Country first.
Organizing for America sent out an email telling members of its mailing list to call and tell Senator McCain not to filibuster the Defense bill because of “don’t ask, don’t tell.”But I disagree. The Senator should filibuster the bill. He should get every Republican in the Senate to filibuster it with him. I would love to see the news cycle from here to Election Day be nothing but all the Senate’s Republicans taking turns reading phone books so that they can prevent the passage of a defense bill during wartime. Country first.
The houses of war and peace
My point, I suppose, is that this kind of cycle in this kind of environment is something that once started, no one can stop. It is a function of fringe Christian fundamentalism finally engaging fringe Islamist fundamentalism in a war of increasing terror and intolerance in a seamless global media world. It is the responsibility of all of us of actual faith rather than fanaticism to stand up and oppose this before it engulfs us all.
The Long War is only the military theatre of a much greater struggle. The world’s two largest Abrahamic civilizations are Islam and the West, and within each is a house of war and a house of peace. What divides them is the difference between those who want a total war of one civilization against the other, and those who don’t. The most ancient Abrahamic civilization, the Jewish people, are uniquely situated in the center of it all, and their own houses of war and peace, along with those of Muslims in Palestine, may well set the example the world follows.
I started saying this to my fellow Americans about Osama and his allies, but it applies universally to the other civilization’s house of war: They don’t want to destroy us. They want us to destroy ourselves.
What happens
“If you do not finish the job, we will be enemies.”
~a friend from Afghanistan (he means our countries)
Yes, it’s rather sensationalist. The basic point is still correct.
When Time published this, elements of the blogosphere opposed to the war were outraged that someone would dare to do something like this. Who are these people, to remind us of the likely consequences of our country’s actions?
Because really, this is true. If the U.S. leaves, Afghanistan breaks down into civil war–real civil war, like it had before–and a lot more eighteen year old girls lose their noses. And ears. They also cut off her ears.
So there are three forms of denial:
1. Sure, there would probably be a nose-cutting civil war, but that isn’t our fault.
2. Sure, there would probably be a nose-cutting civil war, but that doesn’t matter.
3. There will be no nose-cutting civil war.
Andrew (hat tip for the image) takes number 1.:
We were not responsible for these evils when they were perpetrated for years before 9/11. And we are not responsible now. After ten years, I’d say the American soldier’s burden in trying to alleviate the awful consequences of Jihadist rule is completed.
Really, Andrew? Flashback. It’s 1979, and Wikipedia has just been invented:
The U.S. saw the situation as a prime opportunity to weaken the Soviet Union. As part of a Cold War strategy, in 1979 the United States government (under President Jimmy Carter) began to covertly fund forces ranged against the pro-Soviet government, although warned that this might prompt a Soviet intervention, according to President Carter’s National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski. Brzezinski described the U.S. activities as the successful setting of a trap that drew the Soviet Union into “its Vietnam War” and brought about the breakup of the Soviet empire. Regarding U.S. support for Islamic fundamentalism, Brzezinski said, “What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?”[85] The Mujahideen belonged to various different factions, but all shared, to varying degrees, a similarly conservative ‘Islamic’ ideology.
Here is more Brzezinski:
Q: Despite this risk, you were an advocate of this covert action. But perhaps you yourself desired this Soviet entry into war and looked to provoke it?
B: It isn’t quite that. We didn’t push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.
Q: When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting that they intended to fight against a secret involvement of the United States in Afghanistan, people didn’t believe them. However, there was a basis of truth. You don’t regret anything today?
B: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter. We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.
The Mujahideen you must remember, are now largely enemies of the Taliban. The Northern Alliance and the warlords are largely the same crowd, though of course there are many Mujahideen.
The Mujahideen, with our weapons, money, and training, provoke a Soviet invasion, and then go on to defeat the Soviet puppet government. Then, with our weapons, money, and training, continue to fight the Soviet Union’s equivalent of our Karzai government. In doing so, they destroy the country’s infrastructure and commit all sorts of atrocities. My Afghan friends over here tell me they used to behead people with swords. When the Mujahideen win, they begin to fight amongst themselves.
Into this violent power vacuum, which was created by the weapons, money, and training of the United States, emerge the Taliban. They’re a fundamentalist Pashtun movement originally from Kandahar. This causes two major Mujahadeen leaders, one Uzbek and one Tajik, to unite and form the Northern Alliance. Both of these groups are very conservative and fond of Shari’a. The distinction is mostly ethnic: Taliban are Pashtun, and the Northern Alliance are non-Pashtun.
Two detours. One, ethnicity: Pashtuns are the largest group, but the other groups all together outnumber them. Pashtuns are the historic leaders of the country, and they do not like sharing power. They also have a much more cohesive ethnic-national identity than any other group. The Taliban are almost all Pashtun, as is Karzai and his government, which is why Karzai is not willing to do what it takes to defeat them. Pashtuns live on the other side of the meaningless border with Pakistan, which is where they do most of their recruiting and coordinating. That’s why we bomb Pakistan with predator drones. Pakistan lets us, even though they want the Taliban to win, because we give them money to fight the Taliban, which they use to prepare for war with India. There’s no figuring countries in cold wars.
Second detour: the Tajik Mujahideen leader is called Ahmed Shah Massoud. He is moderate as these guys go, friendly with the West, and ambitious. In April of 2001 he gives a speech in Brussels saying that al-Qaeda and the Taliban are allies, and that a major terrorist attack is imminent. On September 9th he is killed by a suicide bomber.
Back to the story. The Taliban eventually win control of the country in 1998, which they celebrate by executing 4-5,000 civilians and torturing quite a few more. But they never quite beat the Northern Alliance, who wage a guerilla war from the 10% of the country they still control. This guerilla war was ongoing when al-Qaeda carried out 9/11. The Northern Alliance was a major ally in our initial invasion of the country.
So: to recap, the United States started a war in Afghanistan thirty-one years ago and has been, on-and-off, funding and supporting a loose coalition of factions who have been, on-and-off, waging war in Afghanistan since then. So when Andrew says,
We were not responsible for these evils when they were perpetrated for years before 9/11. And we are not responsible now.
he is extremely wrong.
2. Sure, they would probably get nose-cutting civil war, but that doesn’t matter.
This summed up by Yglesias:
Defend Afghan allies from being targeted by the Taliban. Check. Avoid accidental killing of Afghans by NATO forces. Check. Women’s rights? Not so much.
And you can see this time and again if you look at statements about US policy in Afghanistan from George W Bush, Dick Cheney, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Donald Rumsfeld, Robert Gates, Stanley McChrystal, David Petraeus, etc. We are fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan. …actually altering social conditions in southern and eastern Afghanistan isn’t on the list of war aims.
And that makes sense. After all “invade and conquer southern and eastern Afghanistan” is neither a practical nor a cost-effective means of enhancing the well-being of the world’s women. You go to war for reasons of national security. Those reasons either stand up to scrutiny or they don’t.
Okay. Forget human rights. Realpolitik. We leave. Civil war. We keep funding the Mujahideen. The Taliban do some horrible things they’ve been fantasizing about for nine years. But really, what’s a few ears and noses more or less? Surely generations of Afghans blaming the United States for the severed faces of their granddaughters, daughters, sisters, mothers, and grandmothers will have no effect on our country, just as funding, arming and training the Mujahideen had no effect on our country thirty-one years ago.
At present, most Afghans (yes, most) want to be friends with us, despite everything we’ve done to them. They are on our side. The non-Pashtun regions of the country are largely peaceful, Taliban-free, and friendly to us. If we leave, the Taliban take those regions back. Taliban and al Qaeda win a major victory. Radical Islamism, now a winning ideology, rises throughout the Muslim world. Afghanistan is once again a base of operations for international terrorism. They know that they can defeat us, and they know how. Plot carefully, kill American civilians, kill the Americans attacking your base of operations, kill the Americans rebuilding the country, kill the Americans until they leave, plot carefully, kill American civilians…
Our strategy in this war has in many ways been lacking, but we can win. Build the infrastructure, enlist our allies–and for all their faults, the Mujahideen are our allies–, empower local leaders and local militia (the government is full of Taliban sympathizers), bring in regional partners, especially India, who the Afghans tend to view favorably, continue to refine our counterinsurgency doctrine, recognize the nature of the ethnic divisions, see if we can’t buy Iran’s neutrality (those sanctions aren’t doing any good), start buying up poppy crops, let the boys and girls do their jobs, and give the general what he needs. But this, above all, recognize: it takes time. It will seem impossible, and it will seem endless, but with sufficient will, on the other side, we win.
In the meantime, let’s keep some perspective. We have been exporting suffering to this country for three decades and most of them still support us. We can share in their struggle for some of that time, can we not? In historical perspective, our casualties in this our longest war are low.
3. There won’t be a nose-cutting civil war.
Go on the record with that.
Hegemosphere
Hegemosphere: Noun. Portmanteu of “hegemon” and “sphere.” The areas of control and influence exerted by a state within other states without generally invalidating their sovereignty, but nonetheless strongly influencing them through economic, political, and cultural power, and by ownership or control of infrastructural or military assets within their territories.
Used analogously to the word “empire.” Adjective form, “hegemospheric.”
Examples: “The United States’ hegemosphere outside the Americas and Pacific emerged at the end of World War II and placed itself in opposition to the Soviet empire’s own hegemosphere.”
“China has been aspiring to hegemospheric status since about the end of the Amero-Soviet Cold War.”
“Its network of military bases around the world is an essential part of the American hegemosphere.”
Middle Eastern Union, vol. 1
Brussels, meet Istanbul.
ISTANBUL // Turkey has embarked on the road to a “Middle Eastern Union” as an alternative to the European Union, according to some observers, after Ankara unveiled its vision for a giant free-trade zone spanning from the Bosphorus to Sudan and Morocco.
The country has taken the first step towards forming the bloc by signing an agreement with three southern neighbours – a move being viewed in some quarters as further evidence that Ankara is losing interest in joining the EU.
“Turkey’s new aspiration: Middle Eastern Union,” the Milliyet daily newspaper trumpeted on its front page after the signing of a free-trade agreement between Turkey, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan during a Turkish-Arab forum in Istanbul last week. According to the agreement, the four countries will drop all trade and visa restrictions between them.
This is not a rival to the European Union, this is the first step in a process that ends with a united Mediterranean Sea. Ankara was sick of waiting for the Europeans, who are slow.
I really hope they can make peace with a free Kurdistan, because I like liking Turkey.
In the long run, they start to catch up to the EU and more and more of the EU’s residents come from these countries anyway. Eventually, one of these countries–probably Turkey–joins both, and we have a conduit that makes the borders less and less meaningful.
The cultural pride and national identities remain, but the anachronisms of Metternich gradually get swept away.
It takes time, because Europe is not ready to absorb the Mideast and everything it exports. But things change.
Well, this changes things
Huge mineral deposits in Afghanistan, including the all-important Lithium, previously found almost exclusively in Bolivia.
WASHINGTON — The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself, according to senior American government officials.
Expect China.
Britain’s greatest children
India and the United States are finally sitting down in a meaningful way.
If I’m named ambassador to India, my refrain is, “What’s it gonna take to get Indian troops on the ground in Afghanistan?” If this pisses off Pakistan, tough terrain. They’ve been playing us for the past nine years. Niet!
If it scares China, we should be willing to make some concessions, but a stable Afghanistan is in their interests as well. China has been establishing a strong economic presence in the country–as they are everywhere else–and this is somewhat troubling but ultimately a good thing. Anything that connects Afghanistan to the world goes towards the war effort.
For those of you who think the war’s unwinnable, ask an Afghan. They don’t even think we’re trying.
Past the Great Game
Thomas P.M. Barnett on grand strategy:
The classic definition of grand strategy has to do with a country wanting to advance its own interests, bringing to bear all its national power toward that end. But that definition is too restrictive, especially for the United States. It’s not enough for us to advance our own interests. It’s about having a vision of a future world that we want to move the whole planet toward, and it’s about what we can do to serve that vision, not just in terms of government but also the entire panoply of our social and economic systems. So grand strategy means looking at the entire structure of our world and how to move it forward, as opposed to just advancing our self-interest within a chaotic environment of independent nations. Ultimately, it’s an attempt to bring greater order.
Thinking in terms of grand strategy is not a skill set we value enough. The complexity of the world is so dense today that much of what passes for expertise in Washington and European capitals is a vertical drill-down knowledge: “I know the tax code in this particular area” or “I’m an expert on the enrichment of uranium.” Individuals who think horizontally, meaning across many different areas of expertise, are actually amazingly rare. Political science is a broad enough background and a natural starting point for people who want to do grand strategy. But the skill set of the grand strategist should involve a lot more than politics. It should mean that one actually reads a lot outside of one’s preferred domain. I read everything but political science; I read technology, history, economics, sociology, religion, all kinds of fields because I’m trying to explore how the many intersections between all of these big domains are affecting politics. And history is particularly important. You can’t think long term and strategically if you don’t understand your history.
Does it sound like me, I wonder?
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