• thewonder
    1.4k
    This was an essay that I did against the deployment of more troops in Afghanistan which philosophically examines terrorism. I don't know that anyone will care to respond to this, but thought that I should post it as there isn't much of a reason for only my English 101 class to have seen this. I left in the citations this time because I feel like they really add something to the essay.

    Terrorism feeds off of pathological fear. In the West, the term generally denotes some form of insurgency, but, what “terrorism” refers to is the political tactic of manipulation through violence. A formal public execution is as much of a terrorist attack as a bus bombing. The purpose of public murder is to galvanize a populace and to isolate those who would identify with the executed. Witnessing a public murder instills a cult pathology. A person feels forced to decide between the killers and the killed. The terms are decided by the killers. Who is on what side and what the sides are is writ in formal declarations, in the case of revolution, and, recorded on videocassette, in the case of contemporary insurgencies. That the rule of the day is created by violence and maintained through it is precisely the reasoning which engenders the cult pathology of terror in the form of insurgency. Terrorism cannot be halted by war any more than a fire can be put out with gasoline. The shock and awe tactics of the Bush administration may have factionalized insurgents in the region and led to the trial of Saddam Hussein, but, did nothing to win over the hearts and minds of the general populace there.

    Afghanistan is a landlocked country located in south-central Asia that borders Pakistan, Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and China. The Hindu Kush mountain range divides the country into three distinct geographic regions, the central highlands, the northern plains, and, the southwest plateau (Ali et al.). Afghanistan is estimated to be populated primarily by ethnic Pashtuns, Tajiks, Ḥazāras, Uzbeks, Chahar Aimaks, Turkmen, and, Balochs. As the country has been engaged in various conflicts since, no national census has been conducted since a partial count in 1979 (Ali et al.). Pashto and Persian, often called “Farsi”, are the official languages of the country (Yarshater). More than forty percent of the country is estimated to speak Pashto, the language of the Pashtuns, and, over half of the country is estimated to speak some dialect of Persian, the most common of which is generally termed “Dari”. Nearly all of Afghanistan is Muslim. Around eighty percent of the population is estimated to follow Sunni Islam and up to nineteen percent of the population is estimated to follow Shiʿah Islam (Ali et al.).

    Following a 2006 geological survey which was analyzed by a Pentagon task force, Afghanistan was said to have untapped mineral resources that could be worth a trillion dollars in 2010 (Risen). As the exploitation of minerals, such as lithium, is likely to produce conflict in regions that are unstable, mining is not a reasonable solution to the political crisis in Afghanistan. Afghanistan has cultivated more opium than any other nation since 2001, and, had cultivated more opium than any other nation between the years of 1992 and 2000. Opium production decreased almost entirely during the first year of the American invasion of Afghanistan, but, has increased since. Afghanistan has been responsible for upwards of around eighty-five percent of the global production of opium in the past ten years (“The World Drug Report 2010” 43; “Afghanistan Opium Survey 2018” 6; “World Drug Report 2018” 29). Opium production plays a significant role in the economy of Afghanistan. The gross value of the Afghan opiate economy was equal to sixteen percent of the gross domestic product in 2016 (“Sustainable Development in an Opium Production Environment” 11). As opium can be utilized during a period of hyper-exploitation, the extraction of resources from Afghanistan will do little to diminish the plights associated with the trafficking of illegal narcotics. Marginal deterrence to drug traffickers is not a solution to the circumstances which produce them.

    Nādir Shāh, the Shah of Iran, which is occasionally referred to as “Persia”, was assassinated by his own troops in 1747 (Yarshater). Ahmad Shāh Durrānī, the founder of the Durrānī Empire, nearly witnessed the assassination, and, was said to have found the shah in his tent with his head cut off after rushing there to save him. The Durrānī Empire spanned across what later became known as Afghanistan and into Pakistan and parts of Iran at its greatest extent (Siddiqi 310). In 1809, Shāh Shojāʿ, of the Durrānī Dynasty, attempted to ally the Durrānī Empire with the British Empire against a suspected Franco-Russian invasion of India. He was overthrown by his older brother, Shāh Maḥmūd, the following year and went into exile in British India. He made numerous attempts at regaining the throne, and, successfully did so during the First Anglo-Afghan War in 1839. He was assassinated a few years later (“Shāh Shojāʿ: King of Afghanistan”). Dōst Moḥammad Khan, a rival of Shāh Shojāʿ, ascended the throne of Afghanistan in 1826 after an eight year-long civil war. He established the Bārakzay Dynasty, who ruled over Afghanistan from 1826 to 1839, when the British reestablished Shāh Shojāʿ, and, later, up until 1929, when Muhammed Nadir Shah abdicated in favor of his son, Mohammed Zahir Shah, who became King of Afghanistan following a series of abdications and assassinations that same year (“Timeline of Afghanistan, 1901-1947”; “List of Heads of State of Afghanistan: Kingdom of Afghanistan, 1926-1973”).

    For the West, the Anglo-Afghan Wars kicked off what later became known as “The Great Game”. Rudyard Kipling coined the term in his 1901 novel, Kim. The term was applied to the British strategy of waging proxy wars and clandestine operations against Russia, but, was also used to describe the adventurist avidity for espionage amongst British spies (“Great Game”). The First Anglo-Afghan War was waged alongside the First Opium War, and, the Second Anglo-Afghan War occurred during the end of the reign of Alexander II in Russia. The perchance for shadow politics within the Intelligence community is as disconcerting as it is indicative of carelessness. A world kept in the dark can know no peace of mind. In Kim, Kipling wrote, “When everyone is dead, the Great Game is finished. Not before.”

    Mohammad Zahir Shah was crowned at the age of 19 on the 8th of November in 1933. He ruled over Afghanistan up until 1973. He was the last King of Afghanistan and his reign was marked by a lengthy period of peace and stability (“Mohammad Zahir Shah: The Last King of Afghanistan”). For the first twenty years of his reign, he was said not to have exercised influence over the governance of Afghanistan, and, decisions were claimed to have been made by his uncles. Muhammad Hashim served as prime minister of Afghanistan up until 1946 when he was replaced by Shah Mahmud. In 1934, Afghanistan joined the League of Nations. By 1935, Afghanistan had invited German businessmen to set up factories and hydroelectric plants in the country. The Afghan government would also receive aid from Japan and Italy during that period of time. The king declared neutrality in 1940, and, agreed to expel nondiplomatic personnel from the Axis nations in 1941, following the British and Soviet invasion of Iran. When Shah Mahmud became prime minister in 1946, the country developed closer ties to the United States and Pakistan (“Mohammad Zahir Shah, 1933-73: Zahir Shah and His Uncles, 1933-53”). In 1964, Mohammed Zahir Shah established a constitutional monarchy which prohibited royal relatives from holding office (“Mohammad Zahir Shah: King of Afghanistan”). The constitution detailed the sovereign rights of the king, guaranteed the rights of free expression, peaceful assembly, and, association, and, established Wolsei Jirgah, the House of the People, and Meshrano Jirgah, the House of the Elders (“Constitutional History of Afghanistan”; Shah). In 1973 Mohammad Daud Khan, the king’s cousin and brother-in-law, led a bloodless coup d’état which forced Mohammad Zahir Shah to abdicate. He proclaimed for Afghanistan to be a republic and became president that same year. Daud Khan sought to lessen the country’s dependence upon the Soviet Union and was killed at the presidential palace, along with most of the royal family, during the Saur Revolution in 1978 (“Afghanistan: 20 Years of Bloodshed”; Neale). The Saur Revolution, sometimes called the “April Revolution” or the “April Coup”, established Nur Mohammad Taraki as president and served as a precursor to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. Taraki was assassinated under the orders of Hafizullah Amin who was in turn assassinated when pro-Moscow leader Babrak Karmal came to power in December of 1979 (“The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan”).

    The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan resulted in a nine year-long war which has been estimated to have resulted in over a million civilian casualties (Gossman). Leading up to and during the conflict, the Central Intelligence Agency, aided by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence and the Saudi state, backed the mujahideen (Pear; Galster; “Afghanistan: The War in Perspective” 4). The mujahideen were a loosely affiliated set of Islamic militants who, along with Maoist guerillas, were waging a guerilla war against the Soviets and their allies during the conflict. They were estimated to have lost ninety-thousand fighters during the conflict (Taylor). Abdullah Yusuf Azzam, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and, Osama bin Laden’s Maktab al-Khidamat was a faction of mujahideen guerillas (“Terrorist Financing” 3; “Ayman al-Zawahiri: Fast Facts”). The strategy of arming, training, and, funding rebel insurgents in proxy wars against Russia by the United States proceeding from the Reagan Doctrine has proven to be just as disastrous as it was during the Soviet War in Afghanistan as it has been in the recent conflict in Syria. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant was born out of the loosely affiliated set of insurgents associated with the Free Syrian Army whom the United States also backed (O’Connor). The Taliban had taken over most of the country by 1996 when they established the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan after conquering Kabul and remained in control over most of the country up until 2001 (“Mohammad Omar”). The Taliban’s refusal to extradite the Saudi Arabian leader of al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, following the attacks on the 11th of September provided the grounds for the American invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.

    The Taliban are an ultraconservative political and religious movement that began in the southern Afghan province of Kandahār in 1994. Taliban war efforts are largely funded through the opium trade (“Taliban”). Al-Qaeda is multinational Islamist organization that was founded by Osama bin Laden in the late 1980s. It began as a logistical network designed to support Muslims fighting against the Soviet Union during the Soviet War in Afghanistan (“Al-Qaeda”). When the Soviet Union withdrew from Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden shifted his focus towards the West, and, claimed responsibility for a few of terrorist attacks in the 1990s.

    The War in Afghanistan began on the 7th of October in 2001 and continues to this day. The seventeen year-long war is now the longest war in United States history. A war that continues indefinitely is an occupation and not a war. The continued occupation of Afghanistan will incite revolt as all occupations incite revolt. An occupation cannot be peacefully maintained any more than a nightmare of bureaucracy can be met without complaint. Mohammed Omar, Akhtar Mohammad Mansour, Jalaluddin Haqqani, Mullah Obaidullah, Mullah Dadullah, and, Osama bin Laden have all died since the conflict began. Abdul Ghani Baradar was captured in February of 2010 and released in October of 2018. Muhammad Rasul started a splinter faction of the Taliban in 2015 in response to the ascension of Akhtar Mansour, and, while voicing support for the Islamic State and al-Qaeda abroad, has stated that they are not welcome to operate in Afghanistan (“Afghan Taliban Splinter Group's New Chief Backs Islamic State ‘Brothers’ But Only Abroad”). Rasul has demanded that the occupation end as a precursor to peace talks (Raghavan). Hibatullah Akhundzada became the leader of the Taliban in 2016 after Akhtar Mansour was killed in a drone strike. Najibullah, or Omar Khitab, left the Taliban leadership in 2012 and formed Fidai Mahaz, also known as The Sacrifice Front. Former Prime Minister of Afghanistan, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, signed a peace deal with the Afghan government in 2016 (Nordland). Ayman al-Zawahiri was suspected to have fled to Pakistan and is still at large (Smerconish). As the old Taliban and al-Qaeda leadership is concerned, with Najibullah and Zawahiri being the sole leaders who are still at large, the deployment of more troops in a ground invasion runs the risk of spawning a personality cult centered around Najibullah and strengthening the resolve of followers of Zawahiri. The deployment of more troops will also be seen as indicative of a continuation of a never-ending strategy of war and will demoralize Afghans who are committed to the peace process. It also hazards exacerbating political tensions and invigorating new Islamic terrorist groups, such as the the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant – Khorasan Province or the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. A heavy-handed approach to the political situation in Afghanistan is likely to result in more, and not less, terrorist attacks globally.

    Terror is born in response to real or perceived totalitarian control. Terrorist attacks are always carried out in desperation. In ways, terrorism is a form of social suicide. An act bans a person from society. People who discover the world outside of society are often considered to be sacred. Terrorism offers a person a Faustian bargain. Acts of violence violate society. A person gains sacred knowledge through infamy. A terrorist cannot enter their kingdom of Heaven on Earth without repaying society for their misdeeds. Terrorist attacks are often too grave for a person to make up for them in their lifetime. All that a person learns is what it is like to have been banned from society. In ways, all terrorist attacks are the acts of lone assailants. The circumstances of a person’s life either are or seem too desperate for them to be bothered by the social ban. A person must believe in a promise of eternal glory. In ways, all terrorists are self-loathing narcissists. But, who doesn’t think that they’re Prince Hamlet?

    The psychological makeup of a terrorist is that of any desperate person plagued by pathological fear. Only when all people can live without the fear of pain or death will there be an end to terror. The delusional paranoid pathology that produces terrorism is unfortunately, as it is such a mammoth undertaking, that of war itself. A terrorist inverts the deportment of those whom they either are or believe themselves to be at war with. The reaction to pathology is the not the cause of it. The Taliban did not appear ex nihilo; they were driven to incongruous fanaticism by the many invasions, interventions, and, clandestine actions waged in their country by the former Soviet Union, their rivals in the West, and, their allies in the Middle East.

    The deployment of more troops in Afghanistan is a gamble that the United States should not be willing to make. A lack of commitment to the peace process in Afghanistan and a lack of exit strategy may revitalize an already factionalized Taliban and effectuate an increase of terrorist attacks. I am also just simply against war in general as I believe that it begets war. The assumption that there are always others out there who are ready to kill you leads to a negative preemptive paradigm that is always already in danger of proving itself to be true. War is solipsistic. A willingness to kill projected enemies may produce them in the real world. Afghanistan is in dire need of practical solutions to the political, social, and, economic situation there and not the old imperial haunts of self-fulfilling prophecy. The same could be said for the United States, though the situation here is much less severe.

    The Costs of War Project at Brown University listed the total number of casualties for the War in Afghanistan at 147,124 (Crawford 1). Nearly a third of the deaths that have occurred during the War on Terror have occurred in Afghanistan. The Costs of War Project lists the total number of casualties in the Wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and, Iraq as between 480,000 and 507,000. The World Peace Foundation at the Fletcher School lists the total number of casualties for the Soviet War in Afghanistan at between 800,000 and 1,500,000 (“Afghanistan: Soviet Invasion and Civil War”). At least a million people have died in Afghanistan since 1979. A country ravaged by war will never concede to war. A commitment to a peace process and an exit strategy is what is best for the United States and Afghanistan.

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    The BBC Obituary of Mohammad Zahir Shah, “Obituary: Ex-king Zahir Shah”, states that “Foreign advisers helped the king modernize his nation and, in 1964, his new constitution transformed the country into one with free elections, civil rights, female emancipation and universal suffrage.”, however, The, 1964, Constitution of Afghanistan establishes a constitutional monarchy and makes no mention of women’s rights. There may have been an attempt to use the constitution to institute Liberal democratic reforms, and, the King may have become more Liberal later in life, but, in no ways does the 1964 constitution create a modern Liberal democratic state. The constitution does guarantee the rights of free expression, peaceful assembly, and, association, and, established a House of Elders and a House of the People. It also details the sovereign rights of the King who, while being subject to the limits proscribed in the constitution, is stated not be held accountable for his actions or the actions of the country in Article 15. The King, while no longer holding absolute power, was still established as a monarch. My assumptions are that any number of parties may have intentionally attempted to make the King out to be more of a Liberal democratic reformer than he actually was in order to prop up a constitutional monarchy under the guise of Liberalism. I do believe that the King did become more Liberal later in life as he was opposed to the reinstatement of the monarchy when he returned to Afghanistan. I sincerely doubt that The, 1964, Constitution of Afghanistan at all established a Liberal democratic state.
    Siddiqi, Mazheruddin. Development of Islamic State and Society, 1956
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    My estimates come from graphs in three United Nations pamphlets. Wikipedia lists Afghanistan as being responsible for ninety percent of the global production of opium which I think is an overestimate. I also suspect for the UN figures to be a bit high as the pamphlets deal with counter-narcotics. I remember hearing that Afghanistan was responsible for around seventy percent of the global heroin trade in Land of the Enlightened. I suspect for opium production in Afghanistan to be slightly higher than seventy percent of the global production of opium. I used the figures that I gathered from the UN because they were the only factual information that I had to go on.
    Yarshater, Ehsan. “Persia or Iran, Persian or Farsi .” Iranian Studies, Vol. XXII, No.1, 1989,
    web.archive.org/web/20101024033230/http://www.iran-heritage.org/interestgroups/language-
    article5.htm.
    The Encyclopedia Britannica states that the official languages of Afghanistan are Pashto and Persian. My assumption is that the Republic of Afghanistan established an official language as “Persian”. To my understanding, Persian and Farsi can be used interchangeably and it is generally considered to be rude to use the term “Persian”. Most of Afghanistan speaks a dialect of Farsi which is generally termed “Dari”. Persia and Iran can also be used interchangeably, but, the two places have slightly different histories. To my understanding, people in the region see “Persia” as a term that was invented by the West to refer to a place in the Orient. It is generally considered to be rude to refer to Iran as Persia or Farsi as Persian. I would suggest that it is only useful to use the term “Persia” while doing historiography.
  • Shawn
    12.6k
    Nicely done paper. What are your thoughts on the next question being, how should the US handle the current situation in Afghanistan?
  • Shawn
    12.6k
    Just to supply you with some fodder, with regards to the paper, it would be good to highlight the creation of the mujahedeen from Brzezinski under Carter's presidency, and how it eventually bit the US in the ass.
  • thewonder
    1.4k

    Well, I'm in favor of a complete withdraw. I think that, since it's still kind of a powder keg, non-military efforts could be made to transition peacefully. We should be building infastructure and schools and getting people access to food and water. Somehow that can be carried out peacefully, I think. If not, I still think that we should just withdraw. I don't think that we ever should've been in Afghanistan in the first place. There was never a reason to engage in a conflict on the ground whatsoever. One could argue that some sort of operations should have been carried out against Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, but I still would have probably been ostensibly opposed to even that. The whole thing should have been more of like a strageic counter-terror operation than a full-blown war. It's still chaos over there, but I do think that an actual attempt to leave some sort of democratic polity to substantially govern over Afghanistan would do a lot more to prevent terror than any war operations ever could. The U.S. should go full First Earth Battalion with it. We could actually become the U.N. Peacekeeping operation that seeks only to amerliorate the conditions of people ravaged by ineqaulity. We're sort of doing that now, but it should really be handled a lot differently. Our current strategy seems to be to con the Afghan people into accepting the notoriously corrupt Afhgan state and to figure out how to mine the region for resources. We seriously need to be concerned with leaving the country in a state that will not result in another conflict. Such concerns also necessitate a different approach to peace talks. There's a documentary that I can't find that addresses this which I thought was pretty good, but, like I said, I can't find it.

    Ideally, I would suggest that the people of Afghanistan should spontaneously create an Anarchist commune and that we should act as their allies in this new utopian project, but I don't really think that those hopes are all that reasonable, and, so, what we should be doing is to figure out how to leave a genuine Liberal democracy. Doing so would have a lot more to do with alleviating the plights in the country than it would with waging military operations. There shouldn't be any set out operations at all.

    We should actually be doing what the UN claims that it does. We should actually be protecting human rights, delivering humanitarian aid, promoting sustainable development, and abiding by international law. If you eliminated the "maintain peace and international stability" section from the UN's website, than that is what we should be doing.

    Edit: It's a little bit confusing to explain because my exit strategy is, like, how the US and other nations who are involved with the conflict talk the rest of the world into its continuation, but, like, we should actually be engaged in the exit strategy.


    Are you suggesting that we created the mujahideen or just that I should have gone into further detail concerning the insurgency at its inception? My assumption has always been that we just ostensibly backed them.
  • ssu
    7.9k
    . I don't think that we ever should've been in Afghanistan in the first place. There was never a reason to engage in a conflict on the ground whatsoever. One could argue that some sort of operations should have been carried out against Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, but I still would have probably been ostensibly opposed to even that.thewonder
    It a simply issue of how many people were killed in the attack: the 1993 Twin Tower Bombings, some of whose perpetrators were relatives of the 9/11 attackers (which show how small the Al Qaeda cabal truly was), killed "just" 6 people and injured over a thousand. It was a minor event.

    Hence it was solved with a police investigation. And finally the FBI caught from Pakistan the main perpetrators like Ramzi Yousef and others two years from the bombing, actually quite like the Seals captured Osama bin Laden far later. And the terrorist were put through the normal court and sentenced into the normal US prison system. Of course if even one tower had collapsed with everybody inside (let's just remember that the majority of the people could flee the building before they collapsed on 9/11), the death toll would likely have been in the ten thousands.

    And likely then Clinton would have gone to war 10 years earlier...somewhere. Even with 9/11 the Democrats have made it totally clear that if it hadn't been the Republican Bush administration, a democratic Gore administration would have ABSOLUTELY SURELY gone to war with Afghanistan (and likely had stayed out of Iraq).

    The simple fact is that Americans wanted revenge and going to war was the most simple answer. An administration that would treat as a 'normal' police matter the killing of over 3000 Americans would likely not have politically survived.When a country has the military capabilities of a superpower, then it will use those capabilities in this kind of situation. So even if I have been against the war and it has been a disaster, I do understand Americans here and would say others wouldn't have behaved differently... especially when the response can be so that ordinary people don't have to sacrifice anything.

    But to stay fighting a war because "otherwise the terrorist might get a foothold to launch their attacks" is a little bit mad. Wonder how many Americans still know that Americans are in Afghanistan and the war continues?

    So after over 3000 Americans been killed the war has killed now over 100 000 Afghanis. That is small compared to the 1 million killed during the shorter Soviet invasion, yet still is a very large number.

    I saw the 9/11 memorial last month when visiting New York with my family and the two large squares with water flushing under and with the names of the deceased is a solemn memorial. By counting the Jewish names on the memorial I remembered just how repugnant all the conspiracies around the whole attacks are.
  • thewonder
    1.4k

    Yeah, 9/11 conspiracies are kind of depressing. You always have to wonder. They weren't as common as you might expect, but fairly common during Occupy. Aside from that they do tend to ultimately be anti-Semitic, they also distract from actual legacy of U.S. foreign policy in the region. I don't know how so many people became liegeman to a worldview that was primarily promulgated through YouTube videos. It was kind of a real problem in the Green Anarchy Movement for a while. Like Occupy, it wasn't quite as common as you might expect, but it was common enough to be of legitimate concern.

    I guess I feel like the response should have been similar to the earlier attacks. If we seriously wanted to prevent further attacks, then there would be no reason to engage in a ground invasion. Al-Qaeda should have just simply been quelled by some sort of spec ops. I still would have ultimately had some sort of ethical qualms with that, but would certainly be less inclined to be so critical of American foreign policy had that have been the case.

    Edit: I actually don't know that I would say that most 9/11 conspiracies were actually anti-Semitic. They usually tended to revolve around the Illuminati. So, with a somewhat irrational hatred of Yale University, but not necessarily anti-Semitic. They do adopt anti-Semitic reasoning, though.
  • ssu
    7.9k
    Yeah, 9/11 conspiracies are kind of depressing. You always have to wonder. They weren't as common as you might expect, but fairly common during Occupy. Aside from that they do tend to ultimately be anti-Semitic, they also distract from actual legacy of U.S. foreign policy in the region.thewonder
    Spot on.

    But in a country where people believe that the US didn't send astronauts to the Moon, anything is possible and the discourse can easily be hijacked by crazy stuff. In a way Americans are like Russians: they are very critical about the official line and are quite open to incredible conspiracies.

    I guess I feel like the response should have been similar to the earlier attacks.thewonder
    Basically then we would have to had truly larger than life politicians. What kind of orator of a President could have contained the natural lust for revenge and not come out as looking like a chicken? Besides, likely "Arab Spring" would have happened at some time, and likely that would have sucked the US into a war in the Middle East any way. Afghanistan could now be like... Cambodia. Forgotten yet peaceful.

    Larger than life politicians emerge very rarely.

    Just like when the Soviet Union collapsed, there was a small but totally true opening when Russians would have embraced the West. The country could have become a democracy, but it would also have required larger than life politicians then both here and there. To avoid the lure of hubris in the US after the collapse of the Soviet bloc would have been extremely difficult. And in the end we got a KGB chief who became the new tzar. Well, at least we did avoid a new Russian Civil War that could have killed hundreds of thousands in a war similar to Yugoslavia, but in a bigger scale. Especially with the wars that have happened between Russia and Georgia and Russia and Ukraine show that this lethal scenario wasn't so far fetched. (But now I'm off subject, sorry...)
  • thewonder
    1.4k


    Eh, it's fine to get off topic. Have you ever seen My Perestroika? It's a pretty good documentary on the collapse of the Soviet Union. Adam Curtis also has a pretty good bit on it in I can't remember which documentary.

    While we're off topic, the right-wing caricature of a Yale Law student has suddenly just made perfect sense to me.

    To get back on topic, I don't know that a proper response to the attacks would have necessarily required outstanding politicians. A more pragmatic response would have effected a more pragmatic reaction. People also become "great" in dire situations. All that the U.S. would have needed following the attacks is someone who was level-headed.
  • ssu
    7.9k
    Have you ever seen My Perestroika? It's a pretty good documentary on the collapse of the Soviet Union. Adam Curtis also has a pretty good bit on it in I can't remember which documentary.thewonder
    Have to find it and watch it. But I've experienced the effects of Perestroika and Glasnost as a child when our family had Russian (Soviet) visitors in the 1980's.

    My parents were medical scientists and they invited visiting scientists to our house. So before Perestroika to our home came these two older Soviet women scientists (two naturally, they had to keep a check of the each other and act as 'minders' when Soviets met Westerners). Family and naturally science were discussed and the mood was very cordial. Then happened Gorbachev and the reforms (and later the collapse of the Soviet Union). So next time it was only one woman scientist and when she visited us again her first words were "Did you know Stalin killed my father!." Her fathers 'mistake' had been that he was an aviation engineer and had studied in Germany. Her mother had been informed only later that her husband had been killed, but had been a good man and the state apologized for it. His father once just didn't come home. You could feel what a burden this had been for her and then the dinner table discussion could venture even into present day politics. Something that simply doesn't happen in a totalitarian state.

    To get back on topic, I don't know that a proper response to the attacks would have necessarily required outstanding politicians. A more pragmatic response would have effected a more pragmatic reaction. People also become "great" in dire situations. All that the U.S. would have needed following the attacks is someone who was level-headed.thewonder
    When you have this fine awesome hammer and the obstacles seem to be nails...

    Let's not forget the history of how the US has dealt to terrorist attacks prior to 9/11. For example the attacks against Gaddafi's Libya (by Reagan) and Sudan and Afghanistan, which the last one's were deemed to be Clinton's "Wag the Dog"-moment because he had the Lewinsky scandal exploding in Washington.There is this continuation of how to respond to terrorism by military means in the US. To break this mold and go with something else is a brave decision by any political leadership.
  • Shawn
    12.6k
    Are you suggesting that we created the mujahideen or just that I should have gone into further detail concerning the insurgency at its inception? My assumption has always been that we just ostensibly backed them.thewonder

    They didn't just come out of nowhere. The (then) mujahedeen (now Taliban) were radicalized by the then CIA, under the watchful eye of Brzezinski and others. We supplied them advanced heat-seeking weaponry (Stinger's) to shoot down planes and other avionics during the Soviet war with Afghanistan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cyclone

    If memory serves me correctly, it was Bin Laden that took what he perceived as injustice against Muslims being used like toys on the battlefield of proxy wars among the USSR and USA in the middle east.

    Nowadays, the war on terror has been downsized; despite the radical elements of Al Qaida spreading into Africa, Yemen, Syria, and other Middle Eastern states.

    My eyes widen when I see such short-circuit thinking, as to pulling out entirely from Afghanistan.
  • thewonder
    1.4k

    That was an interesting anecdote. Thanks for sharing ssu.

    Stalin was notorious for purposing anti-Fascist praxis for totalitarian repression. I once had a Marxist-Leninist show me documents from the Moscow Show Trials as evidence of that Leon Trotsky was a Fascist collaborator. There's an odd kind of logic to Stalinism, but the predisposition is just totally insane.

    Concerning that it would take brave decisions by any political leadership, I agree wholeheartedly. They are brave decisions that need to be made. The repercussions of US interventions in the region have been catastrophic. None of what we have done there in nearly all of the past century has brought about anything that could at all be considered to be positive. All of American foreign policy in the region needs to be radically reconceptualized. It's sort of massive undertaking, but is not outside of the realm of what is possible.


    Oh, I am well aware of Operation Cyclone. I think that one of the CIA Library Reading Room articles that I cited mentions it. I couldn't find an irrefutable enough source to bring it up in my paper. I cited Wikipedia in order to prove that Mohammad Zahir Shah did come to power following a series of political assassinations, but felt that Operation Cyclone would be too contentious to just cite Wikipedia in spite of that I pretty much just believe what Wikipedia states.

    And, let your mind be boggled! I do support a complete withdraw. What do we have to gain by staying there? I would be willing to wager that the attacks, anymore, are just simply in response to the American presence. It is impossible to neutralize an insurgency through asymetrical warfare. The best that you could hope for would be a never-ending, low-intensity conflict. It'd be best to leave well, but still better than things stand now to just simply leave.
  • ssu
    7.9k
    They didn't just come out of nowhere. The (then) mujahedeen (now Taliban) were radicalized by the then CIA, under the watchful eye of Brzezinski and others. We supplied them advanced heat-seeking weaponry (Stinger's) to shoot down planes and other avionics during the Soviet war with Afghanistan.Wallows
    Wallows,

    I don't think that the Muslim community was radicalized because of the CIA. It radicalized because a lot of Muslim countries actually helped the 'Mujahiddeen' to be formed. The CIA might have pushed them for this or aided in this, yet the decision was made in the Muslim countries themselves. The invasion of a Muslim country did create volunteers coming from other countries. And it should be remembered that the foreign fighters played a very, very minor role. Pakistan had a lot to do with the fighting and the CIA basically let the Pakistani ISI decide where the actual weapons went. CIA had very few guys actually on the ground. Hence pro-Pakistani forces got the vast majority of the aid while other insurgent groups, like the one lead by Ahmad Shah Massoud didn't get much aid (likely because being an ethnic Tajik and not fighting next to the Pakistani border).

    The role of Pakistan shouldn't be sidelined when talking about Afghanistan. And no Taliban without Pakistan.


    If memory serves me correctly, it was Bin Laden that took what he perceived as injustice against Muslims being used like toys on the battlefield of proxy wars among the USSR and USA in the middle east.Wallows
    Actually, he got really pissed off when the Saudi government invited the US forces to trample the holy soil of Saudi Arabia where Mecca and Medina lie during the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. He (Bin Laden) had first pledged for the Saudi government to use 'his' Mujahideen to defend Saudi Arabia. Well, the Saudis chose the US Army.
  • ssu
    7.9k
    The repercussions of US interventions in the region have been catastrophic. None of what we have done there in nearly all of the past century has brought about anything that could at all be considered to be positive. All of American foreign policy in the region needs to be radically reconceptualized. It's sort of massive undertaking, but is not outside of the realm of what is possible.thewonder
    I think that there is a simple reason to this.

    To be the sole Superpower with a hugely effective armed forces in the World along with the USD being the back-up currency of the Global economy gives US politicians the ability that they simply don't have to think about it when going to war. Fighting a war in the middle of nowhere on a separate continent can be done without much political backlash. Ordinary people aren't affected as the soldiers are volunteers. There's no wartime economy or rationing as happened earlier with wars.

    So when it can be done, when it doesn't wreck the finances of the government, when it doesn't push the military to a breaking point and when the whole fighting simply can be forgotten by the media, absolutely whimsical and nonsensical strategies can be followed. Why? Because they sound good to the domestic crowd that the politicians want to please. There isn't the absolute urgency to resolve the war. It's not important. Obama went to Afghanistan four times. George Bush only twice. Trump has never visited the place and has only once been in Iraq. That really tells about the political commitment.

    I would ask people just to stop and think how utterly crazy is the idea behind having an occupation force in Afghanistan fighting the Taleban and assisting the Afghan Army. The main argument is that "If the US would withdraw from Afghanistan and if the Afghan government would then fall, the Taleban could use Afghanistan or lend the country to other groups to be used as a safe haven for terrorist attacks on the US". How many "if"s there in this argument? For me, the "Domino Theory" was far more logical and sane (even if totally wrong) in South-East Asia during the Vietnam war.

    When there isn't a political cost to pay, policy train wrecks can easily happen. And what else has the US foreign policy in the Middle East been other than a very long and slow train wreck?
  • thewonder
    1.4k

    Well said, ssu!
    The established distance of the war is disconcerting. I, myself, had once come to the realization that we were still engaged in the War in Afghanistan. This was sometime around 2014. I had honestly forgotten that we were engaged in the conflict in spite of that I had protested us being there before. What will happen in a world where ongoing wars can just simply be forgotten by the general populace?
  • ssu
    7.9k
    What will happen in a world where ongoing wars can just simply be forgotten by the general populace?thewonder
    Likely there will be this mental rift between those families who have people that serve or have served in the military and others who have nobody that have experienced the military. Especially Hollywood creates this twisted fictional reality of what the military is and hence "civilians" often forget how normal the people in the military are.

    And, of course, people simply won't understand why there is terrorism, why some foreigners are so hostile to them, because they don't grasp the bigger picture and history behind the present. But many times that's what the politicians want.
  • thewonder
    1.4k

    I don't agree with Hollywood, but I think that people in the military have a radically different relationship to whatever country it is that they serve than ordinary civillians. It's a totally different experience. I feel like a lot of people in the military feel quite alienated, which is rather sad. I'm an Anarcho-Pacifist, though, and, so, am not without critique of the military in general.

    Do you think that the absence of the war in the media is dilliberate or that it is just simply resultant of that people don't care to pay attention any longer? Do you think that it could be part and parcel to American policy to downplay the conflict?
  • ssu
    7.9k
    I think that people in the military have a radically different relationship to whatever country it is that they serve than ordinary civillians. It's a totally different experience.thewonder
    One's relationship to his or her country, even to the armed forces itself, is quite ideological. Many civilians are quite as patriotic and conservative as people in the military.

    In the end the military is for the vast majority actually quite an ordinary workplace, especially if the armed forces isn't totally mobilized on a war footing. Those countries that are engaged now in wars typically have a rotation system present, which still leaves actually a huge part never seeing combat. Just to make the case how much in the military is something else than the stereotype of GI's living barracks and doing push ups, the Infantry Branch of the US Army makes just 5,8% of the total manpower of the US Army. Then you have to make the difference between the youngsters, the young enlisted or conscripts, and the older professional soldiers and officers who have made the military a career.

    Do you think that the absence of the war in the media is dilliberate or that it is just simply resultant of that people don't care to pay attention any longer? Do you think that it could be part and parcel to American policy to downplay the conflict?thewonder
    Yes, absolutely!

    The media understood that Obama inherited this mess and didn't feel the need to push him on this issue as Obama had pledge was to get the troops back from Iraq (and we got ISIS as the Shiite regime of Iraq couldn't at all handle the Sunni areas). The war hasn't been anything new, nothing newsworthy, as it has been basically the Afghanis that have been killed. Hence both Obama (especially in his second term) and naturally Trump have totally downplayed the war in Afghanistan. What is there to gain with reminding voters about it?

    And many governments, just like mine, downplay totally and categorically their involvement in the war. For example Finland alongside our neighbor Sweden has deployed a small contingent of troops to Afghanistan, where they de facto have been part of the forces fighting the Taleban. Sweden deployed and rotated a force equivalent of a batallion and Finland of one company at the most. Sweden has lost 5 soldiers in combat and Finland 2. Naturally neither country in their hypocrisy have ever acknowledged that they indeed have been and are involved in a war, because no matter how you look at it, the ISAF wasn't your ordinary Peace-keeping force as UNIFIL was in Lebanon (among others). Nope, it would be far too ludicrous for the history books to say that leftist governments at the time both in Finland and Sweden, one country having been in peace since WW2 and the other for 187 years in peace, decided suddenly to go to war with the US in Central Asia and have been there participating in the war since. Not even peace activists have ever protested about this in Sweden and Finland (to my knowledge). Hence in neither two countries the word "war" is used ever. Both still have troops in Afghanistan. I have some friends even that have served tours in Afghanistan, so the War on Terror can be felt even here in Finland.
  • thewonder
    1.4k

    I feel like it's sort of strange to think of the military as just any old career path. That it's treated as such is so that people will have less reservations about enlisting. I really do think that the military experience radically differs from that of other civillians. It's a very particular facet of society.

    Isn't the command over the military, like, a role of the executive branch? A war is a grave thing to omit from any succession of public addresses. You very obviously can just decide, because no one is any longer content with the general direction of the war, not to bring it up, but it doesn't seem like you should do that.

    I found the last bit about Sweden and Finland to be quite interesting. Thanks for sharing.
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