Do you think news articles should be constructed to support certain nations despite their actions?

Very briefly, this premise is usually formulated along the following lines:
“We will be able to withdraw once the Afghan state has sufficient trained security forces (army, police etc) to control the insurgency themselves.”

The proposition is repeated endlessly by politicians, the military and media, without demur. Only the timescale is open to debate.

It appears to escape notice that western military intervention, equipped as it is with the current state of the art in military resources (air supremacy; manned vehicles plus remotely controlled surveillance and ground attack drones, satellites – not to mention myriad other types of technological surveillance equipment, artillery, armour, the finest personal equipment and medical facilities ever made available to the soldier on the ground, etc) is quite unable to restrain the insurgency, which gets worse yearly. Of course against this technical capability there is the issue of manpower; no field commander ever thinks he has enough, as we’re hearing right now. But this is a distraction, as it was in Vietnam. “The Surge” in Iraq only appeared to be effective (in the short term at least) because it coincided with other policies implemented at the same time which coincided, temporarily, with the interests of some of the insurgents.

However the notion that the Afghan army, other things being equal, could ever be raised to this level of technical capability within a realistic timeframe, is manifestly absurd even if the budget were to become available – which it won’t.

This is the least of the problems. The insurgency is essentially Pashtun driven. The foreign jihadist contribution is insignificant, although it does have significant regional implications. An Afghan army (including police, security forces etc) which doesn’t include at least a proportionate representation of Pashtuns, namely about 40%, is going to be perceived in the Pashtun areas as a tribal army of occupation. The Afghan army is already disproportionately weighted with Tajiks, recapitulating the conflict between the Taliban and the Panjshiri Tajiks which simmered on during the years of Taliban rule. As an aside, if only we had listened to Ahmed Shah Massoud’s repeated warnings we might not now be in this situation; certainly 9/11 would have been prevented.

Even if it was actually possible to form an Afghan army which is demographically representative of the country, how many of the Pashtun soldiers could be relied on? Certain recent events and the timeless phrase “fifth column” spring to mind…

The factors roughly outlined above would seem to me to be self-evident. Although the terrain and the politics are very different, I am constantly reminded of the progress of the war in Vietnam. This is a more relevant touchstone for comparison than the superficially similar example of Iraq. In any case there is a situation of unstable equilibrium in Iraq which will not last, for reasons that are too complex to discuss here. Likewise the relationship between Pakistan’s internal chaos and the Afghan war.

I could add a lot more but these blogs are ultimately quite pointless. So I’ll just add one thing that is being completely overlooked about the reasons for incursion into Afghanistan, or at least for its continuation. At some point there’s going to be a requirement for a base from which to launch the campaign to disarm Pakistan. Afghanistan is handily situated.

BTW I have spent time in Afghanistan.

Roy

“For America, the chief geopolitical prize is Eurasia… Now a non-Eurasian power is preeminent in Eurasia – and America’s global primacy is directly dependent on how long and how effectively its preponderance on the Eurasian continent is sustained.” (p.30)

“How America ‘manages’ Eurasia is critical. A power that dominates Eurasia would control two of the world’s three most advanced and economically productive regions. A mere glance at the map also suggests that control over Eurasia would almost automatically entail Africa’s subordination, rendering the Western Hemisphere and Oceania geopolitically peripheral to the world’s central continent. About 75 per cent of the world’s people live in Eurasia, and most of the world’s physical wealth is there as well, both in its enterprises and underneath its soil. Eurasia accounts for about three-fourths of the world’s known energy resources.” (p.31)

“The momentum of Asia’s economic development is already generating massive pressures for the exploration and exploitation of new sources of energy and the Central Asian region and the Caspian Sea basin are known to contain reserves of natural gas and oil that dwarf those of Kuwait, the Gulf of Mexico, or the North Sea.” (p.125)

Plans for the pipeline:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Afgha nistan_Pipeline