Afghanistan

I totally agree. Afghanistan is probably the most difficult problem facing the administration. It was always going to be this way and while I think us being there is the right thing I don't have any better ideas. I am not going to criticize the Obama Admin. about what to do with Afghanistan until I see what plan they are going to go with but you are right the status quo currently isn't working and I'm not sure an Iraqi surge will work either.

The two things I am certain of though are that a scorched earth strategy or a rapid withdrawl will be disastrous.

 

I say we just withdraw and let the chips fall where they may.

 

It really is not that complicated unless Obama is worrying about the political fall out. I think this is his main concern.

Scare tactics about possible bloodbaths and greatly increased terrorism are not likely to happen just as there was no great disaster for the Soviets when they withdrew from Afghanistan, the British abandoned their colonies after WWII or the US left Vietnam.

We have no business being in Afghanistan except for Al Qaeda. They can be controlled by other means than tens of thousands of troops trying to conquer the Taliban. The Taliban unfortunately seems to be the most popular movement of Afghanistan's largest ethnic group. We don't want this, but it is true. It is complicated by the fact that the Taliban/Pashtun are backed by 15 million or so of their kinsmen on the other side of the border in Pakistan. This makes it even harder to defeat them and make them do what we want them to do.

Any other interests we have in the area aside from combatting Al Qaeda will be better served by dropping the imperialist model and engaging in a non-milataristic diplomacy. Since they aren't engaged in killing Afghans and Pakistanis China and other powers are using the increased hatred this killing causes to supplant our influence in the region.

Karzai and the folks we put in Kabul are strong enough perhaps to hold Kabul with a little help, but will never be able to conquer the Pashtun and the Taliban. The numerous sides in the Afghan civil war will have to work things out without the US killing one side or the other.

Once Obama excepts that it is not necessary to defeat the Taliban and if he is willing to take the heat from the neo-cons and much of the mainstream that has bought their line he can withdraw and it will have very little if any negative effects on the US. Their will be a lot of positive effects as it will allow Obama to focus on jobs, healthcare, the environment and other major concerns to Americans.

 

I pretty much agree with most of what you have said. I personally believe he is afraid to alienate his base. He has had 1 1/2 years to ponder as a presidential position on what to do. It doesn't take 9 months to make a decision. The whole world, including us, knows we have no direction. The indecisiveness is hurting our troops and the afgan people. Make a decision and roll with it.

 

I hate to disagree with someone who agrees with me, but I think Obama's base is against the war in Afghanistan. A poll I saw said 75% of Dems don't think we should escalate. Roughly 50% want the troops to come home. The vast majority of Afghans want us to leave, too.

Afghanistan is just not that important. Now that we know to keep an eye of Al Qaeda we can bomb the **** out of them if they get too far out of their caves and there is no need to try to defeat the Pathun Nation and the Taliban.

Obama just has to dodge the trap that Bush and his old advisors like Gates, Petreus and McChrystal are trying to lead him into. They are locked into an old wartime paradigm and perhaps are looking to future rewards in the military industrial complex.

Obama should just do a deal or two with the Afgans, the Taliban or the Pakistanis, pretend we won and then pull out. Let McCain and the others keep blathering. Only a minority will care.

America voted for change not the status quo in Afghanistan and Iraq. If Obama says: "no" a sigh of relief will go up throughout America, including many Republicans who when all is said and done can't be that sure of the fearful scenarios of terrorists running wild in rural Afghanistan.

 

You might have misunderstood me. The majority of Obamas base is against a surge and I strongly suspect the numbers on the right are pretty high too. I think most people believe a surge in Afghanistan is a waste of time and resources.

You might knock Petreus, but the Iraq surge helped greatly... at least that is what we are lead to believe. Obama did campaign that he would support Afghanistan, so whatever choice he comes up with, he will draw fire from any side. I suppose that is what you get when you pander to the military crowd.

I think the best thing to do is keep a couple strong holds and run special ops missions. I personally believe we will bag more intel if we pull back and let them come out and show their head.

 

Withdraw and use our technological superiority, strategic bombing missions and sanctions.

 

I say send everything we have at em and get it over with. There has been too much indecision with his war. And I know it sucks that some American troops have died, but there has been an unbelievably small amount of US soldiers killed there in a historical context.

 

We might as well pull out now. Sure, we pretty much wasted tons of resources and taxpayers' dollars with a disappointing result, but it's better to pull out now than later.

 

Man that war is over, just cut our losses and get the hell out! It is not a question of progress in Afghanistan, because that is settled: there will be none! (at least none made by us through occupation), it is only a question of when we will wise up collectively as a nation, and when our leaders will have the balls to tell us this is a waste of time. Just pull out and activate or escalate the bombings of the known terrorist hideouts and target Al-Qaida that way overseas, WHEREVER they are (yes, including 'friendly' countries). The most important front in the War on Terror is the home front, we gotta spend a lot more to secure our borders, our ports, our malls, our law enforcement agencies, there is just a whole heck of a lot to do at home. Lets take care of home first, and then overseas maybe we can charge the CIA with running a bunch of covert ops that take out people of interest, either by our own agents or through local governments.

We need to be brutal (brutally effective) but also efficient, two full scale wars and national building projects are not the way to defeat Al-Qaida.

 

The U.S. doesn't have the will nor the resource to transform Afghanistan. A hasty pull out invite a lot of trouble as mentioned in Rimrocker's original post.

The first thing the U.S. (Obama) needs to figure out is who are the friends around that past of the world, who are the foe that can't be negotiated with, who are neither but have the same interests, and thus can be used.

Clearly Al-Q and Taliban are the foes that can't be negotiated with. Not sure who the friends are. As to the "neutral" nations that could be used, Russia, China? Both of them are enjoying the security provided by the U.S. in that region, esp. China. Neither of them wants to have agreesive Islamic movements gaining momentum near their border. And neither of them has any hesitations being dirty/ruthless. So why not force/entrap them to step up? Sure this might put some limits on U.S. influence over there, but locals must be suspicious of Russian/Chinese influences just as much. Not to mention Russia/China have to throw resource/attention into a bottomless hole that is Afghanistan.

One other thing: many problems are casued by the fact that Afghanistan/Pakistan are really artificial nations clobbered together. This means the central governments has no hope in hell to exert control beyound a limited part of the whole territory. If nothing works, and as a last resort, maybe U.S. can help/induce/facilate the disintegration of those non-functioning, artificial nation states. In doing so, 1) Afghanistan becomes a world problem, not just a U.S. problem. The U.S. won't have to do it all alone. 2) After the chaos, hopefully more natural/governable nation states can emerge.

 

edit:

 

Actually it was a disaster. To us.

I all of y'all saying we can just pull back and rely on air power to keep AQ and the Taliban under control are forgetting that one of the biggest gripes against us is that air power takes a toll on Afghan civillians because we can't get good intel on the ground for good targetting. At the same time as we've saw with Afghanistan previously just leaving them in poverty leads to radicals taking over most of the country. Radicals who are willing to ally and give support to the very people that we are most concerned about.

 

juke nuke it

 

Why the country is still in the stone age.

 

There are plenty on radicals in america too (most republicans), you can't really do anything about it.

 

Well I have yet to hear anyone suggesting we need to pull out of America and just rely upon air bombardment to take out those radicals.

 

You haven't been listening.

Love it or leave it, you pinko commie.