Posted on 02/01/2009 1:49:08 PM PST by Kaslin
Afghanistan has been conquered often, but subdued rarely. President Obama should keep that in mind.
"We have to understand that the situation is precarious and urgent here in Afghanistan," Barack Obama said during a visit to Kabul last July. "I believe this has to be our central focus, the central front, on our battle against terrorism."
Mr. Obama said then he would increase U.S. troop strength in Afghanistan by two or three brigades (about 15,000 soldiers) and step up nonmilitary aid to the Afghan government.
President Obama has taken a number of foreign policy positions different from those espoused by Candidate Obama. But this, alas, appears to be a campaign pledge he intends to keep. Defense Secretary Robert Gates told the Senate Armed Services Committee Tuesday two brigades likely will be sent to Afghanistan by mid-spring, a third by mid-summer.
Since many suspect Candidate Obama took the position he took on Afghanistan principally to appear tough, so that his call for rapid withdrawal from Iraq (one of the policies on which President Obama has backtracked) wouldn't appear as a sign of weakness, I doubt he's thought this thing through.
(Excerpt) Read more at post-gazette.com ...
I fear like most libs, The Chosen One has no idea how to fight a war, funny seems like Bush didn’t either
If I were a cartoonist, I’d draw a picture of Obama as a kid in an arcade playing one of those Bop the Mole games, where a mole keeps popping out of various holes that you have to hit back down. The holes would be labled Afganistan, Iraq, Iran, etc. Get it?? I keep waiting for some news person to notice and comment on Obama’s stupid foreign policy “plans”.
What did zero know, and when did he know it?
One labeled Rush
I was just checking out your home page. What a classy couple, I’m gonna miss em.
No outsiders have ever conquered and held Afghanistan...ever.
Didn’t Alexander conquer and hold hit for a brief period?
I've got so many more I need to add
You just aren’t getting it...
The numbers of Americans killed in action NO LONGER MATTER to leftists and the media! No longer will you see the Daily Death Count on the evening news. NO LONGER will you see Alphabet network reporters breathlessly reporting what the anti-war nutcases have to say, giving it more credence than the FACTS, or presidential spokesman!
CHANGE HAS COME!!! THE MESSIAH HAS ARRIVED!
Concern over US casualties is now unpatriotic, GET WITH THE PROGRAM....
Obama focused on Afghanistan because Iraq was already won (although he will no doubt take credit for it) and he has no intention of doing anything about Afghanistan in any case. Last week he was appealing for the Europeans to take over in Afghanistan, which they have no intention of doing. But he hoped this would give him an out because actually, Obama is fine with a Muslim takeover of any country on the face of the planet.
He’s a dumbo and thinks Marxism and Islam are perfect together...which they are, up to a certain point. But at that point, our economy will be limping and he’ll ditch Michelle and take a few other wives from among the willing female members of the MSM. Because he’ll control the entire kaffir USA, the Muslims will be very happy with him and they’ll also be fine with his Marxism. After all, Bambi’s Marxist cousin Odinga is the hero of Kenyan Muslims and agreed to implement sharia, even though he himself, while from a Muslim tribe, was not a practicing Muslim but a radical ethnocentric Marxist.
How did this happen to us?
What would Monday morning quarterback NCBraveheart have done instead?
From the very start, every element of government in Afghanistan should have been replaced. Their existing government was a basket case, so any “cultural sensitivity” excuse is nonsense. They need the efficiency of proven systems, not a pretense of continuity.
Almost half of Afghanistan’s border is shared with Pakistan, and Afghanistan cannot be settled until this border is sealed. While the Pakistanis generously offered to seal some of the border at one point, which was rejected by the Afghans, the fact remains that Pakistan acts as Afghanistan’s evil twin.
However, in exchange for sealing that border, because of Afghanistan’s bottom of the barrel economy, the US could have employed every unemployed male in the southern half of the country, for as little as $1B a year. This would effectively remove them from the grasp of the Taliban and the drug gangs. And we could have put them to use rebuilding Afghan infrastructure with labor intensive projects.
These projects could include rebuilding entire towns, preparing land for commercial projects (like road building, which do exist in country), water projects, agricultural improvements, etc. And with each project, a portion of the workers would be put in charge of exploiting the new improvements, like the creation of agricultural co-ops.
Authoritarianism, while objectionable here, would provide Afghanistan with the structure it needed to modernize. For example, all citizens could be provided identity cards with detailed information on them; all children could be removed to safe and secure government public education; and women could be organized into small business cooperatives and micro banks.
Every government worker would be trained from scratch. Sharia would not be an issue, as the secular courts would completely be in charge of the law. Literacy would be required of as many citizens as possible.
In doing things this way, the few rogues in the countryside would denied any support, cut off from Pakistan, easily identified, and otherwise denied the ability to resist.
The eventual goal would be to make Afghanistan so different from Pakistan, that there would be no return to the way things had been.
By being a controlled state for a few years, with serious modernization, there would be an utter rejection of going back to the old ways.
This was a war of punishment.. Should have kicked ass without kissing ass and been done by now.. Should have made an exaample of the Taliban, screw nation bldg
So you think President Bush kissed Taliban a$$?
Yeah I know, but what can I say. I am not a Kool-aide drinker
Don't you mean what would Armchair General NCBraveheart done instead?
Don’t worry the armchair general would have whooped the Taliban with his little finger
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