kerry's Afgan amnesia

pakistan tribune ^ | 10/29/04 | pak tribune

[steve w]

WASHINGTON, October 30 (Online): In the 1990s, Afghanistan was allowed to fall to the Taliban and become the global center for the training, indoctrination and seeding of jihadists around the world -- including the mass murderers of Sept. 11, 2001. This week, just three years after a two-month war that destroyed the Taliban, Afghanistan completed its first free election, choosing as president a pro-American democrat enjoying legitimacy and wide popular support.

[MEG33]

This is simply excellent...We do forget..and the Afghan elections only drew attention over wrong ink used to mark voters!

[nuconvert]

"President Bush put in place a military campaign that did in two months what everyone had said was impossible: defeat an entrenched, fanatical, ruthless regime in a territory that had forced the great British and Soviet empires into ignominious retreat. Bush followed that by creating in less than three years a fledgling pro-American democracy in a land that had no history of democratic culture and was just emerging from 25 years of civil war."

Exactly

[nuconvert]

This is excellent.
You should ask the Mods if they can add a "Must Read" after the title.

[cake_crumb]

I remember Russia insisting that we could never defeat teh Taliban because the Soviet Union lost to the mujahadeen. I further rememer German experts insisting we could never destroy the al Qaeda/Talibunnys' because the Germans designed those bunkers to be indestructible.

Then there were the daily assurances by the news media that Afghanistan would be our Next Vietnam, because if the Soviet Union failed the US never stood a chance of succeeding...not to mention that our troops would become Bogged Down in the Northern mountains, due to the Brutal Afghan Winters and the Bloody, House to House Fighting in the Streets of Kahbul.

And yes, most Americans - in fact, most in the WEST - forgot those details the moment Hollywood started throwing Geirge Cloony's military expertise around, predicting Iraq would be Our Next Vietnam, that the US could never win a war against Iraq because Iran threw hundreds of thousands at Saddam and still lost, we'd be Bogged Down by the Heat and Sandstorms (this was before "Quagmire" became the Iraq keyword du jour) and that there would be Bloody, House to House Fighting in the Streets of Baghdad.

[gulfcoast6]

I heard Rubin on Fox yesterday and he said Kerry would get Afghanistan fixed but never mentioned Iraq, an apparent statement leaving them out.

[nuconvert]

Outsourced? The entire Afghan war was outsourced. How does Kerry think we won it? How did Mazar-e Sharif, Kabul and Kandahar fall? Stormed by thousands of American GIs? They fell to the "warlords" we had enlisted, supported and directed. It was their militias that overran the Taliban.

"Outsourcing" is a demagogue's way of saying "using allies." (Isn't Kerry's Iraq solution to "outsource" the problem to the "allies" and the United Nations?)"

EXACTLY!

[boxerblues]

thanks meg...excellant read

"Outsourcing" is a demagogue's way of saying "using allies." (Isn't Kerry's Iraq solution to "outsource" the problem to the "allies" and the United Nations?) And in Afghanistan it meant the very best allies: locals who had a far better chance of knowing which cave to storm without getting blown up. As Kerry himself said on national television at the time of Tora Bora (Dec. 14, 2001): "What we are doing, I think, is having its impact and it is the best way to protect our troops and sort of minimalize the proximity, if you will" -- i.e., not throwing American lives away in tunnels and caves in alien territory. "I think we have been doing this pretty effectively and we should continue to do it that way."

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Is this the newspaper's unsigned editorial ?

[boxerblues]

looks that what...have to read the flip side with this artcle

http://www.paktribune.com/news/index.php?id=81981

[nuconvert]

I don't know. It seems like it.

[cake_crumb]

IIRC, it's Krauthammer. Rush read it yesterday on his show. The Paki Tribune may have permission to omit the byeline, so the al Jazeera/CNN zombies have a harder time going all tinfoil.

[nuconvert]

Ahh.....thanks. Makes more sense. 'Cause most of the news here is slanted against us.

[Radix]

Interesting that I just a little earlier read Cal Thomas column which addresses some (not all) of the same issues that this imbecile brings up, and has a different slant.

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/calthomas/ct20041027.shtml

[cake_crumb]

"Ahh.....thanks. Makes more sense. 'Cause most of the news here is slanted against us."

Yep. To be fair though, the Paki press has made a pretty impressive attempt to be fair and balanced in their news. Sure, they "balance" a pretty objectively written article with some rant out of tinfoil hat land. How often does the American media "balance" left-wingnut-tinfoil-hat rants with a more objective version?

[hershey]

Rats, evildoers, and America haters world wide want us to forget what GW and the troops accomplished in Afghanistan...and are doing in Iraq. It's nothing less than a miracle.

[MEG33]

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/charleskrauthammer/ck20041029.shtml

It is..edited a bit..I love the way Krauthammer writes and I suspected you were right.

[cake_crumb]

Hey, if Kerry's new keyword for Tora Bora is "outsoured", isn't he saying that all branches of the American miliraty are Benedict Arnold companies?

[cake_crumb]

Thanks for the link to the original article.

[nuconvert]

....or the entire defense dept?