Posted on 11/13/2018 8:29:17 PM PST by Pining_4_TX
Other than a “presence” in Afghanistan, the United States has no strategic cards to play.
There is no military solution in Afghanistan, at least from the standpoint of the manner in which we have conducted the war.
After an initial small-footprint victory in late 2001, driving the Taliban out of Afghanistan, the U.S. chose to mount an exhaustive and expensive counterinsurgency campaign with its nation-building component.
At the same time, Pakistan, sustaining the Taliban, waged a proxy war in Afghanistan, much like Pakistan’s and, indirectly, China’s reported support and use of the Islamic extremist group Lashkar-e-Taiba and its affiliates against India.
Pakistan has always controlled the operation tempo of the war as well as the supply of our troops in landlocked Afghanistan.
U.S. inability or unwillingness to attack Taliban safe havens in Pakistan or forcing Islamabad to withdraw its support, essentially rendered a counterinsurgency victory unachievable. It is an obvious deduction the Pentagon should have made long ago, except for its blind love affair with Field Manual 3-24, Counterinsurgency.
After 17 years of strategic mismanagement, the Trump administration is left only with bad options. Getting out of Afghanistan is inevitable. Given the current trends, we couldn’t stay even if we wished to do so.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailycaller.com ...
That sh*thole should have been nuked long before the sun set on 9/11/01.
Control of Afghanistan is about rare minerals. It’s not about ISIS or the Taliban. If we leave, expect China and Russia or some other outside power to fill the void. Think about it. There is no other reason to be there. We don’t give two Fs about the Afghan people. Even if we did, their Stone Age education level will never foster a working government.
The only military solution to the problem we faced after 9/11 was a month of daily bombing of Afghanistan until the rubble bounced.
It’s time we admit the Russians were right. Afghanistan will never change. Not in our lifetimes, and the majority of them don’t even want to change. They mostly want all foreigners to get out.
Not all of them feel that way though. I have met some Afghani-American immigrants, most as hard working and as friendly as any body else. These are individuals who have decided to assimilate and find work.
Why? Most of the hijackers were Saudis. And then TX governor Bush had hosted the Taliban in Texas.
True, but will an infrastructure ever be developed to acquire the minerals and will the security ever be such to justify the risk to human life and infrastructure assets?
FYI:
The surveys verified all the major Soviet finds. Afghanistan may hold 60 million tons of copper, 2.2 billion tons of iron ore, 1.4 million tons of rare earth elements such as lanthanum, cerium and neodymium, and lodes of aluminum, gold, silver, zinc, mercury and lithium. For instance, the Khanneshin carbonatite deposit in Afghanistan’s Helmand province is valued at $89 billion, full as it is with rare earth elements.
....In 2010, the USGS data attracted the attention of the U.S. Department of Defense’s Task Force for Business and Stability Operations (TFBSO), which is entrusted with rebuilding Afghanistan. The task force valued Afghanistan’s mineral resources at $908 billion, while the Afghan government’s estimate is $3 trillion. [Gold Quiz: How Much Do You Know About Gold Mining?]
Link: https://www.livescience.com/47682-rare-earth-minerals-found-under-afghanistan.html
I fear that perhaps, on a lesser scale than the ending in Vietnam, when the final US troops leave it will be with ‘copters loaded with Afghans desperate to escape as the Taliban close in on Kabul.
And that’s just what we need, right? More Muslims. Thanks to George Bush who started this influx by letting in a slew of Iraqis.
Well, I would have started with Saudi Arabia, but your idea works, too.
Wrong
We’re tgere forever
50 billion $ base Set up
I work for Afghans in the know. Guvmint types
We need to be there. Trust me
Pakis on one side. Trouble on the others
Key strategic place
Very backward outside Kabul
All
This is true
So then ... we just go ahead and invade anywhere that rare minerals are found? I think that was one of our funding fathers concepts. Go ahead and go to war anywhere there is a mineral we might want.
God forbid we just buy it from whoever owns it, or make a deal to mine them. /s
Obama should have pulled the plug the day after we dumped Bin Laden’s corpse into the Indian Ocean...it proves how ineffectual and weak he was that he went against his own instinct to get out of Dodge. Truly a rotten President. Trump should have pulled us out after becoming President.
Suicide bombings all the time, 5 insider attacks in 4 months, Afghan military and police being attacked like crazy and losing men. There was even one nutty article that the ex-prez of Pakistan, Musharaff who lives elsewhere now I believe said that if we left, India and Pakutan would have a proxy war there. Also, Pakistan has an endless supply of Islamic fighters it appears.
Supposedly, Sebastian Gorka left the Trump admin because we didnt withdraw though, of course, Gorka is still a huge Trump supporter, otherwise. I’d like to know more about this.
An untameable land. The wealth of valuable elements cannot be extracted safely. The people want chronic carnage; it is what they know.
We better learn, unless we make great sacrifices or do drastic acts like in WWII, it’s too difficult to defeat some of these people in tbeir own backyards.
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