A short background and observations on the current Afghanistan situation, as it involves Pakistan & India.
History
The nations of Afghanistan and Pakistan are not friends. The Afghans have been fuming about getting split up by the British (see this article for some background on the “Durand Line”)
Before
After
Pakistan’s intel service, the ISI (a real “Deep State” if there is one to be used as an example) pretty much used/uses the Taliban, and the horrible Haqqani organization as a tool to keep Afghanistan either in turmoil, or a client state. Either way, in no position to revisit the map. Needless to say, the Afghans have been a wee bit miffed about this. The latest growling from Kabul is an example of this.
So what does India have to do with this?
But with foreign military support lessening, Afghanistan is not in a position to do much more than grumble. But they do have one sure way to get the Pakistani goat, so to speak. Seek support from India. “Gosh, Pakistan…I know you guys are mortal enemies, but there really isn’t any threat in us having closer ties with India!” Or, as their Ambassador to India delicately put it:
“Kabul would never allow anyone to use its soil against others. We are an independent country and we hope Pakistan would see Afghanistan as such.”
India (along with Iran) was a refuge for many during the Northern Alliance vs Taliban throwdown. It still was the medical tourism destination for those with the means to get there when I was in country, 2004-2005.
India benefits from this Afghan flirtation in a couple of ways. First, they get to tweak Pakistan a bit, and send a bit of a message – “Hey, you know that Kashmir thing you guys are always banging on about? How would you like a problem like that on your ‘Pashtunistan’ border?” Second, they have a potential market and trading partner. Any libertarian worth their monocle chain would be glad of reason #2, if not so much #1. As a side note, one of the developments that would help this Afghan-Indian trade involves a little work in Iran. Better than shipping the IRGC pallets of cash and propping up their nuclear weapons program.
What to watch?
I am keen to see the reactions of India and Pakistan to the inevitable wrap up of direct US military involvement in Afghanistan. As for Pakistan, I fear the ISI will say “see, we are winning – Taliban harder!” As for India, I hope they continue to step up trade and support of Afghanistan.
I would welcome your observations, relevant links and thoughts in the comments.
But Pakistan and India are friends, right?
Ummm
/not sure if sarc or not
You and I are friends, right?
Yes, yes we are
Close, close friends.
Like STEVE SMITH and hiker friends!
“The nations of ___________ and Pakistan are not friends.”
FTFY.
I share your opinion re: India and Afghanistan being strategic allies, although some of my coworkers who have similar backgrounds are less optimistic. Irritatingly enough, I can’t remember the exact back and forth of our workplace discussion on this just last week….but yeah, I think it should have a balancing effect on the whole.
That said…from my limited view point of operations on the ground, it does *appear* that the ANA – are growing in overall effectiveness and self-assurance on the whole. Kandaks are certainly up there, but there’s just too much open territory that you can’t “control” without massive numbers of people (or decent tech). The geography is just such that the population as a whole in concentrated in such thin ribbons, leaving vast swathes too exposed given the 21st century insurgency template…not sure how to get around that.
the inevitable wrap up of direct US military involvement in Afghanistan.
Assumes facts not in evidence. 🙁
The money might run out one day.
The US can just run the money-printing maching. 🙁
Never go full Weimar.
Hell freezes over, I agree with Ted S
Swiss and his great grandson will be able to share their Afghan stories.
Pakistan is a willing catspaw for China, and turnabout is fair play, no?
Yeah, I’m highly skeptical that we’ll overcome the sunk cost fallacy, and the Forever War will drag on and on…
We’ll make the money back with strip mining.
Sunken cost? No. It’s an investment, as I understand the definition of the word today.
I had to turn to strip mining to pay my way through college.
Pretty sure I still have the g-string and pick axe.
You weren’t raping mother Gaia the right way. You have to go scorched earth. You can’t just rip the top off some nameless mountain, you have to also burn the forests and the peasants.
*slow clap*
Man that was a good beer all over my monitor, My orphan Lawyers will see you in beer court!
Ballast Point?
Torpedo today
Ahem. Invest your way through college.
We’ll make it all back once we legalize opium/heroin.
By gosh, he’s onto something. I hope the opium dens include hookers.
Do they have Opium Den mothers?
Are they milfs? If so, I hope so.
While hirsute, Afghan Women can quite Beautiful, IMO
Wait! Chick Band, Afghan Den Mothers!
I had one contact me once when I was doing the online dating thing. She was quite attractive, and equally weird. I chatted with her for a while. One day she says ‘Are you watching TV’? I said… ‘Um, am I supposed to be?’. She says ‘They’re talking about us’. So I was like ‘What, talking about who?’. So she said they’re talking about Afghanistan. I can’t remember if it was on CNN or Fox or where. Anyway, she would just say things like that out of nowhere. Her English seemed fine, but she also would do some weird stuff that made it seem like she couldn’t understand what you were saying to her. One day I said something about my ex-GF, and she goes ‘You have a girlfriend!?’. And I said ‘No, I HAD a girlfriend, I no longer have a GF, that’s why I’m talking to you’. Then she started getting really weird and I just said ‘Ok, I think we’re done here’. So obviously I didn’t get to check your hirsute claim.
Is anybody else having issues with comments not posting in the Afternoon Links?
I just tried one and it took
I’ll look in Spam- we have no control over the filter and it seems to randomly eat comments.
Yup, that was it. You had two comments in there which I sprung.
Swiss, my attempt at humor above makes me think of some things that I’ve always wondered about:
From your observations, what is (was) going on with the poppy fields? A few questions that come to mind.
1. Are (were) they as plentiful as we were lead to believe?
2. Were they all actually burned as soon as they we came across them?
3. Is the CIA actually raising money by “managing” the fields?
4. Etc., etc., etc…
Sorry, I guess this wasn’t exactly on-topic, but I am curious to hear form someone who was there and has knowledge of the situation.
I have worked with security guys who did contract work with the eradication teams and the general consensus was it was bullshit. That was years ago though. 2008? Maybe 09. I think a good rule is don’t believe anything you don’t see. Especially from the guys who told me that. As to the government? Well we know what to believer there right?
I used to read about US policy re: the opium in afghanistan in the mid 2000s, and the only thing i think you can say about it is, “They tried everything”. Literally, one year it would be ‘eradicate’, and the next year they’d be “help them irrigate”. From the POV of the people on the ground it would be confusing as fuck, obviously. Different govt groups sometimes had different mandates.
this wired piece from 2013 talks a little about the history
https://www.wired.com/2013/05/afghan-poppies/
The CIA generally does very bad things without honest service members knowing.
Swiss is honest, but maybe he saw some shit, maybe he didn’t.
No, I get it. If he completely ignores my questions, I’m cool with that.
Although, a timely question for me. I’ve spent a small portion of the last few months looking at anti-addiction drugs in the pipeline.
If there’s going to be a steady flow of cheap, pure opium into the country, that solves most of the problems, and I’m probably not interested in further investment.
I’ve spent a small portion of the last few months looking at anti-addiction drugs in the pipeline
The first step is admitting you have a problem. We are here for you.
My problem is cheap opium. I’m not going to make an ROI.
I’m on the fence. My business and my politics do not align here.
Does that make you a Kulak or a hoarder?
Yes.
Mike – in order;
1) yes, everywhere. Poppy grows in dry areas – so it is poppy or little else in many places. Rationally, they choose to plant poppy.
2) Nope. Selective enforcement – just like at home.
3) Not that I saw. But see #2
4) I got to put a deep well in a village in Parwan province…and when the pump was fired up and H2O started gushing into the irrigation channels, a older guy told me “thank you for this – we were going to have to plant poppy, now we can grow food!”
“Hey, you know that Kashmir thing you guys are always banging on about? How would you like a problem like that on your ‘Pashtunistan’ border?”
Years ago when Outside magazine was a magazine about outside stuff ran by ecologists and not environmentalists I read this article when I had never even thought about Kashmir in my life. I had not thought about Afghanistan for that matter either other than knowing Rambo helped defeat the dirty commis. I have no idea what will happen to that country, but they are sitting on a wealth of wealth and it is not under the ground. As I sat in my comfy house and listened to how we could not find the Taliban in the mtns after our war started up there, I called bullshit. How can you not find the bad guys? Then l I flew out of Bagram in daylight after spending a few months working in the North and looked at the Hindu Kush. Holy fuck me those are some mtns. Those mountains make the Rocky’s look like the white people of mountains. I so wish they would get to the point they would share them with the rest of the world without killing the tourists. To be honest, I doubt it will ever happen.
Our generals need to watch more of Rambo III. This war would have been won yesterday if they had.
In all seriousness, the people who get paid and treated like fief lords really suck at their job.
Should read those who get paid to make decisions as to how these wars are fought suck.
Back in the 1970’s I was part of a group putting together a trip to try and climb Noshaq by the West Ridge. It is a huge peak over 7500 meters and we saw it as a way to build up our credentials for a possible Himalayan expedition. Then the USSR invades and the entire idea gets shit canned, along with our deposit to the then Afghan government.
Finding insurgents in the mountains is a huge difficulty. You think IR would be key, but it is easy to fool and differential cooling from bare rocks adds possible false positives. Plus we are an anti-body in the Afghan population which makes getting reliable domestic support very difficult. We had a small window in 2002-2003 to finish our occupation on favorable terms but something happened then which distracted us from completing the war we were in.
We never had a large troop commitment in Afghanistan during the invasion. We had no occupation plan in either country. We used the Northern Alliance who were, shockingly enough, a group of competing warlords themselves. Iraq was in the cards the day after 9/11 as a bunch of neocons instantly started pointing fingers at the map and demanding Bush to act.
Afghans have fought the way they have since probably well before Alexander the Great. When an invasion comes, they respond the same way. Yet we acted surprised at what they did.
Isn’t that the strategy behind almost every US intervention in the Middle East as well?
We had a small window in 2002-2003 to finish our occupation on favorable terms but something happened then which distracted us from completing the war we were in.
Ya, that one will go down as some of the biggest dumbassery ever. GWB can fuck off forever for that.
Afghanistan was always the real distraction for the Bush administration.
I had never thought about it that way. That sounds way fucked up.
And holy moly 7500 meters. That is a big mountain.
I’m so tired of this NFL shit. Kneel. Stand. I don’t care. But don’t pretend that it’s something it’s not.
Colin Kaepernick is the Westboro Baptist Church of professional sports. He decided to take a shit on something that people hold sacred in order to get attention. It’s that simple.
As for the rest of the players: They stood because of peer pressure, and now they’re kneeling because of peer pressure. So brave. Such role models.
Listen up, kids: don’t be like these assholes. On either side.
Colin Kaepernick is the white people of black quarterbacks.
1/2 anyways.
ZOINK I JUST STOLE THAT
If I drink enough tonight, I might drop it on Facebook.
Otherwise, it’s all yours.
I’ll give you 12 hours of proprietary use
Fuck football. Most boring game on Earth. Take THAT bitches.
He decided to take a shit on something that people hold sacred in order to get
attentionlaid by Brown Amy Winehouse.Probably worth it.
Marxist titties are a helluva drug.
This is all I have to say on the topic.
I think I got the gist from the synopsis.
I will not be in my bunk.
Is this Afghanistan? Gotta keep it related or Switzy will the whole room his eyes, right?
*WIDENS GAZE*
Neigh
Q approved.
So when are the two of them ODing to death?
Strangely my usual advice still applies. What good is hiding in a mountain, when Imperial Dreadnaughts turn everything into a round valley?
Have you tried it out? Steep enough slope and those orbital bombardment masses go sliding down the hill losing velocity instead of hitting straight on.
If anyone’s interested in the British involvement pre-1900, I recommend, Peter Hopkirk’s “The Great Game”:
https://www.amazon.com/Great-Game-Struggle-Central-Kodansha/dp/1568360223/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1506391819&sr=8-1&keywords=the+great+game+the+struggle+for+empire+in+central+asia
Also deals with Anglo-Russian competition in the region.
+1. The stories in that book are amazing.
Concur. A very interesting and informative read.
Thanks for the recommendation.
I’ve recommended before, Winston Churchill’s memoirs of his time on the NW frontier of India, “The Story of the Malakand Field Force,” fighting the same kinds of folks then as now. Should be free at someplace like Gutenberg or others.
Anyone got time for philosophy?
Always wipe back to front.
Unless….
I might have that backwards.
Now my balls are crusty.
it comes on a 2am on public-access.
oh, you said philosophy? I thought you said “old lady titties”
Depends on how drunk I am and how saggy they are…
Think fried eggs, sunny side up, hanging on a rusty nail. Now age them 30 years.
Eh, I’ve had worse.
Green with ham?
Fellow white people: the policeman is your friend
It’d be a real shame if he got C. diff and shit his pants in public. Not that I speak from experience…
If by “in public” you mean a DC WaPo cocktail party. Jesus Christ, Balko. I used to respect the man. I know he was never a doctrinaire libertarian, and never claimed to be one, but at this rate he’ll be announcing his marriage to Egg McMuffin.
“This isn’t a culture war or a debate.”
The fuck it isn’t.
Hand waving all of his work in documenting unaccountable police brutality away just to make it into a racial narrative. Wow.
Jon Chait shits out a ripe one
Trump is to blame for Antifa. He is to ‘terrifying’ that he has forced the left to go off the deep end.
But… don’t worry…. he’s just using that to go on to make the point that maybe (gasp!) Trump isn’t actually a “White Supremacist”, and that saying so makes the left
look retardedlose its political-focustl;dr “lefty establishment hack ponders frightening possibility that he and his establishment hackery-pals might no longer be the intellectual forefront”
I still stand by my pre-election idea that Trump is an 80s democrat. That this is seen as the end of civilization by so many makes me sad. Then I drink beer and I’m not as sad.
You’re exactly right. You could even say, “90s Democrat”
tho i doubt he’d ever be so tactless to blame the crime rate on black “superpredators”
He’d probably go for the classic trifecta of single moms, drugs and not enough cops.
Tell me more about this utopia of which you speak.
OH! just came up with a bang-up idea for a parody Twitter account; if Twitter were around during the Clinton administration!
@BigWillyJeff 21 Nov 1996
Just smoked a fat blunt, then put a cubano right in the pussy. Man it’s good to be THE MAN #FirstBlackPresident #SlickWilly
Translation: We called people NAZIs and white supremacists who clearly weren’t, and I’m only a few bong rips away from rationalizing it.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/25/opinion/women-china-communist-revolution.html?smid=tw-nytopinion&smtyp=cur
That’s the quote they went with for the twitter post. There is no such thing as peak derp.
By dream big they mean not get slaughtered as an infant?
What is informing on their parents, chopped liver?
+2000 period checkers
And the Nazis taught Germans to dream big.
I think it’s past time for Tim Cook and most of the supposed design team for iOS, hell, the design teams for just about all of their products to get fed into a wood chipper where they would then serve a more productive purpose than they do now.
Not yet. Their mistakes just paid for my next car.
I’m sure they’ll pay for the next several cars at this rate. Unbelievable fucking idiots.
My real disappointment is Equifax. I’m surprised at how people are willing to forgive the unforgivable. They need to go out of business. Preferably by Oct 20.
The breach didn’t really affect their customers.
Yet.
And if you mean their “real” customers, I think it is. I will not consent to any use of Equifax by any lending company etc and will straight up inform them to use the other companies or lose me as a customer. I have already heard the same from others with more influence- big money types.
I am somewhat hopeful that this form of protest will continue to impact Equifax by influencing investors to shift their portfolios elsewhere.
If only state AGs would go after data breaches from the government like this.
Swiss,
Where’s Mullah Omar and Ayman Zawahiri? Does it matter that the US hasn’t positively ID’d them as dead? Why was UBL allowed to live as a guest within Pakistan for so long post 9/11, and should there have been any practical consequences to Pakistan for harboring him?
What are the US’s goals in that region, and what should they be, IYO? Do they include defeating the Taliban? Is defeating the Taliban possible, and if so, what would victory look like?
What is your opinion on the effect, if any, of the Saudis and other Gulf states funding schools teaching Wahhabi-ism throughout the FATA and KP? Should this have been something the US should have tried to dissuade, either through diplomacy or other means?
Do the FATA and KP serve as de facto sanctuaries for the various anti-government militias preventing peace and/or victory in Afghanistan, and can the US/ISAF anything about that?
Thoughts on the feasibility of reunion between Pakistan and India?
Thanks for the article and your hard work in putting it together.
India and Pakistan won’t reunite because of Islam. There’s still anti-non-muslim violence consistently in Pakistan (blasphemy trials, lynchings etc) – and of course Hindu anti-Muslim violence in India. Those guys are black and white. Not gonna happen.
It is absolutely hilarious to see the taliban and ISIS fighting each other and ignoring everyone else – other than the poor folks stuck in the middle – but a lot of them have moved out of the way.
Omar was getting up there in years and wounds, and he definitely would have been sounding off were he around. Zawahiri got vaporized, and even his side said he was “martyred”.
We turn a blind eye to the Paks, or there is no logistics chain into Afghanistan.
You can defeat the Taliban by getting the Paks (and the Saudis) to turn off the money spigot, and let the Afghans deal with them. If the Afghans and Paks can chill on the frontier (easy movement across is already sort of the situation) then there is less of a grievance.
We turn a blind eye to the Saudis shipping off lucre to the assholes of the world, since we want them as a counterweight against Iran. I think we could lean on them harder – but reduced oil revenue is starting to do that for us.
Pak and India won’t reunite – they hate each other. and just because the Brits swept a bunch of states together doesn’t mean that mistake should be repeated.
Thanks – this article was more a few stray thoughts typed out than anything. One day, I will put finger to keyboard and do better.
I think you thought I meant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the guy with AQI who got blown up in 2006. Ayman al-Zawahiri, “the Egyptian,” and popularly thought to be the 2nd in command of Al Qaeda, was still around I thought.
I think the Iranians will be the ones eventually substantively leaning on the Saudis. And vice versa. The US might once again be the leading crude exporter to the world for a few years…
Thanks to you and Fish for your answers to my questions.
I thought they had got him. But who the heck knows.