Reading the Af-Pak Tealeaves

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Reading the Af-Pak Tealeaves

Posted by Jeff Huber

It’s tough to tell what’s going to happen with Af-Pak. We get so many conflicting reports.

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Even our phony-baloney counterinsurgency (COIN) doctrine admits “The primary objective of any COIN operation is to foster development of effective governance by a legitimate government.” We’re never going to get legitimate, effective governance in Afghanistan. We just let one of the biggest political crooks in history—Hamid Karzai—steal two elections. He’ll never be seen as a legitimate leader, no matter how many times President Obama exhorts him to begin a “new chapter.” (Dear diary, my brother Ahmed made another million dollars U.S. in the heroin trade today, and the CIA sent him another fat check besides. Boy, does Ahmed owe me!)

The COIN doctrine has become the false military promise of the 21st century, having eclipsed naval power and air power and nuclear weapons as the ultimate answer to America’s security requirements and the leading excuse for our country’s distended military budget.

The difference between COIN and its militaristic philosophy predecessors is that its predecessors offered the promise to the end of war. Our foolhardy intercession in World War I—the war to end all wars, the war that would make the world “safe for democracy”—did neither. The lamentable end state of that horrible war set conditions that brought about Fascism and World War II, and the end state of World War II brought about global communism and the Cold War and the nasty little third world wars (Korea, Vietnam, etc.) that accompanied it.

After World War I, airpower was going to make all other forms of military power obsolete. After World War II, nuclear weapons were going to make all other forms of military power obsolete. Now we have COIN, which promises to make all forms of military power relevant for as long as our COIN wars last, which, if the American warmongery has its way, will be forever.

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If Obama is putting his foot down, that’s a good thing. If Obama goes along with McChrystal’s desire to escalate the war in Afghanistan, it will be a very bad thing. We’ll be stuck there forever. It will make Vietnam seem like a minor chapter in our history.

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