Lord of the Flies
He wouldn't know an ounce of WIN if he fell over it and it jacked itself up his a$$.
I would destroy all the poppy crops and let the Afghan people sort things out on their own.
I admit to glossing over the proposal, but what does it mean to “Win in Afghanistan”?
Why? Why don’t we get the heck out of there? We have no business being there.
The author omits the fundamental issue: allowing Salafism to exist in any form. If Pakistan allows it, then they cannot be a friend of the United States. Period. That is how you win: isolate the governments who allow it to be preached. So Screw them and double down on India. At least the lines will be clearly drawn, and there will be no long engagement with no end in sight.
Get on the planes and LEAVE. There is zero path to “victory” there because the Afghan society and culture is so F’ed up, it is utterly incapable of rising to become a modern nation state.
The alternative is to stay there forever.
But its pure delusion to think otherwise.
Lord of the Flies
He wouldn't know an ounce of WIN if he fell over it and it jacked itself up his a$$.
We have been there for 15 years and they are no closer to a nation state than they were the day before we went in. If we left the Afghan government would collapse within a week.
This would be true in another 4 years, 10 years, or 15 years.
We have two choices there. Walk away, or stay forever. But without our forces and the 4 trillion we have already spent there....they will collapse in days. This will always be true.
I think I trust Mad Dog to come up with a plan for a win for the USA.
The way to “win” in Afghanistan is to a) get the hell out; and b) stay the hell out.
Same goes for Libya, Syria, Yemen, etc.
The PNAC/neocon foreign policy has been such a catastrophic failure for so long that I view those who want to continue it to be the open enemies of the people.
Nuke it from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
Nuke it from orbit. When it stops glowing, repopulate it with human beings.
A memo to Joey Collins
Our military personnel and our treasure have been in that worthless country for 15 years!
I worked in Astan at 3 different times as a security contractor 2008-2013 and conducted mobile security OPS to numerous provinces (Kabul, Parwan, Kunduz, Samangan, Balkh Nangarhar, Kapisa, Kunar).
During my time crisscrossing the country, all I saw was a worthless country and a population that loves the USD but had nothing but contempt for Americans and EU type.
After 15 years of training the police (ANP) and military (ANA) we still hear the drum beat from our experts at the DOD, and conservative think tanks that we need to stay the course because the Afghans need more training!
Look at a map Colonel Collins! China and Russia are shaking their collective heads at their good fortune and America’s stupidity. Us using our blood and treasure for an insurgency in their backyard! Surely the minute we pull out of Afghanistan, Russia and China will feel the pain and consequences of the Afghanistan nightmare.
We are bankrupt! We boldly squander the wealth of our nation! Yet instead of securing our borders, we’re waging wars across the planet and we’re still in a continual threat of terrorism in our homeland!
Just answer the question Colonel Collins; Are you or these other “experts” that want Americans to stay the course willing to lose a son or daughter for this worthless country? I would love to debate you Colonel in front of a group of average Americans. I’d love to hear you babble on about staying the course!
I say it’s time to say, “the days of the Stupid Americans is over”
Here’s my memo to President-Elect Trump. Keep your promise! Stop the endless wars, secure the borders and Make America Great Again!
Two problems, and a straightforward solution.
1) The war is not with Afghanistan, but with Pakistan.
(CIA data) The population of Pakistan is 202 million people. (The population of the US is 324 million.) Pakistan is the largest training center for Islam *in the world*, and its training schools are called madrassas. Estimates of the number of madrasas vary between 12,000 and 40,000. A large portion of these are run by radical Islamist Wahabbis.
Often when a class graduates from a madrassa, their final instruction is to get a rifle and go on a jihad to Afghanistan.
For this reason, at the start of the Afghan war, enemy forces were estimated to be around 30,000. And no matter how many are killed, in each subsequent year, the count remains the same, about 30,000. Essentially the enemy has an endless replacement system. Why 30,000? That is the maximum number of fighters the enemy leadership can lead in the field. Any more than that and their field army breaks down.
Pakistan is politically very divided, with several autonomous regions, and US efforts to unite their government so it could control this problem were only marginally successful.
Were the US to leave Afghanistan, there is no way its government could survive, turning that country into a de facto Islamist state again. And as soon as it did, it would again export terrorism as fast as it could.
2) About half of Afghanistan’s border is shared with Pakistan. This division also affects the Pashtun, who amount to 42% of the Afghan population, while a large number live across the border in Pakistan. At one point, the government of Pakistan offered to build a wall or at least to put up a lot of concertina wire, and it was angrily rejected by the Afghan president, because it would cut the Pashtun tribes in half.
But this is about the only realistic scenario to eventually get control over the border and to end the Afghanistan war.
The border is very mountainous, and has a few very large passes, which the Afghans make little effort to control, but there are numerous small passes everywhere.