Thursday, June 20, 2013

Somebody please refresh my memory....

Why are the US and other allied nations fighting in Afghanistan?  As I recall from 12 years ago, the US was pissed at the Taliban government of Afghanistan because it wouldn't close the terrorist training bases there and turn over Osama bin Laden and friends to stand trial for 9/11.  So we sent in a few dozen special forces with some communications equipment and CIA agents with suitcases full of cash.

We bribed the various tribal leaders to pull together (the Northern Alliance), at least temporarily, to fight their common enemy the Taliban.  They did, the Taliban abdicated, the terrorist bases were closed, and Osama went underground.  So why didn't we just have a parade, declare victory, and come back home?

Why did we stay and try our hand at "nation building"?  First of all, Afghanistan, like most Middle Eastern countries, isn't really a "country" at all.  It's just a bunch of tribes that were arbitrarily fenced in together by a line drawn on a map by their colonial "protectors" a century ago.  Their loyalties are to their tribe.  Period.



The three richest men in Afghanistan?

And now the Afghan Supremo Crooko, el Presidente Humid Carbide, is telling us he is breaking off "long-term security talks" with the US because we dissed him.  Well cry me a river, Humid.

Why do we keep sending him his monthly shakedown?  As with most of the foreign aid we send to Mid-East "leaders", little makes it to the people.  Most stops with the leaders and their families and cronies.

Listen up Humid...."long term" to you means about 30 seconds after the last US soldier gets back on the plane and comes home.  That's about how long it will take for your Afghan "security detail" to sell you out for a couple of goats and whack you and return life to the tribal warfare that has been the Afghan way for eons.  The Brits didn't change it.  The Rooskies didn't change it.  And neither did we.

We can just keep an eye on any terrorist activity that might pop up there and impact us.  If we find any we can just send in another CIA agent with another suitcase full of cash to bribe the appropriate warlord, things "happen", and the problem goes away.  Easy.  Then they can go back to living their life however they want.  Live and let live I say.  Er....

I call it "Scott's Foreign Policy".  I doubt they'll be teaching it at the Harvard School of International Relations.  They should.  What they're teaching now isn't working.

S


12 comments:

  1. It would be nice to think we could change them...many Afgans would like that. It would be nice if their women could have rights and go to school, many of their women would like that. It would be nice to establish a real democracy and make friends who would love us for the wonderful people that we are...none of that will ever happen, you are 100% spot on. Lets get the hell out and unfortunately look the other way while these people turn their backs on progress and press on with their backward society. It would be good to change it, but we can't!

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    1. Yes, there are lots of good things I'd like to see happen there and elsewhere, but the realist in me says those things probably won't happen. Face it.

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  2. When I read "The Kite Runner" it did seem pretty clear that the governments might change but Afghanistan was always going to be a mess. Just like Palestine, which became more of a mess when the West decided to import a bunch of Jews to form Israel. Some places it seems are always going to be a mess so there's no sense trying to clean them up.

    Meanwhile we really need to worry about places like Mali and Qatar where al-Qaeda has been setting up shop in recent years. Mali especially sounds like the next Afghanistan with the hard-line Islamists taking charge the way they did in Afghanistan. Let banana republic presidents like Karzai fend for themselves and focus on the real threats.

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  3. I actually agree with you here.I'm not an isolationist - but I don't believe we should be sending people over there to die. I'm more interested in humanitarian ways we can help (WITHOUT bankrupting the US since we have pleny of humans here who need help!).

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    1. All I'm saying is we should choose our fights carefully, and only engage where we have a chance to do some good and win. Afghanistan is a losing proposition. "Their" way and "our" way will never be remotely close to the same. Face it.

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  4. Our incursion into Afghanistan was a dismal failure. It might make some people feel good to think we won this war on terror but in truth we did not. These wars have bankrupted us. That's how you lose a war in this day and age. Time to get out and stop the foreign aid.

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  5. we are still there because once we are in another country, we NEVER leave. just ask any country that we have aided or rescued. hell, just look at where we have armed forces bases.

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  6. I, too, can't figure out why Karzai is still in power, with out backing and financial support. But so it goes in the CIA's netherworld.

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  7. Sorry, I meant, "our" backing and financial support. Changes the whole damned meaning, doesn't it?

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  8. we don't even need any real spies on the ground .... we have satellites and drones.... I think we are still there because it's one of those govt/military situations that makes no actual logical sense but we do it anyway.

    Maybe we are there because we like fancy military toys - no war no need for new fancy toys no need for a higher military budget. Once about a million years ago I worked at a public works facility on a military base - toward the end of the fiscal year if we had money left over we had to spend it - whether we needed anything or not because "if we don't use it up they won't give us the same or more $ next year" And that's just the way it was.

    Maybe we are still there because it doesn't make any sense ..... keep em guessing with out folly

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