No, I see that as the targeted best result of the several thugs I am optimistic about. Namely over three million girls in school, some have been in school since 2002. That means there are at least a couple million families that reject the Talban’s extremist ways.
I see the villagers’ uprisings in the heart of a Taliban former stronghold, as a good trend for long term obstruction against the return of Taliban tyranny over any major populated area.
I see more and more events such as the following as trending mire toward optimism than toward a return to what was.
I know there are tough odds to beat out so much evil scum with stolen money and drug money, such as the drug gangs in Wardok Province that may be tied to the Taliban and perhaps even high central government officials, and members of the Karzai family. But there are two years left of major ISAF assistance to the vast majority of Afghans that reject the Taliban and drug gangs and tribal warlords that govern mostly to enrich themselves and not much more.
I have to say, for someone who’s been going on at length at how interested he is in the subject, that’s a really shocking mistake to make.
ARVN(The Army of the Republic of Vietnam) was not “opposed” by the US nor was it affiliated with the North Vietnamese government. It was the Army of the South Vietnamese government(The Republic of Vietnam). In fact, they did most of the fighting and dying, losing around 250,000 people.
You might wish to double-check your facts next time.
Tagos cited a 13 month old report by BBC reporter named Bilal Sarwary. If you follow the link you will find that the date and name of who wrote it.
{cite} Why Taliban are so strong in Afghanistan; By Bilal Sarwary; BBC News, Kabul 2 February 2012 Last updated at 12:33 ET; Many doubt Afghan forces will be able to withstand the Taliban after 2014 {cite}
So I decided to check out what Bilal Sarwary might be saying at the present moment at time.
I found this on https://twitter.com/bsarwary:
{cite} Bilal Sarwary@bsarwary; **Great article **minister Barmak, Rural Rehabilitation and Development of Afghanistan A New Deal for Afghanistan? : A New Deal for Afghanistan? | HuffPost The World Post …{cite}
Lots of optimism in this commentary by an Afghan official named Wais Ahmad Barmak who is currently serving as Minister, Rural Rehabilitation and Development of Afghanistan. He wrote on March 15, 2003, “A New Deal for Afghanistan?”
Here are some excerpts:
Wais Ahmad Barmak certainly answers those questions:
And one of the many things naysayers like Tagos pay little attention to was the Conference in Chicago in 2012:
So why should we listen to Tagos and John Mace and the many other naysayers here and ignore what Wais Ahmad Barmak and mentioned in Bilal Sarwary’s twitter account? Tagos thinks Bilal Sarwary was a credible reporter on Afghanistan over a year ago. What is he saying now?
I wasn’t talking about any situation in the Middle East. I was saying I don’t think this thread will ever end. One of us posts five words and you launch a thousand word screed (with date and time).
If you confine your optimism entirely to the question of whether the Taliban will return to power, perhaps. If you take a broader view of desiring a stable, democratic, peaceful Afghanistan, there is no cause for optimism.
Isn’t this a contradiction? You claim the vast majority of Afghans reject tribal warlords, while endorsing a model of governance that not only keeps the warlords in power, it grants them official sanction.
Was I was trying to say is that it good that “there are two years left of major ISAF assistance” (to the majority -in some areas - of oppressed villagers and farmers and two years of ISAF assistance to the Afghan security/police forces to enable Afghans) that “reject the Taliban and drug gangs and tribal warlords that govern, (in some areas) mostly to enrich themselves and not much more.”
I endorse continued assistance to helping the villagers to rid themselves of the rot in local government and central government that has taken advantage of international assistance from foreign nations to enrich themselves and that includes anything connected to Karzai.
I’ve never abandoned “desiring a stable, democratic, peaceful Afghanistan.” But as a realist I understand that what you define will take much longer than it will take to ensure that the Taliban do not return to power as they had in 2001. But putting Taliban oppression down is the first step that must be taken in order to rid the Afghan people of the strife and hardship that they have endured rhe past four decades and more.
Optimism that the first step is achievable and sustainable is warranted as expressed by
Wais Ahmad Barmak cited last night by me:
The trend is in the right direction to some day see millions of Afghans live in peace with themselves and outsiders. Will it take more than a decade to get there? Surely it will.
But the current trends are cause for more optimism than blanket rejection of anything good coming out if what has been a hard struggle for our troops who have served and will serve over there for at least two more years as Afghans continue to transition to the lead.
Of course, the fact that this assistance is coming from foreigners as part of the war effort rather wounds its legitimacy and permanence.
I can agree with that.
Let’s see how the 2014 election goes before crowing about positive trends and achieving good. The mere fact of being not-the-Taliban doesn’t make Karzai or the warlords worthy rulers capable of what we would call legitimate government. If we see another fraudulent election, I’m ready to write these people off as being totally unready for democracy.
Illegitimacy of foreign donations to me happen when corrupt nationals take it for personal and illegitimate use. The NATO coalition is aware of this but must determine that doing much despite a certain degree of corruption is the right policy.
Progress has been made where foreign aid gets through quite legitimately and that should be recognized.
Excellent.
Realizing that the insurgents have been pushed out of so much populated areas since the last election was held plus the fact that in most polling areas if not all of next year’s polling places will be guarded by Afghan uniformed faces, is reason to expect thus election to go much better and be more legitimate than 2009.
Will the election go perfect? Do ours?
I think it is unfair to expect election perfection and it is unwise to wait to apply praise to all those Afghans that gave stepped up to provide security and elections unti after they pull off a very good election.
Encouraing the good people of Aghanistan by telling them that thus is what victory looks like ahead of time, is not wrongheaded.
They need encouragement to get closer to the goals they and we want.
I’m sorry, I see nothing wrong with what General Allen said in the OP.
It is based on the reality of the trends on the ground.
I’m not talking about donations; when the incumbent central government only exists because of the military force of a foreign power, that central government will have a major problem with legitimacy in the eyes of its citizens.
I don’t think anyone is saying that the demise of the Taliban as an organization wouldn’t be a postive thing, just that it doesn’t necessarily lead to a stable, prosperous Afghanistan.
Attacks by militants were just part of the problems that made the 2009 election a farce. The problems experienced were exactly what you’d expect to result from a democratic process being imposed on a splintered, tribal people without a democratic tradition: widespread fraud, bribes, selling of votes, election officials campaigning for candidates, the election commission being part of the Karzai government, intimidation and coercion, culminating in the cancellation of the runoff election.
Better security will not help when the government that employs the security forces is rigging the election.
Yeah, they do. A major reason why is that we developed our system and traditions on our own. If China came in tomorrow, tossed our leaders out of power and imposed their model of government, it wouldn’t take very well either.
There’s nothing in it for the regime to hold fair elections; they might lose. Bush’s idealism for democracy was probably the wrong approach to Afghanistan, better to install an authoritarian strongman who agreed to confront and destroy anti-American terrorist groups in exchange for money and weapons. It’s a model that worked well during the Cold War. Democracy is not for everyone.
It’s victory if victory means the Taliban being weakened, and nothing else.
Dr. Abdullah thinks democracy can take root in Afghanistan, starting in 2014. I hope he’s right, but the evidence is rather thin. His plan calls for a great deal of foreign involvement in the election, at a time when the U.S. is minimizing that involvement. He speaks highly of credible and transparent elections, while the plan that you yourself endorse as the most likely to work involves investing political power in non-elected warlords and elders.
The sort of problems Afghanistan faces are typical of the undeveloped world, though they have cultural and geographical factors, as well as a drug trade, that make theirs more onerous. Foreign powers haven’t made much headway against these problems elsewhere, so what cause is there to believe that Afghanistan is on the brink of transformation into even a halfway decent place to live?
You are saying that, I endorsed “investing political power in non-elected warlords and elders.” And that was written, when? where?
I have written here that I endorse investing political power in the people, who are fed up with the Islamic Extremists and the kleptocrats
Yesterday 12:52 PM I wrote: "What I was trying to say is that it good that “there are two years left of major ISAF assistance” (to the majority -in some areas - of oppressed villagers and farmers and two years of ISAF assistance to the Afghan security/police forces to enable Afghans) that “reject the Taliban and drug gangs and tribal warlords that govern, (in some areas) mostly to enrich themselves and not much more.”
**I endorse continued assistance to helping the villagers to rid themselves of the rot in local government and central government **that has taken advantage of international assistance from foreign nations to enrich themselves and that includes anything connected to Karzai.
Why must I continuously defend against something that I did not write?
I endorse exactly what I posted from Dr. Abdullah Abdullah said in January this year:
[QUOTEInstead of abandoning democracy because it hasn’t worked under a kleptocracy, Afghanistan and the international community must clean it up]
Dr. Abdullah thinks democracy can take root in Afghanistan, starting in 2014. I hope he’s right, but the evidence is rather thin. His plan calls for a great deal of foreign involvement in the election, at a time when the U.S. is minimizing that involvement. QUOTE]
Human Action writes:
I am not sure what the basis for that claim is, unless you meant military assistance, which is a good thing that military combat operations by foreigners is in decline.
Perhaps you have a source on it? Here’s a source from our former Secretary of State as she spoke in Tokyo where $16 billion was pledged.
Post 102. What do you understand hybrid governance to mean, exactly? Because your cite describes it as:
And how far are you willing to go with this assistance? If the 2014 election is a fraud too, do we forcibly topple the regime that claims power and install a new one? If assistance is just money, there’s not all that much that can be accomplished.
Does Dr. Abdullah endorse hybrid governance as well? Because that model is only kinda-sorta democracy.
I need a source for the claim that we’re leaving Afghanistan by 2014? Um, ok.
If infusions of cash were sufficient to end corruption, establish democracy, and build peaceful nations, the world would be a paradise by now. Dr. Abdullah was specifically asking for foreign involvement in the next election; sending more money to the Karzai regime is not what he was asking for.
So you do not have a source for your claim in your pattern of facts that the US and others are minimizing funding for the post transition period that we are entering?
Why do you need a source for a claim that we are leaving in 2014. I am not claiming that we are. Obama signed a strategic Alliance with Afghanistan last May that runs through 2024 including military assistance and training.
If you could clarify why you need a source that we are leaving by 2014, I would appreciate it.
Do what now? I never mentioned funding, that’s your baby. $16 billion is a fraction of a drop in the bucket of the federal budget, and dollars don’t come back in caskets, so I’m sure we’ll throw dollars at the Afghan government until they collapse or become intolerably authoritarian and/or corrupt.
Not every single American will be leaving, no. But the large majority of our combat forces are; the remainder will train Afghan troops in how to not shoot Americans and police in how to not demand bribes, until the government collapses or the U.S. switches back from a “support” mission to a "combat’ one.
Again, from Dr. Abdullah’s piece that you brought up:
None of that can be achieved by the U.S. throwing money at it, or by stationing 6,000 troops in Afghanistan for training. He wants the U.S. on the ground supervising this election and pressuring the Karzai regime, and that’s just not going to happen, because by 2014 our ground presence will be minimal.
You need to consider a very pertinent second sentence from the paragraphs that were cited in your response.
“The relative success of the model in some parts of the country demonstrates that the choice in Afghanistan need not be between building a representative, democratic state and allowing anarchic tribalism to take hold.”
They are pointing to “successful models in parts of Afghanistan” which are not the parts where Warlord/Governors are corrupt, stealing from the people, harboring insurgents bent on destroying the Central Government where it works, and harboring drug gangs and criminals, in the name of anarchic Islamist extremist rule.
(Where ‘success’ is evident) is a key word in that portion of the Hybrid Governance study that I cited in Post #102.
The essay hinges on a whopping two warlords turned governors, Atta Mohammad Noor and Gul Agha Sherzai, who haven’t been appalling monsters since joining the Karzai administration, though they are, of course, unelected appointees. They figured Karzai would prevail, so they joined him. We aren’t dealing with Washington and Jefferson here.
Of course government works best when the governors are not corrupt, don’t steal, fight amongst themselves, and harbor drug traffickers. That’s no revelation. However, the warlords and insurgents have incentives in place that drive them to act the way that they do, and so do the people that support those warlords and insurgents. THAT is a hurdle Afghanistan will have a difficult time clearing in our lifetimes.
Look at the case of Ismail Khan.. He was appointed governor of Herat. But then…
Ultimately, Khan was removed from the governorship in 2004. But he remains a popular figure in Aghanistan, especially in Herat. When U.S. forces are largely gone, rulers like Khan will refuse to surrender, and they will have the popular support of their people, who want Islamic police and a ruler who spends tax money on them instead of sending it to Kabul to be embezzled. The central government will get weaker and weaker, unless the U.S. intervenes again, and I don’t think we will.
“Hybrid governance” may work fine if all warlords were cooperative and patriotic, but they are not.