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 ...
After 16 years, the Afghan military should be ready, if they are ever going to be ready.
About freaking time but how about some Agent Orange on the poppy fields on the way out?
Before we leave, though, we need to drop Agent Orange on the poppy fields.
Maybe we should go back to the ancient practice of conquering territory and then installing our own warlord. Like the mongols, Alexander, Romans and Arabs did. Some kickass general gets to run the place, with a batallion of Americans who choose to stay and be in charge of different Duchies. They can enlist locals to do most of the dirty work, learn the local ways, get rich, and run the place. A lot of them will get killed, but when that happens, they will have free reign to bust some heads and keep the locals in line. Over a few generations, the place will get a little better.
Of course, if we did that, the NYT would have a conniption. After all, it’s in US interests.
These heathens will NEVER adopt the principles of democracy and freedom.
Leave them to their fate and their false god.
And never another to soil Western Civilization.
If you’re going to leave LEAVE completely. I don’t think there is anything such as winning in Afghanistan without utterly destroying what little is there already.
ROE wont fix a thing there. That’s magical thinking right up there with Hitler’s miracle weapons. Are we going to be more Brutal than 19th century British? More Brutal than the USSR was?
What magical ROE do people think would let us win? Third Reich levels of brutality wouldn’t win there. And if it did, guess what? Congratulations, you’ve become a Nazi.
Alexander the Great said “May God keep you away from the venom of the cobra, the teeth of the tiger, and the revenge of the Afghans.”
Time to face facts. This isn’t winnable as long as you show deference for isalm and for their culture. The Afghans are too backwards.
“I liked Erik Prince’s (of Blackwater) recommendation—a core force of contractors to be stationed there long term and embed with the Afghan troops.”
That might work and gives former SpecOp guys a paycheck.
“When I went in 2006 I believed in our presence. When I left in 2007, I figured we needed to either commit to 100 years or get out. I preferred Door #2...”
Thanks for your service and advice based on your reality!
“Maybe we should go back to the ancient practice of conquering territory and then installing our own warlord. Like the mongols, Alexander, Romans and Arabs did. “
You don’t have to go back that far. We did just that recently with Germany and Japan after WWII - and it worked great.
Nobody has the balls to do that nowdays. The country is too divided, and colonizing has become a dirty word.
It’s a different time, so we need different solutions.
The most important thing to do to protect yourself is to not be colonized by your former colonies, as it’s happening in Europe. and, two, the hardest but the most important, is to eliminated the enemy within.
We are not united because of that - the enemy within not only doesn’t want to protect our values and homeland, but is actively working to destroy them both internally and in collusion with external enemies.
This is the crucial war, and up til now the enemy within has been winning. Trump offers a ray of hope, but this window of opportunity is very narrow.
I think Afghanistan is just a piece of a much bigger problem that requires a comprehensive strategy to manage.
We can no longer afford to be everywhere all the time and involving ourselves in nation building. We can also not afford to allow failed states (i.e. Somalia, Afghanistan, etc), bad actor functional states (i.e Iran), or neutral or allied states (i.e. Philippines), to be safe havens and nesting grounds for terrorist threats.
Allied states that request US assistance to fight terrorists should be something we can support.
Failed states should know that they are subject to punitive actions at any time they step out of line. We have the surveillance capability to see training camps, monitor activity, and find bad actors, and they should live in fear of death from 40,000 ft if they want to promote their Jihad. We should not have to put troops in country to exercise this, but where its to our advantage, we should not restrict ourselves either.
The bad actor states in between will always be more complex, and require case by case use of diplomacy, pressure, international partnerships, and military muscle flexing or actions.
Regarding some of the comments on the thread about the Afghan opium situation, I think it should be a policy, along with the failed state policy above, to eradicate this, and I believe that there can be strategies to do this without putting troops in harms way. These crops can be detected from altitude with modern sensors, and I am sure that means of genetically or chemically killing these crops can be devised.
The people are the problem. We aren’t going to kill them all. We aren’t going to change them. So I wonder what we think we can accomplish with a 100 year occupation?
One of the main problems is the continuous resupply of weapons, people and resources from outside actors. Unless we completely shut down the borders of those countries, there will never be a way to victory.
We are simply not just fighting Afghans in Afghanistan, but the Muslim world in general.
The NVA was supplied by the Chinese, Soviet Union, and Warsaw Pact allies.
Our military and political apparatus has never made the commitment to do such things. Since they will not; we need to leave.
“Failed states should know that they are subject to punitive actions at any time they step out of line. We have the surveillance capability to see training camps, monitor activity, and find bad actors, and they should live in fear of death from 40,000 ft if they want to promote their Jihad. We should not have to put troops in country to exercise this, but where its to our advantage, we should not restrict ourselves either.”
“The bad actor states in between will always be more complex, and require case by case use of diplomacy, pressure, international partnerships, and military muscle flexing or actions.”
“Regarding some of the comments on the thread about the Afghan opium situation, I think it should be a policy, along with the failed state policy above, to eradicate this, and I believe that there can be strategies to do this without putting troops in harms way. These crops can be detected from altitude with modern sensors, and I am sure that means of genetically or chemically killing these crops can be devised.”
I’m in total agreement with you. With our monitoring devices and surveillance skills, we can begin to use when necessary:
Decapitato Strategy” ie Decapitation Strategy of the bad guys who are killing innocents or planning to inflict harm on us and key allies.
Go big or go home.
What we did in Germany and Japan isn’t quite what I was talking about or what would be required in Afghanistan. What we did in Germany and Japan is what Bush II tried to do in Iraq, that didn’t work so well, for a number of reasons. In those countries, we ran the place with the US military, then handed the place off to the locals while keeping a strong presence to keep an eye on things. When we handed it off, it was a form of self-rule that we left behind.
I am not suggesting that for Afghanistan, for the same reason that our effort to do that in Iraq didn’t work. I am suggesting (more as a thought exercise than as an actual suggestion) an American warlord be installed in Kabul with lieutenants controlling garrisons in all the regions of Afghanistan. He would rule as an American conqueror of Afghanistan, in much the way that William the Conqueror ruled over England after the conquest. It is how Arabs ruled Spain, Greeks ruled the known world after Alexander, how Romans created additions to their empire, and how Mongols spread their empire. They did it by leaving their own people behind to run things.
We won’t do any such thing, I know that, which is why it is just a thought exercise. If we wanted to be serious about solving Afghanistan, though, that is what we would do. Leave a Duke there to run it for us, and give him lots of firepower.
If the goal was to wipe out the Taliban, we failed.
>> The goal was to deny Al-Qaeda a safe-haven from which to plan and mount attacks against us. In that goal, we succeeded. But if we walk away now, they will simply regrgoup. <<
>> On the other hand, was the goal simply to overthrow the Taliban to get even for Sept 11th? <<
No, the Taliban was our enemy only insofar as they were giving huge support to Al-Qaeda.
>> Can you imagine, if after World War II, there were still Nazis trying to get back into power? <<
We’re still in Germay. Get over it.
>> Ditto, if in Japan, if they had people trying to get back in power. <<
We’re still in Japan, and we’ll be there for the indefinite future.
>> And what is the end game? <<
To continue denying a safe-haven in Afghanistan to our sworn enemies. We’ll need to stay as long as it takes.
>> Until the Saudis royals heads are on a spike, no one is serious about stopping islamic terrorism <<
It seems to me that you’re “making the perfect be the enemy of the good.”
I don’t understand what you are trying to say. Yes we have troops in Germany and Japan, I don’t need to get over it. Not sure what you mean by that. But we are not fighting Nazis in Germany today, whereas we still have never wiped out the Taliban. As I said not sure if you are responding to my points or just making additional points.
>> But we are not fighting Nazis in Germany today <<
Yes, but if we hadn’t stayed — just as we didn’t stay after World War One — there’s no telling what kind of trouble might have developed.
Ditto for Japan and ditto for Korea. Staying was a wise decision, just as it will be wise to maintain some kind of presence in Afghanistan for years.
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