In the Wall Street Journal's parallel universe of the editorial boardroom, the brooding over Afghanistan's imminent "loss" to an undefeated Taliban shifted yesterday, 1949-style, to what you might call the Pakistan Lobby.
That nation's foreign minister, Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi, "minced no words," the editors gloomily related from a recent interview, in portraying "a U.S. withdrawal" -- as though that extreme lies seriously on the table -- as "disastrous" not so much for Pakistan or even Afghanistan, but for the craven withdrawers themselves. "You will lose credibility," warned the foreign minister. "Who is going to trust you again?" he persisted.
Oh, I don't know. The South Vietnamese did, after we gave away China to the Chinese; and you guys did, Mr. Foreign Minister, after we lost Vietnam to the Vietnamese.
But he, as the WSJ's proxy, had even more questions for the Obama administration -- although they would have been better put to the Bush administration. He sounded incredulous, the editors yelped, in asking "If you go in, why are you going out without getting the job done? Why did you send so many billions of dollars and lose so many lives? And why did we ally with you?"
All those questions were "fair" enough, concluded the editors. But wouldn't you just know it? To date, they're also "unanswered by the Obama Administration"; and likely, or so the neoconservative implication went, because of that "D" before its name, which just last century so characteristically caved to cowardice and pacifism in 1917, 1941, 1950, and 1965.
Such is the Journal's shimmering universe that runs parallel to the other of known reality, which the paper itself covers as a regular beat.
Yesterday, for example, as its editorialists were doubling over in bellicose apoplexy, its actual newspaper folks were reporting that, notwithstanding Gen. Stanley McChrystal's recent recommendation to almost literally double down on doughboys, "Defense Secretary Robert Gates now worries that counterinsurgency might no longer be a viable approach for countering the Taliban violence."
A Pentagon spokesman emphasized that Mr. Gates "has been" -- note the tense, per the Journal -- "a strong advocate of counterinsurgency," but, said the spokesman, "His thinking on this is evolving." Added a "senior defense official": "Even 40,000 more troops don't give you enough boots on the ground to protect the Afghans if the north and west continue to deteriorate." And "that," the official continued, "may argue for a different approach."
Which is what Vice President Joe Biden is doing -- urging a "counterterror" rather than counterinsurgency strategy, an approach that "focuses more narrowly on using drones and small teams of Special Operations forces to kill senior al Qaeda and Taliban figures" -- which, furthermore, is what "anti-war Democrats on the Hill are pushing for," reports the Washington Post.
In what seems like a far smarter and conserved use -- dare I say to the Journal's editors, conservative use? -- of human and fiscal resources, Sen. Russ Feingold mused that perhaps we should do in Afghanistan what we've done effectively in, say, Somalia and Yemen: "We should use the same approach that we take in parts of the world that we have not invaded." Smarter, yes, but rather inglourious, no?
Speaking of basterds, I was somewhat taken aback yesterday when I read Gen. McChrystal's extemporaneous -- and I would color it insolent -- response, made in London, at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, to a question about his possible support of Vice President Biden's approach. Could he offer it? Said the general: "The short answer is, no.... A strategy that does not leave Afghanistan in a stable position is probably a short-sighted strategy."
Is that really the way our top brass should be publicly speaking about a potential decision by the civilian commander in chief, to whom the general must Constitutionally defer? Tacky, at best, and borderline insubordinate, I thought.
At any rate, McChrystal and his neoconservative fans in the press and elsewhere are absolutely sure about what to do. The other day I conceded that I'm no expert -- indeed, I'm "out of my league" -- when it comes to the byzantine fields of nation-building and military strategies and the tactics necessary to successfully battle insurgencies. But I neglected to add, No one is.
In fact, those who fancy themselves "expert" are the ones who carry the heaviest of dubious baggage. By now it's a cliché, but David Halberstam's "Best and the Brightest" doomed any comfortable expectations of counterinsurgency know-how. They, as their progeny does now, were shooting intellectual blanks in the dark.
The real issue at hand is not one of knowledge but of answering the question: Is it worth the risk? And that's a matter of opinion. To me, though, how anyone could look at the ancient history of Afghanistan, and then its 20th- and 21st-century histories, and genuinely answer in the affirmative ... well, that leaves me truly, expertly bewildered.
Buzz this on Buzzflash.net
Give It To Pakistan
I was for the initial invasion of Aghanistan, which by the way would have worked if Rumsfeld had not stabbed the CIA in the back. Then I was against pulling most of our troops out of Afghanistan where we had a legitimate threat and against using them to invade Iraq where we had no legitimate threat. As of two years ago, I was still supportive of moving those troops back into Afghanistan and finishing the job.
But now it all seems like an opportunity lost. If we pull out, the Taliban will surely prosper in Afghanistan and Pakistan, but I am not sure that we can stop that. While that surely favors Al Qaeda, I really don't know what that means in terms of an absolute increase in the threat from Al Qaeda. I am inclined to pull out and tell Pakistan to clean up its own mess. This will likely force them to make peace with India to the southeast because they will have their hands full with the Taliban to the west.
Then we essentially go into Cold War II. That is, we retarget much of our nuclear arsenal against every Mideast country that wants to build or buy nuclear weapons for intimidating us. Then let them know that we arre fully prepared to wipe theem off the face of the earth if they ever deploy even one.
I am sure that threat of the threat of some nuclear weapons sounds like cracking good fun in the abstract. As someone who grew up in Cold war I, it is much less fun in practice to spend every second of every day fearing a nuclear holocaust. This is a bleak alternative, but I don't see how we get around it.