Milo: well, damn. Who’d’a thunk it?
Thanks for digging it up. Man, I don’t know what to think.
I don’t think you can look at this without considering at least two other angles:
One – The enemy’s aims i.e. the overthrow of the Saud family and/or the regime in Pakistan (in favour of leaderships closer, politically, to core Islamic values), and
Two – The maturing of views in our societies from an emotional “Go get 'em” (in very general terms) to a more pragmatic and reasoned approach. IMHO, what we are seeing is not necessarily a shift of opinion, but a maturing. In so doing, the reality of the situation has dawned and it’s uncomfortable.
Thanks for the New Republic link. I particularly liked this other feature on their Web site:
http://www.thenewrepublic.com/100801/notebook100801.html
It’s the Idiocy Watch, a collection of idiotic statements about events since Sept. 11. Funny, sad, and disturbing.
The problem is that this atitude may not be one that is condusive to accomplishing anything. It may be that the emotional “go get 'em” attitude is what is required for military campaigns.
Anyway, in re media coverage, from the Washington Post: CNN Chief Orders ‘Balance’ in War News
Izzy – we have a sophisticated and informed public there days. Vietnam this isn’t (although looking at whom we’re bombing, the solid resistance, the civilian casualties, etc., it’s easy to superficially confuse the imagery).
The public has been through the Gulf War, various former Yugoslavia campaigns as well as other confrontations (from the Beirut barracks to Somalia and much else) so they bring experience of those actions, the ability to discern the nature of the campaign and an appreciation of the task with them.
They can also smell manipulation a whole lot easier, whether it’s by Government or media.
IMHO, this is a shrewd public and I don’t think there has been a war fought in all history in which public opinion has been as well equipped to judge what is being done in their name.
You say that may not be conducive and that it could be a problem. I see it as democracy in action in wartime, or as close to it as we’ve ever got. Interesting concept and interesting days.
Since I’m not a military expert, and I don’t follow the news of the war as closely as some of the SDMB military buffs, I’ll ask the following questions:
Wasn’t one of the main goals of this war to bring Osama bin Laden to justice? But two weeks ago I read in the Los Angeles Times that the Taliban offered to turn him over to a third country in exchange for a stop to the bombing, and President Bush refused the offer. I think that this would have hurt the USA’s public relations effort in the arab world. In my opinion it would have been wiser to ask at the beginning for members of al-Qaida to be judged by an international tribunal, such as the international criminal tribunal at the Hague, which would have given the Afghan government more room to maneuver without losing face too badly. Also the USA should publicize more of the evidence it has to implicate the members of al-Qaida. So far I have seen little evidence to show that the 11 September attacks were ordered by Osama bin Laden.
If another main goal of this war is to remove the Taliban from power, this war reminds me of the Gulf War where the forces allied against Iraq tried to overthrow the Iraqi government with air strikes and support of an opposition force (Kurds in the north), without success. What will make this effort any different?
Yes, but it came with conditions, did it not? Further, the Taleban have a history of making claims, assertions etc. and then reneging or gaming the claim.
You’re not dealing with a government per se, you’re dealing with a mixed tribal/ulema system of government with little sense of responsibility to anything outside of its own closed world.
Well, I am a partisan of reasonable efforts to protect the USA’s image and rep in the Middle East for both long and short term reasons, both security (read al-Qaeda) and economic in nature.
However, this is not a game where one can please everyone or even most. It’s about limiting your downside.
Being reasonable is not all that counts in Arab society, face counts a lot. While many may not like the USA, losing face if oft worse than doing the wrong thing. Further, for significant segements of the population, nothing the USA does will have a positive effect.
No on several levels.
(a) Loss of face in the Arab world: a strong man/tribe/people doesn’t go begging for justice. (*: nota bene, I’m generalizing a great deal here, and vastly oversimplifying. The dynamic of modern versus traditional justice, of power and respect etc. is obviously quite complex and differs according to education etc.)
(b) Trial by Int’l Court is just as unacceptable to the al-Qaeda people and their sympathizers as the USA. It’s all part of the great Infidel system. No gain there.
© The Afghan government is not a government in any Cartesian rational sense. It’s an accretion of tribal power and pre-modern styles of authority expressed through a radical, rejectionist religious movement. Further ObL is related to the most powerful single individual in the government – Mullah Omar. Blood is thicker than water. Giving up a relative to an outsider is not going to be done.
Arnold, this is not Europe. It’s not even the Balkans. It is another world. I do not lightly use the reference to Chamberlain, but to follow this course of action is to Nevel Chamberlain with all his uncomprehending faith in reason in the face of an irrationality.
What do you want? The Paki government was convinced, the Brits were convinced. ObL emits a videotape which in Arabic is chilling.
Second, there are few sources to track these clandestine groups. What you’re asking is for the US and its allies, including European allies, to reveal sources and methods. In the past al-Qaeda has proven quite adept at reacting to that. These are not idiots.
So, Arnold, do you prefer that to trusting that the major Western governments, Pakistan, Egypt etc. are not just bullshitting along with the USA. I don’t mean to be rude, but I do beleive one has to be clear about this. You recall Paris, 1995? You read about the Bruxelles cell? you’ve followed the practice of the GIA?
We live in unpretty times now.
That should not be a goal, IMHO. A byproduct derived from other goals perhaps insofar as the US needs access to territory and one needs to deny (at reasonable costs) Afghan territory as an easy base of operations for al-Qaeda et al. But this all depends on what one means by the Taleban. Again, keep in mind, none of these things, al-Qaeda, the gamaa al-islamiya, the Taleban are membership organizations like, say, the Nazi party. There aren’t membership cards. It is diffuse.
Well, there was little effort to overthrow the Iraqi government, for all the talk. This is utterly different. There is far more on the line, for the USA and for Europe, Arnold. Folks like the GIA operate there too and they hate secular Europe just about as much as the USA.
I think it’s an *absolute requirement that we get rid of the Taliban. For many reasons, not the least of which is that they need to be punished to send a message to other regimes thinking of sponsoring terrorists.
I’ve said this before, and it’s worth repeating: We’ll never get rid of terrorism, but we CAN get rid of states that sponsor it, and without state sponsorship the real threat to our security from terror attacks will be orders of magnitude lower.
The message should be loud and clear: We will NOT recognize the sovereignity of any state that gives aid and support to terrorists. We will consider any state-sponsored terror attack as a military attack on us, and will retaliate appropriately.
If the Taliban manages to hold power, and then we go in there and broker some kind of peace and then lavish money upon them for rebuilding the bombing, the message to other thugs and dictators is that they can bloody our nose and get away with it. The formula should be clear - if you sponsor a terror attack against us and we find out about it, death with rain down on you from above, and you will be dead and your regime toppled.
Well, Sam I agree and disagree.
On one hand I absolutely agree in regards to sending the message, you fuck with us at home in this manner, you’re going to be in a world of hurt.
On the other hand, as I tried to raise above, the issue of who’s the Taleban ain’t clear.
And that’s not hair splitting. It’s a practical problem. As I said, there’s no “I’m a Taleban” party card. Afghanistan is not a modern state.
So, on one hand, yes I agree we must hunt down Mullah Omar et coterie, and ObL et coterie and kill them. Not try them. Kill them. (Or let Omar’s fellow Afghans meet out ‘justice’)
But untangling Taleban from Pashtun beyond the Mullah Omar circle may be impossible and require literally conquering tribal areas. A morass which will mean an endless guerrilla war and distract from other priorities. What we need is a Afghani government which clearly has rejected the Taleban, even if some elements end up inside of it and one which allows us to hunt al-Qaeda within Afghanistan.
That’s what I meant above.
Collounsbury, you say “the offer to turn over Osama bin Laden to a third country” came with conditions. It seemed like a pretty reasonable condition to me. You are bombing us to force us to turn over Mr. bin Laden? Stop the bombing and we’ll deliver him. You argue that this was deceitful on the part of the Afghan “government”, but I would say “give them one chance to deliver him accompanied by a deadline, if they prove deceitful, then continue the war.” That in my mind would be a more “reasonable” approach.
You also say “for significant segments of the population nothing the USA does will have a positive effect.” Perhaps, but I am sure that for significant segments of the population some things the USA do will have a positive effect, and we should work on keeping those segments on our side.
You say “trial by international court does not make any difference to al-Qaeda and their sympathizers.” But it may well make a difference to other arab countries (the appearance of an impartial judge), and if it doesn’t make any difference to al-Qaeda or their sympathizers, why did the Taleban make the offer to turn over Mr. bin Laden to a third country instead of the USA?
Even if the most powerful single individual in the government, Mullah Omar, would never on his own agree to turn over Mr. bin Laden, that doesn’t mean that other influential people are incapable of convincing him or overriding him.
Reference to Chamberlain: I still think that one should give the opponent the initial courtesy of treating them in accordance with generally accepted rules of diplomacy, and if they fail to behave in that fashion, then it’s no-holds barred.
Concerning evidence of Mr. bin Laden’s guilt:
You say “the Brits were convinced.” To a non-aligned arabic country, that may mean little. The UK has always been the closest USA ally. If you were told “Turkmenistan has agreed with Afghanistan that there is insufficient evidence to convict Mr. bin Laden”, would that sway your opinion? As far as Pakistan, I don’t know what convinced them more, the offer of US aid and the hope to get rid of a dangerous neighbour, or any USA evidence. This goes as well for other arabic countries, my impression is that their alliance with the USA is in reaction to the fear of fundamentalist takeovers in their own countries, rather than in any great desire to see the west triumph over an islamic neighbour. In any case, on the face of it, the original Taliban statement was very reasonable. You want us to turn over Mr. bin Laden? Show us proof he’s guilty. An american might think “we know we can trust the US government when they say someone is guilty”, but to a moderate arab, it might not seem so convincing.
Goals of this “war”: what do you think the goals are? My impression is that the original stated goal was capture of bin Laden, and has now expanded to overthrow of the Taliban. As you point out, “overthrowing the Taliban” is very nebulous and the USA might end up helping to install another government that has just a bad a human rights record as the current one. From reading your post, I’m still not sure what you think the goals should be.
Words fail me. How is killing people outright in any way to be preferred over a trial? This seems to me to be a clear case of becoming the enemy that you are trying to conquer.
As I recall, and of course so much has gone on that I now have trouble keeping the various Taleban gambits straight, they requested “evidence” before turning over to a third country and further I have the vague recollection that it was to be for a trial by sharia.
Arnorld, if you have not followed the history of Taleban gaming on “turning over” ObL, on him being “lost”, on them needing “evidence” then I think you have missed the evidence they were attempting to game the system once more
Recall the boy who cried wolf.
Except they lied many, many, many times before. Why believe them now, above all when Omar and his cronies clearly regard the entire outside world as dirty infidel to which they owe not even the courtesy of straight-dealing?
I am a man for regular international relations. For respect of international conventions and laws, and a strong believer in internationalism in general. You know that, we’ve discussed this in depth together.
However, the system only works when the players agree on the base rules. The Taleban --by which I mean Mullah Omar and his circle and ObL et al, do not believe in the legitimacy in any of the ground rules.
No, I don’t think so. Only so many chances before you know you’re being played the fool.
My instincts tell me that there was no real offer. All I can say on that is it’s my best read given what I recall of public evidence and my experience trying to make deals hold in the MENA region.
Give too many chances and you will get fucked like a mangy sheep in the mountains.
Well, I regret to say that I disagree. First, there is no real free press to count on. Second, there is the knee-jerl David-vs-Goliath response. Third, there is religious solidarity to an extent. Fourth there is the dynamic of keeping face and respect. At a certain point, in my experience in the culture, being too accomodating means you’re weak, like “a woman.” Regretable but that is my experience.
Reasonable accomadations to sensitivities, especially when we can turn it to our advantage – per my argument for perhaps a pause in bombing during Ramadan or scaling back to defending NA positions while we move in material and develop on the ground assets, is a good idea. Avoiding deliverate offense, also a good idea. Avoiding deal-breakers and things that will be the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back (occupation of Afghanistan), yes avoid that.
But else, the region understands a blood debt. We have that.
In re the Taleban, see my comments above. In re Arab countries and other Islamic countries,
To my understanding from multiple sources, including Arabic language ones, Omar’s circle is tightly bound by kinship ties. They’re the decision making core to all appearances. It is an opaque situation. Those who were willing to perhaps give up ObL et al have proven to been on the skirts of power. Further, ObL has significant independant fighting capacity, possibly as much as the hard-core of Omar. I don’t even believe that the Taleban could have succeeded in turning him over.
It was done, Arnold. They rejected several offers, including not one but two special delegations by the Pakis themselves. Folks who speak their language, proverbially and literally.
Sometimes, folks just aren’t reasonable.
There is no way to win the evidence game. Let’s say that we turned over everything, sources be damned.
Well, look at the EgyptAir investigation. Egyptian authorities find it religiously impossible to admit their guy committed suicide (having taken the public position that it’s unknown, which is a bullshit claim I can tell you, but once having made it their face was on the line) so they have simply “rejected” the evidence.
That’s it. Rejected it and continued to cling to a counter-factual explanation. For saving face, for politics perhaps. Cause outsiders advanced the evidence…
Again, the world doesn’t always operate on reason.
You know why I’ve been so valuable to my company? Cause I understand the dynamic between face and reason there. Because I understand you can’t presume that our culturally bounded way of approaching a problem will convince the other guy.
Your approach will work great on Euros. It will fail here.
On the face of it if one utterly ignores the Taleban’s past history, etc. etc. etc. As well as the culture of the region and the situation.
First, I could give a fuck if a NA government is better on human rights. That is not my goal, it is not a rational goal in a country of utter poverty, of more than 20 years of war and hatred. My goal is to disrupt the al-Qaeda network, destroy one of its main nodes and send a big ass message that there is a price for 11 September.
That goal should be reasonablely bounded but I think it’s clear.
No, Arnold. Becoming the enemy would be to kill the innocent without any regard for their presence. It would be to become butchers.
But this is war, not a fucking trial. Not a lark in the park. Not a criminal event. It is war. In war, you kill the other guy before he kills you.
Period.
If, of course, these guys end up in our hands, then they should be treated according to Geneva Convention and all that jazz. But our primary goal should be to see them dead.
Collounsbury: But this is war, not a fucking trial. Not a lark in the park. Not a criminal event. It is war. In war, you kill the other guy before he kills you.
I’m kind of confused by this. How do you define the concept of “war” conducted against an organization or person(s) other than a nation-state? There are civil wars, of course, where a nation-state government is fighting a non-governmental group or such groups are fighting one another, but that’s not what we’ve got here. Aren’t there international rules for the conduct of war? How do they apply to this situation? How, exactly, do you distinguish between “war” and “criminal event” in such a case?
First, there is nothing in the concept war that requires nation state. Absolutely nothing. The nation state is a recent contrivance (historically speaking), war is not.
How does one define war? Well, this is more an erislover kind of question than my mind of question, or even spiritus. I am a dim and practical man. War is state of aggresion wherein one group attempts to impose its socio-political goals on another group. One can come up with other definitions and of course some wars may be less motiated by political than social goals (taking wealth from Tribe X).
Yes, and before the nation state system emerged there were many different kinds of wars. And wars outside of the European context rarely fit into the nation state context terribly well, or even a nice clean civil war concept.
Is Algeria a civil war? Perhaps. Congo?
Geneva convention.
In principal in the same manner, less those rules which clearly only apply to “regular” soldiers. Insofar as even in the World Wars irregulars always were a fundamental part of conflict, this is not a novel problem.
See the definition above. Criminality in general can be described in several categories. (a) Economically movitated, ranging from petty theft to organized crime. (b) heat of the moment © insanity (d) internal political.
In the case of al-Qaeda we have a group, however difficult to locate and seperate from civilians (but then this is not in a sense different from guerrilla war) whose main goal is to kill you, to end your existance. And their method is violence, including indiscriminate violence. Criminal, sure one could stretch criminality to fit this. As one could for any war should one so desire.
However it does not strike me as useful or productive. Criminal law is designed to support a certain set of stable social conditions under generally stable conditions. I do not see it as useful to apply that to an entirely different set of conditions which meet reasonably functional (I care not to philosophize this) definitions of war.
Collounsbury, your reasoning in this thread is more than a little difficult to argue with.
I happen to feel that more than Mullah Omar and ObL’s little cliques need to be snuffed, but your suggestions are a good start.
This “show us some evidence” rubbish is pure cock and bull. If we are idiotic enough to play along with their insincere manipulation of the media and whatever ill-informed sympathizers they have, then we deserve the higher casualty rate for having given them an iota’s more breathing room.
No one, not Mullah Omar, not whatever “moderate Taleban” there is (feh!), not al-Qaeda, not no-fricking-body is going to hand over bin Laden. We will have to dig him out like the infested chigger that he is. A hot blade and plenty of disinfectant is the prescription for this operation.
I will be happy if this is over in a year. I will not be surprised to see this take more than one year. If the US wants even a scintilla of security to be regained we must stomp the Taleban “government” (read: thugs) and all that side with them into a oily smear. I am elated that so many of the Pakistani Islamic School partichants are “streaming across the border into Afghanistan” to assist the Taleban. Now if they would do us the favor of just bunching up a bit…
Sounds a lot like Rambo, no? 
I thought the purpose of war was to defeat the enemy, not wipe them off the fucking planet. This reeks of mindless jingoism.
And BTW, bin Laden and Mullah Omar are related by marriage, not blood (according to your bible). Just thought I’d clarify.
Ah, the trivialist.
In a trivial, superficial way, insofar as war and war movies both involve killing.
Only if one utterly takes my words out of context or deliberately distorts them.
Mindless jingoism would be to advocate rounding up all Afghans and putting them in reeducation camps or to use nukes or something along these lines.
To advocate the targetting of Omar’s and ObL’s coterie while simultaneously advocating the inclusion of Taleban associated and even Taleban Pashtun elements in the government is realpolitik. Perhaps a greater sin, but one which I might plead guilty to.
Very entertaining, trivial but entertaining attempt at reaglement des comptes.
I’m sure everyone well knows that Omar is an Afghan and a Pashtun to be precise while ObL is a Yemani/Shami descended Saudi, ergo any blood relationship I refered to would be in fact marriage. Now we can argue semantics and say that I should not use the phrase blood relationship to refer to marriage, however I’m thinking in terms of tribal kinship and it seems accurate enough for me for the purpose of conveying the particular point I was conveying.
Now, do you have anything of substance to add, or are you simply going to carp on with your wounded sense of self?
First of all, Bush DID offer to let the Taliban off the hook if they turned Bin Laden over. But they insisted on trying to play word games and negotiate a ‘surrender’ that was totally unacceptable - i.e. turn Bin Laden over to a ‘neutral’ Muslim country for trial. No doubt it would have turned out to be Saudi Arabia or some other nation favorable to Bin Laden. Then we’d all get to be treated to a show trial which has as its main purpose to publicize all of the ‘sins’ of the U.S. Then Bin Laden gets acquitted, or let off with a slap on the risk, or is allowed to escape, or is busted out by his buddies while guards look the other way.
The risk of serious damage to the U.S. war effort by such a trial is simply not worth taking. This is war. The stakes are the very survival of the U.S. The U.S. didn’t start it. But once war has started, the only moral action to take is to persecute it with every tool at your disposal until the enemy is dead or has surrendered and ceased to be in a position of power. End of story.
Collounsbury: I agree with you completely on the difficulty of figuring out just who a Taliban member is. But I’m not suggesting that they all have to be killed. The regime has to be toppled, and a new one put into place. One that will be obligated to treat its citizens well and not be a harbor for terrorists.
I know what will happen - the Taliban will fade away, the members will go back into hiding into Afghan society, and then they’ll start a new Guerilla war against the new government. And we’ll just have to support that government, and help them police the situation. And that’s a long, tiring, bloody exercise. But I don’t see much of an alternative.
“wounded sense of self…”
Heehee. I dunno why you’d think that since I keep exposing you for what you are: an arrogant, ignorant ass.
But again, this is not the place for diatribe; so let’s not bait each other, shall we?
My point was only that this is the time for thoughtful rhetoric and not jingoistic outbursts.
(Oh yeah, and I was clarifying something you said. Sorry your ego can’t take it.)