When the term "nation-building" first hit the rhetoric of the Bush/Cheney administration (an event which occurred even as US troops were failing in Tora Bora) the Geek shuddered, almost ran to the pottie and puked his guts out. For that term showed three critical features were at work to assure a long and eventually failed American effort in Afghanistan.
The first critical feature was simply that we had abandoned, if, indeed, we had ever considered limiting our goal to that of mounting a successful punitive expedition with the focus being upon killing or capturing al-Qaeda personnel and Taliban governmental and military leaders. The second was that no matter how long and loud we proclaimed that we were not waging war on Islam qua Islam or Muslims qua Muslims these protestations would be discounted by Muslims both in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Thirdly and most importantly, it showed that the administration did not understand that society and polity in a Muslim majority country arise totally from the religion of Islam.
Mark this well: Any attempt to alter a Muslim society or polity is simultaneously an attempt to change the religion. Unlike here in the West, there is no blue sky between faith and society, faith and polity. There is and can be no, repeat, no separation between faith and state.
The announced intention to transform Afghanistan into some sort of imitation of a Western nation-state gave free pass to any and all Muslims to see the effort as an attack upon Muslims and Islam thus invoking the obligation of defensive jihad upon all believers. This call to defensive arms requires no tortured logic, no semantic games, it is plain and simple in the Koran.
While sometimes there is ample room for interpretation over whether or not aggressive war, offensive jihad is required, this is not the case when the infidel invades Muslim land and drives Muslims from their homes. The branding of Afghanistan as a country in need of severe, extreme make-over rang the bell of jihad.
Had the US made it clear that our goal was the punishment of people, groups resident within Afghanistan, who had caused us great injury and great insult, that would have been understood by those in Afghanistan and elsewhere who were not joined with either Taliban or al-Qaeda. Such a goal would have not crossed the line into invading a Muslim land and chasing Muslims from their homes. It would not have invoked the defensive jihad.
Had the US employed the run-up period to public diplomacy focusing on the nature of the 9/11 attack, the character of the majority of the victims, and the way in which both attack and consequences both violated Islamic principles and caused Islam and Muslims to be covered with infamy, the punitive expedition would have met with a large measure of approval in the Muslim-Arab world. Revenge--which is what punishment is at root--is well understood by Muslims all over the world. An honorable person, a nation with honor and dignity, are both entitled, even expected, to avenge wrongs done to them.
Admittedly, while the notion of a purely punitive military action would not have met with approval by segments of both American and Western European opinion, it would have been eminently salable to the majority of the population both here and abroad. The Lofty Minded, the overly legally minded, the softly sentimental all would have been offended in their sensibilities by the concept of war as punishment. Too bad. The majority would have supported the notion and that is all politics both domestic and global require.
The punitive blow might have been softened by a policy of supporting international efforts to assist the Afghan population in its economic and political development provided there was no odor of external coercion involved. This add-on would have mollified the do-gooding segment of opinion and not provided ammunition for the advocates of violent political Islam.
Had the public diplomacy been accompanied by a bit of very non-public pressure on Islamabad along the lines of "cooperate with us, close the borders, pull out your ISI guys, and allow us to get on with killing or capturing the bad boys or you will never see another big ticket, high tech weapons system marked Made in America," the result would have been the death or capture of far more al-Qaeda and Taliban heavyweights than was the case. There is little doubt that the military high command of Pakistan would have seen the logic of our presentation.
The basic intelligence product regarding the relation of Islam, nation-building, and defensive jihad were all in existence in 2001. It would have taken no particular effort to connect the dots and make the right policy choice.
The rub came back then precisely where it does today. The president and his senior staff as well as the rarefied levels of the military do not know what they do not know. They were and are afflicted with ignorance as to the extent of their own ignorance. Compounding the problem back then as well as today is the simple reality that the people who do know what needs to be known topside are too far down the food chain to bring their concerns and knowledge to the appropriate level. There is no way for knowledge, no matter how mission critical, to leap from way down low to the up high where decisions are made.
Of course it is possible that the neocon ninnies of W and Company were briefed on the fact that the saber toothed tigers of defeat lived in the word, "nation-building," and decided for reasons of ideology or hubris to ignore the warning. If that was the case, the administration of W. Bush stands indicted of the worst sort of war "crime." The one of committing one's country and military to a long, costly, counterproductive war in which naught but defeat is possible.
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