Pentagon identifies soldiers killed in Afghanistan

The poppy yields have increased significantly since we have been stationed there. Care to explain that?

The nation should be heeding the wise words of George Washington with respect to international affairs. From his Farewell Address:

Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow-citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government. But that jealousy to be useful must be impartial; else it becomes the instrument of the very influence to be avoided, instead of a defense against it. Excessive partiality for one foreign nation and excessive dislike of another cause those whom they actuate to see danger only on one side, and serve to veil and even second the arts of influence on the other. Real patriots who may resist the intrigues of the favorite are liable to become suspected and odious, while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people, to surrender their interests.

The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop. Europe has a set of primary interests which to us have none; or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves by artificial ties in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities.

Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us to pursue a different course. If we remain one people under an efficient government. the period is not far off when we may defy material injury from external annoyance; when we may take such an attitude as will cause the neutrality we may at any time resolve upon to be scrupulously respected; when belligerent nations, under the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard the giving us provocation; when we may choose peace or war, as our interest, guided by justice, shall counsel.

Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation? Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor or caprice?

It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world; so far, I mean, as we are now at liberty to do it; for let me not be understood as capable of patronizing infidelity to existing engagements. I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is always the best policy. I repeat it, therefore, let those engagements be observed in their genuine sense. But, in my opinion, it is unnecessary and would be unwise to extend them.

Taking care always to keep ourselves by suitable establishments on a respectable defensive posture, we may safely trust to temporary alliances for extraordinary emergencies.

Harmony, liberal intercourse with all nations, are recommended by policy, humanity, and interest. But even our commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial hand; neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors or preferences; consulting the natural course of things; diffusing and diversifying by gentle means the streams of commerce, but forcing nothing; establishing (with powers so disposed, in order to give trade a stable course, to define the rights of our merchants, and to enable the government to support them) conventional rules of intercourse, the best that present circumstances and mutual opinion will permit, but temporary, and liable to be from time to time abandoned or varied, as experience and circumstances shall dictate; constantly keeping in view that it is folly in one nation to look for disinterested favors from another; that it must pay with a portion of its independence for whatever it may accept under that character; that, by such acceptance, it may place itself in the condition of having given equivalents for nominal favors, and yet of being reproached with ingratitude for not giving more. There can be no greater error than to expect or calculate upon real favors from nation to nation. It is an illusion, which experience must cure, which a just pride ought to discard.

Yep, only about 1.6 million out of 31.6 million. Only 1.6 million Christians are totally acceptable minimal losses.

I often wonder if folks who make comments like you did are planted here to make the whole board here and all conservatives look bad. It is the very example lefties are looking for to point fingers at and say “see”.

Of course we are never going to nuke it, nor should we because there would indeed be at least 1.6 million innocent victims that do not deserve it. Just hoping you realize comments like that just make us all look bad.

Don’t discuss deployments.

Good advice for anyone with a loved one or friend in today’s military.

The term used to be “wasted”. It had meaning

ok , thank you for your corrections . I assume ,from the way you put it , that supposed presence of 1.6 million Christians in Afghanistan is the sole reason why you would not support seeing Afghanistan nuked out of existence and were it not for those supposed 1.6 million you would have no problem with it . Sort of like Lot arguing for Sodom?

Show me a picture of a church in Afghanistan . There aren’t any

To fight the bad guys who want to come over to America while the Wall is down, and shoot up your kid’s school, the local mall, or ram their cars into joggers in the parks. Fight them there, and they can’t do any of those things. Because they’re there getting fought.

OHIO PING

Pentagon identifies soldiers killed in Afghanistan

Please let me know if you want on or off the Ohio Ping list.

We had to reach some distainful local accomodations with the farmers who had no other way to earn a living.

In other areas, the Taliban ran the show.

Not a good situation for anyone but the Taliban but our troops security also depended on having either sympathetic or neutral Afghan civilians in our areas of operations.

check yer private mail

No greater love is applied to friends. As a Nam Gold Star sister these two heroe’s sacrifice of themselves should be honored in mourning and all who are against war should call those who sent them there after sending heartfelt empathetic messages to their families.

But some Republicans still just love Bill Kristol and his warmongering ilk.

A trillion dollars and thousands killed and maimed to try to force a central government on millions of tribesmen who don’t want one. Neocon insanity.

Anyone who lays down their life for their friends is NEVER, EVER throwing their life away.

As for why we are still there?

Taliban Five part of peace talks with US as rift grows between US, Afghan governments
by Jerry Dunleavy
| March 27, 2019 10:59 PM

The five Taliban leaders who President Barack Obama freed from Guantanamo Bay in exchange for U.S. Army deserter Bowe Bergdahl are now part of the Taliban’s peace talks in Qatar with the U.S. government.

The former detainees, dubbed “the Taliban Five,” had been high-ranking members of the Taliban government prior to its overthrow by U.S. forces in the wake of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The five men were released by the Obama administration and arrived in Qatar on June 1, 2014. Bergdahl was released on May 31, 2014, as part of the prisoner exchange.

The U.S. government, led by U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad, has been negotiating for months with Taliban representatives in Qatar. The Afghan government, led by President Ashraf Ghani, has been excluded from these discussions at the request of the Taliban, to the government’s frustration. Afghan national security adviser Hamdullah harshly criticized Khalilzad’s efforts, and the U.S. recently walked out of a meeting at the presidential palace in Kabul in what was seen by many as a snub in response.

The New York Times reports that the Taliban has purposely made the Taliban Five a prominent part of its talks in Qatar: “In recent months, as the American and militants took up intense negotiations to try to end the conflict in Afghanistan, the Taliban leadership made a point of including the former prisoners. Each day during the recent round of talks in Doha, Qatar, the five men sat face to face with American diplomats and generals.”

The Taliban Five are Norullah Noori, Mohammad Fazl, Abdul Haq Wasiq, Khairullah Khairkhwa, and Mohammad Nabi Omari. Noori was a Taliban governor and is believed to be involved with the massacres of thousands of Hazara, Uzbek, and other Shiite minorities. Fazl was a high-ranking official in the Taliban military and also engaged in large-scale ethno-sectarian killing. Wasiq was a member of the Taliban’s intelligence services and worked with outside terror organizations. Khairkhwa helped found the Taliban and was close to Mohammad Omar and Osama bin Laden. And Omari was accused of having connections to al Qaeda, the Haqqani Network, and other groups.

The Taliban regime was among the most repressive and brutal in the world, its treatment of women and religious minorities was abhorrent, and it actively harbored and protected al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden for years. The Obama administration’s decision to release the Taliban Five in exchange for Bergdahl had been opposed by many at the Pentagon and was strongly criticized by Republicans at the time.

The peace talks come amid continued fighting between the U.S. and the Taliban.

Two U.S. soldiers, Spc. Joseph P. Collette and Sgt. 1st Class Will D. Lindsay, were killed in Afghanistan last Friday. They died in Kunduz Province as a result of wounds they suffered during combat operations during Operation Freedom’s Sentinel, the U.S. counterterrorism mission in Afghanistan. The Taliban claimed credit for the attack.

More than 2,400 U.S. service members have been killed and more than 20,000 wounded in Afghanistan since combat operations began there in October 2001.

There are roughly 14,000 troops stationed in Afghanistan helping train the Afghan Armed Forces. The U.S. also carries out counterinsurgency and counterterrorism efforts against the Taliban, al Qaeda, ISIS, and other terrorist elements that have found a safe haven in the country.

The Taliban has also continued its attacks on the Afghan National Army throughout the peace talks, with one such high-profile assault earlier this month resulting in an entire Afghan company being wiped out.

Khalilzad claims that the U.S. and the Taliban have tentatively agreed on two aspects of an agreement: a timeline for U.S. withdrawal from the country and guarantees from the Taliban that foreign terrorists would not be welcome. Many are skeptical of the Taliban’s trustworthiness on following through on its assurances.

Gen. Austin Scott Miller, commander of NATO’s Resolute Support Mission and U.S. Forces - Afghanistan, was nearly killed by the Taliban in an assassination attempt last October, but has been involved with the peace talks.

According to the New York Times, Gen. Miller told the Taliban that he respected them as fighters but that the war needed to end. He also evoked a mutual need to fight the terrorism of the Islamic State.”

“We could keep fighting, keep killing each other, or, together, we could kill ISIS,” Miller said.

Some longtime analysts of Afghanistan are skeptical of the Taliban’s ability and willingness to keep the Islamic State and al Qaeda in check.

Many inside Afghanistan are also skeptical that the Taliban can change. Haji Khalil Dare Sufi, described as an elder at Kabul’s Al Zahra mosque and a member of Afghanistan’s Hazara minority, said “The Taliban will always be the Taliban. They have been brutal to the Hazara people.”

“They can talk all they want in Doha, but there can be no good result,” Sufi said.