This article caught my eye…
Plan AfghanistanThe "Experts" are Wrong
Why the Colombia model -- even if it means drug war and armed rebellion -- is the best chance for U.S. success in Central Asia.
Strange though it may sound, success in Afghanistan would look a lot more like the success that has been achieved in Colombia over the last 10 years, rather than the success that we are hoping for in Iraq. (FP – Plan Afghanistan)
Every now and then I stumble across “experts” discussing issues that I have unique insight into. This is one of them. I’ve deployed to Afghanistan and I’ve deployed to Colombia, so I know what I’m talking about here. To put it bluntly, Paul Wolfowitz and Michael O'Hanlon are full of shit and nobody in their right mind should listen to them.
Afghanistan is not Colombia, and what worked in Colombia will not work in Afghanistan, for a host of reasons.
The Colombian conflict, sparked by “El Bogotazo” back in 1948, eventually spawned the armed communist rebel organization known as FARC. Through all of the violence, Colombia has continued to be an intact country, and has a rich history of democratic republicanism going back to the early 1800’s. Afghanistan has never been more than a loose confederation of heterogeneous peoples with little loyalty outside family and tribe.
Afghanistan’s many factions suffer from a paucity of shared institutions and values
Tribal rule and Sharia reign over this variegated patchwork of peoples. It is a Hobbesian nightmare of chaos and misery where life is nasty, brutish and short. In stark contrast, Colombia enjoys a tradition of western civilization, European jurisprudence and republican democracy that binds the country’s fairly homogenous population. The fact that Colombia has remained intact, and even thrived, as the FARC continues to melt deeper into the jungle, a whimpering shadow of its former self, makes these factors I mention self-evident.
Colombia has a serious government supported by patriotic citizens who are determined to defeat their common enemy
Indeed, with Colombia, we are aiding a central government fighting a rebel band that had lost the sympathy of the poor people they were supposedly fighting for. Even leftist sympathizers in other Latin American countries no longer give this ragtag band of kidnappers and drug dealers solidarity shout outs.
Unlike kleptocratic Afghanistan and its multifarious mistrustful factions, Colombia has enough honest politicians, judges, military and police willing to lay it on the line for the love of their nation, and the success they’ve enjoyed over the past 30 years in breaking the cartels and attriting FARC gives testament to that. Afghanistan is a sinkhole of corruption, with no one willing to give it up for a Greater Afghan Nation. Colombians do their own fighting; Afghan soldiers and policemen let us do their fighting for them, and shoot at us every chance they get.
Bogota is a peaceful city; Kabul is not…
I could go on and on, but you must see my point by now. The Colombian people have a unity of purpose and a shared love of country and respect for her institutions that is non-existent in Afghanistan. Colombians have tired of the violence; Afghans worship death and would happily let the blood orgy continue without end.
Add to this that our troops were able to partner with Colombian troops in a way that has been impossible to do with the Afghans. Colombian and American cultures are not really that far apart, especially when the Americans are Hispanic or understand Hispanic culture. At a remote outpost in rural Colombia, I saw a Colombian Army platoon and their Puerto Rican National Guard partners bid one another a tearful goodbye after having worked together for over four months on a radar project.
A “Plan Colombia” for Afghanistan will never work. It is naïve and foolish to think otherwise. We should run, not walk, from this rancid and failed project known as Afghanistan.
Foreign Policy – Plan Afghanistan
AP – 13 Americans Killed in Taliban Bombing
