But Juan Cole has some excellent advice for Obama on the Afghanistan War in his article, Obama is saying the wrong things about Afghanistan Salon 07/23/08:
... Obama's pledge to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan will not be easy to fulfill. While coalition troop deaths have declined significantly in Iraq, NATO casualties in Afghanistan are way up. By shifting emphasis from Iraq to Afghanistan, would a President Obama be jumping from the frying pan into the fire? ...If Obama as President escalates the war by adding more troops to the circa 33,000 American troops already in Afghanistan, or if Bush does it before Obama takes office, I would hope Obama and his advisers would take a cold-eyed, realistic look at the results when the overall violence increases after the "surge".
Before he jumps into Afghanistan with both feet, Obama would be well advised to consult with another group of officers. They are the veterans of the Russian campaign in Afghanistan. Russian officers caution that Afghans cannot be conquered, as the Soviets attempted to do in the 1980s with nearly twice as many troops as NATO and the U.S. now have in the country, and with three times the number of Afghan troops as Karzai can deploy. Afghanistan never fell to the British or Russian empires at the height of the age of colonialism. Conquering the tribal forces of a vast, rugged, thinly populated country proved beyond their powers. It may also well prove beyond the powers even of the energetic and charismatic Obama. In Iraq, he is listening to what the Iraqis want. In Pakistan, he is simply dictating policy in a somewhat bellicose fashion, and ignoring the wishes of those moderate parties whose election he lauded last February. (my emphasis)
Tags: afghanistan war, juan cole
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