What We Don't Know About Afghanistan - #1533

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Please insert any other country into this entry, like Vietnam, Cambodia, Iraq or Iran, but this story is just another fine example of how little our leaders EVER really know about what they are doing. It goes without saying that this is also another fine story about how little WE know about how little our leaders know about what they are doing in other countries.

One of my favorite stories (that is true and on tape) like this one is from the Vietnam era. Just hours after LBJ really kicked off the Vietnam war, he asked his advisors if we had people on staff who actually knew anything about the Vietnamese people. There was dead silence.

So on that same note it was amusing to hear from General Patraeus (you know the hero of the surge) that recently, the US brought the current Afghan Vice President to speak to the people of Marja on the recent offensive there. The Vice President began to speak and when he was done, there was - dead silence. No one in the audience spoke the language that was just spoken. You should be speechless.

I of course am not because this did not surprise me in the least. It is Afghanistan, and most of our foreign military follies in microcosm.

Before you start looking for reasons why this wasn't so bad, let's be clear about a few things.

1) No one in OUR government understood the country enough to even wonder about this.

2) No one in THEIR westernized, puppet government new enough about the country to care about this.

3) No one in EITHER government noticed during the speech that this was going on and no one there even said anything until it was over. This means they weren't really interested in the first place. They know who and what this guy is all about - so what did it matter. He's the guy who is nothing like them who demands money from them at gunpoint (a US gun.)

So yeah, ha ha, what a silly mix up.

But really, if you didn't know certain things about Afghanistan you should now.

And here they are ...

1) The people who are in charge in the central federal government DO NOT represent the majority of rural people in Afghanistan.

2) We support those federal officials and so most people in Afghanistan DO NOT believe we are acting in their best interest.

3) Afghanistan is a much more complex place and multi-faceted problem then even our best leaders know about AND THIS IS ALMOST TEN YEARS AFTER WE FIRST GOT THERE!

3b. Yes that is maybe the most outrageous thing here - that this stuff STILL happens!

4) Because of 1-3b, whatever our strategy is, when we leave, things will resort to a situation we would today consider unacceptable, but then will consider just fine and a natural part of our victory.

5) For example, even though American deaths have declined dramatically, Iraqi's are killed by insurgents on a DAILY basis in numbers ranging from 10-50. Is that STABILITY?

So enjoy whatever good comes out of the media on Afghanistan. It is a mess, we don't really understand what we are doing there, and they really don't like or get this centralized, federal representative government thing. Go figure.

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