Thread by @ChrisMurphyCT

THREAD: I'm reading the Afghanistan Papers tonight. Important but unsurprising.

The attached excerpt reminded me of a story from my 2011 trip there where I saw up close how hopeless our over-reliance on military power is in faraway foreign places.

washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/…

DoD took us out to a small town in western Afghanistan to see the Afghan "surge". A few dozen Commandos had moved into a small town - Parmakan - to protect the locals from the Taliban. These guys were bright and brave.

The locals walk us through the town, and we notice it is blanketed by fields covered in beautiful flowers. It is, of course, poppy. Everywhere the eye can see.

"Who do you sell it to?" we ask.

"The Taliban," says a village leader.

"Before the U.S. came here, the Taliban would come to our town and steal it," he continued. "But now, with your troops here, the Taliban pays us."

Our delegation starts scratching our heads.

So the U.S. is in Parmakan, protecting the fields that supply the Taliban with the money to fight the U.S., and victory is defined by slightly trimming the profits of the trade?

"That's f'd up" I say to one of our soldiers.

"That's Afghanistan," he says back.

The Afghanistan papers paint a bleak picture of a drug policy there that never had a coherent direction.

But the problem wasn't a bad plan. The problem is that 21 year old Commandos can't execute the nuanced work of transitioning an entire country off their primary cash crop.

Ultimately, the only way to succeed in a place like Afghanistan is (a) not bite off more than you can chew; keep your goals limited; and (b) give political tasks to diplomats, not soldiers.