Exit Strategy? 080709

While the American civil administration is seeking a strategy to get out from under the previous administration’s ill-advised wars; the American military is planning a long occupation of Afghanistan.

The U.S. operational force buildup is now more than ten times its strength a little over a year ago. Part of this build up is to replace coalition forces that are quitting the flimsy fiction of success. The rest of the buildup is U.S. military self-delusion that although its tactics failed in Iraq they will succeed in Afghanistan. Despite more lucid military minds’ arguments that Afghanistan is not Iraq, military bureaucrats are winning the argument that greater troop strengths will win the battle. Vietnam however proved that you can win all the battles and still lose the war.

Bureaucratic project managers are promising that their new techno-remote weapons will end insurgency with minimal collateral damage. Collateral damage is mil-speak for dead and wounded non-combatants, women, children and friendly forces. Survivors of collateral damage however provide even more recruits to the growing insurgency.

The buildup of operational troops will live the Spartan life common to combat soldiers for thousands of years. The military bureaucrats however will have all the comforts of home in new 220 million-dollar permanent U.S. bases. These new bases are in addition to the permanent U.S. bases already built in Afghanistan.

The new U.S. bases exceed the needs of the Afghan military, that already has permanent bases of its own, and it is doubtful that the Afghans requested the construction or was even consulted on the construction. It is interesting to note however that from these bases the U.S. will be able to project its power into the Central Asian States, China, India, Pakistan and Iran. This fact has not escaped the attention of Russia, China and India the regional powerhouses. It should not be ignored by administration planners that the surrounding countries are all nuclear equipped. U.S. occupation bases could become the ground zero for a series of nuclear constructed lakes in central Asia.

The U.S. military’s attitude seems to be: “We don’t need no stinking exit strategy, cause we ain’t leaving.” The DOD should remember however that these new bases are also land locked and access dependent on the targeted nations. While America seeks an exit strategy DOD continues to implement the Cheney/Rumsfeld strategy, already proven a failure.