From the abstract of a (paywalled) piece about the never ending US war on Afghanistan:
Slow failure: Understanding America’s quagmire in Afghanistan
The United States government has no organised way of thinking about war termination other than seeking decisive military victory.
This implicit assumption is inducing three major errors.
First, the United States tends to select military-centric strategies that have low probabilities of success.
Second, the United States is slow to modify losing or ineffective strategies due to cognitive obstacles, internal frictions, and patron-client challenges with the host nation government.
Finally, as the US government tires of the war and elects to withdraw, bargaining asymmetries prevent successful transitions (building the host nation to win on its own) or negotiations.
The Taliban were created to suppress the corrupt warlords in Afghanistan who menaced the people. They achieved that and the people were greatful. But the Taliban did not have the means to govern the country. When the World Trade Center towers came down the US accused al-Qaeda and went to war to oust the Taliban who had given some Arab friends a retreat in Afghanistan.
The CIA still celebrates the moment:
9/19/01: Eight days after 9/11, CIA officers pick up $3 million cash in three cardboard boxes. This money would enable the Northern Alliance (NA) commanders to pay their troops and convince other tribes to rally to the NA rather than fight them.#15Days pic.twitter.com/ykYJMKBngy
— CIA (@CIA) September 19, 2019
The war against the Taliban in Afghanistan was won in 2001. The Taliban were ready to lay down their arms and to make peace. But the US rejected all their offers. It instead captured, tortured and killed them whenever it could. It set up a new government filled with the same corrupt warlords the Taliban had previously ousted. That was a major strategic mistake.
The warlords robbed left and right and created the usual mess with the people. The Afghan government never gained the necessary legitimacy to rule the country. The insurgency against the warlords grew again and the Taliban reestablished their networks.
The US tried to suppress them first with its own (incompetent) military campaign and then by building an Afghan army under government control. But the utter corruption that has only grown under the warlords guarantees that the Afghan army will never become a competent force. Meanwhile the Taliban are winning the war. They already rule over more than half of the country.
The US is looking for a way out by negotiating with the Taliban. It wants a face saving exit but has no leverage to achieve that. The talks also got sabotaged by the ruling warlords in Kabul, which the CIA still pays, as well as by the borg in Washington DC.
The war on Afghanistan was never run under a common command or plan that incorporated all the necessary civil and military elements under one hat. The CIA did its thing, the military something different and the development people tried all kinds of really stupid things. No part coordinated with the others. The same obvious mistakes were made again and again. That made it impossible to win.
It is also the reason why, eighteen years after the CIA bribed the warlords to fight on the US side, sh*t like this is still happening:
A US drone attack killed 30 pine nut farmers and wounded at least 40 others in Afghanistan Wednesday night, the latest killing of innocent civilians by American forces as the “war on terror” enters its 19th year.
The farmers had just finished work and were sitting by a fire when the strike happened, according to tribal elder Malik Rahat Gul.
…
Reuters reported that there may be more farmers missing:Haidar Khan, who owns the pine nut fields, said about 150 workers were there for harvesting, with some still missing as well as the confirmed dead and injured.
A survivor of the drone strike said about 200 laborers were sleeping in five tents pitched near the farm when the attack happened.
Is that the CIA’s way to celebrate 18 years of war?
Each of the families of those killed or wounded day workers will now send another son to join the Taliban.
As all three steps described in the above abstract have failed to ‘win’ in Afghanistan there is only one way left to end the war on Afghanistan.
Stop paying the warlords, leave the country and forget about it.
Reprinted with permission from Moon of Alabama.
