"The most extravagant idea that can be born in the head of a political thinker is to believe that it suffices for people to enter, weapons in hand, among a foreign people and expect to have its laws and constitution embraced.
No one loves armed missionaries; the first lesson of nature and prudence is to repulse them as enemies."
Thus spoke French Revolutionary leader Maximilien Robespierre in warning against foreign entanglements, though he soon succumbed to the pressure of his peers and the public: To ostensibly secure France's borders, he moved to belligerently impose the ideas of the Revolution in foreign lands, and shortly after lost his head on the guillotine to cheers of the crowd he had coddled.
"In counterinsurgency," noted Acting Director of U.S. National Intelligence David Gompert, "the population is not just the field of battle but the prize." The problem with our mission in Afghanistan is that each passing day not only makes that prize more unattainable abroad but brings new risks at home.
The NATO-led mission in Afghanistan is now near parity with the Red Army's top troop strength, and has already lasted as long as the doomed occupation during the 1980s that facilitated the collapse of the Soviet Empire. NATO's recent decision to fight for four more years in a war that cannot be won, on behalf of an untrustworthy and unpopular government, in order to solve a problem that no longer really exists, is a stunning waste of lives, treasure and the goodwill of the world's peoples on whom our own national security ultimately depends.
Still, the United States and its allies persist in pursuing what one soldier in the field described to me as "a crazy dream." As a result, NATO's already diminishing credibility and, more portentously, America's already declining influence in the world, likely will degrade faster and further despite newer, more positive plans for NATO's future program elsewhere.
"As we approach our 10th year of combat," intoned President Obama, "we must never lose sight of what's at stake:" to deny al Qaeda a safe haven by "building democracy" with the good cop tactic of social "reconciliation and reintegration" (which no Taliban group has yet accepted) and the bad cop strategy of military "containment and counterinsurgency" in a country already tormented by three decades of constant war. Truth be told, although the Taliban and al Qaeda have had an unsteady alliance of convenience, there were never any Afghans in al Qaeda, and there is no significant al Qaeda presence in Afghanistan today. The one incontrovertible fact is that over the last five years or so, the greater NATO's footprint in the country, the more widespread and lethal the Taliban insurgency has become.
The recent revelation in Britain's newspaper The Guardian, that some Afghan émigrés from the UK and other Western countries regularly return to fight with the Taliban against perceived Western occupation of their homeland, signals that the Afghan insurgency has become a partisan movement of the Global Age. "I work as a minicab driver," one London-based Taliban part-timer said," I make good money. But these people are my friends and my family and it's my duty to come to fight jihad with them."
The name "partisan," which probably stems from the resistance of the Parthian people to Roman occupation 2,100 years ago, was first systematically applied to Jewish "zealots" and other "terrorists" just after the time of Jesus. Jewish partisans carried out suicide missions to incite Roman retaliation against the civilian population and so increase popular support for the rebels' cause. Beginning with the Spanish guerrilla war against Napoleon and on through WWII, "partisan" came to mean a member of any irregular force formed from a population to fight foreign control of their territory. The hallmark of any successful partisan movement is wide-ranging local involvement, most tellingly from "part-timers" -- the "bakers and candlestick makers" who work for the occupiers by day and the insurgency by night. Partisan strength lies in the social network within which the insurgency is embedded: in the dense fabric of families and friends that now extends, courtesy of globalization's easy movement and communication, to fellow travelers among immigrant and internet communities.
Among the London cabbie's fighting circle in Afghanistan we find farmers, teenage madrasa students, local officials, European part-timers, and old timers fighting, they say, "because the foreigners are here"; 30 years before "they were called Russians, but they are the same, all kafirs (infidels)." A century ago, British Army missionary T.L. Pennell wrote in his classic, Among the Wild Tribes of the Afghan Frontier: "The Afghans are never at peace except when they are at war! For when some enemy from without threatens their independence, then, for the time being, are their feuds and jealousies thrown aside, and they fight shoulder to shoulder ... all desirous of joining some jihad."
Today, "Taliban" is an umbrella term for those who collectively hate the "foreign invader" enough to turn even traditional enemies into friends. Since 2005, when NATO began ratcheting up military involvement, Taliban ranks have swelled many fold and their influence has spread to nearly every part of the country. The Taliban coalition now extends to almost all segments of the population, including the Pashtun's traditional rivals: Tajiks, Uzbeks, Hazara and others.
In describing the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire, T.E. Lawrence wrote: "the idea of nationality was independence of clans and villages, and their ideal of national union was episodic combined resistance to the intruder.... They were fighting to get rid of empire, not to win it." Although far inferior in treasure and arms, the insurgents would beat the enemy with "a highly mobile striking force of the smallest size" that would squirrel to death the enemy's desire and ability to hold on to as much territory as possible: "his stupidity is our ally, for he would like to hold, or think he held as [many] provinces a possible." NATO's present "surge" strategy against a similar kind of enemy, initiated by the Obama administration's decision to send an additional 30,000 troops to assist in "pacifying" as many Afghan provinces as possible, also does not shine with intelligence or effectiveness. 2010 is the bloodiest year yet of fighting, with insurgent attacks up by two-thirds over last year.
In a report released in August 2009, the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee warned that the Obama administration "has raised the stakes by transforming the Afghan war from a limited intervention into a more ambitious and potentially risky counterinsurgency." The incoming chief of the British Army, General Sir David Richards, cautioned that the proposed counterinsurgency and nation-building mission in Afghanistan (which now costs over a billion dollars per week) "could last up to 40 years."
A century before, Lord Curzon, the former Viceroy of India who had established the North West Frontier Province as a buffer zone to keep the Afghan tribes at arm's length, rose in Parliament as a member of the opposition to warn the new British government against prolonged military engagement: "we are dealing with an enemy habituated to every form and habit of guerilla warfare, even if [military action] attended with maximum success, no permanent results can be obtained;" and if Britain further attempted to occupy their homeland the whole region would be "ablaze from one end to the other [causing] an intolerable burden on finances." In Afghanistan, the more things change, the more they remain the same.
Frank Fredericks: Portland Bomber: How Must Muslim Americans Respond?
http://movieclips.com/YkZg-force-10-from-navarone-movie-videos/
When you read about Afghanistan for a while, you have to ask, 'why are people SO retarded'? If you think about it, Afghanistan really doesn't have much of an excuse anymore for not being a bustling, wealthy place with a whole lot of things going for it. Sitting as they are on untold mineral fortunes, and centrally located in Asia, if they can ever agree to put down the machine guns, they'll be gorging themselves on swiss candy bars and imported ice cream in no time. But, some people like to fight, and would rather fight than work to make a better place for everybody.
“Osama denied the allegations but I now believe that Bin Laden planned the attacks without informing the Commander of the Faithful and then lied to him by denying his involvement in the attacks after they took place,” he said.
Internal Qaeda documents collected by West Point's Combating Terrorism Center confirm the tension and animosity between Qaeda and the Taliban, and the fact that Bin Laden didn't even tell some of the core Qaeda about his plans (see CTC sentinel, September 2007, "Cracks inthe Foundation: Leadership Schisms in Al Qa'ida, 1989-2006").
I'm as American as I can be, but I can also understand how a normal Afghan male would take up arms to drive us away, and how those who would not would at least support or not obstruct those who do.
We had and have a goal of pure political fiction, and not one that stands any reasonable chance of being obtained in reality.
The name "partisan," was first systematically applied to Jewish "zealots" and other "terrorists" just after the time of Jesus.
Jewish partisans carried out suicide missions to incite Roman retaliation against the civilian population and so increase popular support for the rebels' cause.
1. As I 've noted (in the HuffPost and NYTimes), the problems of trying to pacify Iraq, an alluvial plain and the cradle of centralized government in world history, and Afghanistan, a mountainous refuge for decentralized tribes, bear little similarity.
2. On Iraq, as noted in my previous HuffPost: "Hardly anyone who is familiar with the situation in Iraq today believes it is a hopeful place, much less a beacon of democracy. As veteran war reporter Nir Rosen describes in his haunting new book, Aftermath, Iraq is presently riddled with feudal factionalism, murderous militias, confessional cronyism and endemic corruption. Iraq's once thriving but now ever-dwindling middle class and intelligentsia -- social elements universally acknowledged as critical to the survival and prosperity of any democracy -- desperately seek escape through emigration. Nobody I talk to in the Middle East -- from the leaders of nations to people in the street -- wishes upon themselves or their community what has been happening in Iraq."
3. On my "political agenda": as I've testified at the White House and Senate, it's to increase national and global security, lesson violence, and try to use science to find new ways through intractable conflicts.
4. However, disgusting and noxious are aspects of the Taliban (or Saudis, or Uzbeks. or Birmese, or any of several dozen creepy regimes), as Washington and Jefferson proposed, we can do more to bring democratic change to the world by example than by force.
I want to apologize to you for two reasons: 1) I took so long to respond to your posting (which naturally I did not see until later) and 2) for the (somewhat earnest) tone (of my last post)...
Needless to say - I am sure you understand that many people are profoundly troubled by
corruption and violence in the world today (which are contrary to democracy and democratic reform - which we in the West are most familiar with). Indeed, the irrational and violent deeds which take place in the name of extremist movements (such as Al-Qaeda) as well as the various extremist totalitarian regimes (extremism being the modus operandi of all totalitarian societies it seems) are frustrating for most average folk in our society.
That being said - please forgive me - as I take issue with your view on Iraq. It (Iraq) is not considered to be a complete failure by all or even most experts (like yourself). In fact, the amount of violence over the past 3 years has decreased considerably. Many of these experts are stating that Iraq is now showing many signs of normalcy and that this trend is likely to continue in the future.
Your argument that Afghanistan and Iraq cannot be compared may be true in some respects. Though - you really will not be able to predict if General Petraeus can make profound changes in that country until he has been given the time to attempt to problem solve.
cont...
cont...
Your final argument concerning the founding fathers and their proclamations may or may not apply to the situation in Afghanistan. With all due respect - I think that the quotations that you used were not really appropriate to the present situation in Afghanistan. There have been many instances when American armed forces have engaged in "regime change" and even attempted to pressure dictatorial regimes or terrorists using armed force (one early example during the early years after independence - American forces battled against violent rogue groups and regimes in the First Barbary War).
So far, he hasn't exhibited any.
This has started a great debate on how good is this ahadith.
This ahadith which was predicted that these Muslims carry this flag would not be defeated and what has been mention in this ahadith is similar to the Afghan Taliban now.
We see the growing numbers of the Taliban, their turbans and clothes and their Flag is Black.
In this ahadith, the prophet told that all who come across them should join them. Also, in this ahadith, it states that this jihad and leader will kill the enemy as never been killed before.
With that said, This ahadith has been talked about and some scholars contend it is weak others say it is sahih (right).
What does this mean? I believe that the American invasions and killings in Muslim lands have started the begining of the 'hour', the last days and a Caliphate will rise from all of the American persecution and invasions in Muslim lands.
We see now that the Islamic insurgency has caught fire in all Muslim lands from Morocco to Pakistan and the Americans admit that they cannot stop these insurgencies. 'The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan' is what the Taliban is calling Afghanistan.
Black flags of Khorasan!
at least we have the southern states that raise their kids to fight in these wars for corp profits and we dont need the draft.
neither the germans or the japanese considered themselves imperialists until the bombs started dropping on their homes. we wont have bombs just bankruptcy of a nation.
The US thinks that the Taliban have a problem with Karzai and they don't, they have a problem with Americans running the show. The US should negotiate with the Taliban and leave. If they are waiting for the Taliban to negotiate with Karzai, it will never happen as like the rest of the educated world, they know that he is a mere puppet of the US.
Read some more of what the gaurdian has published, it will open many eyes/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/26/taliban-afghanistan-occupation
The same things being said about Afghanistan (being an impossible mission for NATO were said about Iraq.
I believe that you are putting your personal political agenda and wish list ahead of the potential to mend Afghanistan and as well as the opportunity for NATO to successfully complete their mission and to make Afghanistan a safer and more progressive country (which is good for planet earth)....
I believe you are putting your personal political agenda and wish list ahead of the fact that Afghanistan is an un-winnable war.
Afghanistan and safer and more progressive country? Not possible. Afghanistan cannot be mended because it is not a country, it is lines on a map.
Scott Atran provided you with two pages of well thought out, reasonable responses as to why NATO cannot "defeat" (in classic military terms) Afghanistan's insurgents. All you have provided is wishful thinking.
You may want to spend 40 years in Afghanistan, but I do not.
So arguing on the basis of what happened in Iraq is not making a good case for Afghanistan.