"The Brits lost tens of thousands in Afghanistan"

I doubt they lost tens of thousands of troops.
There were very few times the Brits came off second during their expeditions to Afghanistan.

Hal G.P. Colebatch, in his March 2, 2007 Spectator article "The Myth of Afghanistan", says the following:

"The relatively few British adventures in Afghanistan, apart from one-off punitive expeditions, were, like the allied campaign today, basically attempts to support or set up friendly governments and then get out, not to conquer and annex or occupy the country. They had limited objectives and were for the most part successful..."

http://spectator.org/archives/2007/03/02/the-myth-of-afghanistan/2

Can we build up the Afghan government faster than the Afghan government can undermine itself?

"and before this whole mess undermines the Pakistani gov't any more than it already has."

Steve

not only impose a western government on them but have them like and support it...

Who said anything about a "western government"? I'd settle simply for having a non-Islamist nationalism and a centrally controlled state.

Like I said, the Soviets did it in Central Asia, building up cadres of devoted followers who then attacked many of the older traditions and tribalism, and helped create a kind of nationalism in these areas (which the Soviets actually helped, by carving them up into various regions and encouraging the formation of patronage networks by local leaders). Look up the book Islam After Communism - it talks about this in much greater detail.

Of course, you would need to offer money and rewards to pull away young men and women from their tribal loyalties, schools to inculcate a kind of secular nationalism virulantly opposed to the kind of Islamism that the Taliban advocates, and so forth. That's more or less what the Taliban did, by setting madrassas for young men, offering rewards and training (much of it helped by Pakistan's ISI), and so forth.

In the meantime, we need to continue working to make it possible for the current central government in Kabul to effectively operate, by building roads, offering continued training and weaponry to the Afghan Army, and securing supply lines.

Stamp out tribalism? Hmmm... that's like stamping Nascar out of the South.

LOL! I live in the deep south. I can assure you that if you tried to stamp out NASCAR here you'd indeed have an armed terrorist insurrection on your hands. You can't go in from the outside and change people's cultures without Herculean effort and resources. And since we're not going to spend a trillion dollars a year for several decades we're not going to change Afghanistan's culture.

George Will once said that conservatives understand that some problems don't have solutions. Afghanistan is one such problem. Wasting blood and money there is pointless. The brits figured that out. The Russians figured that out. Why can't we figure it out?

"We Americans are a stupid people by and large."

--Detective Norris,
The Wire

Pessimism aside, I actually think we'll do better than Britain or Russia. The brits lost tens of thousands in Afghanistan. The Russians lost 15,000. We've only lost 600. If Obama's as smart as he seems to be he'll figure out a way to cut our losses and leave. The wingnut brigade will call him a traitor and say he lost Afghanistan, but smart people will know better.

Try over 200. Tolstoy wrote some great stories based on his experiences as a Russian officer there.

I almost wonder if we've got our priorities right. We need to stamp out the tribalism in Afghanistan, not merely buy it off - that requires institutions that pull the next generation of young men and women into our orbit and away from the Islamist and tribal loyalties.

Wouldn't it be easier to just remove people from their tribal areas, a big population shakeup if you will?

Yeah, maybe you could break the, you know, multi-thousand year history of tribalism in afghanistan, forge a sense of nationalism, not only impose a western government on them but have them like and support it...

Tell you what: you do that. I'll check back in ten years from now, when you've spent over a trillion more dollars, lost a few thousand more lives, and made no progress whatsoever.