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Afghanistan Is Like Nothing You've Ever Seen
DaHuNt writes: "A well written article about Afghan experiences by the Soviets... Food for thought... 'When Igor Lisinenko entered what he was told was an Afghan rebel base in 1982, he wasn't sure what to expect. It was, after all, his first assignment...'" Very good article. Too bad we aren't learning from the British and Soviet mistakes.
Too bad we aren't learning from the British and Soviet mistakes.
How do you know we (U.S.) haven't learned?
After all, we haven't done anything terribly rash and stupid in Afghanistan in the last 10 days.
Colin Powell was in Vietnam, and learned a thing or two, and remembers. Bush of course was not, but he seems (so far) to have the sense to listen to his betters.
--S
"I used to be a dilettante. Then I thought I'd try something else for a while."
First, give their women a better lot in life.
Gain territory. Then make the territory safe. Then give the people within that territory everything their hearts desire. Food. Clothing. Shelter. Jewelry. Television. McDonald's.
Build them a beautiful mosque. Allow them to pray. Give them a world where they need not fear, where they are defended by the United States military.
When the Taliban tries to assert itself, it will find itself against its own population, who will have found the security and freedom we Americans usually tend to take for granted, and will sacrifice all to defend.
You'll have difficulty keeping the defectors to your side out -- just as the USA today has difficulty accepting everyone who wants to immigrate here.
You win by conquering the way Rome did. You make the conquered territory more blessed than your opponents' territory.
Those few who infiltrate will grow accustomed to the softness of the new lifestyle, and be unwilling to make the sacrifices necessary to fight their cause.
You ask them what they want, and then give them more than they asked for.
The NVA fought with rifles. The farmers and villagers had antiquated handguns and knives. The VC had a few grenades and bombs. The few large factories and power plants and other traditional targets of war were always located in or near civilian centers, which, for political reasons, were deemed off-limits. So for 10 years the US bombed the hell out of bamboo bridges, huts, and broken-down trucks. It had no effect because the Vietnamese are resourceful, clever people and were determined to win. They were the ultimate distributed network - take out one part, and another will step up to replace it while a small crew repairs the damaged area.
Contrast this with the US - large, highly visible targets of obvious importance. Choke points and centers of strength. With a few million dollars' worth of bombs you could easily lower Americans' standard of living by half. The US is well-equipped to fight a war against a similar enemy - like the Soviet Union of yesteryear. It is ill-equipped and inexperienced to fight a lengthy guerilla war, on foreign soil, against people who are at once civilian and military, against people with radically different values and standards than our own. The Geneva convention is likewise unable to cope with this reality - killing civilians is illegal, but who qualifies for this protection? If a man shoots at enemy aircraft from his home while his unarmed wife and children are present, how can the pilot justify shooting back? How can the pilot justify *not* shooting back?
This, I believe, was the fundamental question during Vietnam. And as we're thankfully starting to see, it will be the fundamental question in Afghanistan and wherever else the US may elect to demonstrate its might. In guerilla and terrorist warfare it is difficult or impossible to distinghuish innocents from combatants. Even the Israelis, who have dealt with this problem for many years, have never found a solution that permits both humanity and security. The US, in 10 years in Vietnam, never did either.
But philosophical discussions aside, if I honestly believed that dropping bombs on Afghanistan until 6,333 people died would cure forever the prospect of terrorist attacks, I would suck it up, pray a lot, and give my government the green light. It wouldn't be right, but at least it would be equitable and most importantly effective.
Of course, killing people, even killing the right people (and there's no real way to be sure who are the right people), has yet to solve anything. Executing the Nazi war criminals did nothing to prevent the atrocities committed by Pol Pot, Stalin, and others. Killing a few VC guerillas did nothing to prevent the fall of Saigon. And killing every Afghani in all the world, and parading bin Laden's head on a platter, will not assure Americans or anyone else of their security.
And that, my friends and countrymen, is why going to war over this is pointless. War is a great evil, a last desperate measure when there is simply no alternative. If a nation is to make the decision to go to war, then there must be a clearly-defined objective, and the actions of war must be suitable for reaching it. This situation, like Vietnam, fails both tests. The government has never made clear any specific objective for action against Afghanistan - to get bin Laden? (We won't present any evidence against him, so what right do we have to demand his extradition?) - to punish the Taliban for being naughty? - to simply exhaust some grief and rage against some people unloved by many and mostly unable to retaliate? In no case has anyone actually pretended that even a 100% successful war against Afghanistan would prevent terrorism, but then one would really have to wonder why do it at all. In any case, even if we were to settle on one of these objectives, there is no clear evidence that even a successful war would achieve any of them. It's difficult enough to support killing when it's truly deserved. Witness the debates over capital punishment. It's even difficult, though perhaps less so, to support killing when it's truly necessary. But senseless killing to achieve no defined goals, with no clear purpose, of people who cannot be clearly identified as "enemies" is entirely unacceptable in a civilized society. And we are one, right? Right?
I'm currently reading a book that includes some history of the conflict in Chechnya, which apparently started when the Russians invaded about 250 years ago. Yeah, that's right - 250 years worth of conflict.
Shortly after WWII, Stalin finally got sick of the mess in Chechnya and ordered the entire population of Chechnya moved. So they loaded 400,000 people into boxcars and hauled them out to the middle of nowhere in Soviet middle Asia. He moved the whole freakin' country. Several years later, when the people were allowed to return, apparently they weren't any less pissed off, because at the next opportunity (1990 or so) they started to make their attempted break from Russian control. At some point - and the rumors are, the decision involved lots of alcohol - the Russians decided to make Chechnya see the error of its ways by force. Again. With the same results they've always gotten. You'd think they'd try some different tactics after 250 years.
The example of Chechnya should be compared and contrasted with, say, the Marshall plan. Not saying the Marshall plan would work in Chechnya, the point is, trying to change a population's mind using only applied force does not tend to work.
That's a lesson we should all be considering these days.
Too bad we aren't learning from the British and Soviet mistakes.
What an ignorant comment! We have not sent in a single troop yet, and yet you feel you have a basis for making this claim?
Guess what? We have Russian advisors assisting us in our military planning. Just because the English and Soviets failed does not mean the lesson is "Don't touch Afghanistan". It certainly is not "Don't touch Afghanistan even if they harbor terrorists who kill 5,000 of your citizens."
A lot of what I've heard is along the lines of "you can take the cities, but you'll be forever deviled by hordes coming out of the high valleys".
You also hear a lot of stuff like "there is no beach-head" and "this is a different kind of war".
OK, so the proper response to a different kind of war is a different kind of fight. Instead of taking the cities and then trying to "mop up" the notoriously difficult mountains, why not do it in reverse?
I've been thinking that we should check out these valleys and make sure that a small defensible area is clear. Then, you drop troops and supplies in that area to establish a "valley-head". You do this several places. The choices would be based on how much you can see, and what routes you can see. The mission of these forward bases is to shoot anything that carries a weapon, and to gradually explore and secure the area around the base, eventually establishing checkpoints, or "chokepoints" if you prefer. These guys eventually have to come out of their holes, and we can run surveillance on them day and night.
Once this is accomplished, then, and only then you invade the cities. If they are in the cities it is not so bad because urban fighting is historicly our strength. Once a city is captured, it is secured by house-to-house search for any and all weapons and contraband.
Once the country is controlled, it then becomes a matter of figuring out what government to install and/or how to partition the country. That is a more difficult problem. Expanding the former Soviet republics might not be such a bad idea since there are many ethnic Tadziks, Uzbeks, etc. already there. However, there would probably still have to be some kind of Afghanistan and we may not want to expand Pakistan or Iran.
Imagine a "United States of Islam" or "Islamic Union". That could be much, much worse, especially if it took on the characteristics of a quasi-fascist megapower like China. Then again, it might also be tranquilized by the desire for trade. That is a tough call.
The other worry is that if we stay there too long we could end up building infrastructure that might later be used by China to move troops into the oil fields of Iraq and Saudi Arabia. Remember, this is the old "silk road" we are talking about here. As China becomes more and more industrial we have to be wary of what they are going to do when they have the same thirst for oil that we have. So, regardless of what plan we execute we should be careful not to build a modern silk road.
To a great extent this whole mess all started with the US fighting the Soviet Union by proxy. So much for the Cold War being over.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
The Guardian in London reported Friday, citing a cable from the US Embassy in London, that the US was trying to rally an international campaign to remove the Taliban. Having removed them, we would then sponsor a UN-run temporary government in the nation.
You know, I don't really think the Taliban are the problem, at least not directly. They are isolationist in the extreme, and have no foreign policy agenda worth speaking of. The problem is that they took al-Queda in as guests, and guest is a loaded word in Islam. Once someone is your guest, Islamic custom holds that you must be prepared to defend them with your own life, if necessary. I'm guessing that the Taliban never imagined that this would entail facing down massed NATO armies and fleets lurking nearby.
The point is, the Taliban (which, incidentally means "students", not "death to the US" or anything quite as menacing) are caught between a rock and a hard place, and they don't oppose the West for the reason that most people think they do. Indeed, what they would like most of all is to simply by ignored by the rest of the planet.
The question is, what is stronger, their desire to be left alone, or their desire to uphold their tradition? If is the former, then there is scope for a deal: give us al-Queda and the US will guarentee that you are left alone. If not, then things are going to get messy.