The Moral Side of War: The Rubber Meets the Road in Afghanistan

Today’s Bloggers’ Roundtable featured Major General Robert W. Cone, in charge of the Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan. [For the full audio of this interview, go to: http://www.defenselink.mil/Blogger/Index.aspx ] His effort there is the same as the anti-terrorist effort everywhere–from Afghanistan to Iraq to the campaign headquarters of Barak Obama: to persuade the locals to stand and fight, support and volunteer for their militaries, inform on the IED emplacers and jihadist cells, in sum, to create the security conditions that will allow economic development to root and grow. As one might infer from MG Cone’s comments, the next six months may tell the tale in Afghanistan. The weather turns warm and the Taliban, unable to operate during Afghanistan’s harsh winter, are expected to gather and fight. This year there will be more and (one hopes) better trained Afghan National Army (ANA) units there to meet, engage and destroy them.

Although only the most naive fools somehow believe that an immediate withdrawal from Iraq will produce “peace,” even such fools are spared that delusion in Afghanistan. The world knows exactly what to expect in the wake of a Taliban victory. During the Taliban’s five years of running Afghanistan, the world was given a preview of the marvels of an Islamic Caliphate: the virtual enslavement of women, a Pol Pot/Khmer Rouge banning of Western technology of any kind, and the minute regulation of its citizens that even a Stalin or Hitler would envy. Multiculturalism is the more easily praised the further it is from one’s own door.

The moral question is this: what is America’s responsibility to a nation that refuses to mount its own defense? Increasingly in Iraq and Afghanistan, more effective militaries, police, and private militia groups are being formed to undertake this job. Truly, one of the (many) great tactical mistakes of the Bush administration in waging war in both Iraq and Afghanistan was its naive belief (and the retailing of same to the public) that building an effective foreign army (”to stand up” in current parlance) would take the same amount of time as building a fort from Leggos. Not so.

General Cone is hopeful that this year the ANA, local cops and others will distinguish themselves in killing some bad guys and pacifying others. And given the fact that the under the Taliban, Afghanistan served as a virtual aircraft carrier for launching various jihadis, we can only wish them well.

A note: I will be in Afghanistan for the month of May, and will be blogging daily here under “Afghan Journal.”