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Too bad his predecessor twiddled his thumbs for five years before handing off the unwinnable mess to Obama.
Afghanistan is Obama's war. He owns it.
Same difference. As a member of the military, especially in such a high leaderhip role, you shouldn't be complaining about your boss. Now, it's natural to vent, and maybe he thought he could trust his aides; obviously he couldn't. Now those comments reflect negatively on his character.
Too bad his predecessor twiddled his thumbs for five years before handing off the unwinnable mess to Obama.
Afghanistan is Obama's war. He owns it.
LOL...
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the left and democrats kept saying we shouldn't be in Iraq, but should fight in Afghanistan...
Or am I living in an alternate time-line?
Whatever happened to "that's what memoirs are for?" Such a solid line of reasoning. I was ready to back you on that, D.
I cannot speak for Darrin, but I'll bet it was based on the assumption the propaganda was truthful rather than the actual rolling Stone article.
It was before I pointed out the deceitful nature of the article.
Non-sequitur. This has nothing to do with GWB taking his eye off the ball in Afghanistan to pursue his idee fixe of overthrowing Saddam.
I'm not proposing the Dems as an alternative, so I'm completely free to agree with you on what they said. Nor am I a Dem; nor have I ever been one. Does that begin to satisfy you? I have been against this war before -- and after -- it was fashionable to do so.
Relevant gloss:
http://wps.prenhall.com/wps/media/ob..._keygloss.htmlIdee fixe. (Literally: "Fixed idea"): A motive or theme associated with a character or idea in classical music. This is essentially the same thing as a leitmotiv, but the idee fixe--developed by Hector Berlioz in the 1820's--predates Wagner's famous use of the same device.
Cf., obsession
Last edited by Winehole23; 06-23-2010 at 03:48 AM.
Afghanistan is about Afghanistan now. Unfortunately for us Al Qaeda is in Pakistan now; the opportunity to do anything about that was six years ago.
The political objectives were ill-defined from the beginning and they still are. That's what chaps my ass. There's not a goddam soul who can give me one good reason to keep doing it.
Can't afford to lose ain't good enough. What did we mean to acheive by evacuating the political power in the first place? What were the ing objectives? Are we any closer to achieving them close on to ten years later?
Best I can tell, the only thing we could want there is to not leave conditions that would make it a haven for an Al Qaeda in the future. It's definitely not a sexy or concrete goal and there are so many complicating factors that it could well be impossible. The main problem is that Iraq was such an additional hole that Americans simply wouldn't want to stay for the longer haul that Afghanistan was always going to be.
They'll just pop up somewhere else.
What, isn't Afghanistan far enough away from the US? Supposing what you propose is at all doable. Do you think we can kill and neutralize all the bad guys? I don't think we can.
I do think we can choose to quit stirring the hornet's nest though.
We've had enough retaliation for some fairly episodic attacks already, don't you think?
Ain't we killed enough Muslims yet?
As all the bad guys are no longer in the one country, no. It's a matter of keeping them from coming back. I imagine we can live with regional warlords who don't give a about attacking the US. It's those who would attack the US we would want to keep out. The trick now is finding a leader in Pakistan who feels the same way.
Yeah, taking over an Arab Muslim country was a colossal up. Iraq evaporated practically all of the international goodwill generated after 9/11.
Are we anywhere close to achieving that yet, and does it really require the magnitude of force deployed?
I mean, building Iraq or Afghanistan back up. Can't we just kill Al Qaeda without these stupid ing occupations?
(Maybe Pakistan wouldn't *let* us bomb them so much if we didn't occupy the country next door, so that's one possible objection right there.)
Kind of depends on what one thinks would happen if we just left.
That only means we ain't done it yet.
How long will it take? It has already taken nine years.
BTW, do you think this was all worth it?
Because I thought it was a stupid ing idea to begin with.
Eh, had to do something. Half-assing it in the first place was the big mistake. There was a slight chance AQ -- at least it's leadership -- could have been truly eliminated. There was too much reliance on Afghan forces whose interests did not extend beyond local power.
- SpeakEasy - http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy -
One Number (25%) Tells You How Ridiculous our Afghanistan “Strategy” Really is
Posted By Joshua Holland On June 22, 2010 @ 4:12 pm In Uncategorized | 7 Comments
I’m doing a quick response piece on the McChrystal brouhaha for tomorrow’s lineup. And I’m including a paragraph about this story from back in January, which tells you everything you need to know about the effectiveness of our Afghanistan “strategy”:
Afghan officials are demanding £1.5 billion a year in bribes, equivalent to a quarter of the country’s gross domestic product, according to a report by the United Nations that says the practice is in danger of bringing down the government.
The report found that Afghans rate corruption as a bigger concern than security and unemployment and half have been forced to pay a bribe in the last 12 months.
It is the first time a figure has been put on a problem that has become one of the major sources of the insurgency.
Critics suggest many Afghans are being pushed into the arms of the Taliban who typically charge less and offer more security in return.
President Hamid Karzai’s own family has been dragged into the row with allegations that his brother is involved in the drugs trade and some of his ministers have taken kickbacks, allegations they both deny.
I honestly have a hard time even imagining 25 percent of a country’s GDP being sucked up in bribes. It’s a level of corruption unseen elsewhere, as far as I know.
As I wrote for tomorrow’s piece, “the U.S presence in Afghanistan is all about tactics dressed up as a strategy.”
Counterinsurgency is a matter of tactics. The “strategy,” we have been told for almost a decade, is to defeat the remnants of the Taliban and create a functional, legitimate state in a country where one has never before existed. It’s an effort in state-building that was supposed to enhance the United States’ security by fostering stability and economic progress that would make Islamic extremism unappealing to the masses.
We’re backing a hopelessly corrupt, completely illegitimate government that was imposed on the Afghani people by Western powers that also happen to bomb them pretty frequently. It probably controls a 3rd of the country’s territory, and yet it’s eating a quarter of Afghanistan’s domestic product in bribes. Who could possibly think this can work out OK in the end?
Article printed from SpeakEasy: http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy
URL to article: http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/...egy-really-is/
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Magic Negro inherited two totally hopeless, ed up, mismanaged wars in countries are nothing but outlines on the map, which is why the Repugs and neo-c*nts were so quick to say "It's Magic Negro's pile of now. What happens now is all on him, NEVER on Repugs"
At least the MIC is pocketing taxpayers' 100s of $Bs (which was the objective from the beginning). AQ? Taliban? US security? GMAFB
America is ed.
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