Myth: Bush failed in Afghanistan because he let himself get distracted in Iraq

[Hugabear]

We've heard over and over that Bush screwed up in Afghanistan by allowing himself to get distracted by the war in Iraq. By invading and occupying Iraq, we didn't have enough troops to do the job.

Except that's hogwash. Even if Bush hadn't gotten involved in Iraq or elsewhere, it wouldn't have made any difference. It wouldn't have mattered if he used the full weight of the US military. Just ask the Soviets, or any number of others who tried to subdue the region. The only difference would have been the number of dead soldiers and civilians, and more war crimes.

Bush's mistake was not that he didn't commit enough troops. We should have never gotten involved to begin with. Bin Laden and Al Qaeda could have been dealt with diplomatically, similar to how we dealt with Libya over the PanAm bombing suspects.

[elleng]

1. Foolish to think Bin Laden and Al Queda could have been dealth with diplomatically, imo,

but agree that Afghanistan's been hopeless for a long time for MANY.

[Hugabear]

2. I meant that we could have put pressure on the Taliban

It was diplomatic and economic pressure that eventually led to Libya handing over the PanAm terrorists.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

4. And the Taliban offered to hand over Bin Laden if the U.S. provided proof that

he was guilty.

But the Bushies wanted that pipeline...

[Galraedia]

65. Reagan LOVED the Taliban.

[The Magistrate]

67. That Picture, Ma'am, Has Nothing To Do With the Taliban

There was no such body in existence prior to about 1993 or so. Some members of it were veterans of fighting against the Soviet Union in the previous decade, but that is not the same thing.

[Galraedia]

68. Yes it does...

Reagan praised and funded the Afghan mujahidin against the Soviet occupation. Reagan's “freedom fighters” went on to found and lead the Taliban. The Taliban themselves still had 50 of the 1,000 Stinger missiles provided by the United States during the Reagan presidency for the anti-Soviet war effort in the 1980s

Also, I am not a ma'am.

[The Magistrate]

69. Actually, Sir, The Taliban Fought Many Of the Leaders Of Resistance To the Soviets

The mujahideen, once the Najibullah regime fell, fractured into a nuimber of competeing factions, spiced with local tribal warlords, plunging Afghanistan into bloody chaos. The Taliban imposed its rule on this, with material assistance from Pakistan's ISI. It leaders and membership were mostly younger men, some of whom had fought the Soviets, but none of whom had been in leadership roles during the period when the picture was taken.

[elleng]

5. I don't see an analogy between Libya etc and Taliban;

Taliban's a huge evergrowing rogue 'group' not subject, imo, to diplomatic, economic or any other type of pressure.

[eridani]

26. The term "Taliban" is loosely applied to any groups that want foreigners the hell OUT

--of Afghanistan. They are the same people who fought the British and the Soviet Union. Giving them different names over time does not change that fact.

[elleng]

29. If that's so,

gives credence to my thinking 'Taliban's a huge evergrowing rogue 'group' not subject, imo, to diplomatic, economic or any other type of pressure.'

[The Magistrate]

34. Actually, Ma'am, The 'Taliban' Is Sort Of A 'Law and Order' Party

They have little to do as an organization with the resistance to the Soviet Union, though some early members were veterans of that fighting, and no real connection with the nineteenth century resistance to England, which was to some degree centered on the Deobandi sect established after the Great Mutiny.

The Taliban arose as a vigilante body, and it was on this, and a reputation for honesty in judgements given and in money matters, that its popularity arose. That the law by which it judged is by our lights benighted, backward, barbarous and even criminal in nature makes little mind locally, and in the circumstances after the destruction of the Najibullah regime, most people desired order above all else, as the prerequisite to anything else.

The Taliban, however, was also a regional and ethnic force, being Pashtun and southern, which led to considerable friction as they came into national power. They were also from the beginning creatures of Pakistan's ISI, and this body remains to this day a mainstay of armed opposition to the U.S. and NATO in Afghanistan, providing weapons and finacial aid and recruits.

[FarCenter]

57. Pashtunwali plus theology from Deobandists and Wahhabis

Pakistan was founded by Islamic fundamentalists that opposed living in a majority Hindu country. The intellectual source of Pakistan was the Deoband madrasa.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/intro/islam-deobandi.htm

During the Soviet War in Afghanistan, the Saudi Arabians played a key role of funneling material resources to the mujahadeen, along with founding Wahhabist madrassas in the border regions.

After the end of the Soviet War, the fundamentalist madrasas combined elements of Pashtunwali, Deobandi and Wahhabi influences to provide the intellectual basis for the Taliband.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wahhabi
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pashtunwali

Note that Taliban are a Pashtun phenomena, and are not supported by other ethnic groups in Afghanistan, especially in the north and west.

[The Magistrate]

59. In Other Words, Sir, A General Mish-Mash, A Modern Pastiche

Without much institutional connection to past events, even events in the fairly recent past. People tend to talk about this region as if everything is timeless and unchanging, just the same as it always has been, and it is that tendency which needs correcting at times.

[FarCenter]

61. Pashtunwali appears to be the invariant core among that group, in particular the concept of justice

Badal (justice) - To seek justice or take revenge against the wrongdoer. This applies to injustices committed yesterday or 1000 years ago if the wrongdoer still exists. Justice in Pashtun lore needs elaborating: even a mere taunt (or "Paighor&quot is regarded as an insult - which can only usually be redressed by shedding of the taunter's blood (and if he isn't available, then his next closest male relation). This in turn leads to a blood feud that can last generations and involve whole tribes with the loss of hundreds of lives. Normally blood feuds in this all male dominated setup are then settled in a number of ways.

Which of course means that each time we kill a Pashtun we are engaged in an unextinguishable blood feud with the deceased's relatives.

[The Magistrate]

62. Just Folks v. People, Sir, In Even Funnier Clothes

People with little of value tend to be awfully touchy about honor and respect.

[FarCenter]

63. "Don't mess with folks living up in the mountains" is like "never fight a land war in Asia"

Rugged terrain appears to breed rugged individualists who value their independence and honor above all. Perhaps they are self-selected from refugees who abandoned the lower plains rather than submit.

The Swiss would be an example, but there are hard cases in high mountain valleys from the Himalaya to the Caucasus, to the Balkans, to the Appalachans.

And we have ignored both precepts of war.

[The Magistrate]

64. Hill Folk Are Different From Plains People, Sir

No question or disagreement there.

[eridani]

35. So what?

That's true of any national liberation group that has existed throughout history. Their bottom line is that everyone else ought to go home, and that they themselves are already home and have nowhere else to go.

[bvar22]

53. Using International Law Enforcement, Bill Clinton was able...

....to capture, put on trial, convict, and imprison all the Middle Eastern Terrorists who bombed the WTC the first time.

He did so:

*without bombing, invading, or occupying a single country

*without a single American causality

*with ZERO "Collateral Damage"

*for a tiny fraction of the overall cost of invading & occupying Afghanistan.

Those who attacked the WTC were a tiny group of foreigners (mostly Saudi) paying an Afghan warlord "rent" to hide out in his desert. As President Obama PROVED, there was absolutely NO need to invade and occupy the entire country of Afghanistan.
Seal Team Six could have handled the problem.

[The Magistrate]

3. Actually, Sir, That Is Not A Myth

The idea diplomatic means would have resulted in the Taliban handing of bin Laden is a joke in poor taste, and was obviously so at the time, when certain posturings by the that government were made.

What was forfeited by the switch to Iraq, and cannot be regained belatedly, was the prestige of a quick victory in field. This could have been built upon, with a simultaneous infusion of funds, to produce a reasonably stable central government in Afghanistan that would have been modestly friendly to the West and somewhat resistant to Pakistani manipulation.

[Hugabear]

7. "Quick victory in the field?"

You honestly think that we could have had a "quick victory" in Afghanistan if we hadn't been involved in Iraq?

And how do you know we wouldn't have been able to pressure the Taliban into giving up Bin Laden? How much time did we give them, a couple months? It took YEARS to get Libya to hand over the terrorists it was harboring...but eventually they did.

[stevenleser]

13. Yep. There is nothing magical about Taliban or Al Qaeda forces.

The terrain offers special challenges, sure, but that could have been dealt with by using a lot more troops. Its pretty obvious that an initial deployment of 10,000 was woefully inadequate. I remember seeing that number at the time and wondering about it. Of course, the reason we held back was Iraq.

[Hugabear]

16. The Soviets had over 100K soldiers

How well did that work out for them?

[stevenleser]

18. Apples to Oranges, We (another superpower) were helping the mujahedeen counter Soviet Air Power

One of the most important things a superpower brings to bear in a conflict like this is Air Superiority. Take that away and the prospects of a quagmire go up exponentially.

Soviet Hind Helicopters were cutting the mujahedeen to ribbons before we started providing them shoulder launched surface to air weapons. The mujahedeen would have lost without US assistance.

[The Magistrate]

14. The Forces Fielded By the Taliban And Al Queda Were Quickly Defeated, Sir

That is a matter of historical fact. There was a more or less conventional war in progress between the Taliban government and Northern Alliance forces, being fought by regular formations, in field fortifications in critical sectors north of the capital. These government forces were utterly defeated, crushed, by air power they had no capability to reply to. This sort of thing lends great prestige to the victor, which was tossed away by a feckless idiot.

[Vattel]

25. I agree that there was a window of opportunity in Afghanistan.

That window was pretty much closed by the time Obama took office. One cannot, of course, say that Afghanistan would now be a stable democracy had Bush not been distracted by his designs on Iraq, but the prospects for success (assuming a huge investment of resources) were way better early on than they were by the time Obama got into office.

[stevenleser]

11. Well said Mr. Magistrate.

And absolutely correct. What is clear in hindsight is that Bush and Rumsfeld withheld the bulk of the US ground forces for a war in Iraq they always had planned to start.

A 'fast-as-possible' insertion of 200,000 of our best combat troops (starting with those most rapidly deployable like airborne and special forces) beginning in early October 2001 would likely have trapped Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan and they would have been cut to pieces in fairly short order.

Instead, Al Qaeda and Taliban began fleeing into Pakistan in November and December of 2001 and since then, we have had this game we have been playing where the bad guys move back and forth along the Af-Pak border and we try to get them in transit or on the Afghan side, or, occasionally on the Pakistani side, with accompanying outrage each time. That could have been nearly entirely avoided.

[eridani]

27. "Quick victory in the field" = control of urban areas only

The Soviets always had that, and it didn't do them any good at all.

[stevenleser]

30. No, see my #11

There was an opportunity to deploy the necessary amount of troops to trap the bulk of Al Qaeda and Taliban forces inside Afghanistan. We didnt deploy enough to do it and we did have the time.

Once trapped, we would have cut them to ribbons.

[eridani]

42. Al Qaeda could have been trapped

The Taliban is a large nativist movement, which unlike Al Qaeda, doesn't give a shit about what other Islamic countries do. They are almost entirely rural, and there is no fucking way to occupy the rural areas of Afghanistan.

[stevenleser]

45. We would have trapped Al Qaeda and the leadership of the Taliban in Afghanistan and...

Al Qaeda would have been wiped out and the Taliban would have been leaderless at best.

What is this obsession with occupying the rural areas of Afghanistan? This is nothing new. There are provinces of France that had very small numbers of Germans during the occupation in the 1940s yet France was occupied pretty thoroughly. When we invaded Panama, there are plenty of towns that never saw US soldiers, but we changed the order in that country completely.

[eridani]

47. Al Qaeda has been wiped out for years already.

Haven't you noticed that bin Laden is dead? Therefore there is no reason for us to be in Afghanistan. Rural reactionaries like the Taliban don't need national leaders--all they care about is defending their own turf.

It is really disgusting to read a defense of our bullying in Panama on a Dem bulletin board. We sure did change Panama--permanently cementing control of that country by drugsters and financial parasites. Why are you proud of that? And being proud of the Nazi takeover of France really takes the cake. Is that your model for US imperialism in central Asia? If so, it's utterly vile.

[The Magistrate]

32. Yes, Ma'am, A Quick Victory In the Field was Achieved

Organized opposition in the field was destroyed or dispersed to hiding. That is the definition of victory in a conventional engagement.

Control of the situation past this point was dependent on political exploitation of the opportunity this victory provided, and it was here that failure of grotesque dimension was managed by the Bush administration. The details of how they managed that are not worth going into here, but control of much more than a few urban areas was certainly obtainable, had the situation met with competent exploitation.

[eridani]

43. There is no evidence that the rural tribal areas have ever been controlled by anyone

Not Russia, Britain, the US or Pakistan. That Britain once decided to put an inaginary line between them called the Afghanistan/Pakistan border is not relevant to them at all. I would not consider a few urban oases surrounded by rural reactionaries to be a victory in any meaningful sense.

[The Magistrate]

44. Depends On What You Mean By Controlled, Ma'am

There are always local leaders, traditionally, anyway, tribal chiefs, who control their own patches. The question is to what degree they recognize a central authority, and respond to its desires favorably. For most of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, a central authority embodied in an Emir or a King enjoyed a reasonable degree of suzerainty from his capital. In this situation, there was certainly a divide between the countryside and the cities in regards to degree of and attitude towards modernity. In the reign of Zahir Shah after the Second World War a degree of progress was experienced, without rural backlash against developments in the cities. The overthrow of this king was not a reactionary coup, but rather a rebellion of urban elements who wished modernity to progress with greater speed, and enlisted the Soviet Union in the effort. What actually triggered wide-spread fighting was not foreign presence but Afghan government efforts to confiscate the land of various Islamic trusts, which provided the income of religious education and maintenance of mosques. This, not unnaturally, roused the ire of the Islamic clergy who preached resistance to this 'war on religion'. The capital immediately lost allegiance of the countryside.

Taliban rule was, in effect, the victory of the countryside over the cities, and its imposition of rural mores in the cities required much violence and intimidation, and roused much resentment. The Pashtun nationalism of the Taliban also wrought conflict with areas of the country where other ethnic groups predominated.

[eridani]

46. Controlled by an outside imperial policy does not fit into this analysis anywhere.

That the urbanites invited a foreign power in to help them resulted in their own interests being entirely thrown overboard. They knew they couldn't do it alone. Neither can urbanite interests be advanced by relying on a world imperial power. The only way for imperial control to have any kind of power is to promote divisiveness as much as possible, which is what the US started to do in the 80s (our bestest buddy Hekmatyar gained his reputation throwing acid on the faces of miniskirted university co-eds in Kabul), and is continuing now.

[The Magistrate]

48. You Are Missing The Point, Ma'am

The point is whether control from the center is or is not possible. A satisfactory degree of control from the center is demonstrably possible. What upset it was not foreign interference, but an attempt by urban elites to force rapid change on the country-side. Fighting did not begin when the Soviets entered; the Soviets entered because fighting was already beyond the means of a friendly government to cope. Were it not for foreign assistance to the rural rebels, it is quite likely they would have been beaten down. The Taliban themselves are far from a purely native body; they are largely a creation of Pakistan's ISI, and were its loyal servants while they were in power, one of their principal services being, with the assistance of al Queda, to provide trained fighters for Pakistani purposes in Kashmir. The Taliban are Pashtun, which is not the same as Afghan; though Pashtun are the largest ethnic group there, there are several others of some size, and serious hostility exists between the Pashtun and some of these, while a great proportion of the Pashtun are not part of Afghanistan, nor have had any traditional loyalty to an emir at Kabul.

Control from the center is achieved by a judicious mixture of prestige, cash, fraud and force, and this is true whether it is exercised by a wholly native government, a native government beholden to a foreign power, or a foreign power in open conquest. Early in 2002 the United States had the necessary local prestige, and certainly had the necessary cash and force. We may not have had sufficient local knowledge to manage the fraud element properly, but in any case, we certainly had not the wit, nor, evidently, the will, to do the thing properly at the time when it might have been done.

[eridani]

50. From the center of Afghanistan, sure. NOT, however, from the center of the American empire

When did the US ever have local prestige among the Pashtun in general? The ISI has had exactly the same problem as the US--keeping their proteges in line. The Taliban are ultimately provincials who could care less about the rest of the Islamic world. When Mullah Omar was finally introduced to his Pakistani supporters, the first thing he did was throw a fit about a picture (not allowed according to Wahabi and other strict Islamic sects) in the conference room. His hosts pointed out "But that is Jinnah." Omar made it clear that he neither knew nor cared about who the founder of Pakistan was.

I think the rural rebels could have gone on forever fighting at a low level on their own turf. Outside assistance only helped them overrun urban areas. The US prestige in 2002 was with the Northern Alliance and other non-Pashtun groups. How do you forge an alliance out of such disparate interests, particularly if you don't give a shit about the interests of anyone other than the empire?

[The Magistrate]

55. It Is Only the Center Of Afghanistan Under Discussion, Ma'am

That center has, at times, been under considerable influence by several outside powers, and that without great difficulty, when it was done with some skill. There is no reason whatever, in history or in theory, why a central government of Afghanistan beholden to a foreign power could not have been established in the present day. The failure of the Bush administration to do this, and the degree to which that failure has 'poisoned the well' for his successors was far from inevitable, and was the result of feckless incompetence, the chief mark of which was the invasion of Iraq.

Prestige in plenty among the Pashtun was enjoyed by the United States in early 2002, that prestige being based on demonstrated military power. Just as, in the old saw, victory has many fathers, so it has many followers, and in a fractionated, tribal society, people move to the victor, seeking alignment with the most powerful force in the field. Among other things, it is safer to be in such a relation, and more profitable. The wise victor, in turn, distributes presents, and makes demands in small installments.

Despite small frictions, of a sort 'special service' types are well able to rise above, the ISI has had little difficulty in getting its money's worth out of the Taliban in Afghanistan. It remains an unstable area, into which essential elements of the 'Pure State' idea could withdraw and dominate if hard pressed by invasion from India.

In the engagement with the Soviet Union, there is general consensus among analysts that weaponry and training supplied to the muhjahideen by the U.S. and Pakistan, and 'safe havens' over the Durand Line, were essential to the defeat of the Soviet Union and eventual overthrow of the modernist government at Kabul. Chronic 'low level fighting' in rural areas is of little importance without something to weld it into a movement of some mass; those areas where guerrillas can survive as a chronic problem tend to be areas of such small importance to rule of a country that little harm is taken from the survival of rebel elements in them.

[FarCenter]

58. The major blunder was being cowed by the Pakistani ISI and reinstalling Pashtun hegemony

After the initial victory, we should have ensured that the Northern Alliance took control of the whole country and not allowed the Pashtuns to reassert hegemony over the country. In particular, installing Karzai was a major negative.

Pashtun influence should have been strictly limited to the border area in the southeast, and Tajik, Uzbek, Turkoman, Darrii, Hazara and other groups reinforced militarily to maintain control over the rest of the country.

The Pashtun plurality should have been treated equally with each of the other groups.

[The Magistrate]

60. It Certainly Was, Sir, And Still Is, A Mistake To Think Pakistan Is An Ally

It is not, and never has been.

[eridani]

70. Given that the basic goal is imperial dominance, that in itself unites people against us

The Brits didn't get all that much out of ther "influence." and I don't think we will either. By their nature, imperial powers get undone by getting too greedy and highhanded.

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2009/112309b.html

Seven hundred British troops, 3,800 Indian troops and 12,000 civilians set out for Jalajabad, 90 miles away, on Jan. 6, 1842. At every pass through the mountains they were greeted by Afghan tribesmen waiting in ambush. They were all massacred or they froze to death long before they could reach Jalalabad.

The sole survivor, assistant surgeon William Brydon, rode into Jalalabad with a piece of his skull sheared off by a sword after being rescued by an Afghan shepherd. Asked for news of the British army from Kabul, he replied "I am the army".

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/kabul-30-years-ago-and-kabul-today-have-we-learned-nothing-1029920.html

In 1980, I would sneak down to Chicken Street to buy old books in the dust-filled shops, cheap and illegal Pakistani reprints of the memoirs of British Empire officers while my driver watched anxiously lest I be mistaken for a Russian. Last week, I sneaked down to the Shar Book shop, which is filled with the very same illicit volumes, while my driver watched anxiously lest I be mistaken for an American (or, indeed, a Brit). I find Stephen Tanner's Afghanistan: A Military History From Alexander The Great To The Fall Of The Taliban and drive back to my hotel through the streets of wood-smoked Kabul to read it in my ill-lit room.

In 1840, Tanner writes, Britain's supply line from the Pakistani city of Karachi up through the Khyber Pass and Jalalabad to Kabul was being threatened by Afghan fighters, "British officers on the crucial supply line through Peshawar... insulted and attacked". I fumble through my bag for a clipping from a recent copy of Le Monde. It marks Nato's main supply route from the Pakistani city of Karachi up through the Khyber Pass and Jalalabad to Kabul, and illustrates the location of each Taliban attack on the convoys bringing fuel and food to America's allies in Afghanistan.

Then I prowl through one of the Pakistani retread books I have found and discover General Roberts of Kandahar telling the British in 1880 that "we have nothing to fear from Afghanistan, and the best thing to do is to leave it as much as possible to itself... I feel sure I am right when I say that the less the Afghans see of us, the less they will dislike us".

Memo to the Americans, the Brits, the Canadians and the rest of Humpty Dumpty's men. Read Roberts. Read history.

[The Magistrate]

72. Do Not Be Blinded By the Words 'Imperial Dominance', Or The Spectre Of England

Russia and Persia and Ottoman Turkey, at various times, got some value out of influence in the place. England was far from the only player. Indeed, England's aim in the place during the nineteenth century was to exclude Russian influence there, lest it offer the Czars a doorway down into the Indian plains. It was not otherwise particularly exploitable, save perhaps as a potential reservoir of tough soldiers ( most of the Indian Army came from what is now Pakistan, and much of that from the northern portions of the place ).

The initial reverse suffered by the English is instructive. Matters were proceeding reasonably well when the John Co.'s man decided to halve the subsidies being paid to friendly tribes. Doubtless it made his books look better for a few months, but it got him sliced up personally, and precipitated the fighting that led to the eventual processional massacre. Lavish gifts are an essential element of maintaining prestige; to look niggardly is to reflect poor;y on those who follow you, and lessen their status among fellows and rivals.

An interesting additional factor in the first flight from Kabul is that the Afghans actually enjoyed a technical edge. The weapons equipping the Anglo-Indian force were elderly muskets, with excessive windage and in consequence greatly limited range and accuracy. The Afghan jezhial was a long-barreled piece, allowing full combustion of the powder charge before the ball left the muzzle, and the ball was fitted much better to the bore, with the result that both their range and accuracy were much superior.

Government's do not seek to control some other polity just for the hell of it; they have some particular purpose. The aim of the United States in Afghanistan was, first, to make an example of an open enemy, and second, to prevent the territory ever again being used again as a base for hostile actions against the United States. The first was more or less achieved, though the botch at Tora Bora robbed the exercise of its fullest effect. The second could certainly have been done, and may even have been: it would be a good deal more practicable today than it was fifteen or twenty years ago to simply keep an eye on the place and blast from the air anything which seems to be preparing a real threat to our nation. Talk about pipelines and mineral riches and the like are moonshine; first, military dominance is not necessary for commercial dominance, and second, such projects are not commercially feasible or practical in any Afghan polity that could reasonably be expected to be present, even with a widely accepted U.S. presence in the place.

[eridani]

73. Afghanistan was NEVER used as a base for hostile actions against the US

The hijackers were mostly Saudis, remember? The 9/11 attacks were planned in Indonesia, Hamburg and London. It was never more than a rough terrain hideout for people who had already done their dirty deeds. Convenient that the only "open enemies" we ever attack don't have air forces or navies, no? If miltary attacks on "open enemies" is such a good basis for policy, how come we never attacked the Soviet Union or Maoist China?

Was the Ottoman or Persian influence any different from US influence in Mexico and Canada?

[The Magistrate]

74. And Now, Ma'am, We Reach the Denialist Core Of Your Position

There is no more point to pursuing this than there would be pressing discussion of how many touchdowns were scored in the last World Series.

Have a pleasant evening.

[eridani]

75. Very sorry. Of course Saudis had nothing to do with anything. n/t

[wiggs]

33. Right. I believe some military leaders said as much...that we 'took our eyes off of the

target' and missed an opportunity.

[JackRiddler]

6. Reality: The invasion of Afghanistan was planned and approved prior to 9/11/2001.

Last edited Wed Mar 14, 2012, 11:10 AM - Edit history (1)

Both wars were on the agenda as soon as the Bush regime was installed by the electoral and judicial coup d'etat of Nov-Dec 2000.

Years earlier, Taliban delegates had been wined and dined by key backers of Bush in Texas. Once in power, the new regime threatened and cajoled the Taliban to make peace with the Northern Alliance and allow a pipeline deal. When this failed, the intent was to launch a "worldwide offensive" against Al-Qaeda, centered in Afghanistan, by mid-October. The go-ahead orders landed on Bush's desk for approval on September 9th, two days prior to September 11th. All that was missing was a casus belli!

Iraq was never a "distraction," it was a long-intended war of aggression on a nation that had provided no threat or provocation, and that lacked the capacity to threaten (because the WMDs had been destroyed by the UN inspections program).

In addition to being great crimes of empire, both of these plans were reckless and bound to fail, the products of hubris.

[Hugabear]

8. + 1

Well put

[stevenleser]

12. The Iraq war was planned in advance, yes, but not the Afghan one. There is no evidence for that. nt

[JackRiddler]

54. Perhaps you prefer not to see it, but the evidence is unquestionable

Last edited Tue Mar 13, 2012, 06:02 PM - Edit history (1)

It's a shame you wish to buy into the myths shrouding and protecting the crimes of the Bush regime, but as a well-informed observer 11 years later, it's your decision to make.

However, it is well known internationally that the US was preparing to attack Afghanistan (with plans, deployments, intent and schedules, not just contingency planning) in mid-October 2001, and the orders for go-ahead were placed on Bush's desk for signing two days prior to September 11th (according to reports in Newsweek).

Plans for the offensive were coordinated during the prior summer with India and Russia (and Russia did actually help out the real invasion that followed in the fall).

After back-channel talks with the Taliban had been suspended under Clinton, the Bush regime in its early months resumed the negotiations, attempting to pressure them into a peace with the Northern Alliance and a gas pipeline deal with Unocal. (Argentinean Bridas was also competing for a pipeline deal.)

In June 2001, in Germany, at negotiations involving India, Pakistan, Russia and Germany, the US negotiator threatened the Taliban with a "carpet of gold, or a carpet of bombs" if the Taliban did not comply. The US gave $125 million in aid to Afghanistan through May. The last aid payment of $43 million was ostensibly to support the end of poppy growing (which the Taliban actually enforced).

Nevertheless, the Taliban broke off the talks in June and Jane's and other industry publications published about the preparations for an Afghan incursion that summer.

As the WaPo later reported, the CIA had agents in place talking with Afghan warlords already two years before. The invasion met its initial success largely thanks to the effectiveness of CIA payoffs to the warlords, in the context of their having lost the all-important poppy revenue. (The post-invasion poppy harvest set a record.)

To summarize: The Afghan war was intended and prepared prior to September 11th. All that was missing was a casus belli.

[stevenleser]

56. Your surprised that the US was planning to attack in mid October 2001? We had troops in already.

Troops landed October 7, 2001.

Yes, I am sure we had lots of updated plans to invade Afghanistan, just not for the reasons you mention. The Taliban were an international pariah, there was a lot of pressure from womens groups around the world to do something.

[JackRiddler]

76. As this is a confused non-response to what I wrote...

and with all due respect,

I'll just direct you and any other readers back to my post, which concerned the established historical knowledge that the Bush regime prior to September 11, 2001 was not just planning but intending and letting other nations know it was intending to invade Afghanistan in October 2001.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=415041

[Enrique]

23. not true about Afghanistan

in fact, even after 9-11, the neocons all started trying to make it about Iraq. They failed and we went to Afghanistan.

Tons of evidence of the drive to invade Iraq, going back years, all the way back to the Persian Gulf war. There's nothing like that with Afghanistan. I'm sure the military had contingency plans, but there wasn't a whole political movement advocating for it like there was with Iraq.

[stevenleser]

36. OMG, we agree about something. I knew it would happen eventually!

[ProSense]

9. Yes

"Even if Bush hadn't gotten involved in Iraq or elsewhere, it wouldn't have made any difference."

...it would have. If Bush had gotten bin Laden and stayed out of Iraq, it likely would have led to an end to the Afghanistan war years ago. It's likely that the country's sentiment would have been where we are now back in 2004 or 2005.

So the result would have been no illegal war in Iraq and a likely end to the Aghanistan war.

Fact: "Bush failed in Afghanistan because he let himself get distracted in Iraq"

[OneMadVoter]

10. Petition to move the withdrawal date up in Afghanistan in 2013

There is a petition to move the withdrawal date up in Afghanistan. Unfortunately, there are 500 signatures which are needed until the petition is displayed publicly. So I am posting the link here for all of those who are interested:

http://wh.gov/I7f

[Lint Head]

15. Actually the proposed question is a myth.

Afghanistan was a bust from the get go or Gitmo. I haven't heard an objective pundit insinuate Afghanistan was a failure because of Iraq. Iraq was illegally invaded because of the WMD lie. The point of invading Afghanistan was to get Bin Laden and cripple Al Queda which was a success. That's why we should have gotten out long ago. We won there when Bin Laden was killed.

[stevenleser]

17. There is nothing magical about Afghanistan or the people living/fighting there

There are other places in the world that have mountains or other challenging terrain features. Challenging terrain requires additional troops and other considerations. Our objectives could have been attained in Afghanistan in 2-4 years had adequate troops and resources been committed to the job.

[kemah]

19. You can not bring a population that is in the 13th Century to the 21st Century in 4 years.

Just look at our population, we have pockets of people who still believe the south will rise again and are waiting for that moment to materialize. It doesn't take a whole lot of people to keep chaos going, just look at the IRA in Ireland. A few dozen IRA were able to bog down Great Britain for a number of years. And the IRA are products of the 20th century, not some Gaelic tribes living in the 13th century.
I been to Morocco and it seems that some areas are still in Biblical times, you expect to run into Moses at anytime. The dress, the customs, the living conditions, the eating habits, So I can imagine what Afghanistan is like.

[stevenleser]

22. Its not necessary to do that to accomplish the mission we set out to accomplish. nt

[Arugula Latte]

20. The Afghanistan War was just to provide cover so they could invade, rape and pillage Iraq.

[Johonny]

21. I don't know

honestly don't know because I never felt Bush was honest to me about his intentions in Afghanistan. Did he really think he would produce a 21th century country with a stable democracy and separation of church and state? Or was he looking for just enough stability to produce a pipeline and mining. Was the goal to place a 50s style our dictator in charge or was it really going to be a democracy etc... You could ask a thousand questions. Was his intentions as noble and childishly optimistic as the best propaganda he told us? To this day I have no clue on honestly why we went there, so I can't be sure if some better path could have produced more results. Certainly I don't think Afghans themselves are defective ppl that can't produce a viable modern society. Who knows maybe they'll find an internal leader that will guide them without trying to rob and exploit them.

[madokie]

24. War is an admission of failure

No two ways about it

[stevenleser]

38. I think that is an oversimplification

I would like to hear how the countries of WWII like Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Norway, Denmark and Belgium 'failed' when the Nazi's invaded on a quest to control Europe. There is nothing the people or governments of those countries could have done to stave off invasion.

To my way of thinking, war is like divorce. One party may not want it and may want to work things out, but that doesnt help them if the other side is bound and determined.

In fact, looking at history, depending on with whom you are dealing, adopting a conciliatory attitude and trying to negotiate with certain countries only emboldened the folks controlling the other country and encouraged an attack.

[madokie]

51. You miss my point but that is ok

I miss yours too.

[stevenleser]

66. One of my points is that cute soundbites (ie "war is failure") do not equal sound policy.

There are more points in what I wrote, but if you get that one, I'll be happy.

[stevenleser]

28. There is a segment of the anti-war crowd that tries to force facts to fit narratives instead of

narratives to fit facts. This is an OP that comes from that angle.

[Robb]

31. Heh.

...Do you remember who the last person to pursue diplomatic efforts with OBL was?

[stevenleser]

37. Rumsfeld, if I recall correctly. nt

[Ready4Change]

39. From my impression of the Bush admin, Afghanistan was the distraction from their Iraq plans.

From my point of view, the Bush Admin wanted to attack Iraq from their first days in office. 9/11 did them a favor, in that it galvanized the US populace into support for military action. However, the first action needed to be in a country the Bush admin wasn't really interested in. So, they made an initial attack with little attempt to garner international support and zero planning for the aftermath. Then, after putting on what they viewed as a necessary show, they shipped their operation and focus to Iraq, and left Afghanistan to fester.

And it's a damnable shame, as some think there was a chance, slim but nonetheless there, of yanking Afghanistan from the theocratic grip of the Taliban. However, that would have required a stronger international coalition, an intention to heavily occupy, and a serious plan to stabilize the nations economy and infrastructure after the initial combat phase. As it was, we only attempted a faint ghost of the initial attack, and nothing else.

So, my impression is that the Bush admin saw Afghanistan as the distraction, because they wanted Iraq, not Afghanistan.

[The Magistrate]

40. A Sound Observation, This, Sir

[JoePhilly]

52. +1

[arely staircase]

41. i disagree

one of the few things bush got right, imho, was the use of airpower and special forces to assist in the overthrow of the taliban. it would not have been a matter using "the full weight of the us military" but rather building on the genuine good will we had there in the immediate aftermath of that operation and partnering with the international community to help the afghans rebuild civil society - i'm talking the un and ngos not the us marines.

bush had other priorities and by the time obama turned attention back to the original mission the train had left the station.

[rhett o rick]

49. Maybe the neocons wanted to win the wars, but the military/industrial/Republican complex

want the wars to continue forever.

[excuse not to write]

71. We should've gone in, killed OBL at Tora Bora, eviscerated al Qaida,

then gotten the fuck out. All personnel home by spring of '02!