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Is there anyway we can actually win this war in Afghanistan? What metrics do we use to measure victory? Since we are not fighting a government that can surrender, how do we know if we have won?
The answer probably won't come for many years - and that's only going to be seen if there is a stable government that begins to allow peace and prosperity among its people.
Unfortunately, Afghanistan has been such a war-torn country for so many decades that nobody has any idea how to even begin restoring any sense of peace. There is no infrastructure. There's nothing in place that can even begin to produce positive results.
Iran is not our "next Viet Nam". It's Afghanistan.
The number one mistake is to pretend that we are only dealing with Afghanistan. This is a regional problem. The second biggest mistake is to pretend that this is a nation-state government problem. There is absolutely no reason not to suspect that this less then a proxy-war, therefore, it isn't going to end until we acknowledge the greater forces at work.
The number one mistake is to pretend that we are only dealing with Afghanistan. This is a regional problem. The second biggest mistake is to pretend that this is a nation-state government problem. There is absolutely no reason not to suspect that this less then a proxy-war, therefore, it isn't going to end until we acknowledge the greater forces at work.
Pretty much every war, since WW2, has been a proxy war.
"Victory" in Afghanistan, or any country in the region is a wisp of smoke. The region could never be completely pacified short of total scorched earth. The military tactic of using forward fire bases is ,once again, proving to be nothing but dropping our guys into a meat grinder, to further the illusion that we have a 'presence' in the outlying areas, and by that alone that we have control. We should have just hit Al Queda, gave the Taliban a good beating , and pulled out , leaving smoking ruin behind. Then we could have claimed a 'victory' of sorts. The message being, if you harbor terrorists, it's going to hurt you far worse than it does us. Trying to keep a sizable force in the region is nothing but a drain, and we will tire far before the 'enemy' does.
Such a string of victories we've racked up in the last half century...
Korea, Vietnam, Lebanon, Bosnia, Grenada (the fourth largest country in the world gets military with a tiny speck of land in the Caribbean! I wonder if anyone was actually proud of that, other than Ronald Reagan?), Kuwait, Iraq, and now let's pencil in Afghanistan.
You wonder if the United States as a nation will ever learn.
So long as so many American companies and international financiers are making huge profits off the war America has learned well that war is profitable and that peace threatens that profit and local prosperity. The fate of our soldiers and "enemy" civillians is not considered a cost to the profiteers because they never sent their kids to fight or have relatives in the war torn areas.
Might may not make right but it does make (blood) money.
Our goal in Afghanistan is to deny Al Quada, the Taliban, and any other Islamic terror factions a safe haven and base of operations. We can do this by routing out those that are currently there, and at the same time helping setup a strong enough central government that can continue to do that on its own. A lot of historians used to say that Afghanistan was the Soviet Union's "vietnam" and I think that it is a fairly accurate analogy to say that if we leave tis job unfinished, or are forced to fight with one hand behind our back, it could result in being our "Vietnam: The Sequel."
Liberals, back off: we MUST bel allowed to win this war. It is a doable thing! Fer Cryin' out loud, we defeated Japan and Germany at one time, surely you must know we can take care of a few thousand Islamo-thugs.
Is there anyway we can actually win this war in Afghanistan? What metrics do we use to measure victory? Since we are not fighting a government that can surrender, how do we know if we have won?
The question to answer first would be:
- Why did we start this war, seven years ago, in the first place?
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