{"id":2065,"date":"2011-08-09T00:15:50","date_gmt":"2011-08-09T05:15:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/streamingradioguide.com\/startingover\/?p=2065"},"modified":"2011-11-26T12:30:15","modified_gmt":"2011-11-26T17:30:15","slug":"lets-bomb-the-crap-out-of-the-taliban","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/streamingradioguide.com\/startingover\/?p=2065","title":{"rendered":"Let’s bomb the crap out of the Taliban!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Several of the “right wing” talk show hosts went down this path today – the SEAL helicopter being shot down is proof that withdrawing our forces isn’t going to work, and we need to bomb the crap out of Afghanistan and crush them.<\/p>\n

A couple weeks ago, I made that point – sort of.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The difference is I said that’s what we should have done 10 years ago.\u00a0\u00a0 In the year following 9\/11, most of the world would have looked the other way at pretty much anything we did to Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

But it’s not 2002 – a lot has changed since then:<\/p>\n

– We facilitated installing\u00a0a corrupt government in Afghanistan, that has threatened us with non-cooperation if we try to do anything aggressive
\n– Russia sent the tanks into Georgia and toppled the government that was letting us use their air bases
\n– We chewed up a large amount of our military equipment and troops launching a war in Iraq
\n– We know know (or admit) that Pakistan was never our ally is the force behind the Taliban
\n–\u00a0 The President of the United States doesn’t have a clue<\/p>\n

If you want to “Bomb the Taliban”, those bombs have to come from somewhere.\u00a0\u00a0 Logistics are a huge problem in Afghanistan.\u00a0\u00a0 NATO has been trying to restore the rail link from the North, but it’s politically dicey – the countries the trains would have to go through are not particularly friendly and there is the problem of which gauge of railroad the country will have – European, Russian or Pakistan<\/p>\n

Afghanistan is landlocked.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The only substantial road into the country from the ocean goes through Pakistan.\u00a0\u00a0 If they don’t let us use their point and their roads, that’s not a way to get “bombs” to Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

Iran could be a way to get supplies to Afghanistan, but we aren’t on very good terms with them.<\/p>\n

Afghanistan is now a NATO operation, not a US Operation.\u00a0\u00a0 Most of NATO is pulling out their operations.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A map is worth a 1000 words.\u00a0\u00a0 Let’s look at the options:
\n– the country is roughly 600×400 miles in size.\u00a0 It has very few roads and no useful railroads.
\n– Iran shares a long border and has access to the Arabian Sea \/ Pacific Ocean.\u00a0\u00a0 They are not particularly our friends.\u00a0 Want to start another war to topple Iran?\u00a0 (I’m hearing rumblings we are planning to do just that)
\n– Pakistan – has bottled up most of our supplies in port, and attacked trucks transporting fuel and other supplies through the Khyber Pass
\n– The mountain area to the NE of Kabul is the disputed Kashmir region, a source of constant friction between Pakistan and India, and China would kind of like them too.
\n– The water area to the West of Turkmenistan is the Caspian Sea – it’s an inland sea with no connection to the ocean.\u00a0\u00a0 You aren’t going to get an aircraft carrier there
\n– Tajikistan – Tajik is an ethnic group which have a significant presence in Northern Afghanistan.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 They wouldn’t object to the country being split up and getting that part of Afghanistan, which was an artificial creation of the European powers to begin with
\n– Uzbekistan – the Uzbeks are another distinct ethnic group.\u00a0\u00a0 Uzbekistan is also landlocked – they have no access to anywhere unless you transit through Kazahkstan and Russia.\u00a0\u00a0 If Russia isn’t on board, this is a “no go” option.\u00a0\u00a0 For now, Russia is allowing “non-lethal” cargo to come in through Latvia and crossing Russia via rail – a trip over the Northern Distribution Network <\/a>that takes a couple weeks and has very limited capacity
\n– Turkmenistan – they have access to the Caspian sea, but that doesn’t go anywhere useful<\/p>\n

So unless Iran or Pakistan is helping us, everything pretty much is going to have to be flown in on cargo planes, including fuel – but who is going to let you cross their air space?\u00a0\u00a0 Iran?\u00a0 Pakistan?\u00a0 China?\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 From Baghdad to Kabul is about 1500 miles IF you flew in a straight line over Iran.<\/p>\n

Additional reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Several of the “right wing” talk show hosts went down this path today – the SEAL helicopter being shot down is proof that withdrawing our forces isn’t going to work, and we need to bomb the crap out of Afghanistan … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-war-and-not-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/streamingradioguide.com\/startingover\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/streamingradioguide.com\/startingover\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/streamingradioguide.com\/startingover\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/streamingradioguide.com\/startingover\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/streamingradioguide.com\/startingover\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2065"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/streamingradioguide.com\/startingover\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2065\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2071,"href":"https:\/\/streamingradioguide.com\/startingover\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2065\/revisions\/2071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/streamingradioguide.com\/startingover\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/streamingradioguide.com\/startingover\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/streamingradioguide.com\/startingover\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}