Doug Bandow, senior fellow at the Cato Institute, discusses how brinkmanship on the Korean peninsula could start a war nobody really wants, a first-hand account of deeply troubled Afghanistan, the introduction of US Abrams tanks after nine years of occupation and how corrupt Afghan police push ordinary civilians toward the insurgency.
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All right, y'all, welcome back to the show.
It's Anti-War Radio.
I'm Scott Wharton.
We're at antiwar.com/radio at lrn.fm, that's the Liberty Radio Network, and at chaosradioaustin.org.
It's pretty self-explanatory what that's about.
All right, so next guest, first guest on the show today is my friend Doug Bandow.
He's from the Cato Institute and also writes for the American Conservative Magazine, expert on Korea and really all of American Asia policy, among other things.
Welcome to the show, Doug.
How are you doing?
Happy to be back on.
Doing okay.
Good, good.
I'm very happy to have you here today.
So I have this article here in the American Conservative, What I Saw in Afghanistan, which I think, and this is really saying something, is my favorite piece of yours of all time.
This is absolutely excellent, but I'm not going to let you tell me about it for 10 minutes.
First, I want you to talk me down about Korea.
Now mostly, I try to be Bandalonian on questions of Korea, which I think means, relax, nobody wants war there.
There's a lot of tension, a lot, but things are going to blow over, so please tell me that, Doug.
Yeah, that's basically right.
I mean, there's a reason to be somewhat nervous, but the reality is even the folks in the North don't want war.
South Koreans certainly don't want it.
You know, President Obama has his hands full, he doesn't need a war.
So I think everything will calm down in the fact that the South Koreans called off one of their artillery exercises near the disputed territory.
That's a good thing.
That helps remove an opportunity for mistake or accident.
Oh, very good.
So now what about the USS Washington and the exercises in the sea there?
They're all over now?
Well, they're more likely to irritate the Chinese.
I mean, we sent the aircraft carrier there as kind of a big show of strength, but of course everybody knew we had that.
I mean, we have stuff stationed in South Korea, we have forces in Japan.
No one has any illusions about American firepower, so a lot of that was theater.
I think the main people that irritated would have been the Chinese as opposed to the North Koreans.
They knew all that stuff was there in the first place.
And the main thing is it looks like, you know, sailing around the ocean like that wasn't likely to draw North Korean attack, but you know, the concern was if the South Koreans start firing again and doing things on the island, you know, around where the prior shots were fired, that that might get some kind of retaliation.
All right, well, so there's so many different things to cover here, but I guess, can we rewind to the beginning of the story and the South Korean exercises and the North Korean bombing?
Can you just tell us, you know, basically your understanding of how that went down and, you know, if you have any critique of how it was portrayed in the media or any kind of setting straight of me and my audience to do, please go ahead and include that as well.
Well, the main thing to realize is that, you know, this is disputed territory.
The North has never acknowledged the sea boundary.
The island is just south of the sea boundary.
It was drawn after the end of, you know, the Korean War, but there was just an armistice.
There was never a final peace.
So the North has never accepted that, you know, and I think there may be a lot of things going on.
You know, the South has played the game of brinkmanship.
You know, this is nothing new.
We may also be seeing an issue of kind of what's going on in the capital.
They're trying to have this power transfer with the, you know, the, onto his son.
So that may be part of that as well.
You know, the South was engaged in exercises on their island.
It's very close.
It's like, you know, under 10 miles from the North Korean territory.
The North Koreans responded by shelling the island to the South Koreans, then, you know, fired back.
The North Koreans killed four South Koreans, put everybody on edge because, you know, they've done a lot of stuff over the years, but you're firing on an island, especially one with civilians, you know, it's kind of housing for, you know, locals that, you know, that's pretty significant.
Yeah.
Well, I don't guess anybody really ever argues about whether the North Korean communist dictatorship has the slightest bit of morality on their side or, or, or right.
But I guess, you know, the problem to me is it was portrayed as such a clear cut thing, at least for the first half of the first day there.
Really for the first day, I think that, oh my God, North Korea attacked South Korea without saying, well, you know, there were some war games going on in some disputed waters and some brinksmanship on the other side.
And it seems like, well, like if you put your imagination on and think what if it had escalated to a full scale war, what would be the history of how it started?
It would be another one of these Gulf of Tonkin type things where, well, actually, in fact, there was a raid into North Vietnam.
That was the provocation for the first day's attack, but then the second day's attack never happened in the whole, you know, and Johnson knew it.
You know what I mean?
It's all the complicated story is the debunking of the simple headline that they push on us that always has it where the Americans and whoever our allies are, the innocent victims caught by surprise by the evil bad guys.
Yeah, well, I do think, you know, in this case, I don't think that the South Koreans actually shot in the North Korean territory or they've, these exercises are fairly common.
The North hates them.
The North typically responds in one fashion or another.
So I'm not at all surprised they responded.
I do think what surprised everyone was actually, you know, hitting the island and in the way they did.
That they were able to, you mean?
No, the fact that they did.
I mean, in the past, you know, you do things, you say, I mean, they had a naval set of your ships firing at one another last November, you know, in this same area.
I mean, this has been an area of, you know, contention, but it's one thing where your ships are kind of gaming one another, you know, out in the open seas, you know, to sit there with artillery and let loose.
I think what everybody's nervous about is that you put that with everything else going on in the North.
Nobody's quite sure what's going on up there, but I agree.
This is a tense border, especially that area, never been accepted as, you know, by the North.
So it shouldn't surprise us that they're willing to engage in a bit of brinkmanship.
This one did catch everybody off guard.
Well, how risky is all this really?
Because, you know, this has been going on since 1953.
The ceasefire has more or less held with minor violations and skirmishes like this all along, and nobody seems to want to escalate it back to the German years or anything like that.
So, but then again, I read headlines like, well, oops, the South accidentally fired a shell into the North when they didn't mean to.
What if that killed a general by happenstance or whatever?
You know what I mean?
Like, it seems like it could escalate into something very dangerous for millions of people.
Well, that's the problem is I don't think anybody rationally wants war in the peninsula, but these sorts of things can start by accident or mistake.
And you're right.
You know, it's the errant artillery shell that kills, you know, the general who's the vice chairman of the Military Defense Commission and a close buddy of the dear leader, you know, which, you know, the North screams and, you know, then they decide they have to do something bigger, you know, so they launch something or other into Seoul or something.
And then, of course, the South says, we can't let these people get away with that.
And, you know, so, yeah, that's the thing.
That's how wars can start.
And that's the real danger here.
And that's why I think it's a real question.
Why is the U.S. mixed up in it?
You know, South Korea has a bigger population and economy.
They can defend themselves.
So why is it that the U.S. has to send an aircraft carrier?
Well, why is it?
Actually, let me ask you that, because, you know, you and I have gone over the specifics before.
We could if we had to right now.
But America is always in the way of reconciliation over there in a hundred ways.
And that goes for Bush and Obama as well.
Why not just let the South Koreans work it out?
Well, obviously, we should.
I mean, it makes no sense to be over there and we don't need to.
I mean, in 1950, you know, the North would have taken over the South without us.
In 1953, you know, if the war had resumed and America wasn't there, the South would have been overrun.
So, you know, in the middle of the Cold War, you can say we had to do it.
But the Cold War is over.
I mean, I tell everybody, you look at the balance there.
You know, the North is a depressed wreck.
I visited the North back in 1993.
I mean, it was a disaster even then.
That's before a half million people starved to death.
You know, the South is a very prosperous, populous country.
So why aren't they dealing with it?
Well, they don't have to as long as we're there.
And American policymakers, for some reason, just can't imagine ever allowing another an ally to take care of themselves.
It's a crazy policy.
So give me a word about the Chinese Politburo there.
Are they on the side of peace in this instance?
Well, the Chinese are on the side of stability.
You know, what the Chinese would prefer to have is nothing happen.
I mean, they see the current situation as to their benefit.
You know, we constantly come to them whining and asking them, please, please, please help us out.
You know, they don't want a united Korea with American troops on their border.
So they're quite happy and they don't they don't feel threatened by a North Korean nuclear weapon.
So they seem fairly happy with the whole thing.
But we'll see if that changes.
I mean, the danger is.
Is that if this thing blows up, it hits the Chinese, too, so they will see if they change their position because of that.
All right, everybody, it's Doug Bandow from Cato.
We'll be right back to talk about Afghanistan after this anti-war radio.
All right, y'all, welcome back to the show.
It's anti-war radio.
I'm Scott Warren, I'm talking with Doug Bandow from Cato, and he's got this incredible piece in the American Conservative magazine.
What I saw in Afghanistan.
Doug, what'd you see in Afghanistan?
Well, I saw a disaster, you know, a tragic situation of a lot of good people, you know, in a country that doesn't work, where American military isn't going to be able to fix it.
You know, yet we're you know, our people are dying.
Afghans are dying and we're just getting tied, you know, drawn in deeper and deeper.
Yeah, you know, I think back to when I was a kid and I live in such a, you know, nice, quiet neighborhood.
There's all green grass and sunshine and birds chirping and things like that.
It's really hard for me to imagine what it's like to have war in my neighborhood.
But that's what it's like in Afghanistan.
I mean, bombs going off everywhere and people dying and helicopters coming in in the middle of the night, executing people and, you know, hell on earth, like a nightmare come to life, that sort of thing, huh?
Well, in some places, I mean, that's the weird thing about it.
You know, Kabul, the capital, is very militarized, though you don't really have fighting going on, but all you see are military vehicles, barbed wire and high walls.
You know, to the south and, I mean, areas in particular, you have this combat going on.
In some areas, we went to the north and west.
They seem very peaceful.
You know, and typically you have warlords in control.
I mean, the central government doesn't matter very much out there.
You have different groups, the Tajiks and others, you know, near the Iranian, other places near the Iranian border.
It's a very strange country in that regard, where the problem is, you know, it really shouldn't be a country.
It's like a lot of these places, you know, it's a very, very different internally.
It doesn't make sense to have it all together.
Well, so how long were you there?
When were you there?
And were you embedded with the army?
And are you here to give us a modified, limited hangout?
No, I'm keeping up with the theme of suspicion of WikiLeaks this week.
I'm having so much fun.
That's right.
Everybody hates them.
The good guys and the bad guys don't trust them at all.
Malou Innocent and I were both the cover of Afghanistan for Cato.
So Cato decided that we pitched it and Cato was willing to go along with having us go over there.
We spent about 10 days there.
We were in Kabul, Herat and Mazar.
We were not embedded with U.S. forces.
We went independently.
We had some security with us, traveled with somebody who'd spent some time there before, so knew the terrain.
And it was fascinating.
I mean, it really does give you a very different sense.
You know, you certainly sympathize with the Afghans, but we came away with the sense, I mean, this just cannot work.
The idea that the U.S. can transform this place into what the people in Washington want it to be.
Well, I'll never even mind all the pie in the sky.
But what about just defeating the Taliban and giving these people a modicum of a central government, which is the benchmark of civilization, of course?
Well, that's the problem is that the Afghans themselves are wonderfully cynical about their central government.
I mean, even if American military can defeat the Taliban when it comes into contact, we don't have a partner to work with.
Which is what counterinsurgency work is all about.
The notion is you go out, you get the bad guys, then your buddies show up and they set up the government.
But nobody takes the central government seriously.
They all think, you know, that it's utterly corrupt.
They all think that, you know, because I stole elections, you know, that one of his brothers is a drug dealer and producer.
Another one, you know, kind of they talk about the mafias, economic mafia, drug mafia.
So there's enormous cynicism there that it's very hard to find Afghans who think the system can work.
And that's in Kabul, never mind in, say, for example, the Pashtun South.
Absolutely.
I mean, the problem in a lot of these places, people we talk to will talk about good Taliban and bad Taliban.
And what they mean is there are an awful lot of people who are technically Taliban and simply want to get rid of the outsiders.
You know, I was told a number of occasions, you know, you don't want to send the Afghan national police and they will make Taliban.
I mean, you know, they they're corrupt.
They set up fake checkpoints.
They steal people's money and cell phones.
Well, you know, I ask audiences, what would happen if that was happening in your town?
You know, the cops were setting up roadblocks, stealing from you.
What would your attitude be towards the government and the outsiders who work with them?
It wouldn't be very positive.
And that's the problem we've got over there.
Well, yeah, we'd be standing on a mountainside with an AK overhead yelling Wolverines.
Exactly.
You got it.
I mean, that's that's a lot of you know, they found a lot of folks who British have captured guys who said, look, the reason I became Taliban is because the cops were stealing from everybody.
You know, this is a you can't have a system work if that's what you got as your ally.
All right, well, you know, I read this thing in The Washington Post that they're sending the Abrams tanks.
So I guess our choices are this is simply a welfare payment to a bunch of billionaires or the army is absolutely admitting defeat and saying they need a fleet of M1 Abrams tanks to fight rebels with AKs.
Yeah, I do not understand what that is all supposed to do.
I mean, you can't use them in Kabul.
I mean, they're you know, I mean, there are occasional Taliban attacks, but tanks are not the answer.
You can't use them very well in mountain hillsides and villages.
I mean, it's a very strange thing.
It looks to me like they're hoping for a wonder weapon, but I just don't see how this one works.
Yeah, I mean, it's really incredible.
I wonder, well, I guess if it's just a welfare payment and we can write it off.
But otherwise, it seems like they're saying, we're really scared.
We can't get near the Taliban without armor, whereas they're all on foot.
Well, I think part of it probably has to do with IEDs, the explosive devices, because, you know, they keep getting stronger and they can take out even our armored Humvees.
So you figure we'll put a tank on and it'll be OK.
But of course, it limits your mobility.
And what do you do with it?
The moment the bad guys are off road, I mean, you can't send your tank up the hill.
Yeah.
Well, and now, so did you were you just in Kabul or did you go to Kandahar or anything like that?
We would love to have gone to Kandahar, but it was pretty dangerous down there.
You know that you have.
Yeah, but they were clear holding and building.
What do you mean, it's dangerous?
They hadn't quite gotten all that done before we were there, it seems.
Unfortunately, we did go to Herat, which is near the Iranian border.
We also went to Mazar-e-Sharif up to the north.
So we got some perspective and they're all very different.
I mean, it's very interesting, you know, to kind of travel around and get a feel for different places.
We would have loved to have gone to Kandahar, but that's funny.
We met some consultants back in Kabul who were kind of chiding us for not getting to Kabul.
And we asked them, why are you here?
Oh, well, they were sent out because it was too dangerous for them to continue their work.
So you're kind of like, OK, you're the guys telling us this whole thing is, you know, fabulous.
It's going to work out.
But you can't even do your job in Kandahar because it's too dangerous.
That's not a very good sign.
Yeah.
Well, and of course, Kandahar being the showpiece, Marja, the setup, Kandahar, the showpiece for the coin strategy, neither of which have accomplished a thing, basically, tell me.
No, that's right.
I mean, they found it far harder going than they had expected down there.
Not harder than most of the rest of us would have expected.
But in terms of statements they were putting out, you know, far harder.
Now, you talk about Hamid Karzai and the drug mafia and all this, but this guy's been known for years.
That's the American puppet president.
Therefore, people don't even know who Hamid Karzai is out there.
You should probably start reading instead of just watching TV and listen to the radio for your information.
But anyway, so this guy's he was outed even by his own CIA buddies as being a drug dealer in The New York Times about a year ago.
That kind of thing.
But all along, Karzai has been referred to as the mayor of Kabul rather than the president of the country.
That's how people would mock his power.
In fact, in Michael Hastings piece, The Runaway General in Rolling Stone, he said that Stanley McChrystal's men called him the mayor of his own palace in Kabul.
That's it.
And yet I seem to be reading even more, you know, all the time about how Hamid Karzai and his mafia really are the most powerful force there other than the U.S.
Army, that since a guest was telling me last week that Dostum has been basically usurped by being brought on board rather than has been given power by them, that they really are the most powerful people, the Karzai crew.
What do you say about that?
Well, it's kind of most powerful relative to what?
I mean, if Karzai sits in his palace and says, I want X to happen in Kandahar, you know, it's not going to happen unless some local provincial chief decides to push it.
And he may not be able to get it done if it happens to be an area where the Taliban's in control.
And so, I mean, the idea that he's the most powerful guy, well, he's got the U.S. behind him.
So basically, his power comes primarily from the fact he has allies who help him.
You know, and sometimes people like Dostum see benefits.
Well, heck, you work with these guys, you get to get money, you put it all aside or whatnot, as opposed to fight them.
But in terms of running the country, I mean, he really is mayor of Kabul.
I mean, he can kind of say something, you know, and it might happen in Kabul.
But if he says something, it's not at all clear that it'll happen even in Herat, which is relatively peaceful because it's the local guys who control.
And he has very little power.
The main thing you try to do as well, if you remove you and put his new guy in.
But then, of course, you put new people in who aren't responsive to the locals.
They have trouble getting anything done because nobody will work with them.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, so let me oversimplify here and see if you can then discriminate a little bit for us and help fill in the detail and the real truth.
But it seems to me, Doug, as though the country simply geographically, ethnically divided.
You got the Northern Alliance of the Hazaras, the Tajiks and Uzbeks, and then you ethnic those groups.
And then you have the Pashtuns and the Pashtuns basically have no political representation other than Mullah Omar, if he still exists.
And Haqqani and the insurgents, basically, there's no other power really that represents them.
And we're still just stuck halfway between the same two factions.
I've been fighting for 30 years.
Only now we've switched sides since the days of the 80s.
And now we've been there as long as the Russians.
Yeah, that's roughly right.
Damn it.
All right.
Well, good work.
All right.
Well, listen, I'm begging everyone, please go read this thing.
The American conservative.
It's brilliant.
What I saw in Afghanistan by Doug Vandal.
Thank you very much, Doug.
Appreciate it.
Appreciate it.
Take care.
That's Doug Vandal from the Cato Institute, y'all.
We'll be right back.
We got more anti-war radio after this.
