Obama’s Chance at Afghan Infamy
Obama risks escalating an unwinnable war
If Obama sends more troops to Afghanistan, it will be the worst mistake of his presidency. The reason for this is quite simple: the United States is on a suicide mission in Afghanistan. Since, as I have said, the American leadership does not adequately understand the nature or character of Afghan society (such as it is), “winning” is not just extremely difficult—it is a logical impossibility. By “winning” I mean the US ensuring that Afghanistan is stable and prosperous to the point that it cannot be a safe haven for Al Qaeda and similar Islamic terrorist groups. This, I say, is a logical impossibility as long as the American approach is, as it is now, grounded in considerations of troop levels, tactical strikes and counterterrorism and counterinsurgency operations, rather than considerations of culture, social order, identity and sovereignty.
The Nation has several pieces recently that begin to chip away at issues such as ethnic divisions and the myth of an Al-Qaeda safe haven. On the ethnic issue, for example, Selig Harrison says
One factor of special sensitivity and importance that receives almost no attention either in the public debate about Afghanistan or in the internal policy battles of the Obama administration may well be the most important of all: the domination of the Afghan armed forces, police, secret police and intelligence agencies by leaders of the Tajik ethnic minority, who use their US-backed power in Kabul to lord it over their historic Pashtun rivals.
Aside from the fact that most in the American leadership structure probably think “Pashtun” is an ice cream flavor, it is obvious that there is a whole realm of questions and considerations that policymakers haven’t even contemplated, and aren’t showing signs of doing so any time soon.
Finally, let’s consider the extraordinarily pathetic and woodenheaded preoccupation with whether the “sacrifices of our dead troops have been in vain.” It is understandable to be concerned about that issue from a moral or cultural point of view. But those who use the question of whether they died in vain as a starting point—or any point—in an argument to support more escalations and surges and putting more soldiers at risk adopt such an intellectually abominable and ludicrous way of thinking as to prove they are entirely bereft of any rationality on this issue, much less credibility. I don’t give a damn about someone’s preconceived notions of “honor” or “victory.” I give a damn about human beings.
The dead troops are dead. The living troops aren’t yet. We can’t do anything about the dead troops, from a policy perspective, but we can see to it that more brave soldiers aren’t needlessly put in harm’s way, simply because corrupt and morally rudderless politicians who have made certain statements need to cover their asses. And I haven’t even begun to talk about Pakistan.
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