Al Qaeda Down to Less than 100 in Afghanistn. We Need 40k more Working Class Troops

Actually I wasn't asking you about future strategy since your post was speaking in the past tense regarding how we got here but whether you were felt that if the US could've been friends with the Taliban everything could've been avoided.

 

Oh - it's hard to say for certain, but if we had good relations with them and had helped them build their country in the 1990's, they would have been much less likely to be harboring terrorist groups trying to blow us up.

That said, being friends with them would also mean being friends with an oppressive regime that is the antithesis of everything we believe in terms of rights for women, freedom of religion, etc. So I'm not how possible that would have been.

 

I agree in regard to Afghanistan as a whole but we are talking about the Taliban in particular. Also they never controlled the whole country.

Which does bring up the question of how the Taliban could be brought into the current government and if they would accept a powersharing arrangement.

 

On a related note apparently the Clinton Admin. did consider establishing diplomatic relations with the Taliban.

http://middleeast.about.com/od/afghanistan/ss/me080914a_6.htm

[rquoter]Following Pakistan’s lead, the Clinton administration initially supported the Taliban’s rise. Clinton’s judgment was clouded by the question that has often led American policy astray in the region: Who can best check Iran’s influence? In the 1980s, the Reagan administration armed and financed Saddam Hussein under the assumption that a totalitarian Iraq was more acceptable than an unbridled, Islamic Iran. The policy backfired in the form of two wars, one of which has yet to end.
In the 1980s, the Reagan administration also funded the mujahideen in Afghanistan as well as their Islamist supporters in Pakistan. That blowback took the form of al-Qaeda. As the Soviets withdrew and the cold war ended, American support for Afghan mujahideen stopped abruptly, but military and diplomatic support for Afghanistan did not. Under the influence of Benazir Bhutto, the Clinton administration voiced itself willing to open a dialogue with the Taliban in the mid-1990s, especially as the Taliban was the only force in Afghanistan capable of guaranteeing another American interest in the region — potential oil pipelines.

On Sept. 27, 1996, Glyn Davies, a State Department spokesman, expressed hope that the Taliban “will move quickly to restore order and security and to form a representative interim government that can begin the process of reconciliation nationwide.” Davies called the Taliban’s execution of former Afghan President Najibullah merely “regrettable,” and said the United States would send diplomats to Afghanistan to meet with the Taliban, potentially to re-establishing full diplomatic ties. The Clinton’s administration’s flirtation with the Taliban did not last, however, as Madeleine Albright, incensed by the Taliban’s treatment of women, among other regressive measures, halted it when she became secretary of state in January 1997.

[/rquoter]

 

Certainly - but the Taliban was the dominant power that any foreign country would have relations with, and they were the ones that allowed AQ the free reign.

Yeah - that would be a complicated issue. Though I imagine it's a lot easier to turn the other way on some of those goals when the alternative is to send 40,000 more troops into the region in an unpopular war. It'll be very interesting to see what route the admin takes, what rules they set, and how any runoff election affects the decision.

 

If anybody wants to see a well articulated case for not pursuing total war with "the Taliban", they should watch Tom Ricks on "Fareed Zakaria GPS" on CNN right now.

 

Can you sum it up?


I think letting the Taliban retake control is like letting the Nazi Party rise up again and take over Germany.

You don't let certain groups gain power. I can't believe this isn't obvious - really, I'm shocked.

The Taliban are a jingoistic, oppressive group that does not respect the rights of woman or anyone who does not subscribe to their ideology. They kill in a ruthless fashion.

Major - you say that the Taliban went into Pakistan???? NOOOO, they come from Pakistan in many cases...you need to understand the history of the region.

 

I thought that the notion of nation building became taboo one afternoon.

 

The Taliban have existed in various forms in Pakistan for a long time. But in terms of their destabilizing Pakistan, that's occurred in a substantive form after 9/11 once they were pushed out of Afghanistan. Prior to that, the Taliban were less of a problem in Pakistan.

 

I don't think nation building in-itself has ever been looked at as bad. The post-WW2 nation building of Germany and Japan is considered one of history's brightest ideas. I think the idea of attacking a nation for the purpose of rebuilding it in another country's image/interests is certainly out of fashion though.

In Afghanistan in the 1990s, it would have been a 3rd style - not invading a country, but also not rebuilding a country that we had destroyed.

 

Pakistan's history is far more complex than that.

The Taliban were in fact largely shapped and created by the Pakistan ISI...which also sponsored many other groups. The Taliban have always operated with close ties to Pakistan, and for a while, the Pakistani gov't didn't have real control over the Northwest province even before 9/11.

Now you have the Taliban directly confronting the Pakistani gov't....to say this is because the U.S. fought them out of Afganistan is a bit strange because the Taliban were a big problem before 9/11.

If we quit the region now, you will have nuclear power that is severely weakened politically trying to face the full brunt of the Taliban's efforts along with other groups looking to insert a more radical leadership.

We can't afford to let the Taliban gain control of Afganistan and have Pakistan turn into another Iran. In the world of nuclear proliferation, that stakes are simply too high.

 

PBS Frontline recently aired an episode focusing on Afghanistan, they highlight a lot the aspects being discussed.

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The Taliban will not gain control of Pakistan. That is ridiculous. Pakistan has a much better military and has a pretty good intelligence service. Pakistan can take care of itself.

We are spending billions on wars because we are afraid of another terrorist attack. We can not predict where or when a terrorist attack will come from. The wars will not prevent a terrorist attack.

The best we can do is have better intelligence services. 9/11 could have been prevented if we acted on the intelligence reports we already had. The wars are a waste of life and resources and have a far greater chance of bringing down the US through financial ruin.

 

We were close enough to give them over $40 million in early 2001.