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More Troops in Afghanistan = Angrier Insurgents

Doesn't US remember how our country began? Or how Vietnam ended?

By Harry Kimball, Newser Staff

Posted Oct 22, 2009 9:56 AM CDT

(Newser) – The United States was born from a nationalist insurgency. “Given that history, you’d think we might be more sensitive to nationalism abroad,” writes Nicholas Kristof. “Yet the most systematic foreign-policy mistake we Americans have made in the post-World War II period has been to underestimate its potency.” It was true in Vietnam, in Latin America—and now in Afghanistan.

The Pashtun insurgency doesn’t appear to have responded favorably to the 21,000 troops we added earlier this year, Kristof writes in the New York Times. “It’s difficult to see why 40,000 more would help either.” There’s often a backlash when Pakistani troops meddle in Pashtun areas. “If Pashtuns react that way to Punjabis, why do we think they will react better to Texans?” The $10 billion to $40 billion a year needed for the surge could be better spent at home, Kristof writes—and not on spilling more American blood while “inflaming Pashtun nationalism.”

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Soldiers from the US Army's 118th Military Police Co., based at Fort Bragg, NC, take up positions at their combat outpost in the Jalrez Valley in Afghanistan's Wardak Province. (AP Photo)

Pakistani police officers. (AP Photo)

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My suggestion is that we scale back our aims, for Afghanistan is not going to be a shining democracy any time soon. We should keep our existing troops to protect the cities (but not the countryside). - Nicholas Kristof

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COMMENTS

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Showing 3 of 10 comments

Spudsy

Oct 22, 2009 7:05 AM CDT

I'm ready to make a deal with the Taliban. Give us the Al Qaeda leaders and you can have your crummy country back. The Taliban election was probably no more rigged than the recent Karzai election.

RogerMohajir

Oct 22, 2009 6:27 AM CDT

It is hard to be much further off in an analysis than Kristof is on this one. Pushtun nationalism is real, but it is not what our forces are fighting in Afghanistan. We are fighting people whose home has been occupied by foreign armies for almost eight years with no perceived benefit to them. There are two routes to take: either stop occupying them or provide some perceived benefit for the occupation. The average Afghan wouldn't know what "Pushtun nationalism" means. More than half of Afghans aren't Pushtuns. Of the roughly forty percent who are, they are likely to identify most strongly with their family, then their tribe, and only after that as "Pushtun." If they perceive our presence to be beneficial to their family, they aren't going to fight us out out of loyalty to the esoteric concept of Pushtun nationalism. If we leave, they are not going to celebrate by creating a Pushtun state. I appreciate that Kristof is simply trying to define the situation in Afghanistan in terms that he understands, but they simply don't apply.

Dr.Y.Dino

Oct 22, 2009 5:13 AM CDT

In similar news, Leftist Liberals cut law enforcement budgets because all these arrests are pisssing off gang members. The money could be better spent by ACORN to help the victims find new housing in areas with lower crime rates.

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Afghanistan • Taliban • Pakistan • troop surge • US military • Pashtun • nationalism • insurgency • Nicholas Kristof

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More Troops in Afghanistan = Angrier Insurgents