posted August 21, 2012 11:03 PM            

Nation building is a fruitless, expensive exercise paid with the lives of allied troops. I've always advocated accomplishing the primary strategic objective and/or military objective and just declaring victory.

In that sense, whether you agree or not, Iraq Deux was a stunning military success until W had grand ideas of spreading democracy. The Afghan people on a whole don't even want America or Britain around. The O said he wanted out, but then he changed his tune. It's time to just get out.

Yeah. The Taliban would likely return to power, and we'll go kick their teeth in again. Only this time we kick harder and faster. Staying there and appeasing the Afghan public (which isn't working) is brutally expensive in terms of lives and is busting the budget.

Instead of settling the mess that was Afghanistan to begin with, the Prez went kicking a new hornet's nest in the Middle East. Politicians on both sides can't seem to focus in cleaning up their sh1t before starting new sh1t.

And I predict Israel will act on Irsn unilaterally pretty soon regardless of who sits in the White House. The stakes of a nuclear armed Iran are too high to do nothing. Especially with BiBi around.

posted August 22, 2012 02:26 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by YoursTrulyAlways:
This is pretty much apolitical, although I'm espousing a conservative viewpoint.

Nation building is a fruitless, expensive exercise paid with the lives of allied troops. I've always advocated accomplishing the primary strategic objective and/or military objective and just declaring victory.

In that sense, whether you agree or not, Iraq Deux was a stunning military success until W had grand ideas of spreading democracy. The Afghan people on a whole don't even want America or Britain around. The O said he wanted out, but then he changed his tune. It's time to just get out.

Yeah. The Taliban would likely return to power, and we'll go kick their teeth in again. Only this time we kick harder and faster. Staying there and appeasing the Afghan public (which isn't working) is brutally expensive in terms of lives and is busting the budget.

Instead of settling the mess that was Afghanistan to begin with, the Prez went kicking a new hornet's nest in the Middle East. Politicians on both sides can't seem to focus in cleaning up their sh1t before starting new sh1t.

And I predict Israel will act on Irsn unilaterally pretty soon regardless of who sits in the White House. The stakes of a nuclear armed Iran are too high to do nothing. Especially with BiBi around.

America, don't start sh1t you can't finish, or don't have the will to finish.

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Bless you, Ian--a voice of sanity and reason.

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Passion, Lust, Desire. Check out my journal

posted August 22, 2012 09:56 AM            

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Afghanistan_Pipeline

And it's worth getting an opinion about where the money is going with this:

quote:

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The big profits do not go to the farmers or to the Taliban. The United Nations estimates that, of the total opium profits that remain in the country, about 10 percent goes to the insurgents, 20 percent to the farmers and the rest to the traffickers, the police, power brokers and those government officials who facilitate the transport out of the country.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_Production_in_Afghanistan

posted August 22, 2012 11:21 AM            

As for narcotics, the US presumably has no economic interest in that. I'm sure the Afghan government pays lip service to erradicating their poppy crop while enrichening itself.

The original intent was to squash the Taliban and root out Al Qaeda. The Taliban was taken out rather quickly and squashing Al Qaeda, like W said, is like swatting flies.

All along, the US has been guided by nonsense like nation building and spreading democracy. The Taliban was taken out and a more vigorous boots-on-the-ground approach to Al Qaeda should have been employed, but Don Rumsfeld wanted a special forces targetted strategy. That wild goose chase took forever with no results.

Look at the Soviet Union's failure with Afghanistan. They too wanted to keep the peace with the Afghan populace and failed miserably.

Look at the US' failure in Vietnam. Failure was a function of preventing collateral damage in North Vietnam.

War is terrible. War is ugly. Don't fight wars unless you want to promote utter destruction, yes, to even civilians, especially children.

Should war be necessary, then go in, wipe everything out and leave quickly.

posted August 22, 2012 01:41 PM            

quote:

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War is a racket

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posted August 22, 2012 05:46 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by YoursTrulyAlways:

As for narcotics, the US presumably has no economic interest in that.

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The CIA has a long history of drug dealing, and anyone who challenges that has forgotten the Iran-Contra scandal too soon.

The Taliban eradicated the poppy crop in 2001, which was considered an act of war against US corporate interests. (With the CIA and Wall Street being closely linked from the beginning of the CIA.)

Long story.
http://www.amazon.com/American-War-Machine-Connection-Afghanistan/dp/0742555941?tag=duckduckgo-d-20