Graeme Smith on Afghanistan

[observor 69]

Politics | Dec 20, 2013 | 10:10

Graeme Smith on Afghanistan

Graeme Smith, author of The Dogs Are Eating Them Now, says Canada lost the war in Afghanistan


CBC interview
http://www.cbc.ca/player/News/Politics/Power+&+Politics/ID/2425986529/

Amazon comments:
http://www.amazon.ca/The-Dogs-Are-Eating-Them/dp/0307397807

 

[Armymedic]

Graeme Smith, author of The Dogs Are Eating Them Now, says Canada lost the war in Afghanistan

There is opinion out there that because we did not really change anything in Afghanistan (the Taliban are still a force) we lost our part of the strategic war, and it is questionable if we won tactically.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Well if you set unrealistic goals then you set yourself up for a "loss". However I am of the firm belief that the Taliban have not won either. In essence we have poisoned the well for them, they will never be able to seize power like they did before. The Taliban will be a player on the scene for a long while for 2 major reasons, the Pastun and the NWF. Frankly I always thought our failures was to not focus our efforts on strengthening the non-Pastun regions and developing a reliable NW supply line early on to remove the Pakistani stranglehold. Iran has no love of the Taliban and if they see that they are gaining power, then they will will do their best to make that as difficult as possible. Neither India or China have an interest in the Taliban gaining to much power and may up the support for Kabul once the west is more or less gone. This was always going to be a generational war, basically we needed to get a generation through school to give them the skills to pick a different direction. We gave them a decade, which for the West is an eternity.

 

[Edward Campbell]

We, including Smith who was, still is, I'm told ill disposed towards the CF, need to go all the way back to our original aims. They were: to punish the 9/11 terrorists ~ al Qaeda; to deny al Qaeda a useful base in Afghanistan, thereby protecting ourselves from al Qaeda attacks;* and to be seen to be doing a full, fair share in countering terrorism.
    [o]The 9/11 terrorists have been punished;

    [o]Afghanistan will not be a useful terrorist base for anyone - not even if the Taliban is in power because even the Taliban know how easy it is to knock them back, again; and

    [o]We have been seen to have done more than a full and fair share.
Sounds like a win to me.

Graeme Smith is full of shit.
 
_____
* And remember, please that Osama bin Laden singled us out as a target.

 

[observor 69]

Politics | Dec 20, 2013 | 10:10

Graeme Smith on Afghanistan
Graeme Smith, author of The Dogs Are Eating Them Now, says Canada lost the war in Afghanistan

CBC interview
http://www.cbc.ca/player/News/Politics/Power+&+Politics/ID/2425986529/

Amazon comments:
http://www.amazon.ca/The-Dogs-Are-Eating-Them/dp/0307397807

The title of the book is rather misleading, perhaps for the purpose of book sales, if you give some time to watching the full interview he gave on CBC.
In hindsight he says ISAF did the next best thing by leaving an Afghanistan military and society capable of preventing the Taliban from regaining power.
For the" ISAF member countries" that would represent a win.

Edit: Perhaps ISAF is a better term.  :christmas happy:

 

[ModlrMike]

A stable Afghanistan with the tools to improve the lives of its citizens and resist the further influence of terrorist organizations was always the prime goal of the "west". The achievement of this goal required multi-year, some would say multi decade support and guidance. We in the "west" have exceedingly short attention spans and expect everything to happen instantaneously. Many can not comprehend that something that took 30 years to destroy, might take 30 or more years to rebuild.

One doesn't plant a seed today and harvest fruit tomorrow.

 

[Journeyman]

Another perspective from Legion Magazine.  I've included a very small snippet from the article, without comment; the complete article is available at link

Why Things Are Seen: A Story of Blunders, Bombs, Broken Teeth and Bad Ideas
January 1, 2014 by Adam Day

---------
Afghanistan is Canada’s longest war, but it’s hard to say what actually happened. Was it a just war? Why did we do it? Why does the Canadian public seem so confused as to what the purpose was? What was Canada’s strategy in Afghanistan? What did it all mean? Was it worth it?

It’s now clear to me those questions are not entirely answerable. But I didn’t realize that at the time I asked them because I was in a meeting in Ottawa. If there’s an easy thing to be learned about complex foreign wars like Afghanistan, it’s that the greater your distance from them, the greater your arrogance about understanding them. Perhaps not coincidentally, most of the war’s planning—what planning there actually was—also took place very far from the sound of the bombs.

It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.
— Douglas MacArthur

Victory existed mainly in the minds of people far away from the battlefield. And it became something strangely hard to kill no matter what kind of evidence you brought in from the battlefield itself. It was an illusion sustained by massaged metrics and the kind of spin so heavy that it’s just barely this side of a lie. The reality was this: We weren’t losing but we weren’t winning either. Unfortunately that meant we were losing, because we were going to run out of time.

 

[Jarnhamar]

We, including Smith who was, still is, I'm told ill disposed towards the CF, need to go all the way back to our original aims. They were: to punish the 9/11 terrorists ~ al Qaeda; to deny al Qaeda a useful base in Afghanistan, thereby protecting ourselves from al Qaeda attacks;* and to be seen to be doing a full, fair share in countering terrorism.
    [o]The 9/11 terrorists have been punished;

    [o]Afghanistan will not be a useful terrorist base for anyone - not even if the Taliban is in power because even the Taliban know how easy it is to knock them back, again; and

    [o]We have been seen to have done more than a full and fair share.
Sounds like a win to me.

Graeme Smith is full of shit.
 
_____
* And remember, please that Osama bin Laden singled us out as a target.

Well said thank you.

 

[devil39]

I received The Dogs Are Eating Them Now as a Christmas present.  About to start reading it now.  Withholding comment until I have read the book.  But..........

Interestingly though, on page 2 of the intro, he contrasts two campaigns he has experienced/witnessed and offers his perspective of the modern application of military force.  He proposes the Libya campaign as having the potential for success and contrasts that with Afghanistan where he believes military force has failed with respect to "the nascent science of healing sick countries with military force." 

Too early for pronouncements in both cases.  We could (and probably will) create another 10 years worth of topics about these two campaigns on Army.ca, without ever coming to agreement.   

 

[Kirkhill]

Wouldn't it be fair to compare the Libyan campaign to the first phase of the US intervention in Afghanistan post 9/11 when it allied with the Northern Front?

Effective deposition of the government from 40,000 feet.

In Afghanistan (and Iraq) we then tried to fix Colin Powell's pottery*.

In Libya we seem to have left it up to the locals to sort themselves out.

*Pottery Barn Rule

 

[devil39]

Having finished The Dogs Are Eating Them Now, I believe that any professional who feels strongly about our time in Afghanistan should give this book a read.

I believe part of being a professional should include being widely read, whether you agree with the subject matter or not.

On my first read (and I will read this book again, it is worth it), I found this book to be highly entertaining, very readable, and very thought provoking.

I found this book to be a very tactical level look at our time in Afghanistan.  I also found that this was very personal observation based, however it was apparently wide ranging in primary source interview.  Interestingly, this book is weakened by Graeme Smith’s failure to use scholarly annotation.  Conversely the apparent honesty and openness of some sources was likely improved by the lack of detailed footnoting or end noting.
 
That being said, I doubt that there are many of us whose Afghanistan experience spans the 2005-2013 timeframe as thoroughly as Smith’s.  Furthermore, his apparent access across the press, military, diplomatic community and local populace is almost undoubtedly beyond that which most if not all of us would have experienced. 

To sum up Graeme Smith’s opinion on Afghanistan with a “we lost the war” sound bite is infantile and overly simplistic. 

His opinion is very complex and nuanced.  He is by no means, in my opinion, anti-military, anti-NATO, anti-US or anti-CAF.

He is brutally honest about how he feels we have succeeded or failed in our stated and unstated aims in Afghanistan.  From a counterinsurgency perspective he brings an empathetic perspective to various strata of locals, and their opinions and supposed tribulation.

This is not a pretty, feel good book.  This is not an overly negative book either.  I found it to be well balanced.  That being said this is not a historian's book, however I don't doubt that it will be a staple of bibliographies in the future. 

I won’t get into a discussion in open forum about my opinions on Afghanistan and counterinsurgency, given my status as a serving member. 

There is however, very little opinion or sentiment expressed in this book that I have not discussed with my peers in professional dialogue. 

 

[Colin Parkinson]

On the bright side success by the radical Islamics in any semi modern region generally results in a backlash against them as they impose their harsh concepts of Islam. Hardcore Fundamental Islam and evolving technology is going to be incompatible. While they can and will use technology against their enemy it's also a cancer for them. A new form of modernist "Whabbiism" may form to exploit the technology advances, but that will will be at the expense of a split between the modernist and Madarass trained student fundamentalists. It will take special leaders to harness these two groups and keep them working to a common goal and that is one of the key areas we can attack, take out their key leaders and ability to communicate effectively between groups. Also actively sowing distrust between the various groups is important. I can see a growth for specialists that understand religious, cultural and ethnic fault lines that weave through the various factions.