In most circumstances I hesitate to offer comment on what the military is doing. I’m an expert in finance not military operations, so unlike many commentators (all of them on the left), I generally prefer to let the generals decide how to win wars. With that said however, I think there is a level abstract enough for public comment; it’s the place where strategy reaches the point where it begins to be a discussion about our goals. Strategic goals are usually political. And since they are, I figure I know about as much about it as anyone else, so at that level I’m less driven to keeping my mouth shut about it.
With all that said then, I think it’s a great measure of maturity of a person to ask them what they thought if the Iraqi war. If they talk about how Bush lied or that it was a useless war or that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9-11 (or any of the other left wing sound-bites), then I’d discard everything else they say. They may grow up eventually, but they clearly haven't yet.
If they aren’t sophisticated enough to understand that international politics is a chess game, or are so lacking in original thought that they just repeat whatever the NY Times editorial pages say, then there is no need to pay any attention to them. You wouldn't ask a third grader what they think of monetary policy, and for precisely the same reason, you shouldn't talk military operations with a leftist. Like 'teaching a pig to sing', it's a waste of your time and annoys the pig.
The truth of the matter is that the Iraq war was never about a causal relationship to 9-11, and only children believe that it was (or should have been). What it was really about was denying our enemies effective state sponsorship. We invaded Iraq because it’s where we could affect the most change in the board. It's where we could make the big game better. To over use the chess game analogy, it involved sacrificing a piece or three, but hopefully fewer in the long term than it would have if we hadn't done it.
Rather than simply responding in kind, it was a move that played to our strengths and our enemies weaknesses. And in spite of the continuing sectarian violence (which is surprising light if taken in context with the regions long term history) by any measure it should be called a stunning success. There is a clear economic interest for the US in not having the middle-east decay into utter mayhem, and that long term interest has been clearly served in the way in which we handled the war there.
But the situation is very different in Afghanistan. The only real interest for the US in that region is in ensuring that the psychotic 15th century Taliban doesn’t end up ruling neighboring Pakistan. But since no American blood need be directly risked to assure that goal, I think it’s in the best interests of the US to pull back to a respectable distance, and let the Afghans work it all out for themselves.
That isn’t to say I think we should eliminate our involvement in the area completely. But I’m convinced that we don’t need to be so intimately engaged. To quote a family member of mine whose view I share, “There isn’t anything wrong with Afghanistan that can’t be cured from 50,000 feet”. We can continue to fly monitoring missions with UAV’s and satellites. We can even keep an operating military presence in the country if it would be the best way to keep an eye on things. But the idea of turning Afghanistan into a functioning democracy, even on the level of Iraq, is in my opinion, a hopeless pipe dream.
Alexander the great couldn’t do it, and I don’t think we should try.
I think we should return to our pre-Iraq war goal of denying our enemies effective state sponsorship. And if the only way we can do that is by denying the Afghans an effective state, then so be it. We should explain to the rulers of the country which kinds of behavior we won’t tolerate (terrorist training camps) which types of behavior we frown upon (Opium production) and explain that we will be preventing the former at all times and the latter as politics allows.
We should make it clear that when they build a new hospital, orphanage, senior center or whatever that it better be clear to us from orbit, what exactly is going on there. If it looks anything like a military training facility at all, then it's a location which will be at risk. We should tell them that reserve the right to bomb any portions of the country which look suspicious to us, at our own discretion, and without consulting the Afghan government, so they had better take care in what our eyes in the sky find.
A change of goals for the military in Afghanistan wouldn’t be a defeat for our Army. We wouldn’t have to slink off in the dead of night. Like I said we wouldn’t necessarily even remove our military operation from the country. But what we would stop doing is engaging in foray’s into the countryside in an effort to ‘civilize’ the populace. There is no economic interest for the US in that country and they have no desire for our help. So it seems most natural to me that we should withdraw to a distance which is great enough to save American lives, but still close enough to affect our will if necessary.
Pacification from Altitude should be the new American watchword in the region.
My friend and sometime shooting buddy John Derbyshire has argued for some time that it’s a perfect acceptable strategy to bomb the daylights out of anyone who threatens our position and leave them standing in the rubble, to sort through it on their own. To be fair, I may be misquoting him just a tad, but I think I’ve gotten the gist of it. But either way, what that does describe is my own perspective on how we should handle Afghanistan.
I think it's possible that President Obama will leave the troops on the ground in Afghanistan because the leftist objection to it is minimal. I believe that's a mistake. I understand that sometimes a military will take losses, but those losses shouldn't be for no reason. In my view we gain nothing by further ground operation in Afghanistan. We should pull back a minimum of 50,000 feet.
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