Posted on 08/16/2021 3:36:36 AM PDT by Kaslin
Unless a miracle happens Afghanistan is a lost cause. Our friends there now face slaughter and slavery because of our betrayal. Too bad. Although Afghan society is, by our standards, corrupt from top to bottom, it is their culture, not ours. In Afghanistan, we were winning militarily despite major strategic blunders. We only needed to stick it out long enough for its society to transform itself into something the world could live with. The developing disaster there is entirely of our own making.
Our liberal leadership may have been to the finest schools, however they are clearly not sufficiently educated to properly lead our nation. Because most liberals have an aversion to military history they don’t learn real history. That is unfortunate because war is almost all of history. The rest is mostly about geography, politics, personalities, and how things can go wrong. Instead, liberals focus almost entirely on the rare periods of peace. And that is of little use for foreign policy.
From military history there is one most essential foreign policy lesson to be gained from the past: Without faith in its commander an army cannot survive. This is true even if the army is winning.
Armies disintegrate when the commander is killed or flees. After the battle is when most of the defeated soldiers are cut down, not during the battle. This lesson should be the central guide to an interventionist foreign policy and to maintaining such a policy’s political support among the American people. Sadly, this key understanding is almost unknown in the corridors of power.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
This thing is filled with the kind of silly, delusional crap that got the U.S. involved there in the first place.
If they understood history they never would have sent ground troops into the country.
The upside is that America will no longer be in the nation-building business. The downside is that America is no longer a nation.
It was always a lost cause. We could have stayed 20 more years and when we finally left the place would still have collapsed. Afghanistan was a country it's people wouldn't fight for led by a government the people didn't believe in. We can't fix that.
In Afghanistan, we actively suppressed such a development even though we had suitable candidates. Instead we imposed a constitutional democracy in a land that had no cultural basis for such a system.
It is not up to us to decide what form of polity a nation chooses. Be it a democracy, a monarchy, or something else, our interest in the result is satisfied if that society offers no threat to us and our friends.
Not this one in any case. But there will be other nation-building opportunities we'll jump into because we'll convince ourselves that this time we'll really, really get it right.
“Although Afghan society is, by our standards, corrupt from top to bottom....”
As opposed to our society...New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Atlanta, etc.???
“Although Afghan society is, by our standards, corrupt from top to bottom....”
As opposed to our society...New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Atlanta, etc.???
You think the Afghan people believe in the Taliban then do you?
“In Afghanistan, we were winning militarily despite major strategic blunders. We only needed to stick it out long enough for its society to transform itself into something the world could live with.”
Except with Afghanistan, “long enough” might mean several thousand years.
Excellent question.
They will now
So we’re going to have to back in, spend another trillion and countless lives to unfk this mess? Watch the howling come from the libtards when the Taliban start their radical ways.
Biden and Mille blew the withdrawal. I think Biden is demented so he has an excuse, oh and so does Millie, he is focused on converting the military to a politically correct social experiment.
Bingo.
I've been trying to educate civilians who've been trying to give Biden a pass, "he's only been in office six months."
First off, he touted his 47 years in DC as a reason to elect him. IOW, Joe should've been on top of everything from Day One.
In a very small way, I experienced that during my tour in Germany. The Property Book Officer was heading to Korea, and his replacement would not arrive for at least 3 months. The Old Man turned to me, because I had a Public Accounting degree. Did the job for six months, then took over as the S-4 Battalion Supply Officer, while still a 1LT.
With my degree and experience, higher HQ left us alone, I won every argument with them.
What civilians will never understand, is when you take on the role of Commander in Chief, or Platoon Leader, or Battery Commander, etc. on Day One, everything your unit does or FAILS TO DO is your responsibility, and yours alone.
I learned that lesson the hard way.
On the day of an ARTEP, I was told, "you're their platoon leader", even though I had been leading another platoon for about 3 months. We flunked, mainly due to a few eff ups on my part...I owned it. Didn't matter that a couple of my squad leaders were ROADies, Retired on Active Duty.
I caught hell, and deservedly so. As it turned out, it was one of the best learning experiences I ever had. Let's just say the light went on.
Over the next 18 months, I took 3 more platoons through their evaluations without a hitch.
For Biden to try and blame it on Trump, that's just weak sauce. There is plenty of blame to cast on former presidents, but Biden's the one in the Oval Office, and that's all that matters.
Apologies for the length, but I had to get this off my chest. BTW, I was a Cherry Jumper, made it through Airborne School at Fort Benning, way back in November '76.
The higher ups I were told by the special forces that chased Bin Ladin out in 2001 to not put U.S troops in Afganistan and if they did only for a short time...
We tried to do what the British and Russians could not ...what no one could ever do..
Airborne School at Fort Benning, way back in November ‘76.
—
AIRBORNE!
Jump School 1965, Viet Nam soon after.
Nope.
Obama tried to do the same thing with Iraq, in turning it over to ISIS - before Trump stopped that genocidal state in its tracks.
Afghanistan, for those that weren’t paying attention, while not a functioning democracy, was still a greatly improved place and had reached a stability of sorts.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.