Lara Logan (CBS) on al Qaeda and Afghanistan

[mrlynn]

I don't usually post over on this side, because I can't afford the time for endless wrangling. But if you want to know what's really going on in Afghanistan and the Middle East, and not what this feckless administration is telling you, sit down and spend 20 minutes watching this incredibly brave reporter tell you:

http://www.longwarjournal.org/videos/201...n_al_q.php


/Mr Lynn

[RgrF]

So what do you see the incoming Romney administration offers in this sort of circumstance that the outgoing Obama administration did not?

[cbelt3]

As noted in the past...we got involved in a land war in Asia. Afghanistan in particular. Administration is irrelevant. The tribes and the terrain are implacable. There is no "country" to be "built".

Short of nuking and paving, the best approach is isolation.

[OWC Jamie]

mrlynn wrote:
But if you want to know what's really going on




/Mr Lynn

Heretic !!!

[Black]

cbelt3 wrote:
As noted in the past...we got involved in a land war in Asia. Afghanistan in particular. Administration is irrelevant. The tribes and the terrain are implacable. There is no "country" to be "built".

Short of nuking and paving, the best approach is isolation.

The reason we were over there in the first place was because the former administration deemed it beneficial to have a base from which to fight terrorism before it reached US soil, and a successive administration seemed to feel that the pluses outwieghed the minuses. This isn't like getting involved in Viet Nam because we just don't like commies.

[mick e]

mick e remembers a certain Mr Lynn who was in full support of these invasions when the previous administration undertook them.

After all - they were going to be welcomed as liberators.

[mrlynn]

cbelt3 wrote:
As noted in the past...we got involved in a land war in Asia. Afghanistan in particular. Administration is irrelevant. The tribes and the terrain are implacable. There is no "country" to be "built".

Short of nuking and paving, the best approach is isolation.

It is true that Afghanistan is not a 'nation' in any functional sense; it is mostly a mountainous region inhabited by independent subsistence farmers whose loyalties lie with their immediate clansmen, not some remote and ineffectual government in Kabul. It was important to go in and clean out the nests of al Qaeda that were breeding fanatical terrorists aimed at wreaking havoc in the West. It seemed for a time that we had succeeded, but it is increasingly clear that we have failed. One reason is the resistance of the disbursed theocratic organization called the Taliban, which feeds on local allegiances and religious zeal—and probably on alliances with chieftains who market the poppy crops. The US military would be ill-equipped to deal with such folk close to home, not to mention half a world away.

As Lara Logan pointed out, the Taliban like al Qaeda because they share the oppressive ideology of radical Islam, and also bring them expertise in weapons and asymmetrical warfare. In Iraq, General Petreaus was able to create alliances with Sunni leaders to quash al Qaeda and its allies; in Afghanistan we have not had comparable success, and are not likely to, especially since Obama's amateurish announcement that we are leaving in 2014. Once we leave, the Taliban will have free reign over the entire area (including NW Pakistan), religious oppression will cover even Kabul and other 'modern' towns, girls will be denied education and women will be stoned. And al Qaeda will be nurtured to grow again.

What should we have done? There is no easy answer. If I had been in charge, I'd have tried to co-opt the poppy crop; pay more than the local chieftains, sell opiates for medicine and science, and use the proceeds to build alliances and displace the Taliban in the mountains, building roads, schools, and bringing electricity to the villages. I'd also have started investing heavily in mining the impressive mineral resources of Afghanistan, making sure that the proceeds flowed into the region. You can't 'nation build' a primitive region without first transforming the economy, which then leads to to the creation of modern institutions.

Would this have worked? I don't know. The forces of radical Islam are very strong, and are in the process of overwhelming even relatively 'modern' countries like Egypt. It may be the best we can do is to keep our guard and our strength up, keep hitting at the Islamofascists wherever we can, and work to undermine their ideological zeal with the promise of the prosperity that freedom brings.

/Mr Lynn

[mrlynn]

mick e wrote:
mick e remembers a certain Mr Lynn who was in full support of these invasions when the previous administration undertook them.

After all - they were going to be welcomed as liberators.

I was in support, and remain so. I am less happy with how they were carried out, particularly (though not exclusively) by the current, entirely clueless, administration, which has abandoned Iraq and is in the process of completely losing Afghanistan.

/Mr Lynn

[mick e]

But you were all for the way the previous administration - led by geniuses like Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld and Paul Bremer - screwed everything into the ground. Be honest.

[mrlynn]

mick e wrote:
But you were all for the way the previous administration - led by geniuses like Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld and Paul Bremer - screwed everything into the ground. Be honest.

The aims were correct and laudable. The execution was often faulty, because of mistaken assumptions and the inevitable fog of war. We did liberate tens of millions from Saddam's vicious tyranny, and we stopped him and Quadafi from developing nuclear weapons. I'd like to have seen royalties from Iraq's oil (to pay for our work), and I think leaving Iraq virtually in the hands of Iran is going to be a huge mistake. But that's the current crop of geniuses.

/Mr Lynn