John Hinderaker Wins Sentence of the Week!
Peter Robinson ·
Apr 3, 2011 at 4:13pm
Over on Powerline, John Hinderaker has decided that it's time to get out of Afghanistan. (As everyone who has listened to the most recent Ricochet podcast knows, John is in agreement here with Col. Bing West, author of The Wrong War.) Afghanistan, John argues, is of little strategic
importance, backward in a way we can scarcely imagine, and not even remotely interested in joining the modern world.
Here's John, summing it up:
They are a tribal society run by pederasts whose main industry is growing poppies.
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Jul '10
Re: John Hinderaker Wins Sentence of the Week!
I've said it before: the entire barbaric cesspit known as Afghanistan isn't worth the life of a single U.S. Army private. Leave them to caresses of their dancing boys and the gentle ministrations of the Taliban.
Edited on Apr 3, 2011 at 4:51pmAug '10
Re: John Hinderaker Wins Sentence of the Week!
A country where you are more likely to be punished for possessing the wrong book than killing your daughter ain't worth saving. Rocket ON !!
Re: John Hinderaker Wins Sentence of the Week!
I think it was Thomas Sowell who said once that sometimes ethnic or civil conflicts are solved only by exhaustion. The two sides fight and fight until both decide settling is a better strategy than trying to continue in battle. The game theory of wars of attrition provides a means of analysis. When the cost of battle is low -- what else does one do in Afghanistan? -- and the prize is high (control of the opium trade) fights continue for a very long time.
May '10
Re: John Hinderaker Wins Sentence of the Week!
Peter Robinson: Here's John, summing it up:
Well, that's what the tourism brochure says, but the Pashtun Chamber of Commerce tends to overpromise. And I bet they didn't even ask permission to use his blurb.
Edited on Apr 3, 2011 at 5:16pmJul '10
Re: John Hinderaker Wins Sentence of the Week!
That may true when the two sides are even, but We are the United States of America. We have weapons that could wipe them off the face of the earth. And if anyone is concerned about killing "innocent" people, hay, it's called WAR!!
Oct '10
Re: John Hinderaker Wins Sentence of the Week!
There is some sage wisdom there... It was the ultimate hubris to assume changes could be brought to that land... Folk there are forever tribal and will not bend to Western concepts... And if anyone can recall, the poppy fields were to be destroyed... Well that turned out to be the nations cash crop.. Now it is supported and protected by US troops... Go figure.
Opium for them and no legal medical pot for you...
Re: John Hinderaker Wins Sentence of the Week!
Fascinating. I'd never thought of it that way before. Yet again, the discipline of economics has something important to say. Thanks, King.
Oct '10
Re: John Hinderaker Wins Sentence of the Week!
Myself and those I work with have spent the better part of a decade attempting to teach the Afghani people how to accomplish simple civilized tasks and sanitation. There is either an incomprehensible inability to understand instruction or the most disabling apathy I have ever seen in a human being which prevents us from getting our most basic messages of civilization across to these poor folks. This is difficult to convince Americans of, but we cannot "save" these people. It is literally a different world. Hinderaker's sentence is spot on; well done John!
Jun '10
Re: John Hinderaker Wins Sentence of the Week!
As a former supporter of the Afghanistan adventure, I'm beginning to change my thinking (men like Bing West have a lot to do with it).
But I have one question: Would our leaving Afghanistan make Pakistan more or less stable? I don't care a fig (or a poppy) about Afghanistan, but losing Pakistan to rabid Islamists would make our Iran problems look like a Sunday School picnic.
Edited on Apr 3, 2011 at 5:58pmMay '10
Re: John Hinderaker Wins Sentence of the Week!
I rewatched some old UK episodes with Fouad Ajami and Sebastian Junger. It seems as if Ajami's "dark thoughts" are becoming a reality.
May '10
Re: John Hinderaker Wins Sentence of the Week!
Kenneth: I've said it before: the entire barbaric cesspit known as Afghanistan isn't worth the life of a single U.S. Army private. Leave them to caresses of their dancing boys and the gentle ministrations of the Taliban.
I hate that I'm coming around to your way of thinking on this, Kenneth. I mean I really hate it...because it's so damn depressing. What a world.
May '10
Re: John Hinderaker Wins Sentence of the Week!
What did we go there to do in the first place? Capture Bin Laden, destroy the terror camps and topple the Taliban, if I remember right. Is that still the reason we're there or has it changed to something else?
Well, it's been a bust by all accounts. Ten years and counting. We should either do what we went there to do, and fast, or pack it in and come home, equally as fast.
We just don't have the stomach to defeat an enemy, with all the violence that entails. Let's get out of there.
Aug '10
Re: John Hinderaker Wins Sentence of the Week!
As sentences go that is a great one. A close second from Col. West: "We are dealing with tribes that are hurtling headlong into the 9th century".
May I ask a favor? To borrow a phrase from Ta-Nehisi Coates- please talk to me like I'm stupid and explain to me why we are still there.
And by that I do not mean to imply that it is painfully obvious we should leave, I mean that sincerely. My knowledge of geopolitics is sorely lacking and I would appreciate a primer.
Edited on Apr 3, 2011 at 8:33pmAug '10
Re: John Hinderaker Wins Sentence of the Week!
I agree entirely with John's logic that "In large part, our effort in Afghanistan has been devoted to protecting normal Afghans against extremists like the Taliban. But, as the current rioting in Kandahar, Mazar-e Sharif and elsewhere reminds us, there there may not be a lot of daylight between the Taliban and more moderate Afghan factions."
This is consistent with what I've been saying for awhile now, which is that we have no business propping up a government that treats apostasy as a capital crime. And that's before you get to the fact that they are unbelievably corrupt.
Dec '10
Re: John Hinderaker Wins Sentence of the Week!
We are not in Afghanistan for the benefit of the Afghans. We are in Afghanistan for our own reasons and in our own interests. There are many reasons why it is not in our interest to hand Afghanistan over to the Taliban and Al Qaeda,
VDH wrote a little about this.
Withdrawal From Afghanistan Is Not an Option
It seems reports on problems in Afghanistan are now getting a lot of attention on the right, while reports of progress in Afghanistan are getting little. This is puzzling.
There is a downside to abandoning Afghanistan. Classified reports and assessments about what it might be were apparently enough to persuade even Obama that he could not cut and run. I have little doubt that is what he would prefer to do.
I respect Colonel West, but I'll continue placing much greater weight in the official reports of our military leaders actually responsible for Afghanistan.
Also, even Colonel West thinks abandoning Afghanistan completely would be a disaster. He doesn't really know what to do. AFAIK. his halfhearted suggestion to create a Fortress Kabul and use it to launch raids into Indian country is not something anyone is taking seriously.
Aug '10
Re: John Hinderaker Wins Sentence of the Week!
Squishy Blue RINO: May I ask a favor? To borrow a phrase from Ta-Nehisi Coates- please talk to me like I'm stupid and explain to me why we are still there.
I mean that sincerely. My knowledge of geopolitics is sorely lacking and I would appreciate a primer. · Apr 3 at 6:36pm
Because we are Americans and dedicated to improving the lot of those we find less fortunate.
We accomplished the basics of Regime Change within about 2 months after we invaded Afghanistan. The last major stronghold of the AQ-Taliban alliance fell in December of 2001 at the battle of Tora Bora.
Rather than let it end there, we embarked on a campaign of nation building, led by NATO. Please remember, the Afghanistan war is NATO's first conflict and most of the problems we have there can be laid directly at the feet of that unwieldy alliance (short story, the command relationships and ROE are hindrances).
The Afghan Interim authority was given sovereignty over Afghanistan in Dec 2001 - well before any reasonable bureaucracy could be created.
The surge permitted by Obama had three choices, Low risk - 80K troops. Medium risk - 40K troops. Obama chose 30K.
Nov '10
Re: John Hinderaker Wins Sentence of the Week!
It strikes me that much of the the discussion has changed. In the last decade, we on the right defended Afghanistan as the right place to be. We defended Bush. Now that Obama has taken over, we seem to be changing our tune. Now, I think that is partly because it's easier to criticize the government when your political enemy is in power, and it is partly because the conflict has gone on for so long. We have to be careful of being "for it, before I was against it." But at the same time, to defend it to the death, is kind of silly. I'm not smart enough to know if we should be there or not, but from where I sit, it sounds a lot like switching positions now that a Democrat sits in the White House.
May '10
Re: John Hinderaker Wins Sentence of the Week!
Nickolas: Your well-stated position is one I've been sympathetic to for some time. Even more, it's been my belief that the single most important consideration for America's leaders should be to demonstrate resolve--ie, to disprove Bin Laden's assertion that we are a "weak horse." Withdrawing, I've feared, would be one almighty see-I-told-you-so for Bin Laden--a complete disaster for our prospects in this century's "long war."
But I worry we are choosing at this moment the worst of both worlds: we're resolved to fight on, but to fight on in the manner of a weak horse--one that acquiesces to the manipulations of Karzai, one that excuses Muslim pathologies, one that apologizes incessantly, one that announces its withdrawal even as it surges, and so on.
Under such circumstances, I'm finding it more and more challenging to make the case for staying. .
Aug '10
Re: John Hinderaker Wins Sentence of the Week!
Instugator
Because we are Americans and dedicated to improving the lot of those we find less fortunate.
We accomplished the basics of Regime Change within about 2 months after we invaded Afghanistan. The last major stronghold of the AQ-Taliban alliance fell in December of 2001 at the battle of Tora Bora.
Rather than let it end there, we embarked on a campaign of nation building, led by NATO. Please remember, the Afghanistan war is NATO's first conflict and most of the problems we have there can be laid directly at the feet of that unwieldy alliance (short story, the command relationships and ROE are hindrances).
The Afghan Interim authority was given sovereignty over Afghanistan in Dec 2001 - well before any reasonable bureaucracy could be created.
The surge permitted by Obama had three choices, Low risk - 80K troops. Medium risk - 40K troops. Obama chose 30K. · Apr 3 at 7:21pm
Thank you.
Aug '10
Re: John Hinderaker Wins Sentence of the Week!
So nation building proved to be a bust, what with the poppies and the pederasty and a system of tribalism that is rooted in antiquity. Continuing that effort appears to be a Sysyphean task.
Thank you Scott, I found your post very helpful.
Nickolas- I am inferring that the classified information that reversed the President's position on staying must have something to do with a serious threat to American lives, either domestically or abroad, some tragic loss of lives-the images of which Obama would not dare risk being broadcast.
Is that a safe bet?
Edited on Apr 3, 2011 at 9:51pm