A take on why we will lose in Afghanistan.

Winning Wars is not easy.....especially if the folks don't want you there in the first place.

Got to be willing to wipe out the culture...Rome style.

DD

 

I believe the unfortunate fact is it is going to take more terrorist strikes in Europe and/or the US to increase the pressure enough so Pakistan will take action or risk someone doing it for them. The irony is Pakistan cannot protect their own borders from invading foreigners/militants but they cry foul every time there is any kind of border incursion by US and NATO. This whole thing is about how Pakistan has no sovereignty over its own territory...and is the reason these militants have safe sanctuary in the first place. If militants can just cross the border at will, then why can't we cross the border and take them out? You can't be two-faced about it and expect us to sit idly by for years while this goes on. Something must be done about it...one way or another.

 

I'm not sure this deserves its own thread so I am posting it here.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39529232/ns/world_news-south_and_central_asia


Report: Taliban chiefs enter secret talks with government to end war
Sources say that for the first time negotiators authorized to speak for Quetta Shura

Secret talks to end the war in Afghanistan have begun between representatives of the Taliban and the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, The Washington Post reported on its website Tuesday night.

Afghan and Arab sources cited by the Post said they believe for the first time that Taliban representatives are fully authorized to speak for the Quetta Shura, the Afghan Taliban organization based in Pakistan, and its leader, Mohammad Omar, according to the newspaper. The sources requested anonymity to discuss the development.

Omar's representatives have shunned negotiations in the past, insisting that all foreign troops withdraw first.

However, the Post reported that its sources said the Quetta Shura has begun to talk about a comprehensive agreement that would include participation of some Taliban figures in the government and the withdrawal of U.S. and NATO troops.
"They are very, very serious about finding a way out," one source close to the talks said of the Taliban, the Post reported.

The source told the Post said the leadership of the Taliban believed "they are going to be sidelined."

More radical Taliban elements
"They know that more radical elements are being promoted within their rank and file outside their control," the source told the paper. "All these things are making them absolutely sure that, regardless of [their success in] the war, they are not in a winning position."
Karzai long has said he will talk to insurgents if they renounce violence, sever ties to terrorists and embrace the Afghan constitution.

The Post reported that the half-dozen sources directly involved in or on the margins of the talks emphasized that they were preliminary in nature, even as the sources differed on how specific the talks have been.

All expressed concern that any public description of the meetings would undercut them.
"If you talk about it while you're doing it, it's not going to work," an official of a European country with troops in the country told the Post.

The top commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David Petraeus, said last week that Taliban leaders have made overtures to reconcile with the Afghan government.

"There are very high-level Taliban leaders who have sought to reach out to the highest levels of the Afghan government and indeed have done that," Petraeus told reporters in Afghanistan.
Reconciling with Taliban leaders is being "pursued by the Afghan leadership at the very highest levels," Petraeus said.

He said conditions laid down by Karzai — that the Taliban respect the constitution and stop fighting — were "very clear, very established and, certainly, we support them as we did in Iraq, as the U.K. did in Northern Ireland; this is how you end these kinds of insurgencies," The New York Times reported.

The Afghan government last week also set up a 70-member peace council, formalizing efforts to reconcile with Taliban leaders and lure insurgent foot soldiers off the battlefield.

Waheed Omar, a spokesman for Karzai, denied that President Barack Obama's stated goal of beginning to withdraw U.S. forces from Afghanistan in July 2011, if conditions allow, spurred the Afghan government to set up the council or reach out to the Taliban.

Speaking in Kabul, Omar declined to confirm or deny the report of new meetings.

"There were contacts in the past and may now be direct or indirect ones. There have been regular contacts over the past two years," he said, when asked about the Washington Post story. "There haven't been any substantive talks, there have been contacts only."
On Tuesday, Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell said a broad Taliban shift toward reconciliation with the Afghan government was unlikely for now.

"I think it is too soon to suggest that there is ... a wider movement afoot, that the tide is turning in terms of re-integration and reconciliation," Morrell told reporters at a briefing at the Pentagon.

 

An apology was in order but at the same time Pakistan closing off the border crossing leading to the destruction of NATO supply convoys is a dangerous and shortsighted move by Pakistan for a variety of reasons.

 

There are still approximately 50,000 troops in Iraq, down from approximately 150,000 last year. I don't think that is 'mostly' pulling out. To quote Ron Paul, "We just walked in; we can just walk out."

 

Only if Nixon "declares" it a month before the Cotton Bowl.

 

Well, Oklahomans and Afghans both live in the mountains, are behind the rest of the world, produce lots of drugs, and marry their cousins. There might be more to this than we think.

 

There are mountains in OK?

 

Probably not deserving its own thread at the moment.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39611914/ns/world_news-south_and_central_asia


Rescue gone wrong? U.S. grenade might have killed aid worker
U.K. PM says troops 'did everything in their power' to free British woman

LONDON — NATO is to investigate whether a grenade thrown by American military forces — rather than a Taliban bomb — killed a British aid worker during a rescue attempt in Afghanistan last week, an alliance spokesman said Monday.

Linda Norgrove, 36, died Friday in Afghanistan's eastern Kunar province during the raid and NATO initially said her captors had detonated a bomb as the soldiers tried to free her.

However, British Prime Minister David Cameron said General David Petraeus, the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, had contacted his office to say a review of events had revealed evidence indicating that Norgrove may not have died at the hands of her captors.

"That evidence, and subsequent interviews with the personnel involved, suggests that Linda could have died as a result of a grenade detonated by the task force during the assault," Cameron told a news conference at his Downing Street office.
"However, this is not certain, and a full U.S.-UK investigation will now be launched," he said.

'Deeply distressing development'
Cameron said he had informed Norgrove's family of the "deeply distressing development" and defended the decision to attempt the risky rescue mission.

"My thoughts and the thoughts of the whole country are with them as they come to terms with the death of their daughter and this deeply distressing development," he said.

"I want to assure Mr and Mrs Norgrove that I will do everything I possibly can to establish the full facts and give them certainty about how their daughter died."
Cameron said he took full responsibility for authorizing the operation. He said intelligence at the time suggested Norgrove was about to be passed "up the terrorist chain of command", placing her in an even more dangerous situation, meaning it had been urgent to act.

Cameron also said it was right that U.S. forces had attempted the rescue as Norgrove, who was kidnapped two weeks earlier, was being held in an area where military operations were under U.S. control.
"We were clear that Linda's life was in grave danger and the operation offered the best chance of saving her life," he said.

"I will obviously go over in my mind 100 times whether it was the right decision but I profoundly believe it was," Cameron said.

"General Petraeus ... and U.S. forces did everything in their power to bring Linda home safely. We should remember that Linda was being held at a remote location high in the mountains. This was a very difficult operation," he added. "Ultimately the responsibility for Linda's death lies with those who took her hostage."

Norgrove's father, John, said the family had no comment.

Lt. Col. John Dorrian, a spokesman at NATO headquarters in the Afghan capital Kabul, said Monday the rescue mission leader saw video footage of the raid, talked with members of the rescue team, and decided "it was not conclusive what the cause of her death was."
The rescue mission leader spoke with Petraeus, who requested the investigation, Dorrian said. The probe will be led by U.S. Central Command.

"An investigation has now been initiated to find out what actually happened ... We have to await the final outcome of the investigation before making any comments," NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said in Brussels.

"But whatever happened, I would like to stress that those who are responsible (for her death) of course are the captors," he said.

Norgrove, who worked for U.S.-funded Development Alternatives Inc. on a USAID project, was abducted in an ambush on Sept. 26 along with three Afghan colleagues who were later released. Six kidnappers also died in the rescue attempt.
Her kidnapping highlighted the dangers faced by aid workers in Afghanistan, where insurgents and other armed groups hold sway in many parts of the country.

The rescue attempt was not the first such operation. A raid that freed New York Times reporter Stephen Farrell, a Briton, from his Afghan captors last year provoked anger after his Afghan colleague and a British soldier were killed.

Meanwhile, NATO was also investigating Monday the deaths of two civilians in southern Afghanistan a day earlier. Initial reports indicated they were killed in a NATO airstrike.
A joint force was attacked with small-arms fire in Kandahar on Sunday, NATO said. Troops called in an airstrike and followed up by firing mortar rounds in Zhari district.

"Two civilians may have been accidentally killed," said NATO, adding a child was also wounded. One insurgent died, it said.

An Afghan civilian was also killed by a roadside bomb planted by insurgents in Khost province Monday, NATO said.

 

Eastern Oklahoma has mountains

 

I guess I missed that part of OK. Then again I try to minimize spending time in OK.

 

There's also the Ouachita Mountains and the Ozarks, which according to Wikipedia "form the US Interior Highlands, the only major mountainous region between the Rocky Mountains and the Appalachian Mountains."