Posted on 10/24/2010 1:17:41 PM PDT by ColdOne
Richard Holbrooke, U.S. special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan, downplayed news reports of American “peace talks” with Taliban leaders, but he acknowledged that a “pure military victory” in Afghanistan “is not possible.”
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
IMHO, Holbrooke doesn’t know his butt from a whole in the ground. I would not/do not put any credence in anything he utters.
The title is also correct if you eliminate the last word. And that may be the problem.
Wasn’t he the first to start bleating about the lost war in Iraq?
Where’s Harry when you need him: “Thisssh warrrr isssh lossshht.”
A “pure military victory” in Afghanistan is possible.
But no one in charge has the cojones to do it.
That is awesome.
Hey Dumb Asses, we have the bomb and a Superior bomb.
If you don’t like our demands we can give you another set that your really won’t like, and then we can send you all too Allah which you and him are really not going to like.
I love stupid Muslims who don’t understand Physics or reality both of which God not Allah created.
To, Too, Two who’s counting, or spelling?
Holbrooke is a lying traitorous slime. Typical of the cretin that inhabit the state department.
To them it is all about “negotiations” and mind games. They have no values or morals and are never loyal allies. They can undo in a week what the military accomplished in 10 years, and afterwards feel superior.
They suffer from the same terminal ego that Liberals do. Self Dillusion and vanity.
This is not what made the U.S. great, but it could well be its destruction.
As long as congress and the courts insist on telling the military how to do their job, there never will be another “pure” victory. It’s time for Americans to demand that the politicians, judges and lawyers be the first ones put on the battlefields.
So why put our men in harm’s way?
If I was in the military and had leaders like him and Obama, I would try to get the hell out as soon as possible.
Why are we sacrificing our best for idiots like these?
“Senators Harry Reid and Dick Durbin, please call your offices, someone’s trying to horn in on your action!”
Seriously, has there ever been a “pure victory” in any war. Both sides lose in some way - one side just loses less than the other. At some point you have to just kick ass and say it’s over.
Holbrooke has long-since exceeded his “sell-by” date.
If victory can’t be defined, it can’t be achieved. An all out complete WW II type victory would require a Congressional declaration of war, a million+ man draft to conquer and occupy, rationing, price control, no tax cuts, and Rosie the Riveter back in the plant [after it has been brought back from where it was exported]. Figure out how how much of this is politically achievable and then define victory.
Precisely. A pure military victory is always possible.
It is as simple as putting B52s overhead your enemy for two weeks, then watch them squirm, burn, die or beg.
There is really only one other requirement-you must be willing to risk you own son, and that of your neighbors.
Guaranteed America can emerge victorious—when so inclined.
But not with squeamish girlyman half-white Obammy running the show. He will readily sell us out to any moslem uprising pipsqueak in nowhere Stanistan.
“...”as simple as putting B52s overhead your enemy for two weeks”...
-
I was thinking more about nuking the mf’s into submission.
I would say ‘send them back to the stone age’ but I really think they never left it.
Practically speaking, there are only about 150,000 NATO forces, with 100,000 fairly useless Afghan army, in a country with 30 million people, next door to Pakistan, where the real war is taking place, that has 177 million people.
At the very beginning of the Afghan occupation, we could have created a way out for ourselves to win and leave. This would have been to take every orphan in the country, and every child with potential, and put them in heavily defended boarding schools in Kabul. They would be trained to eventually become the modern, secular government of Afghanistan by western teachers.
While they were learning, Afghanistan would have been ruled by a military government, with a MacArthur (PBUH) constitution, that the country would be under for a minimum of 30 years, before it could be changed.
At the same time, every unemployed man in southern Afghanistan would be hired by the US for massive national infrastructure projects, possible because of their tiny average wage. All the towns and cities would be ruled by the women. And thus any man who is unemployed and walking around would be subject to arrest, as a possible fighter.
The mountainous border with Pakistan would be closed. At one point the Pakistanis offered to do this, but the Karzai government refused.
Had these things been done, by now a new generation of western style educated government employees would begin the process of taking over the government. They would not be subject to corruption, as they would not have any connections with a tribe, family, or ethnic group.
The economy, with the men having earned a steady wage for nine years, most of which was returned to their families and the women running the towns, as well as the huge infrastructure projects, would have made the Afghan economy much more viable.
The Afghan people, by being separated from the Pakistani people during all of this, would have diverged to a great extent, so would be less amenable to cross border terrorism.
And with the border closed, most of the military operations in Afghanistan would have concluded some years ago, because the enemy would have been denied their resupply and replacements.
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.