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Thursday, July 1, 2010
027 - The unwinnable war in Afghanistan - bring our troops home
No matter how much I praise our troops but complain about the war in Afghanistan, there are folks who really get ticked off at me for doing the latter.
For that I am regretful, but two events recently got me thinking about all this one more time.
First was a wonderful “welcome home” celebration of more than 100 National Guardsmen who work out of our unit here in Lander.
Gov. Dave Freudenthal, U. S. Sen. John Barrasso and U. S. Rep. Cynthia Lummis were all here for that event, plus local officials.
Perhaps the biggest applause was when Mayor Mick Wolfe reminded them that back during their send-off celebration 13 months ago he requested that they all come home safe, and they did!
When you think of the sacrifices these men and women have gone through in their service to their country, it is impressive and sobering. You cannot help but be proud of them.
They are among our finest citizens.
What in the devil are we doing sending them to a place like Afghanistan?
The second event was a national one when President Barack Obama fired the general leading out troops in Afghanistan, Stanley McChrystal, after disparaging remarks were published in Rolling Stone Magazine.
There are some almost unbelievable conclusions occurring with our Mideast policy.
It will be amazingly ironic if Iraq ends up being our success story in the Middle East with Afghanistan being our second Vietnam.
Simple reason for this is that like Japan, Korea and Germany, Iraq has a middle class.
To nation-build, you need a middle class.
Afghanistan has no middle class, just tribes plus bureaucratic lackeys, drug growers and the worst Islamic fundamentalists ever seen – the Taliban.
Twenty years from now, it is possible that Iraq will be a bastion of economic stability and freedom while, God help us, Afghanistan will still be what it is now – a money pit, the like of which the world has only seen a few times before.
Just ask the Russians. They killed one million Afghans but lost their war and their worldwide empire, too.
The only warrior to ever win in Afghanistan was Genghis Khan and he, well, by today’s standards did not fight fair.
If there is an X-factor in this war, it is the recent disclosure that there may be vast amounts of rare minerals to be mined there, which puts the USA back in the position of fighting a war for selfish economic reasons (sort of like, oil?) rather than its original noble purpose.
The Rolling Stone story had a number of astonishing quotes and comments. Here are a few:
• “COIN (counter-insurgency) calls for sending huge numbers of ground troops . . . to live among the civilian population and slowly rebuild . . . another nation’s government.
“The theory essentially rebrands the military, expanding its authority (and its funding) to encompass the diplomatic and political sides of warfare: Think the Green Berets as an armed Peace Corps.”
• “But even if he somehow manages to succeed, after years of bloody fighting with Afghan kids who pose no threat to the U.S. homeland, the war will do little to shut down Al Qaeda, which has shifted its operations to Pakistan.
“Dispatching 150,000 troops to build new schools, roads, mosques and water-treatment facilities around Kandahar is like trying to stop the drug war in Mexico by occupying Arkansas and building Baptist churches in Little Rock.”
• “Rhetoric that just a few years ago they would have mocked. "They are trying to manipulate perceptions because there is no definition of victory – because victory is not even defined or recognizable," says Celeste Ward, a senior defense analyst at the RAND Corporation.”
• "It`s all very cynical, politically," says Marc Sageman, a former CIA case officer who has extensive experience in the region. "Afghanistan is not in our vital interest – there`s nothing for us there."
• “After nine years of war, the Taliban simply remains too strongly entrenched for the U.S. military to openly attack. The very people that COIN seeks to win over – the Afghan people – do not want us there. Our supposed ally, President Karzai, used his influence to delay the offensive . . .”
• "Throwing money at the problem exacerbates the problem," says Andrew Wilder, an expert at Tufts University. "A tsunami of cash fuels corruption, delegitimizes the government and creates an environment where we`re picking winners and losers" – a process that fuels resentment and hostility among the civilian population.”
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