In 2008, Obama campaigned on Afghanistan as “the good war”—so voters wouldn’t think him too dovish. And as you can see we haven’t been doubling down—more like quintupling down.
But for what? How does this end?
A wiser man once said: “It’s time to admit that no amount of American lives can resolve the political disagreement that lies at the heart of someone else’s civil war.”
That was Barack Obama…in 2006.
(cross-posted at even yet another blag)
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DOWN THE VINE
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excellent illustration of what a waste afghanistan has become. we maybe had an actual shot at doing something successfully there about, i don't know, 5 years ago? at this point the only thing that would effectively suppress the threat is a functioning, non-corrupt Afghan government policing its own country and a Pakisanti military committed to rooting out the people hiding on the Af/Pak border. i say cut our losses now -- a rapid phased withdrawl from both iraq and afghanistan. in the next year.
Yet another Republican blunder that we will have to spend the lives of our troops to correct. But can we really pull out and let the terrorists that the Bush administration let survive take over and reestablish their terrorism unrestrained?
Going into Afghanistan was a bipartisan endeavor. We should have gotten out of there once the "safe heavens" were dealt with, then stood back and monitored the situation.
At this point, with so much already wasted in this quagmire over the years, there are no good options. But this quintupling down sure seems like the worst one.
well, the quintupling happened under bush's watch, but who's counting. i agree that we should have been out of there years ago. if we're still there by the end of obama's first term (i.e., 10+ years), i weep for our country (and theirs)
I agree that the British and Russians could never control the situation in the area but do we really want to turn everything over to the Taliban?
It's better than the present cost of war. We aren't the world's policeman. We can't enforce a liberal society and drug prohibition in the mountains of Afghanistan, so groups like the Taliban are bound to maintain some power.
What we can do is sit back, pay attention to intelligence like "Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US", as well as launch occasional drone attacks with hellfire missiles against suspected terrorists (similar to what Israel does in Palestine)
you make an especially good point in that we so COMPLETELY overreacted to 9/11 (because we had an easily manipulated infant as Prez and a seriously emotionally disturbed sociopath as VP) by turning what is largely a law enforcement/intelligence problem into a globe-spanning "War (TM)" that costs trillions of dollars and is the functional equivalent of using a 300-megaton nuke to take out a pesky beehive in the backyard.
Agreed with Gherald on this one. It's not our fight anymore.
Let's be real -- the only reason why we're still stuck in the mud over there is that our politcos don't want to look like incompetent failure doggies -- come limpin on down the road back home with their tail between their legs.