Why Joe Biden's War Plan Spells the Re-Birth of Al Qaeda

Photo: Newscom

Because you can chase the pests out of Afghanistan and into Pakistan all you want, but unless Obama really wants to clean up the world's most decrepit apartment, the parasites are just going to come back. A call for continued nation-building.

Continue reading this week's World War Room column at Esquire.com.

Comments

[Dan Hare]

a few years ago I read an article... as I recall it was some brass over the National Guard who indicated that there are actually more deaths of service people stateside than during the Iraq war. Seems like some 800 was the number. I don't think that info is very easily accessible, but it would be an interesting to contrast and compare the 'death' in those terms and also in relationship to past wars....

[Ted O'Connor]

The recent attacks inside Pakistan are disturbing. Why do the terrorists think that these attacks will not result in a unified government effort to confront the militants? Is Pakistan weaker than we have been led to believe? Do the militants have enough "inside" support to actually destabilize the government? I canot accept the theory that the attacks have been launched simply to "punish" the army for it's vigorous field operations. Perhaps it is my "Western" mindset, but the attacks seem self defeating. I do know that we Americans are not doing enough to prepare our future leaders for the global battle against Islamic terrorism. This is not going away. No one is goig to sit down on a battleship and sign a surrender document. We will not joyous crowds in Times Square. This is as close to a "Forever War" as we are going to get. The boy in the balloon will be fighting them somewhere in a decade or so...if he survives the care of his looney parents.

[Dave Porter]

I like the idea of asking the regional powers to share in the effort. As you say, they get the “treasure.” I hope Obama is now doing that - asking them what they are willing to do in the context of telling them that if they do not do enough, the US will phase out. If Al-Qaeda comes back to Afghanistan, we can deal with them. But there is also the good chance that the Taliban will remember why they are not still governing Afghanistan – they harbored and would not give up Al-Qaeda.

[Mark in Texas]

If we are going to try to build a nation in Afghanistan, what we need to do is create an economy other than narcotics production that is connected to the rest of the world. An economy is more important than schools because educated people who can't find jobs will just move away.

Even though Afghanistan is one of the poorest places on earth, you can't build factories there where Afghans make cheap clothes and sneakers because Afghans are horrible employees. They are illiterate, violent, easily insulted and they hold grudges forever. Agriculture is not a long term solution for exports since anything they grow in Afghanistan can be grown cheaper and easier somewhere else.

About the only area where Afghanistan offers a unique economic advantage is its location. If Afghanistan had an adequate transportation infrastructure, it would permit goods to be shipped between China and Europe without going through Russia. Building up Afghanistan's transportation infrastructure would also help the government in Kabul to extend its writ to the rest of the country in a credible fashion.

While crossing Afghanistan with paved roads would be an improvement over the current situation, a set of railroads from Kabul to each of Afghanistan's neighboring country border would be necessary to really make Afghanistan work as a transportation resource.

Once the railroads are in place, Afghanistan's neighbors, including China, will have a vested interest in keeping the place from descending into the kind of Mad Max world of anarchy that happened in the 1990s after the United States and USSR lost interest. Once powerful neighbors have an economic interest in Afghanistan functioning, American presence will no longer be required to prevent it from becoming the kind of place where al Qaeda can flourish again.

[Louis Heberlein]

'parasites are just going to come back'

So, use the right type slow poisoned food that their ruler likes?

[rblx]

Dave,

I remember hearing that the Talaban offered to hand Bin Laden over to a neutral 3rd party (implying the Hague) for trial and that the Bush administration rejected the idea. I don't know if that was true, but if it was…

[David Sutton]

Ted - no I'm no expert in Pakistan but from my limited understanding things there seem to exist in a dual focus sort of way. Those sections of the government that actively support or at least fail to curtail support for certain terrorist structures have emboldened those same terrorist structures to commit acts of violence safe in the understanding that they won't be targeted.

Until that dual focus, one one hand support for the US led action against Islamic terrorist structures vs overt/covert support for those groups, ceases I don;'t see things getting better. And I agree, I don't think the recetn attacks were simply a punishment. I see them more as a rallying call, a statment that says to all involed that " we are here, we are so well supported that we have no fear of you, that we can infact act agaist a government that contains enough support for us that we will recive no punciment.

Worrying indeed.