Post by Grug - American Neanderthal on Jun 25, 2011 6:45:42 GMT -7
Well it didn't take all that long, and our CinC has decided the troops are coming out of A stan ready or not.
Frankly I would just as soon we do get out at this point. This admin has no strategy to do anything except get out, and even that is questionable. The president would not listen to the commanders on the ground, will not consider the Taliban a threat and still seems to think killing Bin Laden was job done.
On top of that there are calls from both far left and right to get out, that it can never be "won". Which is interesting since I recall the same thing said about Iraq, that there would never be a stable govt there so long as we were.
The fact is the Taliban can be beaten, the Russians nearly did it back in their day and if not without some significant help by us, they would have dispersed the muj into low level insurgencies relegated to isolated areas.
The president took nearly 6 months to decide to try and emulate Bush in Iraq, but in typical fashion of a bureaucrat, half assed and restrained it, with no clear mission other than just some more boots to put into an offensive that had no intention of ending anything. Less than called for to accomplish the mission out line of the commanders on the ground, but enough to get favorable press.
You can give hem credit for going into Pakistan and targeting enemy, however that gain is half assed and has multiple time been a diplomatic embarrassment. If we are going to deny Pakistan as a haven, then we really need to quit plinking with UAVs once in a while and truly sit on and close the border.
Then there are those who say we never fought it like a real war, well that's just bunk, what are we going to do, bomb people who live like in the 15th century back into the 15th century? If they had ever talked to a A-stan vet who had been there when they called in the rain on a Taliban position, or taken incoming mortors, or patrolled for day without seeing anything other than goat herders they might get an idea it was not facing Germans on the beaches of Normandy.
So it brings to question just what all these smart people who think we are always going to be defeated are going to want to do when the Taliban take over again, and the next atrocity originate from the safe haven of not just Afghansistan, but Pakistan as well? What are they going to do with a nuke armed Iran and Pakistan who are openly hostile to the west and US in particular? Are they just going to "leave them alone and quit interfering" our way into having them completely forget about us? Is peace going to break out all over the world because we went home? History has already shown that to be a dangerous strategy. And if you ask these questions more often than not it comes down to wanting to revise history to where we never set foot off our soil, with no realistic way to disengage without consequence.
What all this waffling has done is 2 things, made us look weak, which enables the enemy, and weakens any chance to gain reliable allies. It also legitimizes the Taliban politically, and now we are openly talking about negotiating with them. And that is where this is headed, our withdrawl and the regression of the country back into a Sharia stanglehold.
Frankly I would just as soon we do get out at this point. This admin has no strategy to do anything except get out, and even that is questionable. The president would not listen to the commanders on the ground, will not consider the Taliban a threat and still seems to think killing Bin Laden was job done.
On top of that there are calls from both far left and right to get out, that it can never be "won". Which is interesting since I recall the same thing said about Iraq, that there would never be a stable govt there so long as we were.
The fact is the Taliban can be beaten, the Russians nearly did it back in their day and if not without some significant help by us, they would have dispersed the muj into low level insurgencies relegated to isolated areas.
The president took nearly 6 months to decide to try and emulate Bush in Iraq, but in typical fashion of a bureaucrat, half assed and restrained it, with no clear mission other than just some more boots to put into an offensive that had no intention of ending anything. Less than called for to accomplish the mission out line of the commanders on the ground, but enough to get favorable press.
You can give hem credit for going into Pakistan and targeting enemy, however that gain is half assed and has multiple time been a diplomatic embarrassment. If we are going to deny Pakistan as a haven, then we really need to quit plinking with UAVs once in a while and truly sit on and close the border.
Then there are those who say we never fought it like a real war, well that's just bunk, what are we going to do, bomb people who live like in the 15th century back into the 15th century? If they had ever talked to a A-stan vet who had been there when they called in the rain on a Taliban position, or taken incoming mortors, or patrolled for day without seeing anything other than goat herders they might get an idea it was not facing Germans on the beaches of Normandy.
So it brings to question just what all these smart people who think we are always going to be defeated are going to want to do when the Taliban take over again, and the next atrocity originate from the safe haven of not just Afghansistan, but Pakistan as well? What are they going to do with a nuke armed Iran and Pakistan who are openly hostile to the west and US in particular? Are they just going to "leave them alone and quit interfering" our way into having them completely forget about us? Is peace going to break out all over the world because we went home? History has already shown that to be a dangerous strategy. And if you ask these questions more often than not it comes down to wanting to revise history to where we never set foot off our soil, with no realistic way to disengage without consequence.
What all this waffling has done is 2 things, made us look weak, which enables the enemy, and weakens any chance to gain reliable allies. It also legitimizes the Taliban politically, and now we are openly talking about negotiating with them. And that is where this is headed, our withdrawl and the regression of the country back into a Sharia stanglehold.
