CHRIS SEAMANS, of The Unilateral Commission, writes about Afghanistan: “While many Americans wouldn’t trust the United Nations to watch their worst enemy’s dog, that’s exactly who we’ve turned the difficult and important task of rebuilding the country over to. Is this wise?” That’s from this post on nation-building. Also read this earlier one on the same topic.
Something to think about. In a way, of course, the most important thing about Afghanistan is that bin Laden’s supporters (or maybe it was his tools) aren’t in power there any more, as this is the lesson most likely to be taken home by our target audience. On the other hand, there are real benefits to seeing our enemies transformed into friends, or at least not-enemies, over the long term.
I think it’s premature to call the Afghanistan efforts a failure. People forget that the Marshall Plan wasn’t applied to liberated territories while World War Two was still on — in fact, it wasn’t applied until some time after World War Two was over. This war is still on, and what’s happening in Afghanistan is, at the moment, less important than what’s about to happen in Iraq.
UPDATE: This New York Times article by Eric Schmitt is worth reading too, though the item on civilian casualties notes that “estimates” “range from several hundred to a few thousand.” The “few thousand” is, apparently, an oblique reference to the discredited Marc Herold study from last year. To read more about the problems with Herold’s numbers, read this summary by Bill Herbert, and this piece on Herold by the Statistical Assessment Service.
He’s no doubt sharpening his pencils to inflate Iraqi civilian casualties from the coming invasion, too. Heck, he may already have started adding up numbers, and you can be sure that his inflated estimates will be used by opponents of the war, who have already shown a blithe disregard for the truth in such matters. But as Chris Bertram noted:
Who said that only the “bad guys” would get killed? Who believed them if they did? I can’t recall anyone who said or believed any such thing. Those of us who thought (and think) that the Afghan war was just did so in the full knowledge that in any war innocents get killed.
Yes.
ANOTHER UPDATE: David Warren has some thoughts, too.