Subtitle, "And we should be talking to Moscow, Beijing, and even Tehran."
Forward Operating Base Torkham, in Nangahar Province, Afghanistan (army.mil)
Posted on 03/05/2018 9:45:54 PM PST by SunkenCiv
It's past time the United States did some soul-searching and accept responsibility for exacerbating an unwinnable war in Afghanistan. This will require a rethink of Washington's current handling of Afghanistan and indeed its entire view of the region. Steve Coll recently made a cogent argument in the New York Times that the U.S. should seriously engage with China and other regional powers. However, this is impossible so long as Washington remains convinced that Pakistan alone is the primary impediment to peace rather than its own mistakes... Both Islamabad and Washington compete to wear the cloak of victimhood. Pakistan remains in denial about its support of the Haqqani Network and other militant groups, while the U.S. has failed to acknowledge Pakistan's staggering losses, with the recent suicide bombing in Swat sending more innocent lives to the morgue. Washington further irks Islamabad by refusing to officially validate its concerns about India's activities in Afghanistan. Yet former secretary of defense Chuck Hagel admitted, "India for some time has always used Afghanistan as a second front."
(Excerpt) Read more at theamericanconservative.com ...
Subtitle, "And we should be talking to Moscow, Beijing, and even Tehran."
Forward Operating Base Torkham, in Nangahar Province, Afghanistan (army.mil)
So much for "The American Conservative".
The US military has a perfect track record since 1945. Never won a war
except Greneda
Panama? And all undeclared.
You want to win in Afghanistan? You’ll have to kill everyone. Then return every 5 years to do it again.
Why haven’t we? Both a bit of sarcasm and truth. Anyone that raises a weapon at us should be dead. Same with Islamic terrorists anyone. Time to just eradicate this evil. Loose our technology, such as UAV to kill anything that moves and is carrying a weapon.
Dialog with Nazis only way out of war in Europe.
good catch
we‘ll count Panama & Greneda as wins
the other 75 - 150 ‚wars‘ as losses
so
2-75 is their miserable record
Re: “The US military has a perfect track record since 1945. Never won a war...except Grenada.
Saddam Hussein’s last words?
Some more recent classics from “The American Conservative”:
Robert Bork’s America
Published 40 years ago, Bork’s book on antitrust law fundamentally changed America’s economy for the worse
By Daniel Kishi
March 1, 2018
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/robert-borks-america/
Trump Unleashes the Dogs of a Trade War
Wait for the retaliation from affected countries to begin-—call it mutual assured destruction.
By Michael Fumento
March 5, 2018
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/trump-unleashes-the-dogs-of-trade-war/
Lets be real. When Truman got into Korea and Johnson got into Vietnam they intended a negotiated settlement and the end game in Afghanistan looks pretty much the same.
We fight wars under international law and United Nations rules with total World War II style victory out of the question.
The military force in Afghanistan right now the USA is part of is called the “International Security and Assistance Force” under United Nations authorization.
Let's be real. Korea and Vietnam were both divided with the commies. In the former case, the peninsula remains divided. In the latter, the Demwits in Congress just pulled the plug and our former client and ally was overrun. Our first Afghanistan intervention started under Carter and continued under Reagan, and contributed the downfall of the USSR, without any US troop commitment. Our second intervention was in response to bin Laden's mass-murders on US soil -- except for nitwit "truthers" who blame it on the Jews or whomever really killed OJ's ex-wife since OJ didn't do it.
[snip] Steve Coll recently made a cogent argument in the New York Times that the U.S. should seriously engage with China and other regional powers... . Yet former secretary of defense Chuck Hagel admitted, “India for some time has always used Afghanistan as a second front.” [/snip]
We Can’t Win in Afghanistan Because We Don’t Know Why We’re There
by Steve Coll
January 26, 2018
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/26/opinion/sunday/united-states-afghanistan-win.html
We went to Afghanistan to take out Al Qaeda. Now Al Qaeda are the allies of the United States with Saudi backed jihadist forces propaganda about civilians being killed and injured by the Syrian government being repeated by our government officials ranging from Sarah Huckabee Sanders hitting the Russians to Nikki Haley hitting the Syrian government and yes even President Trump blaming Syria, Iran and Russia for creating an awful humanitarian mess in Syria.
No need to fight the Taliban tribes. Need to cut a peace deal but I think President Trump’s decision to beef up forces there is to give the Afghan government leverage in the talks.
Syria was destroyed by the Assad a-hole, with the eager assistance of Iran and Russia.
What about Kuwait? I guess you will argue that we should have kept going and finished off Iraq at the time.
Okay...
Your argument would be valid about Gulf War 1 if there wasn’t a Gulf War 2 and now a Gulf War 3.
losing consistently
If you call Gulf War 2 winning, then why is the US military still fighting there FIFTEEN years after ‘winning‘ ?
know the truth and it will set you free
Now Al Qaeda are the allies of the United States with Saudi backed jihadist forces propaganda about civilians being killed and injured by the Syrian government being repeated by our government officials ranging from Sarah Huckabee Sanders hitting the Russians to Nikki Haley hitting the Syrian government and yes even President Trump blaming Syria, Iran and Russia for creating an awful humanitarian mess in Syria.
Without the eviction of large numbers of Arabs from Israel at the time of its independence, its existence would be much more tenuous. Without the disease-driven deaths of big chunks of the native population coupled with conflict-driven attrition at the inception of European settlement in the Americas, these lands would not be the extensions of Europe they are today.
The 10% Alawite population is a military caste that rules over a 70% Sunni Arab population that has launched periodic large scale revolts ever since the Alawite seizure of power over 50 years ago. Alawites are considered heretics/apostates from Islam, much as Mormons are vis-a-vis Christianity. The key difference is that the Muslim attitude towards heretics/apostates today is what the Christian attitude was at the time of Martin Luther. The penalty is death preceded by torture, not the privilege of ruling over the faithful (Sunni Arabs).
As Daniel Pipes put it, an Alawite ruling Syria is like an untouchable becoming a Maharaja in India or a Jew becoming the Tsar of all the Russias. It is simultaneously inconceivable and an abomination to the majority populations. That is why long run stability in Syria requires either partition, eviction or some combination thereof. Given the stakes, it’s no surprise that atrocities are the rule rather than the exception.
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