Bribalism
Right in the first sentence, the New York Times attempts to show the folly in the Obama policy:
The leaders of one of the largest Pashtun tribes in a Taliban stronghold said Wednesday that they had agreed to support the American-backed government, battle insurgents and burn down the home of any Afghan who harbored Taliban guerrillas.
In order to teach the people of Afghanistan how a functioing democracy works, we must teach them to burn first and prosecute later. But before we do that, we need to teach them a lesson in capitalism:
In exchange for their support, American commanders agreed to channel $1 million in development projects directly to the tribal leaders and bypass the local Afghan government, which is widely seen as corrupt.
So here’s the problem that threatens to rip apart the country–tribalism will eventually foster this attitude that a central government cannot be trusted. The United States was somehow able to avoid this in Iraq. You had three very fractured sides–Shia, Sunni, and Kurd, all nursing grudges against one another that went back decades–and yet Iraq appears to be stabilizing.
Such a coalition was never struck with Afghans, with a large portion of the country left in the hands of the Taliban. They don’t play by the same rules as the American soldiers, or even the Afghani ones. There’s even some new wiggle room in this administration:
The new plan has two tracks: to reintegrate Taliban fighters into Afghan society and to allow Taliban leaders to play a political role in Afghanistan, a far more politically charged idea.
So my hats off to you, President Obama, for allowing a legitimacy and power sharing for our sworn enemies. Hope you didn’t leave this brilliant idea out of your speech tonight.
January 28th, 2010 at 1:09 am
No, Obama didn’t mention this is his speech tonight, but it was so inspiring I felt a thrill run up my leg!
Afghanistan is still stuck in Tribal mode and isn’t likely to change much,except for a small minority in some of the larger cities.
The only way to win this war is to supply money and weapons to the most ruthless bastard willing to ally with us. There are no good guys or bad guys, just warring tribes who don’t give a fuck about anything other than getting us the hell out of there so they can go back to their Islamic ways, unimpeded by infidels cluttering the landscape.
There is no “Gandhi” in Afghanistan,or Iraq either for that matter. So, we have to go the Cold War route and back the toughest, meanest bastard that’s least likely to stab us in the back,like we and our CW counterparts did so many times in the past.
The world isn’t a “Nice” place,and we’d better realize that and start acting accordingly,or we’re going to lose not only this battle, but the entire war.
Allahu Akhbar.
January 28th, 2010 at 7:37 am
So much window dressing.
Unless the working class gets back to its accustomed level of prosperity, and, oh, real soon, there will be anger in their hearts.
Much as the designated successor to Ted Kennedy can attest.
Hillary was very clever to not be present at this speech. She does not want to be associated.
Obama makes new enemies every day. He just skewered the supreme court.
All in all, Obama is the employment equity candidate. And for those many of us who have had to suffer with employment equity candidates, thrust upon us by the politically correct, he is having the same life cycle. But this time, it is the agents of political correctness that are going to suffer.
I am enjoying all of this, very much.