Posted on 01/22/2020 8:02:23 AM PST by rktman
"If the American people knew the magnitude of this dysfunction ... 2,400 lives lost," Lute added, blaming the deaths of U.S. military personnel on bureaucratic breakdowns among Congress, the Pentagon, and the State Department. "Who will say this was in vain?"
While I was assigned to the U.S. military headquarters in Afghanistan, the most commonly used phrase in reports coming from all echelons and locations was "progress is being made." At that time, the war was being fought, and probably still is, through PowerPoint presentations. As long as the slides said so, then "progress was being made."
It was then and still is a façade. The only real progress being made is by the Taliban.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
“Progress is being made” = “Checks are being cashed”
The Brits learned their lesson over a century ago.
Ditto the Rooskies 50 years ago.
When will we learn ?
This may not be a popular thing to say here, but Afghanistan is endless because this country has a lot of people who are stupid or naive enough to keep signing up for the military and put their lives in the hands of a bunch of @ssholes who don’t give a sh!t about them.
A lot of the recruitment today is essentially bribing them to join up. The financial benefits that accrue over a lifetime are very considerable.
Quit this nation building crap. If someone wrongs us, go in fast, kill lots bad guys, break lots of stuff and get the hell out. Make the consequences high and completely disproportional and then just leave it in shambles afterward.
Could it be that our presence allows some elites to profit from both the military expenditures and the opium poppy trade at the same time???
I have no information to that effect, but if true, it would explain a lot. . . but it would not surprise me one little bit.
Should never have set one boot on the ground in that hellhole.
We will never drag them out of the 7th century.
30 days of B-52 raids would have been sufficient following 9/11.
It has been reported that Afghanistan will become the Saudi Arabia of lithium.................Think about that..................
But if we left, opium prices would go through the roof!!!
Afghanistan isn’t really even a nation.
It’s a tribal shithole.
> “progress is being made” <
That reminds me of the old Vietnam War PR release: “There is light at the end of the tunnel.”
The parallels between Vietnam and Afghanistan are many, and sickening. We are now at the stage where we will sign a peace treaty with the insurgents. They will give us cover to leave. Then in about a year or so, helicopters will be taking of from the roof of the U.S. embassy. So much blood and treasure lost.
The really disgusting thing about George W. Bush is that he had all of the lessons of Vietnam before him. Yet he repeated LBJ’s many mistakes.
Could a President Al Gore have done any worse? I don’t think so.
Even the Soviets were smart enough to get out of Afghanistan after one decade.
In the 1960s when the King was still on the throne. Afghanistan was relatively stable and a “adventure vacation” spot. Popular with well-to-do European & American hippies! You can find on the Internet pictures of coeds at Kabul University and they did not look much different from other coeds. They were dressed in European styles a little more modest perhaps but still very attractive in an exotic way. Then the communist coup, the counter-coup, war, mix in radical Islam to ensure every loses their minds and you have what you have today.
This is all about preserving the poppy fields that the taliban were going to destroy. The CIA has been involved with the drug trade since Vietnam. The hey use the military to transport their goods.
"We've got to keep our heads until this peace craze blows over" - Full Metal Jacket
Kinda thinking that as well.
I love the smell of napalm in the morning.
I love the sight of infrared bodies running from a drone strike at night.
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