Posted on 02/01/2009 1:49:08 PM PST by Kaslin
Today, the Taliban and al Qaeda enjoy the safety of sanctuaries in Pakistan from where they could launch attacks into Afghanistan. When Obama bombed such a sanctuary in Afghanistan, the Left was silent on the issue.
Just pointing out the massive hypocrisy.
Fighting in Afghanistan will be just like fighting in South Vietnam during the Vietnam War. The enemy will fight on its own terms at a time and place of its choosing and retreat to a sanctuary when it chooses. That is a military situation where you can, at best, inflict casualties on the enemy but you can never "win" militarily unless you are willing to invade the sanctuary and annihilate your enemy there.
Sending, thirty, sixty or one hundred thousand more troops into Afghanistan will not change that dynamic.
Obama, a babe in the woods when it comes to military matters, will probably figure this out three years from now.
we are not trying to subdue *Afghanistan* just kill those Jihidist Taliban and Al Qaeda types. We've got plenty of Afghans who are on our side, or more properly we are on their side.
Umm, it was. The Taliban was the government. Now it's not, and only controls the border region with Pakistan, and makes occasional guerrilla/martyrdom operations outside that area.
No U.N.. ass
You mean, "quagmire!!" (with exclamation points) is now a noun in the past tense?
Maybe we could salvage it by applying some ablaut, to show the tense change in the root -- as in, "quogmire!!" and then "quugmired!!" for the participle.
Still, it's very difficult, you know ..... <initiate lip quivering a la Candy Bergen>
<Lib wailing>Oh, how can I keep up? I just want to be a good NewThinker!! <sob>
lol....
They better have better rules of engagement than they did in ‘Nam. Our soldiers need to be able to fight back as hard as they can.
The current Afghan government is an organizational joke, loosely based on a warlord jirga. Any semblance to a functional government is purely coincidental. The US and NATO went to great lengths to insure that the “traditional” ways of Afghan government were preserved.
The trouble is that their traditional means of government are awful.
And no, the Taliban were never a functional government. The best it can be described was as “rule by whim”, with no individual or council in charge, no law, and enforcement by gunfire from whoever had the gun.
However, before the Taliban, there was the Soviet puppet, and before him, there were other forms of government. And not one of them was worth a damn. The country truly needed to start from scratch.
There is no nationalist sense as there was in Iraq that was at least a starting point.
With more troops we can conduct more raids that's all and create more garrison's.
Nothing will hurt the Taliban more than eradicating poppies/opium. Nothing will begin the process of nationalism more than roads and transport.
Eventually the Durand line needs to end and Pahktunistan begin, that would require Pakistan's support. The problem is the shia Hazaras that are spread all over and would be killed off.
Right up there with them is Bolivia: a new government every 18 months on average from 1824 to 1970, and some of the worst, most feral dictators in South American history, e.g. Melgarejo, who shot his predecessor and then hanged the British ambassador when someone thought he had commented on the shooting of Belzu'. Queen Victoria, hearing the news, promptly and indignantly crossed Bolivia off her wall map.
I've always inclined to the idea that the fractiousness and quickness to violence of the Pathans and Bolivians has had something to do with chronic hypoxia.
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