Neo Culpa?
I don’t have much to say about George Will’s column calling for troop withdrawal in Afghanistan. I should be incensed, but I only feel despair. As bad as the situation in Iraq may have been, one can at least argue that the majority of blunders were self-inflicted. It is entirely likely that the end result would have been much more conducive to goals of democracy and stability had better strategies - like more troops, Petraeus-style counterinsurgency, and faster transition to democracy - been implemented earlier. This may not be the case for Afghanistan. All the reports point to a country with an absolute disdain for central government, a moribund economy, high illiteracy, divided loyalties, and harrowing geography. It is in itself a bigger and more fearsome challenge than Iraq ever was. And I’m not sure we can take that on.
As much as I would like to wield American power to further the ends of democracy and human rights, I’m growing increasingly skeptical of the modern democracy’s ability to do so. We seem to always lack a will for prolonged wars, regardless of the moral justification. At the same time, mass media makes every dead soldier a political casualty. Our predilection for multilateral engagements yields unstable troop strength and poorly coordinated strategies. As we’ve learned from Iraq, a coherent counterinsurgency is necessary. This is hard to put in place when you have Japanese allies watching over a province with no mandate for violence, or when your Canadian allies are dead set on withdrawing two years down the road. Moreover, while the debate has been more democratized, the details and nuance and analysis has been diffusely watered down. It is good for democracy that the common man has some unprecedented superficial input on our foreign policy, but his lack of understanding (or will to understand) increases the chances that the masses come to the wrong conclusions, ultimately hurting the foreign policy objectives.
Call it a Straussian revelation.
Seems to me that we are getting our come-uppance for allowing neocons to drag us by the nose into propagating “democracy” at the point of a gun.
Not everybody wants democracy. Not all cultures can handle democracy, or even tolerate it. And I’m not convinced that democracy can last without devolving into tyranny. It is hubris to assume otherwise.
Elusive — Let’s get serious. We will NEVER create democracy in the ME. We can however, make examples of people and deter attacks. Given Pakistan’s 100+ nukes (and growing) I’d say that was a good objective.
If we leave Afghanistan, it’s turned into a Taliban/AQ base, we lose any and all intimidation on key decision makers, which are Pakistan’s tribal leaders and factional leaders. We left Afghanistan before, how’d that work out?
Recall that bin Laden successfully argued that there would be no significant come-back from flying planes into skyscrapers to the Taliban. Given Pakistan’s nukes, it is critical to maintain deterrence, particularly on the non-Government but key decision makers who approve or disapprove of “lending” AQ nukes.
We have a forty year problem of not responding to terrorist attacks, Russia had that as well until Putin addressed it post-Beslan. China has its Muslim minorities (Uigher and Hui) under oppressive conditions, yet AQ jihadism against them is almost non-existent. Because if bin Laden had attacked Shanghai skyscrapers, China would have nuked Afghanistan and Pakistan out of existence.
Deterrence is NOT based on words, rather actions. IF we withdraw we GUARANTEE attack because if we can be forced out of Afghanistan by a few thousand deaths, what concessions will we give to a few million?
Democracy and nation building was always a fantasy. What IS achievable is solid deterrence and alliance building. The weakness of tribal societies is that there is always an enemy tribe that hates them and knows them well. The Navajo knew they would be sent to the Reservations after the Apache, but helped Gen. Cook anyway. Because they hated the Apache.