Posted on 01/01/2015 5:25:09 AM PST by HomerBohn
Bush originally announced that the invasion of Afghanistan was intended primarily “to disrupt the use of Afghanistan as a terrorist base of operations.” He argued that “[b]y destroying camps and disrupting communications, we will make it more difficult for the terror network to train new recruits and coordinate their evil plans.”
For a time, that worked, but America's interest in Afghanistan all but disappeared in 2014 with the rise of the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. Al Qaeda, its affiliates, and its spin-offs need no longer depend upon sympathetic regimes such as the Taliban for safe harbor. They now enjoy an even better patron — a government they actually control, and a regime run according to the same principles in whose name they have killed so many and destroyed so much.
America's defeat in Afghanistan can be traced back to President Obama's decision to abandon Iraq without any residual American force to help keep the peace and stabilize the country. Obama's own former defense secretary, Leon Panetta, has attributed it to Obama's complete lack of interest in following through and ensuring a long-term peace in the wake of a war he had never supported and had promised to end.
Obama had the leverage he needed in the form of reconstruction funds to get a status-of-forces agreement with Iraq's government, but instead he used Iraqi objections as an excuse to do what he wanted to do anyway, which was to bail out.
Perhaps Obama was right that the Iraq War should not have been started. But bell cannot be un-rung once struck, and presidents are elected to deal with events as they are rather than as they wish they had been. Obama's disregard and carelessness in Iraq has squandered not only the gains made in the war there, but also in Afghanistan.
Despite an entire decade having passed and all of the lives lost and money spent, terrorist groups, far from being “on the run,” now have their own country from which to operate. American military action following 9-11 to suppress terrorism will now go down in history as a grand failure thanks to Obama's decisions. America's third war in Iraq has gotten off to a shaky start. It will probably be up to the next president to start all over again and derive a strategy for the safety of this country and its allies.
My, and others, theory about the war in Iraq and Afghanistan is that the removal of Hussein as leader caused chaos as this strong man kept the other nations in check.
Further, he did indeed protect the Christians and Jews and kept the various Muslim sects at peace with one another while he kept the Iranians in a state of terror as he had that nation bombed on a regular basis.
Bush I, who warred with these two nations at once, ignored the fact that North Korea needed surgical removal from the world's scene, but he won the Iraq and Afghanistan wars after a fashion. Obama, as he does with everything his evil hands touch, lost them to the jihadists of ISIS and Taliban. He had invaluable help from Hiltery as she was referred to as the Secretary of State.
It was logical to expect this abortion of an outcome since both are Marxists; one from Kenya, the other from Illinois.
Somewhere in all this convoluted mess you'll find the Devil in the details. He is, after all, their patron.
The terrorists knew all they had to do was just wait it out. We told them that.
The terrorists knew all they had to do was just wait it out. We told them that.
Imagine now—Its 1944, D-day has happened, Paris Liberated. FDR declares Victory and pulls all troops out of Europe. Would World War two be over? Nope.
Iraq and Afghanistan should never have been occupied.
They should have been targets of devastating punitive raids, leaving them in ruins.
Successful nation building would have required a surveillance state and lethal clampdown on the Islamic enforcement of sharia law.
Most of us who had lived in the middle east pointed this out twenty years ago.
We didn’t go in to Afghanistan to rid it of its terrorists,
We went in to Afghanistan to secure many of its rare and precious minerals.
Imagine asking the American people to sacrifice now as they did during World War II. Conscription, rationing, higher taxes...Would we have any war in the Middle East? Nope.
Absolutely correct.
Lives lost for what? Are we satisfied with the results? they literally tied thier hands and changed the search and destroy mission into lets be friends and why cant we all get along mission. It is our shameless politicians and thier refusal to use a big stick and get out
Taliban will run Kabul by the end of this year
The Afghanis know from history, if they wait long enough the foreign invaders will leave. They outwaited the British, the Russians and now the Americans. Afghanis 3, all others, 0. And how did we vanquish the Germans and Japanese in WWII? Unconditional surrender and occupying their countries with military bases that are still there, 70 years later. Take a tip from history, boys and girls, that’s how it works, otherwise you’ve wasted lives and treasure, and can expect another round of heartbreak and loss in the future. Pathetic.
Obama said Iraq was the wrong war but that Afghanistan was the RIGHT war.
If the war is over, who won and why do we still have troops deployed there?
Unimaginable. Those who would believe the current government are too selfish to sacrifice. Those who see our leadership as corrupt and deluded would be too sane to sacrifice.
Anyone care to predict how long it will take to “re-kindle” the fires and terrorism reigns supreme once more?
5, 4, 3, 2,............?
>>We went in to Afghanistan to secure many of its rare and precious minerals.
And...
“KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghan opium cultivation again rose to historic levels in 2014, United Nations officials reported on Wednesday. And in a sign of how deeply entwined drug trafficking and the Afghan political system have become...”
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/13/world/asia/afghan-elections-cited-as-factor-in-record-levels-of-opium-production.html?_r=0
Same ol’...
Afghanistan was Obama’s “just” war only because it gave him the flexibility to exercise the “Bo Berghdahl” strategy of desertion and surrender to islam. Obama is in the business to dimish and/or destroy American influence across the planet.
>>5, 4, 3, 2,............?
We’ve always been at war with Eastasia......
Failbama strikes again.
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