Afghanistan Update



The New York Times is reporting that NATO and Afghan forces have routed the Taliban in southern Afghanistan:

ARGHANDAB, Afghanistan — Afghan and NATO forces cleared Taliban guerrillas from a cluster of villages outside Kandahar on Thursday, removing for the moment any threat that they might try move into their former stronghold in the southern part of the country.

The Taliban fighters, who had infiltrated as many as 18 villages here, largely retreated before a force of about 1,100 Afghan soldiers that began moving into the area Wednesday, Afghan and NATO officials said. NATO planes and helicopters supported their advance.

For the Afghan army and NATO forces, which have suffered a number of setbacks in the area, the news seemed all good. Afghan soldiers killed 56 Taliban fighters during the operation, including a number of foreigners, Gen. Zahir Azimi, the spokesman for the Afghan Ministry of Defense, said at a news conference. The operation was carried out without loss of civilian life, Afghan and NATO officials said. The Afghan army suffered no casualties beyond the two reported on Wednesday.

The red circle on the map above is where the action is taking place. As you can see, it’s just a short distance to the Pakistani border. The thing to be noted in this is that there’s no way that the Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters can stand up to the NATO force in Afghanistan toe-to-toe. But there’s also no way for the NATO force to hold the Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters in one place to eliminate them completely.

Is there any way to keep the Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters from doing this again (and again and again) without securing the border between the two countries? Is there any way for us to secure the border between the two countries without more troops than we’re able to support within the country? I honestly don’t think so. We need to get used to these sorts of actions being a permanent condition in Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, Matthew Yglesias is looking for some mission we can accomplish in Afghanistan on the cheap:

When you hear things like our commander in Afghanistan saying we need 400,000 troops you begin to think that the mission he has in mind isn’t the appropriate one. Whatever it is you need 400,000 troops to do is something we’re going to have to get by without doing, since we’re not sending 400,000 troops to Afghanistan.

15 comments… add one
  • Andy Link

    The mountainous area north of Kandahar has long been a Taliban stronghold – that is likely where they are retreating. I’m also pretty confident this was a planned retreat and the operation was simply to demonstrate the central government’s weakness and not to actually hold onto the towns.

  • That was my read, too, Andy. I’d think there would be a lot more killed or wounded otherwise.

  • Hi Dave,
    Sure there is, to answer your question:“Is there any way to keep the Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters from doing this again (and again and again) without securing the border between the two countries? Is there any way for us to secure the border between the two countries without more troops than we’re able to support within the country?”

    1) You mine the borders.

    2) You bomb the crap out of their strongholds as you find them.

    3)Any Taliban or Al Qaeda fighters you capture you interrogate, execute and bury in a pigskin, so that potential recruits get a clear message.

    4) You likewise send a clear message to the new Pakistani government that a separate peace with these scum is not an option for them, and that if they are willing to help clean up this human garbage,(including access for our military) we’ll keep the aid coming in. If they won’t, we’ll do it for them- and in that case, we consider them part of the problem rather than a neutral sovereign government, with all that entails.

    I think that would take care of the problem nicely. No modern terrorist movement has ever survived without a haven in a sympathetic neighboring country.

    All Best,
    ff

  • No modern terrorist movement has ever survived without a haven in a sympathetic neighboring country.

    That’s a very important insight. It’s the reason I’ve always thought the focus on the NGO (Al Qaeda) was misplaced. Concentrate on the states that support terrorism. It’s not as though there aren’t any or we don’t know who they are.

  • Bingo! Hand Mr. Schuler his prize for the right answer.

    One reason we don’t concentrate on the states that support terrorism is that it might just involve the Saudis, and interfere with all those honorariums, speech fees,consulting fees, legal retainers, hedge funds and fundings for presidential libraries that are such a large part of what I call the Al Saud US government pension augmentation program.

    We ought to make it a felony for anyone who’s ever drawn a government paycheck to receive funding directly or indirectly from a foreign government for 15 years after they leave the service of the United States..and make it retroactive.

    All Best,
    ff

  • No modern terrorist movement has ever survived without a haven in a sympathetic neighboring country.

    Problem is people keep thinking of those “Federally Adminstered Tribal Areas” as parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Only on maps, as the Brits noticed over a century ago. The tribes have held those areas for several centuries and they do not recognize any government other than their own. As one British commander once said, “Every stone in the Khyber has been soaked in blood.” That applies to the whole border region. It’s a no-man’s land.

    The only way to “secure” that region is to carpet-bomb it in its entirety, which would kill several million innocents. It cannot be governed from the outside, and for most of a millenia the only to influence the tribal leaders has been outright bribery, with iffy results.

  • While I agree that Pakistan is scarcely a country at all, the Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters are clearly finding sanctuary behind Pakistan’s aegis. Imagine for a moment that the ungoverned territories of Pakistan were treated as such. I have no doubt we’d be conducting raids in force into the area and the Taliban and Al Qaeda would be in a pickle.

    We don’t need to administer the area, only to cause the Taliban and Al Qaeda to wear out their welcome. That would be within our grasp but for the government of Pakistan.

  • Andy Link

    All of FF’s suggestions were tried by the Soviets and other would-be conquerers and they all failed miserably.

    Also, I think this is demonstrably not true:

    No modern terrorist movement has ever survived without a haven in a sympathetic neighboring country.

    There are many counterexamples, including numerous leftist groups in Europe and Latin America, islamic and liberation movements in the Philippines, Indonesia, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Libya, etc.

    As for the larger issue of the border and having been to Afghanistan myself, I don’t see any long-term solutions. This recent Abu Muqawama post highlights a main problem in that Islamic extremism has damaged and in some cases destroyed the old tribal structures in the border area. The only solution I see is to rebuild those structures (something we are trying to do, actually) and restore loyalty to the tribe and not the mullah. At that point, tribes can be bought and/or influenced to keep extremists out of their areas. Of course, it’s not good enough to do this only in Afghanistan, which gets us back to the border….

  • That would be within our grasp but for the government of Pakistan.

    That’s what the British and the Soviets thought. And I’m saying it simply can’t be done without tactics that our own nation and the rest of the “civilized” world would find completely unacceptable. The word for that tactic is genocide.

    It can’t be done on the ground without hundreds of thousands of troops, minimum. It can’t be done from the air without MASSIVE “human eradication” bombing. The Pashtun regions have been home to the tribes for well over a millenia. It’s been called the most invaded section of the planet, yet the Pashtun are stll there, and when they rise, they eradicate. The slaughter of Elphinstone’s army in 1842 is a case in point. The British later leveled Kabul in retailiation, which bothered the tribes not at all–they were back in the hills.

    Also, I think this is demonstrably not true:

    No modern terrorist movement has ever survived without a haven in a sympathetic neighboring country.

    You’re correct, it’s demonstrably not true. And since it’s stated as an absolute, one only needs one example to disprove it. Here’s three off the top of my head. The Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka have been at it for over thirty years. The assorted Irish groups for close on a century, with roots going back even deeper. The ETA in Spain, going back to Franco’s reign.

    On the bright side, at some point the tribal leaders will likely get tired of the terrorists. At which point no further effort on our part will be required, other than paying the bribes, er, bounties per Pashtun tradition.

  • at some point the tribal leaders will likely get tired of the terrorists. At which point no further effort on our part will be required, other than paying the bribes, er, bounties per Pashtun tradition.

    That’s essentially my prediction. Note that that doesn’t require a larger commitment of forces from NATO (or the U. S.). It just requires patience and a commitment do doing what that takes.

    I think that raids in force into the tribal areas would also make the terrorist’ welcome wear out but it would merely be an accelerant. As I suggested above, the government of Pakistan, such as it is, is what restrains us from raids in force.

    Again, I’m not suggesting an invasion a la Iraq or trying to administer the territory. Raids, only. I think that would be within our abilities at a level of violence below genocide.

  • Also, I think this is demonstrably not true:

    No modern terrorist movement has ever survived without a haven in a sympathetic neighboring country.

    The key word,my friends, is m-o-v-e-m-e-n-t, which to me implies a large well armed and organized group with a serious threat rather than a few thugs out to simply cause some destruction under a romantic revolutionary aura. Perhaps I should have used the term ‘insurgency’.

    As for the niggling examples mentioned:

    1)the armed IRA became marginal once their havens in the Republic were curtailed when Eire declared them illegal…which proves the point at question, thank you.

    2) The Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka and the Basque seperatists of the ETA , while causing a certain amount of destruction are by no means either successfull or any more of major threat to the governments involved than MS 13 or the 8 Trey Crips are here in the United States.

    3) Virtually ALL of the Islamist groups actively involved in hostilities like Abu Sayaf in the Phillipines receive funding and support from outside the area as do the Islamist groups like theMuslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Groups like Jemayah Islamiah in Malaysia and Indonesia not only are not involved with hostilites against their respective governments but are actually considered part of the political process..and provide support and havens to groups like the Jamayah Islamiah terrorists in South Thailand.

    4) As for Latin America, the major terorrist player there is FARC, which receives support from Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and has what amounts to safe havens in Ecuador…again providing proof of Dave’s original point.

    None of the groups mentioned above, by the way, are anywhere near as organized, successful and well armed as the Taliban, with the exception of the Muslim Brotherhood.

    Dave is entirely correct – Quod et demonstradum.

    As for the comments raised about a strategy in Aghanistan, I would ask you to consider that the Brits were dealing with internal tribal movements rather than an armed modern insurgency receiving what amounts to aid and comfort from a neighboring sovereign state and logistical and financial support from Islamist states the world over. They were also dealing with imposing an imperialist structure over the existing tribal one, rather than protecting the democratic sovereign government from what amounts to an outside threat. The analogy of comparing what’s going on today in Afghanistan with what the British were involved with 150 years ago is a false one, and the Taliban would degenerate into a marginal movement like the ETA without the havens and support they get from Pakistan and the other Islamist states.

    Mining the borders between Afghanistan and Pakistan to the degree possible ( as India did in Kashmir) won’t eliminate the Taliban but will make it more difficult for them to operate with impunity. Pressuring the government of Pakistan as I suggested would be the real step needed to marginalize them…and no , neither the Soviets or the Soviets nor the Brits ever did anything like that, the Brits because the was no Pakistan (and thus no border) at the time and the Soviets because Pakistan was a client state of theirs during the Afghan occupation.

  • Freedom Fighter is qualifying the statement. Which means the statement as it stands is indeed false, or it would not require qualifications. QED. And FF, your comments about strategy just reinforce the point that warring into the tribal areas is not lightly undertaken. They were near-impossible strongholds without external assistance.

    Dave, the government of Pakistan HAS raided in force into the tribal areas over the last couple of years. But there’s a limit to how many men they want to lose, or how effective massed forces can be, and what they can politically accomplish in a region they simply can’t control. We over-assume if we believe that the Pakistani government itself is able to do what it wants without falling to new “leadership”–the standard change of administration in Pakistan over the last several decades has been by coup, after all. How many assassination attempts has Musharraf survived, so far? Whatever happened to the last opposition candidate? Oh yeah….

    But yes, containment and patience is the key, and “collateral damage” from assaults on known camps is an accelerant to the terrorist bands outwearing their welcome. Can’t argue with that. But for the most aprt that means air assault. It’s just not easy to move large numbers of troops in and out of the region.

  • Tully, I’m not `qualifying’ anything…merely putting in language I hoped you’d understand better.

    It’s also duly noted that you failed to refute the actual points I made on the various groups cited with any facts..ah, well…

    No one ever said that fighting the Taliban would be a walk in the park,but suggesting that the Pakistani army’s piecemeal efforts, done without assistance or coordination from the US or NATO from the other side of the border is some kind of proof that’s it’s impossible is a re-eal stretch of the imagination.

    In fact, they won’t be defeated any other way, will they? Are you suggesting that we should just continue the status quo, fighting a defensive war of attrition? I hope not.

    Regards,
    ff

  • A very good post, Dave. The only sure thing in this situation is that the Taliban will not be resolved as a problem until it can find no more safe havens in Pakistan and its funding, primarily from heroin and opium production, is dried up. In other words, the Afghan war will be going on for a long time.

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