Posted on 06/29/2017 12:49:07 AM PDT by vooch
The Defense secretary’s response was both forthright and evasive. “We are not winning in Afghanistan right now,” he conceded, while promising that “we will correct this as soon as possible.” Mattis then unleashed a cloud of blather, promising “a change in our approach” so as “to do things differently” and devise “a more regional strategy” involving “across-the-board whole of government” collaboration. He offered no specifics.
The fact is that every couple of years since 2001, policymakers in Washington and commanders in the field (including McChrystal) have trotted out plans “to do things differently” in Afghanistan. Those plans have come in a multitude of colors and a variety of sizes. None have come anywhere close to “winning.”
Trump surely knows this. We cannot say for certain why the president has chosen to distance himself from this war that he inherited. But one possibility is this: Having learned through painful experience to recognize a losing proposition, he has no intention of being left holding the bag for this one.
The savvy Mattis must suspect that he is the designated fall guy. If not, he will discover it next year or the year after when Trump relieves himself of responsibility for a still unwon war and looks to pin the blame on someone else.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Fake news
Trump is a savey political animal. I can tell you with certainty in Business. a standard technique to deal with a failing project is let someone else ‘own it’
To repeat - I’m open to people’s thoughts on this.
Mattis is safe.
The generals who Obama appointed, on the other hand...
I don’t know, but I wonder. For all his talk, Mattis survived 8 years of 0bama.
Speculative Fiction.
We’re dealing with ingrates and treachery. The governments will never get too close to the U.S because it will be they’re heads when we leave.
>Trump is a savey political animal. I can tell you with certainty in Business. a standard technique to deal with a failing project is let someone else ‘own it’
>To repeat - I’m open to people’s thoughts on this.
Want a solution to Afghanistan? Let Pakistan own it and we get the hell out with the understand that if they let terrorists back in it will be Pakistani that we bomb instead of Afghanistan.
I learned this much in my experience as an Army Officer and civilian Fed employee. Catch-22 was right. You can’t trust an Army Officer over the rank of Major. You just can’t. They are going to have priorities that supersede you. They will tell you whatever they feel they have to. Just the way it is.
Here’s another solution. Helmand is where they grow the opium that fuels their economy. Nuke the place until it glows and then leave. Carthage is destroyed never to rise again. It worked for the Romans...
Thanks George Bush!
After 9/11 he should have nuked Mecca and we wouldn’t have heard from those knuckle dragging inbreds for another thousand years.
The Taliban would have disintegrated.
The ROE has been given the all in.
Fake story...
Just another writer trying to stir trouble between Trump and his administration.
I think the LA SLIMES is still in the denial stage of grief over Hitlery’s loss.
What are we doing in Afghanistan today? Why do we stay there? Are we there to build a Jeffersonian democracy? Are we there simply to guarantee that the Taliban will not provide sanctuary to terrorists who will strike America again? Are we there, in the ditty of the Tommys in the trenches, simply because we are there?
I see no hard thinking to determine what the goal of our presence in Afghanistan is. I see no assessment of the cost to attain that goal. I see no way weighing cost against benefit in obtaining that goal.
After these questions are answered, the conclusions have to be taken to the American people for approval. We shall see whether this process is being done.
As to nuking the poppy fields in Afghanistan, that of course is out of the question but it does raise another question, perhaps the most effective and intelligent option we can make to impoverish the Taliban is to legalize heroin here in the United States, thus driving down the price and profits of the Taliban, and to begin to export our own poppy crop thus further depressing the price around the world.
Such a move would undoubtedly reduce the consumption of heroin, reduce the corruption which our drug laws make inevitable, stop the drain of our treasure and even add funds to our treasury. It would mean that, even if we cannot admit that we cannot win the war in Afghanistan, we are sober enough that we can at least admit that we cannot win the war against drugs.
“not sure if I agree”
Not sure if you are a libtard?
I doubt even the libtards bother reading LA Times editorials.
Yes well we can’t win in Afghanistan. No one ever has. It was idiotic to think we could. However politicians never lack for hubris and it’s not they or their families are going to suffer.
“...Just another writer trying to stir trouble between Trump and his administration...”
that was my intial thought also
I can answer that question. We're in Afghanistan today because our moron ex-President thought he could demonstrate his foreign policy knowledge by saying that we needed to be in Afghanistan because that's where the real battle needed to be fought. He was completely ignorant of Afghanistan's reputation as the graveyard of empires. He was ignorant of pretty much everything, honestly, except the Marxist theory that Frank Marshall Davis taught him when he was a boy.
Yes, I know that I answered the question "Why are we in Afghanistan today", not "What are we doing". There wouldn't be a "What" question if there weren't a "Why", though. That's what we all need to keep in mind. Trump inherited another one of Zero's messes and has to figure out how to clean it up while under 24/7 bombardment from determined, ruthless enemies on all sides.
muckraking journalism, no facts presented just a bunch of supposition.
Afghanistan is a hellhole. We should simply seal it off and leave it be.
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