RSS Feed MenuGeorge F. Will, a man who keeps a bust of the late Sen. Scoop Jackson, the patron saint of foreign-policy hawks, in the foyer of his office, has called for the withdrawal of U.S. ground troops from Afghanistan. Will now publicly joins the 57 percent of Americans who told CNN pollsters that they oppose the war in Afghanistan.
If those of us who still support the war are to overcome public skepticism, we’re going to need a better answer than, “Hey—no fair changing your mind!” Unfortunately that’s the first answer that Will has received from conservative writers, including my friend and one-time White House colleague Pete Wehner.
The U.S. supposedly won its Afghan war more than seven years ago. Yet today the Taliban is active in more than one-third of the country. The West’s goal of extending freedom is undermined by the insecurity, corruption, and misgovernment that plagues most of the population.
President Hamid Karzai’s brother is the biggest drug dealer in the country. The runner-up? Probably Muhammad Fahim, the country’s former defense minister and still perhaps the most influential figure within the Afghan military establishment.
Effective police are indispensable to successful counterinsurgency. By all accounts, the Afghan police are feared and disliked by the population. Police ignore Taliban activities when they do not collaborate with them. They extort money from the population and collect pay from local drug lords.
The Afghan army is rather better than the police, but for an unreassuring reason: while the insurgency is ethnically Pashtun, the army leadership comes from Afghanistan’s other nations, especially the Tajiks. For them, the war continues a conflict that long predates America’s arrival in Afghanistan. When I visited an Afghan military training school last year, I asked the recruits about their motives for enlistment. Every one of the dozen men I interviewed had lost a relative in civil wars dating back to Soviet days. Every one of them used the word “Taliban” interchangeably with “Pashtun.” U.S. trainers speak optimistically of transforming this ethnic force into a true national army to serve all Afghans. Here’s hoping.
Afghanistan is a very difficult place for anyone to govern, outsiders most of all. Its population, estimated at more than 32 million, is larger than Iraq’s. Kabul is a city of maybe 3 million, maybe 4 million. Afghanistan is often described as a country bigger than France. In terms of kilometers, that’s true. But with its shoddy infrastructure and unforgiving terrain, Afghanistan might as well be its own planet. It can take longer to travel by road to the next town than it takes to travel from Paris to New York. The much-ballyhooed circular highway around the country remains unfinished and unsafe even where it has been completed.
Afghanistan’s illiteracy rate exceeds 80 percent; even senior army officers often cannot read. The prevailing political philosophy was bequeathed to Afghanistan by its former Soviet occupiers: “He who does not steal from the state, steals from his family.” Even the emancipation of women—the finest American gift to Afghanistan—is visibly corroding, as girls’ schools are closed by terrorist attacks.
So: quit now?
No—and here’s why not.
American and NATO prestige has been pledged to Afghanistan. A collapse of Afghanistan into warlordism or a narco-state (the likeliest outcome of U.S. withdrawal) would be very costly. And the fact that the West has not done very well in Afghanistan to date does not doom us to failure forever.
As bad as things are, over the past six months we have had our first hopeful news since the heady days of 2002. Not only are more American troops arriving, but U.S. pressure on Pakistan is at last paying off. After years of disengagement or even complicity with the Taliban, Pakistani authorities have belatedly joined the fight to deny them sanctuary.
On Sept. 2, Pakistan reported a major military operation near the Khyber Pass, consisting of an attack on four bases belonging to the Lashkar-I-Islam militant group. These operations are sometimes exaggerated in the retelling, but there’s no question that Pakistan has launched an unprecedented level of attacks on Taliban areas this year—one of which succeeded in killing the chief of the Pakistan Taliban on Aug. 23.
Since 2002, the western world has followed a “development first” strategy in Afghanistan, hoping that if the country recovered economically, the remnants of the Taliban would fade away. This year the U.S. is shifting to a new approach, the “security first” strategy that worked in Iraq. And unlike Iraq, there is now hope that the insurgency in Afghanistan will at last be denied a neighboring safe haven in Pakistan.
Our goals in Afghanistan are properly modest. Nobody is looking to elevate Afghanistan into a model anything. Those who serve in Afghanistan all understand the concept of “good enough.” Next door, Tajikistan is the second poorest country in Eurasia. Yet its population is literate, and it does not host international terrorist groups. Tajikistan is not much of a democracy and it has suffered from civil war, but it has groped its way to stability and it has not been accused of the kinds of human rights abuses committed in Uzbekistan. We can look to that kind of future for Afghanistan, if we get the military strategy right.
Is the new strategy right? I won’t predict. But it is new, and it deserves a trial before we reach pessimistic conclusions. Wars are ugly and expensive. But losing wars is worse, and worse in ways often impossible to predict in advance. That’s a lesson I learned as a young conservative back in the 1970s—in very large part by reading the columns of George F. Will.
anniemargret // Sep 3, 2009 at 11:52 pm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/02/AR2009090202856.html?sub=AR
Hagel is not only gutsy, he’s nailed it.
EscapeVelocity // Sep 4, 2009 at 12:38 am
The real trouble with leaving Afghanistan and Iraq and having them descend into killing fields (just as with any other US intervention particularly Vietnam)….is that it says to any future potential ally of the US, that the US is not a reliable partner….thus making our future engagements more difficult.
Basically in the US, the Left undermined the US efforts in Vietnam, eventually cutting off funding and leaving the South Vietnamese that allied with us and put their trust in us….to be slaughtered by the North Vietnamese Communist regime.
Now that let others around the world know that the US is not a reliable ally and has a strong Leftist contingent in the US that will actively seek to undermine US interventions abroad, especially as regards Cold War conflicts with Communist Revolutionaries. Thus making it harder to get cooperation from allies and potential allies.
For example the North Vietnamese were very distraught after the Tet Offensive was such a resounding defeat. However they read news reports in the US and the Left on the Streets and in Congress….saying what a dissaster it had been and demanding the end of military presence in Vietnam. So instead of making plans for negotiation, they renewed their faith and their tactics became working US public opinion at home, knowing that the media and the Left would eventually grant them victory.
Its classic.
EscapeVelocity // Sep 4, 2009 at 12:44 am
We have a very long war with Islam, beginning a new phase of it, to deal with. We should be concerned about who is going to be willing to ally with us, if we let our Afghan allies get slaughtered in the killing fields.
greg_barton // Sep 4, 2009 at 1:56 am
God, I love seeing conservative hawks to the fishy fishy flip flop. Now if they express their hawkishness it supports Obama, so they’re more than happy to throw America under the bus just to oppose the president. Seeing their true colors displayed is really a hoot.
hsb3 // Sep 4, 2009 at 2:18 am
Why not declare victory to being this, so we can just go already: Returning Afghanistan to the way it was before its civil war in the 70s’. Instead of a strong central government, let’s suggest a quasi-democracy based on tribal politics and the Swiss model. Have a bunch of different regions with their own leader, with some being democratic, and safe for women, and men who don’t like having a beard; and others unfortunately not like that, but tribal. Have a figurehead central president, and a governing executive body much like North Ireland’s which includes everyone. And we leave!
Chekote // Sep 4, 2009 at 2:53 am
Sinz
I never said that we should invade every failed state. Stop the strawman. But there is a history with Afghanistan. A recent one. The last time we abandoned Afghanistan, we provided a place from where AQ staged the 9/11 attack. If we leave it again as a failed state, the Taliban will take over. Making the same mistake would be unforgivable.
Chekote // Sep 4, 2009 at 3:03 am
This next generation is aching to do something constructive…..give them the jobs, the initiatives, to get us off oil, instead of digging more of their graves for it.
H0w do you that the next energy source won’t cause more wars?
Chekote // Sep 4, 2009 at 3:09 am
Hagel also opposed the surge in Iraq which has been a stunning success. I have no use for him and don’t trust his judgement. And I have absolutely NO USE for conservatives who all of the sudden think it is okay to “cut and run” just because a Dem is in the White House. Hypocrites. They disgust me.
barker13 // Sep 4, 2009 at 8:14 am
Re: Anniemargret // Sep 3, 2009 at 10:53 pm (#24) –
“Well, Bill…I agree with you.”
(*GRIN*) (*CONGRATULATORY PAT ON THE BUTT*)
(Hey… it’s almost football season!) (*WINK*)
Re: Anniemargret // Sep 3, 2009 at 10:58 pm (#25) –
“I lost my boyfriend of 22 y/o, one year out of West Point in ‘68.”
I’m very, very sorry.
Re: Escapevelocity // Sep 4, 2009 at 12:38 am (#28) –
“…Afghanistan and Iraq…”
Just for the record… I don’t equate the two.
Now I don’t want to have large numbers of troops in Iraq (or the Middle East period) much beyond Obama’s first term…
(Let’s see if his campaign promises come to pass…)
…but nor do I believe Iraq and Afghanistan are like situations.
Escape’s points concerning Vietnam and his inferences concerning Cambodia ARE on point to an extent. That said, they don’t really apply to Afghanistan and don’t apply all that well to Iraq. We’re talking far different cultures… different heritages.
Re: Chekote // Sep 4, 2009 at 2:53 am (#32) –
“I never said that we should invade every failed state.”
But that’s the ultimate LOGIC, the ultimate intellectually consistent end point, of your “defense” of the present Afghanistan War strategy.
Chekote. When Sinz, Annie, and myself are all basically on the same side…
(*SHRUG*)
BILL
sinz54 // Sep 4, 2009 at 11:09 am
I never said that we should invade every failed state. Stop the strawman. But there is a history with Afghanistan. A recent one.
Suppose in the near future, there is another terrorist attack against Americans, by terrorists who come from Africa.
It’s a real possibility: A U.S. embassy was already bombed in Kenya in 1996, so it could certainly happen again. Radical Islam is spreading like wildfire in sub-Saharan Africa, providing lots of possible recruits to Islamist terrorism. The slaughter in Darfur shows what the Islamists of Africa (Janjaweed in this case) are capable of.
What would you suggest? That we then invade sub-Saharan Africa to build modern democracies in Eritrea and Sudan?
You’ve given us a prescription for endless nation building, as a response to any large-scale terrorist attack against us.
You are unconsciously embracing the old “White Man’s Burden” argument, in which it becomes our mission in life to go out there and civilize the benighted parts of the world–by military force. That is, in fact, what Bush came to believe: That a worldwide organization like al-Qaeda could only be repelled by civilizing the entire world to reject terrorism.
You’re not quite there yet yourself. But it would take only a couple more terrorist attacks against Americans, one from Africa and one from Indonesia (the world’s largest Muslim state), to put you there.
EscapeVelocity // Sep 4, 2009 at 9:15 pm
That said, they don’t really apply to Afghanistan and don’t apply all that well to Iraq. We’re talking far different cultures… different heritages. — barker
Not at all, the level of distrust and hostility we had/have to overcome in Iraq can be directly drawn from Pappy Bush leaving them to the killing fields after encouraging them to rebel during Desert Storm.
EscapeVelocity // Sep 4, 2009 at 10:36 pm
The deal is that we have to deal with the Islamic threat. That is the deal, it isnt going away.
I propose a Cold War strategy in which the US allies with those fighting the Islamics or the Moderate Islamics and Liberal Islamics vs the Islamic Right. This would include a policy of containment. Furthermore we should promote the Islamic Left similarly to the way the Soviets promoted the Left in the US and Western Europe, via clandestine and otherwise monetary support networks, basically a culture war from within Islam, to destroy Islamic culture from the inside. All the tricks are well known, lawfare, demonstrations, infiltration of institutions, promoting minority rights at first in just rational ways, then promoting minorities over the majority, with affirmative actions, re distribution of wealth, special rights and priveleges, etc Focus on the younger generation, educatino systems and schools/universities. Turn the children on their parents….the future belongs to them. Then they will march through the institutions of Islam and promote cultural suicide from within….hamstring any efforts abroad. These young people need to have a base of decent or well paying operations, NGOs, and political activist groups, identity political action, etc….these organizations need seed money to fund the cultural revolution and the backing of Western intellectual prowess, the transfer of the Frankfurt School and Critical Theory into the young, new, educated, well paid Leftwing Islamic radical.
Austin // Sep 6, 2009 at 1:41 am
Afghanistan: A Quagmire Worth Fighting For
comedy gold!
sinz54 // Sep 6, 2009 at 10:28 am
escapevelocity: We have a very long war with Islam
We are NOT at war with Islam.
It would disastrous not just for American conservatism, but for America and the whole world, if the War on Terror became framed as “Christianity vs. Islam.”
We have millions of American Muslims living their lives peacefully.
The Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution forbids the U.S. Government to make war on the religious faith of any of its citizens.
sinz54 // Sep 6, 2009 at 10:32 am
escapevelocity: Furthermore we should promote the Islamic Left similarly to the way the Soviets promoted the Left in the US and Western Europe
In the end, the Soviets lost–and collapsed.
I don’t think copying their strategy is a good idea.
cwillia11 // Sep 7, 2009 at 10:37 am
If we need to fight imperial wars (and we do) we need to be ready to reassess what we are doing and back out when the costs exceed the strategic benefit. It is not clear to me why it would be a catastrophe for Afghanistan to descend into warlordism or into a “narco-state.” You can do business with warlords and drug dealers. The goal in Afghanistan is to prevent al-Qaeda from establishing bases there. It would be preferable to deal with warlords to accomplish this rather than the Taliban, but it might even be possible to work with Taliban. We need secure bases within the country, a puppet regime in Kabul and working relationships with local warlords. There is very little we need from them. If they cooperate in keeping out al-Qaeda they get enough support to make them secure. If they cross the line, swift and brutal retaliation.
George Will Sparks Healthy Afghanistan Debate « Verus Politics: Truth and Reason // Sep 7, 2009 at 11:33 am
[...] is good debate taking place, thanks to Will’s column. Some other views to read are those of David Frum, Michael Gerson, Bill Kristol, Max Boot, Fred Kagan (and here), Robert Kagan, Rich Lowry, Michael [...]