His basic argument can be summed up like this: American soldiers and Marines are very good at counterinsurgency, and they are breaking their hearts, and losing their lives, doing it so hard. But the central premise of counterinsurgency doctrine holds that if the Americans sacrifice on behalf of the Afghan government, then the Afghan people will risk their lives for that same government in return. They will fight the Taliban, finger the informants hiding among them and transform themselves into authentic leaders who spurn death and temptation.
This isn’t happening. What we have created instead, West shows, is a vast culture of dependency: Americans are fighting and dying, while the Afghans by and large stand by and do nothing to help them. Afghanistan’s leaders, from the presidential palace in Kabul to the river valleys in the Pashtun heartland, are enriching themselves, often criminally, on America’s largesse. The Taliban, whatever else they do, fight hard and for very little reward...Most important, the Afghan people, though almost certainly opposed to a Taliban redux, are equally wary of both the Americans and their Afghan “leaders.”...The Afghans are waiting to see who prevails, but prevailing is impossible without their help.
Our soldiers should not be asked to sacrifice their lives in this war year after year.
And there are far more productive things we can do with $100 billion a year (at least, in theory) than dump it in Afghanistan. By the way, the charity-induced corruption reminds me forcefully of our welfare state and its ongoing destruction of the character of the lower orders most exposed to it. Afghanistan might just be the dumbest war we've ever fought--impressive considering the other contenders.
