I think what the A Teams did was outstanding.
I agree, though it’s also true that the Taliban’s hold on the country was more tenuous than we realized. It’s not quite accurate to say that a few hundred Special Forces people brought down the Taliban. They had a bit of help from the locals.
I was hoping that we would not really get too involved in trying to occupy the country, and we haven't. We have the Air Base we wanted, and enough SF activity to keep the rebels down.
The problem there is that having taken the country, we are involved in occupying it whether we like it or not. If the country lapses back into chaos, our position there becomes untenable, and keeping Afghanistan out of chaos is not the easiest of jobs. Certainly it is not a job we can hand to the army with any probability of success.
Our early moves in Afghanistan had clear objectives – topple the Taliban and drive out Al Qaeda – and the objectives were suited to a military solution. The current situation is different, and more complicated. We don’t want to get involved in nation building, but if we don’t, sooner or later we end up right back where we started. We can’t ask Special Forces units to establish and sustain a viable government – that’s not their job. Nor can we ask them to police a country.
The Afghanistan situation is, of course, intimately tied up with the Pakistan situation, and together they create a pretty thorny problem, one where we do not really have momentum on our side. Could go any number of ways; all we can do from here is watch and speculate.
I posted an interesting take on Chinese Nationalism I hope you read.
I did, and this struck me…
One of the lessons of 1930's Japan and Germany is that ferocious nationalism is a real global security risk, and it's a matter that the U.S. and other countries should respectfully raise with President Hu.
It’s also a matter that some leaders might want to raise with President Bush. “Pushing nationalist buttons” isn’t something that only happens in China.
The whole Taiwan situation is amusing: the American administration is ideologically inclined toward Taiwan, and there’s little doubt that the Taiwanese independence activists are counting on that sympathy. At the same time, though, the US leaders know that any attempt to manage North Korea will require cooperation from China. Strange bedfellows…. |
