How the US can fix Afghanistan?

[Beet]

1) Have the CIA stage an attempted 'terrorist attack' in India Next time there is a terrorist attack in India, coordinate a massive response by the Indian government.
2) Suddenly cut off all US military relations with Pakistan.
3) Have India massively build up a million troops along the border and beat the war drums: Vajpayee 2002.
4) Aggressive rhetoric. 'We will destroy Pakistan' etc. etc. etc. 'The US will not stand by Pakistan' etc. etc. etc.
4) At the last minute, suddenly offer to mediate everything. The US will prevent India from attacking Pakistan, in exchange Pakistan must destroy the Taliban.

[Хahar 🤔]

I hope you don't seriously mean this.

[patrick1]

Brinkmanship for the 21st century, eh? Yeah, Id pass on that.

[Beet]

Ok, I was half joking about this, but you get the idea. The US leans to the Indian side. This pressures Pakistan to pressure the Taliban.

I mean what explains the Musharraf declarations of September 2001 and January 2002. Obviously he was scared witless because he knew if he did not go along the US was going to come after him. It's time to play hard ball with Pakistan.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Yeah, stop assuming that people in Afghanistan (of all places!) act as cod game theory suggests they ought.

But playing hardball with Pakistan? How do you think that would end, exactly? The U.S is slightly less popular than the Indus floods in Pakistan as it is.

[k-onmmunist]

Hand it back to the communists.

[Bunwahaha [still dunno why, but well, so be it]]

Yeah, yeah, people keep arguing to play around there, maybe when you have big toys you feel the need to play with them, no matter how pervert the game can be.

What about stopping to make grow the problems there, and letting these people trying to rule their problems themselves?

How the US can fix this behavior to think they have to fix others' problems? Which in the meantime make grow the problems against USA, it's like a pervert craziness mechanism the one seems not able to stop. Or maybe it's just so cool  to enjoy that feeling that you can be so tough against the little annoying ones, even if totally pointlessly, to speak about wars and maybe to have a little bit of taste of that smell which is a mix of iron, fire, and blood. Exciting maybe. Boredom can lead to such things.

I made several awfully long posts on that topic in several threads to back all of it, I won't do that again.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Epic fail.

[opebo]

Hand it back to the communists.

Yes, precisely.  The whole problem was created by the US, in its assistance to the wrong side in opposition to the good USSR.  There was an excellent progressive, socialist government at that time that benefited most Afghans tremendously, and Russian troops were very successful at slaughtering the horrible ****** before we aided them with rocket launchers, etc.



Of course, we need to remember that the purpose of american actions is never the benefit of the people of the victim nation, nor the safety of commoners in the United States, but only the power and profit of our kleptocratic elite.

[Bunwahaha [still dunno why, but well, so be it]]

Of course, we need to remember that the purpose of american actions is never the benefit of the people of the victim nation

Certainly it wouldn't be the 1st point, but seems like something quite present in American psychology, maybe since WW2, dunno.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Er, the PDPA regimes (both Khalq and Parcham) were extremely brutal as well. Look up Pul-e-Charkhi sometime.

[opebo]

Er, the PDPA regimes (both Khalq and Parcham) were extremely brutal as well. Look up Pul-e-Charkhi sometime.

Yeah but they were brutal against the right people.   

[Lincoln Republican]

Replace the corrupt, useless, Hamid Karzai and his regime with one serious about bringing peace to the people of Afghanistan, instead of lining their own bank accounts and those of their relatives and friends.

[opebo]

Replace the corrupt, useless, Hamid Karzai and his regime with one serious about bringing peace to the people of Afghanistan, instead of lining their own bank accounts and those of their relatives and friends.

You mean the Tallyband?

[seanobr]

Hand it back to the communists.

Yes, precisely.  The whole problem was created by the US, in its assistance to the wrong side in opposition to the good USSR.  There was an excellent progressive, socialist government at that time that benefited most Afghans tremendously, and Russian troops were very successful at slaughtering the horrible ****** before we aided them with rocket launchers, etc.

Of course, we need to remember that the purpose of american actions is never the benefit of the people of the victim nation, nor the safety of commoners in the United States, but only the power and profit of our kleptocratic elite.

While the socialist government of Afghanistan was preferable to the theocracy that followed it, we shouldn't neglect to mention that it only controlled a marginal amount of the country at its peak, and the entire political situation was disintegrating right before the onset of American involvement.  The Saur Revolution, Amin's deposing of the President and his subsequent overthrow by the Soviet Union all took place within a two-year time frame, during which swaths of the country were engaging in open insurrection and the religious fundamentalists -- whose violent retaliation had precipitated a request for Soviet military intervention -- were accumulating support for their cause with the populace.  The PDPA, while it may have been well-intentioned and ideologically compatible with your beliefs, was never popular enough to institute sweeping societal reform without military oppression, which is what Amin relied on as he set himself up in the vein of Stalin.  At the beginning of 1980, the government had influence over no more than thirty percent of the country, the army was failing as a coherent institution, and the tumult at the head of the party would have significantly impaired its ability to function.  It's simply not relevant to try to speculate what form Afghanistan might have taken if America had left it alone, because it was a country heading inexorably toward the brink from 1973 on; a civil war was probably inevitable from the moment the PDPA murdered Daoud, if not when the King was overthrown.

The PDPA might have endured, but Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Iran still would have enabled the Mujahideen; we can also presume that Afghanistan would've fallen prey to the disintegration of the Soviet bloc, seeing how dependent it was on the country for economic and military assistance.  None of us can predict the end result of that with any amount of certainty.  The only error America made was abandoning the country once it had served its purpose to us in the broader conflict against the Soviet Union; exploiting the Mujahideen was incredibly astute, but ignoring the subsequent empowerment of fundamentalists in Algeria and Tajikistan and our approach toward Iraq are far more effective indictments of American foreign policy and sagacity than Afghanistan.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I admit this time I have to agree with Winston. If the US hadn't started to involve in the country's politics just to piss off the Soviets, Afghanistan would be in a far better shape today, as would the rest of the world.

[Хahar 🤔]

I admit this time I have to agree with Winston. If the US hadn't started to involve in the country's politics just to piss off the Soviets, Afghanistan would be in a far better shape today, as would the rest of the world.

The communist government was not good. I try not to see the world in black and white, but they were certainly the bad guys in that war.

[Stranger in a strange land]

Torching the opium fields and buying up assault weapons would be a good start. Then, we can give subsidies to Afghan families for sending their kids to school.

Restoring the pre-1973 Afghan government is probably a good long-term goal to work towards.