U.S. Marine under fire in Afghanistan, Spring 2008, Reuters

U.S. Military Surge in Afghanistan Can It Work?

U.S. Ally Pakistan – Working Next Door at Cross Purpose

If you’re at all interested in the future of the “War on Terror” and the current version of the Great Game being played out Afghanistan and Pakistan you need to read two stories from the Sunday New York Times:

• Fearing another Quagmire in Afghanistan
• In Pakistan, radio amplifies terror

What a mess.

No question about it, we didn’t finish the job in Afghanistan.  We pulled personnel and resources from the fight and sent it all to Iraq.  Six or seven years later, the Taliban controls swaths of territory, they use the Afghan-Pak border like a revolving door and they still terrorize those who don’t bend to their Dark Ages world view.

I’ve read that President Barack Obama is sending anywhere from 7,000 to 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan in order to deal with a resurgent Taliban, drug lords and assorted other characters from Earth’s version of Tatooine’s Cantina.  He might listen to former Secy of State Colin Powell:

Think Iraq was hard? Afghanistan, former Secretary of State Colin Powell argues, will be “much, much harder.”

“Iraq had a middle class,” Mr. Powell pointed out on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” a couple of hours before Mr. Obama was sworn in last Tuesday. “It was a fairly advanced country before Saddam Hussein drove it in the ground.” Afghanistan, on the other hand, “is still basically a tribal society, a lot of corruption; drugs are going to destroy that country if something isn’t done about it.”

Remember the post-Soviet era in Afghanistan? Forget about all the great powers that have had their militaries ground down in the mountain redoubts of the country, just think back to when the Soviets left.

The loosely allied “mujahedin” broke apart and reverted back to their tribal and regional ways.  They began fighting eachother.  To make a long story short, the Taliban ended up in charge in Khabul and other major cities, but even then the “country” was in a state of civil war as Ahmed Shah Masoud’s Northern Alliance challenged the Taliban every Spring thaw.

What I’m wondering is if someone in Washington is figuring that the resources just aren’t there to do what needs to be done in Afghanistan – a total violent commitment to fight the Taliban and other assorted warlords and tribes from rock outcrop to cave for years.  At the same time, we would need to do what we said we would do in Iraq – rebuild the place.  Only, it would be more a job of building than rebuilding in many areas.

And, while we’re fighting these pitched mountain battles, what happens when there’s trouble from the Northwest Tribal Areas of Pakistan?  Ahhh, the headaches.

There’s talk of ‘getting the job done.’  What’s the job? Peace? Prosperity? No poppies? No head to toe burkhas?

We’ve sunk $350 billion into the U.S. financial sector and we’re getting ready to throw $350 billion more down that rathole.  We’re getting ready to spend $825 billion on economic stimulus.  We’ve thrown $18 billion at GM and Chrysler and they will be asking for more in about a month.  Mexico is in danger of imploding and we don’t have the luxury of ignoring that if it happens.

I don’t think total disengagement is the answer, but neither are half measures.  The problem is that full measures appear to be economically unlikely.

There was nothing on the FBI’s site.  In the travel section of the DHS site not even a warning about traveling to Mumbai.  What a bunch of tards.  When they want to do something that the American people would otherwise soberly judge stupid, they jack up the terrorism PR machine and scare the bejeezus out of us.  On the eve of Thanksgiving when there is a reported plot to cause Al-Qaeda mayhem in the NY subways and the perhaps largest, most coordinated terrorist attack since 9/11 is happening in India – and U.S. and U.K. citizens are being specifically targeted – everybody’s on a holiday here.  I couldn’t fucking believe it when I dialed up the DHS site and was staring at a pumpkin pie.  What a bunch of douchebags.