Does anyone out there remember Afghanistan?
It was that war of yesteryear that we focused all of our patriotic zeal toward……but now? Not so much…..remember now?
My granddaughter was born after the US invaded Afghanistan….she is going on 13 and she has never known a time when the US was not at war…..though she probably does not know of it because the media and the government does not want a repeat of the 60’s and 70’s protests…….
In 2001 after the 9/11 attacks we invaded Afghanistan in search for the mastermind of the attacks…..Osama…..with the help of a few of our allies and the Northern Alliance we went in and kicked the Taleban and AQ in the stomach…..the only blotch on our achievements was that the military and others allowed the most wanted man escape across the mountains into Pakistan……
So for over 15 years we have been in a running battle with AQ, the Taleban and whoever else wants to join the fray….you would think with the might of the US military would have worn down the Taleban to a few isolated pockets, right?
You would be mistaken…….
15 years into the US occupation of Afghanistan, the nation is a less occupied than ever, as a new report to Congress warns that the Taliban’s military gains have left it in control of a bigger chunk of the country than at any time since the 2001 US invasion.
The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), the author of the quarterly report, cited tens of billions of dollars in waste and a general lack of security, warning the situation in Afghanistan is worsening by most metrics.
Pentagon officials have been warning for awhile that the situation on the ground is deteriorating, but the SIGAR report offered more specifics and a stark metric, territory hold, by which to measure just how badly things are getting.
What is the end game for Afghanistan?
Pentagon officials have recently talked of the 2017 pullout date as though it’s all but abandoned already, suggesting the US would remain in the nation for “generations” to come. Nicholson may be overseeing the transition to that permanent occupation.
I think that the last paragraph says it all……
Anyone think that maybe a new plan would be advisable? This pre-World War Two thinking is getting this fight nowhere…..15 years and we are NO better situated than we were when we invaded….
Time for a massive re-think………America does not need a war without end.
What ever happened to Obama’s promise to get us the heck out of there?
All I have read and researched the 2017 date is not going to happen…..if ISIS gets any stronger then we will be there for decades longer….IMO….chuq
During the campaign, he said by the beginning of 2014, since then he keeps pushing it up.
His generals are pushing hard and he is listening as the M-IC talks……no matter what it all boils down to…..cash. chuq
Everyone knocks down Nixon, but HE got us out of Vietnam, another 10 year fiasco run for money!!
Nixon made a political decision….protests were dictating what he would do…..he could not afford it anymore…..chuq
There were more protests during JFK and LBJ’s administration – guess the money meant more to them.
Probably…..the M-IC has a strong arm tactic……
A little reality check…
Nixon didn’t get us out of Vietnam; the Vietnamese did that. We, quite simply, lost that war.
Second, we, as a country, have been at war, continuously, somewhere on the planet, since 1950, my entire lifetime. I’ve watched it. We tout ourselves as the liberators of oppressed peoples, but, what we are is a branch of the commercial interests that want all those markets, and intend to make money either way, as they sell the arms to keep us fighting…. whether they’re selling to the US Army, etc., to the Taliban, the Russians, (who sell their own, too), or to any other rebel organization, fanatic jihadist, or other version of idiot with the cash to pay, anywhere on the planet.
That’s reality.
gigoid. the dubious
He who has the cash gets the goods, right? No matter what they are about….chuq
Exactly….
g
My viewpoint, from a Dutch perspective, is one that the USA, as you already said before, is to eagerly to go to war and doesn’t want to hear the voice of reason, the voice of their allies, the voice of their own citizens that oppose war. Driving the into the traitor corner as they rase their voice of reason.
WhatI did learn in school about the early beginnings of the Vietnam war, is totally different than the American student would learn.
That a country prefers another system than the capatalistic one is totally incomprehensible and there fore evil.
Words like socialist, social-democrat, many Americans get paranoid.
Like like a bull in a china shop the USA goes into overdrive, without any regard for the regional cultures, traditions etc.
Another point is tha since the civil war in the US, there has never been a conflict that engolved the whole nation. For generations American military went to war in foreign lands. They saw war as it is, destruction, killing, bombing, people fleeing,hunger, retaliation etc.
They are just a small percentage of the US population. Apopulation that is
tempted to see only the flagwaving, uniforms and the Hollywood experience of war.
If those Americans who are still believing in the American Exceptionalistic idea, don’t come down from their shining city upon a hill wild bull actions will occur again and again.
President Bush was a good example of: if you are not for us, you are against us principle. He did go far beyond the borders of human rights, treaties against torture and extorsion.
Who has to clean the mess up he left behind. The American taxpayer, those Americans that travel who should always be alert for their own security.
Those that had to go to war, coming back where abandoned in their physical/psychological problems.
Glorifying yourself as a nation makes you blind for your own weaknessess and faults.
Darn….that was great and well said! Thanx….chuq
Yes…it’s all about the money, honey. Not eloquent but straight up.
Sad, huh?