It’s not so much the Taliban that people are concerned about (well, they are, but…), it’s the sort of people they allowed to set up shop there the last time they were in power. The last thing we need is yet another spot where the next Osama bin Laden can set up training camps or whatever. Hell, the last thing we need is giving the current Osama bin Laden any more freedom of movement than he (regretfully) already has.
Also, I don’t know how you made a leap from NurseCarmen’s post about the Japanese to thinking she or anyone else was saying the Taliban were an imperial power or anything of the sort. Frankly, it’s downright asinine of you.
No, but then the problem was never really in Iraq in the first place. Victory in Afghanistan is key, for the reasons set out above and also because we’d be the first in a loooong line of those who’ve attempted. This isn’t an engineering project, it’s a war. It takes as long as it takes, bottom line. Projecting artificial deadlines (and meaning to stick with them, which I’m not convinced he is) gives the people you’re battling a reason to stop what they’re doing until you leave.
The robber doesn’t break into the house until AFTER the police cruiser has passed by. Making a so-called ‘exit strategy’ that includes a timeline is like having local cops say ‘hey, all 12 of us in this patrol district are going to be at the donut shop between 12 midnight and 1 am.’ Would not the bad guys say ‘Well, pencil me in for the 1230 house robbery?’
If we’re in, we need to be all in for as long as it takes. If we’re out, we’re out. At the risk of sounding jingoistic, this is America, we don’t do things half-way. We do biggest, fastest, strongest, tallest as well or better than anyone else. That’s what made us what we are for the past 232 years.
The Taliban are not going to take over Pakistan. They are a minority in Pakistan, and have only been able to ‘take over’ ethnically Pushtun tribal areas.
You do realize that we are supporting the faction that has traditionally ruled Afghanistan for the past century and a half right? The Durrani.
The non-Islamists ARE in power in Pakistan. There are Islamists there with lots of political power, but the idea that they control the government is a bit overstating it.
You know where bin Laden and Al-Zawahiri are? You’re sure they’re still in Afghanistan?
Right.
Take over Xinjiang? Why do you think the Uighurs would be amenable to imperial Pashtun rule?
Right. Also, there is a difference in levels of industrialization.
Still the idea that he is prolonguing it is a facile notion that you can just flip a switch war on/war off. It doesn’t work like that. Even if we stipulated a draw down right now, it would embolden them to shoot the retreating troops and hasty withdrawals leave weapons behind which leave your enemy better equipped than they were before you went there.
Just as sticking our around, propping up a corrupt, incompetent regime emboldens more people to take up arms against imperialists.
Plus with the corruption already there our weapons are already falling into the hands of the Taliban:
No no no, we had been sticking around waiting for a shining city on a hill or a pony to show up, or something. Obama appears to have set the ball in motion, but I don’t trust him to keep it moving.
re weapons turnover:
Sure there are differences in scale, but as long as we’re there we’re also training the taliban in how to fight American trrops. That sort of experience can outweigh a large pile of rifles, radars and rockets.
No one left the Stinger behind, we shipped them to Afghanistan.
I’m not clear on which weapons you feel will pose an unnacceptable threat should we leave any behind. Billions of new Stingers? Humvees? Surely not tanks or helicopters.
Frankly, I think the threat posed by abandoned American weapons is overhyped.
You’re welcome to get your undies in a knot over them, but I’ll not sweat it unless it turns out Bush shipped Davy Crockets to Kabul.
Actually they were left behind and we spent $ 55m recovering them. But that’s only part of the point. The point is that technology is as, or more valuable than learned tactics.
‘which weapons’ you’re asking for a lot of meaningless bullshit. It doesn’t matter which weapons, a Humvee here, an M-16 there, and eventually you’re talking about real ordnance. If you think the issue is overhyped then frankly you don’t know shit about the subject. Which is kind of surprising as it’s one of the anti-war bete noirs used to beat every American action over the head with.
Right, because only nuclear weapons make a strategic difference. :rolleyes: But then again, that is kind of the point right? To keep these guys from trashing this place.
You can’t fly a Humvee into a skyscraper, no matter how many you have. Nor do M-16’s PLUS Humvee’s add up to any sort of strategic threat to the United States.
Terrorists will always be able to get their hands on explosives. Our leaving some behind in Afghanistan won’t automagically turn harmless America haters into an imminent threat. At worst, it’ll just mean slightly lower prices on the international arms market. You’re hyperventilating about a small issue.
No. This is just wrong. The supply of ordnance is one of the most important parts of a war, and guerilla wars are constrained by the limitations the guerillas have for receiving ordnance. Guerillas use their ordnance more efficiently than nation-state militaries do, because they have to, or else their insurgency doesn’t last very long. So it really DOES matter if they get 1000 M-16s. It really DOES matter if they get 100,000 bullets. It really DOES matter if they seize some fuel trucks from the retreating military. And it really DOES matter if they can overwhelm the nascent national military with the hardware left behind by the neo-colonialist power that didn’t have the stomach for it.
I’m neither hyperventilating, nor is it a small issue. You are trying to diminish the importance of a strategic implication that anyone who has strategic influence, thinks about and cares about because it doesn’t suit your meta-narrative.
What, now the taliban are going to take over Pakistan if we leave?
It’s like freakin dominoes over there in asia, AGAIN?
It sounds to me like Pakistan is already headed towards internal strife, even while we’re hanging out in Afghanistan. That doesn’t say much for our on-location ability to stabilize the region. So what’s your point about our having to stay in Afghanistan so as to stabilize Pakistan then?
Heck, our crossborder drone missions are a major cause of the instability in Pakistan. If we pulled out of Afghanistan and stopped flying those missions, Pakistan might cool down without civil war. That’d be in our strategic interest, right?
Except it’s not quite the same. It’s not about Pakistan being taken over it’s about Pakistan becoming a nuclear armed failed state thus precipitating the need for India to invade to secure the nukes that will most likely be aimed at them, and for China to assert itself against Indian regional aggression. Though China also has a vested interest in Uighur terrorists not getting their hands on the bomb.
So yes, dominoes are a valid metaphor, but you say it like an epithet thinking that it somehow invalidates any argument that resembles the one you are referring to.
Pakistan is always headed for internal strife, and has always been. At the same time Pakistan has been one of our closest allies for decades and is our only source of access to central Asia.
Uh huh, sure.
But regardless your point is moot since the policy is to withdraw from Afghanistan. You’re just made that it’s not hasty and ill-planned so that you can bitch about it some more for the next twenty years of unintended consequences.
??? Oh, I see, you’re debating with someone who isn’t actually present in this thread. Well, carry on. Have a few tokes for me, and keep fantasizing bout the grave threat raised by withdrawal before Karzai dies of old age.
I’ll just close with the wisdom of another proponent of perpetual war, John McCain:
I mean, 8 years “training” the Afghan army? The people of Afghanistan do NOT want us there-they have made that abundantly clear.
Think Vietnam (1969)-getting out in 1969 would hav saved thousands of lives and billions of dollars-and the ending would have been the same.
Al Queada is not in Afghanistan now. So how will attacking Afghanistan atone for 9-11? They ran to Pakistan. Do you want to chase them there next? We are now fighting in a mountainous land that can not be secured. They will just melt into caves and wait. We will waste lives and treasure, and accomplish nothing.
I agree with your point in general, but this is inaccurate. The US has negotiated agreements with Uzbekistan and Tajikistan to use their land as access points to Afghanistan.
