Quote from AAAintheBeltway:
I think the whole counter-insurgency strategy is flawed. Somehow if we shower enough goodies on these people in the form of roads, schools, dams, etc they are supposed to reject their religion and culture and support a corrupt central government that exploits and abuses them almost as badly as the taliban. Has it ever worked anywhere?
We need only go into pretty much any urban area of the US to prove that such an approach will not work. For example, the Washington Post has been reporting on a horrifying situation at an inner city academy that attempts to foster excellence in education in a city that spends more than any other city per student but has abysmal results. Every day its students are assaulted by neighborhood gangs as they leave the school grounds. Police and metro officials do little to protect them. We can never pour as much money into afghanistan as we do into these inner cities, yet we make little progress. Their residents act like animals in the jungle.
Our mistake in afghanistan was to ignore its history as a tribal society with a minimalist central government. We should have focused our efforts on arming and training tribal leaders and regional warlords, and let them sort out the central government. Instead, we tried to impose a top-down solution in the form of a strong central government and "democracy." That barely functions in the US. It had no chance in a country where government officials use their positions to settle tribal grievances and graft.
I suppose obama will delay leaving afhganistan until just before the 2012 elections, then grandly announce he has achieved victory and bring the troops home. He'll no doubt win his second Nobel Peace Prize. The taliban or someone worse will be in charge within six months.
