Maslow is attributed with saying “It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.” I don’t think the source is critical to the question? Matt over at Blackfive sorta indirectly posed a question that should be reverberating everywhere. Time to leave Afghanistan?
I left a comment there, but the TAH commenters are a different lot.
I know what happened in several cases when we opted to pull out, but maybe, just maybe, we need to be looking for the nearest nail??
Should we be moving our focus, or what?
History repeats itself
For the first time, I’m seriously questioning if they are even capable of being fit for civilization.
We’re bankrupting ourselves for what? Watching our best get maimed and dead, for what? I was ok with the mission, warts and all, when it seemed at least possible.
And screw going back in fill-in-the-blank years. Tomahawks with 250KT-1MT yield warheads … and wait until there’s a prevailing eastern wind so it all falls on Pakistan. And since we’d be pilloried over it, may as well take out Iran while we’re at it.
Assuming we have a NCA in place with the stones to do it.
I would echo what OldSoldier54 has to say.
If I had my druthers, we’d build a massive wall all around that country and not let anyone in or out forever. The Afghans haven’t changed since the times of Cyrus. It is a primitive, tribal-based “nation” with no concept of human dignity, personal responsibility or any level of morality above those of shit-flinging monkeys and booger-eating inbreds.
I had lots of hope that, perhaps, we could bring real change to this wart on humanity’s backside, but I’ve given up on that thought. It simply isn’t possible to even drag pedophile warlords and their drug-crazed, goat-humping misogynist sycophant followers into the 15th century, let alone the 21st.
Afghanistan’s only possible hope would be for us to take every child below the age of 18 away, and educate them, and kill everyone else, then send the kids back to repopulate the land. That’s probably not going to happen, so I’d actually consider nuking the whole place, especially if the fallout could cover most of Pakistan as well.
Other’s mileage may vary, but at this point, I don’t see a lot of other options.
Concur with both #2 and #3
I have begrudgingly come to the conclusion that there is nothing left to be gained from our continued presence in Afghanistan. The people simply do not respond to the carrot only the stick. It seems that no matter how many good deeds we do they only look for the next excuse to commit acts of violence. Before we got there they did it to themselves, they continue to do it to themselves while using our presence, or the acts of cartoonists or wacked out preachers, as cover.
I just don’t believe the people can be rehabilitated or brought into the 21st century or even the 17th century for that matter.
I would order my commanders to begin withdrawal to be completed within a year. Leave nothing behind that can be used. If you can’t bring it back with you, destroy it, and that goes for everything from outhouses to ammo cans.
I would also tell the entire region that if you export your violence we will respond with a carpet bombing with not so smart bombs for every incident with the target being selected from where the terrorists came from. It’s a language they understand. If you attack my village I will attack yours.
Some where along the way our society has lost the stomach to visit horror on the enemy in a fashion that the enemy will well and truly understand. While I still believe victory is an intellectual possibility, I don’t believe it’s realistically possible within the confines of the current ROE, political climate, or national will.
I’ve been for nuking the place since this whole thing started. But if we’re not going to fight it to win it, why continue?
Afghanistan is the way it is because the only people who have given it their attention are tyrants. Until now. Remember the story of Helen Keller. She was born blind and deaf, at a time when children like that were put in asylums and forgotten. Her parents brought in Anne Sullivan to teach her, and Anne Sullivan’s methods were called foolish by all of the “experts” of the day. Look at what that one teacher accomplished with that one child. No. Look at what the situation that came from that one teacher and that one child did for people everywhere.
I believe we are Afghanistan’s Anne Sullivan. We’ve hung in there and continued the mission when everyone else would have given up. Who else could have — would have! — faced the Taliban / insurgents like we have? No matter whether the Afghanis agree or disagree with our being there, they will never forget us, particularly the children. And it is the children that are Afghanistan’s hope and tomorrow.
We do eventually have to leave Afghanistan. It’s not our country. I defer to the soldiers who post here who know if it is time for us to leave; they would know that far better than I do. But from just what I’ve heard and read, our time there has not been futile; I believe the future will be the proof of that.
If not, we will be there for decades- at least. As posted about, these people are still living in the 11th century outside of small pockets like Khandahar. In order to “make them in our image(Democracy), we will have to rebuild a whole country and bring it centuries into the future.
With 50% of the country willing to cut the defense budget, but not medicare or medicaid-Do you really think the American people have the will to stick this committment out? One of the best bumper stickers I saw at Campbell said ” America isn’t at war, Soldiers are at war– America is at the mall.”
Unfortunately, we are married to the Oil interests to the Middle East, we need to involve ourselves in the region even in tangential matters. Also in our globalized society, with the type of weapons technology the very few can indeed affect the very many. There is no historical model for this. No Empire or Democracy in history has had to deal with the possibility that 2 or three men could destroy an entire city.
the only way to prevent that it so get the host culture for said small team to have good feelings toward said powerful entity.
Having an army (no offense to Marines) of warriors tied up in Afghanistan where they can’t take the offensive to close with and destroy the enemy in his den creates the condition of industrialized killing, same as Ypres in World War I.
It also fixes the US in place utilizing an economy of force (a few thousand Taliban, at minimal expense) that we will overmatch. Meanwhile: the north African countries are burning and the developing power vacuums may create four or five countries dedicated as sanctuaries to terrorists.
Afghanistan isn’t the place to be anymore. Keeping forces and stuff there for longer than the period to pull them out is an act of intention: to prevent the US from employing its forces to close with, and destroy the enemy on his own turf.
Damn Dave, now there’s an analysis I can live with.