The Black Hole Named Afghanistan

From my perspective, we seem to have two choices in Afghanistan. One is bad, the other is worse. The "bad" choice is to boost the number of troops on the ground by 40,000 or so, as General McChrystal seems to be asking. Given the terrain and the historic mistrust of outsiders by the people of that sad nation, it is doubtful that an additional 40,000 troops will "accomplish the mission." With that addition, we might, just might, be able to bring some semblance of calm to some of the cities. But, then again, nobody really knows, do they?

The "worse" choice is to try to get along with the troop numbers we have (or even a reduced number). That means to surrender the rural areas to the Taliban and to try to tolerate or limit the ability of the Taliban to spread mayhem in the urban areas. But it leaves us in a "force protection" posture in which we have little or no influence over what goes on throughout the country. We would simply hunker down for the long run - and believe me it would be a long run!

Even the "bad" option of boosting the number of troops in country will put us in a situation in which the "end of the tunnel" lies so far in the future that we will see no light there for years to come.

As for the question, "Is Afghanistan another Vietnam?" the answer has to be "Yes and No." It is not Vietnam in the sense that 200 soldiers are NOT being killed each week. That situation will likely never come to pass. It is not Vietnam in the sense that the men and women serving there are having to slog through swamp and jungle. But it is like Vietnam in that we are becoming co-dependent with a government that is weak and corrupt and not likely to change. It is Vietnam in that the enemy has safe haven just across the border and recieves support and encouragement from the people, the government, and the armed forces of other nations in the region (Pakistan's IIS, the Saudi Arabian people, and, potentially, the government of Iran).

I fear that neither the NATO armed forces (which means mostly the good ole U. S. of A.) nor our diplomats will be able to even begin to effect the changes needed to bring stability to Afghanistan. The best we can seem to hope for, at this point in time, is to bring relative peace to the cities and stasis outside of them. We can hope and pray that the additional Afghani forces we are training prove, in time, to have at least a minimal capability to defend all of the nation's territory; the capability AND the will. But it will take eight to ten years to bring them to a fully trained and ready status - they are, after all, a third world nation. Creating a modern army from that start is not impossible, only extraordinarily difficult. Those are not happy thoughts.

God Bless All this evening. TAD+