On spilled blood and spilled beans…
Julian Assange: WikiLeaks founder
The documents recently published on WikiLeaks have, if nothing else, embarrassed the Pentagon, CIA, State Department and the White House. They expose for all to see just how precarious things really are in Afghanistan. They also show us that the July, 2011 ‘pullout’ date has had exactly the opposite effect as intended on the fragile Afghan government. The Taliban is just going to patiently wait us out. That’s exactly what I would do…
As many Afghan experts and even the President himself have said, there’s no real information in the WikiLeaks documents (I’ve only skimmed about 1000) that diligent Afghanistan watchers didn’t already know about, but here it’s laid out in excruciating and depressing detail. As to the hysterical cries of ‘Treason!’ in some quarters, that is absurd on its face. People are just pissed off that the lid’s been very loudly blown off their charade, not too different (but to a less dramatic degree) from what Daniel Ellsberg’s leak of the Pentagon Papers did in the Vietnam era.
…
The two ‘classes’ of documents that I find most distressing are:
(1) Field action reports of ‘collateral damage’ incidents. We usually hear about the major screw-ups on the news… where a whole wedding party is obliterated by an errant missile or where an innocent group is mistaken for ‘terrorists’ and blown up. But here we read of the much more common incidents where maybe a young boy is mistakenly shot; or a little girl and her mother are inadvertently run over by a tank or Bradley armoured vehicle. In some ways, these incidents are sadder than the ‘mass casualty’ events, because they (to me anyway) seem so PERSONAL. And these ‘isolated incidents’, taken in total, FAR outnumber the more ‘newsworthy’ incidents. We’ve killed THOUSANDS of innocent Afghan people by mistake… a pretty poor basis upon which to build lasting trust and friendly relations.
(2) Intelligence reports describing repeated and systematic Pakistani (ISI intelligence) collusion and aid given to our Taliban enemies. Again, experts have known about this for years, but to see the evidence in such voluminous and stark detail is… maddening. We pay the Pakistanis BILLION$ to help US, NOT to arm and aid our enemies!
We already know how pathetic our record has been in ‘nation building’. We know the folly of the Bush/Neo-con theory that installing a democratic government will somehow ‘awaken’ a given culture to the ‘glories’ of Western style civilisation… within months they’ll be clamouring for Fords, Coca Cola and ‘Dawn’ dishwashing detergent… an amusing image perhaps, but completely DELUSIONAL. Recent history has shown repeatedly that democratic ideals can NOT be imposed from above… Democracy only happens when it bubbles up in a grass roots way from the BOTTOM. And given the tribal/clan based power structure of Afghan society, the Afghans simply have no persuasive need or desire for ‘democracy’ as we know it…
On the other hand, leaving Afghanistan to the tender mercies of the Taliban is distasteful in the extreme. Their worse-than-medieval treatment of women including severe beatings or even stonings for ‘talking back’ to their husbands or male family members, so-called ’schools’ that ban girls entirely and only teach boys Qu’ranic verse by rote anyway, criminal destruction of great World Heritage monuments, banning of music, dance, sports and anything else that might conceivably be considered ‘fun’… and on and on… There is NOTHING to recommend the Taliban. Period.
We Americans and our other NATO partners have solemnly PROMISED the Afghans that we WON’T leave them in the lurch if they just show the courage to help us against the Taliban. Reneging on that pledge would seem to be less than honourable… We already abandoned them once after they’d defeated (with our help and Stinger missles) the mighty Soviet Union… Afghanistan had fallen into chaos and civil war shortly thereafter, paving the way for the rise of the Taliban in the first place! (Oh what a tangled web we weave!)
Then we have the unresolved issue of OPIUM… but I’ll leave that for another time.
Finally of course, there IS the whole pesky Jihad thing.
For what it’s worth, here’s my brief assessment:
Afghanistan and Pakistan are inextricably intertwined in this anti-terror effort. We should just call the whole thing AFPAK. But Pakistan’s REAL concern is with INDIA, although I find this a paranoid fixation. OK, Kashmir is an issue, but it’s not like India is going to invade or try to conquer Pakistan or vice versa. This has been going on since 1948, and Pakistan in particular just can’t seem to let go of it.
We must make a decision. Either ALL IN or ALL OUT. We’ve seen what happens with half-measures and politically micro-managed military operations. We tried that in Vietnam, with predictably disastrous results. And I simply do not currently see the political will to go all IN… So that seems to leave only ONE alternative.
As nauseating as the Taliban is, we must admit that it poses NO direct security threat to the United States, while many Jihadi groups in Pakistan (including Al-Queda) DO. And if one of these outfits ever got their mitts on a Pakistani NUKE… I shudder to imagine the consequences.
We must recognise that many of our efforts in the region have simply been COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE. Many of the terror attacks world-wide are motivated simply by the fact that we’re THERE.
Bottom line? We’re fucked if we DO… and we’re fucked if we DON’T. Not a very pleasant prospect. And the 800 million ton gorilla in the room is still OIL.
On balance, I really think it’s in our best interests to tell ‘President’ Karzai “Sorry, we tried” and just get the hell OUT.
We need to keep assets in the region, to gather/monitor intelligence and perform specific commando strike operations. But I think we should get our regular troops OUT of the entire region as quickly as is practical.
Except for the women and children, I frankly don’t give a DAMN for what happens in Afghanistan! Maybe we should just provide mass visas for all Afghan women and children, relocating them to somewhere in our own Southwest… and leave their idiot men-folk to gleefully kill each other. Works for ME.
Nice analysis Sky. I offer the following chart not to argue with you (this time
) but just because I found it provided some perspective when I ran into it on Sullivan yesterday. I guess the question is, how much good must you do to make up for having a habit of running innocents over with tanks now and then? Not an easy question.
Of all those figures, line 1 could turn out to be the most significant. Maybe there’s hope that a total pullout would not result in a return to barbarism and ignorance on the previous scale. Maybe we’ve let the genie out of the bottle in a good way to some extent?
Comment on July 28, 2010 @ 6:20 am
Yes. That’s the hell of it. I’d say the first 4 items are all important and show significant improvement (although items #2 and #6/7 don’t jibe). And if we leave, it’ll go right back to what it was.
My point is that if we really DO want to see these good trends continue, we must COMMIT ourselves for the LONG HAUL… and we’ve already said that we WON’T. To do what’s really required, we’re talkin’ at LEAST 20 YEARS.
You may have a point with the education aspect. I hope so. It’s pretty hard to ‘unlearn’ how to read, and once a kid’s curiosity has been peaked… who knows?
Comment on July 28, 2010 @ 6:46 am
I recall a 60 Minutes piece from several years ago about a whistleblower who quit the Air Force to expose this fact — for years, the rules of engagement in Afghanistan tolerated collateral killings in a 30:1 ratio. In other words, it was perfectly acceptable to obliterate a building containing thirty innocent Afghani people if it also contained a single suspected Al Qaeada sympathizer. Not only is this outrageous on its face, but it was also incredibly stupid. After all, the best way to create Al Qaeada sympathizers is to mass produce orphans and widowers.
While the actual ROE might be less monstrous today, the armed forces as institutions became hardened to that sort of slaughter. This hardness shows up in what little of the leaked reports I’ve reviewed. However exceptional one imagines the American people to be, American soldiers are like any other sort of soldiers in the sense that they can be ordered to do all sorts of things that untrained sane civilians would find abhorrent. Add to that the remoteness of bombing runs and drone attacks, and we have a military presence that sees sensitivity to the feelings of the indigenous population as some sort of nuisance only whiny liberals care about (as opposed to the chief factor differentiating productive from counterproductive operations.)
Comment on July 28, 2010 @ 9:37 am
If a significant percentage of women become educated then it won’t go back to the way it was after we leave. Even if the Taliban re-institutes the ban on education for girls, mother’s teach daughters. I remember a reading Kim Stanley Robinson gave in SF a couple of years ago and in the question and answer period someone asked him about the population trends and is there any hope? Stan answered that the world’s best hope is womens’ education and human rights, that everywhere this happens the population curve drops quickly to a sustainable level, not to mention the level of craziness reduced in the society in general.
Comment on July 28, 2010 @ 12:23 pm
Demonweed: I hoped you’d chime in on this one!
Perhaps ironically, it was recently ousted Gen. Stan McChrystal who recognised the counter-productive nature of the old ROE and tried to move more to a strategy of ‘winning hearts and minds’…
It’s easy for armchair ’strategists’ like myself to condemn our young soldiers for lethal misjudgements or even callous disregard of civilian welfare. But if I were a 22 year old U.S. Army PFC, and I’d just seen one of my buddies get blown up by an IED triggered by a ‘harmless’ looking ‘civilian’, I don’t think I’d really GIVE a good god damn WHAT ‘bleeding heart liberals’ like me think! LOCK and LOAD!
The brutal truth is that NO military force is designed to ‘win hearts and minds’. It is designed to KILL. There is really no way to sugar-coat that basic fact. To ask our soldiers to pretend to be social workers is unfair to them as well as being unduly dangerous to their welfare.
War is an inherently ugly, messy and chaotic business. People are maimed and people DIE… soldiers and innocent bystanders alike. It is HELL. That is why we should ONLY engage in it as a very LAST resort and even then only for very clearly defined objectives. To do anything else is to invite disaster. But we seem to make the same stupid mistake over and over again!
From this perspective, it is hard to see how this fine mess we’ve gotten ourselves into can possibly have a happy ending.
Comment on July 28, 2010 @ 12:36 pm
Max: I can only pray that you’re right. Knowledge truly IS power, and it is the WOMEN of Afghanistan who are in the best position to teach their children that there is a larger world out there.
Perhaps we should instigate a COUNTER-counter-insurgency… smuggling in books and educational materials… And ’strike teams’ of guerilla teachers!
Just a thought.
Comment on July 28, 2010 @ 12:54 pm
This doesn’t look good:
Where’s the goddamn OORT?
Comment on July 28, 2010 @ 2:14 pm
First, I salute young ‘Abdul’ for his bravery and independence of thought! I truly hope that he and his family are able to remain safe… we need more kids like HIM!
One of the most despicable aspects of all of these jihadi groups is their brainwashing of children and hopeless young men in these so-called ‘madrasahs’ and transforming them into hapless suicide robots. To cynically promise these boys ‘eternal paradise’ for their horrible acts is SO disgusting that I’m left sputtering in search of suitable language… I don’t think there IS any!
The 2008 Mumbai, India attacks were orchestrated by a particularly virulent and violent Pakistani jihadi group called ‘Lashkar-e-Taiba’… ‘Army of The Righteous’. While the ringleaders casually issued commands to kill ‘em ALL over compromised cell phones (we have the recordings), their hypnotised ‘terror-robots’ proceeded to murder HUNDREDS of innocent people, many of them devout MUSLIMS. When faced with imminent capture, they were directed to commit suicide, taking as many as possible with them. When the attackers stumbled upon a small synagogue, the ‘controllers’ excitedly told their automatons that killing ONE Jew was worth FIFTY other deaths in the ‘compassionate eyes of Allah’… They terrorised and then brutally murdered the Rabbi and his wife.
And ALL of this while the real criminals were safely ensconced in their comfortable rooms watching CNN coverage of the mayhem while presumably sipping tea and laughing amongst themselves…
Now THERE’S an enemy worthy of real hatred!
OORT ‘Lashkar-e-Taiba’! OORT and DOUBLE OORT!
Comment on July 28, 2010 @ 3:16 pm
I saw Terror in Mumbai, which was a pretty good documentary retrospective on the whole mess. It was amazing that hotel staff exposed themselves to deadly threats simply to keep the boy-terrorists from getting to the primary mass of guests, hidden away in a secret chamber. It was less amazing that some blowhard local politician gave away his position (and that of 100-200 innocent people) on a radio interview that eventually trickled back to the ears of the terrorists’ handlers. I also recall the story of the world-wise couple that faked being Islamic only because she quickly converted her wrap into a headscarf and he knew the Dead Man’s Prayer from having recently participated in the funeral of a Turkish friend. What they saw and what they did that day puts any cinematic action story to shame.
However, I chimed in on this today because I see some nimrods tossing around the phrase “clear and present danger” with regard to Wikileaks. My complaint about this is that the very same nimrods were on TV and in print last week declaring, “this is all old news. There is nothing in here that should change the way people feel about the war.” WTF?!? Either it is harmless or it isn’t! In a functional society, anyone who argued both positions in such proximity without any explanation regarding the change of heart would be laughed out of the commentariat permanently.
Also, the know-nothing “supporting our troops means that military authorities deserve blind obedience even from civilians” imbeciles spouting this “clear and present danger” nonsense are overlooking unintended consequences. In this matter, as with nearly all previous leaks of information less than a decade old, Wikileaks redacted personnel names and other details that actually might increase the peril for soldiers in the field.
If a team of government-controlled superbeings somehow managed to take down an organization as secretive and amorphous as Wikileaks, the void would likely be filled by less responsible and civic-minded people, people willing to settle old grudges by “leaking” misinformation and handling real information much less responsibly. No one should be defending the Bush-era secrecy still practiced by the military today, and those who wish the best for our personnel in harm’s way would do well to recognize that winning a fight with Wikileaks would only do more harm than good in the long run.
Comment on August 3, 2010 @ 12:05 pm