers aren't quite in freefall yet, but we're not a long way off. And once the Afghan population turns against us--not just the Taliban, the drug lords, and the terrorists--then we're in real trouble. Like Soviet trouble.

But there's still a window, however small. And we need to exploit it immediately--with all the diplomatic, political, economic, and, yes, military might we can muster. The world can't afford to lose control of this region.

Also available at VetVoice

Comments

[robbep]

I cldnt disagree more, it is not our responsibility to build Afghanistan. Sending our troops to foreign lands to build roads and bridges is not what our military is for. The idea that us staying in Afghanistan will prevent more 9/11 from happening ignores the fact that with proper police work we cld have stopped it frm happening at all. This area shld be the responsiblity of the world community not us. There are hotspots for terrorism everywhere you have poverty and despair. Currently the Mexican drug cartel is terrorizing its citizens shld we send our military there? They are on our border but I dont hear anyone talking about sending troops there. We cant police and rebuild the world and we certainly cant stamp out terrorism with military force.

[Kaviraj]

rmm4402

you want "real solutions". The real solution is to get out, no matter what you think.
I know the country and the warlords personally - Handyman pointed out the fact these guys are the drug dealers. They already were so in the '60s during the hippie era, when Afghanistan was a country where "everything goes" provided you do not cheat them. I was part of that contingent of hippies that bought hashish. I spent years in the region, so I know what i am talking about, whereas you haven't the faintest clue. Hekmatyar, Dustum and Karzai are not about giving you a centimetre of ground unless you do as they please. Karzai is in a compromised position - you put him in charge and he is seen as much as a puppet as the former Russian pick. Dustum and Hekmatyar are not is that position and therefore you make no progress at all, except in civilia casualties.
Now nothing goes, because by killing civilians you cheat them and so you incur the wrath of the common people. That is the problem here, because like that you cannot win any war. What this country requires you Americans and NATO cannot give them. Why? Because you do not understand them at all and never will. Armies are not the way, but infrastructure is. Schools are. Hospitals are. And the idea that they can remove the taiban, because they know them.

[rmm4402]

You are not telling me anythng I don't know...... OK - we get out - and what ????? I guess we are holding the Afghan Gov't back from building roads, bridges, schools and hospitals. The only thing standing in the way of your infrastructure program is the US military ??????

Who is going to build this infrastructure ?????? Don't tell me the UN......... we have an American UN rep over there now probably about to be decapitated, (yes - I know he's in Pakistan - but we could certainly expect more of the same). You can't build what your talking about without help from somewhere..... and that help is going to require security.

I agree with you that force alone is not the answer - it never is. My point is that I think the author of this article is right - he has been there as well. But I guess he doesn't know anything either.

[eciaccio]

Please read "Soviet Vets, 20 Years On, Warn Obama on Afghanistan"
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/02/14-6

[khepri]

Transnational terrorism has roots that are deeper than Afghanistan. Military action hack at the root, but only lop away at the limbs: putting out small fires will only produce a larger conflagration.

The huge costs of the newly adopted American stimulus package now indicate a serious, probably involuntary, realignment of American imperialist aims.

The effort to manage the affairs of other peoples rarely produces lasting results. America can no longer afford to invest in wars such as Afghanistan. The truth is that the simple expedients of locked cockpit doors, stringent immigration standards and careful boarding screening would have prevented 911.

Beyond these relatively simple security measures a larger challenge awaits American leadership: why is the land of the free and the home of the brave such a sought after target?

[rmm4402]

Isreal

[TheHandyman]

Part 2

Our troops are a precious commodity. You wouldn't use solid gold rocks to skim across the pond so why do we think it is alright to send our countrymen and women to fight these stupid wars for people in Washington who only line their and their Master's pockets. Are our friends, neighbors, and countrymen just cannon fodder. When will we get that War is not the answer to any sane question? Heaven knows this country has had enough of them from its inception!

We need to quit making messes that we then need to clean up at a cost of thousands of lives and billions of dollars. We need to let Obama and the other 524 people who run this country poorly that we know the GWOT is bull! No such animal! And, we are tired of them terrorizing the rest of the world in our name! It is time to bring all the troops home from everywhere!

[TheHandyman]

Once again the People get distracted by the GWOT. We went to Afghanistan to get Osama. Then the Bushites forgot about him. But the War Machine needs money so the goal got changed to bringing Democracy to the Afghani's whether they wanted it or not. We selected a government for the people consisting of War Lords aka Drug Dealers, Murderers and Thieves. The same people who were pretty much running Afghanistan into the ground before we got there. The US, not you or me tho, also supported a man in Pakistan who was arming and training the Taliban because Pakistan has its own interests in Afghanistan that run counter to the US.

Afghanistan, like Iraq, needs a political cure, not a military cure. So the author thinks that by sending more troops to Afghanistan, and killing lots more civilians in the process of killing a few Taliban that that will somehow stabilize the country. The Russians tried that, or have we all forgotten how this got started and how our Government pooched the pup on that one too?

[Paulo1]

Oh my,

1) win a war in Afghanistan? And who in history has actually done that? Only one I can think of and the mongols did it by making pyramids out of heads to make their case. Oh, and Alexander but he had to marry a local girl who may or may not have poisoned him.

2) Have you read that little piece on the back pages of the blogs lately? The one about us getting kicked out of Kyrgzstan and the Kyber pass being closed down. I would think the first rule of a successful war was having secure supply lines, we are about to have NO supply lines.

3) how about a different strategy, we leave, they go back to be a backwater country more interested in fighting each other than anything else.

[NakedMoleRat]

I agree completely with you!

Tomorrow, Feb15th, is the 20th anniversary of Russia pulling out of Afghanistan.

After 10 years, and over 15,000 dead soldiers, the then USSR left the country.

Today, Russia is warning us:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090214/wl_nm/us_russia_afghan_veterans_1

Will history repeat? Have we learned nothing from the failures of others?

[rmm4402]

I want to thank the author of this post for his service to our country. I enjoyed this article. The problem was defined and a solution presented.

Unfortunately presenting solutions is not a card in the deck of many people on this site. They spout short little knee-jerk talking points like "blood for oil" (yeah - we spilled our blood - still waitin' on that oil - heck; not even the Iraqis believe that one anymore)........ "unjust war" (like we had 9/11 coming to us)......or with pathtic comparisons to Vietnam, (grow-up hippy. Afghanistan is different).

And many of you wonder why many Vets aren't liberal... it is because of stuff like this.

Here's an idea.... if you don't like what the author says or disgree with him - present an alternate solution. You have 250 words - use them. Drawing spurious comparisons and saying "let's just get out" is just plain weak and intellectually lazy. It is easy to be against something .... what are you for and what are the consequences.

[Rule Of Law]

We went to Afghanistan to get Bin Laden--period. No one said anything about regime change. No one said we were going to bring them "democracy," whatever that means. No one told the American People that we were going to take the place of the Russians. And no one ever told us that we would be in another Viet Nam there--a big old fat pork pie for the weapons industry and a test bed for their latest toys, which is all Nam turned out to be.

US out of Afghanistan. Let them deal with their crazies in their own way. Unless, of course, there is another sub rosa aspect to the military-industrial agenda, like pipelines or military bases from which to impose our will on the ME. Those are time tested reasons for having young American men and women die that I'm sure the neos and blue dogs can rally around.

[Steamboater]

How many polled were women? In short, how many polled are powerless to accomplish anything in in regard to fighting the Taliban if they don't compromise or talk?

Friedman says he has little expertise on the subject; he's right. Afghans have tossed every occupier, from the Brits to the Russians. As in Vietnam, a 'surge' in Afghanistan is something that always increases and gets us further into a morass. If McCain won the election, it would have happened in Iraq. Even after Obama hopefully keeps his campaign promise and withdraws combat trops from Iraq in 16 months though , we'll still have 60,000 troops there. There's no victory anywhere or anything resembling it when occupying a country where tradition is bound to bribes, corruption and oppression of women and where swaying from perceived extremes of religion means death. Lose the Taliban however and some other monstrosity will take it's place in the guise of 'democracy' and with American support. Obama is as fatally wrong to increase our presence in that country as Bush was to ratch it up in Iraq. Unfortunately, we cannot solve everyone's problem, neither those in Afghanistan under the boot of the Taliban or al Queda or those in Pakistan under the boot of their government or al Queda there. In Afghanistan especially, we're up against tribal chieftans only interested in their own power who have little interest in bringing that country into the 21st century. We're looking at years of American blood spilled and for nothing.

[go]

Brandon, the only reason the terrorist camps flourished in Afghanistan before 9/11 was that any sort of due diligence was not performed. Do you really think that just because we don't have troops on the ground that Al Qaeda will once again be able to set up terrorist bases and not get their asses handed to them by drones and strategic strikes? Most everything that led to 9/11 would have be averted if the military and intelligence resources we had pre-9/11 had been coordinated and utilized. Do you believe that we will suddenly take our eyes off Afghanistan because American troops aren't on the ground? As long as we continue to inflame that part of the world we will just increase the number of people drawn to terrorism. Afghanistan will not be 100% safe in our life times but it will never again be allowed to become an easy place for terrorists to organize camps in.

[rmm4402]

C'mon - that is right out of President Clinton's playbook. Cruise Missle diplomacy.

An embassy is bombed - launch some cruise missles. The USS Cole is attacked - launch some cruise missles.

It didn't work then - it won't in the future.

Like these folks won't be inflamed if we target their camps. Everyone we kill with cruise missles still have relatives.

I for one think the author has the right idea. We have gone this far - we need to maintain the initiative and keep them reacting to both military and diplomatic moves. Pull out and we surrender the initiative. While we try to go on with our lives - they'll begin working on another strike.

This is a different enemy who will not go away if we just leave on our own. An inconvenient truth.

[HansB]

Any opinion poll in Afghanistan must be viewed with skepticism. They are not familiar with opinion polls. However, they are very much familiar with what ABC/BBC, as Western organizations, want to hear. And that's how they'll respond to questions. I have no doubt that an "opinion poll" held by the Taliban would give diametrically opposite results.

Not that Afghans are dishonest. I've seldom met a more honest people. But I've also never seen a people so fundamentally disinterested in the outside world - including us. They're caught between two very violent powers: the West and fundamentalist Islam. And so they'll protect themselves and their families by telling each side what it wants to hear.

So forget about opinion polls, and certainly about polls that pretend to be exact: "63% wants us there." We don't know how many of those 63% were sincere, how many were afraid of us, and how many just wanted to get the poll over with.

The thing is, they know we're not there to stay and that the Taliban are. No temporary surge will change that. Ultimately only another domestic, Afghan, power can permanently oppose the Taliban. Now that the government is totally discredited, the West has only two options in my view: empower another local ally, or get out.

[oldtree]

Where Brandon is often correct about the needs of our troops and their treatment at home, I must disagree with an assessment that suggests the Afghani people want any thing to do with us. Do you suggest we fight just because we can, and it gives our military something to do?

Please, explain what advantage there is in trying to punish a nation because it is used by their own nationals to train people in war? Every nation does that. We haven't yet gone down the path of trying to fix those nations that can fight back, have we? Does that reflect cowardice or logic?

If the suggestion is to stabilize things so they can continue opium production, then it makes sense.

just a reason, any reason that shows some logic outside of colonization or permanent military bases. No one has offered anything to a puzzled world yet. I look forward to someone coming up with a reason that isn't directly related to spending and testing new weapons on people that can't fight back.

[William Bradley - Huffpost Blogger]

Sorry, but he seems to be citing some actual facts.

>Where Brandon is often correct about the needs of our troops and their treatment at home, I must disagree with an assessment that suggests the Afghani people want any thing to do with us.

[Rule Of Law]

There are at least a dozen spots in the world right now where genocide is costing millions of lives per year. They all would like our help. But they don't have "strategic importance," or "national interest" tags. So those people die.

US out of Afghanistan. It's not only wrong, it's hypocritical.

[TheHandyman]

Yes, he "seems" to be citing real facts but I've seen real data on Democracy Now that says he's wrong! Where did he get these facts?

[oldfart1]

Does anyone believe that what Brandon Friedman is saying makes any sense? He ASSUMES that "more troops are part of the solution". Like Vietnam (which China tried and failed to control for millenia), Afghanistan has resisted the efforts of foreigners to control it for centuries - first the British, then the Russians, and now us. Their population has grown rapidly, and it shows no sign of slowing down. Their main source of income is, and always will be, heroin. After admitting that he hasn't a clue about how we could actually stabilize the country, he goes on a tear of arm-chair strategizing, with his eyes wide shut. We're going to negotiate with the Taliban? It takes two to negotiate.

Bush's Near Eastern wars - Iraq, Afghanistan and now Pakistan - were the underlying cause of the present financial crisis (Bush launched the subprime bubble in 2003 to help him win in 2004). With our economy in ruins, this is a war we simply can't afford.

[TheHandyman]

Damn! There you go again with all that history, as if that really had to do with not making the same mistake over and over again! Had anyone in the Bush Administration looked at the British experience in Iraq or the Middle East they would have known what to expect and maybe not done it! And I can only imagine what those damn Russki's are thinking when Afghanistan is mentioned. Broad smiles and probably more than a few giggles, laughs, and guffaws. Russia had half a million troops and the Afghan Army had a quarter million and with all that fire power what happened?

[Rockintheboat51]

STOP THIS BLOOD for OIL WAR!!!

We were promised Change and an end to this war, but Obama just turns up the heat on the world.

Wheres the change ? Stop the Lies !!! Stop the war !!!

[RoseMerry]

Amen to that! My biggest dispointment in this new Adminstration is that are dedicated to continue this unjust war.

[BottomLine2008]

What are you talking about? At least change your knee-jerk rhetoric to fit the right country! LOL

[Rule Of Law]

Just Google Afghanistan + Pipeline. Then make sure your knees are firmly pinned under something. ROFLMAO