Why debate the war?

[UnderseaLcpl]

Well, I can certainly see the author's point and am inclined to agree to some extent. I have comrades who are still serving in Afghanistan and Iraq, and to hear them tell it, not much has changed. In the recent words of my friend Sgt. "Shrapnel" Macintosh, "It's the same ********** ****** ****** as before. We're just going through the motions now."

However, I do not agree with the idea that the war is unwinnable - it's just being fought incorrectly. In my own experience, that of my fellow servicemembers, and in first-hand written accounts o the subject of counterinsurgency, I keep coming across the same themes.

The first is that the training is simply not up to par. It looks good on paper, but when you actually go through it you see that it's mostly just a show. For example, I underwent counter-insurgency training at March AFB, where they had the innovative idea of building an entire simulated town and firebase, with the town populated by "citizens". We would go on patrols through the town on a daily basis and attempt to uncover who the actors portraying "insurgents" were through all the usual techniques. There was a whole backstory for the town and the clans and everything. I'd like to meet the guy who came up with the idea, it really was superb.

Unfortunately, the theory was better than the practice. Most of our actors didn't even speak Arabic, and nobody bothered to teach us, not that anyone wanted to learn. I actually wanted to learn but all I managed was memorization of about 40 phrases. The actors didn't understand or try to emulate arabic culture, other than dress, and the lacksadaisical approach spread to the training companies in about 24 hours. By the end of day 3 nobody was taking the training all that seriously. How can you when the citizen you are attempting to question in Arabic pulls you aside and says "look, man, go down that street and there's a guy in that house on the right with prayer beads and a beard -he's the insurgent, just hurry up. We've got other **** to do."? I find it hard to believe that the military couldn't drum up thirty or so Arabic Americans to provide a convincing training environment and some good advice on the culture and language.

Once in the field, things didn't get any better. Most of the good officers in the line companies in Iraq and Afghanistan understand that you really have to get out and be part of the community you are working in to develop effective relationships with the people and get to know the situation. It's hard to do that when there are dozens of TTPs specifically prohibiting just about every kind of interaction with the locals and you have to go back to your firebase every night, or afternoon, or whenever they feel like calling you back. The poorly-trained troops don't help the situation either. We were always blowing up crap we weren't supposed to be blowing up, or wasting everyone's time at checkpoints with no intelligence on what to look for, or just pissing people off in general when we weren't accidentally killing them. Even if we hadn't messed everything up that badly it wouldn't have mattered because nobody spoke Arabic and we never had enough translators.

I think the whole process needs to be restructured from the ground up, with a core element of regular troops who act only as quick-response forces supporting contingents of specially-trained line infantry who operate for extended periods within the communities, each of which needs an expatriate translator native to the area. Those troops in turn need to support an extensive network of low-key expatriate spies/informers and an even larger network of local support developed by the line infantry. More than anything, the training needs to be improved. Like March AFB, it just looks good on paper.

[Skybird]

Well, I see where you are coming from, but what you say is right what the author of that essay criticises as this misled perception of "how the war could be won if only we do this or that". there is a cultural gap beteen them and us that you ignore. and no matter how many translators you have with you, and how many troops stay in a region - that gap remains to be there. And even many of the non-combatting civilian factions simply do not want what you offer them. They want to run their place in their own ways and by their own habits - not yours that you claim to be "democracy", no matter how precious you think your ways are. And as the author says, almost all parties, from politicians over the military and defence lobby to NGOs, have financial and powerpolitical interest to insist that things should be seen right the way you do, and that we just should boost up our effort to run it this way, and never put it into doubt.

In the end, there is plenty of profit and income to be gained from the Afghanistan policy NOT being changed and critically questioned. It more and more reminds me of the role of aid organisations and NGOs in the ME that run a business that depends on the situation not changing over there. they have more than one thousand different NGOs operating in the Palestinians' territory, with over 24000 employees on side of the UN relief organisation alone, and multi-billions of money changing hands. If suddenly peace would break out there and these NGOs would no longer be needed, it would be an major economic disaster, with a whole infrastructure collapsing and tens of thousands of additional unemployed.

Paradoxical effects.

[UnderseaLcpl]

Well, we're certainly agreed upon the idea of profit to be made from retaining the status quo. I wouldn't put it past any entity that is or works closely with the government. There is simply no incentive to change anything, other than in the short term. However, I think you overestimate the consequences of the fall of NGOs. If a system were in place (free trade and fair play) that ultimately undid their existence, there would be a surplus of economic activity for those former employees to fall into. I don't say that just as a proponent of an ideology, I say it as a matter of economic course. Every relaxation of trade barriers ever made (and I mean actual relaxations, not just making a "free" trade agreement that is just a different set of restrictions) has generated more jobs than it cost. The problem only comes when it costs jobs in one area and gives them and more to another, which draws groans from the weavers. Politically predictable.

One other thing I would like to address, Sky, is your prediliction towards perceiving Muslims as being "beyond help", if you please. Call me a hopeless optimist, but they are people like you or I. I've seen good ones, and I've seen bad ones, but most were good. Regardless of what their religion may preach, or what you think of it, why do you have any reason to suppose that a reform of Islam is any more improbable than the reform of the Catholic church, or the advent of Protestantism? In Europe it was prosperity that caused the break with the Church, and the prosperity of Protestant nations that caused the reformation of Catholic policies. Why should Islam be any different? I honestly think that if we gave them a fair shake and practiced truly free trade they would become like most US muslims in time, which is to say that they would become much more moderate. Given a little more time, they'd probably become like every other religion in the US, largely ignored, save for when a candidate needs the backing of a religious district. Take away the power of the state to do their will, and even that would disappear.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by UnderseaLcpl

One other thing I would like to address, Sky, is your prediliction towards perceiving Muslims as being "beyond help", if you please. Call me a hopeless optimist, but they are people like you or I. I've seen good ones, and I've seen bad ones, but most were good. Regardless of what their religion may preach, or what you think of it, why do you have any reason to suppose that a reform of Islam is any more improbable than the reform of the Catholic church, or the advent of Protestantism? In Europe it was prosperity that caused the break with the Church, and the prosperity of Protestant nations that caused the reformation of Catholic policies. Why should Islam be any different? I honestly think that if we gave them a fair shake and practiced truly free trade they would become like most US muslims in time, which is to say that they would become much more moderate. Given a little more time, they'd probably become like every other religion in the US, largely ignored, save for when a candidate needs the backing of a religious district. Take away the power of the state to do their will, and even that would disappear.

I cannot see that I even mentioned Islam in this thread. Regarding the social order of Afghanistan, I see Islam being one problem - but another one is their archaic tribal community system that was in place before Islam, and would still be in place even if Islam would not be there. Much of the corrpution in the country is owned to that. and finally I simply think that this socalled ameican optimism regarding america'S own role-model for the world is a missionsing spirit that is extremely focussed on it's own founding myths and assuming that sicne they worked in america they must work in the rest of the world, too. Frankly said,I think that assuption is idiotic. The american foundign worked the wy it did, because it was taking in that given place, sitation and context, and no other. And I just say, that by all reason, American missionising caused at least as much trouble and suffering in the world, as it did good. It worked with post-Nazi Germany, becasue in the end there was a familiar cultural basis between Wetsern european nations, and America. It did work much less in japan (I would not at all call Japan a democracy) becasue Japan was totally destroyed and completely shattered and unable to move. It did work badly in South america were it led to the establishing and/or support of milizary dictaorships. It did work with mixed, often quesitonableresults in Vietnam and Korea (again, the latter having seen a deadly military dictatorship with friendly assistance of the CIA). And in egneral, implementation of economic principles by Anglosaxon forethinkers and America often led to the massive bleeding and disadvanatge of poor nations who sat at the weaker end of the deal: especially Africa comes to mind, but also minorities in South america.

I do not share your extremely positive view of the US. I see it as an ampire that has done some good, but also some bad. It's better than many othgers, but by far no holy knight in shining armour. It worst foreign-political sin is naivety, caused by too much-self-esteem - America cannot even imagine that others maybe do not want to be like itself.

I think that Islamic ideology leaves little space to favour freedom defined by democratic understandings. Democracy is in the end a cpncept that results from typical cultural and historic developements that are typical for europe - not the middle Eastern mepires, or that of the far East. Democarcy is no cultrare-free concept, it is culture-dependent - something that the West seems to be completely unaware of. It has always been one of my arguments that peace and freedom in Islamic understanding are totally different concepts than in Western, democratic understanding, and I stick with that. for example, for you and me "peace" means to find a mutually acceptable arrangement with other factions that are not ourselves, to live in coexistence. For Islam, peace means the absence of other factions that are not itself, since the existence of such a faction means a challenge to the totalitarian claim for global dominance of Islam. Our peace knows coexistence, islamic peace only knows control of the other: submission, and coexistence only in terms of a relation between master and slave. Tyrannic governments (in the understanding of the ancient Greek term tyrannis which was a much more moral-free concept than "tyranny" means today) not only suit Islam better to strengthen it - they also have been the government of choice to battle islamic radicals, whereas whereever democracy has been pushed in the ME, Islamic radicals gained influence and power - by democratic means. That'S why I am worried about Mubarak being gone one day: I do not see who could fill the gap he leaves behind, and calls by the West for more democracy in Egyptian "elections" just elad to massive boosts for the power of radicals and orthodox factions in parliament. Not democracy, but the totalitarianism of the Egyptian state is what keeps Islamic radicalisation in check in Egypt. It was Saddam who kept the conflicting ethnciities in Iraq under control, with iron fist, but look at the mess once he was gone.

However.

Edit: during the Gaza flotilla incident, there was an essay written where the auhtor like me referred to America's naivety rgarding the genral valdiity of it'S founding myths. There he maybe catches better the essence of what I want to say. In the example of the detoriating rerlations between turkey and israel he also argues that relgion not only raises it'S head wehere ratio and freedom is failing, but that it is a basic facotre forming realities and human behavior, making that behaviour more unavailable to manipualtion by western ideas of how things should be than american self-referring to it's own founding history can imagine.

http://www.achgut.com/dadgdx/index.p...ten_europaeer/

[TarJak]

Originally Posted by UnderseaLcpl

However, I do not agree with the idea that the war is unwinnable - it's just being fought incorrectly.

But the problem is firstly understanding what is winning. To do that you need to understand what the goal is and TBH I can't see any evidence that anyone has clearly articulated what the goal now is.

I think you can train and translate all you want but without tearing the place even further apart I don't see an easy way of backing out now. And if history is anything to go by, I'm sure the British and Russians in the century before last as well as the Russians in the 1980's thought they could win too.

In terms of the relationship between the western soldiers on the ground and the local populace, put youself in their shoes. How would you like a bunch of uniformed Afghan soldiers interfering in your way of life, stopping you from freely travelling from one place to another without going though checkpoints as if you were a criminal and having absolutely nothing in common with them other than your humanity?

I know I'd bloody well hate having it happen here and can imagine that it's much the same for the local population over there. All they want is for our mob to bugger off and let them get on with their lives in their own way,

The problem being, now that we are over there, we have a real hard time getting back out without being all embarrassed.

Well stuff that, I say we swallow our pride, pack up and go home and leave them to it. otherwise we had better get ready to stay there for a long time and watch many more body bags sent home because there is no winning without knowing what winning is.

[tater]

As long as the pan-Islamic forces (AQ's stated goal is a pan-Islamic state, after all (return to Caliphate)) are destabilized, the US "wins." Our geopolitical goals are remarkably consistent across administrations.

The US is a great power that seeks to prevent other powers from challenging our hegemony in regions important to us. The Middle East is important to us, hence we will seek to destabilize nascent powers.

If European interests coincide with ours—or if a State wishes to ally herself with the US for whatever reason—they join us.