Jonathan S. Landay reporting from Afghanistan

September 12, 2009 2:14 PM

We walked into a trap, a killing zone of relentless gunfire and rocket barrages from Afghan insurgents hidden in the mountainsides and in a fortress-like village where women and children were replenishing their ammunition.
posted by Joe Beese (58 comments total)

We walked into a trap, a killing zone of relentless gunfire and rocket barrages from Afghan insurgents hidden in the mountainsides and in a fortress-like village where women and children were replenishing their ammunition.

This makes it sound like one of those westerns where the beleaguered inhabitants of the town/fort all do their bit to survive the evil injun hordes. I wonder if that is how it feels to them.
posted by biffa at 2:24 PM on September 12 [4 favorites]

I work with a young guy, 22, nicest guy in the world. He's a real salt-of-the-Earth Texan farmboy type. Innocent. Not a cynical bone in his body. He's joining the Marines in December and probably getting shipped off to Afghanistan in short order after that.

"It's dangerous over there." I warned him.

"I know," he said, "But I think I can help."

I just nodded when he said that. Although I don't really think that anything can help anymore.
posted by Avenger at 2:26 PM on September 12 [3 favorites]

HOW TO WIN A WAR IN AFGHANISTAN:

1) Declare victory
2) Pull out
posted by EatTheWeak at 2:33 PM on September 12 [3 favorites]

Jesus.

I knew things were messed up over there, but not this messed up. Does anyone really have a solution for this?
posted by spitefulcrow at 2:46 PM on September 12

#include <land_war_in_asia>
posted by b1tr0t at 2:46 PM on September 12 [1 favorite]

#include <land_war_in_asia>

Which itself has #include <lose_miserably> and #include <pretend_you_won>.

We have always been at war with eurasia.
posted by spitefulcrow at 2:50 PM on September 12

The graveyard of empires.
posted by vivelame at 3:02 PM on September 12

#include <land_war_in_asia>
posted by b1tr0t at 5:46 PM on September 12 [+] [!]

In file included from MetaFilter thread #84984:
/usr/include/land_war_in_asia:42: error: fell victim to one of the classic blunders

posted by knave at 3:03 PM on September 12 [9 favorites]

>> We walked into a trap, a killing zone of relentless gunfire and rocket barrages from Afghan insurgents hidden in the mountainsides and in a fortress-like village where women and children were replenishing their ammunition.

Belligerent Afghans firing at the American liberators as they close in on their village. And the women and children have the gall to ferry ammo to the "insurgents."

This "report" is an obscenity. There's a reason why it reads like a dimestore novel. It's constructed for the Reader's Digest set, of which 85% of America is compromised. American soldiers are attacking a village, in a nation where they have absolutely no business waging war. They receive counter fire from the inhabitants of the village who, it is inferred, are less civilized because women and children are participating in the battle (thus validating the time-worn American justification for collateral damage).

How is it that they're attacking the village, but they're pinned down? They're not really pinned down. They are bogged down. They are slowed down. Their assault has come to an inconvenient halt, and this embedded "reporter" chooses to characterize it as an assault by the hostile Taliban. Fails to mention the fact that this is an offensive assault. As is the entire effort in Afghanistan. Occasionally, the locals have the temerity to raise issues, sometimes violently, about this ongoing assault.

Further, the subtext of this piece is the vintage Chuck Norris chestnut much heralded in American war films, that the "bureaucrats back in Washington are tying our hands." The annoying restrictions on calling in an airstrike to obliterate the village (and presumably the evil women and children, who have validated their own demise by carrying ammo) hinder the sweeping tide of liberty.

This is a fucked up rabbit hole, this endless war.

I may be relatively powerless to assert my will as a citizen to end this, but I don't have to cast aside reason to embrace the myth of the put-upon US military. I'll eat your gruel, but I won't tell you it's yummy.
posted by Brosef K at 3:09 PM on September 12 [41 favorites]

>> The operation, proposed by the Afghan army and refined by the U.S. trainers, called for the Afghans to search Ganjgal for weapons and hold a meeting with the elders to discuss the establishment of police patrols.

Right.

Because that's how US "trainers" work. Patiently waiting for the locals (so-called Afghan army) to make a suggestion so they can offer "refinement."

In Vietnam, they called them "advisors," and 58,000 of them came home in caskets.
posted by Brosef K at 3:18 PM on September 12 [1 favorite]

Brosef K: " They receive counter fire from the inhabitants of the village who, it is inferred, are less civilized because women and children are participating in the battle (thus validating the time-worn American justification for collateral damage)."

No doubt Hannity types will read this report as "Again, tragically, America's Heroes have their hands tied by liberals while fighting to keep us safe from the foreign devils" - much as you describe.

But for me - who comes to the story with the moral atrocity of our military presence there understood as a given - the message was: Only fools could imagine defeating such an indomitable people.

Either way, it's a matter of personal framing. In my opinion, the report laid out the facts down the middle.

YMMV.
posted by Joe Beese at 3:34 PM on September 12 [1 favorite]

"American soldiers are attacking a village, in a nation where they have absolutely no business waging war."

Really? If we were talking about Iraq, I would agree with you. But Afghanistan? Seriously? Absolutely no business?
posted by mr_crash_davis mark II: Jazz Odyssey at 3:41 PM on September 12 [1 favorite]

mr_crash_davis mark II: Jazz Odyssey: Really? If we were talking about Iraq, I would agree with you. But Afghanistan? Seriously? Absolutely no business?

Yes, Afghanistan. Seriously. Absolutely no business to involve the US Army.

Counter-terrorism is a police action, not a military action. Bringing the world-view of a region closer in line with your own world view is a diplomatic action, not a military action.

No disrespect to the men and women who are honestly only trying to help, but the day the US armed forces got sent off to accomplish police and diplomatic aims with tanks and air strikes, they lost the war, no matter how many battles they win in the meantime.
posted by paisley henosis at 3:53 PM on September 12 [3 favorites]

Really? If we were talking about Iraq, I would agree with you. But Afghanistan? Seriously? Absolutely no business?

Not anymore. The declared goal of the Afghanistan mission was to capture or kill bin Laden and to punish and remove the government who had been harboring al Qaeda. Well, we failed at the former (bin Laden is almost certainly no longer in Afghanistan) and mostly succeeded at the latter.

What we're doing now is nation building, plain and simple. No different than Iraq. So, yeah, we no longer have any business there except the standard business of foreign armies in Afghanistan; killing a bunch of brown folks and then scuttling off once the war becomes too expensive in terms of men or money.
posted by Justinian at 3:54 PM on September 12 [1 favorite]

>> Seriously? Absolutely no business?

I'll break it down.

"Seriously?"

Yes, very serious.

"Absolutely?"

Absolutely.

"No?"

Resounding.

"Business?"

Well, America always has business, doesn't it?
posted by Brosef K at 4:26 PM on September 12

I think what bothers me about much of the dialogue on war and conflict in Metafilter land is that you get to belong to 2 camps.

1. You're anti-war, and you paint all conflict with a very wide brush and label it inhuman and make sniveling remarks about how anyone who could support it are just so...beneath you. So uneducated and lost. You must also castigate whatever proposed majority you feel it is that holds you down.

2. You're pro-war, and you have to somehow be pro-every war, and pro-everything American, and heartless and cruel and, also, you must castigate whatever proposed majority it is you feel that holds you down.

Cuz here at Metafilter, if you make a pro-soldier comment, you're the devil, and you must be put in your place as such. If you do the opposite, you must be branded as a nasty liberal and left to writhe in your own filth.

Sorta makes me sad.

Also, I believe a time and place in THIS world with THESE humans where there is NO war to be a ridiculous pipedream. That is to say that because concurrently with my desire for peace, I firmly believe that no man is free so long as others are oppressed, and liberation from oppressors (be they British in colonial America, US in Afghanistan, Communists in China, or whomever they may be) does not happen without bloodshed.

And, lastly, and it's something that I've really only begun to fully comprehend in the last couple years, is that this idea of the sanctity of life and the value of humanity is NOT a universal belief in this world. It's a nice one, perhaps even popular. Enlightened even. But certainly not universal.
posted by TomMelee at 4:31 PM on September 12 [4 favorites]

Justinian: "What we're doing now is nation building, plain and simple."

To be precise, what we're doing now is pipeline building. The establishment of a stable client state to support the pipeline's existence is incidental to that goal.

Of course, such an establishment is a deluded fantasy. But one can have sympathy for it. After all, it would be such a spectacularly lucrative pipeline.
posted by Joe Beese at 4:39 PM on September 12 [1 favorite]

Brosef K, that is how they frequently work. They do carry out missions suggested by the local troops. They don't wait patiently for their input, but request it. Do they carry out missions on their own initiative as well? Sure, but sometimes the initiative is local. You really have no reason to impugn the truthfullness of either the reporter or his sources on that point.

How can they be both attacking and pinned down? Easy... they were attacking then they became pinned down. It's a matter of frames of reference. Really, you're not showing good faith at all. Think of Napoleon: victorious at Austerlitz, he was eventually defeated and died in exile. How is it possible to be both victorious and defeated? Different frames of reference. Same way I can be sitting still at my desk and at the same time hurtling around the Sun at great speed.

Your description of how things worked in Vietnam is simplistic at best. They were called advisors in the beginning because that's how it worked, there were initially very few American troops there. Yes, the strategy did change as time went on, but that's how it was in the beginning. Beyond that, you should read some of the accounts of the work of the Special Forces with the Montagnard tribesman in the highlands. That limited success is the basis of much contemporary American counterinsurgency strategy.

Justinian, almost any military campaign to replace the government of a country, rather than achieving a more limited goal like driving them back outside your borders, will inevitably involve occupation and nation building. The mission of replacing the government isn't finished until that stage is finished as well.
posted by Jahaza at 4:55 PM on September 12 [2 favorites]

(You can argue that we should abandon the mission of replacing the Taliban forces that governed Afghanistan, but you can't argue that we've succeeded in doing so or even mostly succeeded if when we leave the country they have 50/50 or better chances of taking over again.)
posted by Jahaza at 4:57 PM on September 12

When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll on your rifle and blow out your brains,
And go to your Gawd like a soldier.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 4:57 PM on September 12

"Counter-terrorism is a police action, not a military action."

That's a nice slogan... but the Taliban has artillery, anti-aircraft weapons, RPG's and machineguns. Any police force equipped to combat the threat is going to be a military force in all but name anyways.
posted by Jahaza at 5:04 PM on September 12 [1 favorite]

TomMelee: You're flat-out wrong about the two camps here on Mefi. There are plenty of members who are either serving, have served, or directly know someone who is. There is quite a spectrum of opinions on the matter.
posted by odinsdream at 5:06 PM on September 12

Odinsdream-
Protip: My descriptions were satire, over generalizations of labels placed by the opposite groups, indicating that someone from the opposing camp is always on the bandwagon to attack and castigate.

Moderate members not withstanding, there's always *someone* willing to strike the match or add tinder to the flames.
posted by TomMelee at 5:18 PM on September 12

And, lastly, and it's something that I've really only begun to fully comprehend in the last couple years, is that this idea of the sanctity of life and the value of humanity is NOT a universal belief in this world. It's a nice one, perhaps even popular. Enlightened even. But certainly not universal.

Hell. That thought is pretty well born out in this country by the unwillingness of the haves to make a tiny sacrifice that would help the have nots get some medical care.
posted by notreally at 5:47 PM on September 12 [3 favorites]

>> You really have no reason to impugn the truthfullness of either the reporter or his sources on that point.

Yes, I do.

So, so, so many reasons. Every reason. Common sense, uncommon sense, and all the other flavors of sense in between are on the side of incredulity. Apologists for American imperialism are rightfully fighting a rearguard action, they need to operate from within the hole they've dug. I do NOT owe them a hand up.

This William F. Buckley-esque "consider Napoleon at Austerlitz" cucumber sandwich gentility might have carried in 1999, but we've seen too much since then. We know too much now.

I have the context of lies, deception, belligerency, obstinacy, and total disregard for the popular will, rule of law, and the supposed sacred tenets of our beacon on a hill that are ALWAYS trampled when efficacy for private interests finds itself at loggerheads with the will of the common people.

No reason. Please.

>> Easy... they were attacking then they became pinned down.

Exactly what I said. Except what you and Landay call pinned down, I call bogged down. Slowed down. "Pinned down" implies defense from attack. My point is that the soldiers Landay was embedded with were the attackers. Assaulting the village. Landay's portrayal is that they "just wanted to search for guns and meet with the elders."

I guess the locals didn't view it the same way. Because they're crazy. Or uncivilized. Or evil. Or all of the above. Take your pick.

But then, what the hell do they know about their homeland? We've got experts who have closely mapped this current imbroglio against the struggles of Napoleon at Austerlitz. We just have to convince the dirt people to take a knee. They just need to LISTEN.

>> Really, you're not showing good faith at all.

Faith is overrated, good or otherwise. I prefer data.
posted by Brosef K at 5:47 PM on September 12 [2 favorites]

I think having the Taliban back in charge of Afghanistan would be a VERY BAD THING from just about anyone's point of view. In my mind it would be the equivalent of an imaginary Westboro Baptist Church army establishing control over a significant portion of the U.S. Except in Afghanistan the fundamentalist army actually exists.

Personally, I think that the use of force to prevent the Taliban from violently imposing their culture on others is an appropriate use of force. I don't like to admit that, because I prefer multi-culturism and tolerance, but tolerance requires reciprocity.

Maybe I'm misguided, maybe the Taliban have changed into a gentler, kindlier movement from the one that ruled Afghanistan in the 90s. Maybe, but I think not. I know the Karzai government is not ideal, that it suffers from corruption and probably has plenty of its own human rights issues and abuses. But at then end of the day, if one were to chart through which path Afghanistan could evolve to a stable representative or democratic government it seems that the worst choice would be to cede to the Taliban.

To me, it would be the utmost in immorality and cowardice to abandon a country to civil war with a pretty damn scary chance of that war going to the Taliban. I would be more sympathetic if we weren't there, and if it weren't the actions of the Taliban that made us be there. No it wasn't there direct actions, but they were pretty explicit in their intention to harbor and protect those that were directly involved in the attacks of September 11th.

So in my mind, it's a situation that has to be dealt with. I can't say whether the military option was the best one or not, I can't say whether politics or some other approach would work better. I don't know. But the bare minimum goal for Afghanistan should be the same for both compassionate liberals and national security hawks: prevent the Taliban for seizing power by *force*. For liberals should be against the extreme anti-liberty themes that define the Taliban. And national security hawks should be against a nation-state that's willing to encourage, harbor and train forces specifically for attacks on the West.

Differing in means, I can understand, but the differing in intent I find baffling.
posted by forforf at 5:56 PM on September 12 [4 favorites]

1. You're anti-war, and you paint all conflict with a very wide brush and label it inhuman and make sniveling remarks about how anyone who could support it are just so...beneath you. So uneducated and lost. You must also castigate whatever proposed majority you feel it is that holds you down.

2. You're pro-war, and you have to somehow be pro-every war, and pro-everything American, and heartless and cruel and, also, you must castigate whatever proposed majority it is you feel that holds you down.

3. You're intelligent and able to form a world of your own, and can read the lessons of history, and most issues are not simply black and white.

The mission has failed, the rebuilding has stalled, the government is corrupt, the warlords are in control and propped up by the foreigners, the insurgency is able to claim the moral high ground. Sad but true.
posted by mattoxic at 5:59 PM on September 12 [1 favorite]

At first light last Friday, in the Chardarah district of Kunduz province in northern Afghanistan, the villagers gathered around the twisted wreckage of two fuel tankers that had been hit by a Nato airstrike. They picked their way through a heap of almost a hundred charred bodies and mangled limbs which were mixed with ash, mud and the melted plastic of jerry cans, looking for their brothers, sons and cousins. They called out their names but received no answers. By this time, everyone was dead.

What followed is one of the more macabre scenes of this or any war. The grief-stricken relatives began to argue and fight over the remains of the men and boys who a few hours earlier had greedily sought the tanker's fuel. Poor people in one of the world's poorest countries, they had been trying to hoard as much as they could for the coming winter.

"We didn't recognise any of the dead when we arrived," said Omar Khan, the turbaned village chief of Eissa Khail. "It was like a chemical bomb had gone off, everything was burned. The bodies were like this," he brought his two hands together, his fingers curling like claws. "There were like burned tree logs, like charcoal.

"The villagers were fighting over the corpses. People were saying this is my brother, this is my cousin, and no one could identify anyone."

So the elders stepped in. They collected all the bodies they could and asked the people to tell them how many relatives each family had lost.

A queue formed. One by one the bereaved gave the names of missing brothers, cousins, sons and nephews, and each in turn received their quota of corpses. It didn't matter who was who, everyone was mangled beyond recognition anyway. All that mattered was that they had a body to bury and perform prayers upon.

...

Jan Mohammad, an old man with a white beard and green eyes, said angrily: "I ran, I ran to find my son because nobody would give me a lift. I couldn't find him."

He dropped his head on his palm that was resting on the table, and started banging his head against his white mottled hand. When he raised his head his eyes were red and tears were rolling down his cheek: "I couldn't find my son, so I took a piece of flesh with me home and I called it my son. I told my wife we had him, but I didn't let his children or anyone see. We buried the flesh as it if was my son." - Ghaith Abdul-Ahad (via Chris Floyd)
posted by Joe Beese at 6:04 PM on September 12 [2 favorites]

Maybe I can't read, but I took "Several U.S. officers said they suspected that the insurgents had been tipped off by sympathizers in the local Afghan security forces or by the village elders, who announced over the weekend that they were accepting the authority of the local government." to mean they weren't headed to the village to attack it in the traditional sense of the word.

And perhaps I'm being optimistic, but I don't think a guy who "was part of the Knight Ridder team ... that investigated and disproved the Bush administration's claims that Saddam Hussein's Iraq had an active nuclear weapons program and ties to al Qaida." is one of those folks who is whitewashing the situation in Afghanistan.
posted by wierdo at 6:13 PM on September 12 [5 favorites]

"'Pinned down' implies defense from attack."

Except that it doesn't. It doesn't imply it at all, it means that they were under attack. But the fact that they were under attack doesn't mean that they weren't attacking themselves. They advanced to a certain point, at which time they became pinned down by hostile fire. It's false to say "They're not really pinned down."

"We've got experts who have closely mapped this current imbroglio against the struggles of Napoleon at Austerlitz."

Umm, no? I was making a point about frames of reference and the use of language. I didn't compare the current conflict to the Napoleonic wars.

You on the other hand just did invoke a Puritan sermon.
posted by Jahaza at 6:17 PM on September 12 [2 favorites]

Personally, I think that the use of force to prevent the Taliban from violently imposing their culture on others is an appropriate use of force. I don't like to admit that, because I prefer multi-culturism and tolerance, but tolerance requires reciprocity.

Well, there you go. I disagree with you rather strongly. Oh, I wouldn't shed any tears if the Taliban all spontaneously combusted. But there's always going to be a group of scumbags trying to violently impose their culture on somebody else. If we try to stop all of them we'll never, ever stop fighting and the pile of skulls will just keep on getting higher.

The thing about using military force is that you don't judge it based on goals, you judge it based on results. It's all fine and dandy to say we want to protect the Afghan people's liberty and freedom and give them a safe place to live. A noble goal. What we usually end up doing is mowing them down with the machine guns of freedom and blowing them up with the 2,000 pound bombs of freedom.

The only legitimate use of military force is protecting the security and freedom of our people and our declared allies. And not farcical puppet pseudo-allies like Iraq where we install a government and then declare them our military allies by fiat. There were terrorist bases in Afghanistan and the government didn't do anything about it? Fine, we blew the shit out of the terrorist bases, killed a large part of the government, and made a rather forceful object lesson for future governments thinking about harboring terrorist bases.

Now we should get the hell out. The thing is, they live in Afghanistan. They live there. We can stay another decade and they will still be there when we leave. So maybe they'll come back. If they do and they keep to acting like total scumbags in their own country, well, that's awful. But it isn't our duty or obligation to deal with every bunch of scumbags. If, on the other hand, they didn't learn the lesson and decide to set up a bunch of terrorist bases again, well, we can blow the shit out of them again.

What we're doing now is making a desert and calling it peace.
posted by Justinian at 7:16 PM on September 12 [2 favorites]

>> Except that it doesn't.

Yes, it does.

Precisely that.

If you want to imbibe Landay's not-subtle portrayal that a community supported potlatch-with-guns ("The operation, proposed by the Afghan army and refined by the U.S. trainers, called for the Afghans to search Ganjgal for weapons and hold a meeting with the elders to discuss the establishment of police patrols.") went awry when local terrorists, supported by women and children, inexplicably went postal on the "trainers" and the "local police," then you are welcome to park your brain there. But you do so without the benefit of data, reason, or context.
posted by Brosef K at 7:18 PM on September 12

if one were to chart through which path Afghanistan could evolve to a stable representative or democratic government it seems that the worst choice would be to cede to the Taliban

When the Taliban came into power, the citizens of Afghanistan accepted stability after years of war at the expense of a representative or democratic government.

they were pretty explicit in their intention to harbor and protect those that were directly involved in the attacks of September 11th

The Taliban discussed turning bin Laden over to the US before and after the September 11 attacks if the US would show them evidence of his terrorist activity. "'We know he's guilty. Turn him over,' Bush said."
posted by kirkaracha at 7:26 PM on September 12

Brosef K: "If you want to imbibe Landay's not-subtle portrayal that a community supported potlatch-with-guns ("The operation, proposed by the Afghan army and refined by the U.S. trainers, called for the Afghans to search Ganjgal for weapons and hold a meeting with the elders to discuss the establishment of police patrols.") went awry when local terrorists, supported by women and children, inexplicably went postal on the "trainers" and the "local police," then you are welcome to park your brain there. But you do so without the benefit of data, reason, or context."

Is it the euphemistic terminology that offends you?

I guess I can see why those might invalidate the whole report for you. It certainly drives me berserk when NPR refers to torture as "enhanced interrogation techniques".

But I have Chris Floyd when I need a spade to be called a spade, context-wise. I thought this report told as much truth about the fighting in Afghanistan as corporate media is ever likely to tell us - and thus FPP worthy.

Again, YMMV.
posted by Joe Beese at 7:35 PM on September 12

> Maybe I'm misguided, maybe the Taliban have changed into a gentler, kindlier movement from the one that ruled Afghanistan in the 90s. Maybe, but I think not.

"The Taliban" is sort of a big category. While the Taliban, as a domestic governing force, was and is highly problematic from our point of view, largely because many of the tenets of their culture (e.g., radical restrictions on education and personal freedom for women) are quite directly opposed to the tenets of our culture-- as a government, it has at certain times in the past been viewed as useful to America's Powers That Be (particularly when the latter thought the Taliban would cooperate on The Pipeline to Glory, referenced by Joe Beese, above-- for that matter, there are Deep Politics rumors to the effect that 9/11 was to some extent an outgrowth of oil-and-opium-smuggling disputes).

After the pipeline deal fell through, and in the period before and after 9/11, the Taliban was a problem to us because its head at the time, Mullah Omar, was a personal buddy of bin Laden's. They had fought against the Russians together, and so Mullah Omar was personally invested in sheltering OBL.

Omar, though, is no longer running things-- he's in hiding.

Which means that the Taliban is again fit to be seen as composed of different, potentially rivalrous sub-groups and sub-tribes. And some of these groups are presumably more open to deals than others. And while it's probably the case that we won't leave, (c.f., pipeline), for purposes of self-defense as opposed to those of petro-politics, we'd be better off drastically minimizing our Afghanistan involvement and focusing instead on Pakistan-- particularly, on trying to ratchet down the tensions between it and India.

Afghanistan isn't really the problem; Pakistan is.
posted by darth_tedious at 7:44 PM on September 12 [1 favorite]

"Afghanistan isn't really the problem; Pakistan is."

Now that we have thousands of troops in Afghanistan. Pull them all out and, especially if you couple it with increased pressure in Pakistan, the Taliban problem is likely to go right back across the border.
posted by Jahaza at 8:03 PM on September 12

My nephew is in the reserves; he joined in order to pay for college back in the early 2000s. He did one tour in Iraq (pre-surge and during the surge) and is currently midway through a tour of Afghanistan.

He's said that Iraq was a picnic compared to Afghanistan. Iraq shook him, but Afghanistan has him hoping he can just make it back alive. He also said that the main difference between Iraq and Afghanistan is that that in Iraq the insurgents and other groups were basically roving gangs who just got new guns for Christmas, where the Afghanis have been fighting for hundreds of years and are formidable opponents.

It does seem, based on talking to him, that we are making progress in Afghanistan, but it's of the slow, grinding sort of progress that chews up soldiers and plays to the Afghanis' strength of outlasting your opponent.

I think the war in Afghanistan is winnable, but the cost of victory may be too high for the American people to pay. I certainly hope that cost doesn't include my nephew.

It's pretty clear in retrospect why Rumsfeld was screaming for an Iraqi invasion hours after 9/11 -- it's a lot easier to drive a bunch of tanks across the desert than it is to drive them over mountain passes.
posted by dw at 8:16 PM on September 12 [1 favorite]

> Taliban problem is likely to go right back across the border

True; there would be more pressure placed on Pakistan by the Taliban. But the core of the Pakistan problem isn't external pressure-- either Talibani or Indian-- it's internal weakness. What order there is, is brittle, and provided by a tradition of military government and military shadow government-- there is not much cultural buffer for absorbing change, or transmitting prosperity from the educated and affluent hub, out to the chaotic, impoverished, alienated outer perimeter.

And, with Pakistan, there are nukes.

If the U.S. really wants to do nation building, it should focus on expanding Pakistan's relatively prosperous hub out toward the rest of the country.

Strengthen Pakistan internally, and it'll feel less driven to fight with India, be better able to safeguard its nukes-- and will have much, much less trouble dealing with the Taliban.
posted by darth_tedious at 8:30 PM on September 12

darth_tedious: "Strengthen Pakistan internally"

Leaving aside the question of by what right we presume to shape the internal affairs of other sovereign nations, what in our history leads you to believe that we are capable of guiding such projects to a desirable outcome? Because it seems to me our record strongly suggests otherwise.

You do realize that the enemy we are fighting is one we essentially created the last time we tried shaping events in this region to our benefit.
posted by Joe Beese at 8:45 PM on September 12 [2 favorites]

> what in our history leads you to believe that we are capable of guiding such projects to a desirable outcome?

Good question-- there isn't a long trail of happy interventions. That said, in this case, the intervention required isn't so much military as it is financial (and educational, but the cultural barriers might make that much tougher).

What makes this worth doing?

Keeping the nukes under control.
posted by darth_tedious at 9:45 PM on September 12

>> Is it the euphemistic terminology that offends you?

It's the whole concept of "reporting." The necessity to craft a narrative. It's ALL euphemism. That's what our modern press is. Euphemism to mislead. Misdirect. The intermediary. "Let me tell you." "Let me show you." No. Don't show me. Don't tell me. Let me see the data and go away. Go tell your mom. Go tell your dog. I just want the raw footage.

I don't trust or distrust Jonathan Landay (okay, frankly I distrust him). I don't want him between me and my data. I don't want to be told "The Tall Tale of the Valiant Marines" or "The Village on the Edge of Nowhere" or "Canyon of Chaos" or "The Bureaucrat Who Betrayed America By Hopping Around His Lavish Office With His Finger Up His Ass."

It's 2009 and I do NOT understand why people still accept these embeds as anything remotely reliable as conduits for information. Know what "reporting" I'd like to see? None. Zero. No opinions. No experts. If you don't possess the ability to ferret out context in the age of Google, you are lazy. That's some hard-ass cheddar, but I'm sticking to it.

Just the facts. I'd like to see as much video, as many pictures, and just raw information without all of the dress-up and make believe.

And I don't want to hear about how this is disrespectful to the heroes. Or aids the terrorists. We film police pulling over motorists and I believe this is a good thing. I'd like to see reporters simply cease to be and recorders take their place. Jonathan Landay should just carry a video camera. Take the footage and let the adults make up their own minds. We're big now, Uncle Sam. We're ready. Global networks of influence want to monitor "their" citizens to protect civilization? Cool. We're going to film you too. How do you like them apples?

Walter Cronkite. Pfft. I have my own always-on, always available network of information access and dissemination. I don't need granddad to boost me up on his knee anymore. That was passable when there were three television channels and a video camera was the size of a refrigerator, but that day is gone.

Show me the raw footage. All of it. No commentary. No "the Pentagon said today." I don't fucking want to hear it! Are there still people who believe "Pentagon spokespeople?" I don't talk to telemarketers because I know they deceive by profession. Reporters, press secretaries are dissemblers by design. Not interested. Step aside.

Will this raw footage prove embarrassing? Stressful? To the troops? To the decision makers? Too bad. Being granted license-to-kill state-of-the-art tools of mass murder means you need to be scrutinized by your employers, the American people. Remember us?

And would this carnage cause Americans to rethink their passive commitment to eternal war? Yes. And that's a bad thing, right?

For the many who make their living off eternal war, it is.
posted by Brosef K at 10:31 PM on September 12 [3 favorites]

Brosef, so you're more of an Orwellian than a Huxleyan?
posted by breath at 11:34 PM on September 12

Afghanistan has more guns than children.

Surely it can solve its own problems with the Taliban. Why don't we just supply them with some food, medicare, and an honest voting system?
posted by five fresh fish at 12:37 AM on September 13

five fresh fish: "Why don't we just supply them with some food, medicare, and an honest voting system?"

If ever figure out how to provide those three things to ourselves, that will be a good idea.
posted by Joe Beese at 4:58 AM on September 13

a soldier is just a terrorist from a wealthy country
posted by kitchenrat at 6:30 AM on September 13

It does seem, based on talking to him, that we are making progress in Afghanistan, but it's of the slow, grinding sort of progress that chews up soldiers and plays to the Afghanis' strength of outlasting your opponent.

I think the war in Afghanistan is winnable, but the cost of victory may be too high for the American people to pay.

Could you be specific about what you think "having won" in Afghanistan would look like? I'm not asking this with intent to debate you, I'm genuinely interested in what people who think there is such a thing as "winning" see it to be.

The reason I'm confused is that it seems a lot like... well, imagine we decided to attack Russia today, and eight years from now we're still fighting, and some people still say we can "win in Russia"... what does that mean? Killing all the Russians? Paving the place? Because you aren't going to just run out of the enemy.
posted by odinsdream at 7:01 AM on September 13

>> a soldier is just a terrorist from a wealthy country

The United States has been teaching "counter-terrorism," "asymmetric warfare," and "irregular warfare" since its inception. Our nation is a giant weapons bazaar to the world and community college on how to cause political instability and what newscasters like to refer to as "the violence." As in "the violence increased this month in Ethiopia" like they're reporting a weather phenomenon not related to American actions.

Opened at the Naval War College in Newport, RI, in 2008, for example:

>> The Center for the study of Irregular Warfare (IW) and Armed Groups supports education and curriculum development including case studies that focus on developing counter-strategies and operating concepts for irregular warfare to include IW in the maritime environment.

Center on Irregular Warfare and Armed Groups (CIWAG)

Now the party line on that type of program is that we're deploying resources to RESPOND to irregular warfare (so-called Somali pirates), but really it's a think tank and resource nexus for American-supported actions like the recent overthrow of Manuel Zelaya in Honduras.
posted by Brosef K at 9:56 AM on September 13

CNN's Michael Ware Reports on Afghan Death Highway

Ware is on Fareed's show today.
posted by homunculus at 10:20 AM on September 13

Afghanistan by the Numbers: Measuring a War Gone to Hell
posted by homunculus at 10:44 AM on September 13

Abdullah Accuses Karzai of Fraud, Treason;
US Dependence on Northern Supply Routes destabilizing North, Threatening Central Asia
posted by homunculus at 1:17 PM on September 14

Counterterrorism is a police action. The Taliban is a government unto itself. Not a terrorist organization, although it sponsors terrorism. So some military action is necessary. Debatable how much, what time, to what effect, etc. I like Obama's emphasis on diplomacy and reconstruction with UNICEF, et.al. Not that you'd know anything about it from the media.

"but really it's a think tank and resource nexus for American-supported actions like the recent overthrow of Manuel Zelaya in Honduras."

So...Dr. Dew isn't currently working on research projects, with Dick Shultz or appearing on NPR or the BBC but as codirector of CIWAG she's not only blowing off developing curriculum, case studies, reseach, etc. on the threats from irregular warfare and domestic and foreign armed groups and militias, she's one of the folks spearheading the U.S. effort to overthow Zelaya?
She's doing a piss poor job of it if she is.

Look, Romeo Vasquez trained at the SOA, so there's some validity there. But what is the U.S. supposed to do...invade to restore him? Aren't soldiers terrorists?
F'ing damned if you do, damned if you don't. It's a sensitive, political situation. Honduran constitution says one thing, Zelaya wants something else. The people are all over the place. The military is dangerous and unreliable.
Much like Afghanistan. It's a tough complex situation.
As it is, Afghanistan is being sorted out piecemeal. Bad move. I think we need to be there, but it's not being handled well. Perhaps that's a function, from the U.S.' part, of fatigue from Iraq, running out of money, problems at home, et.al.

I will say, although views do differ on metafilter, U.S. troops are one group that regularly get disparaged and maligned in a generalized manner that would not be accepted for any other group. Getting pretty sick and tired of it. Even when I agree - wholeheartedly in some cases - with the policy criticism.
posted by Smedleyman at 6:08 PM on September 14

Ah, waste of my time.
posted by Smedleyman at 6:18 PM on September 14

Not that anybody's gonna come revisit this, but I found the perfect answer to why I disagree with the following:


When the Taliban came into power, the citizens of Afghanistan accepted stability after years of war at the expense of a representative or democratic government.

It was in the Sep 14th Washington Post

this is the last warning. Keep your son away from this work. . . .

We know your son is working for infidels. If something happens to him, do not complain.

Two hours later, after he and his father discussed their options and concluded that they had no faith in the local police to protect them, Ahmad called the United Nations and resigned.

So yeah ... I feel pretty strongly that letting the Taliban take back control to be a terrible mistake, strategically, politically, and even more important to me, morally.
posted by forforf at 6:25 AM on September 15

It was a promise neither man would have wanted to keep. Yesterday the funeral of a Black Watch soldier killed in Afghanistan took a bizarre turn when his best friend arrived in a bright green dress and pink leg warmers to honour a pact that the two of them had made.
posted by homunculus at 8:36 AM on September 17

The Cat and the Tiger
posted by homunculus at 8:58 AM on September 17

FWIW, the Taliban is already back in control. Kabul is a "free" zone. 80% of the rest of the country is pwnd by Taliban.
posted by five fresh fish at 3:27 PM on September 17

Letting The Next Guy Sort It Out
posted by homunculus at 8:25 AM on September 20

It's Not About the Troops: Only a legitimate Afghan government can beat the Taliban.
posted by homunculus at 11:26 AM on September 23