"Strategic Hamlets" Didn't Work in Vietnam; Why Do It in Afghanistan?

Great Debates
21

Hamlet. Good sir, whose powers are these?

Norwegian Captain. They are of Norway, sir.

Hamlet. How purpos’d, sir, I pray you?

Norwegian Captain. Against some part of Poland.

Hamlet. Who commands them, sir?

Norwegian Captain. The nephew to old Norway, Fortinbras.

Hamlet. Goes it against the main of Poland, sir,
Or for some frontier?

Norwegian Captain. Truly to speak, and with no addition,
We go to gain a little patch of ground
That hath in it no profit but the name.
To pay five ducats, five, I would not farm it;
Nor will it yield to Norway or the Pole
A ranker rate, should it be sold in fee.

Hamlet. Why, then the Polack never will defend it.

Norwegian Captain. Yes, it is already garrison’d.

Hamlet. Two thousand souls and twenty thousand ducats
Will not debate the question of this straw.
This is th’ imposthume of much wealth and peace,
That inward breaks, and shows no cause without
Why the man dies.- I humbly thank you, sir.

22

It might help to actually know what a “win” is supposed to look like.

23

Yeah, that would have been helpful.
I expect the look of a win is considerably different nowdays, if such a thing is even possible when we’ve let things get so far into the weeds.

24

If I were a cynical man, I would think that the military cares little about “winning” in Iraq or Afghanistan any more than a consulting firm like Accenture or McKinsey cares about completing a client engagement. Think about it. It’s not WWII or Korea or the Cold War or anything like that. It’s not like they are facing down entire divisions of screaming Chinese or Russian armor. They are fighting a long, open-ended, low intensity conflict where there probably is relatively little danger if you aren’t in the field. But since it is a war, it provides oportunities for advancement that you wouldn’t have during times of peace.

25

You have explained why this clusterfuck goes on and on. I guess nobody wants it to stop :
-the Pakistanis want to keep getting US aid
-the Afghan “government” wants to keep getting money
-the senior officers want to keep getting promoted
Every body likes it-except for the poor guys doing the fightng and dying.:frowning:

26

Britain had been in Malaya for over two centuries prior to this and had a great deal of local knowledge and establishment, weren’t dealing with half a dozen ethnic groups, were dealin with an insurgency that had limited arms, etc. etc. The British actually tried a similar thing the third time they invaded Afghanistan. It didn’t work out too well.

27

That’s about it for the military. As far as Obama is concerned, he just wanted to muddle through till after the 2012 election and then pull out with no consequences. It looks like he’s going to continue the muddle through policy. What ever he does has absollutely zero chance of success, even the military and foreign policy people advocating various versions of the muddle through/escalate policies have no belief that they’ll be successful.

28

I don’t know how many military people you know, but this is by and large a crock right here. Almost to a man, high ranking officers actually care about the soldiers under their command more than they give a shit about being promoted.

Obviously there are exceptions, generals more interested in maintaining their prestige and realizing personal ambitions, but in my experience with the military (which is pretty vast) your portrayal isn’t accurate.

Besides, these are political wars, and the politicians are in charge. Nobody except crazy, macho-infused idiots want to leave their families and their home country to go fight a war abroad, largely because it fucking sucks.

29

I favor the cut-and-run policy. The Republicans had a hell of a good idea when they thought that one up; too bad they were too damn stupid to recognize what a good idea it really was. Of course, I haven’t noticed any (influential) Democrats advocating it, either.

30

There’s a really low number of accountants killed in the line of duty, though.

31

They probably don’t favor it because it’s a really bad idea. Out of curiosity, why do you think that it’s a good idea from any perspective?

-XT

32

Why do you think it’s a really bad idea?

33

I think we have been bogged down over there far too long as it is. I think we have no idea as to how to conclusively win and I’m not sure we would know we had won even if we did. I think the indigenous population does not want us there; they don’t want our form of government and they think they already enjoy freedom. They are convinced that their religion is the one and only religion favored by God/Allah; for the most part, they have nearly everything they want and we have damn little to offer them. If we haven’t learned anything from the last eight or nine years then we are unlikely to learn anything from the next eight or nine years. I guess we might develop even lower opinions of the people who got us into this mess and/or the people who keep us in this mess. I don’t believe that poor benighted country has ever been successfully invaded or occupied; at least not for long, and I don’t believe we are going to be the first to accomplish either feat. We have wasted far too much money and far too many lives and all we can think of to do is to continue the same policies. Of course, we are providing employment to our service people, at the risk of their lives, but employment none the less. If we brought them all home, what would we do with them? So maybe we should “stay the course,” whatever in hell that course supposedly is; so far as I know, it has never been adequately defined. I just think that there comes a time to quit a losing fight and we have passed that time and leaving now would be a better late than never solution. IMHO, that is. YMMV and I’m sure it does.

34

I don’t think we’re so much “bogged down” there as we are starved for resources due to committing a much greater portion of our armed forces to the stupid Iraq war. If we had invaded Afghanistan with the same amount of troops and resources available as we did Iraq, I think we’d be much further along in our goal of purging the area of extremist Taliban/Al Qaeda forces.

Instead, we started with a half-hearted effort and are only now realizing that we needed to have had a far larger presence there than we currently have (or had).

35

Why is cutting and running in Afghanistan a bad idea? Several reasons, some political (for the Dems) and some practical. On the political side, it would be a bad idea for the Dems to advocate cutting and running because of the perception by some that they are ‘weak’ on ‘defense’. This would be reinforced (especially by and among 'Pubs) if Obama attempted to simply cut our losses in Afghanistan and bolt. Sort of the same reason you may have noticed we are still in Iraq and he is moving cautiously to step back our involvement there, despite the fact that it would be a very popular thing with the left wing. Politically it’s a touchy thing, and one not to be taken lightly. Another political dimension is that the US isn’t exactly alone in Afghanistan…there are several other allies who also have substantial commitments there. The US cutting and running would be a betrayal of those other powers, unless we all decided to cut and run together and leave the Afghani people to face the music.

From a practical perspective there is simply the logistics…we CAN’T just cut and run. It would take months to extract ourselves from Afghanistan. Also, if we cut and run then almost certainly the Taliban would fill the void, which would have some fairly nasty implications in the region…besides turning those folks loose on the population again (which would be a Bad Thing™), there are regional issues too, considering that the Taliban are also fighting in Pakistan. The perception of the US tucking tail and bolting from the region would vastly improve the attitudes of others in the region, and would be a huge boost for them.

I can think of several other reasons but I’m a bit pressed for time. Suffice it to say that the above (as well as a bunch of other reasons) are why you don’t see any serious Dems advocating the US bolting. If you step back and think about it, logically you have to realize that Obama is not staying in Afghanistan (or Iraq so far) because he really WANTS too, or likes being there.

-XT

36

I used the phrase “cut and run” because I knew it would be immediately recognizable. I would accept “strategic retreat” as a replacement. I’m well aware of why there are no prominent Democrats advocating it; politics trumps common sense, come what may. And I did say it was IMHO so I probably shouldn’t have posted it in the Great Debates forum. Even so, xtisme,
the tone of your reply leads me to think that just maybe you don’t oppose the idea so much as you have in times gone by-----I’m not saying you endorse the idea, just that maybe the idea of leaving those poor devils to sort out their own problems isn’t so reprehensible after all.

37

Actually, I wish we could leave. Iraq too. I just don’t see how we can do so without destabilizing the entire region, at least wrt Afghanistan. I THINK we can (and will) be able to safely leave Iraq in the near future though, so that makes me happy. Iraq has personally cost my family quite a bit, if not the ultimate cost, so the sooner we are clear and free the better IMHO.

-XT

38

I guess things can always be worse but it is hard for me to see that entire region as being anything other than destabilized now. I don’t believe that Afghanistan has ever been anything but destabilized; I think if their laughable ‘central government’ wants our help, they need to show that they want it, need it, and deserve it. Even General McChrystal is doubtful that any number of US troops can overcome the rampant corruption of Afghanistan’s government.

39

Crying shame, that.

40

There’s no logistical reason that we can’t leave Afghanistan. We can leave just like we’re going to in Iraq.

The Taliban are already in Afghanistan. We don’t have enough troops to do anything effective there and the troops we do have are inflaming the situation both there and across the border in Pakistan. There is zero prospect of long-term success by using military force, bribing sections of the Taliban not to kill us, counterinsurgency or any of the tactics currently under consideration, even the people who advocate them implicitly accept that. There’d actually be a lot less radicalism if we pulled the troops out. It’s pointless trying to deal with Afghanistan when AQ have a safe haven of thousands of square miles in Pakistan. There’s nothing they gain if we do pull out, we managed to deal with the propaganda victory we gave them by agreeing to leave Iraq, we can do it again.