MSNBC The Rachel Maddow Show - 15 July 2010: Rachel sums up her point of view on Afghanistan after her week of reporting from there.
RICHARD HOLBROOK (VIDEO): "We're in Afghanistan because it really matters. We're in Afghanistan because if we fail in Afghanistan, it will have a direct, immediate danger to us. It will increase al Qaeda's worldwide reach. They will come back with the Taliban in all likelihood. And they will gain a worldwide success which will be very dangerous for our national security interests. So we have to be clear. The American public needs to be clear on why we're in Afghanistan. This is not Vietnam - a war which I participated in as a State Department civilian in the lower Mekong Delta when I entered the government - this is not the Balkins, it's not Iraq. This is quite different. This one relates directly to our safety at home."
MADDOW (VIDEO): "We tried to do counterinsurgency in Vietnam, too - pretty explicitly... When you look back at those efforts all those years ago, do your really have confidence that a foreign country can help create a state somewhere else, that we really can stand up an Afghan government?"
HOLBROOK (VIDEO): "I think we can, if we do it right... The fundamental difference is the one you and I just already mentioned. It matters to our homeland security. Vietnam did not. Although at the time, the administrations in power did say it did... It's a process which is not easy, and you only embark on it if you decide that it is absolutely critical of the U.S. national interest, which it is."
MADDOW: "That's the argument.
That's the case the Obama administration makes for the war in Afghanistan now; the case made to me this week by diplomat Richard Holbrook, as you saw there, but shared across the administration. And the case is that we HAVE to be in Afghanistan because it's critical to our national interests.
They say that the war was mishandled badly for years by the Bush administration, and that's why we're dealing with a Taliban resurgence, and that's why we had almost nothing to show for our years there when Obama took office.
But, they say, despite how bad it is, we can't just leave. We can't leave, because we can make progress there. And failing to make that progress would be a disaster. The Afghan government collapses, the Taliban returns, and, yes, that's awful for the Afghan people, but, for us, that would also mean a victory and sanctuary again for al Qaeda, for the terrorists who attacked us nine years ago, and who would love to do so again. To avert that, the argument goes, we need to do everything we can to ensure that there is an Afghan government, a big competent national police force that isn't corrupt, that serves and protects its people, a well-trained, well-equipped army that can defend the government against attempts to overthrow it, basic services, national ministries, governors and municipal offices, all linked to the central government in Kabul. Even if the Afghan people hate the Taliban, a feeble, corrupt government there doesn't stand a chance against the Taliban coming back. And we need, and they need, for the Taliban to not come back. And if not the Taliban exactly, then other radicals who would gladly make common cause with transnational terrorist groups.
That's the argument.
And so we are still there. In increasingly huge numbers. President Obama has tripled the number of American troops there since he has been President. And those troops are there with a definite clear mission: Set up that police force. Set up that Afghan army. Secure village after valley after road after town after orchard after city after mountain after mountain after mountain. Secure them to make room for the Afghan government to extend its reach. So the government, not the insurgents controls the country, and controls the people and serves the people. That mission involves combat because the plan to set up and extend the reach of the Afghan government has enemies. Either people who don't like the government on its own terms, or people who don't like the idea of the U.S., essentially, setting that government up. There are a lot of crazed religious death-cult radicals shooting at U.S. troops and Afghan soldiers and police right now. But that's not everybody. You don't have to be crazed, or even religious, to be against a foreign power fighting in your country.
But we're there. We are there and we are talking about our Afghan partners. General David Petraeus' statement to the troops upon taking over command referenced the American military's "compassion for the Afghan people." We're here to help, in other words, to protect you from bad guys, to build your government, in our own interests, sure, but in yours, too.
The administration's argument for staying in Afghanistan and what to do there is logical. It's an argument I can understand. As a liberal, I believe in the social contract, that people can, collectively, through government, protect themselves, address problems and reach for greater things than they could achieve alone or with only their families. I get it. I also feel like I saw eye-to-eye with the incredibly impressive American troops who are trying to implement the U.S. mission in Afghanistan. They are earnest, capable, professional, and they understand the mission and its value. It makes sense, and...
And.
And it depends on a premise that is romantic, and unproven, and, I believe, unlikely.The consequences of there not being a real Afghan government are probably dire. Our desire for there to be a real Afghan government is strong and rational.
But us just wanting it to be so doesn't mean that we're capable of making it so. To me, it seems likely that nothing we can do, nothing within our power as the United States of America, will result in there being a real Afghan government. Our presence there may, in fact, make that outcome less likely. What government can grow to full strength and legitimacy with a foreign military on its soil? What hope is there for a government to supercede the warlords and drug lords and power brokers it competes with, if the
billions of dollars our military presence drags behind it like cans off newlyweds' car bumpers, gets funneled to those same thugs the government is competing with? What better way for us to recruit for and romanticize the Taliban cause than to give them ten years of armor-clad infidel foreigners on their land to inveigh against and attack?
A real Afghan government is the outcome we want, for us and for the Afghan people. It's practically inarguable as a desired outcome. But whether or not that outcome is achieved is not really up to us."
MADDOW (VIDEO FROM AFGHANISTAN): "I know this is a difficult question, but, if over the next year, it essentially doesn't work to establish better government in Kandahar. If the policing efforts, security efforts, don't combine to create enough space for Afghan government to step up in a way that is working, I don't get the sense that there's a Plan B. Is there a Plan B? Is Plan B just more time?"
BRIG. GEN. BEN HODGES (VIDEO): "There's no reason why this shouldn't be successful if the Afghans do their part. I mean, we have... I've never met an officer who didn't want more capability, so I would never turn away more engineers or more military police, but we have enough to do what we have got to do in Kandahar, assuming that the Afghans step up and do their part."
MADDOW (VIDEO): "If they don't?"
GEN. HODGES (VIDEO): "We'll have given them the best chance they ever had."
MADDOW: "That's what we're doing. We're trying to give them the best chance they ever had. And they may not take it. And our troops staying there may not make them more likely to take it. To recognize that is not to accept military defeat. Frankly, establishing a government in a foreign country is not a military objective. It just isn't. Counter-insurgency theory be damned, it is a civilian development objective, in this case, with military support. A military objective is winning a war. War is destructive, not constructive. We send men into war with guns, not with shields. It is not to accept military defeat to admit that the 82nd Airborne can do many things, but it cannot make the governor of Nangarhar Province not corrupt.
If we think there's a future in which the Afghan government is real, and it runs and controls that country to the exclusion of the Taliban, and it's there because we've made that possible, then there is an American national security interest in us still being there. But if that's not possible, no matter what we do, if, no matter how much we want for that to happen, we can't make that happen, well, then..."
GEN. HODGES (VIDEO): "We'll have given them the best chance they've ever had."
MADDOW: "We will have given them the best chance they've ever had. If we can't make the outcome we want come to fruition, then we should fund and train and support the Afghan government all we can.
But each additional American life sacrificed to a goal we know we won't reach is a moral outrage, moral disaster, that we have a responsibility in this life during wartime, to stop."
Dollars, yes. Lives? LIVES? No.
Not for a romantic wish. Not for something we want, but know we can't get. Dollars? O.K. Lives? No.
If you believe our actions, our American actions in 2010, can make it more likely that there's a real government in Afghanistan, then asking Americans to die in Afghanistan is asking them to die for something that IS in the national security interest of the United States, which is what American kids sign up for when they enlist.
But if you believe that our actions, our American actions in 2010, CANNOT make it more likely that there's a real Afghan government, that there's a real government in Afghanistan, then asking Americans to die in Afghanistan is wrong. It's over.
Development, training, support, o.k. But lives? No. No.
That's the choice. It's not partisan. It's not even passionate. It's rational.Good night.
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