I think what the Administration is up to is different than the suggestions below. In a sense the critics may be fighting the last anti-war war, if you know what I mean.
What would make a modicum of sense? (I am not endorsing it.) Trying to mobilize militias and build armies to control the country is a secondary objective upon which the major objective does not depend. It would be nice to have a stable US client state but the difficulties of this in Afgh are pretty obvious. The 'graveyard of empires' and all that. The major objective I believe is to prevent further attacks by Al Queda. Another priority is to keep Pakistan at no worse than a low boil. The purpose of U.S. & allied forces in Afgh is to keep AQ tied down in Afgh and Pakistan, indefinitely, to minimize their ability to conduct operations elsewhere. When possible their leaders and any unfortunates in the vicinity will be blown up by US drones. The US campaign in effect is a (well-resourced) guerrilla operation. From impregnable strong points US forces can go anywhere and do anything they want, for as long as they want. Insofar as they can mobilize locals to help, that's icing on the cake. Ditto if some level of cooperation can be struck with Iran. It's not a campaign of conquest; there is nothing there worth taking. (The pipeline stuff was always a pipe-dream.) The emerging US client- cum-superpower in the region IMO is India. Who needs Afghanistan. There are all sorts of ways to criticize this in its own terms. For effective criticism, we should be aiming at the correct target. -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Carl Dassbach Sent: Friday, April 03, 2009 10:10 AM To: 'Progressive Economics' Subject: [Pen-l] Somethin' happening here.... The problem in Afghanistan and Iraq is the perennial problem of conventional armies fighting guerillas. As Mao pointed out "the guerrilla swims in the sea of people." The US learned this many years ago in Vietnam as did the Russians in Afghanistan. The Taliban are not a military threat, they are a threat to the "prestige/preeminence" of the US and its allies. An inability to defeat the Taliban would be a further "loss of face" for the US. This is why they MUST be defeated. Even Obama recognizes this. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
