The New Republic

"This action is the handiwork of subversives, perhaps soldiers, perhaps civilians." How about patriots. Bring the war to an end? Not any time soon. Once the US (not just the Bush Administration) decided that combating extremists is a military matter, we all but assured continuous war, for there will always be extremists hell-bent on inflicting mayhem and militaries are best suited for fighting armies not cells of extremists. Indeed, rather than acknowledge that finding extremists before they perform their deeds is more of a law enforcement (including investigation) enterprise, we devise euphemisms like counter-insurgency, which is law enforcement (including investigation but called "intelligence") with a military name. And extremists are plotting their next terrorist acts, most likely in places other than Afghanistan and Pakistan, as Bacevich points out. But many will have some connection to the middle east, if only an ethnic connection. So the war will continue for many years to come, notwithstanding the efforts of "subversives, perhaps soldiers, perhaps civilians". And patriots.

- rayward

July 26, 2010 at 8:04am

"Even if we were to “win” in Afghanistan tomorrow, the jihadist threat would persist. If anything, staying in Afghanistan probably exacerbates that threat. So tell me again: why exactly are we there?" Precisely the right question. Once an audience wider than the potential draftees that were the fuel for the killing started asking this question about Vietnam, the conclusion was inevitable - we'd leave behind a fig leaf, after a few more spasmodic years of killing. The same will happen here, although the process will be (and has been) slower due to the fact that the war in Afghanistan does not pose the same looming and random threat to today's youth that the conscription driven war in SE Asia did to my generation. If the Wikileaks can accelerate the learning process for the American public, that is altogether a good thing. But I have my doubts it will, explained below. We should also be asking ourselves "under what logic was this material classified?" Very little of it looks to me like something deserves to be hidden from the American people. Not that it's hard to hide this stuff from us - most of the population has been steadfastly ignoring the fact that we are at war for 8 years now. You could have posted this stuff on a DoD website as we went along and it wouldn't have changed that much in a body politic that willfully refuses to care. Much as I hated the draft, and much as I admire the professionalism of our all-volunteer military compared to the ragtag conscripted army we were deploying in SE Asia by the late 60s, in so many ways the fact that the broader population has no stake in the deployment of our military to war has harmed this country enormously in the last decade. God, am I about to argue for the re-instatement of conscription?

- IowaBeauty

July 26, 2010 at 8:23am

Actually, the "ragtag conscripted army" performed quite well in Vietnam. The failures were at the top, like, in Washington.

- NR114746

July 26, 2010 at 10:19am

"The point cannot be to “prevent another 9/11,” since violent anti-Western jihadists are by no means confined to or even concentrated in Afghanistan. Even if we were to “win” in Afghanistan tomorrow, the jihadist threat would persist. If anything, staying in Afghanistan probably exacerbates that threat. So tell me again: why exactly are we there?" This is way too sloppy and easy. The fact is that rapid, full-scale disengagement from Afghanistan would put the region right back on the road to where it was in 1989, when the Soviets withdrew all their forces, or at least 1992, when the Najibullah government fell and Afghanistan no longer had any centralized authority. Those who argue for a realist solution to Afghanistan that involves minimal American involvement (at least on the Afghan side of the border) need to be a lot more clear about how we would prevent the fragmentation of Afghanistan and the ability of Al Qaeda to return to its sanctuaries there in the wake of such fragmentation. There is no evidence from any source that the ingregients for Al Qaeda's original ascent to its Afghanistan sanctuary would be missing from a future fragmentation of the country -- they still have the same weak and corrupt Afghan central government, the same antagonism among the Pashtuns and Afghanistan's minorities, the same happy Pashtun Taliban hosts, the same willingness and ability of the Pakistani military and intelligence services to subsidize a Taliban-run Afghanistan as a safety valve in its struggle with India. I suppose that we would still have drone bases in Pakistan and Special Forces with some sympathetic tribesmen running about trying to keep Al Qaeda off-balance, but how long would that last in a political environment that was even further soured by the collapse of Afghanistan's government a year or two after we pulled out our troops? Was there much willingness or ability by the US to keep a unified Communist-ruled Vietnam off balance with Special Forces or local proxies after the fall of Saigon (at least until the 1979 invasion of Cambodia gave us a quasi-ally in the remnant of the Khmer Rouge)? We need to beware of anybody who minimizes the adverse consequences of a quick withdrawal from Afghanistan, especially when the host body for the Al Qaeda virus remains in the shape it's in today.

- wildboy

July 26, 2010 at 4:35pm

Andrew Bacevich gave the single most compelling interview I have ever seen on Bill Moyers Journal two years ago after writing The Limits of Power. He was spot on about the lack of US competiveness and the emphasis on maintaining the empire which is causing this country to implode.

- jeffclark4

July 26, 2010 at 9:20pm

Here's the link to the Bacevich interview with Bill Moyers - http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/08152008/watch.html

- jeffclark4

July 27, 2010 at 3:56pm