Posted on 07/31/2017 7:18:52 AM PDT by Helicondelta
The Trump administration is considering the ramifications of paring back the U.S. presence in Afghanistan as part of its ongoing strategy review in America’s longest war, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Trump’s national security cabinet is bitterly divided on the future U.S. role in Afghanistan. Senior national security officials like Secretary of Defense James Mattis and National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster are reportedly pushing Trump to allow a surge of approximately 4,000 troops into Afghanistan, while White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon has lobbied against the effort.
“It doesn’t work unless we are there for a long time, and if we don’t have the appetite to be there a long time, we should just leave. It’s an unanswered question,” a senior administration official told WSJ of any plan to increase U.S. troops.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailycaller.com ...
Agree. The Russians have long lusted after this region as an avenue for a petroleum pipeline to a warm water port. Very strategic to them. I don’t think it’s changed.
Either we should totally pull out or pour thousands of troops in. I tend to believe the former. What the hell is our objective at this point? Afghanistan has no oil. Just a whole assortment of tribal primitives with a long history of murdering each other for no apparent reason other than the fact that they enjoy it.
I have lately begun to feel that in spite of what are likely many good Afghan people, it has some deep defects as a society that brings defending it into question. I often feel we are defending Afghanistan against itself. If I could find all the innocent good Afghans and get them out of there I would. But we can’t and meanwhile the society and the culture is to me no longer worth helping.
One case in point is that to convert from Islam is by Afghan law a legal capital offense. You can be sentenced to death in Afghan courts for converting from Islam.
Another case is that of male slave boys. Slave is the only thing that fits the captive sex toy that “pretty” boys often become to older men. In once instance an Afghan officer embedded with one of our units was keeping his boy toy chained to his bed - literally chained to the mans bed, where the man raped him every nite. One of our Marines got so sick of listening to the boys screams every nite, he caught that Afghan officer one day and beat the shit out of him. That Marine was reassigned, court martialed and eventually left the service. Our generals have been told that (a) it is “common” among Afghan men, (b) and if we demand all such men get booted from the Afghan forces those men will just go join the other side. THAT says how extremely thin is the loyalty to the Afghan we think we are fighting for.
We should leave. On the whole they don’t deserve us.
We should never have put the first boot on the ground.
No one has ever tamed Afghanistan and no one ever will.
Leave with a stern warning. If any “mischief” comes from Afghanistan, we will carpet bomb the area from which the mischief arose ... women, children, hospitals, churches, mosques ... everything. All from the air ... MOAB’s do a nice job and we have plenty. So get out of Afghanistan, let them do what they do and if any harm comes to the USA by their hand, they die. I think that is a reasonable “deal” both sides could live with.
Two things...
- They do have valuable minerals
- Leaving a vacuum will embolden Islamist’s, leaving a fertile environment for ISIS 2.0
I understand the ‘leave’ sentiment. I’m just not sure how we do that without consequences. This is the mistake Obama made in Iraq, leaving prematurely provided the radicals with a golden opportunity.
Yes, get us out-now!
We aren’t going to stop them!
Then who is going to guard the opium crops? :)
absolutely!! Pack your bags, boys!
Yep. Thought of that many times.
...just the first of many worthless pits we should pull out of.
Fighting in Afghanistan brought Russia to her knees - do you reckon they were hampered by our style ROE?
The reason we are there is the same reason the Russians were there.
Afghanistan has enormous deposits of rare natural resources used on the military and high tech.
Now owned and operated by the PLA; guarded by US troops and paid for by US taxpayers. The drugs are just a CIA black budget opportunity, and the War on Drugs will soon eradicate all those woes. Never let a crisis go to waste!
When I went in 1965 I believed in our presence. When I left in 1968, I figured we needed to either commit to 100 years or get out. I preferred Door #2...
They’re sitting on a lot of lithium, too.
It’s easy to promote foreign military ventures when you aren’t at risk of having to go yourself.
You are absolutely right. Insurgencies must be violently and overwhelming crushed.
For good or for ill, the tactics required to do so are brutal and morally/ethically questionable. Consider the firebombing of Tokyo and other Japanese cities.
In the case of Afghanistan, I am wondering if it makes sense to do nothing, and wait for a critical mass to appear before crushing it. Right now, our greatest strengths are our weakness. Our size and tools of massive devastation don’t really work well on 1-5 man elements. We lack the mobility, intelligence, and troop strength to go village to village rooting out the bastards.
Aside from being a strategic location, I am not seeing the value in this global arm pit. If they want to continue living in the 7th century, let them.
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