In today’s NY Times, Washington Post and NBC Nightly News, it was reported that U.S. forces are withdrawing from the Korengal Valley region in northeastern Afghanistan. Those forces will be redeployed elsewhere in the country as it has been determined that their presence in Korengal has done little to secure a greater Afghan peace and stability at the cost of 40 American deaths and a far greater number of casualties.
Disclosure: Cpt. Mark Moretti, mentioned in the Post and Times, is my brother-in-law.
The Post sums it up:
For U.S. commanders, the Korengal Valley offers a hard lesson in the limits of American power and goodwill in Afghanistan. U.S. troops arrived in 2005 to flush out al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters. They stayed on the theory that the American presence drew insurgents away from areas where the United States had a better chance of fostering development. The troops were, in essence, bullet magnets.
In 2010 a new set of commanders concluded that the U.S. had blundered into a blood feud with fierce and clannish villagers who wanted above all to be left alone. By this logic, subduing the Korengal wasn’t worth the cost in American blood.
The retreat carries risks. Insurgents could use the Korengal as a haven to plan attacks in other parts of Afghanistan. The withdrawal could offer proof to other Afghans that American troops can be forced out.
Now its been a while since I’ve trawled through BMG. but I assume that most here support an immediate withdrawal from Afghanistan in a similar manner to what many wanted in Iraq. But I’m curious, what do we make of the risk/reward conundrum that exists: have we reached the limits of our “power and goodwill” in Afghanistan, as in Korengal, and thus, should leave? Or will leaving Afghanistan in the manner that we exited Korengal leave a haven for the Taliban or worse?
My personal view sees no easy solution, and I personally feel that anybody who can state an answer to the Afghan question in a sentence or two is dangerously oversimplifying foreign policy. But still…what are we thinking right now about Afghanistan?
One thing to learn from Vietnam was that no amount of military power will be successful in shoring up a corrupt and not-so-popular regime. Karzai is similarly corrupt and unpopular.
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p>Even if our strategy might be to stabilize Afghanistan, the result of that strategic choice is a permanent involvement.
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p>Yes, yes, yes, the Taliban are horrible. Given how Al Qaeda seems pretty comfortable in Pakistan right now, I’m not convinced that their return to power will be a threat to us. Moreover, their cozying up to Al Qaeda is equivalent to painting a big target on their back.
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p>So extrication from Afghanistan seems to be called for. Under the Bush Administration, that would have to translate into “Leave immediately!” Under the Obama Administration, I’d expect a more careful and nuanced effort.
Afghanistan is known as the graveyard of empires. Alexander the Great, the British Empire, and the USSR all tried to conquer and control it, and failed.
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p>We’ve been there for 8 years, and it has still not been stabilized. Are we going to stay there forever? Ridiculous.
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p>And now Dirty Dog Hamid Karzai is going to join the Taliban because the mean old Americans are telling him to cut out some of the corruption and graft? After some of our military people have been killed, crippled, and maimed defending Karzai’s regime?
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p>Nice Gratitude.
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p>The right policy is to get out of Afghanistan. That’s the RIGHT thing to do, and what Jim McGovern (D-Worcester) has been pushing. But, many politicians will keep the military in the meat grinder of Afghanistan so they can seem “Tough on Terror” to people who don’t think.
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p>In this nation, political candidates who do the right thing must LIST THE FACTS, as recommended by http://www.bartcop.com, in order to win elections.
Pipelines and black ops poppy crops
I’m thinking that we should learn all we can about the social and tribal structures of Afghanistan, especially the tenets of melmastia, hospitality. We should learn about the history of Afghanistan especially the history of Abdul Ghaffar Khan, Badshah Khan, who organized what some call the world’s first non-violent army based upon melmastia and the Islamic principle of sadr, patience: http://www.dailykos.com/storyo…
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p>We could begin to utilize the installed solar capacity we’ve distributed throughout Afghanistan to rebuild the economy and develop a renewable infrastructure: http://www.dailykos.com/story/…
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p>I’ve been advocating these ideas for the last few years without any success as far as I can tell but they are the kinds of things that will allow Afghanistan to become a peaceful and prosperous country once again.
What if (and we will never know) the billions poured into corporations like Halliburton had done a CCP or WPA type program, and put the Afghans to work rebuilding their own country???