I posted this at Smart Influence blog a few minutes ago. http://smartinfluence.blogspot.com/2009/08/wading-into-safe-haven-debate.html

I am not a part of the 51 percent of Americans who apparently no longer think the war in Afghanistan is not worth fighting. Then again the public also approves of President Obama's handling of the war to date; I find myself in the minority of both groups. I believe that we should be in Afghanistan, but only if we develop a realistic and achievable desired end state and a strategy to accomplish that mission.

Over the last few days several foreign policy blogs have been discussing a line from President Obama's speech to the VFW, “If left unchecked, the Taliban insurgency will mean an even larger safe haven from which al Qaeda would plot to kill more Americans." Realist scholar Stephen Walt argued in six points that leaving Afghanistan (presumably immediately) would not create more of a safe haven for terrorists bent on attacking the United States, that it is not fundamental to our survival as a nation, and thus that Afghanistan is not a "war of necessity." He was then "slammed" by, among others, Peter Bergen, Paul Cruickshank, and Spencer Ackerman.
The thing is, while I don't agree with everything he is saying, Walt has a valid point. Would leaving Afghanistan create a safe haven for al-Qaeda? Probably, because either the Taliban would take over or Afghanistan would be come what is referred to as an "ungoverned space."

The first problem is, al-Qaeda already have a safe haven: the ungoverned space on the Pakistan side of the border. Has any analyst or policymaker been so bold as to propose that either the United States or Pakistan will be able to tame and rule the mountainous tribal areas? No power in history has been up to the task. Functioning countries on both sides of the border along with continued drone flights would contain the problem, and that is a valid, and hopefully achievable, goal, but totally eliminating a mountainous maze as a safe haven won't happen. Bergen points out that the 2005 London subway bombings, the 2006 liquid bombs on planes plot, and others were plotted in Pakistan, all while surrounded by thousands of U.S. and allied troops. Eliminating every nook and cranny along the Durand Line is just as difficult as eliminating every nook where a cockroach could be hiding in your house.

A second problem, which some of the commenters acknowledge and then ignore, is that many other ungoverned spaces exist, including Somalia and Yemen, that can and do serve just as well as terrorist bases and training areas. And in a modern, globalized, interconnected world safe havens in ungoverned or welcoming countries aren't necessary. Sure several of the 9/11 hijackers trained in Afghanistan, but they also spent significant time plotting, training, and waiting in Hamburg, Cairo, and Florida (is Florida an ungoverned space? It's easy to get and practice with guns and other weapons there, and parts of it certainly have religious fanatics...).

I don't believe we should withdraw from Afghanistan, although without a real strategy we are simply treading water. We need to set a realistic and achievable goal and figure out a plan to achieve it. The President is right, leaving now would result in an "even larger safe haven," but staying won't eliminate one completely, nor should that be the goal. I don't agree with Walt that we should leave, but he should not be attacked for pointing out that the idea of "safe havens" is not enough of a reason to stay.

from recent history: Z. Brzezinski answering to French journalist's questions about US involvement in Soviet Afghan war:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/BRZ110A.html

Q: Despite this risk, you were an advocate of this covert action. But perhaps you yourself desired this Soviet entry into war and looked to provoke it?

B: It isn't quite that. We didn't push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.

Q: When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting that they intended to fight against a secret involvement of the United States in Afghanistan, people didn't believe them. However, there was a basis of truth. You don't regret anything today?

B: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter. We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.

Q: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic fundamentalism, having given arms and advice to future terrorists?

B: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?

In my short comment at Berger's post. If you want some more material, check out the Washington Monthly article, it has some doozies. Also, don't forget Paul Cruickshank. He would feel left out if you don't include him.

BTW, a comment or two from you on these threads would definitely improve the forum. Attracting enough quality commenters would deter the repeat retreads like Iqbol above (who seems to be BurningCrome from Tuesday).

Keep it real - Norwegian Shooter

I agree with what you say at the end. I hope I have this correct---would another way to make your point would be to say something to the effect that we cannot learn or refuse to learn how to facilitate joint political ventures with political leaders in places like Afghanistan?

If we are going to protect or enhance our interests in Central Asia, we need to learn how to compete with the Chinese and even with Russian organized crime. We need to decide upon our role in promoting the basic functions of political penetration, recruitment, interest articulation and coalition building within peasant communities and within the patronage political factions.

Many Afghans know how to do these things, but we need to spend many hours of hard thinking and discussion with Afghans if we are ever going to learn how to help stabilize the region and protect our interests.

I have to wonder if Americans will go to the trouble of learning the language and even learning to think and ponder in ways that the Afghans think and ponder.

Bob Spencer

I strongly suspect that the Obama administration's efforts in Afghanistan are mainly driven by external political aims and agendas, having little to do with Afghanistan itself, or worries about safe havens. Here are just a few of the political considerations, off the top of my head:

Insurance Policy: If, heaven forbid, there is another significant terrorist attack on the United States, Obama wants to be seen as having taken the fight to the jihadists. At least some of the perpetrators of another attack are bound to have some connection with Afghanistan somewhere. (Of course they are also likely to have some connection with Saudi Arabia and/or Yemen and/or Somalia, yet no one is proposing invading those countries at the moment.)

Saving Face: Obama made a big deal out of his claim that the reason the US must withdraw from Iraq is to redeploy the soldiers into “the real fight” in Afghanistan. If he now withdraws from Afghanistan, opposition tongues will wag and charge bad faith. They will also say that the suspiciously swarthy Barack Hussein Obama has gone wobbly on the Great Global Muslim Threat.

Bargaining Position: One of the reasons Obama says we need to negotiate with Iran is to win their assistance in the war against the Taliban. If he stops the war against the Taliban, he takes away one of his reasons for moving forward on diplomacy with Iran.

Fear of the Militant Right: Obama might be worried about the rise of right-wing militancy and radicalism in the United States, and impact of the return to the US of many thousands of angry, frustrated, radicalized soldiers, especially if they are coming home from two very iffy wars with very ambiguous and unsatisfying outcomes. He may feel a need to give the armed forces a big win in Afghanistan in order to fend off Weimar-style social mutiny.

Keeping Up Appearances: Many liberals supported the attack on Afghanistan in 2001. For some of the more fussy among them, the assault was only justified if it was about eliminating safe havens and training bases for good, and pulling out the “root causes” of terrorism by putting in some kind of state-building social reconstruction fix. But everyone else knows that the attack was really punitive, and primarily aimed at extracting payback by killing some of the folks who were engaged in jihad against the United States, including their hapless and backward “state sponsors”, the Taliban. Such liberals have put themselves in a position of holding that we have to finish the job, or lose the redemptive justification for the war they supported.

I have been quiet because I have be plowing through the publicly available information on 9/11 and Arab Jihadism.

It is far from clear that Bin-Ladin and al-Qa`ida have really committed the terrorist acts ascribed to them.

Unlike most of the alleged experts whether a journalist like Lawrence Wright or foreign policy wonk Peter Bergen, I actually read Arabic.

I also have been studying Jewish Zionist transnational politics for twenty years.

In order to marginalize growing Western Muslim populations, the Zionist intelligentsia has desperately been trying to fabricate the bogey man of a centralized Islamic terrorist organization even though the terror attacks like the those on the African embassies, the USS Cole and 9/11 have been relatively low-tech and relatively inexpensive with no real need for an organization like al-Qaeda to plan and to organize them.

I can understand why al-Qaeda might want to take credit for the attacks (it's good for fundraising).

Yet the Arab Jihadist smoking gun simply isn't there while the construction of the Zionism-serving official story has involved far too many Jewish Zionist Islamophobes to take seriously without first investigating the pre-conceived notions of government officials or consultants like Steven Emerson, Matthew Levitt, Rachel Ehrenfeld, Daniel Pipes, Douglas Feith, David Wurmser, Richard Perle, the AJCommittee, the ADL, and many others.

There is a good possibility that the USA has been conned bigtime by Zionist subversives, among whom Peter Bergen should probably be counted if only because he flings around accusations of anti-Semitism as randomly as any Zionist Neocon.

In the globalized world with globalized cash flows, blowing up a genocide-supporting Zionist anywhere on the planet is no different from blowing up a Nazi anywhere in occupied Europe during the 1940s, and realists must reject the sort terminological promiscuity in which Bergen indulges.

I would really like to see a good cash accounting of money flows and beneficiaries of shoveling 100s of billions of dollars into attacking al-Qaeda in the AfPak region.

I am fairly certain that US subsidies (not foreign aid) to the State of Israel are running at approximately $100 billion/year.

Here is my summary that tries to analyze the political situation from the standpoint of domestic and transnational politicsl considerations: Collision: Jewish-Zionist, Arab-Islamic Transnational Politics.

I gave a shot at responding to the other AfPak Channel post rebutting you.

And a plea: I'm not suggesting censoring comments like JoachimCSMartillo's, but if you read your comments and respond now and again, you would attract a community of readers who would encourage more relevant comments. Your writing is excellent, so it is a shame to let the comments go untended.

For someone in government, commentary that merely "raises questions" must also raise eyeballs. For the Obama administration to actually change its Afghanistan policy to reduce its cost relative to its benefit, it needs an alternative: not questions but answers.

Walt would undoubtedly object to having his view of the threat of renewed al Qaeda-organized, Afghanistan-based terrorism described as the "don't worry, be happy" position. He has not, after all, urged us not to worry; he hasn't said the threat isn't a big deal and is not worth doing anything about, he's only raised questions. Worst-case assumptions -- well, aren't they unproven? Wouldn't the Taliban leadership react to an American withdrawal by resuming their role as al Qaeda's hosts? -- Well, do we know for certain that they would? If Walt's questions turn out to be the wrong ones or to have answers radically different from those he thinks they do, he hasn't risked anything. He also hasn't helped anyone in a position of responsibility to find the right course.

Now, he might end up being ignored anyway if he was more straightforward. If Walt were to eschew the questions and simply say we didn't need to worry that much about the al Qaeda threat; that we needed to abandon the NATO mission in Afghanistan and leave the Afghans working with us to fend for themselves; and that we'd not only not see a resurgence of al Qaeda resulting from this but would earn ourselves gratitude from the Muslim world -- if he said all that, he might find himself ignored, or what is worse looking like an idiot if his advice were taken and turned out to be wrong.

My attitude is that this is just life; if you're outside government offering advice to people inside, you either try to be helpful or you don't. It's their job that matters, not yours.

Personally, I am not sure that the al-Qaeda threat is anything more than Jewish-Zionist marketing hype.

I analogize the superstar terror-band status of al-Qaeda to the superstar rock-band status that Jewish marketeers have been so adept at creating in the music industry.

Yet I notice that the progressive left may be waking up: [wvns] Should the left call for Taliban victory?

Because I analyze in terms of E. European-style conspiracy and subversion and not within a Lobby framework, I have to note the pattern of Jewish Zionist domination that afflicts both the US government and the socialist anti-imperialist anti-US left.

that whining will get it, as things worsen for everyone.

The desire to discuss fundamental premises of the War on Terror is increasing throughout the country. Here are some of my thoughts on the subject: In Re: [Stephen Walt] Safe Haven (2): A response to Peter Bergen.

Why are we in Afghanistan?
By David Skrbina
Saturday, 08.22.2009

As we approach the eight-year anniversary of the war in Afghanistan — the "good" war — we should ask ourselves an embarrassingly simple question: Why are we there? Amidst talk of troop levels, suicide bombings, coalition casualties, and "democratic" elections, more fundamental questions arise. How did we get there? What are we doing? What do we hope to achieve? These salient points are rarely verbalized and never honestly answered. But only by investigating such questions can we truly understand what is happening in that distant land, and by extension, how things work here at home.

[To read the entire article, click here.]