reply to post by Vitchilo
Its interesting to consider what exactly this extended engagement is intended to accomplish. What is the problem we are attempting to solve?
Are we looking to create a functioning state in Afganistan? I have yet to hear an expert, either from the military, academic class, State Department
or think tank that even suggests that there will be anything akin to what we would consider a functioning state in Afganistan, let alone one that it
is sustainable.
Are we looking to strike down terrorism? By the administration's own admission, the fluid nature of these stateless actors makes that impossible,
that it is like pushing on a balloon. Drive them out of Afganistan and they show up in Yemen, then in Somalia, than on the Arabian Peninsula. Push
them everywhere and they pop up in Iran where you really can't go after them absent a full scale war. The government's strategic assessment is
based on the fact that you can not take it to a stateless organization in the traditional sense, yet here we go - for another 12 years. If you
consider the government's official description of the global network of terrorists, the only reasonable strategy would be to not occupy these
countries to bring the terrorists into the open and then to assisinate them with covert operations, claiming zero responsibility.
Are we looking to create stability in that part of the world? Our methods of operation don't lead to stability, they lead to more unrest. Our
policy has essentially resulted in a political culture that enables recruitment on the part of the terrorists coupled with better infrastructure,
either for the terrorists to blow up or use. In a number of ways our efforts assist the terrorists by simply modernizing the country they happen to
be in.
This entire business is a military industrial complex boondoogle and it always has been. If we pull out of Afganistan all together in 2024, it will
be back into a dysfunctional disaster by 2026. If we pull out in 2012 it will be a dysfunctional disaster in 2014. At the end of the day, there is
no difference other than the one option costs hundreds of billions and a lot of US lives.
We have been in this war for longer than any war in US history, yet our leaders, neither the political or military leaders have ever given a
reasonable and common language description of what they hope to leave behind. What does Afganistan look like in 2024 that makes it worth staying?
Hard to tell because it has never been described outside of purposefully generalized statements like "a working government" what ever the hell that
is "a functioning police organization" "a military that can stand on its own" that kind of rubbish, achievement of which can be spun anyway you
need to.
Obama is the biggest neo-con to ever occupy the White House. I'm no fan of Obama, but seriously thought that he would bring rationality to foreign
affairs. I was extremely naive, obviously. All he has done and all he ever intended to do was double down on these failed policies.
For the strenuous supporters of the US military and our foreign policy, I would like to have you list one thing, just one thing that is measurable
that has been accomplished by the $780bn/year we spend on the military. None of this "we're safer" bs because that can not be proven and I tend
to not agree with it anyway. One concrete accomplishment that, upon reflection I would say "great. That needed to be done, the US military was
the right and appropriate organization to do it and we're better off now that it has been done successfully"
Just one