Buonomo defends the Taliban
It’s been a while, but TJ Buonomo, probably the best-educated of the IVAW crowd (thanks to the free education he got at the Air Force Academy) decided to school me on what the US policy towards Afghanistan should be last night;
As unsavory as the Taliban’s rule would be from a human rights standpoint, it is not the responsibility of the United States military to go crusading around the world conducting armed human rights
missions. And I would argue that the Afghan government’s human rights record isn’t much better if at all.So the question is, can the Taliban be negotiated with and on what terms? The only ostensible U.S. interest in Afghanistan is to ensure that Al Qaeda doesn’t re-establish itself there and organize the Taliban under its own banner. There is substantial evidence to indicate that this is not the inevitable outcome that many assume it to be.
Unsavory, TJ? A bit of an understatement, isn’t it? They denied an education to women. You know what women are, right? They’re at least half of the population, in case they didn’t teach that at the Academy. They stoned people…you know, like they’ve been doing since the beginning of human history. They throw acid on the faces of little girls. Yeah, unsavory. Does the current government treat it’s citizens like that? But you said their human rights record isn’t much better – well, other than the stoning and the denial of basic human dignities thing.
Yes, the United States shouldn’t be traipsing all over the world stomping out injustice, but when the fruits of that injustice strikes us at home, our government has the responsibility to make sure it doesn’t happen again. We left Afghanistan to it’s own devices in 1987, we walked away from Somalia in 1993, we walked away from Yemen in 2000.
TJ, you act like the Taliban are rational actors – you negotiate with rational actors. But they’re really not. They’re the same kind of extremists as al Qaeda…a large number of them came from other countries just so they could practice their extremism on real people. It’s painfully myopic to even attempt to negotiate with a group who has no intention of cooperating with anyone.
Yes, yes, I know, it’s vogue to defend yourself with the “questions which must be asked” line, but after asking the same questions, after they’ve already been answered, they’re not questions any more. They become bumpersticker slogans and it becomes obvious that you, the questioner, just won’t accept any answer that isn’t one you’ve not preordained.
IVAW has outlived it’s usefulness, if it ever had any. For one, it’s lasted longer than the war it opposed. Most of it’s remaining members have never set foot in Iraq (it’s right there in the title). It opposed the successful strategy which brought Iraq to this point. It’s now opposing the war in Afghanistan, which it’s own executive director supported a few short years ago. Do you really expect Americans to follow you on this one, too?
Category: Antiwar crowd, Iraq Veterans Against the War
Well, pretty soon they can add Libya Veterans to their cadre. What? We don’t have boots on the ground in Libya? Like that matters? I’m sure someone will pop up saying they bolted because they didn’t want to fight in Libya and then join IVAW with much fanfare and Kafiyas on display. Then the pronouncement that they are against the illegal and unjust war in Libya. My pre-question is; if it was sponsored by the UN, is it still against international law”? I’m just asking, because I know that the statement “against international law” will come to the fore quickly.
Tough call. Former Assistant Secretary of Defense Bing West cals it the wrong war. One big problem – we can continue to shoot at the bad guys, and there are plenty of them, but the Afghan people seem to be apathetic and are playing a waiting game. For what ever reason – they don’t like the American presence, or they’ve seen the Taliban driven out only to return and exact revenge on the local populace, or whatever – they will not commit to democracy or help themselves. Until we get buy in from the locals, it’s gonna be a tough row to hoe. We can keep killing, and the Taliban can keep recruiting.
If it were mainly about women’s rights, we’d also invade a bunch of African countries, and other middle eastern ones, where women are abused. On the other hand, I have no doubt Al Quaeda and the Taliban would start cooperating again if we leave Afghanistan in its present state. So I’m not sure where that leaves us.
I liked your post, Joe. You made some good points. I think what we need to remember now is that half measures will not work here. Our military shines, but right now our political / diplomatic work is sadly lacking. They both have to be involved completely in this situation, and coordinated, and I don’t see that right now.
He is not even particularly observant, let alone intelligent. The reason the Taliban were asswhacked is that they openly, blatantly, willingly provided safe haven, and logistical support for the terrorist group AL QUAEDA. They were given the opportunity to stop and refused openly to do so, and as a result they were designated an enemy government and attacked, since they provided material support to an entity that attacked the United States. That is a de facto act of war.
While we are not the world’s police force in fact, we are just that in deed. And we shouldn’t be. I much prefer the Soviet model of superpower. We leave everyone pretty much to their own devices unless they fuck with us, in which case we KILL ALL OF THEM without mercy.
I’ve said it here before, and I’ll say it again, I think we should be practicing better area denial by nuking the snot out of the problem border areas between Pakistan and Afghanistan, then ruthlessly and aggressively hunting down the remaining trouble makers with prejudice. Make friends with the remaining Afghanis AFTER we’ve established ourselves as the ONLY law in that country.
Rather interesting concept: AQ and the Taliban are separate, distinct organizations. Perhaps not so much.
They are each a piece of the Muslim Brotherhood, sharing financial, human, and intelligence resources. They read the same texts, and share the same legal and moral philosophies. Their fighters are trained by the same folks, having been recruited from the same pools of people, and armed by the same dealers. They shift from Chechnya to Kosovo to Iraq to Turkey with the greatest of ease.
The Taliban will not ‘re-form’ under AQ’s banner. It will focus on Afghanistan and Pakistan while AQ shifts focus to the Arabian Peninsula, which has always been its focus. Iran will continue to use its Revolutionary Guard on a flanking march through Turkey and southern Europe.
They are each a part of one whole, and have succeeded in stealing strategic marches on the US.
Yeah, once a informational brain virus, like radical islam, or any other religion for that matter, infects a person, it’s very hard to dislodge. Presently Al Quaeda and the Taliban are like amoebas that slither almost anywhere. Ultimately, as long as that virus/meme exists, new terrorists will grow like mushrooms. In addition to killing or capturing the terrorists we know about, we have to figure out a way to convince people that the radical islam meme/virus is a dead end. Maybe we can conclusively prove that there is no such thing as 72 waiting virgins, or maybe demonstrate that virginity is over rated?
Joe,
If there were realy 72 virgins waiting for me, I’d certainly be tempted. Of course, I’d probably need eternity to kinda, you know, Explain Things to them. And with my luck, they’d have zero interest in menfolk. As a backup, I plan on being buried with my TV remote.
I wonder how many Muslim fighters are first-born sons of their father’s first wife?
“…we have to figure out a way to convince people that the radical islam meme/virus is a dead end.”
That’s the point, and that is also the problem. A religion only moderates when its practicioners figure out that HERE is just as important as the HEREAFTER. Until they understand that living is important, then dying is the only thing they have to look forward to.
…and, DaveO…
Remember what “Walter” said about those 72 virgins! 🙂
Hey now, I’m from Virginia… which is why I moved west!
LOL @ Walter
Jonn- Nice work selectively quoting my email to you.
Here’s the full version: Jonn, As unsavory as the Taliban’s rule would be from a human rights standpoint, it is not the responsibility of the United States military to go crusading around the world conducting armed human rights missions. And I would argue that the Afghan government’s human rights record isn’t much better if at all. So the question is, can the Taliban be negotiated with and on what terms? The only ostensible U.S. interest in Afghanistan is to ensure that Al Qaeda doesn’t re-establish itself there and organize the Taliban under its own banner. There is substantial evidence to indicate that this is not the inevitable outcome that many assume it to be. In fact General Petraeus himself stated before the Senate Armed Services Committee last week that he believed the Afghan Taliban’s ambitions were limited to the territory of Afghanistan, indicating that they are a naionalist rather than a pan-Islamist group. Ahmed Rashid, author of “Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia”, also notes in his book that the inner circle of Taliban leaders were divided about whether to keep Osama bin Laden in their protection after September 11th. Mullah Omar ultimately made the foolish decision to do so and therefore it is unlikely that he could be brought to the negotiating table. That doesn’t mean, however, that the Taliban leadership couldn’t be splintered if they were offered certain political incentives. In my opinion this is worth exploring if it means getting our troops out of Afghanistan. I’ve seen far too many of my friends suffer from post-traumatic stress, depression, substance abuse and homelessness to think this war is worth it unless it’s absolutely necessary to the security of the American public. I’ve lost one friend to suicide and one of my Academy classmates was killed in Afghanistan in 2009. So if the scope of this war can be reduced to a low level SOF mission I’m all for it. I think just as legitimate an argument can be made that we’re creating more terrorists by our overly ambitious attempts as social and political engineering in… Read more »
Well, here’s your chance to post the whole thing.
Scott: where?
T.J. Buonomo,
First point: You are correct in stating our military does not have “…the responsibility of the United States military to go crusading around the world conducting armed human rights missions.”
Our military does have the responsibility of following orders given by the CinC – and if s/he wants to cruise the world saving it for democracy, the military is going to execute mission. The affairs of the governments of other nations are of no concern unless the POTUS involves us. So Karzai’s human rights record has zippo relevance.
Second point: You asked an excellent question on whether the Taliban can be negotiated with. The best person to answer that question would be one each Susie “Medea” Benjamin, who serves as envoy from Mullah Omar. The obvious answer is yes, with the terms being our surrendering totally, completely, and without reservation.
BTW, “totally, completely, and without reservation” is a guaranteed death sentence. Mullah Omar is Old School: he slaughters his former enemies, their families, and their followers whenever he can. History from about 1996-2002 shows that. That behaviour created the Northern Alliance.
As I said earlier, the degree of separation between AQ and Taliban, Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, Fatah and the Caliphate of Chechnya is zero. Has been zero. Will remain zero. They negotiate only to buy time and space to continue the offensive.
Jonn, Here’s the State Department’s 2009 Human Rights Report. Let’s just call a spade a spade and say, “They may be sons of bitches but they’re our sons of bitches.” Three decades of nearly uninterrupted war would barbarize any population and catalyze religious fundamentalism among the less educated segments of the population, which for Afghanistan is unfortunately the majority. But you could observe that in the United States as well after September 11th. I would assert that many Americans do view this as a religious war of Christian civilization vs. the Islamic horde. Let’s not forget that the United States supported the propagation of this ideology, which was very useful for building militant fervor against the Soviets. I haven’t done enough research on this so it’s no more than conjecture at this point but I suspect that the Taliban’s view of women is also part of their psychological programming. It’s no good trying to build a resistance movement when your target population of male recruits have been made soft by sexual satisfaction. But of course circumstances have changed and I agree, the Left often prefers to indulge in wishful thinking or self-flagellation rather than face difficult realities head on and accept what is necessary to eliminate current threats to our citizenry. The Right, on the other hand, tends to see a military solution to every problem and disregards questions such as the ones IVAW is asking about the Taliban as naive. None of those approaches are useful and I will be the first to admit that I have been guilty of all of them. I remember watching the Twin Towers burning and when they fell I said, “We need to bomb them back to the Stone Age.” Well, we bombed the hell out of them as we needed to but now we have to ask ourselves, “We’ve been at this for 10 years- how do we bring it to a conclusion?” General Petraeus himself has said that the solution ultimately has to be a diplomatic one, which leads us to several questions: (1) What should our terms be (considering all… Read more »
And after all that I didn’t link to the State Department report: http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2009/sca/136084.htm
This whole idea that if the Taliban were to return to running Afghanistan, Al Qaeda wouldn’t restablish itself there, is wishful thinking. I have seen zero evidence to back this statement. A mantra for the ignorant.
Yeah, TJ, I had no nefarious reason to abbreviate your email. You tend to be long-winded, repeat yourself and use disreputable sources. You may not have done that in this case, but because you have in the past, I disregarded most of your email.
I said you were the best educated of the IVAW crowd, I didn’t, however, say you were the smartest. You rely too heavily on academics and people like yourself who have no practical experience – that’s why you tubed your military “career” before you were able to have that practical view.
By the way, your line about “five years of military service” is wearing thin when we all know that five years includes four years at the Air Force Academy…which isn’t really military service since the military things you learned were marching and folding your underwear.
And then six months of that last year was spent in your OBC course, not to mention the time between your commissioning and your report date at OBC. In other words, your “military service” was mostly academic.
Jonn,
If you’re not willing to read a few hundred words I don’t see much point engaging in this forum. I may not be the most succinct writer but it also generally takes more than a paragraph or two to have a serious, substantive debate. Personal jabs are easy and are also a waste of time.
“If you’re not willing to read a few hundred words I don’t see much point engaging in this forum.”
My thoughts exactly.
“Personal jabs are easy….”
They really are, especially in the case of most of IVAW’s remaining members. But seein’s how your “five years” of military service are the cornerstone upon which you rest your expertise, it’s germane here.
Case in point, T.J., back in my day in the training pipeline Olando nukes occasionally went to Charleston to work on what would eventually become the MTU’s (Moored Training Units, aka, prototype for the nuke pipeline.) Contrarily, I at least had an SSBN patrol under my belt before I showed up in Orlando.
One day in NPS, one of the “floatotype weenies” who had exactly six weeks chipping paint and ZERO days underway pipes up and says, “Hey, I’ve got a GREAT sea story!” to which I immediately replied, “Whose?” The class lost it.
Which is why NCO’s either facepalm or laugh their asses off when freshly minted Academy grads pipe in with, “In my experience…”
There are those who know, those who do not, and you, my little friend, don’t even SUSPECT.
Well T.J., I was willing to read it through, and then willing to reply with more than a ‘few hundred words’. Hopefully your not just a noisy windbag and you’ll return the favor. Cheers. From you T.J. – ” I’ve seen far too many of my friends suffer from post-traumatic stress, depression, substance abuse and homelessness to think this war is worth it unless it’s absolutely necessary to the security of the American public. I’ve lost one friend to suicide and one of my Academy classmates was killed in Afghanistan in 2009.” One has to assume you are attempting to say the cost of the war has been too high, that the sacrifice in personnel isn’t worth the return in security. Well let’s put the human cost to the nation in perspective shall we? Tarawa November 20, to November 22, 1943 – 950 US Marines killed in 3 days of fighting. (1)(2) Guadalcanal – August 7, 1942 to February 9, 1943 – 988 US Marines killed in 6 months of fighting (2)(3) Invasion of the Marianas – June 15, 1944 to August 1, 1944 – 3995 US Marines killed (2)(4) Okinawa – 2897 US Marines killed (2). The total for American dead was over 12,000, with 36,000 wounded. The total number of civilians killed was over 130,000. All of this within 3 months! (5) Iwo Jima – February 19 to March 26, 1945 – 4907 US Marines killed for a total of 6,800 American dead. Approx 20,000 wounded. All this in a little over a month.(2)(6) (1) http://www.historynet.com/world-war-ii-today-missing-marine-dead-discovered-on-tarawa.htm (2) http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq11-1.htm#anchor2118718 (3) http://www.guadalcanal.com/battleofguadalcanal.html (4) http://www.olive-drab.com/od_history_ww2_ops_battles_1944marianas_saipan.php (5) http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/okinawa-battle.htm (6) http://www.history.navy.mil/library/online/battleiwojima.htm The official casualty numbers for Afghanistan as of yesterday – 1,401 dead, 10,681 wounded, in 7 years of fighting. http://www.defense.gov/news/casualty.pdf Any American casualty is regrettable, and the losses weigh hard on family, friends, and the nation, but I can’t help but contrast what we as a nation have been willing to sacrifice in the past to ensure our security, with what appears to be a lack of will on the part of many to do so today. Sorry T.J., your whining is… Read more »
NHSparky and Jonn,
I find it ironic that you seemingly discount the views of someone based solely on their military or combat experience. With all due respect to your military service, being a combat veteran does not make you an expert on national security policy, foreign affairs, diplomacy, or other strategic-level matters. While I am by no means claiming to be an expert on any of those things myself, the people I have cited- retired military and intelligence officers, career diplomats, political researchers, seasoned journalists, etc. -do have significant experience that you’ve essentially dismissed because the person who brought their perspectives to your attention does not have the same credentials that you do.
The Left and the Right in my observation are essentially mirror images of each other- they harden their viewpoints around certain ideological assumptions and when they are presented with evidence that contradicts those basic assumptions they consciously or subconsciously disregard it.
Diplomatic influence is ultimately rooted in military power, acknowledged. What I’m questioning, pragmatically rather than idealistically, is our cost-benefit analysis.
Personally, TJ I could care less about your military experience…except that you intentionally deceive people with your “five years of military service” in order to bolster your own credibility in the discussion about the war. That’s where I draw the line. That’s where I’ve always drawn the line. Like belonging to an organization called Iraq Veterans Against the War which has very few actual Iraq Veterans as members.
“the people I have cited- retired military and intelligence officers, career diplomats, political researchers, seasoned journalists, etc. -do have significant experience that you’ve essentially dismissed because the person who brought their perspectives to your attention does not have the same credentials that you do.”
Well my friend, when an expert gardener, who accepts advice from gardeners, and who’s greatest experience with shooting bad guys is watching Hawaii 5/0 tells me I need to adjust my sights to hit my target at the range, it’s likely his advice will be the last I examine.
You sir are a shining example of an adult cry baby.
From you:
“when they are presented with evidence that contradicts those basic assumptions they consciously or subconsciously disregard it”.
Likewise sir, thank you for ignoring truth.
TJ, when I was in, we had an expression that would be entirely apropo for this situation:
Get some time on the pond, nub.
John Lilyea,
Hi, what do you mean when you said this, “Like belonging to an organization called Iraq Veterans Against the War which has very few actual Iraq Veterans as members.”? Would you know the percentage of members of this group who served in Iraq? That is a little shady how if what you say is correct about most not even served in Iraq then that totally tarnishes whatever credibility IVAW actually has. False advertising at its finest!
Thanks!
Danny
TJ Buonomo,
Are you one of these clowns that says you served 4 years in the military, when really all you did was 4 years of ROTC??
Danny