Doomed To Repeat History

George Santayana is credited with the quote, "Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it." This is indeed a pretty astute observation, it is also used in contexts where it is meaningless. History is not a collection of dates and names, battles lost and won; it is really a quite complex exercise. History is the study of entire societies, not narrow aspects of them and understanding outcomes of certain actions takes a lot more depth than simplistic quotes.

One that has been getting a lot play lately regards Afghanistan as the burial ground of empires. It is entirely accurate to note that empires have foundered on the shoals of Afghanistan, it is foolish to take more from it than that. If one proposes to play conqueror of Afghanistan there is a lesson for you right there. To take that particular aim and broaden it to any action taken in regard to Afghanistan puts entirely too large a load on narrow shoulders.

I do not know all the alternatives that were available to GWB in regard to Afghanistan in the beginning, there were more than the one he chose. We can see how the one he chose has played out as he ran it. This is what we do know. It would be reasonable to think that the way forward should not be an extension of the same failures.

We not only need to know how to proceed in Afghanistan now, we also need to understand what has gone wrong. We need to know that, not so much to know how to go on, but to avoid a similar mistake in the future - now is not then. I think it is optimistic to see the situation leading up to our action in Afghanistan as a one off, as something the future may not present us with again. Not many places on earth are Afghanistan, but things that pertain in Afghanistan are not that unique, hostile geography is scarcely a feature of only Afghanistan. Tribalism and barely governable areas within a country aren't just Afghanistan's difficulties. Most of what makes Afghanistan a really difficult proposition for the US right now are features you would find in a place that presented us with a similar problem.

There is no "do-over" in Afghanistan now, we have what we have now to deal with. I really hope some part of the government is taking a real serious look at what went wrong so that we do not repeat it. I hope we look a bit deeper into our tool kit and find one appropriate.

Afghan Victory Looks LIke ... What?

Let us start out with who is playing in Afghanistan, there is the US/NATO faction, the Kharzi government (?), India, Pakistan, AlQaeda, Taliban, Iran, and every other big player in geo-politics. Everybody seems to have a hand in mucking up the works and really very few have Afghans' well being at heart. India and Pakistan have their dispute as a basis for playing for playing with client groups which seems to be back firing rather badly in Pakistan. US/NATO have an anti-AQ/Taliban agenda involving also not having a failed state haven. Iran, China, Russia, etc have their own geo-political reasons to mess about. Some of these things have direct bearing on the US/NATO mission, some not much.

The failed state condition is believed to have led to Taliban dominance and AQ's haven/operational base. I'm real unsure what it is that is now supposed to be the alternative to that. The Kharzi government has little reputation for being representative, a real reputation for corruption, and seems to sort of control Kabul and little else. If there is something resembling a non-failed state government it would seem to be either the warlords or the US/NATO forces. Since our forces are scarcely representative as more than occupiers the actual government would seem to be the warlords. The question that occurs is whether these people would permit a Taliban/AQ government? I just do not see how the US can propose to impose the Kharzi outfit on the that nation as things stand.

Thanks to Pakistan's desire to keep Afghanistan from being a powerful Indian client state sitting on another Pakistan border the Taliban/AQ have become a nasty presence in their nation, their nuclear power nation. Oddly enough, Pakistan doesn't want our troops running around their nation shooting it up, though they are beginning to realize what a monster they've got loose at home. The US/NATO realize who and what the Pakistanis have let run in their portion of dirt and are really pretty petrified about it. What there is to be done about it by the US/NATO beyond some Predator strikes is a real debate. The US threw real piles of money and supplies into Pakistan to get today's results - not so hot. It certainly seems to be the case that a good portion of the Taliban/AQ presence is home grown Pakistani and so qualifies as pretty much a civil war.

I'm really pretty sure that the Obama Administration is struggling with all these factors as well as the US political fall-out factors. I don't think there is a good answer, I think whatever course chosen would have bad results and I think they know that and are looking for the least bad outcomes. The biggest question now, what is the American populace willing to put up with?

The idea that we're going to stop this one place from being a haven for AQ is probably faulty without huge numbers of soldiers. Worse, there are failed or hostile states around that would serve that end regardless of Afghanistan. Stopping that probably would be better served by use of something other than a sledge hammer, there and around the world. I own sledge hammers and use them, but not for driving nails.

Pakistan is going to be a nail biter for some time to come. Nobody with any sense outside Pakistan has been pleased by their achievement of nuclear power status. Pakistan has its own home grown religious weirdness, they haven't required any imported versions to be a challenge to security in this world. There isn't much we can do about Pakistan if its government can't keep sufficient support in the country to stand.

Whatever President Obama decides to do about Afghanistan, I'm afraid he'll come out the loser in that narrative. I wonder if he knew that when he worked so hard to get the job.

The Burial Ground Of Empires

I'm not convinced as to what the US should do in Afghanistan, the talk is having up to 60K troops there by next year and taking a harder line with Karzi over crime and corruption and leaning more toward helping localities than the national government. This includes a concentration on combat with Taliban and al-Qaida with a shift in training and reconstruction to NATO.

I'm real sure that had BushCo not taken their eye off the ball in Afghanistan for Iraq things would be different today but that is not the question and whether it holds an answer is very debatable. Positioning one's self today on what should have been is not paying history its due but engaging in wishes. We are in the now in Afghanistan and the course has nothing to do with what could have or should have been. We can easily beat any forces there like a cheap drum in a stand up fight - and they also have no reason to let us. Crime and corruption is endemic for several reasons, at least one is cultural in regard to corruption and the fractured and dislocated nature of the nation is another.

For a farmer poppy isn't much more profitable than other crops, but a little counts and in the face of danger from the Taliban and al-Qaida that's about enough encouragement. Farming in a profitable manner requires an infrastructure, both physical and legally. They have neither. Any form of trade requires this and it also requires some level of trust that is absent in a broken country. One thing that has plagued Afghanistan for a very long time is the fractious nature of tribalism and provincialism what they will cooperate on is invaders.

Here is a tremendous danger for NATO and the US, if we become seen as occupiers we're screwed. This business of killing civilians in military engagements has got to stop if that isn't to happen. We know that engagements in populated areas are going get civilians killed, or at least we ought to. The opposition knows this as well and knows perfectly well the damage our side will incur from doing it. Killing people is a fairly straightforward affair, killing only those you want killed is a bit more difficult but then the Catch22 rears its head. Killing people doesn't fix the system required for civilized life required to get the local's cooperation and if you fix it and the people that need killing keep blowing it up... Around and around and what is left is spent blood and treasure and resentments.

I don't know that it doesn't make more sense to leave with the clear warning to everybody in the neighborhood that if they screw with us we'll level the place and then rearrange the rubble a couple times for good measure. That's real tough on civilians but there is also the issue that at some point a nation has to take some measure of responsibility for what it does and allows to happen. If that seems bloodthirsty I'd like to point out that the slow bleeding of nations is also inhumane and as nationalistic as it might seem I'd rather someone bleeds other than us when it come to that.

Whatever it is that we'd like to see in Afghanistan it should be clear enough by now that we cannot go to a place and impose on them the thousand year culture that we have in a couple years, or even a couple decades. The US is a peculiar institution developed across centuries of European culture, primarily English, but with several centuries in development N American aspects that to go to South Asia mountains and tell them how to do it is like expecting a fish to understand English. Even with our English Law culture our democracy building in this country has been a messy and protracted business and we're still not all that good at it. We thing we're doing well when 60% of our population votes. I'm not even going to go into the issue of some of the cretins we manage to elect. We also can't even come up with a good explanation for why a good portion of people vote the way they do.

Contrast the US with Afghanistan, a mountainous inhospitable terrain peopled by a deeply religious tribal people who have suffered under one colonialism after another and previously under various empires with an extremely low education rate and gender policies that belong to an age we can't remember and a legal system incomprehensible to us (where it exists at all) in a place that is just plain broken and has been for decades. What exactly is it that we propose to do there?

That is an honest question, what is the end result that is desired? It certainly can't be as silly as a clone of the US, so what is it? We're pretty displeased with where Iraq has gone, it is now one of the most corrupt nations on earth and misogynistic to boot. We only like Saudi Arabia because they sell us oil. Packistan has us completely pissed, what model is it that suffices? Is it sufficient that they muddle into whatever forsaken mess as long as al-Qaida doesn't get to play? If this is the case then AK47s are cheap and spreading them into every neighborhood and shack with the exhortation that al-Qaida doesn't get to play or we just don't care. A weekly overflight of B52s would be a reminder that's hard to miss.

I'm damn unhappy with our nonexistent plans for Afghanistan, the place eats armies. It has historically and the Soviets ignored that to their loss. I keep my fingers out of the blades of my powersaws and I unplug them before I change a blade because I know the damn things can eat wood and that means fingers don't fare well. We know the same thing about Afghanistan, it isn't called the burial place of empires for no reason and we're not real damn special.

It has been, perhaps validly, pointed out that the Taliban flourished because Afghanistan was left to rot in its ruins. I'm trying very hard to understand what it is that we are doing that is any different minus the killing part.

McCain Learns From Inexperienced Obama

John McCain has scoffed at Barak Obama's inexperience and naivete in foreign policy; to hear him tell it the man is dangerous to our security. Now he's decided to learn something from Obama, Afghanistan is in trouble, needs troops, so he's up for Obama's position that at least 2 brigades need to be sent. It would seem that with the draw in Iraq for troops they must come from that center of action. This shocking development was shortly followed up by damage control in a more shocking fashion.

I know how to win wars. And if I'm elected President, I will turn around the war in Afghanistan, just as we have turned around the war in Iraq, with a comprehensive strategy for victory."

Apparently we're back to the POW theme, somehow from Hanoi, under the very noses of the N Vietnamese, John "Maverick" McCain won the War. You're not convinced? You had some idea that we lost that war? Since that's the extent of McCain's combat military experience, he must be privy to something the rest of us aren't. There are 100 US Senators and I don't remember them running any wars...in fact I seem to remember his kissin' buddy, George W, making the point that he's the decider. Now I know McCain is older than dirt but I can't remember him making any claims to have generalled in WWII. In fact what we do know about McCain is that he knows how to crash Navy planes - several.

Now it is true that John McCain can't tell the difference between Shia and Sunni and which runs Iran - or Iraq, and it is true that McCain was one of the biggest booster of the Iraq war in Washington and it is true that McCain isn't real clear on what countries still exist, Czechoslovakia, but he was real sure Saddam Hussein was going to supply al Qaeda with WMDs that he didn't have and wouldn't give the that bunch ever... Joe Biden isn't impressed:

"President Bush and Sen. McCain lump all the threats together," said Biden. "Al Qaeda, the Shia militia, listen to them speak. Listen to my friend Joe Lieberman, and he really is a friend, listen to them speak. Find me a distinction that they make. As a consequence of this profound confusion they make profound mistakes. The idea that al Qaeda will cooperate with the philistine, a guy who in fact used to run the country in Iraq, the guy who did away with the caliphate... is completely contrary to anything that the now-dead leader of Iraq had in mind. It's dangerous. How can we run a sound foreign policy without understanding these decisions? How can we talk about a Shiite-dominated nation cooperating with a Sunni dominated Wahabi sect of Islam as if they had anything in common? Yet listen to my friends, listen to the president, listen to Joe Lieberman, listen to John McCain. Ladies and gentlemen, if they can't define the enemy we are fighting it is very difficult to define whether we have won or lost."

So how it goes is the inexperienced Obama opposed going to war in Iraq and taking our eye off Afghanistan and has advocated withdrawal from Iraq and repositioning in Afghanistan while McCain has insisted along with George II that Iraq is the forefront of the battle against Islamic terrorism and just how to start losing Afghanistan. Considering the record, I'd say McCain has no clue and I'll take inexperience backed by thought and judgement. Republicans must find this all very odd or just deny its existence...