Bribe the Taliban and Save Dollars

Fiscal conservatives in Congress have insisted that every aspect of the proposed health-care reform legislation be scored by the Congressional Budget Office in order to predict the cost.  Some of these same conservatives (John McCain for one) have urged President Obama to add 40,000 (approximately double our current troop strength) new troops to our efforts in Afghanistan.  We might wonder (conservatives have not asked) what the doubling of our troop strength would cost. 

The war in Afghanistan costs American tax payers about $1 billion per week.  If we double the number of American troops in Afghanistan, it would approximately double that cost to $2 billion per week.  This according to an interview I saw on CNN this morning.  I’m sorry I did not get the interviewee’s name.

Now, our goal in Afghanistan is not specifically to install a government, but to deny the use of Afghanistan as a safe haven for al Qaeda and other international terrorists.  As it stands right now al Qaeda and the Taliban have a relationship.  They work together because they have a common enemy, America and the coalition forces.  This is similar to the relationship that once existed between Sunni Muslims and al Qaeda in Iraq.  In Iraq, America broke that relationship by paying Sunnis not to fight against us.  In testimony before Congress, General Petraeus, Commander of the U.S. Central Command, says a similar strategy will work in Afghanistan.  He says that about 3 percent of the Taliban are religiously motivated and Ideologically committed to their cause.  No offer of money will sway them from their aims.  However, approximately 70 percent are financial Taliban.  These Taliban fight because the Taliban (and al Qaeda) pays them somewhere around $10 to $20 per day.  Petraeus says we could offer them double what the Taliban pays them to stop fighting and go to work in farming and construction.  Doing this would cripple the Taliban’s fighting force and improve the civilian economy in Afghanistan.  An added bonus is that it would save money over the about $8 billion per month it would cost us if we doubled our troop strength. 

To execute this plan would take a bit of time, so we might have to increase troop strength for a very short time in order to stabilize the situation.  Then our goal would be to increase the training of Afghan forces and woo the financial Taliban over to our side. 

Another element of the plan to defeat al Qaeda should be to increase aid to Pakistan.  Right now, the Pakistanis are engaged in an all-out fight with Taliban in their country.  They are willing to do the fighting, we should support them in any way we can. 

Our overall aim in this part of the world mist be to cripple al Qaeda, leave Afghanistan reasonably stable and get out of there as quickly as possible.