We've been in the war over there for the better part of 15 years now. And we have perilously little to show for it.
We cannot win any war by using a variation of the Chinese water-torture technique.
We need to get all in... or all out. And we need to recognize that in fact, if we were to slaughter every member or sympathizer of the Taliban, al Qaida and ISIS and then leave... or only keep a small force (civilian/mercenary or active military) in that country...then in a matter of months, what would happen?
Nature and politics abhor a vacuum.
Afghanistan is a country more comfortable with the 11th century than the 21st. Warlords, tribes, religious divisions... outside the cities, those are what rules that country.
We could eradicate terrorism from the face of the Earth, including from Afghanistan.
Then what?
What stops other elements... countries... local warlords... from moving in as we move out?
And what stops Iran from continuing to pay for and supply the terrorists in the country now?
Recognizing operational security as much as the next guy, and having a well-developed appreciation for it, I do agree with the President's changes in the rules of engagement and local control of the battlefield.
But what will that accomplish without a massive involvement and commitment, many times that currently ongoing?
This is a massive and complex problem. It would likely take hours to explain it all in detail; the limitations of speaking in public make that impossible.
The ripple effects can't all be identified.
If, in fact, the goal is to kill terrorists, the first thing is to define exactly who qualifies for that designation? What about their supporters and sympathizers? It's a thin, thin line between sympathizing with terrorists and actually being one. Are we not also required to kill both?
As a nation, we have to recognize that no matter what we do in that arena, it will be condemned by the world. Much like the left and our President, no matter what he does with this turd sandwich, the left and their media tools will attack it and him, while, as always, they fail to put forward any viable alternatives because much of this political realm is based on hatred and not reality.
The stark imagery of stacking bodies until the current snapshot of terrorists and their supporters is eliminated; declaring victory, leaving a country with, say, 10% of its current population behind outside the cities, leaving behind a mongrel token military force, picking up and going home?
Then what?
It's a great plan if stacking bodies...killing terrorists... is the ONLY goal.
And then... we just walk away and leave Afghanistan desolate, broke, isolated and fat pickings for, say, Iran?
How does this impoverished country pick itself up and even begin to try and join the more modern family of nations?
And how is this accomplished without invading Pakistan, which is a known terrorist haven? (After all, wasn't Bin Laden in a compound roughly a mile away from Pakistan's version of West Point? Like they didn't know he was there?)
How would World War Two have turned out if we had limited our targets to just Germany and Japan? What if we had never bombed any targets anywhere else? What if we had never invaded North Africa or France or the island chain from Guadalcanal to Iwo Jima, Burma and India?
And having achieved success in that War, what would have happened had we merely picked up and went home?
All of Europe would be a Soviet playground. All of Japan and the rest of SE Asia that isn't already would have ultimately became a Chinese lake.
How is Afghanistan any different? We're not "nation building," but what happens if we don't?
You've all seen the signs in the stores: "You break it, you buy it" or some variation.
Like it or hate it, we broke Afghanistan and clearly, we own it.
We can, no doubt, maintain control over the major cities. But rural Afghanistan? The 7th century version that hasn't changed in all of that time?
The effectiveness of a centralized government in that Dark Ages hellhole is nonexistent. Rife with corruption, dependent on poppies for heroin, gobbled up by a grateful drug-ingesting population here in America, what can such a government do and hope to accomplish?
An estimated per capita income of $2000, their GDP is ranked 139th in the world... with a per capita comparison of 204th.
The most recent budget for the State of Washington, including the WEA Scam, is over 23 times the budget for Afghanistan.
Their population is almost 5 times ours at 33 million.
Only 38% are literate. Opium is their number one export by far.
Tell me: how do we even remotely maintain Afghanistan as a viable entity if we just, effectively, pick up and leave? And what happens if they're NOT a viable entity?
So, here's my take:
Remember: politically, no matter what the President does, the left will vilify him for it. That gives him a freedom of action he otherwise wouldn't have.
We either go in, full bore, kill everyone that even remotely is involved with terrorists; invade Pakistani terrorist havens and kill them there as well and then leave; or we just leave.
The outcome is inevitable no matter what we do. And while we are looking at missions, we should defoliate every poppy field they have.
That we haven't already is inexplicable and inexcusable.
Afghanistan is unsolvable. It is a pool of corruption, pay offs, poverty, and the poster child for what amounts to an economic black hole.
We cannot save a country that doesn't want to save itself. And it's not worth spilling another drop of American blood.
We cannot win any war by using a variation of the Chinese water-torture technique.
We need to get all in... or all out. And we need to recognize that in fact, if we were to slaughter every member or sympathizer of the Taliban, al Qaida and ISIS and then leave... or only keep a small force (civilian/mercenary or active military) in that country...then in a matter of months, what would happen?
Nature and politics abhor a vacuum.
Afghanistan is a country more comfortable with the 11th century than the 21st. Warlords, tribes, religious divisions... outside the cities, those are what rules that country.
We could eradicate terrorism from the face of the Earth, including from Afghanistan.
Then what?
What stops other elements... countries... local warlords... from moving in as we move out?
And what stops Iran from continuing to pay for and supply the terrorists in the country now?
Recognizing operational security as much as the next guy, and having a well-developed appreciation for it, I do agree with the President's changes in the rules of engagement and local control of the battlefield.
But what will that accomplish without a massive involvement and commitment, many times that currently ongoing?
This is a massive and complex problem. It would likely take hours to explain it all in detail; the limitations of speaking in public make that impossible.
The ripple effects can't all be identified.
If, in fact, the goal is to kill terrorists, the first thing is to define exactly who qualifies for that designation? What about their supporters and sympathizers? It's a thin, thin line between sympathizing with terrorists and actually being one. Are we not also required to kill both?
As a nation, we have to recognize that no matter what we do in that arena, it will be condemned by the world. Much like the left and our President, no matter what he does with this turd sandwich, the left and their media tools will attack it and him, while, as always, they fail to put forward any viable alternatives because much of this political realm is based on hatred and not reality.
The stark imagery of stacking bodies until the current snapshot of terrorists and their supporters is eliminated; declaring victory, leaving a country with, say, 10% of its current population behind outside the cities, leaving behind a mongrel token military force, picking up and going home?
Then what?
It's a great plan if stacking bodies...killing terrorists... is the ONLY goal.
And then... we just walk away and leave Afghanistan desolate, broke, isolated and fat pickings for, say, Iran?
How does this impoverished country pick itself up and even begin to try and join the more modern family of nations?
And how is this accomplished without invading Pakistan, which is a known terrorist haven? (After all, wasn't Bin Laden in a compound roughly a mile away from Pakistan's version of West Point? Like they didn't know he was there?)
How would World War Two have turned out if we had limited our targets to just Germany and Japan? What if we had never bombed any targets anywhere else? What if we had never invaded North Africa or France or the island chain from Guadalcanal to Iwo Jima, Burma and India?
And having achieved success in that War, what would have happened had we merely picked up and went home?
All of Europe would be a Soviet playground. All of Japan and the rest of SE Asia that isn't already would have ultimately became a Chinese lake.
How is Afghanistan any different? We're not "nation building," but what happens if we don't?
You've all seen the signs in the stores: "You break it, you buy it" or some variation.
Like it or hate it, we broke Afghanistan and clearly, we own it.
We can, no doubt, maintain control over the major cities. But rural Afghanistan? The 7th century version that hasn't changed in all of that time?
The effectiveness of a centralized government in that Dark Ages hellhole is nonexistent. Rife with corruption, dependent on poppies for heroin, gobbled up by a grateful drug-ingesting population here in America, what can such a government do and hope to accomplish?
An estimated per capita income of $2000, their GDP is ranked 139th in the world... with a per capita comparison of 204th.
The most recent budget for the State of Washington, including the WEA Scam, is over 23 times the budget for Afghanistan.
Their population is almost 5 times ours at 33 million.
Only 38% are literate. Opium is their number one export by far.
Tell me: how do we even remotely maintain Afghanistan as a viable entity if we just, effectively, pick up and leave? And what happens if they're NOT a viable entity?
So, here's my take:
Remember: politically, no matter what the President does, the left will vilify him for it. That gives him a freedom of action he otherwise wouldn't have.
We either go in, full bore, kill everyone that even remotely is involved with terrorists; invade Pakistani terrorist havens and kill them there as well and then leave; or we just leave.
The outcome is inevitable no matter what we do. And while we are looking at missions, we should defoliate every poppy field they have.
That we haven't already is inexplicable and inexcusable.
Afghanistan is unsolvable. It is a pool of corruption, pay offs, poverty, and the poster child for what amounts to an economic black hole.
We cannot save a country that doesn't want to save itself. And it's not worth spilling another drop of American blood.
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