Posted on 09/03/2009 3:58:09 AM PDT by Kaslin
On Oct. 7, 2001, the United States launched one of the most stunningly successful military operations in its history. Just four weeks after terrorists directed from Afghanistan killed nearly 3,000 people on American soil, we struck al-Qaida and Taliban government targets with aircraft, missiles and Special Forces soldiers. By early December, the Taliban was out of power, al-Qaida had fled into the mountains and victory was ours.
But that was eight years ago. Did anyone expect back then that we would still be in Afghanistan today, with more troops than ever? The war we thought we had won is not only dragging on but getting worse.
Already, 2009 has been the deadliest year of the war for American forces, and August was the deadliest month yet. Concludes Anthony Cordesman, an expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, "The U.S. is now losing the war against the Taliban."
Beyond toppling the Taliban regime, it's hard to see what we have accomplished. Despite the presence of more than 100,000 Western troops and foreign assistance totaling $32 billion since 2001, The Economist magazine says nearly two-thirds of the country "is considered too dangerous for aid agencies to reach."
In much of the country, the central government that we have done so much to bolster is about as relevant as the Confederate Air Force. When RAND Corp. scholar Seth Jones traveled in the country last year, he found "some villagers had never heard of President Hamid Karzai, who has led the country since 2001."
(Excerpt) Read more at townhall.com ...
As a veteran of the Vietnam war, I agree with Chapman. Our mission in Afghanistan is ill-defined and “success” has no metrics. Why waste any more American lives and our dwindling fortunes on another Vietnam?
TC
Afghanistan is the new Iraq
Oh, wait.... that only applies when Democrats want us to leave before the job is done. You guys make me sick.
To whom was that comment directed?
I agree...to whom directed?
However, I was never an advocate of more than government overthrow and WMD search in Iraq. I supported Pres Bush's nation building, because he was the pres and there was nothing ethically or constitutionally wrong with that policy. He was the president, I wasn't, and I voted for him, and that would include his judgment.
In Afghanistan the same....I voted for the president's judgment, so that's why we're still there. However, and this is the same as with Iraq, Pres. Bush was willing to leave Iraq if the Iraqis didn't assume their own security via the building up of a capable military force. That succeeded, and the withdrawal we see now in Iraq was already scheduled DUE TO the success of the Iraqis in taking over their own security.
If the Afghanis do not step up with capable and willing volunteers to man a new and lethal Afghani military, and I'd give them a year to demonstrate that, I am in favor of leaving Afghan.
That's not "cut and run." That's a plan for eventual exit in either event.
It is not and more importantly, cannot be. It is landlocked and ringed by mountains. We will never have anything near the logistics support present we had in Iraq. There are no nearby support facilities and ports such as Iraq has next door in Kuwait and Turkey.
I’m not surprised, nor anyone that has read Afghan history. The only thing that keeps them permanently in line is killing them. Democracy is incompatible with Islam. There is no happy medium — we should either wipe them out or go home. I realize the severity of my comments, but it is true.
I’m still waiting for the Iraq war protesters of 2002- 2008 to don a uniform, pick up a weapon and fight the good fight in Afghanistan for Dear Leader....still waiting.....Oh, they must be protesting against our war in Afghanistan too. That explains it.
Not you two, obviously, but certainly the inconsistent Republicans whose arguments change with the Administration.
“Afghanistan is the new Iraq”
It is not and more importantly, cannot be. It is landlocked and ringed by mountains. We will never have anything near the logistics support present we had in Iraq. There are no nearby support facilities and ports such as Iraq has next door in Kuwait and Turkey.
What I meant was in the MSM. The same kind of stories we saw pre-surge in Iraq we now see about Afghanistan.
“but certainly the inconsistent Republicans whose arguments change with the Administration.”
Afghanistan Is Not ‘Obama’s War’
Republicans should never do to President Obama what many Democrats did to President Bush.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204731804574390631037605374.html
(snip)
But the case of conservative opposition to the war in Afghanistan—as well as increasingly in Iraq—is symptomatic of something larger: the long history of political parties out of power advancing a neo-isolationist outlook. For example, Democrats were vocal opponents of President Reagan’s support for the Nicaraguan contras and the democratic government in El Salvador, the U.S. invasion of Grenada, the deployment of cruise and Pershing missiles in Europe, and the forceful stand against the Soviet Union generally.
Many Democrats were also uneasy with or outright hostile to the policies of President George H.W. Bush. That included strong criticisms of the U.S. liberation of Panama and widespread Democratic opposition to the first Gulf War, which only 10 Senate Democrats voted to authorize.
The tables were turned in the 1990s: Then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay called Kosovo “Clinton’s war” and a majority of Senate Republicans voted against a bombing campaign, even after the Serbs had created half-a-million refugees in Kosovo and were on a path to destabilizing southern Europe.
(snip)
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