Afghanistan in perspective

Erica told me that since she and the girls would be in Hokkaido all week and we would not be able to talk I should use my spare time to update the blog.

Well the good thing about that is that you don't have to read it if you don't want to, therefor I can ramble on any subject that comes to mind! Haha.

Afghanistan in perspective (narrow and short,

Our mission in Afghanistan is twofold, one- we must disrupt the enemy so that they cannot build strength over the winter for a spring offensive and two- we must work to bring the reinforcements that are coming. Thousands of US troops are in bound. But there is not enough infrastructure to support them yet. That is one of if not our biggest concern. It is constant competition between the enemy and us.

The Taliban quote of the day is “you have all the watches, we have all the time”. It reminds me of the another quote “You’ve got the money honey, I’ve got the time.” Willy Nelson. I think I prefer the second one. But the point is clear, this is more of a big game of chicken, who will flinch first and unfortunately without some realistic goals set and acceptance of hard work ahead it could be us. We will bring in a bunch of troops and the American people will want instant results. There will be some; the initial arrival is always spectacular. We always win the first rounds. However, the insurgents know they only have to wait us out.

Our biggest challenge will be to counter them by building up the Afghan government and security forces. No small task, this is a very naturally corrupt society. What I mean by that is in order to survive the many wars they have learned to take what they can get when they can. The society co-exists with a level of corruption we cannot fathom. The concept of warlordism is a reality not a choice. It is not uncommon for the hero to be the Afghan who straddles the fence and in the end gets the most benefit for his clan. They have also been surviving this way a long time and we cannot change that overnight if at all.

For that matter we are not trying to change the Afghans themsleves, that would be impossible, we are just tryign to bring a level of stability and the ever desirable rule of law to a lawless land. Our best bet is to make them strong enough to stand on their own. We must focus on the development of ‘good enough’ governance and ‘strong enough’ security forces.

Yet militarily this does not sit well with us, particularly the USMC. ‘Cause damn it we are in charge! We will dictate how things work, not them…uh that ain’t gonna work. This is their country we said so, they must fix it but we must help. Right now we are not tied in enough to this fact. We must be true partners with the government and security forces. This is hard. We have a tough enough time just dealing with NATO, we are better equipped at going it alone. But going it alone here is not an option; we will need to keep learning how to play well with others. When we do, and we are getting better every day, we can then look to our allies and friends and hold them to the commitments they have made. This has to be a collective effort.