My readers know that I have serious reservations about the US situation in Afghanistan.
By now most Americans have heard and formed an opinion on the up-coming surge of American troops for Afghanistan. My take on it is that we will send our troops to the country to help sure up the government, both national and local, to the point that they can step forward and take over the defense against outside influences.
Griff White of the WaPo has an interesting article in the issue of 08 Dec: he has written that there are two separate government s for some of the provinces in Afghanistan……
The first was appointed by President Hamid Karzai and is backed by thousands of U.S. troops. He governs this mountainous eastern Afghan province by day, cutting the ribbons on new development projects and, according to fellow officials with knowledge of his dealings, taking a generous personal cut of the province’s foreign assistance budget.
The second governor was chosen by Taliban leader Mohammad Omar and, hunted by American soldiers, sneaks in only at night. He issues edicts on “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan” stationery, plots attacks against government forces and fires any lower-ranking Taliban official tainted by even the whiff of corruption.
Shadow government officials collect taxes, forcing farmers at gunpoint to turn over 10 percent of their crops, according to accounts of officials and residents. Taliban district chiefs conscript young men into the radical Islamist movement’s army of insurgents, threatening death for those unwilling to serve. And the Taliban’s judges issue rulings marked by a ruthless efficiency: With no jails in which to hold prisoners, execution by hanging or automatic rifle is the swiftly delivered punishment for convicted murderers and rapists, or for anyone found guilty of working with the government.
Could we put enough troops in Afghanistan to fight such a development? I say probably not…..if you look at Afghanistan today….the shadow government is far more successful than the “elected” government….how many troops will it take to change that development? I do not believe we have enough troops in service to America to make this a win win situation.
You may well be right, but then fear based control like the Taliban exerts is ALWAYS more powerful than the wishy-washy Western equvalent – Mao Tse Tung proved that and he detailed it all in writing decades ago (why doesn’t someone in the CIA read the fucking book?)
However, the object of the extra troops is to at least be able to put some kind of an effective force into areas that have already been “cleared” of Taliban. I know – fat chance! But the fact is that, without the necessary manpower, we’re all just pissing into the wind, because the Taliban just runs, kills a few US or UK soldiers with the explosives they leave behind and moves back in three days later. You cannot change ANYTHING until you can stop that!
Personally, I sort of think I’d like to believe I’d have the guts to nuke the whole goddam place (I doubt I’m that ruthless, but it would be an answer – even if you did it in one sparsely populated region of mostly Taliban). It’s an awful thing to say and even worse to do and would result in a huge outcry, but you’d only have to do it ONCE and two-bit terrorists like the Taliban would find that their support dropped to zero overnight – all across the world.
It would be a case of, “You’re gonna cut my hand off, or kill me? Fine, which hand do you want or where shall I stand? Because the other guy is going to nuke my whole goddam family and everyone I know, if I join you!” QED!
In any event, they’d only have to BELIEVE you’d do it for it to be effective, but they know full well that our do-gooder, politically correct, bureaucratically driven societies could NEVER have the balls to do such a thing… Consequently, our troops die at a predictably steady rate and we all wring our hands in anguish and pontificate about the evil Taliban. Shoot first and ask questions afterwards in a region like that and, if anyone doesn’t like it, tell them to go screw! 👿
Of course you are right…I just thought that the idea of the shadow government was an amazing occurrence….no matter how hard we try we will be screwed hard…..
Oh yes – only too true!
I will be watching the stuff in Afghanistan….I am waiting to see just how successful the “surge” will be……