http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2009/11/how-the-us-funds-the-taliban-roston.html

“I am absolutely convinced and totally confident that with sufficient resources we can turn the situation around,” McCain told reporters at an international defense summit in easternmost Canada.

“I even am bold enough to predict that in a year to 18 months you will see success if the effort is sufficiently resourced and there is a commitment to get the job done before setting a date to leave the region,” he said.

That’s a real quote.

Afghanistan lacks access to the sea. Its location and topography makes it dry.
This is the primal source of its poverty and backwardness.
(See map: http://go.hrw.com/atlas/norm_htm/afghanis.htm — and NOTE: “Arable Land 12%” )

If you built a big canal through Afghanistan to the sea, it would open up the territory in more ways than one. But of course: which neighboring country wouldn’t object to having the canal go through its borders…

I do. It’s called “al Qaeda.” Al Qaeda and the Taliban are merged, not separate. The reason they’d keep messing with us is found in the doctrine of jihad. They can’t not mess with us if they want to keep their Islamic purity (according to them). At least until they’re defeated. Then there won’t be any Taliban or al Qaeda left to mess with anybody. I must note that I’m not talking about genocide. Don’t get on your high horse. There are more than one way to defeat an enemy besides “everybody dies.”

“I think we can deal with that through clearly displaying our big stick.”

Now you’re displaying your big stick? What’s going on here? Maybe you should go back to your self prostate massage…

AQ. Eventually they will either go north to Central Asia or to the Eastern Horn of Africa (as per the Michigan Somali connection). They will be a thing that just always has to dealt with.

But I wouldn’t equate them with other groups with more localized foci. As modernity keeps impinging, the Islamic world is going through something like what the West did with its rise into modernity. There were counter-modern movements (fascism and communism) that caused unbelievable damage.

Similarly there are counter-modern movements which will have to be contained as well as anarchist-like terrorism. On the positive side, there is already a strong international order within which this situation is arising. On the down side, with the fragmentation of the post-Cold War age, it’s also possible to connect to global economics and not really politically evolve.

These two are coming to a head. But I think over the long term horizon, we will continue to see Islamic countries evolve along the lines of Turkey, Indonesia, Malayasia, etc. But Afghanistan is very far from that position now.

Right now, the problem is a resurgent Taliban/al Qaeda. McChrystal has produced a strategy to deal with that, upon the instructions of the President, one must add. Once that problem is solved, then we can worry about what happens later. This is the basic flaw with the “exit strategy” aspect of Obama’s deliberations. If we produce an “exit strategy” then the enemy can simply wait us out. If we don’t, and we simply commit ourselves to defeating the Taliban/al Qaeda, then they can’t.

“The actual rule of groups like The Taliban and such would also collapse eventually.” So what? You could say that about any group, government, person, or thing in the world. That’s because entropy is a basic law of nature. Why cut your fingernails, after all? They’ll just grow back again.

“It already has–that is the point of The Failure of Political Islam. Political Islam (unlike communism or fascism) has not really ever had any heavy duty political success and has already failed after only a few decades in existence.”

You see it as a failure but I doubt that the jihadists see it that way. They’re a religious movement. They work on belief and faith. If they don’t have heavy-duty success today, that just means that they must redouble their efforts. They can’t quit before they’re defeated because that would defy their own religious beliefs. I’d like to see you defy your own religious beliefs in the face of whatever “reality” can offer before you ask other people to do it.

“This is technically not Islamism but rather neo-fundamentalism.”

Is this another gem from Oliver Roy? I doubt that you can explain the distinction to anyone’s satisfaction, or why it should matter in the first place.

“If you want to end the social movement, it happens economically first and then later politically-socially. Over a long period of time.”

Nazism was also a social movement. They provided services to the workers, etc etc. The trains ran on time. It ended when they were defeated militarily.

“Detente laid the groundwork for the re-integration of the Soviet satellite states when communism had fallen.”

This is a classic instance of the historical fallacy, or using hindsight to analyze history. That was not what either the proponents of détente or its opposition thought about it, needless to say. If it happened according to your reading, then this is just more support for my position—we can’t project into the future. Your reading is an instance of “unintended consequences,” not of the policy of détente itself.

What will the unintended consequences of a commitment to COIN in Afghanistan, and forty thousand new troops? If you can say with certainty, then you’re wasting your time writing on a blog. You should be out there teaching everyone else to see the future and making millions at it as well.

You are right that the Taliban per se are not an international group. But they have hosted, and very well might again, host al-Qaeda, which is an international terrorist movement. Don’t underestimate al-Qaeda. This year, according to the FBI, they infiltrated the Michigan Somali community, recruited 20 or so young Somali men and spirited them out of the country, apparently to fight us in Africa. Shrewdly, al-Qaeda did not recruit the men to fight here, and bring down heavy heat on Michigan. But they could just as well send another 20 into NYC during the upcoming trial of Kahlid Sheikh Mohammed & friends and unleash the Black Wind they have been promising us.

I just don’t see a scenario where we sit down and reason together with these people. Historically, the only tactic that has worked with militant Islam is to defeat their armies so badly in battle that we get years of peace before they are able to raise another army for the next generation to fight.

And now I leave my Manhattan office building two blocks from Ground Zero and head for home to the relative safety of Brooklyn.