Arkansas Blog

I admire Ms. Leitz's service and the courage it takes to speak out, but I think her criticisms are more in line not of the proposed strategy in Afghanistan (one of counterinsurgency), but of President Bush's counterterrorism strategy. That strategy relied on UAVs and drones dropping bombs from ten thousand feet on the places where we suspected the leaders of al Qaeda were hiding. Any strategy like that is bound to create a lot of collateral damage, kill a lot of innocent people, and be seen by that particularly macho culture as "unmanly."

As Ms. Leitz points out, this strategy creates more insurgents, failed to protect civilians, and put our soldiers in harm's way.

General McChrystal is a counterinsurgency specialist, and is ready to focus on building friends and isolating enemies; "increasing social services and schools," as Ms. Leitz points out. Because counterinsurgency requires soldiers to build those secure relationships, it takes a lot more troops: by McChrystal's estimate, 40,000. And that's not even all we'll need, as most of the strategy will involve local troops, the Afghan National Army (ANA), which is a lot better trained than the Iraqi National Army.

According to most research, less than 1 in every 10 Afghans support the Taliban. If we can build the kind of relationships now that will cause the Taliban to collapse, al Qaeda will have lost a strong ally. In addition, we've finally convinced Pakistan to push from their side. We have to strike while the iron is hot.

There is a lot of good reading about this: Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson, Accidental Guerrilla by David Kilcullen, and In the Graveyard of Empires by Seth Jones are three. Get to readin'.

If you think Coin will work.. then tell us where it has worked before... for every imagined coin success there are countless failures.

Winning friends by going door to door, village to village... intimidating, killing, wreaking havoc... does not win friends. That's what Coin is.

If you think Three Cups of Tea can or would be won with a bunch of spooks and military might... I want some of what you are drinking.

deaths are up because there has already been a troop increase and minor implementation of McChrystal's plan. A plan which wants hundreds of thousands of troops... a plan that will only demand more troops and treasure at each and every failed juncture.

The strategy and tactics discussion drives me crazy, because it completely ignores the fact we have no business being there at all. There is no winning, except when the day comes that we admit we defeated ourselves, with our own hubris and lies, and come home.

We need to get out of Afghanistan. I voted to get out of Afghanistan. Where's the plan on moving our troops out? Can we at least talk about that plan?

We can't fix Afghanistan. We don't have trillions of dollars to fix it. It costs more than a billion per year for every 1000 soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq (I'm sure that doesn't include everything). In the next week or so, the U.S. Debt will surpass $12 trillion dollars (that's twelve thousand billions). If we can't sell our bonds, then we are just printing the financing of this war. Raising taxes won't happen. The only people that might get heard calling for the raising of taxes are those investing in our bonds. Inflation will eventually bite us. It sure would have been nice if the Bush administration would have resolved this war before creating false fears and starting another one. What could we have done with the $5 trillion+ added to our national debt during the Bush Administration?

We can't fix a whole culture where tribal warlords rule the countryside. They can be just as bad as the Taliban. The country has to fix themselves. If we support a government that is recognized by the population as corrupt and illegitimate, our soldiers don't have a chance. Our armed forces are trained to fight and protect, not nation build. Not teach illiterates. Not change the ideas, ways, and lives of an Islamic culture that we know little about. I suspect our troops probably haven't even properly been trained on the language, or rather languages, which are Persian and Pashto. And, you know they don't want to go around the countryside being friendly with people when they have no idea which ones might just prefer to blow them up.

Whatever law we work on there, it is circumvented by Islamic law. Not really the kind of government we can be proud of assisting. Each time there's a mistake and civilians are killed by bombs, we lose. If their government makes terrible mistakes, like killing innocents or promoting injustice, we'll get blamed for that too.

We need to walk away from the Afghanistan table. We've lost trillions in bets. We can't afford to lose more trillions. Does the rest of the world think that the U.S. is too big to fail?

"To put [it] simply: I fail to see the value or the worth in continued US casualties or expenditures or resources in support of the Afghan government in what is, truly, a 35-year old civil war.... The United States military presence in Afghanistan greatly contributes to the legitimacy and strategic message of the Pashtun insurgency. In a like manner our backing of the Afghan government in its current form continues to distance the government from the people."-from Matthew Hoh's resignation letter.

I'd rather go to the healthcare table and lay down $2 trillion of debt on fighting diseases and injuries than fighting the Taliban. I bet we'd come out ahead and would reduce the suffering of Americans. Might even find some cures that could help the rest of the world. Might even help save some Afghani lives.

If we are going to fight al-Qaida, it's going to have to be undercover.

The problem with Afghanistan lately is that it has shifted from a war on terror, which is winnable, to a garden-variety opium war, which has been a consistent loser for 2,000 years.

I must disagree with Leitz's contention that our national security hasn't improved. The prima facie evidence is that we haven't suffered a major attack on U.S. soil since 9/11. If we had remained in our pre-9/11 state of being unprepared, several of the attacks that we prevented would have been carried out.

We need a military presence in Afghanistan, along with diplomacy. We need to use the carrot AND the stick to disrupt the terrorist networks. If we did things Eureka's way, the lessons of 9/11 would be forgotten, and Afghanistan would return to being a state-supported hub for openly training terrorists and planning international terrorist attacks.

The thing we could do to improve the situation is increase the pay for our military personnel. That would attract more recruits, and reduce the burden on existing members and their families. And I'll agree with Leitz that we need to increase our support for social services and education for the Afghan people, but we need boots-on-the-ground to do that effectively.

We're waiting AB on some examples ES asked about. Give some examples where counterinsurgency worked.

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This is a "country" that is 70% illiterate and we can't speak their language. It is based upon tribal society; always has been. We are "invaders" to the great unwashed, always will be, as I'mJust points out. there is NO "military solution" to terrorism (a TACTIC, NOT an "enemy." OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Tomorrow.

eLwood - The most recent example I can recall is Sri Lanka, where the Tamil Tigers were defeated earlier this year, but it may be too soon to know if that will remain the case. The insurgency in Chechnya has been severely weakened. The Shining Path in Peru hasn't been very active lately. Israel built walls to stop suicide bombers from attacking their bus lines. The Union army defeated the Confederates. Those are the first few examples that come to mind, there are probably hundreds of other examples of successful counterinsurgency programs. Most insurgencies run their course and end in failure.