john mintz

The Pacification of Afghanistan (c. 11/15)


By Charles B. Gittings Jr.


The campaign in Afghanistan is beggining to show positive results. Americans are starting to feel some hope for real progress there, and rightly so-- but what they don't understand is that the administration's approach is timid, bumbling, and ultimately inadeqete to the task at hand.  The tactics have been sound and admirably well executed given the administration's strategic plan, but thier strategy is fundamentally and dangerously unsound.


Our immediate military aim is the pacification of Afghanistan.  When I said that to a couple of close friends over dinner recently, they looked at me somewhat aghast thinking perhaps I meant to sterilize the place.  Nothing could be further from my mind: my heart bleeds for the Afghan people and all they have endured these many years. Indeed, one of the more positive (though incidental) aspects of the campaign has been to raise an awareness in the American public and media that the Afghans are a captive people in the grip of tyrants.  So often Americans (especially on the far right) look at such countries and see only a monolithic horde of barbarians that need to be crushed or contained. In truth, they need to be liberated, and think that most are clear on that now.


But liberated how?  The administration's answer is to eliminate the Taliban and manipulate the remaining factions into a broad based coalition that will be acceptable to the regional balance among the neighboring powers. The diplomatic policy implicit in that approach closely resemables that taken in regard to Iraq during the Gulf War. And just as that policy failed in Iraq, it will inevitably fail in Afghanistan. It's just a recipe for another round of factional squabbling and simmering civil war. 


Afghanistan should be OCCUPIED, and not by just by the Turks (though they can certainly help us), but by the US Army. We should plan on being there for at least five or ten years, and we should plan for a rapid program of economic reconstruction and development, coupled to a parallel program to establish secular democratic social instituions and encourage national cooperation and unity in the place of tribalism. This approach is still open to us, and it is the right thing to do.


But won't that inflame the region against us and destabilize Pakistan? Sure it will.  But so what?  The administration's diplomacy aims at making everybody happy and keeping the lid on by dancing intricate minuettes from one emabassy to the next, and we have 4,000 years of history that shows what that will do: roll the dice once more and keep all the hostilities boiling along beneath the surface until the next eruption.


Look at Iraq.  Look at Israel and Palestine.  Look at India and Pakistan. Is it really so hard to see the utter bankruptcy and failure of 250 years of western diplomacy in the region?  Only for fools blinded by their greed, their lust for power and dominion, and their irrational concepts of geo-political philosophy. And yes, I do mean the United States, Britain, France, and Russia.


Returning to the military campaign for a moment, the right strategy was to launch a full scale invasion with maximum speed.  The right method was to use the Marines and Army Airborne to launch a lighting assault aimed at securing an airfield in the immediate vicinity of Khandahar (even if it meant building one from scratch), then using our global airlift capacity to rapidly build up an overwhelming force-- a division or two would likely be sufficient. Secure Kandahar, and drive on Kabul while using our air assests to maximum effect.  That would have had the effect of compressing the Taliban back on the Northern Alliance's lines in the North, where they could be annihilated in detail rather than dispersed into their native regions as is happening now.


I have to believe that plan would have gotten us far beyond where we are now by the end of October.  Yes, we would have taken a lot more casualties than the current (claimed) zero, but the results would have been vastly better than what we are looking at now. (Which is not to say that the current situation is bad-- just mediocre).


As for Pakistan, they are a part of the problem that needs to be solved, not placated or bribed. 


(and if they don't like it, then we should ally with India and take them down).