As Daniel's co-blogger, I will be wading into these murky waters very soon. Expect foreign involvement in Afghanistan to be a recurring subject on this blog.

Thanks David S for the additional detail and Mike for the clarification; I should have been a little more specific on Rory Stewart.

A few weeks ago I heard Stewart speak at the US Senate Foreign Relations committee hearing in Washington. Aside Biddle (moderate) and Nagl (escalation), Stewart, as head of the moderately liberal Harvard-Carr Center on Human Rights, was the only one representing the other views (withdrawal, human rights-based approach, anti-colonial, anti-occupation, realistic goal-setting, local participation and responsibility).

True, he had more of a Kerry/Feingold "new isolationism" argument than a true dove, but I have since heard many progressives championing exactly the strategy he put forward. We're all getting out of our boxes these days; hard to categorize anyone in this kind of war. 

If the U.S. were to call a cease fire the onus would then be on the Taliban to end their violent, terrorist tactics. If the U.S. were to call a cease fire it would send a message to the people of Afghanistan and the rest of the world that we choose the path of peace, not more war. Caling a cease fire would not mean troops would need to be withdrawn. It would mean a change in the mission of the troops to develop rather than destroy. In fact an increase in troops might be recommended.

If the U.S. were to call a cease fire it would likely be unilateral at first but the U.S. could emerge as leadership for ending this war. Calling a cease fire is the strategy that makes sense. It is the winning strategy. 

I'd be inclined to agree with you, Brenda, but the difficulty lies in yor observation that any U.S.-declared ceasefire "would likely be unilateral at first." How many successful unilateral ceasefires can you remember ever happening? I can't recall a single one, though that may be a function of my advancing years rather than historical reality.

Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich has it right when he says that United States foreign policy must shift to a position where war is never the answer and is always unthinkable. From that perspective, we must begin a reasonable withdrawal process from Afghanistan despite the likelihood that an oppressive Taliban regime will result. Fighting oppression with violence is a losing proposition because we and the other side are fighting for completely disparate and often contradictory reasons.

I was against it when George Bush decided to intervene in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Both are a modern day Viet Nam.  Isolationism and non-intervention are clearly two very different philosophies. And where you have a theocracy capable of ruling, you can expect zealots to come in with a reign of terror.  I'm glad I live in the USA! 

It's about time so-called 'liberals' realised the only thing prolonging the NATO occupation of Afghanistan accomplishes is to get more people killed and prolong the effect of the eventual Taliban victory which has been inevitable since the Taliban cemented their hegemony over the anti-occupation movement...... and that the latter is the main reason the occupation still continues - the prime movers of the Western ruling class understand that they will eventually be able to start making business deals with the Taliban at the expense of the Afghan people again, whereas that would not be an option in the case of a democratic Afghanistan, so they know it's in their interests to give as much long-term stability as possible to the eventual re-establishment of the Taliban regime. The best thing anyone who genuinely wants to help the Afghan people attain freedom can do is campaign for an end to the occupation before the hold of the Taliban on the fabric of Afghan society becomes any firmer as a result of continued struggle against a common enemy.

Very interesting perspective, Alan. If you're right -- and I realize there's a fair amount of what feels like bombastic rhetoric in your post, which doesn't mean it's not true or important -- then this is a major discussion point that I'm not seeing raised anywhere else. The idea that our continued occupation has the ultimate effect of further integrating Taliban into the controlling position of Afghan society is frightening...and somehow manages to ring true to at least THIS old liberal.

Thanks for sharing and if you have any Web references to your notions here, I'd love to see them.

Your not thinking about the incredible bloodbath the Taliban will wreak on the population. Remember Kosovo? Remember the rapes and tortures, remember we had to go in to stop it? Think about being a woman if we withdraw. Literally cut off from every human interaction except the one with their husband. If one is lucky there is another woman in the household. The Taliban will take eveything thats takable including food. So now your a woman starving in her home with her husband and mother-in-law. Pretty soon your husband is killed. You hid in the rafters when they came in the house and raped your motherinlaw to death. You set out walking in the middle of the night, falling to the ground if you saw or heard anything. You walk for 3 weeks, a little food given in secret by people living in the country, some water in a bottle. You lose 40 lbs. One day out of nowhere came 4 Tailban, young men, and killed you for being outside.

What a wonderfully thought-provoking and thoughtful discussion this has engendered. Alan, your last comment definitely has me thinking that perhaps -- but only perhaps -- a unilateral cease-fire might have some positive effect in this situation. If we reduced death and violence by doing so but by maintaining some military presence we keep the Taliban guessing maybe it would result in less a strong toe-hold for them.

I must say, however, that another thought that keeps intruding here for me is that we as Westerners and particularly as Americans have zero appreciation for or understanding of the cultural issues at the base of so much of what makes situations like the one in Afghanistan tick. We impose our Western moralilty, which we know to be superior *because* it is ours, and attempt to enforce it by military might. Even when we are more objectively "right" I wonder about the cost to us and to the "other side" of such imposition. There are no easy answers here for sure, but one thing does seem clear to me: throwing more American lives in harm's way is decidedly *not* a viable policy. I hope Obama has the courage to see that and to stabilize or reduce troop levels.

The Taliban are NOT a threat to the US. Sure they are simetimes a religious, narrow-minded, bigoted, zenophobic, male chauvantistic, discriminatory and aggressive ideologues, but then so are some neocon Republicans. And sure, there are times when it looks as though the Neocons might take over America, and it might even be tempting to have a foreign invader come and rescue us from the said Neocons, but actually, it's no other nation's business.

Al Qaeda are now operating in force in Pakistan, Yemen and Sudan. Spending billions war in Afghanistan may temporarily remove the Taliban (nothing in Afghanistan is permanent), but ultimately, it won't make America safer or Afghanistan more democratic.

Even though I agree completely with what you said, Francine, the underlying implication that the U.S. never has a right to intervene in an international situation except when its selfish interests, rather than human rights, e.g., are at stake, is one that doesn't have a lot of sympathy or support.

For certain *I* tend to agree with it from a purely pacific point of view, but it's not a widely held position and not a winning argument in this discussion, I suspect.

Thanks for this discussion about reducing violence in Afghanistan. Thought I'd weigh in again. Of course I'm not necessarily a top expert on forging peace, but I did work on the ground in Afghanistan twice briefly and served stateside in the US military...

On a US-led ceasefire - This sounds great; but as a cautious progressive I do think this would be a rally cry for the Taliban and Al Qaeda, which is even more couched with them than ever yes partly due to the US presence, to incease, not decrease attacks. A reborn US could at least restrain from new advances, but would still have to defend population centers which would require defensive fire in the least (see Una's blogs on the recent UN attack). So I'd say good thought but strategy needs more detail...?

On Taliban not being a threat to the US - In 1996-7 this was true, but insofar that they began to encourage Al Qaeda to train in its areas, have dinner with the leadership, etc, they became a threat to the US, EU, Spain, India, Algeria, Kenya, Tanzania, Somalia, Yemen, and pretty much anyone who's now been bombed by Al Qaeda's grantees. So if the Taliban re-takes power, Al Qaeda will very likely be their guests at the victory party. The Taliban will take their money, then turn their eyes as Al Qaeda reviews the latest bomb grant applications from the network...

I say this after an Afghan aid worker friend confirmed to me that even as his team presented the EU-led National Security Programme to local councils in the mountains this past year, several of them told him they'd have to get back to him after weighing the Al Qaeda presentation made a couple days later. I am not kidding...

On anti-colonialism - I agree the US presence bugs a lot of people and is part of the Taliban's propaganda. Even worse when the US accidentally killed civilians. But I'd think that it primarily angers ultra-conservatives, who are also angry about the existence of Arab Sat TV, Afghan wedding party halls, anything with a human image imprinted on it, women teachers, shaved men, Oprah (yes, Oprah is on ArabSat tv). Once the US is gone they will demand the end of women's participation, then demand...etc, etc...

The moderates and progressives we have partnered with recently and, I'd venture the majority of women, are deeply afraid of a US pullout for fear they will be executed (officials and women teachers), jailed (anyone who sold posters with women on them, recorded music, political info, Western magazines), expelled (Uzbeks and Tajiks who propped the ministries), or deeply ruined (anyone with a modern career or family goal)...

Could there be a role for a third party? Well ideally, it would be the Loya Jirga Afghan traditional council, with the EU or Japan running the background linking, and the Afghan security forces blocking the car bombers...not sure what other option there is if/when the US reduces its presence...

It would be easy to prevent the Taliban from taking over, given a strategy which aims at the source of their power.  The Taliban is not an indigenous ideological movement but a creation of the madrassas in Pakistan funded by the ISI (Pakistani Intelligence Service) in order to install a friendly government on Pakistan's northern border.  This was so it would not have to divert troops from the Kasmir where it is pursuing its cold war with India. 

Afghans hate the Taliban, but in a country with 40%-50% unemployment, starvation conditions, and a devasted agricultural base, the Taliban has grown successfully as a result of its ability to pay recruits a wage of $8-$10 a day, which is extremely attractive in this environment.  The Taliban are generally thugs who can ride into a village with money and guns and pay village elders for permission to operate, and recruit fighters to participate in attacks.

American soldiers are even calling them "the Ten Dollar Taliban" because they only fight for the $10 a day.

The way to withdraw troops without allowing the Taliban to take over is to break ordinary Afghan's dependence on Taliban opium money.  Immediatley start massive, labor-intensive road and drainage ditch jobs programs, to give an alternative source of income, and to draw fighters away from the lure of Taliban money.  Wait a few months to show we are acting in good faith with this new direction in policy, paying on a cash-for-work basis (cash paid at the end of the day or week), then announce a timeline for withdrawal.  The idea is to deliver positive "economic shock and awe" to the poorest Afghans.  It can be done, and our Afghan Marshall Plan Exit Strategy has details here:

http://jobsforafghans.org/summary.html

Then pay farmers for their opium crop and either burn it or turn it to legitimate uses (eg. the world has a shortage of morphine which is derived from opium.)  For the next year give them something else to grow and work projects to supplement income.

The Ten Dollar Taliban will abandon their commanders, sometimes killing them, as often the commaders are foreigners, not from the region.  The Ten Dollar Taliban will desert in droves.  Then announce a timeline for American withdrawal, and say troops are only here now for extra protection when you ask for it.  Make Karzai announce new elections next spring, since these were so flawed.

The problem isn't that Afghan security forces aren't ready to take over security.  It's that right now they see themselves as fighting for foreigners, so they keep abandoning their units.  Give them a stake in their country and follow through on some promises, so they feel they have something to defend.  They'll figure out a way to get rid of the Taliban, once they see their children being fed and kept warm, and they are putting away something for that fruit stand or bicycle parts shop.  Afghans are natural entrepreneurs.

It's really not so hard to make friends with Afghans.  Just don't come around with guns and start kicking down doors.  It is not an inherently conservative society.  In the Seventies, before the ISI-CIA financed rise of the Taliban, women were wearing mini-skirts in Kabul.

(The poster of this comment is director of the Afghan Marshall Plan Exit Strategy.  They were in Kabul this summer.  http://jobsforafghans.org )

JobsForAfghans.org sounds like a terrific idea. And the problem is not just the Taliban.  The U.S. is aligned with the Northern Alliance and warlords equally as bad as the Taliban.  Why do people on this forum only talk about the Taliban like they are worse?  Because they are only reading U.S. propaganda.  Read RAWA.org, watch videos of Afghans speaking for themselves on RethinkingAfghanistan.org.  "Love seeks not its own way" -- what is best for Afghans?

If Taliban recruits can be had for $10 a day, I say we pay them $11 and count it a deal.  Would be a whole lot cheaper than fighting a distance war. 

The Opium fields have GOT to be destroyed though.  Besides the drag on the human condition it represents, it funds most of the war for our opponents.  Pay the peasants for the crop and have THEM destroy it.  Tell them they will get better if they grow vegetables next time.  Buy the vegetables and sell them cheap to the villages.  All of this cheaper is than war.

Build schools where there are none.  Even if it is a culturally appropriate [Muslim] education, once people know a little history and can read, they are free and far less suceptible to political and religious lies.

How the Afghani women feel about it: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jodie-evans/delivering-a-message-to-o_b_326666.html

The best solution I've seen: http://www.google.com/search?q=jobs+for+afghans&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

ah it looks like Jobs for Afghans is already on here, WITH explanation! THank you! :)

The Only Thing Worse than a Prolonged Iraq War is a Saddam Hussein Victory

The Only Thing Worse than a Prolonged Vietnam War is a Viet Cong Victory

Sure, the opponents are bastards, but demonizing the opponents always has been and always will be, the justification for war. The intent is to put peace advocates on the defensive, putting them in the position of seeming to defend the obviously dastardly opponents. True peace advocates MUST take the position that war is not the way to solve problems, Taliban or otherwise.

Despite our admirable intent to oppose the Taliban, continued/escalated war will put us in the position of killing innocent people, and supporting a corrupt government. Anyway, if you asked me, Darfur is far more of a humanitarian crisis at the moment, and we can't get up the will to deal with that. For all the money we spend on war, effective long term solutions would be to spend money on education to provide alternatives to Taliban schools, particularly to educate women and provide economic opportunities; and money to create a sustainable economy to replace the heroin trade that fuels both the Taliban and the Karzai/warlord government. An educated and economically sustainable Afghanistan would mean that nobody would listen to extremists like the Taliban.

I am so greatly encouraged by the notion of a Marshall Plan-like approach to *ending* or *avoiding* war as opposed to a way to clean up a mess *after* a war. Bold, out-of-the-box thinking that I heartily applaud and will now go support wholeheartedly.

While I agree that opium crop destruction and school construction are important parts of the equation, I'm not sure how we as an invading force can play a constructive role there. Perhaps the US should spearhead and fund a UN effort to create the plan and stay out of its administration, at least on the ground in Afghanistan. But I'm sure there are wiser heads than mine on this subject. I believe we really need to get behind  http://jobsforafghans.org/summary.html

The realilty is: we cant let go of the pipeline corridors from the Caspean.  Bush wouldnt.  Neither will Obama. 

Its not about the Taliban, the Afgans or any other altruistic nonsense.  You know I'm right.

Right now those in the halls of power are solidly of the Change.org political stripe.  Forget Cheney/Bush, Blackwater, the Paultards and the tea-baggers.  They dont count for spit at the moment. 

Should we imagine that the Obama administration hasnt thought of the good-guy Marshall Plan approach? 

It appears after a year, the Obama administration is leaning toward the Cheney-esque kill-em-all foriegn policy approach.  Maybe its because the Afghans and muslims in general lump us in with Israel so strongly that they will hate us forever too? 

Could it be that Obama has no choice but to kick a___ like Cheney/Bush?   We really cant let those pipelines go...unless we are willing to develop domestic offshore oil and tar sands(gasp).   

"Obama is every bit a servant of the ruling class." 

Have to agree, and are we really that surprised?  Obama answers upstairs just like his slow-witted predessessor.  The soaring hope-filled rhetoric gets him nothing up there. 

Sadly, our country is massively in debt.  If a business were so far in debt as the country...who would call the shots?   The CEO or its creditors?  Duh!   

We have to ask why do we imagine that the politcal left or the ultra right, this rascal or that SOB counts for anything....why dont we ever start talking about the creditors?  Who they are, what do they want? Did they screw us?  Stuff like that.   

Wow. A wide range of voices, if all in the peacenik and/or anti-colonial vein. Others should feel welcome to join in here. But let's definitely keep the discussion focused on the topic of progressive strategy recommendations for Afghanistan.

As Una mentioned, one of us will revisit strategy proposals like some of those here. And very importantly we'll try to include Afghan women and men in the discussion or have them guest blog.

I'm actually kind of surprised to see that there aren't more people writing in specifically to defend the rights of women in Afghanistan, all of whom would lose their jobs and schools, if not more, under another Taliban government.

Despite the many flaws of the Karzai adminstration and its allies among the traditional leadership, they are tremendously more willing to change and more willing to include women in society than the Taliban. I've seen it and met women who love the US because they've been able to build careers and participate in ways they could not from 1996-2001. The Taliban actually laments this in their own media.

Perfect timing. Everyone, please check out guest blogger Ahmad Shuja's comments on education as key in Afghanistan: http://war.change.org/blog/view/afghanistan_averting_the_loss_of_another_generation

Progressives (and Americans generally) have to get past the simple Vietnam versus "cut-and-run" choices offered by mass media pundits and party politicians. Staying and going both pose starkly horrible possibilities. Both options appear to offer long odds against working out to our advantage.

But, we are far from the only nation in the world with a stake in Afghanistan as this article by Barnett Rubin at the Center on International Cooperation written before last year's election (http://www.cic.nyu.edu/staff/rubinbio.html) shows. Afghanistan is surrounded by worried neighbors who helped us depose the Taliban. Since then, we've ignored or trampled on their interests in Afghanistan and thwarted offers to create international networks that would stabilize and legitimize the Afghan state. We have blundered along as if only American power can decisively influence events in Afghanistan. As long as we believe that, we are condemned to stay and fail.

We have to challenge other nations to step up, partly by stepping back. If America did nothing, other nations would not stay away - they would attempt to influence the outcomes as they are now. We don't need to do "nothing" or "everything" ourselves.

Progressives (and Americans generally) have to get past the simple Vietnam versus "cut-and-run" choices offered by mass media pundits and party politicians. Staying and going both pose starkly horrible possibilities. Both options appear to offer long odds against working out to our advantage.

But, we are far from the only nation in the world with a stake in Afghanistan as this article by Barnett Rubin at the Center on International Cooperation written before last year's election (http://www.cic.nyu.edu/staff/rubinbio.html) shows. Afghanistan is surrounded by worried neighbors who helped us depose the Taliban. Since then, we've ignored or trampled on their interests in Afghanistan and thwarted offers to create international networks that would stabilize and legitimize the Afghan state. We have blundered along as if only American power can decisively influence events in Afghanistan. As long as we believe that, we are condemned to stay and fail.

We have to challenge other nations to step up, partly by stepping back. If America did nothing, other nations would not stay away - they would attempt to influence the outcomes as they are now. We don't need to do "nothing" or "everything" ourselves.

Here is a concrete example of what President Karzai and the warlords allow and is widespread in Kabul (and which the Taliban would not do):

The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (http://www.aihrc.org.af/English/) has been fighting the centuries old tradition of bacha bazi," or "boy play," in which young boys are taken from their families, made to dance and used as sex slaves by powerful men. The number of boys involved is unknown -- the practice has been going on for centuries, in a country where such practices are overshadowed by conflict and war.

Watch the video and open your mind to why people might prefer the Taliban to President Karzai and the warlords, as truly misogynist and horribly hierarchical as they are. 
http://www.rawa.org/temp/runews/2009/10/27/ignored-by-society-afghan-dancing-boys-suffer-centuries-old-tradition.html

While I appreciate much of what's been said by Dawn and maybe others about the Taliban versus the Karzai Administration, I'm compelled to stand up here and say - having spent time on the ground in Afghanistan and Pakistan, met supporters of the Taliban, as well as the opposition - that it is simply unqualified to argue that the Taliban is preferrable to the Karzai administration in any basis of human rights standards.

We can agree in the strong possibility that people are committing vast human rights abuses in Karzai's government or in rural tribal communities. We could also agree, though fewer actually do, that the US and NATO are occupying or colonizing the country as opposed to a Western-interest partnership. But it simply does not follow to argue that because of this the Taliban is preferrable.

Remember that it is not Western propaganda but the Taliban themselves who have not only demonstrated - publicly - from 1996 to 2001 but also announced their intention to 1) Execute political opponents, foreign aid workers, homosexuals, adulterers, and women accused of spending time with men not related to them (discussions like this may qualify), 2) Ban women from schools, businesses, and professions as well as any public display of individuality, and 3) Ban any technology including recorded music, videos, any pictures of the human image, etc. The sources on Salafi Islamic law are all over the internet, but better to consult your closest Afghan or Saudi friend. The Taliban's version is much more harsh than that of Saudi Arabia.

The result of Taliban Salafist policy is that not only is half the population forbidden from participating in society outside the home, but also the loss of half the workforce leads to agricultural depression and from that economic failure as we all saw happen there in the late 1990s. So in addition to the political repression, there will likely be - according to logic and scores of UN data - a sky rocket in child and maternal mortality due to education related lack of illness prevention and agriculture failure related malnutrition.

When I was in Kabul, Panjshir, Mazar, Kunduz, Kholm, and Pul-e-Khumri in 2004 and again in Kabul in 2009, I met women running businesses, working freely on the streets. The markets, despite security issues, are bustling with useful goods made locally and from Asia. Women had begun to serve in the parliament. Most importantly, I met a tremendous woman leader who was running a think tank at Kabul University and with her female staff was helping to revolutionize the agricultural situation in a time of national hunger brought on by the Taliban's anti-female and anti-techonology policies.

If the Taliban comes back to power, these women will have to flee for their lives. The Taliban already announced that they will kill people who were funded by the West, and have already done so on many occasions. When I was there in 2004, the Taliban took credit for executing three women teachers as a warning to all females to stay at home. They also took credit for executing five Doctors without Borders staff and seventeen Chinese road workers that month. In 2009, while I was there, the Taliban took credit for a team of bombers who stormed three government buildings and blew themselves up two neighborhoods down from where I was staying.

Criticize the Karzai Administration, the elders, even the Obama Administration for allowing human rights abuses. But it is simply shortsighted to use that as evidence that the Taliban is a better option.

Feel free to continue this dicussion and/or counter what I've written here. But I would like to move it to two other posts. On the women's issue, take a look at Una's recent post at http://war.change.org/blog/view/the_danger_of_rewriting_history_in_afghanistan

On US/NATO strategy recommendations, I'll do my best to recap those posed here and add a few new questions in a new post in the next day or two. Peace.

I urge people to read "Remember the Women," an excellent analysis in The Nation by Ann Jones, author of "Kabul in Winter."  www.thenation.com/doc/20091109/jones/single

Here is an excerpt:

...while men plan the onslaught of more men, it's worth remembering what "normal life" once looked like in Afghanistan, well before the soldiers came. In the 1960s and '70s, before the Soviet invasion--when half the country's doctors, more than half the civil servants and three-quarters of the teachers were women--a peaceful Afghanistan advanced slowly into the modern world through the efforts of all its people. What changed all that was not only the violence of war but the accession to power of the most backward men in the country: first the Taliban, now the mullahs and mujahedeen of the fraudulent, corrupt, Western-designed government that stands in opposition to "normal life" as it is lived in the developed world and was once lived in their own country. What happens to women is not merely a "women's issue"; it is the central issue of stability, development and durable peace. No nation can advance without women, and no enterprise that takes women off the table can come to much good.

______

Afghanistan is a quagmire. We need an exit strategy. Want to work for that? Help create a storm of protest in Congressional districts. For info, visit http://bit.ly/HFek2

Perhaps everyone would be interested in reading the text of a speech recently delivered by Malalai Joya. It's posted on The Mantle here: http://www.mantlethought.org/content/voice-crying-afghanistan

A little about Malalai Joya:

Malalai Joya is one of Afghanistan's leading democracy activists. In 2005, she became the youngest person ever elected to the Afghan parliament. She was suspended in 2007 for her denunciation of warlords and their cronies in government. She has just written her memoir, A Woman Among Warlords: The Extraordinary Story of an Afghan Woman Who Dared to Speak Out (Scribner, 2009).

Cheers.