Comments on: Afghanistan: neither Vietnam nor Iraq, but closer home perhaps

By: brian

brian — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:37:10 +0000

Mufaso, concerning Iraq, all America wanted is for the country to be stable enough to keep a puppet government in power who is strong enough to keep the oil flowing.
Now that this has pretty much achieved it could probably be said that they won their war, though it cost them a lot more than expected, they could care less if the entire country turned was ruined in the process..
Oil flow guarantees US reconstruction contracts in Iraq and a dependable supplier of oil for the future (no more OPEC oil leverage or embargoes).

Ricardo, Afghanistan is a geo-strategic and economic prize none the less. There has been a plan for a ‘trans-Afghan pipeline’ for many years now that will tap into the vast natural gas reserves of central Asia distribute it through the region via Afghanistan.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Afgha nistan_Pipeline

Here’s what Obamas top political adviser has to say about central asia:

“About 75 per cent of the world’s people live in Eurasia, and most of the world’s physical wealth is there as well, both in its enterprises and underneath its soil. Eurasia accounts for about three-fourths of the world’s known energy resources.”

“exploitation of new sources of energy and the Central Asian region and the Caspian Sea basin are known to contain reserves of natural gas and oil that dwarf those of Kuwait, the Gulf of Mexico, or the North Sea.”

“For America, the chief geopolitical prize is Eurasia… Now a non-Eurasian power is preeminent in Eurasia – and America’s global primacy is directly dependent on how long and how effectively its preponderance on the Eurasian continent is sustained”

“For Pakistan, the primary interest is to gain Geostrategic depth through political influence in Afghanistan – and to deny to Iran the exercise of such influence in Afghanistan and Tajikistan – and to benefit eventually from any pipeline construction linking Central Asia with the Arabian Sea”

“That puts a premium on maneuver and manipulation in order to prevent the emergence of a hostile coalition that could eventually seek to challenge America’s primacy.”

“Moreover, as America becomes an increasingly multi-cultural society, it may find it more difficult to fashion a consensus on foreign policy issues, except in the circumstance of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat.”

By: brian

brian — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:13:33 +0000

I think the best analogy would be the Afghan / Mujaheddin war of the 80s..

But I prefer reality to comparison.

While it remains almost unfathomable that the worlds most powerful armies together cant even find one man let alone win a war in a third world country where after 8 years the situation is worse than ever, maybe the answers aren’t that complicated. Maybe the Afghans themselves are against the coalition and the invasion?

When you hear things like, profound electoral fraud and political corruption, massive bribes being paid to the Taliban, security at an all time low and the absolute explosion in the heroin production from almost zero to 90% of the worlds supply it’s hard to imagine Afghans being happy about this..

By: hankster6

hankster6 — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 19:58:38 +0000

Since the president can’t make up his mind about sending the requested troops that his top general wants, I have changed my mind about the whole situation! Instead of allowing our troops to be ”
sitting ducks”, I say pull our troops out to keep more from getting killed. There is no use in having them in harms way if we do not intend on winning the war. That’s not real bright! The president speaks our of both sides of his mouth. He says it is a necessary war, but he is not in favor of sending the troops needed to win!!! If we are not there to win, pull out and I don’t mean waiting, and waiting, and waiting. The president doesn’t seem to care how many of our troops get killed. I wonder if he would be in favor of pulling them out to save a few lives. If he doesn’t care how many get killed, he might as well leave them there until most are killed. Which cost more, shipping them home in coffins or bringing them home alive!! I suspect, bringing them home alive would save more money. Maybe, he would think that saving money is more important. He needs to save all he can so he will have more to spend!
Get the troops our ASAP. They are trapped. He will probably take another 6 months to make up his mind about withdrawing the troops, which will allow more to be killed!

By: Ricardo

Ricardo — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 15:33:21 +0000

Sometimes I ask myself,what’s the point of sending young men to die in some forsaken place where only poppies grow amid the ragged mountains to fuel the heroine industry?. Unlike Iraq there is no oil. The Soviet Union was the latest of the powers to withdraw in defeat. B ut I guess Obama has to have his own war, as Bush’s had Iraq. It’s going to get much worse before it gets better.

By: Mufaso

Mufaso — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 13:21:48 +0000

Once again I will ask: Did America win or lose the war in Iraq? Did America just abandon one war for another or what? America will lose this war and then invade another country, most probably Iran. Then it will repeat the pattern throughout the Middle East until somebody puts a stop to it.

By: Scott

Scott — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 13:00:20 +0000

Unless we develop a comprehensive South Asia strategy, the most we can hope for is a temporary peace in Afghanistan.

What would such a strategy look like? Well, at the very least it requires some moderation of the strategic competition between India and Pakistan.

Without attention to this aspect of the problem, we really are only playing around at the edges of the conflict.

For more, see: http://bit.ly/3vYHPk