Afghanistan Makes Way For The Taliban

Afghanistan's parliament just voted to grant immunity to anyone involved in the past 25 years of conflict. It means they expect the Taliban to take Kabul in a spring offensive, want to work with a new incoming government, and wish to live. This is a white flag. It expresses a distinct lack of confidence in NATO's ability to hold the country, and signifies a legal separation from Afghanistan's President, Hamid Karzai, ceremonially painting him as a Judas Goat.

The Taliban has gotten money to arm and feed new fighters in preparation for a spring offensive, probably more than doubling its current men-at-arms to about 100,000 strong. Mullah Omar and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the Talibani who used to run the country and know its nooks and crannies, have not been neutralized, and are coming back in force.

Now they'll welcome democracy. They've got the votes.

Helo Again

Royal Marines of 45 Commando strapped themselves to an Apache gunship to retrieve the body of a Lance Corporal who had been killed during a night assault. His body lay in a free-fire zone. As Christ put it, "Greater love hath no man than this, but to lay down his life for his friends," and this was an outstanding act of bravery. As I watched the video, I imagined myself strapped outside a helicopter. Then I imagined hundreds of bullets being shot at me while there. Finally, I imagined myself not volunteering to do that. Every one of those marines deserves a medal.

Now, you'll once again see why this blog is named "Adored By Hordes," because I'm going to ask an uncomfortable question: umm...why the hell do four soldiers have to strap themselves onto the outside of a gunship in order to retrieve a body? I realize that part of being a Marine is to never leave one of yours behind, whether alive or dead. Basic tactics, however, would call for something less heroic, like using an Apache (or two, or three) to secure a landing zone with ample applications and threats of firepower, then safely land a light helicopter with an extraction team. Oh, wait. As the BBC story states, the British forces have no light helicopters. They're thinking of getting some. In 7 years (!?).

Right. This says volumes about Britain's ability to continue its role as Globo-Cop's favorite deputy. Of course, maybe they could buy some technically advanced light transports from elsewhere before then. Like from any number of former colonies.

Footnote #59: Nailing The Failing

I've been reading Rory Stewart's travelogue of his 2002 winter walk through Afghanistan, "The Places in Between." It's not just a dynamite book of its kind, it's the only book. In it he makes a point which should be ever-obvious about the Prozac Policies of this generation of Western governments, and comes close to nailing why we're failing. We want the benefits of colonies without the responsibilities, yet our systems deny the inclination, imagination, and the persistence required to understand the cultures underlying the regimes we've changed:

Critics have accused this new breed of administrators of neocolonialism. But in fact their approach is not that of a nineteenth-century colonial officer. Colonial administrations may have been racist and exploitative, but they did at least work seriously at the business of understanding the people they were governing. They recruited people prepared to spend their entire careers in dangerous provinces of a single alien nation. They invested in teaching administrators and military officers of the local language. They established effective departments of state, trained a local elite, and continued in the countless academic studies of their subjects through institutes and museums, royal geographical societies, and royal botanical gardens. They balanced the local budget and generated fiscal revenue because if they didn't their home government would rarely bail them out. If they failed to govern fairly, the population would mutiny. Postconflict experts have got the prestige without the effort or the stigma of imperialism. Their implicit denial of the difference between cultures is the new mass brand of international intervention. Their policy fails but no one notices. There are no credible monitoring bodies and there is no one to take formal responsibility. Individual officers are never in any one place and rarely in any one organization long enough to be adequately assessed. The colonial enterprise could be judged by the security or revenue it delivered, but neocolonialists have no such performance criteria. In fact their very uselessness benefits them. By avoiding any serious action or judgement they, unlike their colonial predecessors, are able to escape accusations of racism, exploitation, and oppression. Perhaps it is because no one requires more than a charming illusion of action in the developing world. If the policy makers know little about the Afghans, the public knows even less, and few care about policy failure when the effects are felt only in Afghanistan.

In reading his on-the-ground experiences while simply trying to make it across the country alive, the primary conflict in Afghanistan emerges naturally; a conflict not between Coalition Forces and insurgents but one between a social revolution sponsored by Iran (represented by Ismail Khan), and an ancient Islamic feudal system in the process of being co-opted by the Taliban (sponsored by oil-rich Sunni families). Both have widespread popular support and deep cultural sympathies, and both see Hamid Karzai as a clownish American puppet unworthy of annoyance. But Rory's wrong about one thing in his 59th Footnote above: the effects of failure in Afghanistan will be felt far beyond its borders. Today Pakistan announced the acceptance of a Taliban mini-state in Waziristan after a four-year war and several recent treaties have failed to mitigate its influence.