Originally posted by: dphantom
Originally posted by: Lemon law
Perhaps the most telling palehorse contention is the following----------Fucking stop. STOP acting so damn confident in yourself and your entirely inaccurate analysis of the situation in Afghanistan; and, most importantly, STOP putting words in my fucking mouth.
bah...
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Excuse me palehorse, I am just using logic to DEBUNK what you are saying. But I sure was not the one who told you to threaten The Green Bean and all of Pakistan while you were at it by saying you and the US army would soon invade Pakistan. That is something you said, no one put words into your mouth, and while I can't speak for Pakistan, I have to guess the majority of the Pakistani are in basic agreement with The Green Bean.
Thank God you are not making decisions for the US military, but I strongly suspect you are violating all sorts of military protocol by making wreck less and inflammatory statements like that.
You really need an education LL. To start, this link
GWOT analysis is one of the best sites around for a non-partisan, intelligent discourse onAfghanistan, Iraq and other topics.
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You evidently did not even bother to read the very link you tout.
I cut and paste an article from that link that is saying much of what I am saying and similarly debunking what palehorse is saying.
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Hamid Hussain's comments
I have had interaction with large number of Pakistani officers of all ranks from Lieutenant to Lieutenant General and frankly this officer is one of few with such insight into the region?s military history. He does not mince his words and has a unique perspective with which many may disagree. My comments are in italics and blue. These are exchanges between two eccentrics who have interest in military history and based on hypothetical scenarios. He can be counted as an expert but I?m surely a spectator. Most official and non-official reports and briefings tend to be polite and do not touch ?inflammable? topics pertaining to the conflict but for a meaningful and informed discussion, no aspect should be a taboo. My comments are based on my recent three week trip to the region and interaction with people of different backgrounds with main focus on Pushtuns.
Readers should be mindful that this is a very limited perspective and based on armchair spectators like me who have the luxury to pass judgments sitting in the comfort of their homes. Not even hot air of the conflicts touched them or their loved ones. Those who live through the horrors of violence will surely have a very different take on these issues. )
Hamid
Need for a New Long Term US Strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan
(It should be clear at outset that several competing interests are involved in terms of U.S. policy in Afghanistan. A number of government agencies with different approach and perspective are engaged in various activities in Afghanistan and this makes the coordination task a nightmare. Expanding role of NATO has further complicated the task. Now there are severe limitations on U.S. maneuvers due to heavy commitment in Iraq. Former Secretary of State had duly warned before the Iraq war that? this thing will suck oxygen from everything else? and he was right. On part of Afghans, it will be naïve to expect that U.S. & NATO will continue the heavy lifting indefinitely while they will have the luxury where some Afghans making money from the foreign funding and reconstruction while another group of Afghans making money by blowing up this infrastructure. The solution will be dictated by Afghans and at the end of the day they have to decide among themselves whether they will slaughter each other or decide to live with each other. As far as the foreign factor is concerned, Afghans will need to make their mind about choosing sides. They have to pick one side whether to ally with U.S. or with Taliban. They can not be just spectators and expect that their country will simply drift forward and foreigners will have unlimited money and patience. Having said that, it is an undeniable fact that Afghanistan is much better in the last seven years. Good news is usually not news but common Afghan has benefited from the changed situation. Off course, more is needed but looking at all standards realistically Afghanistan is better. Even if one looks at violence and compares it with Pakistan things are not that bad. Again, more effort is needed to avoid loss of innocent lives. Those who oppose U.S. presence in Afghanistan have this simplistic notion that if tomorrow U.S. leaves Afghanistan, everything will be fine. Strategically, for U.S. the main question is whether heavy military presence will serve their security interests or more covert and less visible presence will be more cost effective. U.S. policy in Afghanistan for the next decade will revolve around this question and benefits and risks equation will depend on which path is taken.)
The USA occupied Afghanistan in November 2001 and its almost more than 6 years since then and yet the United States has failed to win the hearts and minds of a substantial part of Afghan populace. The reason lies in abject failure of USA's economic policy .This in turn has led to a counterproductive situation.
There is nothing inevitable in history but those who cannot identify the critical time span in any crisis and who fail to seize it by the horns are bound to fail. Such unfortunately has been the case with US strategy in Afghanistan. The US president failed to find the right strategic talent for Afghanistan and thus thrust mediocre US policy makers on Afghanistan who know, nor recognize anything higher than their shallow mediocrity!
The main thrust of USA's policy was to construct roads and schools and clinics. These were important but no substantial class of stakeholders which had a vested interest in success of US policy inside Afghanistan was created. No major employment opportunities were created. No major effort was made to encourage private enterprise. No major attempt was made to privatize Afghanistan's main economic potential i.e. its massive custom revenues most of which do not land in government coffers and are skimmed away by corrupt custom officials as bribes and by smugglers as profits once Afghan imports are re-exported i.e. smuggled to Pakistan.
US approach in short was bureaucratic, conservative and in final summing up timid!
(When confronted by a problem, we usually throw in more bodies and money and hope that the problem will go away. In fact this creates another bureaucratic layer further slowing down the process. British approach was for long haul. General Abraham Roberts spent 50 years in India while his son Fredrick Roberts 44 years which means that between father and son, ninety four years. We are sending young kids on three to six months stints. Almost none of them speak either Dari or Pushtu. Result is that we are being fleeced by every one. On top of it corrupt U.S. officials are treating these funds in a manner which reminds me of old west ways. It looks like a wagon loaded with cash has broken down on the main road and every body is taking money as he pleases with no sheriff in sight. First we went to bed with warlords to find out later that it was not good. Then we shook hand with drug lords to find four years later that we were successful in making Afghanistan a leading exporter of opium and bringing it on top of chart. Now we are trying to arm tribesmen. And then surprise, we found that it was the same guy who was wearing different hats depending on the situation. I don?t see any coherent game plan. We are just adjusting to changing tactical ground realities. Unfortunately, we do not have desserts on the menu. Our choices are limited to which brand of castor oil we want to take. To be fair, the work itself is a messy one with no perfect solution.)
Bearing Point a large US firm got the major contract for economic reform. It hired Americans and expatriates who would not have got any decent job in USA or even a medium level country. In addition they hired some Afghan Americans who came to Afghanistan for a short term period, to make a quick buck and go back to their relatively far more comfortable permanent places on the California coast.
(There is no perfect solution to any given problem. A certain amount of wastage/corruption is expected, however most important thing to focus on is to make sure that this wastage does not derail the whole project where everyone walks away with whatever he can get hold of leaving only ruin behind. A number of Afghan-Americans who were owners of pizza places and some used car salesmen ended up running mega projects in Afghanistan. No wonder we are now scratching our heads what went wrong. Almost all Americans who deal with them are polite as they have to work with them and don?t want to offend them. In reality, they are disgusted by the petty fights about personal gains among a whole lot of Afghans. None other than President Bush remarked that ?you can not buy an Afghan but you can surely rent a one? and make no mistake we are renting a whole lot by dozens. It took central state hundred years to create a sense of nationhood among Afghans. Thirty years of civil war shattered the very foundation and it will be hard work to rebuild it again. Realism and not romanticism will save Afghanistan. Afghans will need a lot of soul searching.)
The magnum bonus achievement of US advisors was creation of AISA a government agency funded and administered by USA and some European donors to regulate licensing and setting up of industrial parks. Again since little private enterprise was involved with Bearing Point is in the background and making a good buck hiring Afghans with US or Canadian passports at relatively low salaries and some local Afghans. The main industrial project of AISA industrial parks in Jalalabad, Kabul, Kandahar, Herat and Mazar took six years to be awarded and will take another one year to complete. Having said that it is good if AISA has licensing/registration alone and Industrial Parks are handled by a highly professional international company with full support of the US Government and with zero percent interference from the Afghan Government.
A better approach could have been to award the contract to a private firm on turnkey basis with a profit incentive instead of hiring Afghans on fixed salary in AISA.This combined with a 30 or 50 year incentive to industries to export quota free to USA , combined with a buy back guarantee with USA with the condition that all quality standards were met would have let to creation of industrial parks in Afghanistan by mid 2004 and by mid 2005 or late 2005 many hundreds of industrial units would have been functioning in Afghanistan. Thus at least permanent long term employment could have been created for 200,000 to 500,000 Afghans. Instead the main thrust of US economic policy was on roads ,schools and clinics which benefited a coupe of construction companies of foreign companies and created a low income short term employment for an Afghan labour which could not have exceeded 300,000 at any time. Schools and clinics awarded to LBGI were in turn sub contracted by LBGI to Afghan contractors , many being US and European passport holders at about 25 % to 30 % of the total cost. These contractors in turn sub contracted these to local Afghan petty contractors at low rates.Thus hardly 10 % of the total amount earmarked for these schools and clinics were actually spent resulting in leaking and collapsing roofs and highly sub standard construction. This faux pas was well covered by the Washington Post in late 2005.
It has been estimated that the contraband non drug mafia in Afghanistan is larger than the drug mafia of Afghanistan. In turn both the mafias have overlapping key figures involved in both the trades. It has been estimated that some 80 % of Afghanistan's imports are smuggled back to neighboring Pakistan where custom duties are very high. The United States made a somewhat lukewarm effort to re-structure the low paid and highly corrupt and inefficient Afghan customs .Another approach could have been to award the custom collection and enforcement task to an international private firm like Cotecna or SGS. This way Afghan custom revenues could have been multiplied by 400 % to 600 % and Afghan Government could have been made financially far stronger, while also reducing its overwhelming dependence on foreign aid. It is significant to note that many key Afghan governors on the bordering provinces as well as some ministers are known to have a close link with the non drug contraband mafia.
(Those who have even only rudimentary knowledge of the country well know that they and their forefathers have been involved in this business. It is important to note that it is not considered illegal, unethical or immoral. They consider it as a legitimate business and fight every effort by nation states to regulate this activity.))
During the past six years many Afghans and many Pashtuns saw daisy cutters, Chinooks and armored cars but no one saw the benefits of USA's advent in Afghanistan. Both the countries got a lot of hot lead and shrapnel but no Marshall Plan other than a Marshal being created in Afghanistan!
(Each theatre is different and no two Marshal plans can be same. Most important factor is the social and psychological make up of the population. In the aftermath of Second World War, two nations; Japan and Germany took a different path. At individual level, even loss of a single innocent human life is a tragedy and every effort should be made to preserve human life. However, in the life of nations internal and external factors can catapult them into the midst of a horrible storm. Japanese and Germans are first rate fighters and they plunged the world into a horrible carnage. Both nations came out of the conflict devastated and defeated. However, both nations made a difficult choice at a critical juncture of their history. They used the resources of their conquerors judiciously and in fifty years came out as front runners among the league of nations. Even Vietnamese after a brutal war came out with their nation intact. In contrast, look at Palestinians and Afghans. Palestinians unable to solve their own problem tried to hop on a different train. They dragged every neighboring Arab country into direct conflict and thus were able to directly contribute to crushing defeats to Egypt, Syria and Jordan. They produced gentlemen such as late Abdullah Azam who had nothing for his own people but was very successful in brutalizing societies such as Egypt, Afghanistan and Pakistan with his extremist ideologies. Afghans ended up burning up their own house for good in the struggle to get rid of the Russians. Pakistan is now an assembly plant of suicide bombers.)
In Afghanistan this was a case of lack of vision on part of US Government. In Pakistan which got more than 10 Billion USD in aid, the corrupt non Pashtun dominated government spent a very nominal part of this aid on the Pashtun areas despite the fact that this aid was meant to basically pacify the Pashtun areas of Pakistan which are definitely the centre of gravity of Al Qaeda/Taliban.No special export zone with the right to quota free guaranteed export reinforced by buy back guarantees was created in the NWFP and Balochistan provinces of Pakistan. These zones could have gone a long way in creating employment and prosperity in the Pashtun areas and vastly reduce the sense of alienation in the Pashtuns.The reasons for this were more ethnic than anything and the USA made no effort to arm twist the tin pot Musharraf regime into spending this money on the Pashtun areas of Pakistan. The only investment that Pakistan's non Pashtun dominated government made on the Pashtun areas was in form of Cobra helicopter munitions, 7.62 mm bullets, 155 mm artillery etc in pounding the Pashtun areas indiscriminately, targeting mostly non combatant?s women and children.
(There is a common perception which has never been seriously debated which takes the view that if Washington simply pumps more money into the region then the problem will go away. As a spectator of Afghan civil war, I came to the conclusion and I may be totally wrong that when there are more spoils the game becomes more brutal and uglier. Every Afghan faction and sub-faction took money from everyone and his cousin and turned their homeland into rubble. Without understanding the sociology of the population in the conflict zone, one may deduce wrong conclusions. One example may give some insight. In early 1990s, towns started to fall to Afghan rebels fighting against Soviet backed government. Afghan rebels conquered a town in Khost and all spoils were declared booty and distributed among various factions. They had gathered in a school and there was quandary about how to distribute the furniture of the school among the men. They decided to chop all the furniture and distribute the wood to be used for fire. It looks like time has frozen in some areas. They routinely executed school teachers labeling them as communists. A new generation of leaders with a different mindset emerged when every sensible Afghan was either killed or forced to leave the country. The jungle was left for the wolves only. You are more familiar with luxurious dwellings of these new leaders in one of the most expensive real estate enclaves in Kabul. In my humble view the situation is tribal territories along Pakistan-Afghan border is more complex with a number of players with different agendas. I fear that rather than learning the lesson from Afghanistan, the region is following the Afghan example.)
In addition no major effort was made to create a stock exchange or float investment bonds giving good interest which could have created a substantial class in Afghanistan whose success and prosperity was linked to US policies in Afghanistan. It was just a matter of a little imagination and printing bonds with the backing and sovereign guarantee of US government for payment of interest in USD for a period of 10 to 20 years. Unfortunately there was no brilliant man like Nixon in the US leadership who could think of a coup like delinking of gold standard in the early 70s.A condition could have been imposed that in order to buy these Afghanistan Fund Bons all companies had to register in Afghanistan thus bringing money to Afghanistan as well as a long term class of stake holders in Afghanistan.
(This is a good idea which could have benefited the country in the long run.)
I developed friendship with a US official in Kabul in 2005.We discussed many aspects of US policy in Afghanistan.In the end the US officer pessimistically concluded that his superiors were a bunch of w_t p______s .Similar ideas were expressed by many US military officers I met in Afghanistan in the course of military contracting in course of 4 years.
(You just got the small sample of the feeling of frustration. Patience has never been an American virtue. I don?t think that we will pack from Afghanistan tomorrow or after small setbacks. We will be engaged but the methodology may change depending on the public support and economic situation of U.S. I see future with more covert operations rather than heavy military presence. We may decide about this inevitable outcome in a wise way before more damage is done or we will learn the usual way after burning a number of fingers and toes: both ours and of others. The battle will be fought by Afghans themselves with or without our help. I don?t know whether it will be good or bad but I think that if violence crosses a certain threshold in Afghanistan and Pakistan, then there is a possibility of division of Afghanistan along Hindu Kush line. I don?t think non-Pushtuns are in a mood for Pushtun hegemony anymore. This probably will not be in the form of separation or emergence of new countries but it will be de facto just we are seeing in Iraq. Each community entrenched in its own ethnic enclave with protracted fight along contested areas. If that event comes first then in addition to increasing intra-Pushtun violence there will be increase pressure on the state of Pakistan. If the current cycle of violence emanating from tribal areas continue to kill and maim people in big non-Pushtun cities such as Rawalpindi, Lahore, Karachi then it will be naïve not to expect a backlash against Pushtuns in general. This will estrange different ethnic communities. Only a concerted effort by concerned citizens can prevent the schism. The problem is that even informed people do not analyze these trends rationally. They are easily carried away by emotions and dwell on conspiracy theories preventing a concerted effort to prevent fragmentation. They keep looking for the hidden hands and not paying attention to their actions and evident social, economic and political factors which push events in a particular direction.)
It may be added that the same policy should have been followed in Pakistan , particularly its tribal areas creating industrial zones guaranteeing 10 to 20 years quota free exports to USA with buy back guarantee instead of doling out many billion US Dollars to Pakistanis highly corrupt military junta. This way employment would have been created and potential recruits of Al Qaeda and Taliban given decent risk free long term jobs in the industrial units established as part of this policy.
(It may work but then who could guarantee that the same Wazir or Mahsud who would make $500 per month from working in an industry in tribal areas will also not sell his tomatoes at $50 per kilogram to al-Qaeda up in the mountains to make some extra change. Money is only one factor and other aspects need to be tackled along with economic activity. I think it is naïve to expect that the young chap who has life and death authority when he is member of one of the extremist outfits will go back and run a tea stall on the roadside suffering daily humiliation. These are social factors which need to be studied. I fear more kids will follow this model and it will be of different shapes in different parts of the country. In Karachi Muhajir youth have joined the fascist strain of MQM and living comfortably on the extortion from the urban areas. Rural Sindhis are following the same path. Their preference is kidnapping for ransom. They are now quietly moving to urban areas after learning lessons from MQM. In Darra Adam Khel, flashy SUVs come and distribute monthly stipend to the Taliban foot soldiers openly. This kid getting a regular salary, brandishing a brand new AK-47, instilling some fear through his coercive capability and also gaining some respect being the enforcer of some good is now on a different plane. He has crashed into the party and it will not be an easy task to reverse this trend. The phenomenon needs serious research.)
No major effort was made to regulate the visa regime. A Work Permit was issued by the Ministry of Labour for visa extension but this permit was not honored by the Ministry of Interior when AISA issued them visa extension letters for multiple visas in many cases thus restricting in country and out country movement of expatriates. The Afghan Embassies particularly those in Pakistan followed yet another highly absurd practice of granting a 15 day single entry visa to all applicants with the condition that after they had visited Afghanistan once and exited they could not apply for another Afghan visa till the three month period of the visa expired. Thus an expatriate with a valid Afghan Work Permit was told that work permit had no legal value in eyes of Afghan Embassy Staff and that they could not apply for another visa till the three months visa validity period expired.
Afghanistan and even Pakistan may be compared to a sort of West Germany and South Korea for USA.Any withdrawal from Afghanistan would straight away lead to re-occupation of the country by Taliban with an active re-entry of Russia, Iran and India on side of non Taliban forces. The Afghan Army needs at least 10 to 15 years to recover its military effectiveness. Thus all this would be a 100 percent disaster for USA.
(Same argument was forwarded in case of Vietnam. The two situations are not the same but I think strategically it will be more cost effective and may be more productive if U.S. concentrate on covert measures to tackle the extremist issue rather than embarking on the projects of huge military footprints and nation building. Plenty of local players are more than willing to rent their guns at a much lower price tag. This is strictly looking at the menace of extremists. On bigger canvas, helping these countries build their own societies will make the world a better place for our children. I would prefer my children going as exchange students or scholars to Afghanistan or Pakistan and vice versa. This is much better than sending our kids with M-16s and in return expecting their kids blowing themselves up. )
The only viable strategy for USA in Afghanistan is to settle in for next two decades. Introduce a Marshall Plan which creates employment and prosperity .Introduce public bonds with good interest that make US presence in Afghanistan a cause of progress and prosperity for many. Keep a watchful eye on the region. Build up the capacity of the Afghan National Army and Police. Any withdrawal by USA would be a cardinal strategic blunder. Something which the USA cannot afford and an event which would constitute a Clausewitzian culminating point of USA.
(Afghanistan and Pakistan will be saved only by Afghans and Pakistanis. Even if U.S. comes in with good intentions it can surely help in some aspects but it is unlikely to change the dynamic of economics, governance and conflict. Both countries are nations in terms of definitions but a long process over the last sixty years has widened the fault lines. Present geographic boundaries of Afghanistan have not changed much in the last three hundred years. Efforts in 20th century mainly coercive helped to strengthen the central state but ethnic, tribal and political Islamic forces have significantly weakened the foundation. A Herculean effort by wise Afghan leadership with a grand bargain among various groups will be needed to even to go back to the status quo of the last century. Pakistan is a new state which has struggled to cobble a nation. It embarked on using the religion as an anchor but it didn?t work. On one end, it opened Pandora boxes by declaring some citizens as non-Muslim i.e. Ahmadis and on the other end sectarian fault line widened. Bengalis were as good or as bad Muslims as any other Pakistani but they finally rejected the Pakistani identity and were able to achieve independence. The ethnic fault lines have widened in the last twenty years and I don?t see any mechanism in place either at government or at civil society level to address this crucial issue. Baluchs are completely alienated to a point where Baluchistan university is now a no go area for armed forces personnel of the country?s army. This was frankly admitted none other than the Commandant of the Staff College at Quetta. Ethnic and sectarian forces will realign and if violence stays above a certain threshold then international players will have no choice but to work with local players rather than routing everything through Islamabad. That will be a bad day for Pakistan. )
Further the USA has to reinforce the democratic forces in Pakistan and Afghanistan while making use of Pakistan's mercenary army which is still far cheaper than any Western force even if their pay is tripled by US aid. At the same time the Pakistani forces being more than 60 % non Pashtuns have to be restrained from causing collateral damage.
(I sincerely hope and pray that I?m wrong but the seeds of chaos sowed two decades ago are bearing fruit now. Off course, a different methodology is needed but majority of Pakistanis think that if they simply unilaterally withdraw from the fight against extremists everything will be fine. It will not be an easy task to put the extremism genie back in the bottle. This has now become truly native and even if U.S. walks away from the scene, this devil will devour many more souls before it is exorcised. Case of Iraq is a good example to study.)