The American invasion of Afghanistan was all the more bizarre since the Russians fled it just a few years ago. American politicians and military men universally predicted the Soviet failure, but rushed to fail on their own. The NATO contingent in Afghanistan is pathetically small—one-fifth of the number of Soviet troops who served there—and the Soviets lost. In Iraq and Afghanistan, American generals failed to convince their political leaders that saturation is a major factor in pacifying an occupied state. The lack of peacekeeping forces is especially odd on the background of huge conscripted armies elsewhere: when countries such as Russia and China pay to train their young in the mass murder called the art of war, why not use those conscripts for peacekeeping missions abroad? A lot of them would gladly accept the action for little pay.
The United States lacked a goal in Afghanistan. Speaking thirty-three days after 9/11, Bush demanded of the Taliban a single thing: render Osama to America. They actually agreed, provided that Bush would offer them a shred of evidence which would allow them to rescind guest protection for Osama. But Bush had no evidence and refused negotiations. The Taliban cooperated with the West in removing the poppy plantations until sanctions left them drugs as their only income. Plausibly, a solution could have been found that would have allowed them to surrender Osama, and in any case ousting the Taliban had nothing to do with American interests in the region. On the contrary, the Taliban provided stability and an accountable government in Afghanistan, one that was much easier to deal with than anyone else, and plausibly an understanding could have been reached on the terrorist camps, just as an understanding was reached on drugs.
Interestingly, the United States employed in Afghanistan the strategy of squeeze, the very approach it refuses to allow Israel to use in Gaza. The assumption is that by inflicting sufficient hardship the population can be forced into changing its government. In both cases, that is unlikely: the Afghanis and Palestinian Arabs cannot realistically fight the Taliban and Hamas. And decrying the death toll from Israeli reprisals against Gaza, the Americans would better recall some places whose names most of them have never heard: Chowkar Karez, Mudoh, and Kama Ado—the villages where American jets obliterated the civili