Obama's Wars, By: Bob Woodward - Book enumerate

The author did a necessary job of documenting and fact checking numerous White House internal memos, meetings, interviews, necessary decisions on Afghanistan and the campaign in Pakistan. This book is necessary because the contents will help the current and hereafter Presidents cope with the difficult decision surrounding soldiery conflicts of every kind.

The counterinsurgency envisioned by normal David Petraeus is delineated in the book at some length. Potential in this strategy is the task of marginalizing the influence of Al Qaeda and non-cooperative elements in the Taliban. To accomplish this feat, our soldiery must have the concurrence of the local population. Even Niccolo Macchiavelli explained that an occupying force must have the concurrence of the local citizenry before attempting any supplementary action.

News From Afghanistan

The book anticipates a Usa exit plan in Afghanistan. First, the country has a whole of constituencies like the Pashtun (40%), Tajik (25%), Hazara (19%) Uzbek and Turkmen - 10% and others. We need to get good data on the goals of these varied subgroups in order to construct areas of congruency, as well as areas where concurrence may be difficult or impossible. In addition, the religious mix is about 85% Sunni and 15% Sh'ia Muslim.

The population has a life expectancy under 50 years of age and the literacy level is under 40%. These statistics indicate that the job of educating the population will not be easy. The United States cannot be responsible for nation-building in Afghanistan; however, our soldiery must be concerned about getting political quiescence concurrent with a rational phaseout of soldiery and eventual governance by the local people.

Some nation construction may be necessary in order to stabilize the country and forestall the return of factions within the old Soviet Union or elsewhere. The United States plainly cannot expend all of this attempt in Afghanistan only to caress a repeat execution of the Soviet (or some faction thereof) invasion of Afghanistan.

Vice President Biden is inclined to limit the soldiery vision in Afghanistan. This "gut feeling" makes sense based upon the bloody history which includes experiences by the Soviets, Great Britain and Alexander the Great ( of all people).

The book makes clear that there are no uniform goals for our Afghanistan involvement despite a 6 year incremental involvement. Let me construct some goals after having read the book.

(1) The United States should withdraw incrementally and train Afghani soldiery to take over the job of managing resistance from Al Qaeda, the Taliban and even hostile foreign influences. Here, commando training is in order concurrent with the use of some soldiery hardware. Our caress with drones has had some success.

(2) The United States should engage in some nation construction action to promote higher literacy rates and good life expectancy. We have at our disposal It technologies, guidance Giving systems in artificial intelligence, the Red Cross and other international agencies to assist. Generic drugs are ready at affordable prices due to the expiry of patents.

In addition, we have up-to-date technologies to construct and control municipal accounting systems and processes. Soon, we will have commercializable desalination plants powered by solar power or the "Artificial Sun". Afghanistan could gain passage for desalination plants via pipelines to the Caspian Sea proximate to the Kara Kum Desert, the Gulf of Oman or the Arabian Sea.

We may need desalination because the workforce is over 60% agriculture. Some mountain rivers produce intermittent fertile valleys. These are heavy infrastructure undertakings traversing all of the engineering arts.

(3) The United States should encourage the amelioration of Afghani power resources to fund post-war economic activity. There are models; such as, the Grameen Bank to supply affordable financing.

Britain's war in Afghanistan turned out to be an rehearsal in futility. At the height of its power in India, Britain sought to originate stability in the subcontinent. Other goal was to forestall Russian and Persian encroachments. To some extent, the Usa has to encourage the same goal today in order to facilitate our withdrawal. The British implementation plan was to take off a colorful and popular leader from the Afghan throne. The transfer was with an unpopular, though legitimate, king.

The experiment ended when a British resident in Kabul was brutally murdered by an angry crowd. A British envoy was shot by an Afghan leader during an encounter. His dismembered corpse was hung in effigy in a Kabul bazaar. The ill-fated recession of the British resulted in the deaths
of thousands of people.

Source: recession from Kabul: The Catastrophic British Defeat in Afghanistan 1842 by Patrick McCrory The Lyons Press ( November 2007)

There are Islamic radicals in Afghanistan. Many of them are more concerned with maintaining aged tribal customs than in supporting global Islamic conquest. These tribal customs contain retention women from school and banning popular music. A few Pashtun tribes can be problematic.

The Pashtun population are about 40 percent of the Afghan population. Most Pashtuns live across the border in Pakistan. The radical elements control on both sides of the border and have done so for many centuries (long before those borders were drawn.) The Pashtuns still pride themselves on delaying Alexander the Great well over 2000 years ago. Alexander the Great defeated the Pashtuns although there may be some turn over on this subject. Eventually, Alexander exited and the tribes carried on as before. Pashtun community consists of many tribes and clans who were unsucessful in establishing an independent government in their land until the rise of the Hotaki dynasty and Durrani Empire in the early 18th century.

Alexander the Great pursued Bessus, Darius Iii's kinsmen and one of his murderers. The chase was into the territory of modern Afghanistan. Bessus declared himself successor and enemy to Persian invaders. Afghanistan was part of the Persian Empire which, with the defeat of Darius, belonged to Alexander's Empire.

Eventually, some of Bessus's commanders would turn him over to Alexander. Nevertheless, Alexander continued to meet with resistance from men like Spitamenes. He and his resistors were defeated over time and all of the Persian provinces fell to Alexander eventually.

Obama's Wars, By: Bob Woodward - Book enumerate

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