Is the U.S. Admitting Defeat in Afghanistan?

[gilliam]

Don’t expect to hear about it in the presidential campaign debates, but the U.S. will leave Afghanistan locked in an escalating civil war when it observes the 2014 deadline for withdrawing combat troops set by the Obama Administration — and supported by Gov. Mitt Romney. The New York Times reported Tuesday that the U.S. military has had to give up on hopes of inflicting enough pain on the Taliban to set favorable terms for a political settlement. Instead, it will be left up to the Afghan combatants to find their own political solution once the U.S. and its allies take themselves out of the fight.

Read more: world.time.com/2012/10/03/is-the-u-s-admitting-defeat-in-afghanistan/#ixzz28HPuCLdt

 

[Semper_Zelare]

Personally 2014 sounds a little ridiculous. Why not 2013? Or Christmas this year?

Since the “Arab Spring” uprisings the U.S. Middle East policy looks like it’s a decade behind what’s going on on the ground. We should’ve changed our Middle East policies back during the failed Iranian revolution in 2009.

It’s clear to me that the terrorists have long since left Afghanistan and Iraq. First everyone said they were in Pakistan. But, these people don’t just sit and chill in caves. They are very mobile. And now there are reports of maybe a dozen countries all being active hotspots for Al-Qaeda and other terrorists: Syria, Yemen, Eritrea, Mali, Indonesia, etc, etc.

But, what’s more worrisome are groups like the Muslim Brotherhood. Al-Qaeda is a terrorist group; but the Taliban was a government. How many governments across the Muslim world are basically the Taliban? Egypts President won’t even sit down with Benjamin Netanyahu because he is a Jew!

How is America acting in its national interests right now? How is it in our interest to help the rebels in Libya and Syria?

Afghanistan seems like a lost cause. And quite frankly, what cause could America take up in the region that wouldn’t be a lost cause? Our foreign policy is a mess, and therefore a disastrous failure right now. Am I wrong? Is there a silver lining?

 

[7_Sorrows]

how can you say that the terrorists have left afghanistan and iraq when suicide bombers continue to kill people - even our troops?

i think the terrorist groups are spreading and organizing and are all across the middle east and northern africa and indonesia. they are determined and finding financing somewhere.
i cannot predict what they are planning or what the future holds, but i do not believe they have left afghanistan and iraq all together.

 

[Christopher68]

Personally 2014 sounds a little ridiculous. Why not 2013? Or Christmas this year?

Since the “Arab Spring” uprisings the U.S. Middle East policy looks like it’s a decade behind what’s going on on the ground. We should’ve changed our Middle East policies back during the failed Iranian revolution in 2009.

It’s clear to me that the terrorists have long since left Afghanistan and Iraq. First everyone said they were in Pakistan. But, these people don’t just sit and chill in caves. They are very mobile. And now there are reports of maybe a dozen countries all being active hotspots for Al-Qaeda and other terrorists: Syria, Yemen, Eritrea, Mali, Indonesia, etc, etc.

But, what’s more worrisome are groups like the Muslim Brotherhood. Al-Qaeda is a terrorist group; but the Taliban was a government. How many governments across the Muslim world are basically the Taliban? Egypts President won’t even sit down with Benjamin Netanyahu because he is a Jew!

How is America acting in its national interests right now? How is it in our interest to help the rebels in Libya and Syria?

Afghanistan seems like a lost cause. And quite frankly, what cause could America take up in the region that wouldn’t be a lost cause? Our foreign policy is a mess, and therefore a disastrous failure right now. Am I wrong? Is there a silver lining?

Good post.

The title of the thread is very condescending and misleading. Anyone with a modicum of understanding of Afghanistan knows that our presence there has been a quagmire at best, and regardless of when the USA leaves there won’t be an official “end” like the end of WW2, for instance.

 

[Bob_Crowley]

I think the US has made several blunders in foreign policy. Saddam Hussein was a mongrel, and I shed no tears for him. I’d be surprised if he and his sons aren’t in hell, but that’s only my opinion.

However if the following is any guide, the Iraqi body count since the US led invasion of 2003 is around 115,000, most of whom would have been killed by the war itself.

iraqbodycount.org/

The average Iraqi is not going to love the USA.

Most estimates seem to put the Afghan civilian death toll at 20,000.

The average Afghan is not going to love the USA either.

Then there’s Iran; the so-called Arab Spring, which simply means that the dictators who kept the lid on the pot have been removed, and replaced by less mallable agents; the arrogance of Israeli settlers and extremists; the double game being played by Pakistan’s ISI; Moslem violence in parts of the Phillippines, Indonesia and elsewhere; and Saudi underwriting of proxy wars eg. in the Sudan.

Put all this together and you’ve got a very restive Moslem problem.

I think the world is going to become polarised - there’ll be the Moslems on one side, and everybody else on the other. Or if you like, as God said to Hagar,

Genesis 16:8-12 NIV

And he said, “Hagar, slave of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?”

“I’m running away from my mistress Sarai,” she answered.

Then the angel of the Lord told her, “Go back to your mistress and submit to her.” The angel added, “I will increase your descendants so much that they will be too numerous to count.”

The angel of the Lord also said to her:

“You are now pregnant, and you will give birth to a son.
You shall name him Ishmael, for the Lord has heard of your misery.
He will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone
and everyone’s hand against him, and he will live in hostility
toward all his brothers.”

Or as one part of the Koran puts it -

“And when Abraham and Ishmael raised the foundations of the House (praying): Our Lord, accept from us; surely Thou art the Hearing, the Knowing. Our Lord, and make us both submissive to Thee, and raise from our offspring a nation submissive to Thee, and show us our ways of devotion and turn to us mercifully; surely Thou art the Oft-returning to mercy, the Merciful. Our Lord, and raise up in them a Messenger from among them who shall recite to them Thy messages and teach them the Book and the wisdom, and purify them. Surely Thou art the Mighty, the Wise.”

(The Holy Quran, 2:127–129)

The trouble we’re seeing now, and have seen in the past, was predicted a long time ago.

 

[GaryTaylor]

Urban warfare breaks down to, if you don’t lose, then you win. The issue is the cost which we continue to inflict upon ourself and what that cost has actually provided. In other words was it worth it?

Its also fantasy to believe we train, leave and they succeed. Its works like this, we train till we leave and then cut off funding and they lose.

 

[Semper_Zelare]

how can you say that the terrorists have left afghanistan and iraq when suicide bombers continue to kill people - even our troops?

but i do not believe they have left afghanistan and iraq all together.

Terrorism is not a national problem. We won’t defeat terrorism by invading 1 or 2 countries.
I’m not saying we should invade Pakistan (which people have called to do).

My point is that terrorism is not only in Iraq and Afghanistan, it’s now in 40 or 50 countries. There are several dozen countries across the Middle East, Africa, and Asia which are all breeding grounds for terrorists. From there they are sending cells in even more countries (Europe, S. America, probably even in the U.S.)

We have no response to this. Our foreign policy is a total mess. And ultimately we can’t deal with this. No matter how large our military spending is; right now in the world millions upon millions of people hate us. An entire region has just voted in Sharia law Islamic Fundamentalists (Salafis). What can we possibly do?

If there’s an answer to that question, Obama won’t do it.

---

but i do not believe they have left afghanistan and iraq all together.

The terrorists are obviously still in Afghanistan and Iraq. I never said that they left all together. And I’m going to chalk this up as just another example how communication on the internet sucks. Only 7% of what we communicate is done so by text alone. Clearly if you had heard the tone of my voice or observed my body language you wouldn’t say that I believe that the terrorists have all together left Afghanistan and Iraq… ugh I hate the internet.

 

[JimR-OCDS]

Getting sucked into wars in the ME was a blunder going back to the 1st Gulf War.

Reagan wrote in his diary that the US should never be sucked into a war in the ME and he’s been proven right.

Jim

 

[stevegravy]

FWIW and it ain’t much, IMHO we got messed up in Afghanistan because after 9/11 we needed someone to punch and the Taliban was a ready made target. Iraq may well have been more about Husain not dealing in petrodollars for oil sales. Maybe it iwas the same thing which turned Qaddaffi into a verb. (He just figured Obama was enough Bushesque.) Regardless the American hegemony is falling apart as Iran-Russia-China-India-Venezuela maybe Mexico are moving off the petrodollar in oil sales.

When the ransition is complete watch how hard our deficit spending is going to hurt.

So the right answer was to knock out the Taliban then get the heck out of Afghanistan ASAP leaving their sinkhole country to themselves. Just be prepared to come back and squish the Taliban if they showed their ugly head again and again.

Regardless what I think, and no one should care, it seems the geniuses in Washington and all the impotent people at the seat of US power never bothered to ask the Russians how their adventures in Afghanistan turned out.

 

[JimR-OCDS]

Karzai alleges US duplicity

KABUL, Afghanistan — The Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, on Thursday accused the United States of playing a “double game” by fighting a war against Afghan insurgents rather than their backers in Pakistan, and by refusing to supply his country with the weapons it needs to fight enemies across the border. He threatened to turn to China, India and Russia for those arms.

He also accused the Western news media of trying to undermine the confidence of the Afghan people by publishing articles suggesting that a civil war and economic collapse might follow the departure of NATO troops at the end of 2014. However, he also promised, using his strongest words to date, that he would step down from the presidency and that there would be an election.

“No circumstance, no foreign propaganda or intervention and no insecurity can prevent the election from happening,” Karzai said at a news conference. It was the second time in recent days that Karzai had sounded angry and resentful over the policies of his U.S. partners, and his comments Thursday were among his most pointedly critical in recent years, Afghan analysts said. Karzai touched on a number of similar points in an interview with the CBS program “60 Minutes” on Sunday.

telegram.com/article/20121005/NEWS/110059722/1052/news01#.UG70s1Hz7-o

Another reason we need to get out of Afghanistan, and leave Karzai to fend for himself.

He can go live in Russia or China rather than the West, where he hid during the Soviet War.

Jim

 

[SuperLuigi]

Don’t expect to hear about it in the presidential campaign debates, but the U.S. will leave Afghanistan locked in an escalating civil war when it observes the 2014 deadline for withdrawing combat troops set by the Obama Administration — and supported by Gov. Mitt Romney. The New York Times reported Tuesday that the U.S. military has had to give up on hopes of inflicting enough pain on the Taliban to set favorable terms for a political settlement. Instead, it will be left up to the Afghan combatants to find their own political solution once the U.S. and its allies take themselves out of the fight.

Read more: world.time.com/2012/10/03/is-the-u-s-admitting-defeat-in-afghanistan/#ixzz28HPuCLdt

We overthrew the Taliban, got bin laden and crippled our enemies there.

Afghanistan, as is the case with most Middle Eastern nations DO NOT WANT US THERE.

We cannot look at it in terms of a “loss”. We accomplished our objective and now it’s time to come home.

It’s not our job to give them a government.

 

[SuperLuigi]

Terrorism is not a national problem. We won’t defeat terrorism by invading 1 or 2 countries.
I’m not saying we should invade Pakistan (which people have called to do).

My point is that terrorism is not only in Iraq and Afghanistan, it’s now in 40 or 50 countries. There are several dozen countries across the Middle East, Africa, and Asia which are all breeding grounds for terrorists. From there they are sending cells in even more countries (Europe, S. America, probably even in the U.S.)

We have no response to this. Our foreign policy is a total mess. And ultimately we can’t deal with this. No matter how large our military spending is; right now in the world millions upon millions of people hate us. An entire region has just voted in Sharia law Islamic Fundamentalists (Salafis). What can we possibly do?

If there’s an answer to that question, Obama won’t do it.

---

The terrorists are obviously still in Afghanistan and Iraq. I never said that they left all together. And I’m going to chalk this up as just another example how communication on the internet sucks. Only 7% of what we communicate is done so by text alone. Clearly if you had heard the tone of my voice or observed my body language you wouldn’t say that I believe that the terrorists have all together left Afghanistan and Iraq… ugh I hate the internet.

We need to STOP applying this outdated WWII foreign policy of occupation. Germany, Japan and even Italy welcomed capitalist ideas, but some people prefer thousands of years of their own tradition.

Both parties and independents need to understand that people in the rural Middle East, just like in rural areas over here, don’t take other people’s hogwash very well, and yes, thinking you can build a new nation because you went to Yale or your daddy was a Congressman is hogwash.

Get out of Afghanistan!

 

[EmperorNapoleon]

How can we be defeated when there weren’t any clearly defined objectives?

 

[smndtupidisaftr]

How can we be defeated when there weren’t any clearly defined objectives?

Just one of the problems with our invasion of the country in the first place. Not knowing when the job is done means an open-ended occupation (aka empire).

2 questions: Is the government leaving an 80,000 mercenary troop contingent like they did in Iraq?

Would this pull-out have happened if Julian Assange didn’t reveal to us the truth about Afghanistan?

 

[rossum]

A brief history of the Afghan wars:

1st Afghan War: The British don’t like the Afghan government. They invade, overthrow the government and put in place a more cooperative government. The Afghans take to the hills and start guerilla warfare. The British are suffering too many casualties and withdraw, leaving the Afghans to it.

2nd Afghan War: The British don’t like the Afghan government. They invade, overthrow the government and put in place a more cooperative government. The Afghans take to the hills and start guerilla warfare. The British are suffering too many casualties and withdraw, leaving the Afghans to it.

3rd Afghan War: The British don’t like the Afghan government. They invade, overthrow the government and put in place a more cooperative government. The Afghans take to the hills and start guerilla warfare. The British are suffering too many casualties and withdraw, leaving the Afghans to it.

4th Afghan War: The Russians don’t like the Afghan government. They invade, overthrow the government and put in place a more cooperative government. The Afghans take to the hills and start guerilla warfare. The Russians are suffering too many casualties and withdraw, leaving the Afghans to it. Don’t say us Brits can’t learn something, eventually.

5th Afghan War: The Americans don’t like the Afghan government. They invade, overthrow the government and put in place a more cooperative government. The Afghans take to the hills and start guerilla warfare. The Americans are suffering too many casualties and… Maybe us Brits aren’t too smart after all, we invaded along with the Americans.

You would think that the military planners would have noticed something of a pattern by now.

Alexander the Great had the best idea. He didn’t like the Afghan government, he invaded and told them, “Pay me lots of gold every year,” and withdrew before they could get a proper guerilla war going.

rossum

 

[Ridgerunner]

So the right answer was to knock out the Taliban then get the heck out of Afghanistan ASAP leaving their sinkhole country to themselves. Just be prepared to come back and squish the Taliban if they showed their ugly head again and again.

I absolutely agree, and have for years. Af/Pak is Vietnam all over again. This government has no intention of doing what it would need to do in order to truly “win”; a process that would undoubtedly take decades. Once Obama made his decision to get out, which he undoubtedly did some time ago, he should have just given as many weapons as possible to the Northern Alliance tribes and gotten out.

 

[smndtupidisaftr]

I absolutely agree, and have for years. Af/Pak is Vietnam all over again. This government has no intention of doing what it would need to do in order to truly “win”; a process that would undoubtedly take decades. Once Obama made his decision to get out, which he undoubtedly did some time ago, he should have just given as many weapons as possible to the Northern Alliance tribes and gotten out.

Which is why these invasions were a horrific idea from the start. There were no clear goals but to topple the government, and in the process countless civilians were killed.

I’m fine with going after the bad guys, but I’ve never seen a war where the civilians weren’t involved. When civilians aren’t involved, they’re called operations.

But wow, to be an Aghani must be horrible. I feel so bad for the innocent people in the Middle East caught up in all of this war for so long now.

 

[JimR-OCDS]

The other thing is that the US government ignored the intelligence we had on the Afghan culture and the people we put into power, from the Soviet War.

Karzai is not loved by the Afghan people. He sat out the war against the Soviets in India and Great Britain. When we first put him into power, prior to the elections, his defense minister, fought on the side of the Soviets during the war. He was know for hog tying captured prisoners and having a Soviet Tank drive over them.

Iraq was the same way. Invasion based on rhetoric with conflicting intelligence.

It turned me into a skeptic of the Bush administration and the government accounts of events on 9/11. There are things that just don’t line up.

Jim

 

[smndtupidisaftr]

The other thing is that the US government ignored the intelligence we had on the Afghan culture and the people we put into power, from the Soviet War.

Karzai is not loved by the Afghan people. He sat out the war against the Soviets in India and Great Britain. When we first put him into power, prior to the elections, his defense minister, fought on the side of the Soviets during the war. He was know for hog tying captured prisoners and having a Soviet Tank drive over them.

Iraq was the same way. Invasion based on rhetoric with conflicting intelligence.

It turned me into a skeptic of the Bush administration and the government accounts of events on 9/11. There are things that just don’t line up.

Jim

Although I personally don’t agree with the thought that 9/11 was planned by the government or an “inside-job” (because terrorists are real and they really do want to kill us), I can understand why you would be a skeptic. The government has lied to us about so many things in the past and continue to lie to us. Afghanistan is one of the most recent and extreme examples. We never would have known how bad it was without WikiLeaks. The government got upset not because it put troops in danger (because hey, they put them in danger with their actions) but rather because it told Americans the truth about what was happening.

 

[JimR-OCDS]

Although I personally don’t agree with the thought that 9/11 was planned by the government or an “inside-job” (because terrorists are real and they really do want to kill us), I can understand why you would be a skeptic. The government has lied to us about so many things in the past and continue to lie to us. Afghanistan is one of the most recent and extreme examples. We never would have known how bad it was without WikiLeaks. The government got upset not because it put troops in danger (because hey, they put them in danger with their actions) but rather because it told Americans the truth about what was happening.

I don’t believe the government planned 9/11, but I believe they left the doors open.

I mean, how ironic was it for Cheney to say on Meet the Press, that we need another Perl Harbor type of an attack, before they’d get the support to take out Saddam Hussein?

Two months later we’re whacked.

The thing that contributes to my skepticism is the fact we have not had another attack on home soil since 9/11, which wouldn’t be hard for terrorist to do.

Sure, terrorist want to kill us, but they’re misdirected desires can be use for desired goals of individuals in the government.

Jim