Posted on 02/29/2020 6:20:34 AM PST by yesthatjallen
Such a deal will leave no more than an internal stalemate inside Afghanistan, with violence or the threat of violence continuing at levels that will keep the “peace” from ever being finalized/realized, just as is the case with Korea.
Why? The “deal” is a deal that the official government of Afghanistan is not a signatory to, just as the “armistice” that halted military action in Korea was a deal to which only the U.S. and North Korea were parties to, not the government of South Korea.
The U.S. already has a separate deal it is committed to with the government of Afghanistan. It will not renege on that committed if the violence from the Taliban does not end, which it will not.
The “deal” is written in sand, which the winds from the Taliban will start blowing away.
Their county, their problem
Russia spent a lot of time and money only to finally recognize that a war that has been going on for centuries is not gonna end n matter how hard you try
Another good aspect of this is our troops will not be guarding poppy fields growing there and providing a revenue source for covert actions
Drones can do a better job at monitoring but we should shed no more blood and soldiers in a fight that is as much cultural as anything
What you think will happen - the U.S. leaving Afghanistan - will not in fact happen in my view, because the deal REQUIRES things from the Taliban that they will not live up to.
We would have been out of Korea decades ago, if the North had lived up to what it agreed to in the armistice, which it never has.
Afghanistan will prove to be no different.
I know people who are from Afghanistan and it is a timeless struggle that has gone on for centuries.
I am not sure what in your mind it would look like unless we are going to be in permanent occupation mode which is very close to what we are in now
How many of our soldiers will come back from there wounded body and soul and for what?
Claim victory, come home, have a parade, build a monument to the Victory in Afghanistan.
Sooner or later Islamic doctrine will get them fighting again. If they really wanted to succeed in destroying America they would support the Democrat party.
I think the best solution is to make sure the population becomes half Sunni and half Shia. Then they will become too busy killing each other to bother attacking America again. If any side starts to overwhelm the other side supply the losing side with arms and keep the battle going on for the rest of time.
I believe we will, like Korea and Japan, continue to have some presence in Afghanistan, while at the same time we build up the Afghan military, as we did in the beginning with Korea, until they take most of the military burden - but, as with Korea, we will still have a presence there, and a SOFA and defense agreement with the Afghan government; because the stance, position and actions of the Taliban will not stand down from their goal of trying to control the country.
Yes, the history of Afghanistan has had all kinds of conflicts, for different reasons, but it is not correct to state that the current conflict is an extension of any of them other than what came out of the actions to remove the Soviets, which was followed by the Pakistan ISI creating the Taliban as their tool to try to extend Pakistani influence & control over Afghanistan - which the Taliban took over as their own and for their own agenda, in agreement with Pakistan or not - the child “grew up” and went on its own.
My assertion was to too obvious to anyone who was paying attention at the time.
The Rooskies were closer, had unfinished business in Afghanistan and desperately needed the money. They would have done it had we made the offer on the down-low, paid them fairly and let them have free reign to do whatever was necessary to secure the place.
The perfumed princes of the Pentagon saw no glory for themselves in having the Rooskies do it. Which is why your/my suggestion horrified them.
The argument that it would have increased the Russian’s shpere of influence, is ridiculous. Just what influnece do we have in that area now? Zilch.
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