Loosing the war in Afghanistan

Almost five years ago, an international coalition, led by the USA, started an air-war on Afghanistan. They successfully toppled the Taliban regime and occupied the country. With the help of local warlords and others, they set up a regime and supplied troops to ensure the security in the country and help with the rebuilding of Afghanistan.

That was five years ago, but things have not really improved on the ground. After the initial relief (mainly in Kabul) that the oppressive Taliban regime had disappeared, dissatisfaction grew. Furthermore, it turned out that the Taliban were not really defeated. They continued to fight a guerilla war. The US and its allies tried to use their armies to combine two difficult tasks. On the one hand to win the 'hearts and minds' of local citizens and on the other to quell the insurgents and defeat the Taliban and other (mostly drugs-related) militias once and for all.

It looks like this ambitious project is failing now. Not only have the Taliban, who after all come from the Pashtun -- the largest ethnic group in the East and South of Afghanistan (and the West of neighboring) Pakistan, become more and more active each month, the rebuilding of Afghanistan is going far too slow. Even James Jones, the NATO commander in Afghanistan acknowledged this too reporters. He also asked for more troups to fight the guerillas.

It is a terrible dilemma that the NATO is facing. In order to fight the insurgents, they have to commit military power. Because no NATO commander is willing to put the lives of their men on the line, air power is used. The unfortunate result of this is that civilians get killed since air-to-ground missiles are not very subtle and tend to take out anybody in the vicinity. You can avoid a lot of civilian casualties by committing troups on the ground. But then you can be sure that a lot of them will be injured or killed, so the preference is for air power. The Afghanis on the other hand want peace and security more than anything else (this explains why they were so enthusiastic supporters of the Taliban in the late eighties when these fought the local warlords after the Russians had left.) They don't see the foreigners delivering these, so they start yearning for the old days and secretly supporting the Taliban. This creates a more dangerous situation for NATO troups there and increases the emphasis on the fight against the Taliban at the expense of efforts to rebuild the country.

The Dutch in Uruzgan are taking an alternative. They have dug in themselves and do not leave the compounds unless absolutely necessary. This way they avoid casualties to themselves. They avoid the outrage of the locals for killing innocent civilians, but they don't do a damn for what they were sent there for: fighting and building.

Also, it does not help that most of the funds promised for the rebuilding of that country never actually were released. Nor does it help that the NATO troops, by their own admission, until recently did not understand the local situation at all.

With the security situation in Afghanistan rapidly deterioiriating, the USA, NATO and all other allies are loosing in Afghanistan. I predict that the coalition will leave Afghanistan within three years, roughly the same time as the USA are leaving Iraq, leaving behind them the ruined remains of their attempt to bring peace, stability and democracy to the region.

What a depressing start of the week...

Conservatives

Some time ago NRC published a lengthy opinion piece arguing that conservatism as a political force in Dutch politics has failed. Bart-Jan Spruyt, the spokesperson for the self-acclaimed conservative think-tank, the Burke Foundation, said that the opportunity for a political change towards conservativism was lost. A plethora of grand egos within the 'movement' has resulted in no less than five small rightist parties contending the upcoming elections. Conservatives, then, would not unite behind a common banner and assert their influence upon Dutch politics.

It is interesting to find out what exactly is meant by 'conservativism' but these people. As in any actual political movement, there are a lot of deviations of the true doctrine, by which I mean the ideas put forward by people like Edmund Burke. This is the same in the Netherlands. Self-acclaimed conservativists include populists, like the Rotterdam ex-councillor Marco Pastors, Christians, free-market enthusiasts (like Mr. Spruyt) and culture pessimists like the Leiden law professor Andreas Kinneging. However, if one were to take a stiff drink, squint one's eyes and inspect the writings and sayings of these people against the setting sun, from a distance, there are some common themes.

First, all of them are concerned about 'the Dutch way of life'. They find it of overwhelming importance to figure out what this way of life is as well as teaching it (especially to migrants) and ensuring it will continue to exist.
Secondly, they want a free market on the one hand, but a strong government that has all kinds of powers to guard a homogenous cultural climate.
Third, some (not all) are critical of typical Dutch achievements, such as gay marriage, abortion, euthanasia, legalized cannabis use and then some.

On the face of it, this looks very much like the neo-conservative agenda that has been driving much discussion (not to mention politics) in the USA. The same curious mix between a strong attachment to a tradition that is for the most part invented and an enthusiasm for the free market characterizes both positions. Mr. Spruyt has spent some months in the USA at the invitation of a conservative think tank and has become an enthusiastic defender of American neo-conservatism in the Dutch media.

However, it should be noted that many if not most of the beliefs of the Dutch conservatives, would be considered moderately liberal in the USA. For example, the late Mr. Fortuyn considered Dutch attitudes towards homosexuals as typical Dutch achievements and resented attempts to introduce homophobia in the public debate. Compare this to the clear homophobia among US republicans and their christian backers. Or what to think of the call for more supervision on corporate business, the call for an ethical code of conduct, etc.

In short, when in Nether-Germany people talk of 'conservativism', my hunch is that they mean many of the things that US (moderate) liberals think of as typically liberal... Perhaps we should abolish the term altogether.

Dangerous philosophers

I never got round to posting this to this blog when it first appeared, but here is proof just how dangerous and influential philosophy can be: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,2766-2382599,00.html

It claims that iranian president Ahmadinejad received his inspiration from... Heidegger. Which just goes to show how dangerous existentialism really is...