Posted on 10/27/2010 8:23:43 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
Mikhail Gorbachev: victory in Afghanistan is 'impossible'
Mikhail Gorbachev, the former leader of the Soviet Union, has warned that Afghanistan risks turning into another Vietnam, telling Nato that victory is impossible.
Published: 10:42AM BST 27 Oct 2010
Mr Gorbachev, who pulled Russian troops out of Afghanistan in 1989 after a 10-year war, said the US had no alternative but to withdraw troops.
"Victory is impossible in Afghanistan. [Barack] Obama is right to pull the troops out. No matter how difficult it will be," he told the BBC.
Mr Gorbachev added that as the Soviets prepared to withdraw from Afghanistan, the US was training militants, "the same ones who today are terrorising Afghanistan and more and more of Pakistan".
He said that because of this, withdrawal would be more difficult.
"But what's the alternative - another Vietnam? Sending in half-a-million troops? That wouldn't work."
His comments came amid news that Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian president, will attend a Nato summit next month, to discuss plans for Russian forces to return to Afghanistan.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
In its long history, Afghanistan has never been conquered. Even the Russians with their impressive military learned that the hard way. Boots on the ground will never win in that country and you can’t nuke them back to the stone age because they still live in the stone age. Send a few well placed tactical nukes as a gift and then get the hell out....red
We should dial back the strategy in Afghanistan... keep a light footprint - just enough to thin the herd occasionally. Oh wait, we were doing that up until 2008 when Afghanistan became “the real war” and the Democrats vowed to get OBL. Hah!
Here is my personal war philosophy:
Win in Four
Lose in Ten
I mean of course, in four years or ten. We either take the Sherman approach, or the Marquis of Queensberry rules.
Nuke Afghanistan for Morbid....
We should have reduced the country to blood, bodies, and rubble and then left. The Muzzies would be too busy rebuilding to engage in jihad.
Within the limits of what is culturally acceptable in the west - at the moment - the Soviet Union’s Jimmy Carter is correct.
Not just that, but we aren’t taking into account the Eastern mentality. We never did in Vietnam and we never did any analyses of how to understand their thinking process. They are more subtle, sadistic, and clever. Instead of breaking the doors down, they figure out to unpick the lock or undo the hinges and go out through the other end of the door. This is what we are dealing with, not this ‘fair fight’ mentality that we are transferring onto an enitrely different battlefield.
“Afghanistan is riddled with the bones of failed conquerors.”
The Mongols had the best results (and policy), but in the end they were infected with Islam from that contact. So, yeah.
Afghanistan is were foreign power goes to die. No wonder BO zeroed in on the place.
I guess the concept of victory is really relative.
“In its long history, Afghanistan has never been conquered.”
Once. By Genghis Khan. But the Golden Horde was infected with Islam in the process.
Bammy himself done said that the real cancer is in Pakistan (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/28/AR2010092805092.html) Cancer should often be treated with radiation.
And I was surprised to hear old Paul Harvey state, some time ago, that he believed today’s Muslim Persian/Arab/Turk to be simply incapable of creating, supporting, maintaining, and enjoying a modern, open, participatory civilization. I was shocked and disappointed to hear him say it, at the time, but I find myself agreeing more, year by year.
“Mikhail Gorbachev, the former leader of the Soviet Union, has warned that Afghanistan risks turning into another Vietnam”
Sionce we have about 50,000 bodies to go, I’m gonna say no. Unless he simply means it’s going to be a loss. But it’s not like Vietnam was the U.S.’s only ever loss, so the comparison is superficial at best.
The proper thing for the US to do is to leave. Just as simple as that; pack, and leave! No victory laps or nothing. Just say the Afghani people are not ready to join the seventeen century yet.
How do you subjugate an enemy, that is essentially the whole population that isn’t even in the same country?
They’re not even all from the same country. How would they all get together for a talk?
Gorby may or may not be right about the U.S. not winning, but it’s absolutely asinine to say victory in Afghanistan is “impossible.” He’s only saying that, obviously, because it excuses the Soviet Union’s incompetence. If the enemy was invulnerable, then there’s no shame in the Evil Empire having foundered.
The Invincible Afghanistan concept is a myth. It is, along with unfortunates like Israel, Korea, and Sicily, one of the most trampeled and abused regions in the history of the world. There is something to the “quagmire” thing, though. Power derives from being so god-forsaken that no one wants to exert the effort to ensure longterm administration.
We all know the U.S. could subdue Afghanistan, easily, if it wanted to. And that’s without nuking and leaving. Pick a taliban figure, make him king, and sit back and watch. But no, we’re all confused. Mixing force with social welfare. One foot in and one foot out. Wanting to leave yet pretending like we’d stay to the crack of doom. Capable of crushing everyone yet committed to “democracy” yet not trusting of anyone democratically elected yet stick with corrupt officials for lack of a choice yet hating it yet continuing to hold our noses.
When you come down to it, we’re just not happy imperialists. Which is not to say victory is impossible. hitler coulda done it in a jiffy.
Genghis Khan conquered Afghanistan. Of course he’s #1 ON THE LIST OF EXTREME BUTT-KICKERS.
How do you distinguish who is the enemy and who isn’t?
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