Here’s an interesting read on Afghanistan written for the West Point department of social sciences by retired Army General Barry McAffrey in his capacity as an “adjunct professor of international affairs” (pdf document).
The General’s bottom line:
- Afghanistan is a chocolate mess. Eventually we are going to have to get around to the issue of opium production.
- The Afghan people overwhelmingly reject the Taliban vision, but, while most place great faith in US armed forces they don’t have much in their own government and view with suspicion the commitment of some of our NATO allies to seeing the enterprise through.
- Those of our allies that are willing to fight (including the Afghan National Army) are unbeatable in combat. Expect the Taliban to turn increasingly to terrorist-style attacks.
- 2009 is pivotal. The Taliban and their allies are going to up the ante on encircling the capital and making Afghanistan a failed state, with potentially disastrous consequences. Provincial Afghan government is not up to the task of governance.
- US reinforcements, military and financial, made a difference. The contributions of our allies have not kept pace.
- There is no unity of command; NATO – while irreplaceable and crucial to our success – is more a political alliance than a military one.
His bottom line conclusion is that this is going to take a long, long time but that we cannot afford to fail.
Read the whole thing.
Update: Since I’m on the topic of good wars, here’s a good set of slides (12 MB pdf doc, gomen) showing how that “other” war is going.
First article was a good read. I like it when a guy can come right out and say exactly what he needs/wants, without trying to fluff it all up or use a bunch of buzzwords. I found this line particularly poignant:
“The country is not at war. The
Armed Forces and the CIA are at war.”
A fact I’m reminded of every time I read about acquisitions failures or go visit the fam in CT and VT.
What exactly is preventing an referendum by afghan citiziens on the issue of, say, becoming an US governship (Like Guam)?
Any hard issues ? (Well I can think of one – Russia)
What soft issues ? (Democrats: Hell no, these fuckers would vote GoP forever)
That would solve most issues of local governance – corrupt clerk ? Talk to the FBI, not State.
I find it amazingly ironic that the same level of violent acts in Iraq, which according to John “Christmas in Cambodia” Kerry and many other Democrats in 2004 was surely worse than the darkest days of Tet in 1968, is now acknowledged by those same individuals and their friends in the paid media as being remarkably low, and a sign that peace is surely at hand. Thus, we can now safely remove all our troops from Iraq and end the “Evil Chimpy McBusHitler’s War for OIL”TM.
To my eyes, the graph shows that Iraq over the last year has been about as unsettled and violent as it was in 2004. Not a land of milk and honey and sweet, cooing doves with olive branches, but not a state in the throes of the dreaded “Iraqi Civil War,” either. A place where the US still needs to maintain a large military presence for the foreseeable future, both to continue to reduce the level of violence and to insure against an upsurge should we depart prematurely. My question to Kerry and those others, who, in 2004 and before, were ready to declare defeat and leave the local populace to their fate is, which is it? If Iraq was hopelessly violent and lost in strife in 2004, then why isn’t it now?
Doesnotmatter, they are already shoulder-deep into our pockets, they don’t need to pretend we’re their governors.
In the Intel community the buzz is the Iraqi “bleedout,” where are are all those muj who went to Iraq going to go now that war is winding down. They haven’t gone far, they’ve just shifted battlefields two countries away. Iraq is definitely better, probably nearly as good as it will ever get. But they’re only waiting us out, and in the meantime taking the jihad to Afghanistan.
Torch the poppy fields, every one.