The American secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, flies to Britain this week to meet a crisis entirely of London and Washingtons creation. They have no strategy for the continuing occupation of Afghanistan. They are hanging on for dear life and praying for something to turn up. Britain is repeating the experience of Gordon in Khartoum, of the Dardanelles, Singapore and Crete, of politicians who no longer read history expecting others to die for their dreams of glory.
Every independent report on the Nato-led operation in Afghanistan cries the same message: watch out, disaster beckons. Last week Americas Afghanistan Study Group, led by generals and diplomats of impeccable credentials, reported on a weakening international resolve and a growing lack of confidence. An Atlantic Council report was more curt: Make no mistake, Nato is not winning in Afghanistan. The country was in imminent danger of becoming a failed state.
A clearly exasperated Robert Gates, the American defence secretary, has broken ranks with the official optimism and committed an extra 3,000 marines to the field, while sending an unusually stern note to Germany demanding that its 3,200 troops meet enemy fire. Germany, like France, has rejected that plea. Yet it is urgent since the Canadians have threatened to withdraw from the south if not relieved. An equally desperate Britain is proposing to send half-trained territorials to the front, after its commanders ignored every warning that the Taliban were the toughest fighters on earth.
Meanwhile Nato is doing what it does best, squabbling. Gates has criticised Britain for not taking the war against the insurgents with sufficient vigour. Britain is furious at Americas obsession with spraying the Helmand poppy crop and thus destroying all hope of winning hearts and minds. Most of the 37,000 soldiers wandering round Kabul were sent on the understanding that they would do no fighting. No army was ever assembled on so daft a premise.
Natos much-vaunted 2006 strategy has not worked. It boasted that its forces would only be guarding reconstruction and training the Afghan police. There would be no more counterproductive airstrikes against Pashtun villages. The Taliban would be countered by American special forces, with the Pakistan army attacking their rear. Two years ago anyone expressing scepticism towards this rosy scenario was greeted at Nato headquarters in Kabul with guffaws of laughter. Today that laughter must be music in Taliban ears.
Kabul is like Saigon at the end of the Vietnam war. It swarms with refugees and corruption while an upper crust of well-heeled contractors, consultants and NGO groupies careers from party to party in bullet-proof Land Cruisers. Spin doctors fighting a daily battle with the truth have resorted to enemy kill-rates to imply victory, General Westmorelands ploy in Vietnam.
This is a far cry from Britains 2001 pledges of opium eradication, gender-awareness and civic-governance classes. After 87 deaths and two years of operations in Helmand, the British Army cannot even secure one dam. Aid successes such as a few new schools and roads in the north look ever more tenuous as the country detaches itself from Kabul and tribal elders struggle to make terms with Taliban commanders.
There is plainly no way 6,000 British troops are ever going to secure, let alone pacify, the south. More soldiers will simply evince more insurgency. More American raids across the Pakistan border merely offer propaganda to Al-Qaeda in its radicalisation of the tribal areas. It was just such brutalism that preceded the Soviet escalation of the counterinsurgency war in the 1980s, and the rise of the (American-backed) precursors of the Taliban.
The best news out of Kabul is the increased disenchantment of the wily Afghan president, Hamid Karzai. Last week he vetoed the Wests offering of a former leader of Britains Liberal Democrats, Lord Ashdown, to co-ordinate operations in Kabul, whatever that might mean. Liberal democracy is not high on Karzais priority list.
He attacked the British for drawing the Taliban into his unregulated domain. When outside agents were thought to be negotiating with Taliban elements behind his back, he instantly expelled them from the country.
Meanwhile he has taken to making his own choice of provincial governors and commanders, often warlords enmeshed in the booming drugs trade. That trade offers Afghanistan its one staple income.
While the international community in Kabul wails that Karzai is too close to the druglords, the warlords and various sinister Taliban go-betweens, they are at least his warlords and his go-betweens. When Britain sacked the ruthless tribal chief, Sher Mohammed Akhundzada, as governor of Helmand, Karzai was furious and rightly predicted it would lead to a surge in Taliban aggression.
For all his faults, Karzai is both an elected leader and a canny one. He is a virtual prisoner of the Nato garrison in Kabul but Afghanistan remains his country and if he thinks he can cut deals across its political heartlands, let him. If he wants Nato to stop bombing Taliban bases in Pashtun villages and killing Pashtun tribal leaders, then it should stop.
Withdraw the opium eradication teams from Helmand. Let Karzai barter money for power and power for peace. The foreign governance pundits in Kabul might dream of Afghanistan as a latterday Sweden, but they are never going to bring Pashtuns, Baluchis, Tajiks, Hazaras and Uzbeks into a stable federation.
Only an Afghan stands any chance of doing that, and the one Afghan on offer is Karzai.
Common sense advocates a demilitarisation of the occupation, with a withdrawal of western troops to Kabul where they can try to protect the capital and the northern trade routes. In provinces to the south and east, Karzais money, weapons and negotiating skills must deliver what results they can. The West cannot possibly police Afghanistan with anything remotely like the resources it has available.
Behind such a policy shift should lie an even more crucial one. For the past two decades intelligence lore has held that nothing happens along the Afghan/Pakistan frontier without agencies of the Pakistan army being involved. The latters pro-Taliban strategy through the 1990s was based on its obsession with defence in depth against India. Pakistan wanted Afghanistan stable, friendly and medieval. The security of the Punjab rested on the containment of the Pashtun tribal lands straddling the Pakistan/ Afghanistan border.
George W Bushs reckless elevation of Al-Qaeda after 2001 promoted a small group of alien Arab guests into global warriors for Islam. It also destroyed Islamabads hold over the Taliban. America bribed the Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf with $1 billion a year to declare a U-turn and fight his former allies.
Musharraf duly broke his non-intervention treaty with the Pashtun and sent his army against them. The Talibans influence increases with every attack and with every American bombing of villages. The Pakistan army is suffering greater losses in this war than either the British or the Americans.
Wise heads in Islamabad know that they must withdraw from the border and restore respect for tribal autonomy. Nothing else will incline the Pashtun and other tribes to reject Al-Qaeda and its Taliban allies. The alternative is a growing insurgency that must destabilise whatever democratic regime might emerge from this months Pakistan elections. That prospect is far worse than whatever fate might befall Afghanistan.
There is no sensible alternative to ending military operations against the Pashtun, flying under whatever flag. Like Iraqs Kurdistan, Pashtunistan is a country without a state. It has been cursed by history, but it returns that curse with interest when attacked. Fate has now handed it a starring role in Britains nastiest war in decades, and offered it the power to wreck an emergent democracy of vital interest to the West.
To have set one of the worlds most ancient and ferocious people on the warpath against both Kabul and Islamabad takes some doing. But western diplomacy has done it. Now must begin the agonising process of escaping that appalling mistake. Having lost Iraq, in that Iraq is won, will the MSM now desperately try to make us lose Afghanistan?
#1
From what I understand the Opium crops, at least a large percentage of them are in enemy held territory and the profits are used against us. If this is true they should be hit with a few Arc Lights followed by napalm, followed by salt in the Earth.
#4
George W Bushs reckless elevation of Al-Qaeda after 2001 promoted a small group of alien Arab guests into global warriors for Islam. It also destroyed Islamabads hold over the Taliban.
WTF? This sort of defines the incomprehensibly stupid reaction to the world we live in by many who unfortunately have access to media, academia, and political power. Even 9/11 called for a non-response, you see.
Especially rich is that the column refers to one of the signal developments of the day - the increasingly obvious and shameful lack of adult resolve among most western nations, and the utter dependence of civilization on American courage, grit, and sense of responsibility to get through the day.
One of the key components of the robust trap of free-ridership in which the US has been stuck for so long - our "allies" are incapable of being shamed by almost any situation, and thus is lost one important and powerful lever over the behavior of friends. There are of course many honorable exceptions to this pattern - I've seen first-hand the agony of allied personnel in Iraq who were furious with their own governments and electorates for their moral collapse WRT to terrorism and the fight against the abominable psychos of the islamist enemy. But with the objective situation (Uncle Sam will, per force, take care of matters if they get serious) and the all-encompassing environment of soft-disinformation (this column), hard disinformation, and perverse politics (US-bashing as a reliable political tactic), it's hard to see much chance of improvement.
#5
Why are we still subsidizing the European welfare state? I remain supremely skeptical of socialized health care in its many shades, but the amount of our defense budget, and the corresponding amount Euro govt's don't spend, must amount to a large portion of what they do spend on their various welfare programs. What happens when we stop the spending?
#6
IO PAKISTAN > GULFNEWS - PAKISTAN MUST REMAIN A NUCLEAR ARMED STATE, + FOXNEWS > Legislation being introduced in Congress calling = in suppor of a greater US mil presence in Pakistan.
FWIW, Spook86 raises questions about McCain's military leadership. Excerpt:
That's why the Senator's repeated references to his Jacksonville tour struck us as a bit puzzling. If command of that group represented John McCain at his best (as a leader), then it highlighted some of his worst personal qualities as well. That's the "rest" of the Jacksonville story, which should provide some campaign grist for the Democratic attack mill.
We also wonder if McCain's reputation in Jacksonville is one reason that the area rejected him overwhelmingly in last week's Florida primary. Of the state's four major military regions, Jacksonville (the third-largest Navy town in the United States) was the only one that McCain lost, and by double-digit margins.
#1
the Jacksonville assignment also marked a dark chapter in McCain's personal life, a period marked by serial philandering and the end of his first marriage.
What's the name of that Southern general who said "a soldier who won't f*ck, won't fight"?
McCain had a series of public affairs as squadron commander, while they were at the home base. That is, in my opinion as a military spouse and also according to military regulations, not only a major character flaw -- it's also a major abrogation of the duties of a commander. Doubly so if, as persistent stories say, some of those affairs were with the wives of his direct subordinates.
What makes it worse is that he did this in the post-Vietnam period when the military was trying hard to retain honor and dignity in the face of all the funding cutbacks and both Congressional and civilian denigration of servicemen and their families. It was a time that called for the highest leadership and a time in which this sort of character flaw and egocentric judgement was particularly corrosive to morale, discipline and the military's sense of its own traditions.
Unfortunately, IMO, his actions since then do indeed fit the same pattern.
#3
Lotp, I've heard that allegation but it just doesn't ring true to me. YOu make loath is politics but he has a sense of honor and I believe he would have faced something similar to the Swift Boats way back in 2000 if the allegations were true.
But THIS wife of a retired officer, who is a just a few years younger than McCain and had close relatives voluntarily serve in Vietnam, does not think McCain is an honorable man or one who embodies the character of a military leader.
If he weren't running on his POW status I wouldn't say this so loudly. But because he is, I do. My husband and many of our close friends worked and sacrificed in those years to serve in uniform and restore the effectiveness of our military in the truly horrible years after we fled Saigon. IMO what McCain did as a commander in FL undercut that work of so many and just does not deserve respect.
#7
If this was done in the post-vietnam era, that is likely the only reason McCain avoided a court martial. From what I understand, if an officer is caught committing adultery, especially back then, he was court-martialed and given the boot. The fact that he wasn't may be one reason why it's the navy areas he especially doesn't do well in.
#8
I've not seen the primary data myself, but there are several sources out there who say pretty much the same thing: Mac was a serial philanderer who did the horizontal tango with a number of women, some of whom were military spouses, some of whom were subordinate officers or enlisted ratings.
That really, really doesn't speak well of him. It's a question of honor.
I've said before, and I'll say again, that if it's the Hildebeast versus Mac, I'll vote for Mac.
Assuming I can use the voting booth stylus while I hold my nose.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/03/2008 15:09 Comments ||
Top||
#9
Get off of the moral highground pleeease. This is a time of war. Not a time of shopping with the ladies. We are all flawed and have fallen short, too many times myself. You want us to vote for the Governor of Mormachussets over one of our heroes. Mac is the only viable chance we have of keeping some sanity in the whitehouse. Have you ever listened to Mitt. When questioned about authorizing war against Iran after an attack he said he would ask the attorneys. What the hell kind of answer is that? Damn disgraceful.At least Mac served his nation, in a damn pit of hell, with honor. I'll look past some indiscretions. After you folks spend some time talking to the rats and counting days with little marks on the wall you come back with some moral highground. You're damn right he had some problems readjusting to the world after the war. Damn lucky he didn't eat a bullet like too many of our boys are doing now when they come home. Damn moral absolutism is the death of our nation and our great leaders. Normal men can no longer hold office because every damn housewife in the country feels bad because of an indiscretion or two. Get a grip. Real leadership is not absolute, no man is perfect. Perfection is an illusion and should be shunned. Any man without some skeletons is untrustable, untrustable. Forgive my rant, but I couldn't hold my tongue on this. Finally we have a candidate worth standing behind and damn moral absolutists are asking us to sacrifice him for some indiscretions. Unthinkable. Nuff said, I'll go back to my hole.
#11
Well if there is a war on then let's get a Franks or Schwartzkopf in the ring. We know he will use overwhelming force on our enemies. The problem I have of with McCain is he is all about McCain. A lot like BJC without the charm.
I would vote for McCain if I thought he would actually plan and act to defeat our enemies instead of acting in a pique, taking his ball and going home because someone calls him names. Unfortunately, I don't trust any of the remaining candidates to put Americans' interests first.
Posted by: ed ||
02/03/2008 16:30 Comments ||
Top||
#12
We all fall short at times. No one is perfect. The Bible said:
"And why do you look at the splinter in your brother's eye, and not notice the beam which is in your own eye?"
The good book also speaks to the issue of forgiveness.
FDR, Eisenhower, Thomas Jefferson, Grover Cleveland, Warren G. Harding, JFK (the first), Clinton, etc. have had affairs. Does the behavior continue or did the person learn anything from it and cease the behavior? Does the act represent how the person will conduct the affairs of the country?
#13
Let me guess, Bill Clinton must be your best friend Elvis.
Screwing around on your wife isn't important or doesn't matter to being a leader?
I'm sorry but if someone is willing to violate the vow he/she makes to their spouse when they marry, why the hell should I trust them to keep any other oath they make?
If you can't keep your word to the person that is supposed to be the most important person in your life, then clearly unworthy of any position of trust.
When I vote for a candidate, any candidate, I don't check my morals and principles at the door. Honestly, I think failing to keep our principles and compromising on moral issues is WHY this country is heading in such a bad direction. Besides which, adultery is illegal under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, at least it was during the time that this supposedly occurred. The fact he was a POW doesn't excuse him from the oath he took at commissioning or the vow he made to his wife.
So while I can respect what he did by serving his country, I cannot respect the fact he's an oathbreaker and about 3mm to the right of the Hildabeast, which I firmly believe is an actual traitor. Being slightly to the right of her is no virtue.
#14
I don't know the answer to this question but since the President is the Commander in Chief, does the Uniform Code of Military Justice apply to him/her? Should he not be held to the same standard?
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
02/03/2008 16:58 Comments ||
Top||
#16
Couldn't help this posting :)
Hillary Clinton goes to a primary school in New York to talk about the world. After her talk she offers a question time. One little boy puts up his hand. The Senator asks him what his name is. "Kenneth." "And what is your question, Kenneth? "I have three questions: "First - whatever happened to the medical health care plan you were paid to develop during your husband's eight years in the office as President? "Second - why would you run for President after your husband shamed the office? "Third whatever happened to all those things you took when you left the White House?" Just then the bell rings for recess. Hillary Clinton informs the kids that they will continue after recess.
When they resume, Hillary says, "Okay, where were we? Oh, that's right, question time. Who has a question?" A different little boy puts his hand up. Hillary points him out and asks him what his name is. "Larry." "And what is your question, Larry?" "I have five questions: "First - whatever happened to the medical health care plan you were paid to develop during your husband's eight years in the office as President? "Second - why would you run for President after your husband shamed the office? "Third - whatever happened to all those things you took when you left the White House? "Fourth - why did the recess bell go off 20 minutes early? "Fifth-- Where's Kenneth?"
Elvis, it's not the adultery. It's the abuse of his role as a senior commander that I have a hard time getting past.
Again, not saying that as a housewife. But rather as the wife of a retired career officer who served during that time.
In any case, you can be sure that, fairly or unfairly, the Dems will hit McCain with this, and the Keating 5 scandal and more if he wins the nomination.
#18
Let's face it. McCain is all about himself. He will make a terrible president. Just another flyboy, like Cunningham who makes a wonderful pilot and terrible leader. Combat pilots are chosen because they are great athletes and don't wince in split second fighting. They rise to the top for those reasons, not necessarily leadership skills or personal character.
I find the references to God and forgiveness to be offensive in that it seems you are shaking your finger at others and saying that they need to forgive him for character flaws rather than look at him as a whole and what type of leader he will be. Did you feel that gay, meth using preacher in Colorado should be left in charge to lead his church? It's not about forgiveness of him, as a man, but about his character as a leader.
I too will pull the lever for McCain over Hillary or Obama, but what a sad selection we have been left with.
How many troops are you going to get killed because some dumb officer type couldn't keep his dick in his pants snd sleeps with the wrong enlisted man's wife?
#24
That "don't judge" whine is what I expect from a Biblical CHERRY PICKER.
Here's the full text:
Judge not, that you be not judged. 2 For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. 3 And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? 4 Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me remove the speck from your eye'; and look, a plank is in your own eye? 5 Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.
The passage says that the standard of judgment you use will be the standard of judgment that will be used to judge you. If you use personal like and dislike to judge others, that's the standard that will be used to judge you. If you're fair, get the facts, see both sides, then make a judgment, then you will be judged fairly, based on the facts and after both sides are considered. In John 7:24, Jesus counsels people not to judge according to appearance, but to judge with righteous judgment.
Note the example of the speck and log: the person who takes the log out becomes qualified to remove the speck.
With regard to McCain, the situation is more stark than the log/speck comparision: someone who's never committed adultery is fully qualified to take the facts and render judgment. Hell, someone who's committed adultery, repented, confessed, and worked to never do it again is qualified to judge someone who's never repented or confessed it.
A few verses later, Jesus talks about judging false prophets by their fruits. In one letter, Paul is exasperated that Christians are taking Christians to court, and asks if there isn't anyone qualified to judge between them: after all, they will judge angels. Paul judged an adulterer, "handed him over to satan", and the guy came crawling back asking forgiveness, at which time Paul told the church to accept him back: whatever happened to the guy had terrified everyone else to the point of not getting near him. Finally, in Revelation, the Church of Ephesus is praised for detecting and weeding out false prophets and false teachers: sounds like judging to me.
I'm beginning to come around to the belief that the Gospels, Acts, and the epistles trace, in sequence, the spiritual maturation of Jesus' disciples in that, as they grew spiritually mature, Jesus' teaching became more detailed, specific, and gave more latitude: the Sermon on the Mount is extreme, but so are the prohibitions we put on children. As the children grow, we remove the absolutist aspects of the prohibitions because the children gain maturity and judgment, begin to see the wisdom and principles behind the rigid rules, and can tell when the rule applies and when it should be modified and how to modify it. (For instance, take Jesus' counsel to Peter to forgive his brother (who sins against him) 70 times 7 times. Later, Jesus gives a more detailed prescription on how the disciples should handle that repetitive sinner. Jesus was not contradicting himself: he had better material to work with as time went on.
#25
John McCain has screwed everyone he has supposedly been loyal to. He talked to the Democrats about leaving GOP when he did not get 'his due' during the last Presidential caucuses. He turned his back on law abiding American citizens and sided with Kennedy in favor of Mexican citizens who are in the United States illegally.
This is the first time I heard of him having affairs while married, breaking every oath he made to his wife and the military.
When Osama Bin Laden could have been handed over to the US by Sudan, Bill Clinton was too busy with the Monica controversy to take advantage of Sudan's offer.
I do believe that if a nation chooses such people as their leaders, that nation will be punished for that choice.
#26
I concur w/LOTP on this one. What goes on between a husband & wife is one thing but can be held up to some scrutiny for a pres candidate IMO. Now, if it's true mccain was having affairs w/his subordinate's spouses then that is beyond heinous - and I will stay home on principle if he's the rino candidate. As having two vacations to the sandbox under my belt and 11 yrs+ of active duty commissioned service in the Corps (& still going strong) I will not vote for a man that sleeps w/the wives of his men. That is way beyond f*cked up judgment. I absolutely honor mccain's service in the Hitlon, but a leader never intentionally f*cks his men & he never-ever f*cks their wives. Somethings are sacred.
I really hope this is not true - LOTP, how certain is it that this more than just a rumor?? I've never heard this one before.
#27
Okay, I read the whole article - no mention of mccain doing subordinate spouses but mention of him possibly carousing w/subordinates. Murky waters. However, he seems to have admitted to adultery - I'm wondering (& not) why the navy never pressed ahead w/a command investigation. His voting record is bad enough -gango'14, keating5, mc-feingold, mc-teddy, opposed bush tax-cuts, yuck. He's the best the trunks have?? Almost as bad as what the donks are throwing up (no pun intd.)
#29
Well,I will not argue that the D's will not use it, but I don't think it will stick to him, whether he did it or not. The man, and I don't know him personally, seems honorable enough in a dishonest profession. Politics is dirty, dirty, business and I'm aware of how it reflects when a man abuses his position and acts like a horny teenager.
But I never heard of this incident before you posted it here. I'm voting for him against the other candidates. Mitt Romney didn't sit in a hole in the ground for America for 5 years Obama and Hillary didn't either. I don't know dick Romney has done for this country that comes within the orbit and magnitude of the sacrifice McCain and those other brave men made everyday for us in that hell. Does that make Mac a better potential President. For me it does.
I don't really want to play politics here for the most part though or religion. (Though you can't tell by today's posts.) Those are not why I'm here. We'll see what happens in the general. I know who I'm voting for and why. I'm not on Mac's campaign, I'm not going to volunteer for his campaign.
Can you say that of Romney lotp. What's your special interest and all on putting Romney out here as your guy. Are you using your mod position to spread his campaign message. If so I want to know so I can discount your information as such propoganda and move forward. I don't see this posting as relevant otherwise, just looks like rumor and propaganda. That's my issue Steve. But I'll play nice otherwise. The Burg Rocks! Keep it up.
#30
ElvisHasLeftTheBuilding, I'm the little housewife. lotp is a the wife of a career military man, a former businesswoman who has done military research, and has volunteered to go to Afghanistan. She also has studied theology. I can vouch that she writes to share her personal viewpoint, not to work for a particular candidate -- with what she's got going on just now, she certainly doesn't have the time, and Rantburgers are so cussed independent that it doesn't work well anyway.
Ink dries up in the Western Press lauding Musharraf as a valuable ally in the so-called war on terror. Is he an ally or a mercenary? Allies are consulted, mercenaries are hired.
All evidence suggests that although Mush had handlers in Mossad and US agencies since 1980, he has been a hired mercenary since January 2000 when he first readjusted the Nuclear Command Authority. Why is a retired general still calling the shots in NCA? The brave Pakistani Army soldiers are manipulated to kill other Muslims in the war of terror of Musharrafs handlers.
It is time Pakistani soldiers look at what they are asked to do by a self-imposed, depressed and sick president. It is time that they look at the oath they took when joining the army. It is time that they look at the retired general and his actions (who violated his oath five times). It is time they check the direction of their muskets......which should be towards this retired general. Conscience Zameer - of a brave soldier is a lot more precious than a few pieces of bread! Wake up!
In view of the present situation in Pakistan, where Muslims are pitted against Muslims, bloodshed is widespread, and where violence against fellow Muslims and aggression on assets and property, perpetrated under the guise of Islam, defence of Pakistan and the war on terrorism is daily occurrence, we need to seriously think over our actions. What are we fighting for? What is our objective? What is our cause? Are we on the highway to heaven or hell?
Before reaching any conclusion, lets have a quick look at the ground realities.
#3
An Ally is consulted, a mercenary paid, but someone who does what they know they have, consulted or not, but takes money anyway? That's a politician.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
