Nation building in Afghanistan, success or failure?

If there is success it'll be a miracle. I heard on NPR an interview that made sense. The guy said, if there was to be success in Afghanistan, the new government had to incorporate the various warlords into positions that satisfied their need to pull for their causes.

I think that Afghanistan and Iraq are very different kettles of fish.

littlek

I don't believe so, different cast of characters but the same problems. There are many diverse groups with their own fish to fry. To name a few Kurds, Sunni's Shiites, Moslem fundamentalists and add to that the hatred of those people for the US. Is it really much different from Afghanistan? I wonder.

Hi AU1929:

I've heard they call you "Goldmember" now ... Is that really true??

The United States attacked and destroyed the Taliban because they would not make an oil deal with us. Now, with the Taliban gone, the United States has set forth the beloved Caspian Sea Pipeline which was the real reason for our attack. We paid Pakistan 40 Billion to help us in our holy battle, and now the Taliban operates out of the Pakistan border. Our destruction of the Taliban has returned Afghanistan to it's pre-Taliban structure. The only difference now is that the poppy fields are in full production again, and the United states has there oil deal.

You are right about on thing AU, we are attacking Iraq for the same reasons.


GOD'S HOLY OIL!!!

Anon

Anon
No they don't call me gold menber. It seems that one of the genius on the abuzz realizing that au is the symbol for gold and in an effort to annoy called me gold. I ignore such childness.

I don't think the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan are analogous. Iraq has only existed since 1922, and, previously, the region was an amorphous and un-integrated province of whomever had the upper hand militarily, at whatever specific point in time. The strife in Iraq has almost always been religious in character, since the rebellion against Ali ibn Abi Talib, the fourth Caliph, and the son-in-law of the Prophet. The Shiites trace their origins to the mystic variety of Islam claimed to have been favored by Ali; those who opposed him, lead by Muawiyah (who became the fifth Caliph after the murder of Ali) favored the establishment of a sunna, or modus vivendi with non-pagan infidels. The followers of the shia felt that no compromise was acceptable in matters of the faith. Saddam has instigated the ethnic violence with the Kurds; prior to his era, the infighting was always between Sunnis and Shiites, or internecine within one or the other group.

Afghanistan has a long and bloody history of ethnic and tribal rivalries, with regional conflicts arising from the desire for dominance fought out between Kabul, Mazar-e-Sharif, Kandahar and Herat. The Afghans have been impressed by one outsider, and one only--Alexander III of Macedon, who marched through their territory, brushing aside their war parties, and descended upon the cities of the Indus valley. They still remember him, as Sikander. Persians, Russians and the English have all tried to impose politically and militarily on the Afghan--all have endured bloody repulses interspersed with massacres of their civil and military populations in the country. The Hind (those whom we call the Indians) refer to mountains of southern Afghanistan as the Hindu Kush--the killer of the Hind. Removing the Taliban simply opened the game up to all comers once again. The Taliban championed the cause of the Pushtun (ostensibly), but their true ticket to power was in having heavy military equipment (tanks, self-propelled guns, heavy artillery) which had been the detritus of the war of the Russian occupation. We've done nothing to change the situation, we've simply removed the Taliban and their crushing military might from the equation, which means that the warlords are likely now ready to flex their military muscle, and go back the favorite Afghan passtime, tribal warfare.

Were we to occupy Iraq, there is a chance for peace in that nation. There is sufficient exposure there to western culture (by which i mean more than simply blue jeans and rock-and-roll, rather to technology and rationalized economic and political systems), so that an intelligent management of the nation after a military occupation holds out some hope of turning the Churchill-Balfour monster into a true nation state. That same scenario is unlikely in Afghanistan this side of hell.

>BAGRAM, Afghanistan (AP) -- U.S. and Afghan forces battled rebels aligned with renegade leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar...

Can't you post here the main conclusion of the article (I mean a very short fragment, not more than a couple sentences)? This page requires to fill many registration forms, I don't have too much time to it.

>After reading this story and remembering some of those of the recent past.

What do you mean? The last American action - Anaconda was conducted 10 months ago. Is it recent past?

>I am reminded of the "success" the Russians had in Afghanistan.

What I can't agree with. THere are very different conflicts that have not more common than Vietnam and Iraq for example.

>Aside from the area around Kabul the central government controls nothing.

That's wrong. Last summer Karzai's forces managed to replace governors in Mazari-Sharif and Hardez for example without despite some resistance. Now there is no governors in Afghanistan who hasn't declared himself pro-American. The main problem is not to eliminate enemies but to distinguish real American allies and liers (generally not Taliban spies but usual criminals). Of course there may be mistakes like one with "iron grandpa" - Khan Zadran, but hopefully karzai is able to correct them.
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>If there is success it'll be a miracle.

I'd rather say the Americans gained an UNEXPECTED (and therefore miraculous) success. Before the war many "experts" (especially Leftist ones) had been predicting a long unsuccessfull bloodbath, rise of the Taliban's popularity among inhabitants, ineffectiveness of the "smart" weapon and other such things they picked up from the experience of the Soviet Afghan War or Vietnam. All of these predictions became wrong. Taliban was overthrown earlier than the strongest Pentagon optimists could imagine. Of course some of anti-American critics (like Al-Qaeda Internet propagandists) still want to believe that the Americans are losing the war like some Serbian Nazis think that it was American failure in Kosovo or like Saddam is sure that he defeated the US in 1991.
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>The United States attacked and destroyed the Taliban because they would not make an oil deal with us.

The US attacked and destroyed the Taliban because they had no another choice after 9/11. It was a direct unprovoked foreign aggression. Before it the US had been avoiding to intervene to this region due to many reasons like American isolationists were against intervention to european and Asian problems during the WW2. I can't say whether they were right or not, but after Pirl Harbor the Americans had not to choose. The choice was made by the Japanese.

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>I don't think the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan are analogous.

I agree.

>warlords are likely now ready... go back the favorite Afghan passtime, tribal warfare.

I wouldn't say that now there is a large-scale civil war in Afghanistan like was between Rabbani and Commies or between the NA and the Taliban. IMHO these tensions between warlords look like a usual political rows like these that happen in every country (and America also) every day. One political movement lost their positions, another takes them. Although in Afghanistan it happens in not the most civilisated way . But Afghanistan itself is not the most civilisated country.

So, Stanta - I agree with your analysis of the situation in Afghanistan - do you see any hope of building a stable and non-short-lived-tribal-dictatorship there?

How do you think the US will ever get out?

I think, the U.S. should not make the same mistake the USSR has committed in Afghanistan in '80s. It is better to find ways to make warlords neutral, than to try to impose on them authority of the central government. This is an impossible mission, and it may drag the U.S. Army into the long-lasting and resultless guerilla war.
Maybe, it is better to leave warlords alone, and to come to an agreement with them that they will not support any anti-American activities in the area. Such an approach is more likely to be successful.
Afghanistan has never been a nation, it always was a kind of tribal confederation, and the USA will not be able to change anything in this aspect. It will remain such a confederation, IMHO, several centuries more.

Well, Cunning Coney, i'd say that your answer is embodied in Steissd's response. This is not a hopeful situation. Better we find a way to gracefully withdraw.

And then Bin Laden pops back? I do not think he is far away......

The warlords are not true Islamic fundamentalists, and they value money more than they value Koran. Let the CIA do its job and provide it with sums sufficient enough, and if and when bin Laden pops up, his head very soon will be sent to Langley in a gift-grade package.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmm........... But the CIA wasn't paying them before?

It did, and successfully, while helping them against the USSR in '80s. Now it is time to invest some more $$$ there, just to buy bin Laden's head and a** from the warlords.

Good point, Steissd, and i laughed my a** off . . .

steissd
From the reports and articles I have read the CIA agents have millions to spread around and have been doing just that. Still no Bin Laden. Of course Bin Laden may not be alive and than again he just may be.

We the US is training and equipping an Afghani army. Hopefully we won't be fighting the same army in the future. Unfortunately that seems to be SOP in that part of the world.

Although the CIA may be spreading millions around, it has been said of the Afghanis "you can't buy their loyalty: you can only rent it."

OK, on the present stage, long-term rental is preferrable to long-term guerilla war in problematic mountainous terrain (I have some experience in such a thing that I gained in 1982-86). And bin Laden can be bought in a single piece or by body parts in framework of a single deal.

Au - if you guys are helping create an army there, you can bet your sweet bippy you are gonna be wearing it before long! Remember the Taliban? Remember Bin Laden?

I'd say that if bin Laden is still among the Afghans, he's keeping his head down except when among those of his own particular sect of Islam. Even without a major announcement of a huge price on his head, just about any ambitious warlord who didn't feel his position would be threatened by taking bin Laden down would probably hand him over, or bargain for his surrender to the Americans, simply to put himself in a position of power.