The fraying state of a distant land in which the West seems increasingly bogged down

Afghanistan is a lost cause: We will neither find Osama Bin Laden nor will we stabilize the country in any meaningful way.

Hosni Mubarak's claim - that the central issue is economics - is common sense. For every country with civil and social strife, it's always been a matter of creating a nice economy.

However, there is something more fundamental at work here as well. Even if you give the Afghanistanis an opportunity, they don't fulfill this opportunity that well. Then they complain. Their allegiance is always shifting, and basically, they're playing us.

I believe that other Muslim nations should be engaged. The culture of Saudi Arabia, which is Arabic, is far more closer to the culture of Afghanistan, which is a Pashtun and Tajik country, even though Pashtun/Tajik are similar to Farsi language and Indian culture.

Nothing can be done to save the Afghanis, and we should pull out, basically. What is our surge going to accomplish?

I don't know about anybody else, but I an in fact dizzy with all the explanations from my government, past and present, why we continue to throw money and human lives down a big black hole.

Can American troops understand the Afghan culture, their wants and needs? Can they speak their language?

So as an example, if Afghan troops took over my town limited by language and understanding of the rural American life, my community would hate them as well. If my neighbors were being slaughtered by accidental bombings, that would only light the fire of hate. If you come with guns, looking scary and being a foreigner, nobody should really expect to be embraced or forgiven for wartime mistakes.

With Afghanistan, a nation dependent on a product that does nothing but harm worldwide, the answer to replace the product that keeps them alive has to be specific and meet the same economic requirements. Can we not sort that out? As an example, I see locally that many fields once growing just corn have now been turned into sunflower acres. I would have so surmise that sunflower seeds are as profitable as growing corn.

I guess I am arguing that showing people how to make a better life in theory seems better than trying to force them to see the ways of the west even it is by taking down some very dangerous thugs. Can you ever really knock down all the thugs or do they keep multiplying because conditions never really get any better?

What frustrates me the most is that each American administration bashes the proceeding one for being an idiot, but in fact they just take another idiot course of their own disguising it as necessary. The only way that any president really gets to bash a presiding administration is to have long-term victory on the issues that matter. And so only after leaving office and moving back into society, would a president have any idea the impact his/her administration really had the public.

Those who forget the lessons of history...

This is colonialism all over again. It would be helpful if someone could kindly remind us all what precisely the West is fighting for in Afghanistan? What precisely does 'victory' look like?

I think it would be control of the country's strategic gas pipelines. Or perhaps this is too cynical. It's really to smite the evil-doing Taliban. They will be either totally eradicated, or will someday see the error of their ways, lay down their arms and be good little boys.

The argument that the West cannot withdraw is both wrong and dangerous. History shows that colonial occupiers never leave behind a stable sociopolitical system- just ask Africa. When they leave, they WILL create a vaccuum. And war will result.

Much better to leave now, and let whatever local conflict ensues play itself out. Eventualy, the Afghans will come to a settlement that they own- and the sooner this happens, the sooner they will rebuild.

But of course, that would leave those pesky pipelines ungarded. And the evil-doers running free....

www.amusis.com

US oil and the Saudi royal family probably got Bin Laden most cross. Resulting 9/11 was an assault on a NATO Member, so NATO could legally attempt redress. US bombs wrecked training camps, and a new "government" was tried.

Afghanis don't want us in their country. They will reach democracy when old men die and young women go to universities overseas.

NATO doesn't want
a) to alter relations with Saudi oil, despicable royal family
b) Afghanistan/Pakistan to host a renewed terrorist base
c) poppy products on the Western market
d) Iran to find a way of building a larger militant grouping
e) Pakistan and India to leak nuclear kit to Islamist terrorists
f) KGB Putin to have influence in the area.

All grand and noble schemes. But US forces are making most things worse. UK forces are too small to leave in place. Other NATO forces negligible.

Helping Afghanis get a trusted clique in charge in Kabul, then helping that backward mob to build army and police, may be feasible in 20-40 years. It should be done from the greatest possible distance.

Go home. You are stupid and ignorant and inexpressibly crude.

While your view on the state of things in Afghanistan are spot on, the overly pessimistic approach may only lead to wrong conclusions being drawn by decision makers involved in sending troops to the wire or in taking critical decisions that matter. My take with long experience in insurgency in India is as follows-
Firstly, the Afghan insurgency is only 3 years old, start point is 2006 and not 2001 as is commonly believed. This period is too short to judge any militancy let alone a complex one as Afghanistan.
Secondly the core of the Afghan policy has to be, "Afghanisation", while this was the original aim, some where down the road people seemed to lose sight of the same.
Thirdly people are the centre of gravity and every soldier needs to understand this.
Fourthly hard operations have to be based on fool proof intelligence.
Having said that we need not despair for I think McChrystal seems to be adopting just such an approach.

“Where international forces are fighting, people think it is incumbent on them to resist the occupiers ..."

"The Economist", makes it sound like it's WRONG to RESIST!

Well, it's time to recognize that FREE People everywhere are the same. WE Will Allways Resist.....

Peace, Love & Respect.

The antecedents of the Taliban and Al Qaeda can be traced back to the US backed anti-Soviet campaign in Afghanistan during the 1980s. Ronald Regan's Administration pumped money and weapons into Afghanistan via Pakistan. The likes of Bin Laden and the leaders of the Taliban were then viewed as freedom fighters.

The Al Qaeda attacks upon the United States in September 2001 came as shock to many Americans, but they had been preceded by almost a decade of threats and warnings from Bin Laden. There were numerous smaller attacks on US and other targets during the 1990s. George Bush Senior and Bill Clinton did little to deal with these threats. They engaged unsuccessfully in Somalia and continued to bomb Iraq into submission.

As we know George Bush Junior responded to the 2001 attacks with a military response, using the anti-Taliban “Northern Alliance” as the ground troops and US Air Force fire power as their primary battle winner. Despite the fierce bombing by B-52 strategic bombers, the real defeat of the Taliban came as a result of the traditional negotiations between warlords. Ultimately the Afghans struck deals amongst themselves, surrendered on terms and sacrificed the foreign fighters (Arabs) who were mostly massacred after they had surrendered.

The relatively easy success of the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 meant that Washington and in particular the right wing hawks such as Donald Rumsfeld came to believe in the mythology of “shock and aware”or a new way of warfare. Rumsfeld believed that America could win easy victories using small numbers of highly mobile ground forces and Special Forces, backed up by US air superiority and smart weapons. His strategy ignored the reality of how difficult it is once you have defeated the enemy on the battle field, to hold down the cities and towns of the country you have subjugated. Occupation and the subsequent nation building that must follow, takes huge numbers of ground troops and a very different mission and training orientation.

The mistake made by the USA in Iraq was to disband the Iraqi military and almost all other governmental institutions leaving only the Americans and their few coalition allies to maintain peace. Even the lessons of World War Two were ignored, where in many of the liberated areas of South East Asia, Japanese troops were allowed to keep light weapons and maintain local security during the transition period.

Although American entered Afghanistan a couple of years before it invaded Iraq, there was never any serious effort made to address the very real need for civil order and security. The country is a factious, tribal society with a propensity for resisting foreign invaders and central administrations. Opium is and has for a long time been a major source of external revenue. The rugged terrain also allows insurgents to operate with a good level of freedom.

The entire Afghan operation is now suffering from mission creep. The NATO forces and their colleagues from other countries are confused over their mission and goals. It is very doubtful that western soldiers will bring peace and democracy to Afghanistan. The Karzai Administration is corrupt and lacks any capacity to bring about genuine reform. Women in Afghanistan are poorly treated and the longer term outlook for the military mission there is bleak. The only solution will be an Afghan led solution and while the western world may not like its outcome, it is only via political negotiation with the Taliban and a withdrawal of western armies that any lasting peace will come about.

There is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare;to jaw-jaw is better than to war-war.

Aside from the comments below regarding the central concerns of this article (which, as an aid worker in Afghanistan, I thought was actually overly pessimistic), I would like to briefly touch on the one reference made to Afghan (Pushtun) women in this article. The article's off-hand claim that Pushtuns keep their "womenfolk" prisoners and their names a secret is a gross over-generalization and analytically vacuous. I have worked in Pushtun communities in both Afghanistan and Pakistan and have observed a wide variety of localized and sometimes individual Pushtun approaches to gender, relationships, marriages, etc. While some approaches are severe, others display flexibility and humaneness. To claim that all Pushtun women are prisoners of their male relatives, husbands, etc. is a serious mischaracterization.

As I have noticed far too often in The Economist, issues of gender are instrumentalized to dramatize stories of the Other and highlight non-Western "barbarism" - a rhetorical move that is both Orientalist and self-congratulating. It's time for gender issues to be addressed seriously and intellectually, not merely as inaccurate passing anecdotes.

I used to wonder why the U.S and other western allies have never considered using pro-western pre-dominantly muslim countries like Turkey, Saudi Arabia and possibly Indonesia to smartly manage their intervention in Afghanistan...isn't this feasible...? How come the predominantly muslim countries are less actively involved about one of themselves anyway...the high price to pay is a typically religiously neutral western soldier perceived by the locals and enemies as a christian/western occupation to achieve "Crusade" ends...

I have met many people and reviewed much media, and can't answer viktor's very perceptive question. I can only re-phrase it. No other parent-applied mental abuse perverts kids like Islam does. A guess would be that these folks have nothing else to excel at. They have the Koran and no rights to free thought. Leave them to grow up. Europe was at this stage in about 1400s. Even Jews now recognise there is no "Jewish" gene and that the Old Testament may be a political tract, not a history.

But Viktor's hope for sense as soon as 2036 seems vastly misplaced.

Afghanistan a country that should probably
be divided into about 6 countries. A population
of 34 million doubling every 25 years. The
only way to make a good living condemned by the rest
of the world. Black hole to the nth power...get
out and stay out and let Allah save them.

Give the pashtun their country back and the war will be over.

http://real-politique.blogspot.com

The war in Afghanistan started as a war against terror and has changed to nation building, democratising, building capacity, etc.

Ten times more money is being spent on the war compared to the amount spent on development.

The West’s policy is clearly a confused one.

The idea of holding an election in a country that lacks security; the rule of law and proper institutions is ludicrous.

In Afghanistan, those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything!

The West will eventually be forced out of Afghanistan and the country will remain as chaotic as it has been.

Nineteenth Century - British

Twentieth Century - Russians

Twienty-first Century - Americans

At my age, I won't see it, but I an hardly wait until that Asteroid hits in 2036! Right smack-dead in the center of the Mideast & Mediterranean..
maybe then some brains might evolve out of it if any survive...why do all these fanatical brain washing religions all merge out of those areas..

The present mess in Afghanistan is the direct consequence of messing with internal affairs by the west since 2001.

For instance, like many other countries after an election (notably in the past several years), one of the presidential candidates was already quick in accusing the incumbent of vote rigging, and declaring the poll as null and void.

One wonders what kind of democracy have the non-western nations been practicing? Why should the west be so adamant to democratize the rest of the world in line with the western concept of democracy?

Is it of any good? How preposterous!
(tanboontee)

Yet you still find 'reasons for hope.' Pretty unconvincing. Having supported these insane military adventures, it is interesting watching the Economist squirm.

I think we should just say we won and leave before it becomes too embarrassing a la Vietnam and the Brits and Russies experience before us in the country. Why do we spend so much time and capital in this place, and Iraq before that, when there are so many pressing domestic matters that need tending to. Isn't this the path that has led to the demise, or at least weakening, of earlier empires.

"British adventurers and Soviet occupiers".