No bluff: U.S. planning possible withdrawal of all troops from Afghanistan

Obama is bluffing. I'm sure there will be a press conference with him saying " he never drew a red line" for Afghanistan. Lol

butcherguy
reply to post by SLAYER69

 

Good.
I am all for getting our troops out of there.

At the same time, I feel for the families and friends of all the servicemen and women that died there for what ends up being no reason at all.

What a waste of lives.

The situation in Afghanistan will be essentially the same as it was before we went there.... warring tribes in a civil war, and the Taliban will be free to conduct their war on women, homosexuals and non-Muslims.

I don't think it was a waste. We did pretty much destroy the terrorist groups hiding there and we will continue without troops there. But we should get out of there. No good will ever come from staying there. All they want is our cash. Once we leave, all the groups, politicians, that have lined their pockets will be destroyed by the population (if they don't all leave for the US).

The amount of denial is staggering.

Can anyone here, today, say how many US Military bases are located in Afghanistan?

How about in the world?

Well, then how can they "leave" while "leaving behind" such amazing structure in Afghanistan? Is everything going into the hands of Afghanis? That's a lot of power to relinquish, in a very volatile place.

There's no way they're leaving. Can you say that the US "left" Europe after WW2? No.

This is PR, mixed with the Obama Administration posturing in an election year, saying they can "keep promises".

reply to post by deadcalm


I was not attempting to imply that they died in Afghanistan. I do apologize for the confusion, sometimes I think something when I write it and expect others to understand what I meant.

Giving someone, means giving them to me, not necessarily does giving mean death.

That said, I can guarantee you that I know the exact situation in Afghanistan, from every side of it and over a very long period of time, not just the last couple years... It's not an argument I plan on having with people who do not understand the first thing about it...

reply to post by Bundy


A win would have been getting rid of the Taliban, leaving them without a power-base, and allowing an atmosphere where the Afghanis could have their country back.

The Taliban needed to go. In no uncertain terms. For everyone, for us, for them... that would have been a win.

It did not happen, therefore we lost.

beezzer
I guess Vietnam was sooooo long ago that we've forgotten what happened.

Then again, we could look at Iraq, but that was soooo long ago as well.

We don't win wars anymore.

The same way that drug companies don't cure disease.

They look for "treatments" that'll bring about more money.

*shakes head*

"The bottom line is this : The Vietnam war was never meant to be won...just sustained."

Same with Iraq, same with Afghanistan.

A list from 2011 (in reverse order) that shows who was making big bucks from the conflicts..

No. 10: United Technologies - Sectors: Aircraft, electronics, engines
Arms sales in 2010: $11.4 billion Total sales in 2010: $54.3 billion

No. 9: L-3 Communications - Sectors: Electronics, services
Arms sales in 2010: $13.1 billion Total sales in 2010: $15.7 billion

No. 8: Finmeccanica Sectors: Military aircraft, satellites, defense systems, small arms and ammunition
Arms sales in 2010: $14.4 billion Total sales in 2010: $24.8 billion

No. 7: EADS
Sectors: Military aircraft, electronics, missiles
Arms sales in 2010: $16.4 billion Total sales in 2010: $60.6 billion

No. 6: Raytheon
Sectors: Electronics, missiles
Arms sales in 2010: $23 billion Total sales in 2010: $25.2 billion

No. 5: General Dynamics
Sectors: Artillery, electronics, military vehicles, small arms, vessels Arms sales in 2010: $23.9 billion Total sales in 2010: $32.5 billion

No. 4: Northrop Grumman
Sectors: Aircraft, electronics, missiles, vessels Arms sales in 2010: $28.2 billion Total sales in 2010: $34.8 billion

No. 3: Boeing
Sectors: Aircraft, electronics, missiles Arms sales in 2010: $31.4 billion Total sales in 2010: $64.3 billion

No. 2: BAE Systems
Sectors: Aircraft, artillery, electronics, military vehicles, small arms and ammunition Arms sales in 2010: $32.9 billion
Total sales in 2010: $34.6 billion

No. 1: Lockheed Martin
Sectors: Aircraft, electronics, missiles, space Arms sales in 2010: $35.7 billion Total sales in 2010: $45.8 billion

These wars will never "end", one will simply run and merge with another until nobody remembers when they started and what caused it.

Quote - "War is a racket. It always has been.It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives -" Major General Smedley Butler USMC

WAR IS A RACKET, and i draw your attencion to chapter 2..WHO MAKES THE PROFITS.

They might do as they have the opium trade all ramped again after the Taliban had reduced it massively (the real reason for invasion as if you remember the global markets were crashing due to the lack of drug money washing through the big banks)

Opium production Graphs

johnb
They might do as they have the opium trade all ramped again after the Taliban had reduced it massively (the real reason for invasion as if you remember the global markets were crashing due to the lack of drug money washing through the big banks)

Opium production Graphs

My god....don't say that....
If that's the truth then the war on terror's just an invention and everyone who died since 9/11 has died for nothing.....

The above is meant to be ironic....

Sadly what you said, is probably a huge slice of truth pie, that nobody wants to eat...
After the Iran / Contra shennanigens and the Mena airport business went belly up the CIA had to find and alternative source of income.
The poppy fields of Afghanistan are the worlds main source of heroin and opium since 1992, more land in Afghanistan is used for growing this # than the whole of Latin America uses to grow coc aine.
They earn about 4 billion a year.
Afganistan is also the worlds largest producer of cannabis (hasish) in the world.

In 2010 American and for the first time Russian anti drugs gents closed down a heroin factory near jalalabad, destroying 932 kilos of high grade heroin and 156 kilos of opium with a street value of 250,000,000 dollars and machinery.
Whats funny is, or not, Afghan President Hamid Karzai called the operation - " A violation of Afghan sovereignty and international law"..which means " you bastards have #ed up my retirement plan"..

Nobody will leave Afghanistan while the heoin business is at an all time peak in the USA...

That said, I can guarantee you that I know the exact situation in Afghanistan, from every side of it and over a very long period of time, not just the last couple years... It's not an argument I plan on having with people who do not understand the first thing about it...

reply to post by OpinionatedB


That is indeed a lofty statement....the US military could have benefitted from your extensive knowledge, because they were never able to figure it out....obviously.

If they had but studied a bit of history, they would have seen the futility of invading and occupying Afghanistan....no foreign invader...from Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Timur, the Mughal Empire, Russian Tsars, the British Empire, the Soviet Union....no invader has ever been able to conquer it....NOT one. Typical American arrogance.

I stand by my original assesment and am willing to defend it....not dismissive statements like " I know everything and you know nothing so I'm not going to bother" (paraphrase), which brings no facts to the table...just an arrogant assertion that I know nothing on the subject....an assumption you are making based on.....nothing.

A win would have been getting rid of the Taliban, leaving them without a power-base, and allowing an atmosphere where the Afghanis could have their country back.

Yet before the invasion the US was more than happy to allow the Taliban to continue their reign of terror as long as they allowed a pipeline through Afghanistan to access oil in Central Asia. Went so far as to invite them to the US and wine and dine them. Both the Clinton and Bush administrations negotiated extensively with them. When those talks stalled in July 2001, a Bush administration representative threatened the Taliban with military reprisals if the government did not go along with American demands.

Source

According to a December 17, 1997 article in the British paper, The Telegraph, headlined, “Oil barons court Taliban in Texas,” the Taliban was about to sign a “?2 billion contract with an American oil company to build a pipeline across the war-torn country.

Source

Back in Houston, the Taliban was learning how the “other half lives,” and according to The Telegraph, “stayed in a five-star hotel and were chauffeured in a company minibus.” The Taliban representatives “…were amazed by the luxurious homes of Texan oil barons. Invited to dinner at the palatial home of Martin Miller, a vice-president of Unocal, they marveled at his swimming pool, views of the golf course and six bathrooms.”

Source

Todays ally is tomorrow's axis of evil based on US political expediency. But you already knew that I'm sure.

Enter Harmid Karzai....

Hamid Karzai, the interim Prime Minister of Afghanistan, was a top adviser to the El Segundo, California-based UNOCAL Corporation which was negotiating with the Taliban to construct a Central Asia Gas (CentGas) pipeline from Turkmenistan through western Afghanistan to Pakistan.

Source

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN — Afghan President Hamid Karzai met with regional leaders Saturday to sign an agreement for a massive energy project that could eventually net his country billions of dollars in revenue: a 1,000-mile natural gas pipeline whose proposed route cuts through the heartland of the Taliban insurgency.

Afghan President signs pipeline deal....

The Taliban wouldn't play ball...but Karzai would.


See a pattern starting to emerge? Can you see the glaring hypocrisy here? So much for altruism. This was never about the Afghan people. This was always about access to oil plain and simple. Dick Cheney said it best....

Dick Cheney was then CEO of Haliburton Corporation, a pipeline services vendor based in Texas. Gushed Cheney in 1998, “I can’t think of a time when we’ve had a region emerge as suddenly to become as strategically significant as the Caspian. It’s almost as if the opportunities have arisen overnight. The good Lord didn’t see fit to put oil and gas only where there are democratically elected regimes friendly to the United States. Occasionally we have to operate in places where, all things considered, one would not normally choose to go. But we go where the business is.”

Source

So much for the Afghan people....as Dick says...we go where the buisness is.


But all this is academic really, because given the size of Afghanistan, and Pakistani ISI support for the Taliban....there was no possible way to ensure that the Taliban were driven from the country, given that they could cross the border into Pakistan at will and conversely, enter back into Afghanistan at will....it was simply logistically impossible. So the stated goal was never achievable in real terms.

Care to share your thoughts?

reply to post by deadcalm


I am a Muslim woman who has many Afghani friends, and if we had done it right we could have rid the country of the Taliban, which was the original stated problem of EVERYONE..including the afghani's.

Had we kept to the initial we would have had no difficulty in this endeavor..




Typical liberal arrogance to think you know exactly who you speak with to judge them...and yes, there are many Muslims who would like rid of extremism... it is ignorance which harbors and feeds it... let's not join that particular crowd aye?

There are very few people I will discuss the goings on in Muslim countries with, and I damn sure don't need someone I hardly know to tell me what Muslims want and how they feel... since I am one.. I am quite familiar.

As a self professed Czar of Communications and a writer (on your avatar), I was hoping we could have an intelligent conversation based on facts....alas I seem to have expected too much.

I am a Muslim woman who has many Afghani friends, and if we had done it right we could have rid the country of the Taliban, which was the original stated problem of EVERYONE..including the afghani's.

reply to post by OpinionatedB


Your religious affiliations are irrelevant to the discussion. I do agree however that for a time, the US interest in the region (OIL) and the Afghan people's interests (getting rid of the opressive Taliban regime) did converge.

Where the divergence took place was when the US began treating the Afghan people as nothing more than collateral damage.

Afghanistan can no longer accept or understand civilian deaths, President Hamid Karzai said, after officials reported that 51 villagers died during a US-led operation against Taliban militants in western Afghanistan.

Karzai met with NATO, US and EU officials telling them "civilian deaths and arbitrary decisions to search people's houses have reached an unacceptable level, and Afghans cannot put up with it any longer," a statement from his office said.

Kabul horrified by civilian casualties....

Since you know so many Afghanis, I'm sure you were already aware of this though. They paid a heavy price in innocent lives so the US could have it's pipeline....no?

Had we kept to the initial we would have had no difficulty in this endeavor..

I disagree, and I have stated exactly why I believe this....let me reiterate

But all this is academic really, because given the size of Afghanistan, and Pakistani ISI support for the Taliban....there was no possible way to ensure that the Taliban were driven from the country, given that they could cross the border into Pakistan at will and conversely, enter back into Afghanistan at will....it was simply logistically impossible. So the stated goal was never achievable in real terms.

Care to share your thoughts on the above? Am I wrong in my assesment...if so...why?

Typical liberal arrogance to think you know exactly who you speak with to judge them...and yes, there are many Muslims who would like rid of extremism... it is ignorance which harbors and feeds it... let's not join that particular crowd aye?

My political affiliations, or lack thereof, have nothing to do with the facts I presented to you. I was not judging at all...I was basing my observation on your original post to me in which you stated the following...and I quote

That said, I can guarantee you that I know the exact situation in Afghanistan, from every side of it and over a very long period of time, not just the last couple years... It's not an argument I plan on having with people who do not understand the first thing about it...

So....in the interest of furthering my knowledge of the region and conflict I provided you with a wealth of information and links to support my argument....too bad you were unable or unwilling to do the same. Instead you accuse me of being a liberal that knows nothing about the conflict...and dismissed me without a single argument made to support your assertions.

It's not an argument I plan on having with people who do not understand the first thing about it...

DITTO

There are very few people I will discuss the goings on in Muslim countries with, and I damn sure don't need someone I hardly know to tell me what Muslims want and how they feel... since I am one.. I am quite familiar.

reply to post by OpinionatedB


The fact that Muslims tend to isolate themselves from non-Muslims only breeds mistrust and wild theories about the religion and the people who practice it. People tend to fear that which they do not know.

At no point have I stated that I know what Muslims want or how they feel. In point of fact, I never mentioned Muslims at all. If you would be so kind as to cite an example?

I stated that the Afghan people were tired of the US killing them in their persuit to rid the country of the Taliban so they could have Karzai approve their pipeline, and have cited examples and sources to back up that assertion. It was not my opinion...it is a fact.

Let's try and keep this civil, shall we?

My god....don't say that....
If that's the truth then the war on terror's just an invention and everyone who died since 9/11 has died for nothing.....

reply to post by andy1972


Not for nothing exactly.... it was for corporate and banking profits. The only thing I would add to that....

Poppies and Pipelines

See my post to another member in this thread for the complete connection between the US, the Taliban, Karzai, UNOCAL...and oil pipelines. It's just disgusting.

Best way to fight the taliban or any group causing problems who become rich from drugs, is to change drug laws in the US and Europe and elsewhere and make it legal drugs (and tax the drugs so the governments can earn some money with it). I can sniff glue and get high, but I won't do/use it thank you.
From what I know the opinion fields never did so good right now.

Take away their money then you can win from them most likely..

The only way to combat terrorism is through terror itself. What is a terrorist afraid of? Terrorists are terrified of loosing their eternal reward which is getting to heaven as a martyr. The only way to keep that from happening is to condemn all terrorists to exposure to pork juices , pork pieces , pork excrement or any combination of the above. Soldiers should be issued pork bits, pork spray, pork scent bombs basically ensuring that anyone within a bombs range will be polluted by pork. Pork lard should be used as gun lubricants on vehicles and pork bombs should be developed to carpet bomb targets with pork bits. Heck just spreading this rumor should do the trick. My nick name is Siggy the piggy AKA cochonet les deux eglises. Praise the lard and pass the bacon.

The above post has been awarded:



100% pure pork!

In London a neighborhood was distraught about a planned Mosque that was going to be built in the middle of it and construction permits were obtained and funding secured so a group of opponents to the construction buried a pig at the site and took pictures of it and published it in the local news paper. The project was immediately halted and abandoned. Where there is a will there is a way. You do not even need to actually waste bacon you can just spread the rumor that pig urine was sprayed on or is going to be sprayed on and the site is automatically desecrated. Nothing is holy. Jesus thought it not robbery to call himself equal with God and neither should you. We must become enlightened to who and what we all are. Jesus himself said don't you know that you are Gods. Now Jesus has a new name that no man knows because if we knew that name we would start all over again with the silliness of religion. Do you understand that Christians are jumping out of their skins right now and calling me a blasphemer. I am in good company because they called Jesus the same thing. If you want to wage war on terrorism let me show you how to win it. Weaponize your pork belies. Praise the lard and pass the bacon. Right now the whole of the host of heaven is rolling in the isles in laughter. He who laughs last laughs best. Voltaire said "dieu est un comedien mais tout le monde a trop peur pour rire". God is a comedian but everybody is to afraid to laugh.

deadcalm

My god....don't say that....
If that's the truth then the war on terror's just an invention and everyone who died since 9/11 has died for nothing.....

reply to post by andy1972

 

Not for nothing exactly.... it was for corporate and banking profits. The only thing I would add to that....

Poppies and Pipelines

See my post to another member in this thread for the complete connection between the US, the Taliban, Karzai, UNOCAL...and oil pipelines. It's just disgusting.

That's been known for years...And no, it's not disgusting..it's sickening.

The T.A.P.I.pipeline for instance..Turkmanisan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India..the quickest route for naturl gas from Turkmanistan.
Madeline Albright to the Taliban about the pipleine.."we'll cover you with a blanket of gold or bury you under a carpet of bombs"...The Taliban chose option 2, and the pipeline was the first thing they built when they took control..If you follow the major military bases across Afghanistan they follow the pipeline, they protect the pipeline.

----Thread Update----

Pakistani Taliban announce month-long ceasefire

Miranshah — The Pakistani Taliban Saturday announced a month-long ceasefire aimed at resuming stalled peace talks with the Pakistan government, but analysts voiced scepticism over the move.

Dialogue between Islamabad and the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) that began last month was suspended after the militants killed 23 soldiers.The military responded with a series of air strikes that have left more than 100 insurgents dead. "We announce a month-long ceasefire from today and appeal to all our comrades to respect the decision and refrain from any activity (attacks) during this period," TTP spokesman Shahidullah Shahid told AFP.

"Because of a positive response from the government, an appeal from the religious scholars and for the better future of Pakistan we have decided not to carry out any activity (attacks) for one month," he said.There has been no official response from the government, but negotiators representing it in the stalled peace talks have welcomed the move.

Rustam Shah Mohmand, a member of the government committee for the talks, said it was "good news". "Certainly we see light at the end of the tunnel," he told AFP. "The government too should announce a ceasefire to further strengthen the confidence-building measure."

I wouldn't hold my breath but for what it's worth.

reply to post by deadcalm


"The American Military has killed FAR more innocent people than the Taliban ever dreamed of."

Please show me how you came up with this...NATO has made mistakes resulting in innocent people being killed, however all report...even the international ones (not US, NATO, ISAF reporting) blame the Taliban and AQ fighters for about 80% of all civilian deaths.

reliefweb.int...

Several links also state the civilian casualties are increasing as NATO forces leave Afghanistan.

And your total number killed is a bit high...

Hope you aren't getting your information from President Karzai