Posted on 08/26/2017 5:45:04 AM PDT by davikkm
U.S. National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster told reporters that President Donald Trump’s administration will win in Afghanistan by allowing the country to “be Afghanistan” rather than trying to “create a state in the U.S. image.” “Winning in Afghanistan is really aimed at allowing Afghanistan to be Afghanistan. As the president said, not to nation-build, not to create a state in the U.S. image,” said Gen. McMaster when asked about President Trump’s newly unveiled strategy to end the nearly 16-year-old ear in the country.
For years, Afghanistan has been plagued by various persistent problems, including a deadly heroin production and addiction epidemic as well as the centuries-old child sex abuse custom known as bacha bazi (literally “playing with boys”), among others. Afghanistan also suffers from endemic and widespread corruption that is funneling funds to terrorists and has contributed to the death of Americans.
In 2015, SIGAR revealed that the common practice of sexually abusing boys was punishable by death under Taliban rule, but it was “resurrected” after the terrorist group’s regime was overthrown by the U.S.-led invasion in 2001.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
Why don’t we do what we do in other countries we dominate; build a base or two as staging areas for combat in the area and heavily defend it? Stay on base and protect the perimeter. It’s basically our country inside another country.
TRUE. But NOW we don't have to pay corrupt tribal leaders billions of dollars to pretend they give a damn about becoming something other than a hellhole. We accept the hellhole because we accept reality... and we pocket the billions we were throwing down a rat hole. Works for me.
We need bases in Afghanistan and in Iraq. We do not need Democracies in either place, just bases.
Correct. We can’t bomb Iran from the air strip in Pat Buchanan’s backyard in Virginia. Sadly, the checkers playing isolationists never seem to figure this out.
McMaster has neutered Trump. He IS the swamp. For example, why is Gorkha out but McMaster makes sure Susan Rice keeps her security clearance?
All I care about is that they keep their customs and culture over there, and we don’t embrace and import those people here.
MOAB the heck out of it.
What exactly are you proposing? Extermination of all the people? An eternal U.S. morality police force?
There really is only 2 options here: Nation-building & Stability-Operations. The former is endless and ultimately doomed. The latter is messy and fraught with problems. McMaster has shown himself to be a globalist, and that should put him in basic opposition to Trump’s stated policies. He’s not long for the job.
With respect, this is the only sane solution to getting us out of an insane situation.
Do you subscribe to George W “Nation Building” Bush’s policies? It is a Muslim country, it can’t be fixed. I think the reason Obama continued George’s policies was that he saw what a drain on America’s blood and treasure Bush’s insane policy was.
Declare victory and get out. Sow the poppy fields with salt. Bomb any concentration of Jihadi’s you see after we get our precious countrymen out of there.
Correct. We can’t bomb Iran from the air strip in Pat Buchanan’s backyard in Virginia. Sadly, the checkers playing isolationists never seem to figure this out.
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I hear it’s tough to bomb Mongolia from Iraq. Think we should invade Kazkhstan?
Of course, never mind that we have Carrier Fleets and cruise-missile carrying warships (plus submarines) to pound Iran if necessary. We just desperately need to occupy everyone in the region, don’t we?
What would have happened if we had let Germany be Germany and Japan be Japan?
If we want Afghanistan be Afghanistan (whatever that means) all we need to do is leave.
I’m sure the General is OK with Islam being Islam too.
[Post link to Yon report.] Thanks - I was going to do the same.
The problem with that theory is that no one will ever eliminate all of ISIS or ISIS-like groups. The ideology of such groups is deeply embedded within Islam itself and has been since its inception. Moreover the tactics from Mohamed to todays ‘leaders’ ... torture, extort, destroy, kill have not changed over history. Only the means have changed (thanks to us and other Western countries giving them weapons, technology and military training)
This is all well documented in history. It is not difficult to find the information nor to see the patterns repeating in over 1000 years of history.
Since Islam is not going anywhere anytime soon, ‘winning’ can only be CONTAINMENT. Even strongmen like Saddam Hussein and Gaddafi (and others) have known this. They ‘contained’ the more radical elements in their respective areas and put down uprisings as they happened, but they never attempted to eliminate Islam which is the root the ideology of Islamic terrorism. It is in its DNA. There were realists and they understood Islam better than we do.
There is a lot of jabbering about Realism in our upper levels of foreign policy. Muslims are nearly 25% of the world’s population and growing fast. Elimination is not realism. Containment is realism. Trump’s extreme vetting is realism. Even an outright ban on Muslim immigration (which we don’t have and no leader has called for ...yet) would be realism.
Yammering on about “eliminating ISIS” and so forth is not realism. It is a fantasy that we cannot afford because, nice as it would be, it obscures reality. You cannot eliminate an ideology, especially one so deeply embedded in a religion that nearly 25% of the population of the entire world adhere to.
People will bring up the Nazis.
First of all Nazis were a far smaller number of people in a relatively small geographic area, not a widespread worldwide religion. An even smaller number were as committed to the ideology compared to radicalized Muslims. It’s pure numbers.
Second, Nazis could not reproduce themselves fast enough to sustain the level of aggression they instigated (again, unlike Muslims).
Third, we killed a lot of Nazis and incapacitated their means of causing havoc, but the ideology still exists. We did not eliminate it. It is merely contained.
Therefore, containment of radical Islam can be the only definition of victory ... if we are being realistic. They stay there, not here. This would work because the vast majority of radicals in Islam are content to kill other Muslims.
Unfortunately, our erstwhile allies in Europe are not willing to help towards containment, so we have a new even uglier realism to face. 1) We are alone 2) We now have to contain Europe as well. Thanks a lot Europeans (and Canada as well).
If “letting Afghanistan be Afghanistan” means the U.S. supporting Afghanistan with silence about the boy sex slaves, then it would be better for the U.S. to “let Afghanistan be Afghanistan” ON IT’S OWN, and to hell with it.
Great post!
Thank you Lorianne, you are the better side of FR, it can be rough here these days. You harken back to a time when thoughtful discussion brought us all a greater perspective and we all learned a great deal as the threads progressed. With that said, could PDJT’s policy be containment? In my original post I alluded to it wouldn’t be completely wiped out, so is PDJT & McMaster trying to contain the despots, I look forward to your reply.
All we have to do is destroy the poppy fields and make sure they never go back.
.......”No one will ever eliminate all of ISIS or ISIS-like groups. The ideology of such groups is deeply embedded within Islam itself and has been since its inception”......
Islam itself is the problem....until recognized as such you are correct the ideology and actions they choose to do will continue on.
You are also right about containment.....most in Afhganistan will be left alone to allow the tribal mechanics to work out how they will be ‘ruled’......and that will be under Shariah Law no doubt.
Rather like certain bad communites here in the states....you simply contain them ....
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