- Afghanistan: Don't do as the Romans Do

Submitted: 8:37 & 8:38am, PDT, 2 Aug.'10 The Toronto Star
Why Afghanistan is not Vietnam, Bob Rae, 2 Aug.'10, The Toronto Star
http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/article/842632--why-afghanistan-is-not-vietnam

"Corruption is deep and widespread, but curtailing it will depend on the Afghan people themselves insisting that things need to change, as well as our willingness to remain engaged."

I think Bob Rae is getting to the heart of the matter here. As in any country the government is always at the will of the people. One expression of this is democracy, but that is not the only expression (Harper runs Canada only because Canadians allow it, if the 2/3rds that voted against him got together he would be gone and quickly). A dictatorship can only exist if the people allow it - ask Marcos, and many others.

It seems that the time honoured strategy is to go in and 'defeat' the enemy. Afghanistan and Vietnam are similar in demonstrating that, for this to work, you must, "do as the Romans did" and conduct a full scale invasion and occupation, and no less, with all the devastation and misery associated with war. A long drawn out 'measured' military/police actions don't work, its like cutting off the Hydra's head. Also, modern International laws make this kind of military operation very difficult, unless of course you chose to ignore them.

When the troops go into the country the main objective should be to expose the people to the benefits of a higher standard of living, including education, health care and, yes, even Internet and other communications and entertainment. It should also demonstrate the possibilities of achieving these things and the importance democracy play in keeping them going and the destructiveness of war and the enemy.

Just think what might have been achieved if the United State, Europe, Canada Australia had taken the money spent on military actions and simply given it to the Afghan people, with a string attached here or there. I'll bet'ya there would be very few Taliban that would refuse to trade in their IED's for plows. And without support those 'hard-cores' can be dealt with.

With the people so empowered, I find it difficult that the corruption in government could persist, after all isn't this the reason we don't have corruption in Western countries. Afghanistan is unique because of the poppy trade. But this offers a good example, what if the UN forces had destroyed the poppy fields right at the beginning and given the farmers the means to grow and sell other crops. This in itself would have delivered a crippling blow to the Taliban. One can only wonder why this was never done, especially with GW Bush's drug wars.

You may criticize this suggestion all you want, but not matter what, would the Afghan situation have been any worse at this point and with an lot less losses by the UN forces.

The recently discovered trillion in natural resources for Afghanistan (see my post 16 Jun.'10, "Harper's Afghan Policy - If He Can't Play Soldier, He Wants to Takes His Marbles and Go Home":
"The previously unknown deposits — including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium — are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world, the United States officials believe",NYT, 13 Jun.'10)

could clearly play a huge role in a country like Canada coming up with a plan to draw on our experience and expertize in this field of endeavour and help the Afghan's in precisely the manner described (That this wealth is recently discovered is open to a lot of questions, as far as I am concerned).

Of course, the real question is whether the US wanted to put a quick resolution to Vietnam, and Afghanistan for that matter (at least while GW Bush was in office). If one assumes that it was the military-industrial complex (e.g. Dick Cheney's Halliburton) that was the driving force behind the US involvement in Vietnam (plus natural resources for Afghanistan and Iraq, for that matter) then a long drawn out military action that goes on and on without 'winning' makes an awful lot of sense. You don't need to occupy them, you just need to keep them occupied.

Lloyd MacILquham cicblog.com/comments.html