Failing in Afghanistan on the front page
It's front page NYTimes so everybody probably saw this article on the "crisis in confidence" in the ineffectual Karzai government in Afghanistan, but what caught my eye was this bit on page two.
The Taleban offers a form of sure security and justice. In Lebanon, Hezbullah offers the people social programs and support far beyond anything supplied by the Lebanese government or the West. In Iraq, citizens support the militias and neighborhood groups because they are the only semblance of security.
People do not support these groups primarily because they are violent and anti-west. These groups gain support because they meet critical needs that are not being addressed.
Tell me again how we're going to defeat terrorism with bombing campaigns.....
(I also think there's another component in this equation that is rarely mentioned. Pride. These groups offer an example of strength from indigineous/local people who feel downtrodden and oppressed.
It's the grand mistake in the jiujitsu of counter-insurgency to not understand that every strike builds the insurgency's status. More force leads to more resistance. It's the fight itself that creates their legitimacy.)
In southern Afghanistan the situation is so bad that people have begun turning to the Taliban for the swift, if severe, justice administered by mullahs, said Abdual Qadeer Noorzai, a human rights official in that region.
The Taleban offers a form of sure security and justice. In Lebanon, Hezbullah offers the people social programs and support far beyond anything supplied by the Lebanese government or the West. In Iraq, citizens support the militias and neighborhood groups because they are the only semblance of security.
People do not support these groups primarily because they are violent and anti-west. These groups gain support because they meet critical needs that are not being addressed.
Tell me again how we're going to defeat terrorism with bombing campaigns.....
(I also think there's another component in this equation that is rarely mentioned. Pride. These groups offer an example of strength from indigineous/local people who feel downtrodden and oppressed.
It's the grand mistake in the jiujitsu of counter-insurgency to not understand that every strike builds the insurgency's status. More force leads to more resistance. It's the fight itself that creates their legitimacy.)
posted by mikevotes at
9:12 PM
4 Comments:
Clearly, we need to invent bombs that only target those in need of basic human services!
Oh, wait...that'd be everyone.
By
Rex Kramer, Danger Seeker, at 9:29 PM
Well, we got those bombs.
Mike
By
mikevotes, at 9:38 PM
Not to mention that a very tight knit family network pretty much has a geometrically multiplying effect when justice is to be returned to the aggressor. Retribution in some societies is not out of anger or vengeance but is a Categorical Imperative.
Suck on that NeoCon Vulcans. You're ignorance and psychopathic need for violence have unleashed hell on earth for aggressors in the Middle East. The only way to 'win' in Iraq is to kill every last Iraqi man, woman and child. I hope you have the kahones for that. Of course you do, you don't actually do the fighting.
By
Anonymous, at 9:59 PM
I was trying to stay simple, but you're right, tribalism is playing a huge part in the Afghan and Iraqi insurgencies. (I don't know about Lebanon and tribalism.)
The only way to win against a counterinsurgency is to have leadership smart enough not to get into the fight.
Mike
(And the Russians have tried to kill everyone in Chechnya and even that hasn't worked.)
By
mikevotes, at 10:14 PM
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