Abu Muqawama: Post
Abu Muqawama retains its autonomy and the views and beliefs expressed within the blog do not reflect those of CNAS. Abu Muqawama retains the right to delete comments that include words that incite violence; are predatory, hateful, or intended to intimidate or harass; or degrade people on the basis of gender, race, class, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, or disability. In summary, don't be a jerk.
The trials and tribulations of a general in Afghanistan
Check out CNAS adviser David Barno's piece in the Financial Times.
"In the region, clocks are set to July 2011, a date widely believed to be the start of a rapid US withdrawal, and the subsequent resumption of a new internecine Afghan war - one in which all the important actors are already manoeuvring for advantage. Gen Petraeus must find ways to both put time back on the clock through battlefield success, improved governance and more effective civil-military integration. To do this, he must convince the wary protagonists that the US is staying, and that America's interests trump any temptation to replay the precipitate American disengagement after the Soviet withdrawal in 1989."
Pakistani journalists, government people, military people, well-to-do professionals, guys who sit in blankets in road side stops smoking and drinking tea.. everyone thinks that the US will be getting out of Afghanistan no matter what. Even if they don't have any real solid reason for thinking so, the fact that they do creates its own dynamic.
I'm told something similar is true in Afghanistan
So the challange for the US, and Gen. Petraeus in particular, how to square domestic pressure to end America's longest war while not giving the impression in the region that the US is about to leave.
i was at a conference about communications in conflict recently, one of the speakers said that you can't give conflicting messages to different audiences. I can see why.
So spare a thought for Gen Petraeus. He seriously has his work cut out for him.
"you can't give conflicting
"you can't give conflicting messages to different audiences. I can see why."
It's done all the time. One message in English (usually to paint yourself as the aggrieved victim) and then another darker message in Arabic, Urdu, Pashto...etc.
The problem we're having with message in that part of the world is we tend to say what we think and mean what we say right up front, and we have difficulty understanding that's not how much of the world works. Also people keep looking at our words for the hidden meaning. That isn't there.
Petreaus is probably not going to succeed. It's a hopeless model with hopeless tools. I seriously think WH knows this, but sees an opportunity to knock him out of any 2012 scenario. Ironic, because I take Petreaus at his word that he has no interest in politics.
The consensus opinion BTW is
The consensus opinion BTW is oh yes indeed we are too leaving. I agree for once.
If we can. But when this President gets something in his head he's quite stubborn about it, and it's his decision, and he wants out. I think barring some game changing event - like a major attack on US soil - we're leaving.
How fortunate Gen. Petraeus
How fortunate Gen. Petraeus must feel to have had the benefit of CNAS adviser David Barno's contribution to the Afghan war. He'd really be in the soup without it. And now he also gets Barno's advice about putting time back on the clock, years after Barno himself had Petraeus's job. Talk about rolling double sixes.
Sorry, I'm just in a sarcastic frame of mind today. There seem to be a lot of commentators around talking about the Afghan war as if they were meteorologists, discussing a weather phenomenon they had nothing to do with creating. I'm sure all of them are men of great repute and sagacity, who deserve full credit for everything they've accomplished and a complete pass on everything they didn't get done. There goes that sarcasm again. Why would I assume that a quagmire like Afghanistan couldn't just happen, despite the very best efforts of the best people we could find, or that the advice of these same people on how to manage the quagmire they had no power to keep from developing might best be viewed with great skepticism? Again! I just can't seem to stop myself.
More on talking both
More on talking both sides...
Look, Londonstani, reflection and no small amount of learning here helped me realize something.
The COIN narrative, and the Surge myths - that protecting a population that wants to kill their neighbors, and you...this was in fact a myth we dreamed up for US and the International Left's, and the Media's consumption.
Dave was the Chief salesman. He's the poster Boy for COIN, except it didn't happen quite that way. It's selling the good war. Which in the Grand Scheme of things we can justify, since we have to fight it anyway.
If this works however there will be some dirty deals done. McChrystal may have had to go because he actually tried to make this fairy tale COIN war happen that way. I don't know.
As far as it being a quagmire - it has been since the 70's. Bush just didn't pour a lot of resources into Mission Impossible.
Fisking Barno. We have
Fisking Barno.
We have already lost….consider any one of LTG Barno’s set of four tactics—he says fail in any one and its game over.
First, he[Petraeus] must defeat the Taliban strategy—given that Petraeus is currently opening talks with the Taliban, i think this is highly unlikely. Petraeus is not exactly dealing from a position of strength.
Second, Gen Petraeus must create unity among the fragmented players on our side—hahahahahahaha! Af-Pak is wholly political kabuki anymore. dream on.
Third, he must convince President Hamid Karzai and the Afghan people to take greater ownership of the war.—lawl Karzai has already committed 200,000 troops and police…..he doesn’t HAVE any more.
Finally, Gen Petraeus must help persuade a Pakistani government and military that is now hedging its bets.—what about the double game the ISI and the Pakistani gov’t are playing? The Paks don't want a solution in afghanistan--because then Uncle Sam might focus his full attention on Pakistan.... good luck with that.
The “find the nail, drive the nail” strat is not working….we’ve been missing and hitting our thumb for nine years.
What don’t you get Abu? There is no “winning” in Afghanistan with this strat.
So lets change strat.
Promise the Afghanis we WILL leave...as soon as we can.
That is a promise we can keep. We can't build any kind of government in Afghanistan except an ISLAMIC one....so run with that. The only substrate you have to build a nation with is muslims and rule of islamic law....so bricolage the substrate. Exploit the "consent of the governed".
nah, Elf, it is a ginormous
nah, Elf, it is a ginormous cover-up.
To keep the electorate and the troops from realizing 5000 american soljahs died because Bush and his his "advisors" were too stupid to understand muslims WILL vote for MORE Islam, when they get to vote.
COIN is based on the same stupid bullshytt.
Never should have doubled
Never should have doubled down in an enterprise we were never prepared to finish. Accept it and find other ways to move on.
Unless it's about short-term domestic politics, in which case, expend away. Until the bottom finally falls out, circa 1972, and you've finally lost all ability to even try other options.
However, that assumes you
However, that assumes you actually can seriously consider other options. Unfortunately, as Mencius suggested, epistemological closure is strong with the latest bandwagon.
Visitor 921 Mencius is MADE
Visitor 921
Mencius is MADE of epistemic closure.
He wants to go back to 1910.
Some one needs to explain to him that time travel to the past is impossible, because of closed form timecurves.
Kinda like standing up a secular governemnt in MENA.
;P
Just curious---wasn't the VN
Just curious---wasn't the VN war actually longer than Afghanistan with the first US KIA being in 1959 and the formal pullout being 1975---always curious as to why people are saying the Afghan war is the longest?
Maybe someone needs to review the dates entered on the VN "Wall".
Petraeus certainly has his
Petraeus certainly has his work cut out for him.
He manipulated a very weak president into escalating a campaign that is not in the US interest. Petraeus isn't stupid and isn't unpatriotic so why would he do this to his country? Could he have started to believe the surge narrative? Could he actually have thought that he had discovered the magical formula for counter-insurgency in an occupied country? Could his ambitions have blinded him to the damage his escalation is doing to the US? If so he may be the most dangerous man in the world.
Rabi'a: Here is a partial
Rabi'a:
Here is a partial refutation to your arguments:
(1) Bringing judeo-christian secular democracy to the Middle East was propaganda for domestic consumption only. It was nothing more than a theme to drag the rubes back home along for the ride.
(2) The war was never about fighting terrorism, although there were terrorists there and it was good to kill/capture some of them from time to time. GWOT was again nothing more than domestic propaganda to scare the rubes into not going to bed with the lights out because OBL might be hiding under the bed.
Both of these were merely "excuses" for placing our military in the Middle East and Central Asia for the indefinite future. By indefinite I mean 20 or 50 or 100 years. These units will be on a war footing actively engaged in intermittant low intensity fighting. They will have the ability to strike in any direction on very short notice.
These units are there because this part of the world is a very dangerous place:
(1) All of the nations there have succession issues. Even Israel with an institutionalized western form of succession had an assassination.
(2) All of the nations there have a non-trivial minority who are motivated by "end times" myth. Some of these people hold positions of power and influence in their countries.
(3) All of the nations there have a history of butchery going back 1000s of years.
(4) All of the nations there have a non-trivial minority who want to drag their enemies through the streets behind their chariots.
(5) Israel, Pakistan, and India all have the bomb. In the next 2 to 10 years Iran will too.
(6) And for the mendacious, there is enormous wealth and economic advantage to be won or protected.
Many americans seem to think that this part of the world is dull and boring with nothing going on. They don't realize that serious geopolitical jousting has been going on in this part of world for 1000s of years. Myths have to be created to motivate the rubes into accepting/supporting wars in this part of the world.
The USG regardless of which party is in control intends to remain indefinately and is willing to accept the casualities necessary to do so.
The USG will not help regular citizens of these nations against their apostate oligarchs except by coincidence.
OK so you all saw the really
OK so you all saw the really cool looking stealth fighter bomber drone from the UK's BAE Systems.
But did you hear about the robot truck convoys?
Or Northrop's brilliant hybrid airship drone concept, able to stay on station for 3 weeks at a time, providing beyond line of sight control.
I'm guessing a platform like that could also be useful for a high resolution surveillance system like DARPA's ARGUS-IS project. This could be a next-generation replacement for the Reaper-mounted Gorgon's Stare.
Where do they get the idea
Where do they get the idea that people in Pakistan and Afghanistan expect the Americans to leave because they set a deadline? Due to the history of Afghanistan, its probably commonly understood that foreigner will leave Afghanistan eventually due to its history with previous empires.
Visitor 1043 i SAID COIN has
Visitor 1043
i SAID COIN has failed. Can you refute that?
wow....so we really live under a military junta that manipulates the CinC?
who new?
more evidence of COIN FAIL--
"There's a lack of trust between the Nato soldiers and their Afghan counterparts, whether they be police or military. I'm incredibly proud of the British soldier, but there's an awful lot going on. I feel awfully sorry for the troops on the ground. I'm not so proud of the people who put them there.
Who are the enemy? Nine times out of 10, it's the village people who can pick up a gun, fire at you and then hide it back under the floorboards. People just want to be left alone.
The British army has been to Afghanistan four times [in history], and we have lost 4-0. I first went there in 2004, and everything I saw in may last trip last year suggested it has changed for the worse.
Everyone calls it an insurgency. It's not. It's a civil war. It's the Northern Alliance against the Pashtun south. We are taking part on one side in a 30-year civil war."
So we are staying in Iraq forever? the military is just a shadow government that does what it wants?
good to know.
;)
Rabi'a, Who are the enemy?
Rabi'a,
Who are the enemy? Nine times out of 10, it's the village people who can pick up a gun, fire at you and then hide it back under the floorboards
Ah. Hiding the weapons. Now that's interesting.
There's a whole pile of techs being developed to let us see through walls, clothes, etc.
e.g. If we can electronically strip people in airports, using THz radiation.
What if you could do it up to 20 meters away?
And what if you could analyze the spectral response, so as to identify explosives, drugs, etc?
Then there's always backscatter x-ray imaging.
Technology exists to see inside cars, trucks, containers, etc.
Ever cleverer, SAR short wavelength radar, can image the interior of buildings.
SAR could be implemented on flyby drones to image a whole town at once.
In each case, remember what is open and public, is not as advanced as what is secret and cutting-edge.
so Visitor 1043 you are
so Visitor 1043
you are saying the whole COIN edifice is just a head-fake also?
we can do a whole lot more
we can do a whole lot more than that Spock. so what?
we've had ground penetrating radar and 3D SAR for 15 years or so i think.
it all costs blood, time and treasure.
Rabi'a, Remember what I said
Rabi'a,
Remember what I said about tech being trialled and then implemented in a mature form a few decades later.
Holographic SAR was implemented first at longer wavelengths for mapping and geosurveying.
Then it gets accurate enough to observe movements of vehicles.
Imagine as you start to develop SAR that works at THz band and starts to give you submillimeter resolutions, through walls, clothes, everything.
As the frequency goes up and the wavelength goes down, you see more and more fine detail.
Also the spectral responses allow remote identification of the composition of the material.
We are only recently starting to develop electronics that can work at such high frequencies.
Spock please, i know the SAR
Spock please, i know the SAR equations by heart.
Crushing resistance under our boot heels isn't the mission.
Rabi'a, Crushing resistance
Rabi'a,
Crushing resistance under our boot heels isn't the mission.
One of these days, I'll be able to count your pubic hair, from a 100 meters.
I will know if you have any piercings.
This does not violate any laws of physics, therefore it will happen.
If you want to ignore the reality of power what can I do or say?
Rabi'a: I'm visitor at 10:43
Rabi'a:
I'm visitor at 10:43 P.M.
Rabi'a at 3:10 A.M.: "you are saying the whole COIN edifice is just a head-fake also?"
Yes. Whether COIN works or not sheds no light on why we went to war in the first place or why we are still fighting. However, it is useful for the political leadership of both parties to ease along a sullen American public into continuing to support the wars. It permits the leadership to claim that there is "light at the end of the tunnel" if we just give them a little more time. Looking back you should notice this pattern of "easing" that has gone on since the shock of 9/11 wore off. The increment is usually 18 to 24 months.
McCrystal's resignation and Patraeus's appointment is just another example. There will be bi-partisan support for giving Patraeus, the father of COIN, enough time to finish the job. In my opinion this means until January 2013. If a republican is elected president, Patraeus will get even more time. If Obama is re-elected, maybe he will. But if not, another "justification" for easing us further along will be invented.
Immediately after 9/11 the easing was simple: it was based on pride, patriotism, revenge, and fear. There were express justifications given for both Iraq and Afghanistan that easily fit within these themes, such as WMD, Saddam assisted AQ, Saddam bought yellow cake from Nigeria, AQ had its headquarters/capitol in Afghanistan, ect. This list is not intended to be all-inclusive. But with the passage of time every express reason has been found to be lacking: either wrong, insignificant, irrelevant, or inconclusive.
The resolution authorizing the use of force was passed with overwhelming bi-partisan support. The only senior Senate democrat who opposed it was Robert Byrd, who was patronized as a drooling old man with one foot in the grave. Only some back bench democrats in the House opposed it. Both flavors of the MSM print and electonic media supported it and still continue to support it. During this entire process, there has been no person or organization of national stature consistently demanding an answer to why we went to war in the first place and why are we still fighting. All we have gotten are arguments over collateral issues, such as who outed Valerie Plame and similar nonsense. Whether COIN works or not is just more of the same, unless and until good answers are given to why we went to war in the first place and why we are still fighting.
Rabi'a at 10:14 P.M.: "So we are staying in Iraq forever?" Yes, at least until "real" answers are given to why we went to war in the first place and why we are still fighting or until the American public infers from the absence of such answers that there never were any good answers in the first place.
Rabi'a at 10:14 P.M.: "so we really live under a military junta that manipulates the CinC?" No. As more fully set forth above, this is all the doing of the leadership of both parties and their MSM allies.
Regular people are the ones being manipulated.
hmm....that is very
hmm....that is very edifying, Visitor 633.
but that does not negate my argument that Bush and his advisors were so blinded by western culture chauvinism that they actually thought muslims would secularize. it seems so obvious that when muslims can vote, they will vote for MORE Islam. the clergy is the law, the law is the clergy, and there is insufficient secular substrate to build on. So a lot of young soldiers did die for nothing. you are pretty cas about that.
Also, both Iraq and Afghanistan are actually civil wars, another case of insufficient or ignored a priori data.
wallah, I do think the Bush Doctrine WAS the real reason. it was just hideously flawed in both theory and practice.
so now you have to say, "we meant to do that." i call bs.
And COIN is a patch for the epic fail of the Bush Doctrine....they are non-separable.
well, im disappointed.
i thought COIN was actually an attempt to leverage human biology and branch out into third culture mil-strategy.
tant pis pour moi.
so...this is all manipulation of the proles so the mil and the party leaders can do what they think is best for america?
guess we don't really live in a representative republic after all. we are just electing babysitters because we are too stupid to get whats at stake.
tyvm for the wisdom.
Rabi'a. Bush and his
Rabi'a.
Bush and his advisors were so blinded by western culture chauvinism that they actually thought muslims would secularize
I would use the word "hoped" rather than "thought".
And if I may say so, the hope actually originated from leftist critiques.
It was the left that kept saying, how terrible America was that they kept supporting dictators.
How much better things would turn out, if only USA allowed genuine democracy to flourish.
Well, finally, compassionate conservative Bush gave you genuine democracy - and it was catastrophic.
It seems possible to me that an enlightened dictator, might have done a far better job, although there is no guarantee.
Arguably the allies should have gone in, tried and executed Saddam and his sons, (so far so good?), then declare victory and leave. Hold a token election if you like, but leave. Let the Iraqis solve their own problems.
That gets rid of Saddam and whatever military threat he represented to world oil supplies.
Rabi'a at 11:47 P.M.:
Rabi'a at 11:47 P.M.: "so...this is all manipulation of the proles so the mil and the party leaders can do what they think is best for america?"
Yes.
Rabi'a at 11:47 P.M.: "after all. we are just electing babysitters because we are too stupid to get whats at stake."
We're not too stupid to get it, provided our political leadership and their media allies do not try to intentionally mislead us.
Visitor 714 But the base
Visitor 714
But the base problem here.....is that we elected a disastrous president. He was easily manipulated because he believed in nutty supernatural bs like gog/magog (documented) and that democracy promotion would result in american friendly secular governments. He lacked intellectual curiousity and flexibility.
There was no check on his actions from his advisors.
So we are not too stupid to get it, we just elected a stupid president.
And Keid, democracy just means self-representation. islamic democracy is still democracy.
that is the same mistake Bush made.
Rabi'a, islamic democracy is
Rabi'a,
islamic democracy is still democracy.
So? Who ever said otherwise?
I am not a unconditional admirer of democracy.
I would always prefer a progressive dictatorship to a reactionary democracy.
Democracy has very little automatic virtue.
It is really a mirror of a society.
If a people have liberal values, then democracy leads to liberty.
If they are religious conservatives, then they vote in theocratic government.
If they are dependent and fearful, they vote in authoritarian nanny states.
Well Petraeus got Karzai to
Well Petraeus got Karzai to agree to his local defence force scheme. Great. Another bad security guard force with uniforms and guns but with a difference. This time Karzai gets the pay roll to dole out. No mention of vetting, training or oversight. No room for problems there.
Visitor 802 if Petraeus was
Visitor 802
if Petraeus was clever....he would use the local mosques to do force amplification...recruitment, organization, meetings, equipping etc.
not much hope of that!
;)
Here's a tech version of
Here's a tech version of force amplification:
Lockheed-Martin's HULC Exoskeleton augments the power and endurance of soldiers.
Rabi'a: Over the last two
Rabi'a:
Over the last two weeks you have repeatedly posited your strategy/tactics for winning the wars. However, you have done so in a manner that would suggest that you are opposed to both wars.
So do you support or oppose the wars?
Why?
I oppose the wars, both in
I oppose the wars, both in incept and execution.
but since we obviously had to a revenge and deterrent gig on Afghanistan we should have gone full frontal.
In Afghanistan we should have simply declared war, gone in, grabbed OBL if we could and then executed a post WWII japan style reconstruction. As you might recall, we bricolaged j-culture from the ground up with great success.
Instead we got this neo-colonial democracy promotion bs that could never work.
The ONLY reason we went into Iraq was that bs Bush Doctrine/democracy promotion crap.
Sure the assets turned up faint WMD trace, but that was because Uncle Saddam was spoofing the Iranians, as a result of the ugly proxy war there we propped him for.
The Bush Doctrine could never work because it was oppositionary to the islamic culture substrate of the region.
The lesson of Anbar is that COIN can work in a benevolent environment. Leveraging the tribal leadership coopted Islam in a sense because everyone in the net was a sunni muslim.
So i think COIN could work by leveraging Islam.
Is every mosque in every town and village a hive of taliban fundies?
Don't thinks so if theres only 30,000 of them.
still, i dont think that can happen....demonizing Islam is a huge part of PR for both wars.
yeah, yeah, yeah, a cool
yeah, yeah, yeah, a cool toy, Spock.
i <3 the Reaper myself.
But cool toys won't accomplish the mission in Afghanistan.
w/e that mission actually is.....i suspect our current mission is morphing into GTFO.
here we go.... Petraeus
here we go....
Petraeus performed a similar, if not identical, magic trick when he and 30,000 additional U.S. troops surged into Iraq in 2007. Many credited that surge with turning Iraq around. But many U.S. military officers say a more important factor was the willingness of the so-called Awakening movement — Sunnis in western Iraq, many of them former insurgents — to fight al-Qaeda. Ultimately, about 100,000 Iraqis ended up on the U.S. payroll through the Awakening movement. But in Afghanistan, any "awakening" is to begin — and remain — under the control of the government.
link
let us all remember why Petraeus said the Anbar model would not work, back in 2008.
the Taliban, unlike al-Q in Iraq, are local.
we aren't.
use the mosques.
Rabi'a at 11:16 A.M. and
Rabi'a at 11:16 A.M. and 12:32 P.M.
Thank you for your answers. However, you did not explain why you opposed the wars at the "incep". Both of your answers continued your focus on the tactic of leveraging religious law, the Islamic judicial system, the mosques, ect. I agree with your suggestion. Working within and supporting existing traditions and instiutions makes far more sense that trying to create a completely new (and alien) system.
However, this tactic can fairly be described as a variety of "nation-building", which implies some sort of US presence on the ground in both countries for an undetermined amount of time. It also implies that you may see some justification for the wars.
Do you believe any US national interest justifies the "incept" and continued prosecution of either war?
Rabi'a, "we should have
Rabi'a,
"we should have simply declared war, gone in, grabbed OBL if we could"
The whole reason why the enemy chose Afghanistan as a base of operations, was its extreme inaccessibility.
That is why in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attack, all the US could muster was to give massive air support to the pre-existing enemies of the Taliban, the Northern Alliance.
So it was the Northern Alliance that began the overthrow of the Taliban government. It wasn't until late November before US forces started to arrive in significant numbers, beginning with a force of 1000 Marines at Camp Rhino south of Kandahar.
The kind of tidy attack on bin Laden you envision, would only have been possible after the age of Drones.
Imagine a future war.
The US could maintain a permanent reserve of hundreds of thousands if not millions of drones, ready to attack massively anywhere within say, 48 hours.
A potential threat like bin Laden could have been subjected to intense surveillance by drone tech, in the years prior to 9/11 by the CIA, so that his activities, location and movements would already have been well-known to the security services.
Bin Laden could have been hunted down and destroyed, immediately after the 9/11 attack, without even asking the Afghan government. Heavy bombers could have delivered thousands of drones to Afghanistan within days. Just a few Gorgon Stare/ Argus AS platforms (see my comment above @ July 13, 2010 - 3:50 pm), delivered within hours from Diego Garcia, could have watched vast swathes of territory around the clock, so bin Laden would not have been able to move or escape unobserved.
Sorry, that Visitor at
Sorry, that Visitor at 2:43pm was me.
There is no plausible
There is no plausible justification for the incept of either war, since the neo-colonial Bush Doctrine was programmed to fail in Iraq and the obvious declaration of war on afghanistan was passed over.
However I agree with Dr. Kilcullen that we have moral obligation in both countries to behave justly toward the population. Therefore leveraging the islamic substrate in Afghanistan is the cheapest, fastest, and most efficient way to implement COIN. In Iraq I get the impression they would just like an end of meddling and for us to be on our negotiated, established-treaty way and let them handle it. i could be wrong, but that is the impression I get.
But this is another thing that bothers me....What do you believe would be justice for the american electorate and for our soldliers? How much should they be told?
Rove's issued a non-apology....will Bush's book be more of the same?
How do we ensure we never adopt such a stupid, flawed, failsauce CinC spawned doctrine ever again?
I mean....the advisors that were smarter than Bush just used his naive evangelical optimism to prosecute the Iraq war for their own goals....consolidation of republican power, big oil, big business, the growth of the police state.
Obama closed the door on torture prosecutions.....do we close the door on the truth about the Bush Doctrine too?
and yes, since declaring war
and yes, since declaring war on afghanistan was passed over we should have stayed out and just bountied OBL.
we should never have invaded Iraq.
" It also implies that you
" It also implies that you may see some justification for the wars."
The JOB of the CinC is to keep americans safe. Americans are no safer, and very probably much less safe.
So Americans PAID in blood and treasure for a war that made them less safe in the world.
Sure, Americans also paid for the restoration of islamic law in Iraq.
I wonder if they would think that a great bargain, especially the families of the 5000 american dead soljahs....
OTOH the Iraqis paid in blood too. 100000 + civilian lives. In 2006 at the height of sectarian violence, Iraq had a 911 every week on a population of 25 million.
I don't think they got much of a bargain either.
There is no plausible
There is no plausible justification for the incept of either war, since the neo-colonial Bush Doctrine
was programmed to fail in Iraq and the obvious declaration of war on afghanistan was passed over.
I won't argue about the legal requirements of the US Constitution.
Congress authorized and funded both wars even if they declined to formally declare war.
No formal declaration of war is required under international law.
In the case of Afghanistan, the USA was attacked and presumably was in a state of war from that point onwards.
International law only says that the UN Security Council must be notified.
Bush gave the Omar government a clear ultimatum to hand over bin Laden or face war. They declined.
Bush invoked article 51 of the UN Charter as he was entitled to do.
The Afghan war was legal under international law, IMHO.
The war was also authorized at NATO level, which is why the NATO allies are still there.
The legalities of the Iraq war were fudged.
The only way that you can get the Iraqi losses to 100,000 is if you include the losses from the Sunni-Shia civil war.
The civil war was triggered by the post-invasion democratic elections,
where the Shia victory, was unacceptable to the previously ruling Sunni.
It broke out after the bombing of the al-Askari Mosque in Samarra.
So it's a stretch to say the USA "caused" it.
OTOH, in terms of divide and rule, it was a good tactical move for the USA to let the two sides exhaust each other in a civil war.
So I would not be surprised to hear that the USA didn't try too hard to stop it.
Its causes surely lie in the internal conflicts between the two major sects of Islam?
Visitor again was me. S**t
Visitor again was me. S**t
So it's a stretch to say the
So it's a stretch to say the USA "caused" it.
GODAMMIT this is A LIE.
all those people would still be alive if we had had a non-stupid president.
we caused it, we own it, and we will own it forever.
all those people would still
all those people would still be alive if we had had a non-stupid president.
we caused it, we own it, and we will own it forever.
Nothing that the USA did compelled the Sunni and Shia to fight.
They could have agreed to accept the decision of the election.
They could have agreed to settle in court.
They could have negotiated a settlement peacefully.
They could have agreed to allow the disagreement to be settled by a coin flip.
There were many paths open to them.
No, Spock. we tore up the
No, Spock.
we tore up the fabric of their society and the Reavers came through the tears.
we had NO FUCKING BUSINESS THERE.
Remember, I was never a
Remember, I was never a strong supporter of the war.
I've been deeply skeptical about the whole neocon project.
But my goodness, how many wars did Saddam start?
How many countries did he invade or threaten?
- His endless freakin' wars - His militarism.
And all the time they were so fragile?
Who knew?
we had NO FUCKING BUSINESS
we had NO FUCKING BUSINESS THERE.
Yea sure,
other than the fact that Uncle Saddam kept invading oil-exporting neighbors, using his oil wealth to fund his militaristic expansionary dreams, and starting wars that killed millions, and the WHOLE PLANET RUNS ON OIL.
Other than that, we had no business there.
yeah right. Like there
yeah right.
Like there wern't worse dictators out there.
I'm beginning to suspect you have a conservative mindset, Spock.
Have you ever heard of backfire effect?
Like there wern't worse
Like there wern't worse dictators out there
It was Saddam alone who was invading his neighbors.
Look if any of his adventures had succeeded, and the oil production of, say Kuwait, had been added to the oil production of Iraq, then Iraq would have been well on the way to becoming the largest oil producer.
With a very large percentage of his oil wealth diverted into his military...
Never mind the separate question of WMDs. Just look at the conventional military threat.
At some point he is going to be an existential threat to Saudi too. As well as Iran again.
Could the West have sat still, while virtually the entire fungible oil supply of the world, fell into the hands of a single hostile nation, led by a single hostile dictator?
Each time he conquers another oil-state, his oil power grows.
I have to to say that, it has been a central theme of US Gulf policy, since the Second World War - and the British even before that - to prevent the Gulf oil supplies from falling into the hands of any single hostile power.
This is an existential issue for the West.
So in the Cold War, the USA struggled mightily to prevent Soviet hegemony in the region,
and in the aftermath of the OPEC revolution, the USA has resisted the ambitions of first Iraq and now Iran.
The strategic problem is to prevent a single hostile power from controlling the world's oil supply.
Because such a power could turn off the tap and destroy the West.
I really don't care if you don't approve of this.
I don't care if you are too stupid to understand it.
Or if you are so consumed by your cult that you actually favor the economic destruction of the West.
But the West isn't going to allow it.
Even if it means a nuclear war, it will be stopped.
Rabi'a at 4:13 P.M., 4:18
Rabi'a at 4:13 P.M., 4:18 P.M., and 6:50 P.M.
Thank you for your answers to my question.
As to your questions of me: "What do you believe would be justice for the american electorate and for our soldliers? How much should they be told?" and "do we close the door on the truth about the Bush Doctrine too?"
I believe we, meaning us regular people, should be told the whole truth. But most importantly I believe we should be told the whole truth before we start/join a war, particularly one that either is or could quickly become a counter-insurrgency war.
If US national interests are genuinely implicated, a large majority of regular people will support a counter-insurrgency war in good faith from beginning to end. There will be no need to win our "hearts and minds" every 18 to 24 months, which is where we have found ourselves for the past 5 to 6 years. Our efforts can be completely focused on defeating the insurrgency.
And if we are told the whole truth on the front end, there will be far fewer wars.
Add your comment