Dear Turtle Bay,
I was worried it would take all day for you to respond for President Obama. I was even a bit afraid that he gasp wouldn't see my letter at all, in which case it would be forever doomed to the confines of the popular netroots debate, with all its hero-worship and selective hearing. Thank you for saving me the humiliation of that fate-- that of having another normal citizen respond to my obviously Presidential-caliber letter.
Or wait, let me guess, you don't think I'm a normal citizen? Ever hear of Flint? Either way, thanks for getting the President's ear on this. I'm sorry that I failed to change his mind. Let me make a counter-response, and if you'd be so kind as to run it up to the oval office, I'd be much obliged.
You begin with a strange premise, for someone as learned about Afghan history as you appear to be: that the last eight years caused the nightmare we have in Afghanistan; indeed that something so complex could ever be caused in eight years, and finally that any foreign intervention is capable of altering the fabric of two societies (Afpak) as to make or break the situation within, say it with me, "eight years."
I would rather that the Bush administration have used the unprecedented seven years of control and influence it had over Afghanistan to stabilize that country and cripple Al Queda.
I would rather that it have withdrawn support from Mussharaf in Pakistan and flooded that country with humanitarian and civil-society support to help prevent the current cross-border Taliban statelets from evolving and growing more powerful, threatening to destabilize both countries.
Now Look. I hate Bush as much as you do. I helped dub him the War President in my movie Farenheit 911. Did you see it? You should, it's good. In it I mentioned how the real reason for our going in there (to Afghanistan) might be that we define a serious geopolitical interest in opening up a natural gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to India via Pakistan and Afghanistan. Turkmenistan has the 5th largest reserves of natural gas in the world, and natural gas is a non-fungible commodity, which Russia has a reputation for using as a political weapon. So this pipeline is really about those things, and spheres of influence in Central Asia. Al Qa'ida was purely pretextual from the beginning. For evidence see Bush's numerous statements on the unimportance of catching Usama. Or this President's failure to define a strategy to catch him, despite massive expenditures of blood and treasure. At least give me the benefit of the doubt for knowing my history. Or do I need to give you a lesson, "Mr. President?"
As to the destabilization of Pakistan, you cite the "two mismanaged wars" and support for President Musharraf as the source of the instability. I'd love to hear that one explained further. Surely you must understand that our being there at all, for whatever reason, is more in Pakistan's interest than our own. Pakistan has been seeking a stable, islamic neighbor to gain "strategic depth" against its other neighbor, India, ever since there was a Pakistan. I'll now show how your critique of my position is arguing to have it both ways and belies a stunningly superficial understanding of Afghan history and foreign policy.
By us being there, we simply give Pakistan one more horse to bet on in that tired, losing battle to gain leverage with India. Energy resources to INdia in the form of natural gas would put Pakistan in control of the fixed flow of energy, allowing it to threaten outages at a significant cost to India and for very little cost (except for a minimal transit fee) to Pakistan. Among the other horses they're betting on? the Taliban. And this (in its present form) started back in 1995-6 with Benezir Bhutto's support for the Afghanistan Taliban via the ISI. That support continues even to this day, despite Musharraf's attempts (under vast pressure from the U.S. and NATO) to isolate and eliminate Taliban and Islamist elements within his military and government institutions; it didn't work, but that doesn't mean that it didn't make the country more stable for trying. But you also argue that our mission there was wrong headed under Bush and that further stabilized the region. I'd argue that any mission there to eliminate the Taliban, wherein we only control events within one territory and the other, neighboring territory is susceptible to infiltration, is wrongheaded in of itself. In plain English, you seem to be all about Pakistan's interests, but your method of achieving them runs counter to all but the most extremist interests within Pakistan. Your plan would, at best, stabilize trade routes and strategic investments between Pakistan and Turkmenistan, while at the same time displacing tens of thousands of Afghan Taliban soldiers to the Tribal Areas of Pakistan, thus further destabilizing Pakistan.
This isn't just my view. This is the other horn of the debate. Sorry I wasn't as clear as I should have been in my first post. Had I known you would respond, sir, I would have been. Because people need to know this stuff, and it's important that they hear both sides, even though it gets complex (and I know there's no conflict more complex).
Now, a couple more points, though I'll accept your attack on my hyperbole, see the paragraph above. You accuse me of speculation on the number of Al Qa'ida in Afghanistan currently. I said it was less than 100. You said prove it. Here's the proof: courtesy of Jim Jones
As to the argument that we are spread comparatively thin for peacekeeping/counterinsurgency operations of this kind, I'd ask: what kind are we talking about? If your goal is to compare this in terms of peak military presence per thousand residents to other peace, security, and nation building operations, than we're admittedly low on the list (just below Cambodia, third from the bottom with Mozambique and El Salvadore bringing up the tail). But c'mon. We're also low on economic assistance in comparison to the other missions. Know why? There's no stability by which to bring assistance. A similar rule applies with military presence. Without other pillars being in place, it tends to destabilize the region. This is why you see the Taliban controlling 80% of the country again and collecting the same rents that it used to, albeit without the tanks and planes of Kabul and Kandahar that it lost when we bombed them in 2001. This relates to your best argument for keeping general McChrystal as well: with our mission being to intercept opium and its by-products in transit, how are we supposed to do that with the Taliban controlling most of the opium rich areas of the country and gaining ground on us daily?
Look, McChrystal is doing what he built his career on, which is a typical problem in bureaucracies, namely that where you sit is where you stand. They cna be recalcitrant, with careers and national interests in direct conflict with one another. Keep that in mind when you consider the Jones-McChrystal debate. Jim Jones is a defensive realist, which, by the way, was basically the tagline Obama ran on for his Afghan foreign policy. If you want to make the case that there are other reasons than our own national interest that we should be in Afghanistan then we're all listening. But don't expect us to be an easy sale.
And finally, turtle bay, thanks for having the audacity to hope that you have the faintest idea wtf the president is really thinking about when he makes his announcement tomorrow. There aren't nearly enough cheerleaders on this site; thanks for spending 2/3 of your diary criticizing the tone of my letter, in favor of the POTUS, rather than responding in more careful detail to the substance of my critique. It's people like you that are enabling the poor policies of this administration. I imagine you have some justification of the bailout as well. Keep truckin!
Sincerely,
Michael Moore