THE PLANK MARCH 30, 2007
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Charles Krauthammer bashes Democrats who call Afghanistan the site of "the real war" on terror. I'm sure it's true that Democrats prefer talking about Afghanistan to Iraq because it's an easier moral case. But Krauthammer's argument is built around an awfully glib view of Afghanistan's strategic value.
Thought experiment: Bring in a completely neutral observer -- a Martian -- and point out to him that the United States is involved in two hot wars against radical Islamic insurgents. One is in Afghanistan, a geographically marginal backwater with no resources and no industrial or technological infrastructure. The other is in Iraq, one of the three principal Arab states, with untold oil wealth, an educated population, an advanced military and technological infrastructure that, though suffering decay in the later years of Saddam Hussein's rule, could easily be revived if it falls into the right (i.e., wrong) hands. Add to that the fact that its strategic location would give its rulers inordinate influence over the entire Persian Gulf region, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the Gulf states. Then ask your Martian: Which is the more important battle? He would not even understand why you are asking the question. [emphasis added]
But is Afghanistan really so "geographically marginal"? I would say that Martian might take careful note of Afghanistan's neighbor, Pakistan. He might wonder why Americans aren't downright panicked that an unstable nation infested with Islamic radicals constantly trying to assassinate its dictator has a substantial arsenal of nuclear weapons. And moreover that a top Pakistani nuclear scientist, A.Q. Khan, has shared nuclear secrets with America's enemies. And that other Pakistani nuclear scientists are reported to have met with Osama bin Laden himself.
I see the Pakistani bomb as a greater near-term threat to my own life than anything that might happen in Iraq in the next few years. Given the proximity of Afghanistan to Pakistan, and the way Islamic radicals play the two countries off one another, it seems to me that creating stability and a climate
inhospitable to anti-American terrorists there is no "marginal" thing at all. Surely Krauthammer's Martian could understand that.
--Michael Crowley
14 comments
This is not to mention that Afghanistan, while not directly bordering China, is very close to the border with Xinjiang, China's majority Turkic Muslim province and the second-largest powder keg associated with China. Already, many Uyghur radicals were found in Afghanistan, training. The last thing the US needs (in a realpolitik sense) is for China to implode trying to deal with a Uyghur insurgency fueled by chaos in Afghanistan. That could honestly push the biggest powder keg (Taiwan) into blowing up as well, as the ROC head (Chen Shui-bian) begins to think that the PRC will be too busy dealing with the Uyghurs to effectively deal with the problems he might cause... Central Asia is the crossroads of the world, and a LOT more important than the Middle East.
- prometheusnox
March 30, 2007 at 2:32pm
Any third world toilet can serve as a training ground/launching pad for international jihadists. The 9/11 attacks were launched from the "geographical backwater" that Krauthammer dismisses. Is he really this dim or have these neocon fantasists begun to swallow their own lies?
- Fairfax
March 30, 2007 at 2:52pm
For Krauthammer to say that Afghanistan, the haven for Bin Laden, his home base to plan 9/11 is a "backwater" is incredible. That it was treated like a backwater following the end of the Soviet occupation is the reason that the Taliban came to power. It's bad enough that a fool like Tom Delay still asserts on Meet the Press that "they" (meaning the Iraqis) "attacked us 4 years ago".
- dubyadoubte
March 30, 2007 at 2:59pm
was a Stoli with about four molecules of vermouth, back when Russia was still CCCP. To wash down the smoke from a fine Havana. Ah, for the days when they were there and we were here, drinking and smoking their best. Soon, Disney will invade Cuba and Cubanos will be banned, a health hazard. Today, we are there and they are here. London is a backwater, suitable for terrorist training. You learn to fly planes in Florida. Osama could train thugs in Crawford, TX if he put his mind to it. Didn't Tim McVeigh live in Crawford once? You get this stuff (IEDs, planes into buildings, anthrax mixed in with your coke) as long as any one area or group of persons is "treated like a backwater," as dubya wrote. Dashes on a globe between patches of different colors mean less and less and less every day. Either you turn the whole freakin' planet into Pelican Bay, or some new, as yet undiscovered thinking about "the others" ensues.
- williamyard
March 30, 2007 at 4:05pm
might consider an invasion of Iran to be warranted on the same grounds. After all the Iranians are a member state of the Axis of Evil (try not to laugh) that actually are building WMD. Compared to Iran, Iraq is a hopelessly backward state about to succumb to Iranian influence. Maybe Krauthammer needs to talk to people from Uranus (Uranians?), instead of Martians. Ya gotta love the right wingnuts. Neil
- purcellneil
March 30, 2007 at 4:15pm
Perhaps Krauthammer's head has been absorbed by his own version of Uranus.
- epackard
March 30, 2007 at 4:58pm
So pundits on the right are keyed in to what the average Martian is thinking! Explains rather a lot.
- frippo
March 30, 2007 at 4:59pm
Yeah, the Martian could. It's just Krauthammer who has trouble in the understanding department.
- dhuey0
March 30, 2007 at 5:01pm
.. not to mention the only place from which the US was actually attacked, via Osama's plotting in the country. Thousands of deaths in the heart of New York. Compare that to Iraq, from which no attack was ever launched or plotted on targets in the US, and it's clear which "is the more important battle" for the US to fight: ...Iraq. According to a Martian, perhaps, anyway.
- jobeek2
March 30, 2007 at 5:17pm
It is certainly easy to note that attacks on targets in the United States came from Afghanistan; what is not immediately clear is why an attack on Afghanistan is justified. If a criminal squatter in my neighbor's house opens fire on me, am I justified in evicting my neighbor? Certainly, this is a simplistic reduction of geopolitics, but the point remains that our presence in Afghanistan is the result not of Afghanistan's actions against us, but rather the result of Afghanistan having become a staging ground for assaults upon American interests. On these grounds, we can justify our actions there. Against the larger picture of the political swamp that engenders anti-Western terrorism, and with the understanding that allowing enemies to fester results in attacks upon Americans, the invasion of Iraq is not dissimilar from the invasion of Afghanistan. Both pursue the same noble goal. The difference is that success or failure in one arena is vastly more important than success or failure in the other. One might fool a Martian by being meally-mouthed about the situation, but the extraterrastrial observer might question with a child's intensity why a minor enemy should be crushed while a less minor enemy that is against the ropes should be allowed to live. Only when the issue is made complicated - "that other guy attacked us, but not on our own soil, so it's okay, and only sponsors terrorism against our allies, so that's okay, too" - can our 'logic' confuse the Martian enough for him to start carrying No Blood For Oil banners.
- phargle
March 30, 2007 at 6:47pm
I never thought about it that way, but you're right. It's not so much Afganistan as it is what can happen with all their neighbors. Rough part of the world that needs a little love.
- CRS9TNR
March 30, 2007 at 9:43pm
There's a reason Afghanistan - a landlocked country with virtually no resources outside of poppies and Islamic fundamentalists - was the central battleground of "The Great Game". It's because of its strategic location, as others noted. That's not to say that Iraq isn't strategically located either. But Krauthammer, to make the Dems look like fools (as opposed to those ever wise Martians), seriously downplays the importance of a stable Afghanistan, something that is and has been in serious jeopardy due in no small part to our inability to provide enough resources there because we have to use them in Iraq to support an occupation that never should have been.
- shamey73
March 31, 2007 at 8:47am
AND Afghanistan. And Iran too. How about Syria? North Korea??? He's got one answer for all our problems. Invade. Conquer. Occupy. Fuck yeah! Neil
- purcellneil
March 31, 2007 at 10:01pm
...for all the reasons he cites, and all the posters here are just repeating really superficial recieved "wisdom". Afghanistan is one of the most backward, geographically and socially difficult places on the planet. It has no resources except poppies, and for decades contested with "states" like Bangladesh and Congo for the bottom on nearly every ranking of development. The fact that it shares the Hindu Kush with Pakistan and China is hardly a strategic consideration. The fact that we decided not to imitate the Soviets' disastrous tactics there, or make a goal of preparing Afghanistan for membership in the EU, seems to me entirely reasonable. We went to Afghanistan for only one reason-to deny the facilities of a nationstate to Al Qaida. This task was accomplished with laudable dispatch. Currently NATO has accepted responsibility for the war there, and the performance of most of our "allies" gives an excellent example of why those who think the only reason we didn't get more help in Iraq was that Bush was undiplomatic, are deluded. Anyone who really wants to see success in Afghanistan needs to be advocating for the de-criminalization of drugs. Anything less is just posturing.
- Robert Powell
April 1, 2007 at 5:37pm