I don’t understand how poppies having been grown there for ages excuses the administration for walking out and braying after Iraq. Does the fact that there has been a long history of poppy growing mean we should have just shrugged our shoulders and said, “Que sera, sera?”
Look guys, we had about 30-40000 troops in Afghanistan, the Taliban were almost whipped and the tribal leaders/warlords were on the ropes. There was a great opportunity to send in aid and experise. I’m not sure Halliburton would have made out because oil isn’t Afghanistan’s thing, but Archer-Daniels-Midland and Parsons Corp. surely could have participated in the job.
I, quite frankly, expected as sort of mini-Marshall Plan for the country in order to get it back on its feet. I’ve got to believe that much less resources would have been used and a lot less lives would have been lost in concentrating on Afghanistan where terrorists actually hung out than have been spent in Iraq where they didn’t.
I’m also taken aback by those who say that weaning Afghanis away from poppy growing is too hard because it will take years. Yet many of those same people get all gooey when our Candide-in-Chief talks about how wonderful it will be, the best of all possible worlds in fact, when we have a democratic Iraq. An Iraq which is a bastard conglomeration of ethnic groups, religions and tribes that was thrown together by Britain and France for their own purposes after WWI and which has never, to my knowledge, embraced democracy to any great extent.
Let’s be realistic. When the Taliban were “in charge,” the warlords controlled most of the country, and Afghanistan produced at least 90% of the world’s heroin. Now that Hamid Karzai is “in charge,” the warlords and the Taliban control most of the country, and Afghanistan is making more heroin than before the war. Karzai is, realistically, the mayor of Kabul, and the rest of the country is devoted to growing poppies and smuggling, just like before the war. We accomplished nothing. We had the chance to cripple the world’s heroin supply, and we blew it.
It’s OK, you can take the word of the US government. From Magiver’s cite:
Of course, most of the report is rubbish. The “proof” of the Taliban’s links to the drug trade comes from a public speech made by Blair in the run-up to the invasion.
That’s not to say that there were no links, but if that’s the best proof on offer, well…
I see no point in arguing with straw men. No one has ever said the initial phase (the military one) wasn’t successful. But as seems to be the case with GW the approach was that of a dillitante. Go in, roil things up, go on to something else.
What straw man? Bush’s record is now part of history. Afghanistan just had it’s first election (ever) after being defeated in one of the fasted nation-building wars (ever). You’re criticizing the President of the United States for not stopping them from producing drugs 1 month after elections. Since no other President, in the history of the United States, has stopped another country from producing drugs it is pretty bold of you to blame Bush for addressing it when the country has not had a chance to address it on it’s own. Afghanistan is not a colony.
You can’t compare this event in any way, shape, or form to another President’s performance without coming up short.