October 14, 2009
Posted by Michael Cohen
I'm really starting to wonder about the folks who write foreign policy editorials for the Washington Post. Consider this
passage today about why the US can't quit the fight in Afghanistan:
For years the United States has been trying to persuade Pakistan to fully confront the threat of the Taliban, even as its government and army dithered and wavered. Now that the army at last appears prepared to strike at the heart of the movement in Waziristan, the Obama administration is wavering -- and considering a strategy that would give up the U.S. attempt to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Adopting such a strategy would condemn American soldiers to fighting and dying without the chance of winning. But it would also cripple Pakistan's fight against the jihadists. With the pressure off in Afghanistan, Taliban forces would have a refuge from offensives by Pakistani forces. And those in the Pakistani army and intelligence services who favor striking deals or even alliances with the extremists could once again gain ascendancy. After all, if the United States gives up trying to defeat the Taliban, can it really expect that Pakistan will go on fighting?
Is the Washington Post editorial board so blinded by its hawkishness that the folks who write there simply don't understand that there is a pretty crucial difference between the Pakistan Taliban and the Afghan Taliban? Do they not understand that while the Pakistani military has waged war on Pakistan Taliban forces they have basically given the Afghan Taliban a free pass and left their safe havens unmolested? Indeed, from every appearance elements of the Pakistani military view the Afghan Taliban as a strategic check against Indian influence in Afghanistan.
Further, does the Post not understand that America's ability to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan is severely undermined by the very presence of these very Afghan Taliban safe havens across the border in Pakistan? The Post seems to be arguing that the Taliban is a monolithic and centralized fighting force. This isn't even true of Afghan Taliban, no less the Pakistan AND Afghan Taliban.
Then consider this sentence, "If the United States gives up trying to defeat the Taliban, can it really expect that Pakistan will go on fighting?" Why if the Pakistan military has declared war on the Pakistan Taliban would it matter to them if the US lessens up in its fight against the Afghan Taliban? By the Post's tortured logic wouldn't that actually make them more inclined to militarily defeat the Pakistani Taliban for fear that a US retreat - and Taliban victory - would embolden these forces?
But the Post doubles down on incoherent arguments:
The Taliban no longer aims merely at controlling the ethnic Pashtun areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan but at gaining control over a nuclear-armed state . . the Taliban has gone from struggling for survival to aiming for control over both Afghanistan and Pakistan.
And I want to play shortstop for the Boston Red Sox. Guess what, neither event is likely to happen. The scare tactic of a Pakistan Taliban takeover of Pakistan is just that: a scare tactic and one absolutely divorced from reality.
Reading this piece one gets the impression that the Washington Post editorial board simply has no idea that the various groups, which fall under the Taliban umbrella, have different agendas and different grievances - and that the Pakistani government is opposed to some and tolerant of others
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