Cogito Ergo Non Serviam
US Troops Leaving Afghanistan by September 11
President Joe Biden announced that all US troops would be leaving Afghanistan by September 11, 2021. That happens to be the 20th anniversary of the attack on the US by Al Qaeda which was launched from terrorist training bases in Afghanistan. The decision is one that is long over-due. US Troops should never have had such a heavy footprint there, and while there is a case for keeping a small force of a couple thousand, the future security of the US depends on intelligence in the area, not military might. Spies, not troops, are what is needed.
Afghanistan is, of course, more a geographical expression than a nation-state. The people in one valley have more contact with people in the next valley over than they used to, but isolation is still the norm. A central government of an Islamic stripe or a communist one makes no difference to most of the people in the countryside. In the cities, the local government's writ rarely extends the fill lengths of the city limits.
Terrorist cells arising in such a situation is not surprising. The idea that they can be stamped out is implausible because they are filling a power vacuum that the central government cannot because of the nature of the geography and demography (some ethnic groups in the country dislike others intensely). The presumption made by the administration of President Bush the Lesser that a foreign force could wipe out the terrorists once and for all was mistaken.
In 2001, when the US assault on the Taliban government began, the US used the Northern Alliance and its foot soldiers and backed those fighters up with intelligence, equipment and some special forces. That was the best possible approach. The Northern Alliance toppled the Taliban while Al Qaeda's training bases were destroyed. Sending in thousands of US troops to stamp out the Taliban altogether was the mistake. So long as Pakistan was funding and supporting the Taliban (which Pakistani intelligence more or less created), the Taliban could not be killed off entirely.
That is how America found itself engaged in this forever war. There is no solution to the problem as things stand and sending troops to solve it is a waste of lives and money. After two decades of war, there is no appreciable change in the situation.
What should have been done, and what can still be done, is a two-prong approach to dealing with the Taliban and by extension Islamic fundamentalist violence of any stripe. First and foremost, Pakistan has to be convinced to halt its support of such entities. That will require a massive diplomatic effort because the Taliban is part of Pakistan's efforts to surround India (an ineffective effort). Second, the US must grow its human intelligence in Afghanistan. The ability to disrupt terror plots hinges on infiltration and disruption. Having 50 spies in place is worth more than having 50,000 troops. And if push comes to shove, a few cruise missiles fired from a sub in the Indian Ocean is all that is necessary to destroy a training camp.
There will be complaints from the hawks about leaving Afghanistan in defeat, but hawks and doves are silly birds. The owls know that it is time to go and time to fight using different means. Joe Biden is calling time on a failed effort that was doomed from the beginning. He now has the chance to use the right tools in the right way.
© Copyright 2021 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux
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