Actually, I have two items from The Times here. First, did you catch this op-ed about Afghanistan? Its thesis is that things are going pretty well there (vs. Iraq, certainly), and that this success results from the lighter military presence. I recall that you felt that Afghanistan needed more of a military presence. I'd be bowled over if there weren't some gross oversimplifications in the op-ed--Afghanistan's recent history is extremely dissimilar from Iraq's, for one--and I think it also feeds into a vein of wishful thinking that's the flip side of the surge idea. The surge posits that the problem (in Iraq) is that we don't have enough troops there; the op-ed argues that the problem (in Iraq and parts of Afghanistan) is that we have too many troops there. The op-ed strikes me as wishful in that we get to be selfish, but still the good guys--troops come home safe, world improves. Nice try, but I'm not sold.
Second, Meghan O'Rourke marries. And, damn, there's no dumb in that pair. And I bet she never wore an engagement ring, either.
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To be honest, never having been there, I can't be absolutely sure what Afghanistan really needs. I do know that, historically, America's strength doesn't seem to be assimilating into alien cultures and gaining their trust. Our comparative military advantage lies in leveraging our superior industrial might into the ability to hammer the army and population centers of another organized polity with high explosive until they sue for peace. Or in the case of a network of terrorist cells, I suppose, hammering their population centers until they form a polity and sue for peace. It's entirely possible that I'm wrong. But when people speak of the superiority of a small military footprint to achieve the goals of an occupying force, I just hope we aren't mistaking mere passivity for compliance.
You and I agree on that last point--the danger of "mistaking mere passivity for compliance." There's something of the "if you build it, they will come" idea to it. The greater the force, the more targets, sure, but also the more knowledge you have about the actual conditions.
But, then, what is our goal? Is it compliance? With what? Is it passivity? Is it self-determination? They don't all amount to the same thing.
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