http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/23/world/asia/23prexy.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&hp
Is the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan going too fast? General Petreaus had advised against it and the main supporters of the President’s new plan are politicians not military men and is largely for political reasons. The last thing we need is going back in a couple of years to do the job again. Better we do it a few more years and finish it once and for all.
Please clearly define what you mean by “finish it once and for all.”
Permanetnly weaken the Taliban enough so they can’t take over Afghanistan again and establish a new terrorist safe haven.
That’s what you get in a government led by civilians. The military men don’t pick the plan unless they get themselves elected.
Despite your confidence, most of the rest of us are not sure that will ever be possible.
If the U.S. presence in Afghanistan has been unable to accomplish this in a decade of occupation, what makes you think that goal is in reach now?
No, too slow. We should already be gone.
There is no “finishing”. We can stay there for the next hundred years and whatever government we have propped up there will collapse when we leave.
Mandrake, do you recall what Clemenceau once said about war? He said war was too important to be left to the generals. When he said that, 50 years ago, he might have been right. But today, war is too important to be left to politicians. They have neither the time, the training, nor the inclination for strategic thought. I can no longer sit back and allow [del]Communist[/del]Taliban infiltration, [del]Communist[/del]Taliban indoctrination, [del]Communist[/del]Taliban subversion and the international [del]Communist[/del]Taliban conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.
You realize, of course, that even by next summer we will have double the number of troops in Afghanistan than Bush ever committed to the place.
Didn’t all the military advisors tell Bush that Iraq would be a clusterfuck? They were right about that.
Withdrawing from an occupation is not a strategic military decison, though, it’s a political one. There aren’t any military consequences, so who cares what Petraeus says?
We defeated the Taliban in about three weeks, since then we’ve spent a decade trying to prevent them from getting back in power.
We’ve had troops in Afghanistan for ten years. Is there any reason to think they’re going to accomplish something in the next few years that they’ve haven’t done already?
Remember the old definition of insanity? -doing the same thing over and over…expecting a different result.
Ten years is enough-if Afghanistan cannot stand on its own by now, it will never be able to do so.
Maybe the exalted one should read the history of the Vietnam War-lots of lessons there.
Since we aren’t indiscriminately killing the locals, it appears he’s already learned the most important lesson of Vietnam.
In order to determine whether or not this is a mistake, you have to first determine what your goals are. If it is to defeat the Taliban, then it’s a mistake. Problem is, you can never defeat the Taliban. Better to admit that and just get out. Obama is probably doing that as quickly as is politically possible.
While we have been in Afghanistan for ten years, our troop numbers there have varied significantly in the last few years.
See article here:
01-08 = 1,000 - 30,00 troops.
2009 = 70,000 troops
2010 = 100,000 troops
2011 = 100,000 troops
So when we get down to 30,000 troops in Afghanistan, it will be the same level we were using there for about 7 years. [FYI, the “surge” was from 70k to 100k].
Petraeus (and others, Gates, Clinton) want to continue fighting the Taliban/counter-insurgency, while Obama (and others, Biden) are ultimately quitting that and will just continue counter-terrorism operations. I’ve always been a fan of just counter-terrorism, so I don’t mind the draw down. I also don’t see that another year would make any radical changes to the situation.
I’m pretty sure Obama understands the issues orders of magnitude better than you do.
In answer to the thread, no, withdrawing the troops isn’t a mistake. Our soldiers have been given time to make a change, and they’ve done what they could.
I have to agree with everyone else - I have no idea how you’re supposed to ‘win’ in Afghanistan, and I don’t see much evidence of the rise of a civil society or a middle class that might be able to calm and stabilize the country out of self-interest. The place looks much the same as it did ten years ago - or fifty years ago.
If you can’t come up with a strategy for victory, there’s no point staying there wasting blood and treasure in a military holding action.
If we had a real mission I would say stay and do it, no matter how long it takes. We don’t. Until we can articulate a mission there shouldn’t be even one soldier there. “Get the Taliban” was a poor mission statement 10 years ago and it is even worse now.
We are mortgaging our country to chase a few raggedy mountain men around the gullies and hollows of some of the worst terrain on earth. When the Soviet Union was doing the exact same thing we were laughing our asses off about how the huge expense was going to break their economy. And the Soviets didn’t have to do it from the far side of the world.
The Taliban isn’t a discrete set of people, it’s a label. Kill or capture all the current members, and a new set of people will crop up calling themselves the same thing. Drag the Taliban’s name through the mud thoroughly enough that nobody would ever dare to call themselves that again (itself probably a Herculean task), and that new set up people will still crop up, just with a different name.
I think we are negotiating with the Taliban. We need to get out and let the Afghans decide their own fate. Al Quaeda won’t be welcome there anymore, and that’s who we were after. I think if the Taliban had any idea of the results of harboring Al Quaeda in the first place, they wouldn’t have done it. I don’t see indications that any group in Afghanistan is willing to fight for democracy. Each group just wants to be the next oppresive regime. We are wasting lives, time, and money by staying there. If the Taliban starts to threaten any other country, we can fight them from the air.