You seem to meet the definition of a sociopath. I struggle to see how you are morally preferable to the Taliban. I certainly can’t take any of your suggestions seriously or consider debating with you further.
Martin Hyde
Yes, I was aware that present day area of Afghanistan has been serially conquered within its history, and that history is not necessarily a measure of what can happen now. I’m more interested in finding a present course of action and in defining a set of objectives. If this is to stop terrorism, I don’t deny that lethal force does in some instances need to be used, and I am not squeamish about it. I do consider our current approach vague and misguided.
I can’t recommend an ideal solution, because there is none. I could argue that it might not have been necessary to enter a ground war in the way that we did or with the aims that we had, but it would be academic, given the situation we are now in. So yes, the options are to stay long-term and re-build, or go, or try and install some proxy representatives and then go. Whichever is chosen we need to have a handle on which outcomes we are willing to fight or otherwise aim for.
If we choose to define the ‘ideal’ outcome in hindering the most amount of terrorism possible, I simply don’t know whether a continued, state-building presence would have an advantage over a cut-and-run approach. Historically, terrorism has been shown to require a political solution. If a stable government became successful in terms of gaining nationwide security control, then this would probably be the most secure option. But it’s also the least likely, and by least likely I mean cloud cuckoo land. We might more probably end up with a government somewhat in control of some parts of the country. The extent to which terrorism might operate under this situation, and the number of terrorist we might counter-productively create in the meantime is simply unquantifiable.
I can’t see a great deal of difference between options I and II in disrupting terrorism, at least in the long term. Afghanistan is not short of weaponry as you point out, but the Allies supporting “strong men” is bound to be a recruiting agent for terrorism, balanced against those who you suggest they might eliminate. This is assuming they capitulate with our wishes long-term, which I doubt. There is also the aforementioned possibility that they might bite the hand that feeds them, à la September 11th. In such a fractious environment there will always be opportunities for terrorist organisations. I which case I would instead favour the more conservative option I, and hope that internal power wranglings keep some entertained, whilst trying to mitigate the rest with very specific, “intelligence” based attacks.
No current choice is a solution; it’s a case of deciding on a least bad option.
Right up until the rest of the world combines against you and destroys you. You are recommending that America turn into Nazi Germany, and that didn’t turn out so well for them. And one of the more common results of behavior like you suggest is that your descendants will still be getting killed over that conflict decades or even centuries in the future. People remember atrocities. They won’t “not want to fight anymore”; they’ll want to fight for generations.
You want to “protect” America by turning it into something that should be destroyed.
And in that case you are scum who deserve to lose. And you make more enemies than you kill. Including enemies out of former neutrals and allies.
Because I take war seriously and wouldn’t lightly enter into it? And if I did, I’d do it to win?
You have no solution because almost anything less than acting like Ghengis Khan is doomed to failure and you aren’t willing to contemplate going to that length to win. So, leave. Why get more people killed for no reason? Don’t bother to go back because the next time you’ll do exactly the same thing with the exact same results*.
I give you examples of Japan and Germany. How many of them still want to kill Allies? Yet, millions died on their side.
For the opposite approach of a limited war I give you Vietnam. Thousands, if not millions died for no good reason. You have to beat your enemy and they have to know they’ve been beaten. Btw, how many Vietnamese still want to kill Americans?
Good luck. They couldn’t win for the same reason you can’t win. And they stand by and watch genocide all over the place as it is, so they are unlikely to get enough of their shit together to be any threat to you.
So, if you kill 100 of the enemy should you line up 100 of your people against a wall and shoot them to keep things even and fair? Who should die so that the enemy can live? Who? You?
Maybe I should clarify things. If the cause is good and you have to sacrifice a few of your own then I can see the benefit. Otherwise, the politicians should not place a person in the position of getting killed for a lost cause.
*The only other option for Afghanistan as I see it. Put so many troops into the country that there is no way for the Taliban to operate. Disarm anyone who has weapons who shouldn’t have them. Block the borders to ensure no other weapons or people get into the country than those that should be there. It’d cost an arm and a leg, but it would probably work. Then plan on staying for 20 years to re-educate, change the culture, etc, because as soon as you left they’d be back at it again. It would take the resources of the world to do it, too.
Oh, the step-son found out his deployment date. Oct 12.
Hopefully, he doesn’t have to kill anyone. And hopefully, he makes it home alive and in one piece.
As I said before, nobody seems to have made a simple calculation ($ expended, lives expended) and determined if this war is worth whaever objectives we have assigned to it.
My feeling is, you had better know exactly what you want to achieve, before you fire a single bullet. Look at Vietnam…first it was “to achieve freedom for South Vietnam”, then it was “to eliminate the vietcong”, then it was “keep the vietnamese generals in power”, then it was "occupy remote jungle outposts (i.e. khe sanh).
Finally, after expending over $280 billion (and over 60,000 lives), the morons in Washington decided that it was not going well…so we concocted a face-saving withdrawal (which wound up costing us even more).
Can you magine how many highways, bridges, railways we could have built with what we pissed away in Vietnam?
Since the original objective we assigned to it was to go fetch out Osama bin Laden, it’s impossible to make that calculation. Division by zero, and all that…
That is not true. The Taliban was running the only nation to openly support and aid Osama, including training camps, recruitment, etc. Thus we hit them, and indeed, that ended. At least the “openly” part.
What a silly original post. The Afghanistan government made the most successful attack against America ever in history, with the possible exception of Pearl Harbor (which I honestly believe didn’t hurt the USA nearly as much as 9/11). We’re in Afghanistan trying to kill and capture the people who made it possible. We’ll know we won when the Taliban doesn’t control any significant resources anymore. This is by almost any measure a legitimate war, which may or may not be currently fought in the correct way depending on your own personal taste.
The then Afghan government didn’t instigate these attacks, Al-Qaeda did. You are conflating the two organisations. They may have tacitly supported, or actively aided Al-Qaeda’s presence in their country for some time, but they at least made the hypothetical offer of handing over Osama bin Laden to a third party for criminal charges to be brought. We may, though perhaps unlikely, have been able to come to a mutual understanding that Al-Qaeda training camps would not be accepted, and that the allies would have grounds to carry out ‘surgical’ strikes and ‘intelligence’ gathering operations involving these facilities. Leaving aside the USA’s previous involvement in the training and funding of Al-Qaeda, it doesn’t take a state’s backing to organise learning to briefly operate a commercial airliner from a piece of software, and finding some people sufficiently indoctrinated and morally distorted to complete this task. Engaging the Taliban in this manner will not reduce the number of people with a motive to attack the west, it will increase it. Preventing terrorism does sometimes necessitate the requirement for lethal force, but applying it as a solution against all enemies and in all cases is misguided. You may disagree with my original post, but is not, I’d maintain, “silly”.
I really want to live in your world. It sounds a whole lot nicer than the real one. Lets go over the assumptions and misdirections you made there, just for fun.
You assert the Taliban was willing to bring Osama bin Laden to justice. (note no mention of exactly who they were willing to hand him over to, or what would happen to the rest of AL-Qaeda, conveniently)
You assert the 9/11 attacks did not require the backing of a state, while ignoring the reality that they WERE funded by a state. Who fucking cares what hypothetical terrorists without a state sponsor could do, or whether they would hypothetically be able to carry out the same attacks? The reality is the Taliban government of Afghanistan supported Al-Qaeda directly, no matter what hypothetical situations you want to spin.
You bring up America’s responsibility for the development of Al-Qaeda as a way to argue that…what, exactly? We shouldn’t be fighting them? We deserve to be attacked by them? I don’t understand what the point of that was.
You use a hypothetical scenario which you yourself admit is extremely unlikely to argue against America’s invasion of Afghanistan. Did you read what you wrote there? Exactly what the fuck do you think we should have done differently? Stop using weasel language and come out and say what you think would have happened if you were in charge, and how it would be better.
[QUOTE=Captain_Awesome;11457107 You are conflating the two organisations. They may have tacitly supported, or actively aided Al-Qaeda’s presence in their country for some time, but they at least made the hypothetical offer of handing over Osama bin Laden to a third party for criminal charges to be brought. .[/QUOTE]
Umm, no.
"*Relationship with Osama bin Laden
In 1996, Osama bin Laden moved to Afghanistan from Sudan. He came without any invitation from the Taliban, and sometimes irritated Mullah Omar with his declaration of war and fatwa to murder citizens of third-party countries, and follow-up interviews,[115] but relations between the two groups became closer over time, and eventually bonded to the point where Mullah Omar rebuffed its patron Saudi Arabia, insulting Saudi minister Prince Turki and refusing to turn over bin Laden to the Saudis as Omar had reportedly promised to earlier.[116]
Bin Laden was able to forge an alliance between the Taliban and his Al-Qaeda organization. It is understood that al-Qaeda-trained fighters known as the 055 Brigade were integrated with the Taliban army between 1997 and 2001. Several hundred Arab Afghan fighters sent by bin Laden assisted the Taliban in the slaughter at Mazar-e-Sharif.[117] Taliban-al-Qaeda connections, were also strengthened by the reported marriage of one of bin Laden’s sons to Omar’s daughter. During Osama bin Laden’s stay in Afghanistan, he may have helped finance the Taliban.[118][119] Perhaps the biggest favor al-Qaeda did for the Taliban was the assassination by suicide bombing[68] of the Taliban’s most effective military opponent mujahideen commander and Northern Alliance leader Ahmad Shah Massoud shortly before 9 September 2001. This came at a time when Taliban human rights violations and extremism seemed likely to create international support for Massoud’s group as the legitimate representatives of Afghanistan.[68] The killing, reportedly handled by Ayman Zawahiri and the Egyptian Islamic Jihad wing of al-Qaeda, left the Northern Alliance leaderless, and removed “the last obstacle to the Taliban’s total control of the country …”[120]
After the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Africa, Osama bin Laden and several al Qaeda members were indicted in U.S. criminal court.[121] The Taliban protected Osama bin Laden from extradition requests by the U.S., variously claiming that bin Laden had “gone missing” in Afghanistan,[122] or that Washington “cannot provide any evidence or any proof” that bin Laden is involved in terrorist activities and that “without any evidence, bin Laden is a man without sin… he is a free man.”[123][124] Evidence against bin Laden included courtroom testimony and satellite phone records.[125][126] Bin Laden in turn, praised the Taliban as the “only Islamic government” in existence, and lauded Mullah Omar for his destruction of idols like the Buddhas of Bamiyan.[127]"
*
Now later:
"The Taliban government responded through their embassy in Pakistan, asserting that there was no evidence in their possession linking bin Laden to the September 11 attacks. They also stressed that bin Laden was a guest in their country. Pashtun and Taliban codes of behavior require that guests be granted hospitality and asylum.[37]
On September 22, 2001, the United Arab Emirates, and on the following day, Saudi Arabia withdrew their recognition of the Taliban as the legal government of Afghanistan, leaving neighboring Pakistan as the only remaining country with diplomatic ties.[citation needed]
On October 7, 2001, before the onset of military hostilities, the Taliban did offer to try bin Laden in Afghanistan in an Islamic court.[38] This offer was rejected by the U.S., and the bombing of targets within Afghanistan by U.S. and British forces commenced the same day.
October 14, 2001, seven days into the U.S./British bombing campaign, the Taliban offered to surrender Osama bin Laden to a third country for trial,* if the bombing halted and they were shown evidence of his involvement in the September 11 terrorist attacks. "*
They had already rejected the proof. Thus, their offer was bogus, they just wanted the bombing stopped while they argued what was enough evidence- and nothing would be enough evidence.
Anytime after the shooting started they could have actually delivered Osama to the Hague or to even Saudi Arabia. They failed to do so. The “offer” was a delaying tactic and nothing else.
I’ll also point out this quote:’
*
Ethnic massacres and persecution
The worst attack on civilians came in summer of 1998 when the Taliban swept north from Herat to the predominantly Hazara and Uzbek city of Mazar-i-Sharif, the largest city in the north. Entering at 10 am on 8 August 1998, for the next two days the Taliban drove their pickup trucks “up and down the narrow streets of Mazar-i-Sharif shooting to the left and right and killing everything that moved — shop owners, cart pullers, women and children shoppers and even goats and donkeys.”[72] More than 8000 noncombatants were reported killed in Mazar-i-Sharif and later in Bamiyan.[73] Contrary to the injunctions of Islam, which demands immediate burial, the Taliban forbade anyone to bury the corpses for the first six days while they rotted in the summer heat and were eaten by dogs.[74] In addition to this indiscriminate slaughter, the Taliban sought out and massacred members of the Hazara, a mostly Shia ethnic group, while in control of Mazar-i-Sharif.
During the years that followed, rapes and massacres of Hazara by Taliban forces were documented by groups such as Human Rights Watch.[77]*
Thus the Taliban were killing their fellow Afghanistanis even faster than the war is.
Maybe you could quote the relevant section? In any case, the Taliban is not and was not “a state”. It briefly had some amount of control over Afghanistan. It’s true that neither Saudi Arabia or Iran was responsible according to the Commission.
"The Commission also concluded 15 of the 19 hijackers who carried out the attacks were from Saudi Arabia, but found no evidence the government of Saudi Arabia conspired in the attacks, or that it funded the attackers.[2]. Mohammed Atta, the leader of the attacks, was from Egypt. 2 hijackers were from the United Arab Emirates, and 1 was from Lebanon. According to the Commission, all 19 hijackers were members of the al-Qaeda terrorist organization, led by Osama bin Laden. In addition, while meetings between al-Qaeda representatives and Iraqi government officials had taken place, the panel had no credible evidence that Saddam Hussein had assisted al-Qaeda in preparing or executing the 9/11 attacks. The Report notes in Chapter 2 that “Bin Laden was also willing to explore possibilities for cooperation with Iraq”
But the Commmission did suggest: United States and the international community should make a long-term commitment to a secure and stable Afghanistan, in order to give the government a reasonable opportunity to improve the life of the Afghan people. Afghanistan must not again become a sanctuary for international crime and terrorism. The United States and the international community should help the Afghan government extend its authority over the country, with a strategy and nation-by-nation commitments to achieve their objectives. (370)
In any case, the attacks were planned in Afghanistan, with the full knowledge and support of the Taliban:
*Planning of the attacks
Main article: Planning of the September 11 attacks
The idea for the September 11 plot came from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who first presented the idea to Osama bin Laden in 1996.[89] At that point, Bin Laden and al-Qaeda were in a period of transition, having just relocated back to Afghanistan from Sudan.[90] The 1998 African Embassy bombings and Bin Laden’s 1998 fatwā marked a turning point, with bin Laden intent on attacking the United States*
I’ve always thought that this was a problem of not understanding (or maybe intentionally ignoring) extremely deeply held cultural traditions,
Read that page on Pashtunwali, particularly; nanawateh, zemaka, nang, and hewad. We asked him to do something that you just don’t do in his culture.
(Although AIUI nanawatai isn’t absolute, there are reasons and a process to remove it’s protection. What we were asking is akin to asking the U.S. to just hand some one over to another country without going through the process we have for doing that.
First we have an extradition hearing, then a judge rules on the motion, then maybe it gets appealed to a higher court, etc. See John Demjanjuk for a textbook example.
I think we’d be pretty pissed if some country declared war on us because we insisted that we had to the requested thing the way we do it.)
When he refused, we proceeded to push multiple Pashtun cultural buttons, and acted surprised when they responded exactly the way anyone who understood Pashtun culture would expect them to.
I knew what would happen when we asked Omar for Bin Laden 'cause I saw a fucking movie. I find it impossible to believe that we didn’t have, or couldn’t find, someone with a deeper understanding of Pashtun culture than I have. I mean, it’s not like we didn’t have a close previous relationship with Afghani Pashtuns.
Unless, of course, asking Omar for Bin Laden was just a PR move for a war we had already decided we were going to have, no matter what.
See, the problem with culture is that it only gives an indication of how another person might react. People are not computers that only react in a certain programmed way. There was nothing stopping Omar from finding out how the Americans were approaching the problem and adjusting his thinking along their lines. After all, it was the Americans who were the aggrieved party in this instance. There was nothing stopping him from telling his side of why he couldn’t do what was asked of him, even if he did, he shouldn’t have expected others on the world stage to care about his rules.
I agree that we should take culture into account, especially when determining what to do after the primary conflict is over, but before hand it doesn’t matter so much. Any person in any culture understands when someone has a gun pointed at your head, you either give in or take the chance of getting shot. The guy with the gun doesn’t care what your issues are, he expects his demands to be complied with. Omar ignored this fact to his detriment.
crowmanyclouds: I’m finding your post a little difficult to follow.
As I read it, you are saying we ought to be sensitive to Pashtun cultural norms in politely asking for the mastermind of 3,000 murders. But are you also saying the leader of the other country is completely bound by his ancient cultural norms and cannot be expected to understand that a non-Muslim country would want to get their hands on his ally in violent extremism?
What bullshit.
Mullah Omar isn’t the prisoner of a cultural norm that prevents him from turning on bin Laden. He’s his fucking ally.