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Are American Soldiers Bait For The Taliban?
This morning I posted about a soldier from my town who was killed in Afghanistan. I did not know him, though in my few years living here in small-town Georgia, I have met more soldier boys than in the decades I lived in NYC.
The post included only the facts and only three people commented. But those three comments spanned the gamut of opinion, from honoring the dead to criticizing the president, to criticizing our presence there.
I don’t know what I think we should do in Afghanistan. I wouldn’t want to be in the president’s shoes. I am inclined to think we should stay. Try to make right out of what we’ve begun. Start anew. But I continue to read, and listen to, arguments from all perspectives.
One I heard today is from journalist Mark Danner, author of Stripping Bare the Body, an exploration of the politics and violence he’s seen in three decades of reporting from conflict and war zones. He was a guest on Bill Moyers Journal.
MARK DANNER: I think it’s important to say this. One [of] the goals of 9/11 itself, of that attack, was to draw the United States into Afghanistan to fight a counterinsurgency as the Soviets had done before them. And like the Soviets, to destroy the remaining superpower. That was actually what they were thinking.
It’s one of the reasons why a major northern alliance leader was assassinated, was blown up a couple of days before 9/11. The anticipation was this would draw the United States in, and the United States would be defeated on Afghan soil.
The fascinating thing is that the Pentagon, of course, at the time in 2001 avoided this. They didn’t want a major ground involvement. They used air bombardment and Afghan allies on the ground. They’ve been much criticized for this. But, in fact, they were trying to avoid what is exactly happening right now, which is a major land involvement, which will become, in David Halberstam’s famous words, a quagmire.
BILL MOYERS: Well, you say our boys, our soldiers there are bait.
MARK DANNER: They are indeed. I mean, it’s fascinating when you look at what the procedures are. You have at the moment anyway a lot of quite small bases. You know, where you have 20, 40 soldiers. And they go out each day on patrol. It’s very difficult territory. Very often, these bases are at the bottom of valleys.
They go out on patrol, essentially trying to elicit or encourage what soldiers call contact, engagement. That is, people shooting at them. It’s the only way they can find the Taliban. So, they use themselves as bait. And then, hope to be able to respond. And they have an enemy who, you know, it’s their territory. They can blend into the population.
BILL MOYERS: Taliban.
MARK DANNER: Yes. And they’re extremely experienced. It’s a thankless, thankless job, I think for the soldiers.
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4 Responses to “Are American Soldiers Bait For The Taliban?”
Mark Danner is correct on the situation of small bases and the need for dangerous patrols.
Like you, Mr. Windish; I just don't know what we should do and I, too, am inclined to say we should stay. Afghanistan is not a nation in which we can “nation build”. The culture has no inkling of western culture in which to take root. The Afghani people are traders and have been as long as their history records. Presently, they have a very valuable commodity – opium. They will trade ANY valuable commodity – it's what they do. The west cannot barge in there and say, “your livelihood is wrong and we don't want you to do it anymore”. Those words are Greek to the Afghans.
Unless we step back and totally revamp the strategy, which I believe is happening now; we will never succeed in Afghanistan. Our strategy must include dealing with the opium trade based upon the Afghani perspective, not a puritanical western one.
I, too, feel sorry for the President on this one.
It's all about keeping Pakistan on the offense. We pull out of Afghanistan and Pakistan might back off their offense against the Taliban. Big mess then.
Well, we did the same thing in Iraq. We put our soldiers out on patrol in the hopes of drawing out the insurgents. I believe that changed with the surge. Instead of being bait, our soldiers were money men, paying the insurgents to stop shooting at us. It basically worked there…not so sure that can work in Afghanistan.
As far as drawing superpowers into Afghanistan to defeat them goes…the world is different now. The global economy is too intertwined. To “defeat” America, they would have to destroy the world economy. That is something only the American financial system can do.
It's not merely a matter of appeasing the far-left extremists (who want us to flee and to admit defeat and even that we were Wrong!) or looting the military to pay for “health care reform” and other pet projects. (In fact, Afghanistan is being delayed in part due to the need to get out of HUA mode and back in play on health care, back here at home.)
The overall problem remains: If we leave, we also leave a vacuum that the terrorists will fill from Pakistan (and who knows in what way also from Iran, possibly). Pakistan is the key but we're limited there, and any fall of the Pak government is likely to result in something worse.