Democracy means voting for your friendly neighborhood dictator

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Choices, choices...

Banquo's key point -- and an instructive one it is -- is that there are few Afghanis. There are Tajiks and Pashtun's etc. and they are, in the main, happy in their tribal warlordism. They've been keeping things going in this fashion for at least three millenia.

Can we change all this? Sure.

Can we do so in a fashion that will be: fast enough to suit our 24-hour news cycle medias?
Bloodless enough (among our own) to prevent war weariness/"chuck it all-ism?"
Boodless enough (among the locals) not to be renowned for our brutality?
Honorably enough to suit the democratic ideals the West espouses?

I submit that the answer to these last 4 questions would be a "no" on 2-4 of them. That being the case, we need to sauve-qui-peut. The imposition of your foreign policy preference over that of the locals in question depends on your willingness to bleed for it. If you aren't, then piss off.

Warlordism will return, as will the Taliban, as will terror training centers. We can then wait for our new security procedures to become dulled by decades of use, and then look forward to the next large-scale kick in the unmentionables.

Have a nice day.

[LittleGrizzly]

From what everyone hear has been saying the only way to setup at least a basic democracy with basic rights is rule with an iron fist for 20-30 year whilst spending heavily on infrastruture, education and job creation. Education to include some basic adult education also. Possibly would need to bribe the warlords out of exsistence and maybe satisfy the more extreme members of the population by making the push to all the rights we enjoy here a slow gradual one...

Or is there some easier way to leave a somewhat decent stable country behind ?

[Pannonian]

From what everyone hear has been saying the only way to setup at least a basic democracy with basic rights is rule with an iron fist for 20-30 year whilst spending heavily on infrastruture, education and job creation. Education to include some basic adult education also. Possibly would need to bribe the warlords out of exsistence and maybe satisfy the more extreme members of the population by making the push to all the rights we enjoy here a slow gradual one...

Or is there some easier way to leave a somewhat decent stable country behind ?

AFAIK, historically western democracy only works if there's a large enough middle class to support it. The existence of a middle class doesn't guarantee it of course, but the things that go with it, such as stability, prosperity and education, are a minimum for a democracy to be viable. Afghanistan isn't anywhere near this level of social development. See China for an example of a country that's moving in that direction, but also lacks certain aspects of a society that can sustain democracy. In these cases, absolute rule with a mind to moving towards relinquishing power would be the most beneficial method of government, either as a benevolent dictatorship or an occupational government.

[Centurion1]

Why haven't they trained up an Afghan army yet?

tried, but its corrupt, and all the petty warlords (or not so petty) want their little slice of the troops and american money and want to maintain their militias, or private armies.....

should have totally centralized the government and gotten rid of the warlords even the "good" ones.

before you all jump on me i realize that such a project would be nigh on impossible in the Afghanistan political culture. that would be.....



and i wouldnt say the taliban overthrew the mujhadeen more like conquered the majority of the tribes. Afghanis liked them for a little even, until they realized after the intial minor sbabilization of having a dominant power... of what that dominant power really believed in....

[Banquo's Ghost]

Can we change all this? Sure.

Can we do so in a fashion that will be: fast enough to suit our 24-hour news cycle medias?
Bloodless enough (among our own) to prevent war weariness/"chuck it all-ism?"
Boodless enough (among the locals) not to be renowned for our brutality?
Honorably enough to suit the democratic ideals the West espouses?

I submit that the answer to these last 4 questions would be a "no" on 2-4 of them. That being the case, we need to sauve-qui-peut. The imposition of your foreign policy preference over that of the locals in question depends on your willingness to bleed for it. If you aren't, then piss off.

The question you didn't ask is: what right does the West have to impose anything on any group of people by force? Most of our ancestors, at one time or another, have fought for our own rights of self-determination. We value liberty above all. It is not up to us to create nation states.

Warlordism will return, as will the Taliban, as will terror training centers. We can then wait for our new security procedures to become dulled by decades of use, and then look forward to the next large-scale kick in the unmentionables.

Have a nice day.

Bleak, but rather melodramatic, old friend. The US has been remarkably lucky since 9-11 - partly through effort, largely because of the borders. I've said before, it would take me a few weeks to paralyse the US with traditional terrorism techniques (cross reference to about two years ago, Echelon old boy, purely hypothesis for the sake of illumination) - soft target fertiliser bombing, sniper attacks, backed up with 60% hoax calls to mix it all up. Crikey, the weaponry one would need is readily available in supermarkets and agricultural stores. I'd need a team of around three cells of three men each. One might even be able to recruit a couple of loonies sufficiently barking to pop themselves off as a suicide bomb or two in a mall. A bit of medical waste and dirty bombs would be lighting up football stadia like the fourth of July. Particularly now, the right would turn on their president like rabid wolves and the country would be practically in a state of civil war for years.

This is idiotically easy to do. The reasons it is not being done is a) al-Q'aeda is not the mastermind force it is made out to be. b) Islamicist terrorists are religious nut-jobs who constrain themselves by mindset. c) Any aims, such as they are, tend to be towards their own countries first, whilst achieving an almost mythical woolliness of purpose because of the aforesaid mindset. d) They are so stupid they only really long for the spectacular, rather than realising terrorism to achieve something needs to terrify pretty regularly, and every citizen needs to worry every day. (Of course, our own governments have been taking care of that one for them). There is also the fact that western security services are now much better at discovering plots and potential perpetrators.

It has practically nothing to do with "terror training centres" or warlordism. Yemen and Somalia are both failed states full of opportunity for these centres to migrate. The reason that only very few have set up shop there is that Pakistan's ISS doesn't have clout. Yet the West has bankrolled the ISS for decades. If terrorism needed training centres, there's plenty of places less dangerous to go than Afghanistan. (Saudi Arabia has some of the best equipped, for example, also paid for by our money).

In truth, the biggest blow made against al-Q'aeda to date has not involved bombs, but accountants. Just as Al-Capone (you see what I did there ) was brought low by accountancy, so are the terrorists running out of money. Money buys friends - it's remarkable how quickly chaps go off The Caliphate ® when it has no cash.

Yes, security will slacken and one day, a mistake will be made. The only connection this will have with Afghanistan is that the vicious clown that perpetrates the atrocity will be nursing a hatred of the West because someone killed his aunt with a drone at a wedding.

[Beskar]

If you really want to create a stable country, find the Stalin of Afghanistan and put him to work. It would be bloodly, messing and very undemocratic, but it will get the job done. This Stalin pretty much does this -

From what everyone hear has been saying the only way to setup at least a basic democracy with basic rights is rule with an iron fist for 20-30 year whilst spending heavily on infrastruture, education and job creation. Education to include some basic adult education also. Possibly would need to bribe the warlords out of exsistence and maybe satisfy the more extreme members of the population by making the push to all the rights we enjoy here a slow gradual one...

However, the biggest problem with this, is also this -

Can we change all this? Sure.

Can we do so in a fashion that will be: fast enough to suit our 24-hour news cycle medias?
Bloodless enough (among our own) to prevent war weariness/"chuck it all-ism?"
Boodless enough (among the locals) not to be renowned for our brutality?
Honorably enough to suit the democratic ideals the West espouses?

You could also do the biblical version, which is kill every male you find in the country, import a bunch of your own males to take their place. However, you will end up with international condemnation and in several international courts.

[HoreTore]

If you really want to create a stable country, find the Stalin of Afghanistan and put him to work. It would be bloodly, messing and very undemocratic, but it will get the job done. This Stalin pretty much does this

He was already there. He's called the Taliban.

[Beskar]

But that is against American interests !?%&**@~#

You wasn't meant to point that out.

[tibilicus]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8341659.stm

Uh oh.

This wont win anyone over in supporting the war.

[Beskar]

I hear the Right-wing going "Just NUKE THEM!!!!!" as we speak.

[rvg]

He was already there. He's called the Taliban.

Staliban!

[Seamus Fermanagh]

The question you didn't ask is: what right does the West have to impose anything on any group of people by force? Most of our ancestors, at one time or another, have fought for our own rights of self-determination. We value liberty above all. It is not up to us to create nation states.

Actually, I had thought this question was subsumed by the fourth in my list, referencing Western ideals etc. As you rightly point out, any efforts at nation building, however well intentioned, are far more readily justified in terms of national security interests than they are in terms of promoting self-determination (that being at least partly oxymoronic).

Bleak, but rather melodramatic, old friend....In truth, the biggest blow made against al-Q'aeda to date has not involved bombs, but accountants. Just as Al-Capone (you see what I did there ) was brought low by accountancy, so are the terrorists running out of money. Money buys friends - it's remarkable how quickly chaps go off The Caliphate ® when it has no cash.

I agree that the accounting war has been AT LEAST as effective if not more than military efforts. You had a number of other interesting points. I will confess to a moment of melodrama. I get upset by stupid actions on the part of my nation. Foremost among these include the use of force -- and blood -- stupidly. If you are going to put that most precious resource on the line, then you go in to win (like a million US ground troops in Afghanistan and Iraq each to actually suppress the problem) or you don't go. Of course, that would require political leadership that was willing to make hard choices, so it isn't going to happen. I wonder, given all of the examples we can cite, why so may TW players think the AI's diplomacy is that bad...

Yes, security will slacken and one day, a mistake will be made. The only connection this will have with Afghanistan is that the vicious clown that perpetrates the atrocity will be nursing a hatred of the West because someone killed his aunt with a drone at a wedding.

There is much truth in this Banquo. However, if you accept that collateral killings such as the hypothetical example you cite are inevitable, the corallary is that military action can never be used -- which begets its own host of problems.

[Banquo's Ghost]

I agree that the accounting war has been AT LEAST as effective if not more than military efforts. You had a number of other interesting points. I will confess to a moment of melodrama. I get upset by stupid actions on the part of my nation. Foremost among these include the use of force -- and blood -- stupidly. If you are going to put that most precious resource on the line, then you go in to win (like a million US ground troops in Afghanistan and Iraq each to actually suppress the problem) or you don't go. Of course, that would require political leadership that was willing to make hard choices, so it isn't going to happen. I wonder, given all of the examples we can cite, why so may TW players think the AI's diplomacy is that bad...

Your last sentence had me smiling.

The rest of your paragraph is exactly my position too. I've gone to war and seen my comrades die - but for a defined purpose, and with (just) sufficient resource to achieve it. Most importantly, with an iron political will behind the decision. I've also sat bemused in a meaningless, seemingly endless conflict against terrorism whilst politicians pontificate to hide their cowardice.

The military option should always be the last. I can understand the drive to attack Afghanistan militarily because it would have been an extremely brave and capable president who could have resisted that demand after 9-11. However, for a fraction of the cost, one or other of the Taliban could have been bribed to hand over bin Laden or assorted warlords set after him. The Talib were only holding out for a better price, but because we don't understand how things work, we mistook their refusal as a refusal. I suspect enough gold would have had bin Laden in an American court and thence frying nicely by the end of the next year.

However, this would have been a politically brave choice, so going in militarily, knocking the Taliban about a bit and then withdrawing would have sent the appropriate message. Then getting the pocket book out to keep the warlords fighting each other and paying for every al-Q'aeda head brought on a platter would have kept them happy and busy. I don't understand why the nation-building foolishness came in - except as a result of neo-con lunacy drunk on the Iraq plans.

At the same time, security services have got better and better at working together against the terrorists. The accountancy example is just one to demonstrate how we have in fact, got a lot safer. However, we will never be entirely safe, but politicians won't say this. Continued collateral killings and occupations make us far less safe, and this isn't said either.

There is much truth in this Banquo. However, if you accept that collateral killings such as the hypothetical example you cite are inevitable, the corallary is that military action can never be used -- which begets its own host of problems.

The corollary doesn't follow. There have been many effective wars where the death of civilians has caused resentment, but not terrorism. They have usually been short, with a defined purpose that finally benefitted the local populace so forgiveness could follow. Generational wars of occupation bring deep bitterness that acquires its own mythos - and takes generations to dissipate.

Finally, by their very foundation and nature, the United States are not an imperial power. To subjugate somewhere like Afghanistan, not only would you need a million men, but the will to inflict cruelties and wickedness for a great many years. Soviet Russia couldn't even subjugate those brave people and they had a real track record in the necessary skill-set. Jefferson was right.

[KukriKhan]

...enough gold would have had bin Laden in an American court and thence frying nicely by the end of the next year...

...going in militarily, knocking the Taliban about a bit and then withdrawing would have sent the appropriate message. Then getting the pocket book out to keep the warlords fighting each other and paying for every al-Q'aeda head brought on a platter would have kept them happy and busy.

That plan is precisely what I thought (at the time) was going to happen. That we (all) still have boots on the ground today has me flummoxed.