He calls himself Rusty nowadays.
I posed this over in GD, but it might be more read here; I just got this from a friend of mine, a former Marine who served in Afghanistan and is now home:
Remind us - was there a major guerilla upring going on in South Korea while the West was cosying up to yet another brutal dictatorship. Was the USA engaged in constant military operations within South Korean borders and constantly killing civilians in a civil war?
No.
There is nothing about the two situations that is consonant enough for you to predict a happy outcome if we stick around in Afghanistan.
It’s not like we haven’t given it a good try yet after a decade the best we can say is that we’ve managed to just about prop up one voraciously kleptocratic faction in a civil war.
A faction already willing to throw away what minor gains that have been made in women’s issues even before the door hits our asses.
As sensible people knew from the off - once the Al-Q issue was resolved we had no business sticking around. If the USSR, with its willingness to be way more brutal than we are, could not win, we were never going to.
Afghanistan does not want to be ‘rescued’ by Christian or ‘godless’ foreigners.
For starters, I very much doubt that there is such a thing as “Afghanistan”. There is a geographic entity, with borders, a UN seat, and a presumed national government that controls Kabul. We would first have to build a country, and then we could consider what directions such a country might take. Pretending such a country already exists, and we only need to train and support its self-defense capacity is an exercise in delusion.
We never should have done it in the first place, as I said in these pages at the time, and received an epic beat-down. But the madness was upon us, and the voice of reason was the voice of treason. It was wisely said, that if you are embarking on a mission of vengeance, first dig two graves.
Have we already forgotten how we bought our allies on the open market, with cash? What did we imagine we were buying, loyalty? We have charged into a swamp of misery and ignorance, and brought only pain and death. Staying will not make it better. We must go. And when we go, what little we have accomplished will vanish with us. This is a cold and ruthless truth, but it is the truth.
Out now.
America has fallen victim to the most famous of classic blunders - “never get involved in a land war in Asia.”
I could forgive almost the entire Bush presidency if that fucktard hadn’t gotten us waist deep in those wars…
Oh, how I wish I were a Sicilian running for President-- I would use that line on my campaign signs.
My gawd, For some reason I always, always took that statement as an illumination on the follies of Hitler and, to a lesser extent, Napoleon; as well as any potential campaign against China. It never occurred to me Vietnam, Korea and the entire Middle East is also Asia. :smack:
That’s why we need to nuke them all from orbit. No need to set a foot on the ground.
I mean, the disaster that is Afghanistan has been evident for years-provided you are not blind. We have had plenty of historical experience too-Vietnam, Somalia, Bosnia, etc.
The only conclusin I can make is that Obama thinks that leaving would sabotage his re-election.
I think that’s possible.
There’s always the more entertaining idea that this has nothing to do with Afghanistan and everything to do with having a military presence near Pakistan because they are close to opening the 30,000 year-old vault of alien manufacture. Or maybe it’s a pretense for being next to Iran for less far-fetched reasons.
I mean, now more than ever, wouldn’t you feel kinda silly if you moved your armies out of Afghanistan only to have Iran pop a nuke in Baghdad?
We should have gotten the fuck out after we found Osama bin Laden in Pakistan.
Ah, I was right… global politics really is just a big game of Risk.
I say we collect our little card with the cannon on it and make a troop transport at the end of our turn. And stop rolling the dice.
Gee, how does someone who is part of the U.S. military get the idea that he can just kill Muslims willy-nilly and it’s okay? There’s a real head scratcher.
But how would you then complete that mission card stating “Hold the continent of North America, destroy 10 countries of your choice and bring about Armageddon within 12 turns.”
Well-played!
A few more years and we might just get Afghanistan back to where it was before we decided that using Afghanistan as a pawn in the Cold War was more important than all that good stuff you’ve mentioned. :smack:
CMC fnord!
1976?
You tell me where you can get heroin cheaper!
Don’t do it… it’s a setup!