It's about the size of Texas, and its average annual temperature is like that of Massachusetts. Its capital city is on the same latitude as Los Angeles and Memphis. Humans have been scrambling over, fighting for, and surviving in this place, Afghanistan, for 50,000 years.In 330 BC, Alexander The Great marched and fought the width of Afghanistan and reached Samarkand through the Khawak Pass. He led his starving army over the 12,000 foot snowy pass and then west, back through the Khyber Pass, on the modern Hippie Trail all the way to Kabul. Today Taliban and tribal fighters use the same passes (there are seven) for the purpose of fighting NATO and American troops. The blood of thousands, maybe millions, of nameless soldiers and unaffiliated warriors has been spilled here since the first Aryans arrived 5000 years ago.
Afghanistan was Hellenized by the Macedonians and their successors, converted to Buddhism by adherents from India, ignored militarily by the Romans, conquered and converted by Muslims, trampled by Genghis Khan and Tamerlane, by Darius and other Persians and Parthians; invaded by Turkic tribes, by the British, the Russians and Americans. Even with constant, low grade warfare, it was also the world's first mobile shopping mall with its web of trade routes called The Silk Road, the commercial paths taken by bearers of luxury goods from the east to the Mediterranean world.
Julius Caesar's silk curtains came through Afghanistan from China, over barren trails prowled today by American Rangers and Special Forces. The Romans believed that silk grew on trees. They never learned differently, because they weren't welcome in Afghanistan, where The Silk Road was controlled by Parthians and Afghan Kushans, or welcome farther to the east, in China.
Among the six countries that share a border with Afghanistan is China. It lies at the end of a 150-mile long, 10-mile wide tendril of rock and valley known as the Wakhan Corridor. Marco Polo came through here 800 years ago to travel this portion of The Silk Road. Today it's the haunt of drug smugglers and the Marco Polo sheep.The only European connection in Afghanistan is its mountain range, the Hindu Kush, which is a Himalayan extension of the European Alpine system which runs into North Africa. There are, of course, Western "interests" there today. I don't know if they're realistic. I've asked one of my sons, who served there in a combat role, if he thought our mission was do-able. He said "No". The soldier's opinion isn't always on the mark, and he didn't say we should just walk away. But we need a policy that doesn't include indifference.
16 comments:
WOW Rhod, I'm very impressed. What a history lesson I just had ... thank you.
Odie:
Thank you very much. You have to wonder why so many people made it a battleground. Location, location, location.
This is just another country, like many others, that has always known conquers, stiff and war its entire history.
Our problem in Afghanistan is what it always is in America's wars ... politics. We were in a much better position in Afghanistan a year ago. What changed? Politics.
Now, NATO is doing a fine job, and Obama can't bring himself to want to win a war.
This is the dirty truth: No leftist truly wants the United States to win a war. We've had Afghanistan under control, until the leftists assumed control. What gives?
It's politics again. It's the same thing that nearly sank the Iraq War, that weighted down our efforts in Viet Nam, etc. It's the same thing it always is.
If given permission and enough troops, it would be over in a couple of months.
We need to finish what we started over there but - as previously said - is it the same war?
We were in Iraq because no sane person wanted to fight a war in the vipers' nest that is Afghanistan. The Left shouted that Afghanistan was the righteous war. The Left's record for the worst possible policies now remains unblemished.... and they get elected by a landslide.
We are doomed.
Rhod, your son is not the only soldier to say this. They have to know something...
If nothing else, you have to feel sympathy for those people, the ones who simply want to live peaceably. They have bowed to every major power, it seems. And I am quite sure they have learned to live with two flags under their bed and have learned which one to wave and when.
It is too bad, if or really when, we decide to pull back, they will always have the enemy within. I suppose they chose that particular demon to never forget the rest of them?
We went to Afghanistan because the Taliban hosted Al Qaeda there, and that wing of Al Qaeda was responsible for 911.
We destroyed the Taliban and the remnants of Al Qaeda fled to the cathole that is Pakistan.
The justification for staying is to prevent Al Qaeda and the Taliban from re-establishing themselves, and making further trouble for The West.
The policy of rooting a stable government there comes from our twin desires to be free of the mission, and the compassion that always develops when a Western power finds itself tangled up in the Third World.
Our goal is ONLY to prevent Islamic fundamentalists from using Afghanistan as a base of operations. We can do that without a lot of boots on the ground.
PS: To respond to Opie: The infantryman or rifleman who finds himself exposed, day in, day out, while the indigenous "soldier" is inside the wire cooking his rat and making babies, learns to hate the man he's risking his life for.
Until we threaten that "soldier" more than his and our enemies, we'll demoralize our own troops and make a hash of the mission.
Could do as Derb suggests: "Nuke 'Em, Bribe 'Em, or Leave 'Em Alone." I wasn´t with him against Iraq, but I´m starting to lean towards the 'get outta Dodge' crowd with this one.
NG - Turns out, The Left´s shouts that Afghanistan was the righteous war weren´t entirely on the up-and-up.
Very interesting post. Thank you. Pres. Obama can no longer continue to vote "present" on Afghanistan.
I appreciate your candor at the end on your fine history lesson Rhod. I do mean this sincerely.
If I take it correctly, you don't have any answers as to how to achieve victory, whatever that entails, in Afghanistan. This is all the more reason to leave.
Neither party has the courage to raise the necessary taxes. Institute a draft, and commit to generations of occupation.
Thank you very much T101.
A draft probably wouldn't be necessary to sustain a mission in Afghanistan, but you're right that it would require some kind of will that neither we, nor NATO, have.
No, I haven't the answers. The war I knew was waged in an agrarian society with some history of social organization not based on religion, and a background of colonial rule, however malevolent.
There was potential, so to speak.
I don't think Afghanistan has that potential, so we're bogged in a mission of charity rather than regional strategy.
I disagree with the conservative constitutional isolationists and the neo-isolationism of the left, but withdrawl from Afghanistan will overturn a range of American myths, and be argued for a century or more.
Apologies to you for other matters.
And by the way, Biden's plan which relies heavily on Special Forces, is disastrous and idiotic.
Biden's strategy envisions SF as an economy - financial and human savings - because he sees SF as a lot of bang for the buck; sort of a leg infantryman times five.
Special Ops won't take kindly to this attitude because it's the way they were treated in Vietnam by Westmorland - which is to say, sacrificed for policy and used like rented mules.
A lot of money and effort is invested in an SF soldier, and they're too rare to be treated in this way. These days they're almost free-lance.
It gives Biden a chance to be a tough guy. I personally could care less if I look tough or heroic as long as the mission our Soldiers are asked to accomplish is achievable. It's them coming home in coffins. If they're willing to make that sacrifice, our Nation's leaders owe them the equipment, training, planning and willpower and leadership to win. Substituting regular infantry for Special Forces is in my opinion just a show of phony bravado. If their mission is assault on terrorists okay. If they have to encompass the patrols of villages and nation rebuilding, they're being misused and disrespected.
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