Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal is the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan – at least for a few more hours. One way to get yourself out of a job is to badmouth your boss to Rolling Stone magazine.
General McChrystal was hand-picked by President Obama to “fight the right war” in Afghanistan, and while VP Joe Biden was advocating selective attacks on Al Qaeda using Special Ops, General McChrystal wanted to re-fight the last war – the “surge” in Iraq – in a country that is nothing like Iraq.
It’s clear now to anyone paying attention that there is zero chance of Afghanistan ever becoming a viable country in the sense the West thinks of it, in contrast to Iraq which had been probably the most western friendly Islamic republic other than Turkey, with a highly educated population and well developed government institutions.
This will sound derogatory, but it is not. Afghanis are the cockroaches of humanity. Should we ever be stupid enough to blow ourselves up with nuclear weapons, it will be the Afghans who survive and repopulate the earth. They have no use for any aspect of modern technology or western civilization. They have a primitive successful subsistance based on family relationships and a strict code of conduct that doesn’t depend on stock markets, banks, electricity, the Internet, gasoline, airplanes or roads.
Our problem is with Pakistan, not Afghanistan. To the degree Al Quaeda was in Afghanistan with the Taliban, it was with the blessing and support of the government of Pakistan, who I believe also helped evacuate Bin Ladin as our forced arrives. Until we own up to that and the broader issue of Islam, we are treating the symptom, not the root cause.
The 9/11 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia. Al Qaeda’s funding is from Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam. If we aren’t prepared to address that, then we need to develop a strategy to protect ourselves from the real enemy. Shutting down oil drilling in the U.S. does not move us in the right direction.
I am not sure if the Afghanis will survive if the West blows itself up. If that happens who will buy the drugs that they produce from their opium poppies? It may not be as simple as you describe.
Afghanistan is an artificial creation – a legacy of European attempts at colonialism. The money in heroine production is not in growing the poppies.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=3294
I stand by my opinion.
I’m having a hard time remembering what we are doing over there. Other than defending the human rights of Afganiis… That seems to be an black hole issue with culture and poverty. The mission of capturing OBL isn’t doing very well, is it?
It’s possible that if we abandon Afghanistan, the Taliban and Al Quaida will reestablish themselves and be back over here to kill us and blow up some more buildings. Or do you think that would never happen? On second thought, the US forces are so constrained by the Rules of Engagement that we can’t win any wars anyway. That’s why General McChrystal said what he did to Rolling Stone magazine. His people are getting killed and no one can respond without facing charges. It appears that we will never be able to win any battles ever again. Pull out and do nothing but buy their narcotics. That’ll save us. Just some of my thoughts on this Wednesday afternoon.
The planning of 9/11 took place at a meeting in Indonesia. Al Qaeda is active in Yemen. They’re also active in NortheEast Africa and inside Pakistan. It’s not one isolated group of people in one place.
I fell off the Afghanistan wagon completely with the “Afghanistan has a $trillion in natural resources” ploy by General Patraeus about a week ago. That was clearly nothing more than a ploy to dangle a phantom carrot to get stupid and / or greedy people to agree to extending our presence thereby redefining the mission.
Back in Vietnam, the possibility of offshore oil was used in a similar way. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.