Afghanistan

[ZenGum]

I am more concerned about the extremely dodgy election they just had.

Many poeple were too scared of retaliation by the talleban to vote, showing that in many places the rule of law is definitiely not estalished.

Many people who wanted to vote complain that their ballot papers never arrived. Yet those areas have recorded full returns with big turnouts, and almost all voting for Karzai.

There are many serious "irregularities" of this sort that materially affect the result.

Karzai will probably continue to be president, but his percieved legitimacy has evaporated.

This will further undermine the authority of the Afghan government, and worse, the constitution; people will be more inclined to flout central authority, and less inclined to risk their lives serving its armies.

This is very bad. Almost 8 years on, and we are at least as far from a viable exit strategy as we have ever been.

So what are we going to do? Walk away and let the talleban continue thier shennanigans, and probably end up in control, if not of the whole country, then of some "tribal regions" like in Pakistan? Or are we going to stay there and bleed indefinitely, continuing to piss off the locals with the occasional regrettable collateral damage incidents?

Anyone got any better ideas? How many troops would it take to "surge" Afghanistan, and for how long?

[xoxoxoBruce]

Rule of law? Authority of the Afghan government? Afghanistan has never had either of those things, ever. It's the Word's most primitive country, bar none.
They don't even have roads where most Afghans live, so how do you govern people you can't even reach?

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by ZenGum

I am more concerned about the extremely dodgy election they just had.

Many poeple were too scared of retaliation by the talleban to vote, showing that in many places the rule of law is definitiely not estalished.

Many people who wanted to vote complain that their ballot papers never arrived. Yet those areas have recorded full returns with big turnouts, and almost all voting for Karzai.

There are many serious "irregularities" of this sort that materially affect the result.

Karzai will probably continue to be president, but his percieved legitimacy has evaporated.

This will further undermine the authority of the Afghan government, and worse, the constitution; people will be more inclined to flout central authority, and less inclined to risk their lives serving its armies.

This is very bad. Almost 8 years on, and we are at least as far from a viable exit strategy as we have ever been.

So what are we going to do? Walk away and let the talleban continue thier shennanigans, and probably end up in control, if not of the whole country, then of some "tribal regions" like in Pakistan? Or are we going to stay there and bleed indefinitely, continuing to piss off the locals with the occasional regrettable collateral damage incidents?

Anyone got any better ideas? How many troops would it take to "surge" Afghanistan, and for how long?

I agree with much of what you said. A Western style democracy is doomed to failure in Afghanistan. I think we need to stop the ramp up of troops and move back to a Special Forces style of intervention.

[Griff]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

I agree with much of what you said. A Western style democracy is doomed to failure in Afghanistan. I think we need to stop the ramp up of troops and move back to a Special Forces style of intervention.

It's looking that way. We should build our intelligence network and then use special ops to snuff out Al Q types as they pop up on radar.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Following Mike Yon's blog, they don't have to wait. Taliban are everywhere and pop up everytime troops leave their compounds.

[Griff]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Following Mike Yon's blog, they don't have to wait. Taliban are everywhere and pop up everytime troops leave their compounds.

Taliban ain't Al Q. They oppress their own people and let Al Q operate but they are not one entity. As far as I know anyway...

[xoxoxoBruce]

That's true, but finding and hitting Al Q is tough, when you're fighting Taliban full time. We can't be there and not fight Taliban.

[ZenGum]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

I agree with much of what you said. A Western style democracy is doomed to failure in Afghanistan. I think we need to stop the ramp up of troops and move back to a Special Forces style of intervention.

Yeah, but for how long? and then what?

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by ZenGum

Yeah, but for how long? and then what?

I would say that the operation from an SF stand point should be open ended, without an end point. But the process of sending larger and larger numbers of troops is futile IMHO, unless we go into Pakistan in a large scale, which I doubt that we could do for numerous reasons.