----- Original Message ----- From: "JDG" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, May 17, 2004 7:47 PM Subject: Re: Numbers on the rebuilding of Afghanistan
> Dan M., > > I think the whole difference here is this: > > The rebuilding of Iraq and the building of Afghanistan have proven to be > very difficult, complex, and long tasks. The most honest people on both > sides of each itnervention conceded this from the beginning. For > whatever reason, now that the rebuilding of Iraq and the building of > Afghanistan are proving to be very difficult, complex, and long tasks - > just as every honest observer predicted! - one side is becoming prone to > despair and the other is showing commitment to the task ahead in the long > haul. John, if you really believe the above, then you will have to admit that the Administration was not an honest observer. Folks who made arguements like this were shut out of the planning loop. Key positions in Iraq were given to key believers, not folks with experience. Folks with experience, who knew the difficulty of the job ahead were dismissed as nay-sayers. I don't doubt that you can point to some statement by Bush that Iraq was going to be a challange. But, one measures people by their actions, not their words. The planning for post war Iraq was planning for a slam dunk; not a long and difficult process. Warnings of the Army War College that we had about a year in Iraq before the people there would sour on our occupation were ignored. Now they seem prophetic. Its not just that we're in a middle of a tough slog; we have bungled Iraq to the point where the person who origionally planned for the invasion of Iraq is talking about the planning as dereliction of duty at best; stating that we're about to go over Niagra Falls. It isn't just one person. Senior active people in the military are risking their careers to speak out on the danger. Republican senators are getting very worried. We have shot ourselves in the foot so many times; our foreign policy is about to become a friendly fire casualty. But, that's Iraq, let me turn to Afganistan...as I answer below. My point in Afganistan is that we decreased our efforts at rebuilding as we > >What is common in all three? Clinton. He was a masterful politician who > >was able to work out an arrangement where the US's efforts could continue. > > A quick question. If Clinton were elected to a third term, and if > following 9/11 he prudently decided to ensure that Iraq could never pose a > WMD threat to the US - do you believe that Clinton would have succeeded in > recruiting France for the coalition, or that he would have failed to do so? He would have used the threat of going to war by himself to get France to agree to smart sanctions and real inspections. That would have ensured that the WMD threat to the US remained very low (i.e. significantly lower than other countries...and not just N. Korea). He wouldn't have made Bush's mistake of invading, because it wasn't in the best interest of US security. > >Actually, rebuilding is appropriate because they have not gotten back to > >the pre-war levels. (By pre-war I mean before 1979). It will, indeed, > >take long and dedicated effort, and we're already reducing the resources > >committed to the effort. 25 years ago, the economy and the infrastructure > >was is far better shape than it is now. > > I can't believe that you were able to keep a straight face while writing > this. Isn't there any kind of "statute of limitations" on rebuilding? > Or do we still need to "rebuild" the Mayan and Ghanaian Empires? At > any rate, are you seriously despondent that 25 years of war have not been > completely rebuilt in two years? No, I'm disappointed that we have been lowering our efforts in Afganistan; not that we aren't finished. We are not meeting reasonable intermediate goals. We are making very little progress. We cut the funding to Afgainistan (IIRC the Administration had to be reminded to put the funding in the last budget after they forgot to put it in their origional budget). We took key experts out of Afgainistan to use in Iraq. In other words, I felt that we had a good hard challange in nation building in Afganistan. I think, with dedication, we could have made noticable progress in 2.5 years. By taking our eye off the ball, by decreasing our committment, we are risking failure there too. Clearly, we've done a better job there, but I would have wished we concentrated on doing a good job there first, instead of doing a lick and a promise and then looking for the next task to start. > >What I thought was that, since the drug trade was already out, we were in a > >position to keep it from being the main source of rural income. That's one > >thing that money can do. > > Given our experiences in Latin America, where drug production has been a > lot like a carnival "gopher" game, I found this to be unlikely. Demand > will always produce supply, and it always struck me as unreasonable that > even a blank check would prevent Afghanistan from being one of the mot > convenient places in the world for supply to set up shop. My goal was much lower than that; and we didn't meet it. I wanted drug traffic to be second to us in funding rural Afganistan. "He who pays the piper calls the tune" It make sense that farmers/villages who make their living from drug trafficing will think better of their drug connections than us. Certainly, we couldn't stop drugs without immitating the Taliban. (Which is why a Bush's anti-drug spokesman expressed such admiration for the Taliban, I guess.) But, we _could_ be more influential than they are. > >No, but I thought that a central government and the international > >peacekeeps would control more than the capital after 2 1/2 years. When do > >you think it would be reasonable to expect security to be provided > >throughout the country? After 10 years? > > Any answer I give to this question would be entirely arbitrary. What I > do know is that there are a lot of very expert people who believe that > unifying Afghanistan for the first time in 25 years is a very delicate > process. If in their judgement there are other priorities - including > the establishment of Afghanistan's first elections, then I am inclined to > agree with their judgement. I think that our experience in Iraq shows the > difficulties in proceeding rapidly with the alternative. Outside of the administration and their cheerleaders, we are not getting good marks on our present efforts in Afganistan. Again, I'm not talking about having everything done, now. I'm talking about very modest goals, that we are not close to reaching. Goals we could have met if it was a national priority. Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
