Quagmire

Has anyone else had the thought that bringing a lot of troops home and turning them loose at a time of high unemployment - could make things even more difficult right now? Do we have enough people (including contractors/support staff) tied up in Iraq and Afghanistan to tip the already sensitive situation? I've actually wondered if some foot dragging might be related to this.

NPR did a lengthy piece on the mission in Afghanistan this morning, focusing on training Afghani border guards to keep a better eye on the porous Pakistani frontier. The Afghanis are eager to learn, and the U.S. troops and personnel are eager to teach, but the usual language and cultural barriers are slowing things down. Counterinsurgency is really hard, but we're getting the hang of it. As for unemployment and the military, I understand that the Corps of Engineers needs manpower to help build and erect more wind turbines.

Send in the Marines, but not to invade and shoot up the place: have the Marines implement their Combined Action Program that they developed in Vietnam, used in Kosovo, and demonstrated in Anbar Province in Iraq. The Combined Action Program ignores the cities and starts working village to village in the countryside to provide security and infrastructure that lets these people live their lives securely. The Marines provide sanitation support, minor health care, and assist in transporting crops to market. In return, the people help keep the bad guys away. The Hezbollah do the same thing in Lebanon. Hamas worked this way. You start with a few villages, work with the next village, and slowly spread until you provide security and infrastructure for the whole country, with their traditional authorities respected and supported.

"But nobody really knows what the mission of these troops would be." I beg to differ. Maybe you don't know what their mission is. Geez do you think we have forgotten everything we've learned from 8 years of fighting two seperate insurgencies? The Vietnam comparison is soooooo wore out. You tried to make the same analogy in Iraq and it failed. Now the media is ramping it up for Afghanistan. The big difference is that we now accept, grasp and excell at guerilla/counter insurgency. As long as politicians listen to their commanders concerns it will be alright. Tough, trial and error, one step forward and two backwards are all phrases we need to come to grips with over the next 5-10years. "troop increases every year, diminishing success rates, no real strategy in place, and major problems with neighboring countries." well if it was that easy it would there would be no more war would there? There are many many many success stories in Afghanistan. Far more than the media gives credit... another Iraq tactic of the media. Starting to see a pattern? "Just about everyone seems to agree that the more serious problems are actually in Pakistan...and they’re ultimately political in nature — related to the willingness and capability of the Pakistani government to take on Taliban groups in border areas" This segment is missing half it's content. Everybody agrees that you can't seperate Afghanistans problems from the problem in Pakistan. Nobody with any sense is picking one over the other. What if Pakistan clamps down on the Taliban and we don't have a stable Afghanistan? What are we going to do? Keep chasing our tail around? That is absurd. And the Pakis are going to have to take on the Taliban/AQ with a combination of military and political solutions which need out direct support. So how can it be ultamitely a "political" solution? If past and current political attempts at reeling in the Taliban are any sort of barometer for success I would say that more military action is required. That is the only way to bring them to the table. Nice try on trying to paint such a bleak picture.

I believe that it's essential to take into account the histories of both Afghanistan and Pakistan when analyzing the so-called war in Afghanistan. The entire history of Afghanistan and the history of the relations between the governments of Pakistan and the inhabitants of its northwest area both serve as severe warnings of the impending disaster in the US policies in Afghanistan. If in fact, Bin Laden is holed up in northwestern Pakistan, his move would have to be characterized as a master stroke.

"At times, I feel as though I spend a majority of my day talking to Afghans rather than Americans. Over a game of Karambull (not sure on the spelling) with the interpreters, the Afghan born American interpreter Tammim tells me of how he used to play the game when he was a kid in Afghanistan. That was before the Soviets invaded of course. Tammim, an American, but also an Afghan, offers a rare insight into the day to day discussions and events taking place in our area of operations. While he spins the disc of the shuffleboard style Karambull game, he tells me how the Soviets needed a hundred tanks if they wanted to cross the nearby Khost-Gardez (KG) Pass road without getting demolished. All along the road lies evidence of the Soviet tactics of simply bombing Afghan homes and villages. Nowhere is it clearer than the KG Pass road, how different the American approach has been compared to the Soviet approach. Those same roads now feature District Centers and clinics built by the US Agency for International Development, schools and bridges built by the American Provincial Reconstruction Team. The economic progress will slowly but surely advance into the most rural, remote portions of Afghanistan. But even with some limited progress evident on the main route, Tammim worries for the future of the Afghan people. “These people want to know that the Americans are going to stay and fulfill their commitment,” Tammim said. “That we’re (the Americans) not just going to pack our bags and leave like we did after the Soviets left. Until then, we will not have the security.” Put that in your pipe and smoke it.