Posted on 09/11/2009 7:09:05 PM PDT by Flavius
A US foreign policy veteran has warned the West risks replicating the the Soviet Union's failure in Afghanistan without a fundamental change in policy.
Zbigniew Brzezinski said military engagement in the country was reaching levels similar to the Soviet invasion.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...
how is it that nation building by teletubies works so well on opium budget
Replicating the Soviet failure is possible if, like the Soviets, we allow a network of third-party states to arm, train, and fund our enemies.
Just kill them, kill them all.
Just what and who are you talking about?
“Zbigniew Brzezinski” is all we need to know about this story. Was he not the “brains” behind Carters so called foreign policy.
Its usually a good idea to ignore Zbigniew Brzezinski. If he says its raining, wear your sunblock.
ah...Brzezinski. Yeah, we need his input.......NOT
Zbigniew Brzezinski, a member of SPECTRE (CSIS), Center for Strategic and International Studies. Populated with the sleaziest, most conspiratorial, internationalist and ineffectual supervillain wannabes that have ever been a part of the US government.
Ok, in fairness, lets consider his argument.
He’s giving the same warning some of our generals are giving.
First, victory in this region is not optional. Too many people have it in their heads that we can pull the plug on this war and simply go back to our pre-911 lives.
We don’t have that option. We walked away before, for understandable reasons, but we left this region before and it became the plaything for people like Bin Ladin.
The last thing we can do is leave a vacuum to be filled by the Talibs or other would-be Bin Ladins.
So what does victory look like? Victory isn’t when the fighting stops, not here. This part of the world will always be bandit country. There will always be some kind of gendarmerie up in the hills chasing bandits.
Victory is when the Afghans are able to police their own territory. The road to victory is building an Afghan security force capable of routing the bandits every time they come out to play. That means training a rather large force, well paid enough that your soldiers don’t desert and go to work for the warlords at higher pay.
You can’t treat this like its optional. It does no good to win a war if you don’t maintain the victory once you’ve won it. Its pointless to give back what good men died for.
So putting a regime in place that can keep the bandits at bay is basic. You have to do it. You can’t leave until its done. The Talibs don’t sit around worrying if they’re in a quagmire. Nor should we. Build the Afghan force that will render our presence unnecessary.
Its common to say we shouldn’t be in the business of nation building, but leaving a vacuum isn’t an option. It renders everything you’ve done pointless.
how does enemy territory in Afghanistan,
get supplied with gasoline?
......................................
related question, does the US still
have an air force?
His argument doesn’t seem to reflect upon the actions of Sviet forces in the field. They did so much more to alienate the local population through intimidation and terror. Coalition forces are bending over to do as little harm as possible at risk to themselves. Several recent articles in the Wall Street Journal and elsewhere show popular support for the Taliban weak, particularly in the larger cities and more secure areas.
MARSOC (Special Operations Command - USMC) folks have told me much of the rebuilding will need non-military Coalition personnel (engineers, teachers, medical folks), too, as well as local forces. The Corpsmen have been very well-received, with local Afghans walking miles for a check-up.
Is Brzezinsky being inconsistent? Or did the BBC twist Brzezinsky’s remarks? They start out with the assertion that Brzezinsky “recognised that there had already been a significant shift away from some of the grander - and by implication, unrealisable - objectives of the Bush years.” Then they quote Brzezinsky with the following statements that are totally at odds with the BBC’s Bush bashing editorializing:
[”We went into Afghanistan almost eight years ago, and we overthrew the Taliban with 300 soldiers”.]
My Comment: That limited undertaking was under Bush, who inserted some special forces into Afghanistan to make contact with the Uzbek “Northern Alliance” that opposed the Taliban and Al Qaida. With a few months of preparation and some U.S. Air and artillery support, the Uzbeks chased the Taliban back into Kabul and then out the other side. Shortly thereafter, soldiers cornered the retreating enemy at Tora Bora and killed a lot of them but Bin Laden slipped across the Pakistan border.
[ “Eight years later, we are beginning to move to a level of military force which is beginning to approximate the Soviet engagement and already our top generals are saying we are not winning militarily.”]
My Comment: This is under Obama, who campaigned on Democrat talking points to the effect that we should have undertaken a massive military invasion of Afghanistan.
I think he’s a bit incoherent, yes.
I think he’s saying that a small footprint is the right answer. We won with 300 soldiers, we’re losing with a huge build-up, I think he’s saying we have to get back to a smaller force.
He seems to want to do some Bush bashing; he is after all Obama’s man.
He criticizes Bush’s supposed “grandiose objectives” but he doesn’t explain in this short article what those might be or what kind of objectives we might pursue instead. I can’t help but think he’s trying to find some more modest objective that will allow O to gracefully declare victory and leave. If he wants a victory but doesn’t want to stick around to get it, he’ll have to redefine the objective such that maybe we’re already there. Victory!
Declaring Victory! doesn’t really work, though. It works temporarily with your own people if you have good control over your propaganda machine, but the enemy knows your full of it and they have little reason to play along. It’ll be like Baghdad Bob claiming victory while the enemy is rolling down Main Street.
In any case, I think war is an uncertain business, your enemy adapts so whatever you did yesterday may not work today, so you have to adapt as well. If your enemy is stubborn, you have to be more stubborn or you’ve no chance. I don’t know that O has what it takes to stay the distance. Petraeus does, if he’ll just let Petraeus do what he does. Maybe Brzezinsky is trying to short-circuit Petraeus, or maybe he’s just trying to down-play expectations so that people don’t expect too much.
This may sound funny but I think some people simply can’t imagine victory. Even winning, they can’t help believing that its only temporary, and its all hopeless. Of course, all victories are temporary, which is why you enjoy them, celebrate with a cold beverage, and then get back at it the next day. How many times now have we seen it where the good guys win, and win, and win, and win, and then get tired of winning and give up.
The point that I was trying to make was that “grand objectives” and “unrealisable - objectives” concerning Afghanistan, were the BBC’s words, not Brzezinsky’s. To me, the BBC seemed to be indulging in some gratuitous Bush bashing at Brzezinsky’s expense. And where they directly quoted Brzezinsky (phew, and I was raised in a Polish neighborhood), his actual words seemed to contradict the notion that “grand and unrealizable objectives” characterized the Bush years. It seemed to me like Brzezinsky’s tone was that of diplomatic criticism of Obama’s Afghan policies. He was certainly worried about the current situation.
Your last paragraph is very eloquent statement of some facts of life and I think I’ll save it some place. Much of the last forty years reminds me of the ancient Romans getting bored with their own successes and growing fond of their long line of crazy, depraved emperors. They finally got fed up with that and actually welcomed the Barbarians (Hey, isn’t that what’s happening in Europe?).
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