What is the mission in Afghanistan?

[EinsteinsGhost]

Originally Posted by Joe_Ryder

I've never really blamed the extremes. They can be noisy, often annoying, and frequently amusing but at the end of the day, the fringes really have no clout at all.

I didn't necessarily point at you. It is common to see such excuses, blaming at extremes as if the person doing so is immune from it all. Such arguments only serve as a distraction.

[WestCobb]

Originally Posted by cyclone8570

Is there a clear indicator of when the country is "stable enough" or is this up to the General's discretion?

It's not "the General" who decides, cyclone. Nominally, it's the president, but of course, presidents have lots of advisors with lots of opinions. If there was a clear indicator of when a nation was stable enough to keep from being a failed state, then it sure would be easy to know when to end an occupation, wouldn't it?

[GregW]

IMHO the reason we invaded Afghanistan was to provide a strong enough central government so the individual tribes along the Trans Afghan Pipeline (TAP) route would not either charge the oil companies separate passage fees or simply blow up the line for the hell of it. Much to our consternation the tribes have remained more powerful than the central government and are like to remain so. Afghanistan has never been organized well enough to be called a State. It has always be a "failed state" and always will be. This is just another of our wars supporting the International Petroleum Cartel with our troops as outlined in the PNAC.

The obvious answer is for the resource companies to negotiate passage and mining fees with each tribe as needed. A government in Kabul is not needed for this plan. Neither is our Army.

Abandoning the Heritage Foundation’s dream of a world militarily dominated by American forces for Religious domination and endless profit would save us many lives as well as incredible amounts of money. That dream was and is a nightmare and it is time to wake up and tell these would be empire builders NO.

[Joe_Ryder]

Originally Posted by GregW

IMHO the reason we invaded Afghanistan was to provide a strong enough central government so the individual tribes along the Trans Afghan Pipeline (TAP) route would not either charge the oil companies separate passage fees or simply blow up the line for the hell of it. Much to our consternation the tribes have remained more powerful than the central government and are like to remain so. Afghanistan has never been organized well enough to be called a State. It has always be a "failed state" and always will be. This is just another of our wars supporting the International Petroleum Cartel with our troops as outlined in the PNAC.

The obvious answer is for the resource companies to negotiate passage and mining fees with each tribe as needed. A government in Kabul is not needed for this plan. Neither is our Army.

Abandoning the Heritage Foundation’s dream of a world militarily dominated by American forces for Religious domination and endless profit would save us many lives as well as incredible amounts of money. That dream was and is a nightmare and it is time to wake up and tell these would be empire builders NO.

I've said for many years that the oil companies should be able to afford their own private armies. There are plenty of well equipped and well trained private contractors perfectly suited for the job. But apparently US presidents and Congress persons are cheaper.

But Greg, I think it's pretty clear that most of the left and most of the right have already said "No." Unfortunately they, unlike Haliburton, can't withdraw their financial support of our honorable elected officials without a fun visit from the IRS who will happily jail them or worse, just shut down their lives and make them inert.

[skoro]

Clean up (another one of) Bush's mess.