afghanistan | Hanlon's Razor

QotD

By Hanlon, on July 2nd, 2010 at 02:40 PM

Michael Steele on the war in Afghanistan.

“Keep in mind again, federal candidates, this was a war of Obama’s choosing. This is not something the United States had actively prosecuted or wanted to engage in.”

Actually, he has a point. Obama chose to be the president when Bush had led us into a pair of unnecessary wars. Damn Obama!

The cost of the Middle East wars has topped a trillion

By Hanlon, on June 1st, 2010 at 09:28 AM

Do you feel safer now?

Suicide bombing at Afghanistan base raises CIA security questions

By Hanlon, on January 6th, 2010 at 03:51 PM

Well this isn’t encouraging.

Current and former intelligence officials said on Tuesday the CIA had launched a sweeping investigation into the unprecedented security breach, how the suspected suicide bomber, Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, was recruited by Jordanian intelligence and whether any other agents working with the Americans may be moles.

Former U.S. intelligence officials said investigators were exploring a wide range of leads, including possible links between the bomber and the network of Afghan Taliban commander Jalaluddin Haqqani, one of the CIA’s highest priority targets.

Balawi was recruited by Jordanian intelligence to try to infiltrate al Qaeda and the Taliban in large part because of his past association with Islamists, a former intelligence official said, citing Balawi’s previous involvement in a pro-al Qaeda websites and blogs.

I want to reiterate that any and all al Qaeda related problems can and should be blamed on our previous administration who for some reason decided that Afghanistan was taken care of and we could dump all of our resources into the completely threat-free Iraq.

Seriously. Just take this moment to think back on the 2003 area when everyone assured us that al Qaeda was “neutralized”, that Osama was no longer our concern, or McCain’s famous assertion that could just “muddle” our way through Afghanistan with no problem. Now it’s about eight years later, and they’ve gotten to the point where they can infiltrate the CIA.

Comforting report: What we (don’t) know about Osama bin Laden

By Hanlon, on December 6th, 2009 at 06:45 PM

Osama bin Laden, watch as he slowly fades from view... Far and away the most telling, and frustrating, part of the dual-fronted war we’re currently involved in is the complete lack of Osama bin Laden throughout it all. Oh sure, he started the thing and every once in a while we get an audio/video tape that the media can have an orgy over, but by and large OBL isn’t really in the picture.

There are any number of reasons why this may be. It could be the official explanation that bin Laden has been neutralized and is no longer a priority, so putting any significant resources on one guy is a waste. It could be the theorized death of Osama that would obviously make it an even bigger waste to put any resources toward finding him. Or it could be that we just don’t really know where he is.

Warning, this article may depress you. What with things like this:

[National security adviser James] Jones described it as “very, very rough, mountainous area. Generally ungoverned and we’re going to have to get after that to make sure that this very, very important symbol of what al-Qaida stands for is either, once again, on the run or captured or killed.”

Since when did “on the run” become an adequate conclusion to the hunt? Are there murder investigations where making sure someone is “on the run” means they’re doing their job? For a guy that orchestrated the murder of a few thousand American citizens, it seems like James Jones is being terribly cavalier about the chase.

He might be in Pakistan, he might be in Afghanistan, he might be alive or he might be dead. Now Pakistan’s getting angry at Washington for starting to aim the guns on their soil. And here’s a potentially frightening possibility: with all of our efforts going into strengthening the Afghani forces, who’s to day the US won’t try and pour them into Pakistan should the Obama administration decide to chase the Taliban over the border?

In which Hanlon has a change of heart

By Hanlon, on December 2nd, 2009 at 07:58 PM

Thinking... After my previous apologizing for the troop increase in Afghanistan, and specifically after B-O’s big honkin’ speech last night, I’ve finally come to the light on the current war.

If you didn’t sit through that speech, here’s the full text of it. If you did sit through it, then chances are you noticed the rather alarming difference between it and every other speech the man has made. For one, it lacked the usual uplifting timbre of a Barack Obama speech. For another, it came across as horrendously disingenuous.

Read through it a few times. Let it really sink in. Then re-read it, but imagine it in Dubya’s voice. Maybe pull out a few of the more long-winded sentences and replace them with more direct language. Eerie, isn’t it? There’s almost nothing that really differentiates this from a boilerplate Bush speech explaining why the war is important and that challenges lie ahead, these are hard decisions and blah de bloo.

Remember all that change we were hoping for? Welcome to change.

Okay, so that didn’t explain my change of heart. What finally hit me over the head was the following question: what exactly are we doing over there? Now before you say “fighting terrorism”, ask yourself who our target is. Al Qaeda? Hardly. Suddenly everyone’s been talking about the Taliban, employing the same sleight of hand that took us from Osama bin Laden to Saddam Hussein. The Taliban are growing, they’re setting up camp in Pakistan, they aren’t eliminated.

So what? The Taliban didn’t attack. They may have let Al Qaeda live in Afghanistan, but they neither trained nor funded them. The Taliban has never, at any point, been a threat to the United States. Focusing the “war” on following the Taliban around is just a way to avoid actually pulling out.

Then there’s the historical side of things. Afghanistan is the “Graveyard of Empires”, where formerly cocksure superpowers watched their influence vanish in the sandy hills. After getting embarrassed in the 1980s, the Soviet Union’s sphere of influence collapsed, and now we’re looking to do the same. All because our Hopey McHope president is afraid to stand up and bring about the change he’d promised us.

The Afghanistan conflict started with noble intentions, but has devolved into a travesty. Increasing the number of troops isn’t going to change that. The sooner we leave, the better.

The “secret details” of Obama’s strategy in Afghanistan

By Hanlon, on November 25th, 2009 at 11:16 PM

obama3 The war in Afghanistan has been plagued by two huge problems: a lack of force and a lack of an achievable goal. The slow bleed of troops that have been sent to the real home to the “war on terror”, and the stated desire to “defeat the terrorists” is just a wee bit unlikely to happen. Obama has thus been saddled with a monumental task, and Leslie Gelb of the Daily Beast has the insider scoop.

The strategy to govern the employment of these forces, Mr. Obama is expected to say, will be much like the counterinsurgency approach he originally approved back in March—the approach McChrystal reaffirmed in his recent “secret” leaked report. That means clearing areas and holding them with military force, followed by civilian and economic programs. He will also underline the anti-terrorist component of this strategy—namely the focus on attacking al Qaeda itself, a point stressed relentlessly by Vice President Joe Biden during the nearly two-month policy review.

But there are two additional elements to the strategy. U.S. forces will expedite the long-neglected training of Afghan military and police forces. And the new 30,000-plus surge of U.S. troops will be used to beat up on the Taliban enough to make it easier for the Afghans themselves to manage down the road.

Bush’s foreign policy vis a vis war has always been described as “cowboy”, although maybe “Hollywood” would be more accurate. In the Bush mindset, American soldiers railroad all the bad guys in dramatic Saving Private Ryan style sequences that end with heroic, dirtied faces holding a fallen comrade and screaming “damn you bastards!!” while shooting the last few villains who widowed his best friend’s wife. The main point is “strength” and “courage”. Hence the strategies he employed tended to be “let’s shoot some troops at ‘em!”

Now on the surface you might say “Well Hanlon, that sounds an awful lot like this.” Close, but not quite. The Obama troop increase is in order to facilitate a more civilian-supported strategy. It’s using American troops to clear a path for the Afghan people to take over, rather than simply trying to kill more of a largely ethereal enemy. Let’s hope it works, too, because we’re actually getting to a point where kids who were born after the war started are in school reading about it.

A must-read on Afghanistan

By Hanlon, on October 4th, 2009 at 01:55 PM

idea Hey! Remember Afghanistan? It’s still out there, and we’ve still got a handful of soldiers fighting.

The question now is what to do there. The war is seven years deep and suddenly it seems as though everyone’s got a newfound concern for the resolution to the first leg of the “War on Terror”. There are a thousand and one snarky comments to make on that, but the point is just to read what Zbigniew Brzezinski has to say on the matter.

Big quote ahoy.

In short, let’s not get into the nation-building business. “We’ve had some sort of a notion that we build a modern society, democracy, with the help of Western-type Afghans.”

While President George W. Bush “theologized” that concept, “Obama no longer embraces that theology,” Mr. Brzezinski says. “But let’s face it: Two years ago, what did he know about Afghanistan?” The former top national security aide is no soft-liner and thinks it would be a disaster to withdraw from Afghanistan or set deadlines for getting out. That brings up what the United States did after the Russians had to retreat.

“Our biggest mistake was in 1989,” he says. “The Taliban arose not because of what we did in Afghanistan to help defeat the Soviets. They arose because of what we did not do in Afghanistan, which was to continue helping after the Soviets were driven out.” Looking at these Afghanistan bookends, he says Mr. Obama should “draw those two lessons together.”

“We have to stay in Afghanistan politically and economically,” he says, “but at the same time we must not make the war against the Taliban our central preoccupation, thereby giving them the opportunity to label us the way the Soviets became labeled, as enemies of Afghans.”

The 1989 model is one that many people have brought up over the past few years, either in terms of explaining what got us into Afghanistan in the first place (meaning, what spawned the Taliban and Al Qaeda) or explaining how to get us out of there (as Brzezinski illustrated).

What mucks things up is that we spent the last six years “muddling around”, to use John McCain’s terminology. The war in Afghanistan was considered such a shrug-off that almost as soon as we were in the country was treating it like a minor side attraction. Not a real war, no, just something to toss some extra troops at if they aren’t busy. The focus was on Iraq, and now it’s come back like a ton of bricks. Let’s hope Obama can figure out a solution.

I cannot handle right-wing whiners

By Hanlon, on July 16th, 2009 at 11:44 AM

Arrrrgh! Watching the right bitch-fest grow the elephantine proportions (appropriately enough) is starting to test my endurance. The level of shrill hysterics flying out of some of these idiots is just too much to bear, so just give me a few moments to vent. Specifically at one column by dumbass du jour Burt Prelutsky.

It’s yet another in the long line of apocalyptic anti-Obama columns that presents 2009 as the absolute destruction of the United States. I dunno if he was being intentionally misleading or if he’s just got a few blood clots in his brain, but either way it’s unbelievable what he typed out and thought to be respectable.

Whenever the slide began, in the months since Obama was crowned, we’ve slid faster and further than I would have dreamed possible. Obama keeps huffing and puffing and the federal government just keeps expanding like a gigantic balloon. It’s only a matter of time until it blows up in all our faces.

I want to point out that the Bush administration saw the greatest increase and consolidation of executive power in United States history. Obama has not added to it in the slightest save how he’s continued the stimulus policies that began under Dubya. Take your pick. Even as of 2004, Bush saw the greatest increase in government spending since LBJ. His was a time when presidents could skirt Congress by way of signing statements and Vice Presidents could tell the CIA to keep Congress in the dark, since he existed in a quantum-like fashion between the legislative and executive. Plus, hey, let’s not forget that Reagan pretty much owns the national debt.

Not in my wildest nightmares would I have imagined that an American president would travel to countries we’ve bled and died to defend, and apologize for our arrogance. Neither would I have ever expected that the same man who casually dismissed our special relationship with England would curtsy to a Saudi prince; refer to a blood-thirsty Muslim cleric, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as the Supreme Leader; and butter up a Russian tyrant who cut his eye teeth working for the barbaric KGB.

This is the kind of person who would probably bitch at John Paul II for apologizing for the Catholic Church’s past actions. And I’d be careful about talking about deference to Saudi Princes considering the Bush family has had Saudi balls on their faces for, oh, quite a few decades now. Khamenei’s actual title is “Supreme Leader”. That’s who he is. He’s the Supreme Leader of Iran. There are lots of Ayatollahs over there, Khamenei’s the Supreme Leader. It’s like bitching at Obama for calling Gordon Brown the Prime Minister.

I also find it hilarious that people actually admire Bush’s policy of calling other world leaders “evil” and saying that’s what he saw in the eyes of Putin. I don’t think neoconservatives get the fucking message that when you spend all your time throwing handfuls of your own shit at the world and calling them evil, they’re going to want to hurt you. One of my favorite quotes of Abraham Lincoln is “The best way to destroy an enemy is to make him a friend.”

Obama’s groupies in and out of the media used to cry “Foul!” during the campaign whenever people would question the character of a man whose intimate circle included a corrupt Chicago lobbyist, an unrepentant domestic terrorist, a racist minister and a spouse who announced that America was a mean country. It seems that in the past several months, his circle has grown in size, but unfortunately not in character.

Again, Obama and Bill Ayers weren’t best friends, he publicly denounced Wright’s remarks, and I love this bullshit notion that conservatives can bleat about American being a pussified nation of victims (hey, remember McCain’s economic guy calling everyone whiners?), but if Michelle Obama says American is mean suddenly it’s the end of the world. And that’s the only legitimate comment in the list. The Rezko story was pretty much all hot air. We’re seeing the Clinton Murder fantasy part two, and it’s starting early.

Oh and by the way.

As hard as it is to accept, there’s no getting around the fact that Al Franken is a U.S. Senator. On the upside, just as people used to say that any boy could grow up to be president, now people can say that any comedian who’s smug, obnoxious and not the least bit funny, can grow up to be a senator. That being the case, I guess it’s not too much of a stretch to imagine that Sen. Franken might one day be joined by the likes of Bill Maher and David Letterman.

Ronald Reagan was an actor and Arnold Schwarzenegger became a governor practically on a whim, not to mention Jesse Ventura the senator. If I hear anyone bitching about Al Franken being a “comedian” again I’m going to start punching people in the throat. The dude has been involved in politics for at least 13 years, when he first wrote Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot. He started the progressive talk radio station Air America and has been a tireless promoter and worker in the political realm. What the hell did the “Governator” do before he ran? Made Terminator 3.

Also, Franken has a political science degree from goddamn Harvard where he graduated cum laude. Oh yeah, this guy can’t possibly know politics. Remember, Rush Limbaugh flunked out of college and Hannity dropped out twice. Just food for thought.

And the coup de grace:

Before signing off, I found myself wondering the other day why it is, now that Afghanistan is Obama’s war, I don’t hear the Democrats or their lap dogs in the media referring to it as a quagmire, pointing out that the Taliban didn’t attack us on 9/11, and demanding that President Obama announce his exit strategy?

I legitimately can’t figure out if this is a joke or not. I mean, liberals during the Bush era were mad at him for not focusing on Afghanistan. The big argument was that the Iraq War distracted us from Afghanistan. You know, the one against the government which was offering haven to Al Qaeda. I’m not really sure what this asshole thinks liberals have been saying for the past eight years, because he went beyond a straw man argument and just started making shit up. At least a straw man argument has a tenuous connection to a real argument, this is just batshit crazy.

Okay, I’m done.

US to cut off Taliban funding: the opium

By Hanlon, on April 29th, 2009 at 10:43 AM

An air strike on the land Whenever I see a story like this, it feels like it’s come from the past. Like somehow I accidentally opened up my Google Reader’s archive and read a story from 2002. The headline US Aims to cut off Taliban’s bankroll, all by itself, explains how badly the United States lost its way in the “war on terror”.

Buckle up, things get hilarious.

Through extortion and taxation, the Taliban are believed to reap as much as $300 million a year from Afghanistan’s opium trade, which now makes up 90 percent of the world’s total. That is enough, the Americans say, to sustain all of the Taliban’s military operations in southern Afghanistan for an entire year.

Yeah. The Taliban, who we supposedly totally decimated and drove out of Afghanistan, are pulling in more money than the board of AIG from friggin’ opium trade alone.

We landed in this mess thanks to an administration that wanted to claim that these guys were a threat to civilization itself, but that the war could be fought on the cheap with minimal resources. As unpalatable as a bombing of Dresden style assault might have been in 2002, 2009 might be going a little more smoothly had the Bush Administration treated their war like a damn war and not a quick pit stop before Iraq.

I dunno how Obama thinks we’re going to get out of this one, and right now I’m not really convinced he knows either. The “hey let’s just throw a bunch of troops in there” thing hasn’t exactly proven to be the magic bullet.