Why we will fail in Afghanistan

So yeah this is going to be one of those times where I piss off both the Democrats and the Republicans. Our war with Afghanistan is now officially the longest war in US history and last month was the bloodiest month for coalition forces in the wars history. We are not going to stabilize Afghanistan as a country and with this post I will attempt to lay out why.

First I am going to raise the issue of economics. Afghanistan is an extremely poor country. In 2001 before the invasion Afghanistan's GDP per capita was $84.76 per person per year. Currently it is $446.40 per person per year. So yeah if you look at that it looks like the invasion has made the economy skyrocket. Well you would be wrong. Funny thing is where that growth has taken place in two places; opium production and in support positions for our troops. The Taliban being an incredibly evil organization that deserved to be toppled did one thing right, they kept the opium production now. Without the Taliban opium production has skyrocketed. So yeah when we eventually leave the Afghanis will lose the jobs in providing support for our troops and we will have more issues with drug production. So yeah all the money is centered around warlords and drug cartels. This is shown in the fact that more money is flown out of Kabul every year then the entire country collects in tax and customs revenue nationwide, and thats only the legally declared money.

Moving on from the economic side Afghanistan has never really functioned as one unified government. It's more a collection of tribes that rule themselves. Attempting to build a nation wide government in a country where farmers have two seasons; growing season and fighting season in unrealistic. It would be near impossible if we had a non-corrupt honest government there but we all know that the US backed Afghani government is corrupt beyond belief.

So yeah we are currently engaged in nation building and counter-insurgency and we are not getting anywhere. We are temporary propping up the economics of the country. We have currently spent $280 billion in Afghanistan. That's 21 times their 2009 GDP which is the highest they have had in 10 years. Counter-insurgency is a system in which military and diplomatic forces work together to wipe out insurgency and convince people to lay down their arms. This tactic does have really any good example of it ever working anywhere but we are still attempting it. The main issue we are running into is that nobody really wants to work with us so we are pretty much only focusing on the military side of counter-insurgency. Counter-insurgency is not working, more troops are dying and we aren't getting any further.

So let me clarify, did I support the invasion of Afghanistan? Yes, I did. The Taliban was a despicable regime that deserved to be destroyed and we accomplished that, but we cannot continue to be an occupying force in Afghanistan. What I would suggest would be a much smaller special op's force be used in the area to deal with any resurgence of the Taliban and to deal with the Opium kingpins. We are not going to be able to turn Afghanistan into a country like Kuwait. There isn't any money in Afghanistan and poverty breeds extremism.

So when the day comes that we eventually pull out of Afghanistan its pretty much going to fall to pieces. We are sort of the glue holding it all together.