Gingrich sees impossible task in Afghanistan

[gilliam]

Turning to the escalating violence in Afghanistan, the former Georgia congressman said the United States is facing an impossible task there.

“We are not going to fix Afghanistan. It is not possible,” he told a large group of Republicans at an afternoon luncheon here. “These are people who have spent several thousand years hating foreigners. And what we have done by staying is become the new foreigners.

“This is a real problem. And there are some problems where you have to say, ‘You know, you are going to have to figure out how to live your own miserable life… because you clearly don’t want to learn from me how to be unmiserable. And that is what you are going to see happen.”

ajc.com/news/georgia-politics-elections/gingrich-sees-impossible-task-1364582.html

 

[SaintPatrick333]

How can our muslims brothers and sisters learn from us how to be “unmiserable” when all we’ve been doing for the last umpteen years is bombing them? For every village us or nato troops bring water or food too, another drone kills a handful of kids or innocent farmers due to, as they call it, poor intelligence. For every single confirmed “terrorist” western forces have killed in this war, there has been steep collateral of innocent lives. While there’s no specific statistic obviously, it is not a far cry to say that for every “terrorist” killed, several more are created. Because when all these people can do is sit around and see american tanks rolling down their streets, gun battles breaking out around their home, then their child or brother or mother or aunt or anyone is killed by a western drone or shell or anything, all they see is an occupying force killing their family and they are perfectly justified in picking up an AK and retaliating (not speaking from a Catholic perspective for our muslim brethren since that obviously doesn’t apply to many of them). But what I see with a lot of my friends is a MAJOR disconnect. All they want to see in this conflict is the “american” side. 9/11 9/11 9/11. What truly upsets me is the fact that politicians are still using the tragedy of 9/11 to polarize ignorant people around the rallying cry of “freedom” to make war on otherwise innocent people in the middle east (if you look at it from a political standpoint). Those who were lost in the september eleventh attacks deserve to have their names laid to rest, not drug back up every single time a politican wants to make a war cry to justify the killing of more innocent muslims and the sacrifice of more otherwise innocent american/western soldiers.

 

[Armyvet007]

In reply to Saint’s comment-

I served 2 tours in Iraq and can report the following-
-Humantarian missions (food, building infrastructure [as in not repairing infrastructure damaged/destroyed by coalition forces; we did that too], medical) being a major focus of our mission there.
-Said missions being extremely productive in gaining the support of the local nationals [LNs]
-LNs trusting us more then their military, local militias, law enforcement, civil officials
-majority of the insurgents I talked to did it because the hardcore insurgents would kill them/their family if they didn’t
-majority of insurgents [forced and hardcore] being insurgents not because of religion/ideology/us being there, but because it was an easy way to get money, women, and power
-LNs happy we were there due to the stability we brought
-Most violence being caused by LNs against other LNs for non-war related reasons [crime, internal politics, inter and intra-tribal conflicts]
-very little of the “gung-ho Hollywood” style actions described in Saint’s post; and the vast majority of said actions that took place weren’t “blow everything up as we drive through town”
-extremely restrictive rules of engagement [ROE] in regards to engaging insurgents and engaging insurgents in/around non-combatants
-major investigations when insurgents/LNs endangered/injuried (let alone killed) by coalition forces

While I know the war in Afghanistan isn’t exactly the same as what took place in Iraq, they are similar enough to label Saint’s post as invalid. The vast majority of insurgents in both are insurgents due to tribal affiliations and money, not because we are there or because of LNs killed due to us fighting the insurgents. The vast cause of death in both are due to insurgent actions [a lot of which is done on purpose], not coalition actions [which is waging one of the most restrictive wars in history].