You either will have to stay there forever or you have lost

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080530.wreckoning0531/BNStory/International

Afghanistan: counterinsurgency or colonialism?

Americans bring Afghans their new 60-year plan

DOUG SAUNDERS

Globe and Mail Update

E-mail Doug Saunders | Read Bio | Latest Columns
May 31, 2008 at 12:05 AM EDT

NARAY, Afghanistan — To get to Naray, which may be the most lawless place in Afghanistan today, you have to make the long journey up the sniper-filled Kunar River Valley from Jalalabad to Asadabad, where the road ends, and then hitch a ride on a Black Hawk helicopter to this outpost in the far northeast, near the Pakistani border. Here, in the hills, you will find 200 wild-eyed U.S. Army soldiers living in a cluster of tents, sheltering themselves from regular rocket attacks. snip

Within the U.S. military, this is known as population-centric counterinsurgency, an approach that has a cultish following among some officers. It was attempted and then dropped in the Vietnam War (the infamous "strategic hamlets" were at its centre) and there are still officers who believe that Vietnam would have been won if counterinsurgency had been practised to the end.

One of its strongest advocates happens to be General David Petraeus, who has just become the head of the U.S. Central Command, making him responsible for both the Iraq and the Afghanistan wars.

In practice, I found, it looks and sounds a lot more like old-fashioned colonialism. In the tents of Naray, I had the distinct feeling that I had strolled into Uttar Pradesh at some point after 1858, in the early days of the British Raj. snip

Lest anyone think this is a soft or peaceful process, Cdr. Dwyer's base was rocked, every minute or so all day, by the terrifying shock of its line of 155-mm howitzers firing their village-destroying shells over the hills and into the Korengal Valley.

The building of mosques and roads is matched with absolutely ferocious fighting in places such as Korengal — the Americans are much more willing to use air strikes and heavy artillery, with the resulting heavy civilian casualties, than other militaries.

There are good reasons to be suspicious of this approach.

"We do not believe in counterinsurgency," a senior French commander tells me. "If you find yourself needing to use counterinsurgency, it means the entire population has become the subject of your war, and you either will have to stay there forever or you have lost."

[bluerum]

1. Viet Nam replaying itself. This is really getting eerie. eom

[kentuck]

2. 4 years from now....

That will be the campaign issue in the 2012 election. Do we stay in Afghanistan or do we become "isolationists" and withdraw to our own shores?