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Our War Against the Pashtuns
http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2012/apr/03/afghanistan-war-against-pashtuns/**** That thought came to me when I read yet again someone expressing the fear that after US and NATO troops leave Afghanistan, the country “may descend into civil war.” What exactly do they think is happening now between the Taliban and the Afghan security forces?
This has always been an Afghan civil war, as well as a war between the Taliban and Western forces in Afghanistan. It is a continuation of the civil war which had been going on since 1992 between different groups among the Mujahedin forces which overthrew the Communist regime in that year; just as for the 14 years before that, Afghanistan had been in a state of civil war between the Communists and their enemies. What happened in 1979 and again in 2001 was that outside superpowers intervened on one side of a civil war. This meant that the military balance was violently tipped in the direction of that side—for a while.
*****
We are simply not going to stick around with sufficient power to make sure that the balance stays tipped; and by sticking around with reduced power, we may ensure the worst of all outcomes.
****
Rather than read endless briefing papers, US and British generals could do worse than to watch Go Tell the Spartans, a little known but rather good film starring Burt Lancaster, about a US military adviser team in South Vietnam. In 1964, thousands of US advisers were present with the South Vietamese forces—and as those forces crumbled, more and more US advisers were being killed, sometimes by Vietcong agents among the US allies. Sooner or later, that is going to compel a choice: to pull the advisers out and see your client state collapse; or leave them there and watch them being slaughtered, which is politically impossible; or to send in a massive army of your own, which is what the US did— disastrously—in Vietnam. I don’t think that any responsible officer would wish to put his men in that position.
This has always been an Afghan civil war, as well as a war between the Taliban and Western forces in Afghanistan. It is a continuation of the civil war which had been going on since 1992 between different groups among the Mujahedin forces which overthrew the Communist regime in that year; just as for the 14 years before that, Afghanistan had been in a state of civil war between the Communists and their enemies. What happened in 1979 and again in 2001 was that outside superpowers intervened on one side of a civil war. This meant that the military balance was violently tipped in the direction of that side—for a while.
*****
We are simply not going to stick around with sufficient power to make sure that the balance stays tipped; and by sticking around with reduced power, we may ensure the worst of all outcomes.
****
Rather than read endless briefing papers, US and British generals could do worse than to watch Go Tell the Spartans, a little known but rather good film starring Burt Lancaster, about a US military adviser team in South Vietnam. In 1964, thousands of US advisers were present with the South Vietamese forces—and as those forces crumbled, more and more US advisers were being killed, sometimes by Vietcong agents among the US allies. Sooner or later, that is going to compel a choice: to pull the advisers out and see your client state collapse; or leave them there and watch them being slaughtered, which is politically impossible; or to send in a massive army of your own, which is what the US did— disastrously—in Vietnam. I don’t think that any responsible officer would wish to put his men in that position.
