What's next for Afghanistan?

Now that polls show the majority of Americans think that the war in Afghanistan is not worth fighting, and US troops are having to bear more and more of the actual combat, and with the elections coming up, is it pointless to try to defeat the Taliban?
The American people have two realistic choices. They can seriously commit to long-term occupancy of Afghanistan and all that this entails, or they can allow the administration to withdraw. Within months if not weeks of withdrawal, the Taliban will be back in Kabul and Al Qaida will have their training camps and command and control centers up and running again. With that, the Pakistani military will fall even more under the Taliban spell. If the US and NATO abandon Afghanistan, Pakistan will become a failed state, abet one with nuclear weapons. I seriously doubt India will accept that state of affairs, and therefore you can see the problem for the entire world. Both India and Pakistan share a border with the PRC, and India’s economy is becoming interwoven with the US economy closely resembling that of the US/China relationship.
Naturally as a neocon, my choice would be to garrison Afghanistan for the foreseeable future. Yes, it will be expensive, but compared to the alternative, it could be a bargain.

First step is to destroy all their Poppie fields- They harvest drugs and we walk right by those fields doing nothing. Its this very money that pays for these fighters. Burn them to the ground and make them grow other crops-Like food.

We’ll have to increase the fighting force to at least 200,000 to keep pressure on the. This is a long term war- Like the Russians we could be withdrawing with our tail between our legs. Not because they beat us, but because we now tried of throwing money into a big black hole. Of course that does not fix our terrorist Training camp situation, but hopefully taking away their drug money might help the cause.

This whole idea was never a win situation.

The only choice is occupation. Question is by whom.

When our soldiers are dying for their so called elections, the supposed recognized government are legalizing rape. The question I have is, what is the difference between the 'insurgents' and the government?

What will be will be and we'll know soon enough.

Personally, involvement in a discussion in ATS the other day convinced me I've been opposing the US instead of supporting it as far as 'war' Iraq and Afghanistan are concerned.

Ever since 9/11, I've been an idiot I see now, in opposing the US push into Muslim strongholds. That's a lot of years of being an idiot.

But now, I support the US and anyone else 100% in their crushing and smashing of Islamic fundamentalist hell-holes.

So much do I loathe fundamentalist Islamic rule and its barbaric, Stone Age mentality, not to mention its continual invasion of Western culture, that I wouldn't raise any objection if the US, Israel, Zionism or whatever bombed the heart out of those places and covered the lot in concrete and McDonalds.

This is my first coming-out as a supporter of what I used to call 'US oppression' of 'those poor innocent victims in Afghanistan and Iraq'.

Surely nuclear bombs would be faster and cheaper (and would save a lot of US, UK and other nations' troops) ?

reply to post by mithrawept


Very little in some cases, but you've got to realize that a basically 13th century society isn't going to change overnight. The practical fact is that warlords and oppression of women will continue in some form for years - unless of course you want to really occupy the country - a half-million plus troops with an American police advisor in every little one-donkey village. Even then, I don't think you could supress the culture. Change would come, but not until the present generations died out. A man who beats his wife because God says he can isn't going to quit because a foreign policemen is standing in the street.

[edit on 19-8-2009 by Office 4256]

reply to post by Office 4256


Office, I agree but is this what we are fighting for? There is no rational argument for continued occupation. The media displays an humanitarian rationale but this crumbles in the face of recent events. Yes, things will change - how long ago were we burning witches after all?

The US failed to militarily intercede in the Democratic Republic of Congo, strange that, if only for humanitarian reasons.

This is all strategy, nothing more.