I guess there’s a theory that things may have gone better in Afghanistan if the coalition of troops that invaded the country in 2001 hadn’t become distracted and diluted by the decision to invade Iraq. We’ll never really know if that’s true. What’s more conclusive is that things are just way worse there than even most pessimists expected. Today, we got a fresh reminder of that:
KABUL — Gunmen disguised as doctors and medics drove an ambulance into Kabul’s main military hospital Wednesday morning, then opened fire on patients and staff members and battled Afghan security forces for hours. At least 30 people, most of them civilians, were killed and twice as many wounded, officials said.
The audacious midmorning attack, the deadliest in the Afghan capital in months, was claimed by the Islamic State extremist militia. It drew immediate condemnation from foreign governments and humanitarian groups, and was denounced as an “atrocity” by the U.N. mission here because it targeted a medical facility.
“This attack marks an abhorrent new low. Dressing in disguise to shoot at the sick and wounded is a cowardly, wicked act,” Hamdullah Mohib, the Afghan ambassador in Washington, said in a statement. “These are forces of evil the world must work together to defeat.”
It also highlighted the threat of terrorist violence that continues to plague even the most secure areas of the Afghan capital, as well as other regions, after 16 years of conflict with Taliban insurgents and other armed groups that has cost tens of thousands of lives and involved more than 100,000 American troops at its peak.
There was a time prior to the Soviet invasion when Afghanistan was a trendy place to visit and it enjoyed the blessings of a civil society. I wish it could get back to that, but it seems as far off today as ever.
As the Trump administration weighs its policy options here, experts have warned that 2017 is likely to be as grueling and deadly as 2016, which had a record number of civilian casualties and left Taliban forces in control of more than one-third of the country. The increasing threat from the Islamic State, known here as Daesh, is especially worrisome.
“We are on the front lines of a fight that can affect the world, and we can’t let Afghanistan become a global terrorist center,” Siddiq Siddiqi, the chief spokesman for Afghanistan’s interior ministry, said this week. “We have made a lot of sacrifices, but we need more help, especially in counterterrorism.”
We went in there sixteen years ago to put an end to Afghanistan being “a global terrorist center,” but it doesn’t look like we’ve succeeded in that regard.
Maybe the threat is somehow minimized and contained by our continuing efforts but you’d have a hard sell to convince me that my son should put his life on the line serving there. And I think that’s pretty decent test for the president to ask himself as he contemplates what his policy options are. Whatever he decides, will he be willing to look bereaved parents in the eye when their children come home in caskets?
If not, maybe it’s time to cut our losses and manage the risk in other ways.
We’re only there for the oil.
Hashish oil?
Reminds me that I have an extended layover in Amsterdam coming up.
We are there to lay the natural gas pipeline. The Russians were there in the 80’s to lay that pipeline and we supported the Taliban to push the Russians out. But, something something went terribly wrong….9/11.
for such a short comment, this is wrong in an impressive number of respects.
Ask the Syrians where their oil is.
Take me to your oil. Or we send Cheney.
Indeed. There is a very good reason we are keeping the Kurds sweet. We figure they are a better opportunity than Erdogan for our separatist ambitions. And they can actually fight as our proxies without embarrassing us with the atrocities.
Have no idea what will happen with Golan reserves, though. Well, actually I have a pretty cynical idea.
Why wouldn’t nationalist fighters oppose a Quisling regime imposed by their imperial conquerors who seek to control their resources and and impose an alien political, economic and social culture on them? Radical Islam has only become a dominant ideology in parts of Islam in response to conquest by the USA/”the West” or the imposition, by the US, of repressive regimes and exploitative economic systems. I neither justify or support their actions. I am only surprised that others are surprised their resistance has become so endemic.
It was very lonely out here for those that opposed the Bush/Cheney war on Afghanistan. We were maybe 10%. Reason number one for my opposition was the GWB/Cheney screwed up everything they had ever touched. Number two was the poppy fields. Wasn’t prescient enough to imagine that we’d still be actively engaged there sixteen years on.
I love you Frank, but your timeline seems way off. ‘Radical Islam’ only started to rise after those countries stopped being controlled by “imperial conquerors who seek to control their resources and and impose an alien political, economic and social culture on them[.]”
From the Ottoman to the British these areas were controlled by Empires for more than 300 years, and it wasn’t until after those empires gave them their ‘freedom’ that ‘Radical Islam’ became a thing.
Your comment also vastly glosses over the effect of Saudi Arabia and the House of Saud, who were not “the USA/’the West'” who were really big drivers of ‘Radical Islam’ and I find it really hard to view them as a Quisling government of imperial conquerors.
Now I suppose you could be relying more on the Quisling part of your statement vis-à-vis imperial conquerors, or trying to create the illusion that imperial conquerors refers only to the recent US ‘Bush’s Wild Afghan (Mis)Adventures’ but then that narrows the focus so small that it again leaves out a lot of relevant things related to the rise of ‘Radical Islam’ like the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan and the rise of the Taliban; who I’m pretty sure predate the amazingly stupid G.W.Bush/Cheney invasion while also being easily classified as ‘Radical Islam’ by most definitions.
In other words, what you’re saying just doesn’t add up in respect to linear time and the events therein with regard to the rise of ‘Radical Islam’ and it’s rise in certain parts of Muslim communities.
As to surprise that resistance has become so endemic, one should always be surprised at the depths humans will go to to justify imposing their beliefs on others. To be otherwise is to be fatalistic and nihilistic with regards to the human condition and our possibility of improvement therein and there of.
I find no small amount of irony in the fact that it is impossible to distinguish which side I’m actually referring to with that statement though.
Good comment. I wasn’t trying to give a complete history of the causes of the rise of radical Islam, merely making an observation as to what is driving it now. The salient point is that the rise of radical Islam is a relatively recent phenomenon and not an intrinsic part of Islam throughout history. It has mostly been a response to voracious invaders and cruel dictators many of whom have acted in concert with western interests, and I would include the House of Saud in that.
Islam is not as effective a vehicle for radicalisation if your conquerors are also Moslem – as in the case of the Ottomans, or relatively accepting of your religion and much less intrusive generally – as in the case of the British who worked through local leaders and whose social footprint was relatively small despite their nominally imperial status.
Modern imperialism is all embracing, controlling the military, media, technology, the economy, much employment, consumer choices, branding, culture, even language. It puts the vanquished in a much darker place if they want to assert their distinct identity. Hence the (largely Islamic) extremism it has given rise to.
“The salient point is that the rise of radical Islam is a relatively recent phenomenon and not an intrinsic part of Islam throughout history”
This misses the mark in a number of ways:
*What is the definition of radical? Is it radical to behead someone for adultery and homosexuality?
IF the answer is yes, and I think it is, it is because the definition itself is not static. And this is in fact the central problem: the collision of Islam with modernity. As secular forces have become more prominent in the West, the reaction within Islam has grown. How those are reconciled are in fact precisely the forces at play in Afghanistan. Moreover as secularism increases in the West, the existing practice of Islam itself appears more radical. This collision is of course made more acute by the internet, where a comic book editor in Paris incites furor in ways unimaginable even 30 years prior.
*Somewhere in the volumes Will and Ariel Durant chronicle the rise of wahhabism. They note its spread, and its effect, where if IIRC they note that it inevitably lead the decline in learning and science. This predates Western involvement.
The reflex invocation of imperialism to explain every international dispute is in so many ways wrong.
You want traffic on this board to slow to a trickle, or something?
Yes Davis, I can always count on you to try and be the asshole with the snark.
You came on this board to ridicule ?
I agree that if this were an academic discussion, we would have to be much more precise in our definition of terms. The term radical is always a relative term, and begs the question: “radical relative to what?” Thus I do not use the term radical to define Islam in its earlier manifestations, simply because beheading apostates or deviants didn’t exactly mark it out as that much different from the Christianity and other political manifestations of the time.
I am using the term radical to describe more recent manifestations of Islam – the use of indiscriminate terrorism against civilians, suicide bombings, forced child soldiers, the declaration of total war against an entire civilisation which I think you misleadingly call “modernity”. There is nothing necessarily very modern about the practices of the west, unless you regard fuel air bombs, phosphorus shells, napalm, cluster bombs and all the wonderful innovations of modern weaponry as somehow more “modern” than traditional societies.
“There is nothing necessarily very modern about the practices of the west, unless you regard fuel air bombs, phosphorus shells, napalm, cluster bombs and all the wonderful innovations of modern weaponry”
OK, this is bull. Radical Islam is fighting against modern social developments in the west, including womens rights, gays rights, and secularism in general. Radical Islam is not at war with modern developments in weaponry. Their would be happy to get their hands on cluster bombs, phosphorous shells, nukes, and anything else they could use to kill infidels.
Recommend reading “The Mulberry Empire,” by I don’t remember who. It’s a difficult place, has been for a while.
First of all, Afghanistan has about the population of Texas in about the land area of Texas. And since the Ann Richards administration, Texas never seems to get bettter either. The US would be in worse shape if it had invaded Texas. And the reasons are about the same.
Too much territory to govern without war lords. Too much corruption. A distinct aversion to foreigners, especially foreign troops. And too many militias.
What are the consequences of leaving? Just like the US has to deal with Texas’s government and politicians, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (mainly China and Russia) would have to deal with Afghanistan. If any country has the funds to put infrastructure through Afghanistan, it is current China. And with US withdrawal, Russia will have learned that their lesson was not the result of unique weakness on their part or lack of persistence. The terrain is essentially unwinnable.
For the US, it is best to leave before becoming another monument in the graveyard of empires. (Or did George W. Bush already seal that fate by staying more than two years?)
We need to leave more than just Afghanistan, which has had “Unwinnable” written all over it since at least the Soviet era, if not a century earlier. There is a long list of other countries where we’re bombing or otherwise militarily engaged, often the unreported activities of our special forces spreading “goodwill” and making friends for the US.
Now I hear we’ve sent another 500 troops into Syria (in violation of int’l law presumably), to make it about a thousand (?) officially; dunno about all the special forces who might also be there. This obviously increases the chances of an unfortunate encounter with Russian forces or a shoot down of a Russian warplane. And if an “accident” should occur, under the current climate of hostility, if we don’t arrange to carefully coordinate our military activities there with the Russians, it could lead to a grave int’l crisis of a Cuban Missile Crisis dimension.
Sadly but not surprisingly, it would appear Trump is slowly giving the war party w/n our govt the upper hand to carry out their reckless plans. I do not like the trendline in FP since he’s taken office.
It causes an unfortunate encounter with Russian forces to the extent that the US tries to play the game of fighting two enemies at once. Even defeating Hitler and Tojo was worth allying with Stalin in the US national security establishment’s estimates of World War II (“The Good War”). Only the GOP thought the US sullied its hands in that diplomacy.
But the diplomacy to bring stability to the Tigris-Euphrates region requires relationships with Russia, Iran, and Turkey and some distancing of Saudi Arabia and Israel to succeed. I’m not sure the White House intends to succeed. I’m not sure if the Congress wants a world without war, and I fear that extends deep into the Democratic Party as well.
Frankly, Putin has worked very hard not to have and accident in Syria. Eliminating the Syrian chemical weapons stockpile was part of that diplomacy that sent the Republicans in Congress in sabotage of Obama’s peacemaking efforts with Russia and Iran.
It is not just Trump of even majorly Trump. The McCain-Graham wing of Congress on national security is willing to go the Cuban Missile Crisis distance in order to keep that trillion dollars of nuclear modernization coming to the contractors and military bases in their districts.
Trump is reportedly in better shape to negotiate our military activities directly with Putin. I think we agree that his failing is not understanding what he needs to negotiate in the Syrian theater of war with DAESH/ISIL/ISIS. The US military on its own have already screwed up one political settlement with a deliberate bombing of Syrian troops in order to keep Saudi proxies in the game.
The war party has the authorization from the public as a result of nothing but fear being the message in discussion of national security.
The Cheney/Rumsfeld approach to the occupation was a major departure from the doctrine that the military had evolved post-Vietnam. In 1991 in Iraq the US invested a tremendous amount of resources in winning the “hearts and minds” of the people in the territories the US was going to temporarily occupy. Treatment of detainees/prisoners was to be in stellar compliance with the Geneva conventions. Communications to this effect were made well in advance of the troops, with leaflets (for example) dropped in Iraqi areas explaining what would happen and how they could peacefully surrender. Once the occupation began work started immediately to provide supplies and relief and then to get the infrastructure (systems and brick/mortar) functioning again.
One consequence of all that was that the vast majority of Iraqi troops in Kuwait surrendered instead of fighting. Literally well over 100,000 POWs – and literally begging to be captured.
But all of that required a huge number of troops and backup personnel with billions of dollars of support. Cheney and Dumsfeld were enamored with a new approach – similar to the in vogue business theories at the time like “Creative Destruction” that led to disasters like Enron – one that would save a ton of money and allow the US to occupy far more land for the same $$$.
Of course this new approach reflected Cheney/Dumsfeld’s religious belief in the magic of the free market. First, rather than waste all that time and effort on winning over people’s hearts and minds they would rule through fear – break a few heads and people would know not to mess with the US. Second, troops are expensive – so like with everything else, they outsourced to low cost contractors. In this case, the various warlords who were fighting the Taliban. They called them the “Northern Alliance” for the US press to cover the fact that they all had the moral behavior of ISIS.
Finally, don’t worry about infrastructure afterwards – the free market will take care of that. Just cut tax rates to 15% and local investors will build it all for you. No, really, that was the plan.
Well, within a month Amnesty International and the various Human Rights groups were reporting massive atrocities at the makeshift prisons the US and the warlords had established. And it just got worse from there.
In 2003 with the US invaded Iraq there were very few surrenders. At that point Iraqis were well aware that the US had adopted wanton torture as standard procedure.
I’m reminded of my standard rant about Afghanistan.
Also this comparison:
I am 61 and a Veteran. When dealing with the Middle East my Father a Veteran that served for 27 years and has had experience in the area said this wise counsel. Stay out of the Middle East it will not change anything except cost numerous life’s, material and money. It will drain any country that goes in it and start that countries ultimate decline.
For what it is worth, looks to me he was correct.