Gary Rumor’s Anti-Entropic Continuum

Today on Fareed Zakaria’s show on CNN there was a discussion on Afghanistan by experts who are for the most part in favor of putting more troops on the ground there. I was surprised to see Steve Coll author of “Ghost Wars” a history of the CIA in Afghanistan even giving limited support for placing more troops on the ground. What he and the other experts emphasised was that the Afghan forces should be built up.
Ashiraf Ghani former member of the current Afghan government and a possible candidate for the presidency made the point that the cost of maintaining 1 American soldier is the equivalent of 17 Afghan soldiers. He wants the NATO forces to stop bombing and to train Afghan soldiers and to use intelligence not the crude weapon of bombing to get rid of the resistant fighters. He made the point that this is not a war of civilizations. The people of Afghanistan just want to be left to themselves and only want economic aid to rebuild their country.
Michael O’Hanilon and David Kilcullen analysts assigned to report on the progress of the NATO forces in Afghanistan had mixed opinions. They seemed resigned to the fact that there will be an increase in the troops sent there. They have decidedly mixed feelings about the potential for success. They seemed to think that counter insurgency efforts that are more intelligently managed is key. The plan seems to be to take the same steps in Afghanistan as has been taken recently in Iraq. That is to clear the insurgents, hold the cities and build the relationship with the locals. But as was pointed out the tribal structure in Afghanistan is much looser than in Iraq and that has been torn apart by years of war.
When asked about why the Taliban had grown in strength Mr Ghani says it was a power vacuum in the crucial period of 2002-2004, when the Afghan government of Hamid Karzai was installed by the Americans but not allowed to rule without constant interference according to Mr Ghani. The Taliban was allowed to rebuild and the government that did make its presence known was incredibly corrupt. According to Mr Kilcullen the police are hopelessly corrupt and would probably be the main reason for the collapse of the government if the western troops pulled out.
But the people of Afghanistan want peace and a chance to have a country where they don’t have to worry about constant war.
Another problem that Ghani brought up is the economy based on Narcotics. Since the beginning of the time there have been cases of people taking opiates to relieve pain and to dream and to have visions. But in Afghanistan the narcotics are for the international drug trade that profits the people little but the dealers much. As one of the persons being interviewed by Mr Zakaria, Barnett R. Rubin, an expert on Afghanistan, said that the biggest industry in Afghanistan is not narcotics but the provision of private security for drug dealers, and the new rich who have been able to get money from doing business with the aid agencies and the NATO military forces. He feels that it is not that the country is a narco-nation but simply that the government has failed to control the growth of narcotics. It is the number two industry after the provision of security in the country.
O’Hanilon says that it was deliberate American policy to keep the military small in Afghanistan. All of them seem to agree that that was a bad policy and that the Afghan military needs to grow larger to contend with the Taliban.
On the subject of negotiating with the Taliban most seem to think that there is a hard core that is beyond reach but that most of the fighters are not Taliban but local people just trying to protect their interests. Nobody really addressed the anger of the Afghans with NATO for its use of Air Power in a maner that is indiscriminate and has caused the loss of life of many civilians.
Nobody wanted to deal with why the US is there in the first place or if we should just get out. There was one who said if the only thing between a total Taliban victory in Afghanistan and not was the presence of the NATO troops then perhaps we should be negotiating with them. Ghani said that the military aid should be turned in to financial aid but no one said the US and NATO should unequivocally get out.
When asked what was our critical interest in being there nobody had a good reason except to say that South Asia in general was in our national interest but again no reason why.
Why is it in the interest of the USA or Europe to be in Afghanistan? And then again it was brought out that the Taliban was the creation of the Pakistani Intelligence. Now the Taliban being a creation of the Pakistanis and the Pakistanis being the allies of the United States they were given clearance by the CIA to do what they wanted to in Afghanistan after the Soviets were Kicked out of Afghanistan because the US wasn’t interested anymore. So to keep things under control because the warlords were battling it out after the Soviets left and things got out of hand so they came up with the idea to form a religious government called the Taliban. These Taliban went and conquered their country back and that was the end but then Osama Bin Laden needed a place to go because he had been kicked out of Saudi Arabia for being critical of the American invasion of Kuwait. He helped in Bosnia when they were fighting the Serbs, and he went to Sudan and Sudan was cool with him but then he declared Jihad against the US and there was a real problem. He was pressured to get out of Sudan in 1996 by the US and the Egyptian government because he had hooked up with the Muslim brotherhood. He went back to Afghanistan where he was welcomed as a returning hero. He became buddies with the emerging Taliban and helped them take control of the country. So the Taliban now had all these Egyptian radicals and Saudis and the Pakistani intelligence services helping them and they took over the country from the warlords except in the far north were a coalition remained that opposed the Taliban and the Pakistani influence in their country.
Osama got back at the US for harassing him out of the Sudan by attacking the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Later when Clinton bombed the compound in Afghanistan and that factory in Sudan he got back by attacking the Cole in Yemen. When the US refused to leave Saudi Arabia, then 911 happened. It was sort of like the end of the world for the Taliban because that was when Bush decided to invade Afghanistan and later he decided to go after Iraq since the invasion of Afghanistan was so easy. But they let Osama get away. Bush was so intent on capturing Saddam Hussein that he just forgot about Osama and 911 was just a bunch of dead people anyway. Bush had a world to take over and that world had oil and justice and American contractor jobs for all…

Tags: Somebody Knows and Its not the Muslims., Who Are The Enemies

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 25th, 2009 at 10:56 pm and is filed under Gnosis:, History, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.