problem is I don't think its possible to kill "them" all no matter how long you stay or how much money you spend."We will support efforts by the Afghan government to open the door to those Taliban who abandon violence and respect the human rights of their fellow citizens," Obama said. "And we will seek a partnership with Afghanistan grounded in mutual respect -- to isolate those who destroy; to strengthen those who build; to hasten the day when our troops will leave; and to forge a lasting friendship in which America is your partner, and never your patron."
If you don't kill them they'll just return to their old ways once we are gone. Fail.
Now all they have to do is stop fighting and wait for us to leave.
Oh I fully agree with you there too, I was just saying.problem is I don't think its possible to kill "them" all no matter how long you stay or how much money you spend.
For me its the definition of what winning means. To me it trying to help stabilize the gov, police and military and give the people some hope to have a semi honest gov. I think that is Obama's main objective. I hate to think what the taliban would do to the people if the troops were pulled out tomorrow. I dont think we can win on the battlefield but in tranferring knowledge and technology. Whether it was right to go into Afghanistan after 9/11 or not is not the point anymore. We are there and to me its not a simple exit nor should it be open ended.we will not win the war in afganistan.
Al-qaeda is already gone from there, they ran into pakistan. they will always exist, all we can do is not give them any reason to hate the western world.
you are fighting locals who have succesfully held back and expunged every single outside imperial force that has tried to overtake their land. they have done it before, and will do it again.....
"He ain't got birf certificut neither"I liked the part where he said the Afghan election, even though it was marred by fraud, produced a result consistent with their constitution. Obama's own election, marred by fraud, did NOT produce a result consistent with the constitution - it produced an ineligible illegal usurper president.
So you're saying the "shadow government" keeps up with the times and like Madison Avenue advertising executives decides, "let's put a black guy in this role?"It's just too weird for one that America voted in a man of a different race other than the norm and I'm certainly not being racist I just know American's are not that progressive, and now for this enigma to be just more of the status quo.
We've been there EIGHT YEARS, and what have we accomplished so far?
And now, 30,000 more will win the war?
I sat next to a soilder coming home from Afganastan on an airplane recently. He said it is a hopeless situation. He said the enemy comes running out of Pakastan, shoots a few Americans and runs back to Pakistan before we can even realize we are being attacked and can get some help.
I wish someone would ask Obama about the poppys and the Heroin.
That's rich, coming from a birther.So you're saying the "shadow government" keeps up with the times and like Madison Avenue advertising executives decides, "let's put a black guy in this role?"
Maybe so but it "is" a tad paranoid.
its not just the heroin all of the squidgy black/ gold seal thats in europe atm comes from the kashmiri region if you look at a whole bar there is a large islamic design (~i cant remember exactly what i says) something along the lines of with allah we will prevail.Roseman, the poppies are the real key to breaking the taliban. Yeah, sure, Afghanistan is the 'graveyard of empires', but the taliban has FOUR BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR from the opium harvest. That's a lot of bullets.
So why don't we just spray the fields you say? And trigger a humanitarian catastrophe that would magnify the cost and consequences of this war beyond all reckoning. Opium growers are small-scale farmers who are just growing the crop that makes the most jing. They live next to their fields and their food is growing right there too. Thousands of little farmlets.
So to get at the opium flow and cut off the taliban's major source of funding the complete supression of the insurgency in the poppy growing regions should be the primary military focus
I don't know about winning any war. The taliban are arguably the natural rulers of Afghanistan; they are the most ruthless, most unified and that's what it takes to be boss there. We can stay as long as we want and when we leave they will likely spring up again and take over.
But the real problem here is nuclear Pakistan, which is quite weak politically, although their army is massive and quite seasoned. Toppling Pakistan is probably al-Qaeda's number 1 goal right now and obviously we can't afford to let that happen. India would probably lose their mind, China, Israel, Iran would all get into it, who knows how far that could go?
If we leave Afghanistan, al-Qaeda moves back and operates as freely as before 2001, making their efforts against Pakistan all that more telling. There's no one else to do it but us. To walk away would be grossly irresponsible. And we are responsible, in a large historical sense, for much of the current situation.