A Memo to the Next President on Winning in Afghanistan

Mr. President-Elect: Neither you nor Secretary Clinton said much in the campaign about the war in Afghanistan. I don’t blame you. It’s a complex issue, and there was no electoral payoff in it. In the last four years, America’s policy in practice has been to “not lose” in Afghanistan with the least amount of expenditures possible. Washington’s uncertain trumpet has encouraged the Taliban to fight harder and for Pakistan to help them. In the ensuing chaos, both al Qaeda and the self-proclaimed Islamic State have stronger positions in Afghanistan than they did just a few years ago. This is, in part, due to the success of Pakistani military forces against militants in the border regions of their country. Their success pushed bad actors into Afghanistan, adding to an already perilous situation. Our only ace in the hole has been the Afghan security forces who are fighting hard with minimal assistance. The Afghan government under President Ashraf Ghani is dedicated to the fight, but faces daunting levels of economic and corruption challenges. There is also an internal political struggle with the legislature and local critics – the stuff of a budding democracy. Some of your advisors will tell you to cut your losses in Afghanistan. Don’t. Nothing smells worse than defeat or abandonment. Our enemies still tell their recruits about how we were forced to leave Lebanon during the Reagan years and Vietnam before that. Others will tell you that Afghanistan is beyond hope. It is not. The policy accountants will tell you that we have spent far too much money on Afghanistan. They are right, but those billions were wasted only because the United States lacked the will and a strategy to bring the war to a successful conclusion.

Afghanistan has some national identity to even though it is a collection of tribes hobbled together as a political entity created by Western nations. The main cities can be conquered and controlled, but not the millions who live in mountainous villages. I say this as one who lived there for five years, and once was the only foreigner at the all-men Afghan ceremonial dinner where the bride’s father agreed with groom’s father the two could marry. This was the real marriage with the groom present and not the bride. Following this was the “reception” with a separate areas for men and a separate area for women. We can’t imagine how different this culture is. Many of the educated Afghans had respect for the US recognizing that the stinger missles drove out the Soviets, but that goodwill has been largely squandered.

A memo to Joey Collins
Our military personnel and our treasure have been in that worthless country for 15 years!
I worked in Astan at 3 different times as a security contractor 2008-2013 and conducted mobile security OPS to numerous provinces (Kabul, Parwan, Kunduz, Samangan, Balkh Nangarhar, Kapisa, Kunar).
During my time crisscrossing the country, all I saw was a worthless country and a population that loves the USD but had nothing but contempt for Americans and EU type.
After 15 years of training the police (ANP) and military (ANA) we still hear the drum beat from our experts at the DOD, and conservative think tanks that we need to stay the course because the Afghans need more training!
Look at a map Colonel Collins! China and Russia are shaking their collective heads at their good fortune and America’s stupidity. Us using our blood and treasure for an insurgency in their backyard! Surely the minute we pull out of Afghanistan, Russia and China will feel the pain and consequences of the Afghanistan nightmare.
We are bankrupt! We boldly squander the wealth of our nation! Yet instead of securing our borders, we’re waging wars across the planet and we’re still in a continual threat of terrorism in our homeland!
Just answer the question Colonel Collins; Are you or these other “experts” that want Americans to stay the course willing to lose a son or daughter for this worthless country? I would love to debate you Colonel in front of a group of average Americans. I’d love to hear you babble on about staying the course!
I say it’s time to say, “the days of the Stupid Americans is over”
Here’s my memo to President-Elect Trump. Keep your promise! Stop the endless wars, secure the borders and Make America Great Again!

Two problems, and a straightforward solution.

1) The war is not with Afghanistan, but with Pakistan.

(CIA data) The population of Pakistan is 202 million people. (The population of the US is 324 million.) Pakistan is the largest training center for Islam *in the world*, and its training schools are called madrassas. Estimates of the number of madrasas vary between 12,000 and 40,000. A large portion of these are run by radical Islamist Wahabbis.

Often when a class graduates from a madrassa, their final instruction is to get a rifle and go on a jihad to Afghanistan.

For this reason, at the start of the Afghan war, enemy forces were estimated to be around 30,000. And no matter how many are killed, in each subsequent year, the count remains the same, about 30,000. Essentially the enemy has an endless replacement system. Why 30,000? That is the maximum number of fighters the enemy leadership can lead in the field. Any more than that and their field army breaks down.

Pakistan is politically very divided, with several autonomous regions, and US efforts to unite their government so it could control this problem were only marginally successful.

Were the US to leave Afghanistan, there is no way its government could survive, turning that country into a de facto Islamist state again. And as soon as it did, it would again export terrorism as fast as it could.

2) About half of Afghanistan’s border is shared with Pakistan. This division also affects the Pashtun, who amount to 42% of the Afghan population, while a large number live across the border in Pakistan. At one point, the government of Pakistan offered to build a wall or at least to put up a lot of concertina wire, and it was angrily rejected by the Afghan president, because it would cut the Pashtun tribes in half.

But this is about the only realistic scenario to eventually get control over the border and to end the Afghanistan war.

The border is very mountainous, and has a few very large passes, which the Afghans make little effort to control, but there are numerous small passes everywhere.

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