Steve Coll, The New Yorker’s main writer on the mess in South Asia, lists the very bad things that could happen if NATO and affiliated troops pack up and go home too early from Afghanistan. This is essentially the position Colleague Coyne defended last week in our town hall in Halifax: That if you think it’s bad now, just imagine how much worse it could get. Everyone who watched the show last week will know that’s not where I am these days, but Coll, whose spectacular book Ghost Wars is an indispensable history of the wreckage of the last 30 years in Afghanistan and Pakistan, must be reckoned a good guesser on what next year’s wreckage could look like.
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This is essentially the position Colleague Coyne defended last week in our town hall in Halifax: That if you think it’s bad now, just imagine how much worse it could get.
For everyone except people whose last names aren't Coyne.
s.b "are Coyne."
Does Coyne know from one week to the next what pops out of his mouth? Only last week he wanted Prince Andrew to become the King of Canada, funded I'd presume by Canadian taxpayers.
Senility, I'm afraid, has attacked Brother Coyne. Unfortunately, there's no vaccine for it.
I wonder .. what would happen if India and pakistan decided to have it out? hmmmmm
India has NEVER attacked Pak and is quite willing to accept the border as is and get into trade, exchanges, etc. It has given Pak Most Favored Nation status over a decade ago and Pak made goods enter India without duty. The favor has not been reciprocated. Pak edu texts keep on about how Indians esp Hindus are intrinsically bad people, wicked etc. from Grade ONE! Anywhere else this wld be taken up by the UN or simply by intelligent, knowledgeable teachers/citizens. Pak has attacked several times, India has won, scrupulously returned land, POWs, etc and routinely supported its Islamic population. (Of course disagreements arise, riots happen in an over crowded place and all concerned eventually try to repair and move on) Billions are given by the Ind govt to Muslim schools/charities since they are a minority and to help the poor go on the Haj. The Indian army, diplomatic corps and all other institutions employ Muslims. Indians watch in puzzled amazement as Pak becomes fundamentalist, banning music, and exporting nonsense like burqas and acid attacks on school girls.
Just like those domino things?
caught the show on CPAC….interesting.
I guess what struck me was that after the Taliban were dislodged that there really was a possibility that something positive was within reach, and yet even then it wasnt going to be easy….Taylor's point about what was required for Afghans handling their own security, seemingly the objective anyone can agree to, was sobering. The number of tasks and effort, not complex just substantial, was incredible. This discussion has never been had, outside of maybe a few think tanks.
Just lots of drift, nobiody in control. All the Brits and Canadians were ever doing was a holding action until the US turned its attention back to the task. And yet now, the political will to do what is necessary is disappating.
It was a good and thought provoking duscussion. Sadly fear may be the only way to bring countries back to the table. But people may be numb to that now.
lists the very bad things that could happen if NATO and affiliated troops pack up and go home too early from Afghanistan.
I wonder how closely this list matches the list of very bad things that could happen if the US withdraws from Vietnam.
You mean besides the subjugation and ruin of the Vietnamese people, I assume. Like the strengthening of capitalism's enemies and the once-bitten-twice-shy syndrome preventing the Americans from doing more than picking a less bad guy and sending him guns while the Soviets attempted more direct intervention, leading to the rise of, among other entities, the muhjadeen in Afghanistan which gave birth to the Taliban state or, to put it in simpler terms, "this whole problem"?
What people remember about Vietnam (which, incidentally, was a fantastically bloodier and more expensive debacle than Afghanistan) is that the Americans got beat. What people have always forgotten is that because the Americans got beat, things actually happened. Yes, domino theory was bull, but then again at the time most impartial observers knew that too and I don't think anybody reasonable is suggesting that the Taliban is going to start throwing burqas on Indian women any time soon.
Hey, the Americans can stay in Iraqistan as long as they want.
…besides the subjugation and ruin of the Vietnamese people…
..who were "subjugated", we recall, by an army of NVA volunteers, hordes of indigenous Viet-Cong, and their millions of southern nationalist supporters, whose job was made easy by the steady stream of ARVN conscripts deserting after losing the stomach to fight for a corrupt, violent puppet regime that had earned the loyalty of no one.
…the strengthening of capitalism's enemies…
…the two most powerful of which, China and the Soviet Union, were actually bitterly divided over Vietnam.
…the once-bitten-twice-shy syndrome preventing the Americans from doing more than picking a less bad guy…
…which is precisely what the Americans thought they were doing in Vietnam, ending up instead demonstrating their catastrophic habit of choosing the worst of the bad guys–first underwriting the squalid, widely loathed French colonial regime as it tottered to its final doom and then supporting a series of southern despots, all in the name of defeating a man revered by virtually all Vietnamese as a nationalist hero of the struggle against Japan's brutal war-time occupation.
Oh yes. Vietnam was a noble failure indeed. It’s a good thing the White House has learned to wear its geo-strategic idiocies more elegantly.
Granted, not a pleasant prospect.
It's just hard to imagine it getting better over time.
If is far more likely there will be a war between Pakistan and India, if the United States, NATO, and Canada don't leave Afghanistan.
Prevailing militarily over the Taliban means taking the war to the tribal areas of Pakistan, which means destabilizing Pakistan, which leaves attacking India is the only way to preserve the Pakistani state.
The tribal areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan just want to be left alone. It is absurd to suggest that they represent a threat to the West. The attempt of the reigning imperial power to conquer Afghanistan and/or the tribal areas of Pakistan has always been imperial overreach.
Yep, just as they only wanted to be left alone in August, 2001.
Islamism wants to take over the world and kill the kufar, which means you, no matter how many anti-semitic rallies you participate in.
"no matter how many anti-semitic rallies you participate in."
Man, they don't even care how gratuitous that accusation is anymore.
Well done, wingnuts.
. As I’ve argued, in my view, a purpose of American policy in Afghanistan ought to be to prevent a second coercive Taliban revolution in that country, not only because it would bring misery to Afghans… but because it would jeopardize American interests, such as our security against Al Qaeda’s ambitions and our (understandable) desire to see nuclear-armed Pakistan free itself from the threat of revolutionary Islamist insurgents
This is the problem i have with these hellsh engagements. I'm pretty sure not all of these laudable aims were on the table when the Taliban were kicked out. These things tend to take on a life of their own…what are we there for morphs inevitably into what happens if we leave.
A logical progression yes, but nevertheless a progression. It's relevent to Vietnam n this sense, there's always another perfectly reasonable seeming scenario just around the corner that argues against leaving. I'm not even making a case for leaving, but let's beware the siren song or regional stability. [cont]
Case in point. Were these author's worries about taliban threats to Pakistan's nuclear arsenal and India always evident, or did they only become an issue at our convenience? Or worse because of our involvement? Just a question to consider
"A rump “legitimate” Afghan government dominated by ethnic Tajiks and Uzbeks would find arms and money from India, Iran, and perhaps Russia, Europe and the United States. This would likely produce a long-running civil war between northern, Tajik-dominated ethnic militias and the Pashtun-dominated Taliban."
If that could be guaranteed, it may well meet NATO security goals, as it would be hard for Al Qaida to use Afghanistan as a base. No outright Taliban domination and continuing conflict would be very much like what Afghanistan was like before Benazir Bhutto's Pakistani government backed the Taliban. Bad news for the people of Afghanistan, but not necessarily out of line with what I believe is the only goal of NATO policy which can still be defended reasonably. Afghanistan fighting with itself would be much like Afghanistan during the last 100 years or more.
What we need to understand is that Pakistan and India are already at war and have been for decades. They've been locked in their own little Cold War since time immemorial. Pakistan's ISI supported the Taliban precisely in order to establish and maintain a friendly, Islamist, and "stable" (i.e. dictatorially ruthless) bulwark against Indian (as well as Chinese and Western) influence.
I've always found laughable the notion that Pakistan is some kind of "ally" in the fabled "War on Terror": the Taliban was a Pakistani creature, formed out of the remnants of the U.S.-supported mujahideen, and it clearly still has the (at least sentimental) support of influential members of the ISI apparatus.
Pakistan's been knifing NATO in the back since 2003, something our leadership is either too stupid to realise or too afraid to confront.
India has repeatedly said, let us solve common issues like poverty, let us trade, send your scholars here and never mind our disgreements re the border. Pak has replied with war, usually supported by free US weapons and US military training.TIME says the Pak army has been created and continues to be upgraded by the US. The only profits I can see is certain arms companies lobby and benefit and the Pak military brass and the importers in Pak grow rich. Meanwhile India is asked why do you spend on arms? Solely for defense! Most Indian Muslims want to live In India and are ashamed and apprehensive of being associated with Pak behavior.