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Kabul under siege
It looks like things in Afghanistan are more dire than we have been led to believe.
It was neglect of Afghanistan that allowed General Petraeus to turn Iraq into a strong ally of Iran in the War on Terror. We may have to be content with that costly achievement. The poppy fields and the Taliban are resurgent, but our own supply lines are threatened.
And when one thinks about it, there are other problems in the region brewing....
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A witch's cauldron. We should never have been so sublimely self-confident in our military power to think we could succeed where 4 or 5 empires before us failed.
December 8, 2008 9:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
It wasn't even hubris. The minds of the criminals were on Iraq even as the war in Afghanistan was launched.
December 8, 2008 9:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes.
And no doubt if Iraq had gone better, they would have moved on Damascus under some pretext or other.
December 8, 2008 10:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's also worth asking: Has Afghanistan ever been successfully occupied long-term by any foreign power? And what makes us think we can manage it where everyone else has failed?
December 9, 2008 1:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
No foreign country that i know of has ever successfully occupied Afghanistan. Even Alexander the Great was "just passing through."
December 9, 2008 7:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
I remember the day back in the Spring of 2001 when the Taliban destroyed the Great Budhas at Bamiyan. I was teaching it to one of my art history classes, and comparing the cultural destruction of the Nazis before WWII.
We sat back and watched the world's cultural treasures destroyed by these religious fanatics who had taken over Afghanistan. It seemed only a matter of time before they struck outside of Afghanistan, so it wasn't surprising to me to hear of the 9/11 connection.
"Those who would burn books, will soon be burning bodies" I believe is the quote.
We have to keep in mind that we aren't trying to occupy Afghanistan, but to destroy the foreign Taliban and restore power back to the native Afghanis. Bush blew it, big time. Obama knows what needs to be done, but there is so much damage to undo now.
December 9, 2008 3:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Buddha"
December 9, 2008 3:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
I remember that day too, and it seemed ominious (it prefigured the looting of the Iraqi museums).
The "foreign Taliban" received its biggest impetus from Pakistan. All the billions Bush shovelled to Musharraf went to strengthening Pakistani-Taliban ties, and this was yet another reason many of us were outraged by Bush's embrace of this dictator.
I see no hope at the moment for Afghanistan. If Pakistan does not go over the brink, that will be an achievement.
It is very hard to write about this without recalling that Rumsfeld viewed Afghanistan as an annoying afterthought even as he launched its invasion.
It is sickening-sickening-
December 9, 2008 7:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, I am always skeptical of the provenance of information from afghanistan, given its remoteness and the seeming disinterest in it here at home. So I am somewhat reassured (though the news itself is hardly reassuring)that i did not exaggerate its situation too much, when i read the redoubtable Juan Cole say of the think tank report cited in my link:
'ICSD [the think tank] used to be called the Senlis Group, and have done excellent reports on Afghanistan. It is also my experience that Western military personnel are in denial about how badly Afghanistan's security is deteriorating.
Kai Eide, the United Nations special representative for Afghanistan, said on Monday that
that unless Afghanistan’s international partners conducted their military operations with more care and cultural sensitivity, redoubled their work to minimize civilian casualties and accelerated their reconstruction programs, they risked jeopardizing their efforts to stabilize and rebuild the country."
The US military appears to think that Kabul is in danger from the new insurgency, since most of the new US troops to be sent to Afghanistan will be stationed around Kabul, especially to its south. That plan tells us that the capital is being menaced from the Pushtun areas to its south and needs defending, as the ICSD said.'
http://www.juancole.com/2008/12/international-council-on-security-and.html
December 9, 2008 8:10 PM | Reply | Permalink