Presence of U.S.and Western Troops Underpins Survival of Afghans

By Con George-Kotzabasis --A short reply to an American Liberal


The better question is, in my opinion, how many Afghans want the U.S. out and how many of them want the Taliban back in? That is where the “real argument’ lies. The fact is that there is a substantial number of Afghans that can only survive by the presence of U.S. and Western troops at this particular political and military juncture of the country.

To consider that this “flexing of its muscles” by the United States is for “empire” and not an ‘aggressive’ pre-emptive attack against an irreconcilable deadly foe is to be stuck in the rut of conventional leftist unimaginative thinking.

The Iraq Surge was not quantitative but qualitative. It was completely a new strategy that used the means of war imaginatively and remorselessly against the insurgents as well as baiting the latter with monetary incentives to switch sides or disarm. In war one has to use all means at one’s disposal creatively to subdue an enemy. In the toppling of the Taliban on November 2001, the CIA saturated the Northern Alliance with caches of money, military equipment, and intelligence that defeated the Taliban within forty days without any American troops fighting on the ground.

Bring The Afghan Tribal Chiefs Into The Loop Of The Poppy

By Con George-Kotzabasis

There is a great possibility of replicating the success of the Iraqi Surge in Afghanistan with the following economic-political-military strategy: To shift the estuary of the stream of revenue from narcotics from the Taliban’s and narco-lords’ mouths to the government mouth with the aim to feed the hungry mouths of the tribal chiefs of Afghanistan. That is, to nationalize the poppy industry and make the tribal chiefs of Afghanistan the direct equity holders of the income that accrues from the production of opium. Such a policy will create a powerful self-interest and lead to an Iraq like Tribal Chief’s awakening that will be more widespread and potent than the Iraqi one, since it will mobilize the whole country, through its tribal chiefs traditional political potency, against the Taliban and the narco-lords. Thus U.S. forces will not have to go to a wild goose chase of serendipity to get “their lucky break.” By bringing the tribal chiefs into the loop of the poppy, U.S. and Coalition strategy will place a noose around the neck of the Taliban and its al-Qaeda confederates.

This idea was floated by me in a paper of mine on October 2008