Is the US on the brink of a humiliating defeat in Afghanistan?

[Journeyman]

I asked for a source only because I've heard the story for years, but have not seen any credible documentation. Even in the book cited by Wikipedia, which I have, Barry Davies' narrative is mostly third-person -- he's just passing along a story he's heard too.

I don't doubt that Spetznaz Alpha was involved, I've just never had any luck finding the whole story.

It's pretty much an urban legend, with the details changing from the Russians killing all the relatives, killing one, or chopping off body parts and sending them to the stand-off.

:dunno:

 

[Nemo888]

If we were serious about winning we would have invaded the right country. Not fall for the feint of our enemy who wanteed Afghanistan to be the graveyard of yet another empire while he retired to his lovely walled casawith his favourite wives next door.

 

[stealthylizard]

What do we know of the history of Afghanistan.  A whole lot of people jump to the idea they have always been a culture living in the 8th century. There is also the idea that it is a "graveyard of empires". 

Prior to the Soviet invasion, Afghanistan was fairly progressive compared to what it is today, at least in the major urban areas.  Girls went to school, women held jobs, they were even allowed to drive.  I have a few friends that were quite amazed by the place, when they visited as drug tourists back in the late 60's.  Kabul was full of flashing neon lights, there was an active night life, women were out everywhere dressed in western style fashions.  The Taliban came into power after the Soviets left, and that all changed.

Afghanistan has been "ruled" over its history quite a few times by various nations.  It was always the land gateway between east and west in that region, and has seen a lot of conflict.  Some nations that tried, obviously failed, most notably, the Soviets, and the Brits, but the Sikhs have had a long history of being in control of Afghanistan, same with the Mongols, and Buddhism has had a heavy influence on pre-Taliban Afghanistan.  It is not a graveyard of empires because a few countries couldn't conquer it.



Is the US on the brink of a humiliating defeat?  Politically humiliating, for sure.  The most technological advanced fighting forces in the world have come together, and we cannot "win" against a backwards stone aged culture.  Yes our hands are tied, but nonetheless, some can see that as humiliating.  It isn't the military's fault, we work within our limitations.  We aren't the ones who will be humiliated.  The other side of the question is, can we win?  When someone can accurately define what a win is, that can be answered.  My biggest problem is what do we do about it?  If we leave in the next couple years, there is a very strong likelihood, we may be back doing this all again in 30-40 years.  But how long do we stay, to try to ensure that doesn't happen, and their culture normalizes again?  30-40 years?  Screwed if we do, screwed if we don't.  I concur that the western civilian population for the most part has ADD/HD. 

I will leave the tactical strategies for the experts to argue over, like mini-nukes, carpet bombing, forcing them into concentration camps, etc.

I am at a loss for an explanation, when people ask me, WHY I was there.  I can tell them my personal reasons for wanting to be there, but as far as being able to give them the official reason post 2005, I have no idea.  I don't know what my mission was.  I don't what the goal was.  I was there because I wanted to be there and I have no regrets about being there.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Successive governments of Canada, Liberal and Conservative, gave our reasons for being there ... usually on the DFAIT web site (there were precious few Afghanistan debates in the House of Commons and those few provided more heat than light); currently our "reasons" are:

"(1) investing in the future of Afghan children and youth through development programming in education and health;
(2) advancing security, the rule of law and human rights, through the provision of up to 950 CF trainers, support personnel, and approximately 45 Canadian civilian police to help train Afghan National Security Forces;
(3) promoting regional diplomacy; and
(4) helping deliver humanitarian assistance."

You will recognize that those are "tasks," not a "mission," per se.

I'm working from memory, but several years ago the governments of the day (Jean Chrétien and, later, Paul Martin) were a bit more clear and we had three goals:

1. To safeguard Canada by helping to defeat al Qaeda (which had explicitly stated that Canada was a target for a future terrorist attack) and deny it its base in Afghanistan;

2. To enhance Canada's international reputation - to "punch above our weight" again - by doing a full and fair share in the poorly conceived "global war on terror;" and

3. To help put Afghanistan on the road to recovery and help make it able to look after itself.

Those are more credible strategic missions and, in so far as DND and the CF are concerned, I suggest we, working with allies, were successful in 1, and, unilaterally, completely successful in 2; and, again as part of an allied effort, partially successful in 3.

 

[Jungle]

Thank you Mr Campbell.

I read a lot of comments here that seem to come from people who look at Afg with "6-month goggles".
We never went there to defeat the taliban; we met our original goals as stated above (nos 1 and 2), then stayed to help the ANSF stand up and eventually take over their own security (no 3).

Changing Afghan society/ culture cannot be done by westerners in a handful of years; it will be done by Afghans and take decades/generations. I don't know if it will be successful, but I think we helped put them on the right path.

On my last tout there I spent 8 months with the ANA; I found that individually they are aware that many changes need to be made, that they need to modernize their society. But collectively, they are afraid to come out and say it. They will need some strong leadership at the national level to provoke the social/cultural changes that are needed, and Karzai is not that leader.

 

[The Bread Guy]

I read a lot of comments here that seem to come from people who look at Afg with "6-month goggles".

I'll take that one step further, and suggest some of the decision makers have likely been doing the same thing.

 

[GAP]

Changing Afghan society/ culture cannot be done by westerners in a handful of years; it will be done by Afghans and take decades/generations. I don't know if it will be successful, but I think we helped put them on the right path.

On my last tout there I spent 8 months with the ANA; I found that individually they are aware that many changes need to be made, that they need to modernize their society. But collectively, they are afraid to come out and say it. They will need some strong leadership at the national level to provoke the social/cultural changes that are needed, and Karzai is not that leader.

Paradoxically, the Taliban were.........with the wrong focus. They cajoled and forced the people to change, unfortunately to something the people did not want and that did not fit into much else in the world community.

I have read many articles where the Afghans au pine about the swift justice the Taliban met out, and other comments that they (the people) wanted some aspects of a strong leader.

What's happening now seems to be a race to get as much as you can, then when NATO leaves, you leave too, with what you have gained. I am sure we will find many of the elite making a new life for themselves in some country once they no longer have the support of NATO in Afghanistan....

 

[jollyjacktar]

I read similar things elsewhere.....however I think our Russian friends may never tell us if that was true.

I can't recall too many Russian diplomats being kidnapped.

Yves, just said they were embassy staff.  He did not say diplomats as such.  Sorry I cannot corroborate it any, but there were lots of kidnappings in that era it's not beyond comprehension that someone would not try their luck with the Bear.

 

[Redeye]

What's happening now seems to be a race to get as much as you can, then when NATO leaves, you leave too, with what you have gained. I am sure we will find many of the elite making a new life for themselves in some country once they no longer have the support of NATO in Afghanistan....

That's exactly what it looks like will happen. The Shafafiyet (Transparency) Task Force is working on that - trying to seize ill gotten gains, and use those caught as examples to try to coerce others into actually investing in the country, but despite their high-production-value magazines and campaigning, I'm not sure how much success they're having. The amount of foreign aid money flowing right back out of the country to places like Dubai is estimated to be absolutely staggering. A guy from Shafafiyet told us the estimate of how much cash goes through Kabul International Airport every day, I wish I could remember the number. It was staggering.

 

[FoverF]

A public humiliating defeat was the inevitable outcome of western military intervention in Afghanistan from day 1... regardless of the actual outcome on the ground.

There was never any kind of conceivable outcome that the media and liberal university types would label as a 'victory'. And like it or not, these groups shape the opinions of the western world. If Afghanistan became a box-standard western liberal democracy, with universal rule of law and equal rights for all, they would claim a humiliating defeat for the west because someone in parliament got their nephew a job in the Mazar-e-sharif zoning commission. And those claims would stick.

It was a no-win situation from the get-go.

The *realistic* absolute best-case scenario is to have Afghanistan become a reasonably stable autocracy ala it's neighbors in Pakistan and Iran. I would be thrilled, and the world would be a much better place if that happened. The people of Afghanistan would be miles ahead of where they were in 2001, and we will have accomplished everything that we as a nation set out to do.

But can you see the western media and academia singing the praises of western military intervention if they were successful in creating another semi-hostile dictatorship in the region?

Look at what happened in Iraq to illuminate my point. The Americans accomplished all of their goals. Hussein is dead. The oil is flowing. There is no threat of the Iraqi government supplying NBCR weapons to anyone in the near or medium term. The Americans have a new client state, and are maintaining pressure on Iran. It took longer, and cost more casualties, than expected, but they accomplished essentially everything they set out to do.

Now, ask the average Joe on the street in any nation in the world, and the consensus opinion will be that America suffered a humiliating defeat in Iraq.

Consensus opinion doesn't always make it a fact, but it does shape how world events unfold. You can win the big fight, but the judges may see it differently, and give the belt to the other guy. He then goes on to defend that belt, while you wait next to the phone, and whether you won the fight or not doesn't matter any more at that point.

I'd say the humiliating defeat is inevitable at this time, at least in terms of public opinion and perception. Whether that's what actually happens on the ground, we have yet to see, but I think it will be years before we can say with any confidence.

 

[Redeye]

Look at what happened in Iraq to illuminate my point. The Americans accomplished all of their goals. Hussein is dead. The oil is flowing. There is no threat of the Iraqi government supplying NBCR weapons to anyone in the near or medium term. The Americans have a new client state, and are maintaining pressure on Iran. It took longer, and cost more casualties, than expected, but they accomplished essentially everything they set out to do.
we have yet to see, but I think it will be years before we can say with any confidence.

Iraq's "client state" status will take a long time to ever pay off the cost of the war in the first place, and the whole war arguably made Iran stronger and more influential by inflaming sectarian tension.

Otherwise, though, I think you're somewhat right. No matter what happens, it will likely be viewed as "failure", not because it really was, but because the outcome will be compared to the expectations of Joe Sixpack, and there's no way that it will appear that we've met what was expected from the public's POV. But I don't think we ever could. We could hopefully create a somewhat stable country, with a veneer of democracy, but outside of Kabul it would have to retain most of the trapping of tradition governance in order to be stable. That said, it could well tamp insurgency down just enough to stay a functioning state with ongoing support, and some means of developing an economy that gives people something better to do.