Afghanistan

[BuckarooBanzai]

Re: Afghanistan

My Hunch is US will *win* in Afghanistan even where Russia failed.
US is doing lots of calculated moves. It has friends on the East and North of Afghanistan. Iran is also aligned with US there. US is also talking to Taliban, arming tribal militia's against Taliban. SO let's see how this turns. But I am positive.

No one thought US would bring Iraq to this state 2 years ago, when bombs were flying everyday. I am inherently a pessimist, but not here.

If we haven't won after 8 years, we ain't gonna win, ever.

Afghanistan is where empires go to die-- history is 100% on this, what makes us any different?

[D-Mack]

Re: Afghanistan

If we haven't won after 8 years, we ain't gonna win, ever.

Afghanistan is where empires go to die-- history is 100% on this, what makes us any different?

Believing one's own propaganda won't even prevent it, or ?

[cjppjc]

Re: Afghanistan

Believing one's own propaganda won't even prevent it, or ?

It must be great to be so sure of your opinion. The lady embedded with the troops would make a great POTUS. Easily putting young men and women in harms way for imo a hard to achieve result. And then if things turn badly change the goals, sacrifice more young men and women, and declare victory. God save us from the self assured.

[KGW]

Get Out of Afghanistan and Everywhere Else

http://www.fff.org/blog/jghblog2009-08-27.asp

Get Out of Afghanistan and Everywhere Else
by Jacob G. Hornberger
If there was ever a classic example of a quagmire, it has got to be Afghanistan. Hey, they’re going on 8 or 9 years of killing the terrorists and just now getting a good start. What began out as a quest to kill or capture Osama bin Laden has morphed into long-term occupation of the country.
Hardly a week goes by without reports of new deaths, including Afghani citizens and U.S. soldiers or allied foreign soldiers.
Yet, despite the constant death toll and the lack of a well-defined mission, the Pentagon insists on the importance of continuing the occupation of Afghanistan.
Why?
Because the Pentagon knows that if the troops were withdrawn from Afghanistan and the Middle East, Americans might well begin asking the questions they should have asked in 1989, when the Berlin Wall came crashing down and the Soviet Empire disintegrated: What do we need a huge standing military force for? What do we need an overseas empire for? What do we need the enormous expanse of military bases across America for? Indeed, what do we need the Pentagon for?
The fact is that despite deeply seeded fears and anxieties that the federal government has succeeded in engendering within the psyches of the American people, there is no nation on earth that has the military capability of invading and occupying the United States. To cross either the Atlantic or Pacific Oceans with an invasion force would require tens of thousands of ships and planes, a capability that is nonexistent among all foreign nations.
Of course, the big bugaboo that the Pentagon now uses to justify its existence (along with the enormous tax burden necessary to sustain its enormous military) is terrorism (as compared to communism, which was the bugaboo prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dismantling of the Soviet Empire).
But the threat of terrorism is a direct result of what the Pentagon did both prior to and after 9/11 as part of its aggressive, interventionist foreign policy in the Middle East. That threat has remained constant, of course, given the continuous killing of people in Iraq and Afghanistan for the last 8 years.
But the Pentagon knows that by withdrawing from Afghanistan and the Middle East, that constant threat of terrorist retaliation plummets. At that point, the only risk of terrorist retaliation would be from some disgruntled person whose family members or friends were killed by the U.S. military sometime in the past. There’s no need for an enormous military to deal with that possibility, and the Pentagon knows it.
If the Pentagon withdrew from the Middle East, military officials know that people might well ask, Why stop there? Why not withdraw from Europe? After all, the Cold War ended long ago. Why not withdraw from Japan? It surrendered soon after the atomic bombs were dropped. Why not withdraw from Korea? The war there ended decades ago. Why not withdraw from Africa? What business do the troops have there?
In fact, the only argument that the Pentagon will have left is the one it was making in 1989 to justify its continued existence: the drug war, especially in Latin America.
The Pentagon knows, however, that there are risks with that justification. One big risk is that people all over the world, including the United States, might finally decide to bring an end to this decrepit old war by legalizing drugs. Reputable and credible people from all over the world are now arguing that that is the only solution to the drug-war horror. In fact, in a move toward legalization Mexico recently legalized possession of small quantities of illicit drugs.
Moreover, the Pentagon knows that one of these days Latin Americans might start asking a discomforting question: If the American people will not permit the U.S. military to wage the war on drugs in the United States, why should Latin Americans permit it to wage the drug war in their countries?
The best way to avoid having Americans asking why we still need a big military force is simply to continue the occupation of Afghanistan. Not only does the occupation provide constant proof that there are still terrorists to kill, it also generates its own never-ending supply of terrorists. The Pentagon knows that under those circumstance people are less likely to question the existence of an enormous military, along with all the hundreds of billions of dollars necessary to support it.

[sunskyfan]

Re: Afghanistan

Appointing a special forces guy as theater commander give a clue to strategy. I think Obama's appointment of Gen. Stanley McChrystal's makes it clear: we aren't there to rebuild (like Iraq) but to kill "bad guys" (Al Queda being number 1) and disrupt the drug trade as it pays for bad guys. There is no Democracy Demagoguery at play here for Obama like there was for Bush.

[Diarmuid]

Re: Afghanistan

Appointing a special forces guy as theater commander give a clue to strategy. I think Obama's appointment of Gen. Stanley McChrystal's makes it clear:

1) and disrupt the drug trade as it pays for bad guys.

Hi Sunskyfan

The export figures and some of the media would seem to suggest otherwise...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...crop-time.html

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.p...articleId=3294

[kartius919]

Re: Afghanistan

We are there so that generals get paid, mercenaries get paid, contractors get paid, oil barons get paid, politicians get paid, etc. No one gives a damn if we win or lose. There is no strategy. The more chaos the better. So long as we continue fighting a useless war, all is right in the world. Why are there so many eerie similarities to 1984?

[sunskyfan]

Re: Afghanistan

Things have only been in place a few months. Give it time and we'll see.

I am not outcome based on this. THE WORLD mission needs to be preventing organized terrorist attacks that have no accountability to a national government. You can only do your best.

[KGW]

Re: Afghanistan

Things have only been in place a few months. Give it time and we'll see.

I am not outcome based on this. THE WORLD mission needs to be preventing organized terrorist attacks that have no accountability to a national government. You can only do your best.

See my post at the bottom. . .You got it all wrong. . .

[audrey_girl]

Re: Afghanistan

with all due respect, this is a good book to take a look at:

http://books.google.com/books?id=v5Y...age&q=&f=false

or this one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Best_and_the_Brightest

to see where we are going here



anyone with even a cursory understanding of history and this region should be alarmed at Obama's actions here

[sunskyfan]

Re: Afghanistan

The idea that the Pentagon is worried about being dismantled is silly. It is like the State Department worried that there will be peace and we will have no use for them or the Police department afraid that crime will go to zero.

There are players around the Pentagon that might have issues with transforming from a cold war posture like YOUR congressman and the largess YOUR congressional district gets.

The issues with central Asia are non-trivial. There is a new policy in place. Let us see where it goes.

[KGW]

Re: Afghanistan

I see no evidence of a new policy. As regards the Pentagon, as Mr. Hornberger says, there is no one who could mount an invasion of the continental United States. The foreign policy of the United States is the source of the "terrorists."

[rj1]

Re: Afghanistan

anyone with even a cursory understanding of history and this region should be alarmed at Obama's actions here

The dumbasses got what they voted for.

[KGW]

Re: Afghanistan

The dumbasses got what they voted for.

And they have been voting for generations. . .

[flintlock]

Re: Afghanistan

I see no evidence of a new policy. As regards the Pentagon, as Mr. Hornberger says, there is no one who could mount an invasion of the continental United States. The foreign policy of the United States is the source of the "terrorists."

While it may not be the source of the terrorists, I feel it is probably "throwing fuel on the fire" so to speak.