We are being told that we are “under-resourced” in Afghanistan. Of cource Afghanistan WAS under-resourced in 2001 and 2002 when more troops there might have reduced or wiped out the fag end of the Taliban after we had bombed them out so that the Norhern Alliance could grab power in Kabul. But of course our troops had to be held back for elsewhere . . .Iraq!- the conjured up greater “threat.” The willful, harmeful ignorance of that policy is now laid bare.
Now it may be too late to ’salvage’ Afghanistan since we calmly allowed the Taliban to regroup and become a force beyond our ability to control, except, maybe, only after a very,very long guerilla war — for what purpose? There seems little or no hope for “good governance” to soon take root in Afghanistan. Nor can we have much hope in building up — for our purposes — the police and military forces. The loyalties and motivations of our “trainees” may be beyond our understanding and ability to reshape people of this political culture, so strange to us.
In this view more troops won’t achieve any of OUR civiliztional wishes for Aghanistan. But deals with local power holders, of any sort, could result in negotiations that produce mutually acceptable, popular infrastructure and economic projects, and cost us a lot less.
Al Edgell
St. Louis
Bob,
Another Afghanistan issue. It sits right next to Pakistan which boders India; two unstable nuclear capable countries. Pull out of Afghanistan? I would agree except, what if the Taliban gets a hold of some of Afghan’s nukes? It escelates from their,,,,,,,, BMD to counter the threat, right? Then does the administration want to cut the hell out of the BMD (Balistic Missile Defense) program??
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Amazed…
I believe we have found some agreement.
I believed that the only reason for staying in Afghanistan was so we could strike at the Taliban some more. Yet now we learn that the decision has been made to start the building of a Afghan army all over. We also had a situation last week that a bomber was caught, on his speed dial button was a high placed member of the defense ministry.
I never thought when Bush said it or when Obama said it that we would be able to establish a viable government in the country. The sole reason I based it on was that the country has no natural resources or export goods other than drugs. Without any such economic base they would never be able to maintain a military. Without a central strong government then the country will dissolve quickly into a warlord type of existence.
I have said before the election and I continue to say that if we are crossed we should strike with overwhelming force, kill them, kill a lot of them, and leave no doubt in their mind that anytime we wish we can do it again. That is one reason why I opposed Iraq. Do do as I say you need a highly trained, well equipped, and mobile army. I knew we would lose the mobility as we got bogged down in occupation. Many of our weapons such as the tanks would have limited impact and training and equipment would suffer.
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New foreign policy should be….
Pull all US troops home……
Make a parking lot out of any country that harbors someone which attacks us…
End of discussion.
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Al,
Bob Herbert’s piece in the PD on 8/26/09 brought up the ultimate burden of our soldiers being sent back for their 3th, 4th, and 5th tours to Afghanistan. Some soldiers are there to advise the Afghan army, who rarely want to patrol, preferring to watch DVD’s and smoke hash. Their favorite movie was “Titanic”.
If the Afghan army does not care, why should our american soldiers have to give their life, mental stability, or body parts for a society that lives like barbaric cave men?
The longer the war in Afghanistan goes on, the more I am convinced that we must pull out and bring them home.
The only concern will then be how long till we get attacked again in this Country? The cost of both wars needs to be put in homeland security and our soldiers should be guarding our borders, ports, nuclear plants, water treatment plants, and citizens. Doing this will make us safer and stop the breeding ground for terroist that exists in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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Obama plans to be out by August 2010.
The only bigger mess he inherited is the American economy.
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It’s so nice to know that Obama has stopped all those no bid contracts and war profiteering, right Garrison?
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Immediately after the 9-11 attacks, the Bush administration knew Bin Ladin’s location in the Toro Boro mountains. They had an opportunity to bomb the mountain range off the face of the earth killing bin ladin and all his followers. They decided to move into Iraq instead, knowing Saddam had nothing to do with the twin towers.
Now, 8 years later, everyone suffers except the corporate war-profiteers who helped get Bush elected..and re-elected. We are just now learning about the corruption and deceit with “Orange and Yellow” terror alert warnings just to continue the $12 billion a month government spending funneled to “no-bid” private contractors.
How many of the Bush supporters feel like fools?…But won’t admit it.
Do you still think this horrible & costly war is about securing democracy?
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The people of America have made it nearly impossible to win a war anymore. Too much “compassion” has to be shown to placate the nuts that don’t understand how fighting, any fighting, works.
A fight can only be won with overwhelming force. A one-on-one fist fight is won when one opponent overwhelms the other with with a stronger force. A war is won when one side overwhelms the other with force.
For far too long now we have been reluctant to use overwhelming force.
Pansification of America is nearly complete.
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“All that bombing Aghanistan does is stir up the rubble of previous bombing, Egoist.” I think one big bomb, rather than a bunch of locals and/or our men w/ guns (and too much sympathy) at Tora Bora early on would have been a mission accomplished moment – very early on.
The altruists that run these matters dumped food out with the bombs. These graveyards for our men are of our own moral making, not the mountainous landscape.
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Afghanistan has the geopolitical nickname of the “Grave of Empires”; it will be no different with this current US military misadventure, and it was sheer lunacy for anyone involved with the alleged “planning” for this war that the outcome would be any different for the US than it was for Britain, or the old Soviet Union.
This should be absolutely no surprise to our military leadership, in light of how adept the Taliban became at fighting the Russians, with covert US aid and instruction.
And a short memo to President Howdy Doody: you don’t have a year to 18 months in Afghanistan. The public is exhausted with an 8 year military campaign which has been going nowhere.
And thinking Americans do understand precisely the reasons we are there; to install pipelines to control Eurasian oil, and protect the drug trade, from which so many profit so handsomely.
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The doors have been opened for all that must take place to happen. There is nothing that can be done. PLEASE BRING OUR PEOPLE HOME.
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What is the ultimate goal in Afghanistan? How will we know if and when we’ve won? A democratic govt? christian instead of muslim? when we’ve wiped out all taliban? all unrealistic and unachievable goals. It’s another Vietnam. 8 years so far and who knows how much longer. The russians were there for 15 years and couldn’t win. Go after terrorists wherever they are, but a full fledged war in Afghanistan ain’t gonna do it. And now the contract with Blackwater has been renewed. Great.
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All that bombing Aghanistan does is stir up the rubble of previous bombing, Egoist.
Aghanistan is a black hole. Too many lives have been wasted there to justify sending in anyone who doesn’t want to be there. The only thing that will change this is resources. What do they have to sell other than opium?
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Right now, the contractors (google “drinking vodka from a butt”) outnumber the troops.
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/09/01/afghanistan-butt-sho.html
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It’s not clear to me why we went into Afghanistan before Iran & Saudi Arabia. It’s also not clear to me why we even put our men in, rather than over (as in planes).
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–It may be too late to salvage America, if this is what the Obama is about…
http://papercuts.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/21/what-obama-is-reading/
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If only there weren’s some big distraction that wasted trillons of dollars, thousands of soldiers lives, and tens of thousands wounded. If only those resources weren’t funnelled to that big fake distraction that was shoved down our throats with lies…that big distraction. What was that big distraction called…oh, yeah, The Iraqi War.
Imagine what Afganistan would be like if all those resources that were used in a country that was no threat to the US had actually been allocated to be used in the country from where the 9/11 attacks originated…(Sigh)
One can dream.
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