"The increasing reliance on the militias is the latest sign that the United States’ signature effort in Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks — building a capable army and police force — is buckling under a challenge from the Taliban. That has prompted President Obama to cancel the planned withdrawal of U.S. troops, prolonging the United States’ longest war.
In Qala-e-Zal district, power is in the hands of Gechi, a stout former mujahideen warrior with a thick salt-and-pepper mustache, who was once bankrolled by U.S. forces and is again a beneficiary of their largesse." Washpost
-----------
Now that the "captains and the kings" have departed, Afghanistan remains what it has always been, a fractious expanse of territory inhabited by a multitude of peoples speaking mutually unintelligible languages whose political divisions are very much a question of local loyalties, customs and leaders.
"Afghanistan" lacks the social and cultural infrastructure to make western style institutions work. It lacks the ability to create an army that is more than a palace guard in the capital region. It lacks the ability to control its vast territory.
It should have been obvious in 2009 when Obama adopted COIN country modernization as his program that Afghanistan could not be made "modern" in less than the "generations" that the neocons used to speak of. IMO the "generations" needed would have been many, many generations, something like the number of generations for which British rule endured in India. The effect on the "Afghans" might have been beneficial after many bloody generations of oppressive colonial rule, but the effect on Americans would have been terrible as we grew accustomed to imperial overlordship. That effect can be glimpsed in the portrayal of the late state Raj in the current TV series, "Indian Summers."
The withdrawal of NATO forces is now politically irreversible in the US despite Obama's futile dithering. In that circumstance Afghanistan is reverting to its true lifestyles. Those forms of society inevitably include local warlords and chiefs like the man described in this article.
The COIN fantasy has failed yet again. pl
Recent Comments