The cover page article in this morning's New York Times highlights some of the mounting challenges in the US Afghanistan strategy -- specifically, the internal dissonance in Afghani politics and the corruption in its police force.
If the experience of the American troops already training police officers in Ghazni Province is any indication, better policing may be impossible for Afghanistan unless government officials at all levels stop cannibalizing their civil administration and police force for a quick profit.
In two weeks of interviews in this mountainous region of poor farmers and shepherds, exasperated American soldiers said it was hard to determine which was their more daunting opponent — the few thousand Taliban who ruled villages through a shadow government of mullahs, or corruption so rife that it had deeply undercut efforts to improve the police and had destroyed many Afghans’ faith in government.
I try hard not to be a cynic but one thing I'm very cynical about is US troops successfully transforming parts of the Muslim world for the better. There's no track record of it, and for good reason. In fact, the track record of US military intervention in the Middle East only shows that it creates more problems than it solves. This is in no way a shot at Muslim nations or the US military; these are just cultures that have never and will never see eye to eye.
I think President Obama is aiming a little too high for his own good in Afghanistan. Leave alone the already long list of daunting problems on his agenda -- domestic and foreign -- Afghanistan is slowly becoming Obama's war, and it's not one I predict will turn out in his favor. As a generally strong supporter of the president, I take no glee in saying this.
Why must all American presidents be war presidents? I know, I know, the leader of the free world has to prove he's not a wuss but is that really more important than doing the right thing? Whether is was W. Bush with Iraq, Clinton with Bosnia and Kosovo, H. W. Bush with the Gulf War, Reagan... the list goes on.
I don't oppose all wars, just dumb wars, as Obama has said before. And Afghanistan seems like a very dumb war. US goals in Afghanistan -- most significantly to create a strong central government -- is opposed by the very people in Afghanistan it is meant to be helping. They don't want what we want for them. They don't recognize the government, they don't want to pay taxes and they can't decide who they hate more, the Taliban or America.
Tensions between the people of Afghanistan, the Taliban and the central government are bad enough. The intense corruption makes it nearly impossible to establish an effective system of transparency and accountability, undermining any conceivable political strategy. And US military presence is a poison pill that further damages the situation in many ways.
Granted, it is more complex; the US must prevent the region from becoming a haven for terrorist activity -- which I believe is the only reason not to pull out immediately. But as I've said before, the larger war between radical Islam and the West will never be solved by a long-term US military presence in the Middle East. This is hardly debatable; it's common sense to anyone who has even a superficial understanding of the motivations and methods of radical Islamist groups.
It's a horrible catch-22 with no easy answer, but I can't help but think Obama's strategy will ultimately do more harm than good.
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