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Thread: Leave or Stay

  1. #41
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dayuhan View Post
    Inertia is a potent force in human affairs...
    That and the fundamental question that drives national politics: have the soldiers died in vain? It's a question of exaggerated fears, of moral obligations.

    To use a dangerous phrase, 'failure is not an option.'

    In a sense, it almost doesn't matter if the mission is succeeding or not.

    I don't envy Bush, Blair, Obama, etc. It requires extraordinary strength to speak to the mother of a dead soldier, or a soldier who has lost his limbs, and tell him that the failure of a mission has been realized and there is a need to withdraw.

    P.S. I don't believe anyone dies in vain. Soldiers die with a sense of mission and bravery. The value of their death isn't hinged on the policy-makers in Washington or London. Nor is it valued by sending more soldiers.

  2. #42
    Council Member Levi's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by taabistan View Post

    P.S. I don't believe anyone dies in vain. Soldiers die with a sense of mission and bravery.
    I respectfully disagree with that. That's not how anyone dies. Combat or otherwise.

    TDB:

    Your response to the Prince of Wales thing was the best. I laughed for an hour over that. If you are ever in the States, you are MORE than welcome to stay on the farm if the need arrises. We can shoot stuff. Or blow stuff up. Let me know in advance, and I will have Scotch and cigars on hand.

    As for my original question, it seems that most are in agreement that not much is to be gained by the US staying in Afghanistan, which reflects the feelings of people I have spoken to who live int the region. Any rebuilding will be, of course, done by the people of Afghanistan, with help from country's in the region. So lets (the US) GTFO. Soonest. Are those in position to say that, saying it? Or are we still pushing COIN? Because right now, this instant, or 5 years from now, what difference will it make? Does COIN encompass generational time frames?

  3. #43
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    The question is how to get out while obtaining the best possible consequences. And that depends on what the desired ends in the region are.
    My hope (vain hope) would be that the US gets out while making friends with Iran and India and while getting Pakistan to do the same.
    Of course, I know thats not going to happen. But what a boon that would be to the people of the region!

  4. #44
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    Quote Originally Posted by Levi View Post
    I respectfully disagree with that. That's not how anyone dies. Combat or otherwise.

    TDB:

    Your response to the Prince of Wales thing was the best. I laughed for an hour over that. If you are ever in the States, you are MORE than welcome to stay on the farm if the need arrises. We can shoot stuff. Or blow stuff up. Let me know in advance, and I will have Scotch and cigars on hand.

    As for my original question, it seems that most are in agreement that not much is to be gained by the US staying in Afghanistan, which reflects the feelings of people I have spoken to who live int the region. Any rebuilding will be, of course, done by the people of Afghanistan, with help from country's in the region. So lets (the US) GTFO. Soonest. Are those in position to say that, saying it? Or are we still pushing COIN? Because right now, this instant, or 5 years from now, what difference will it make? Does COIN encompass generational time frames?
    Why thank you kind sir and the invitation works both ways, except I don't have a farm, any guns or explosives. I do however have Scotch and cigars.

    The picture of what the strategy towards Afghanistan becomes more confusing by the day. The U.S is stepping up the rhetoric towards Pakistan and the Haqqani network. Karzai seems to have slipped even further into the depths of insanity. I'd be really interest to read an article about the state of Marjah and Nad Ali a year an a half after Moshtarak. While we know the Taliban were simply pushed into other areas like Nahr-e Saraj, I'd be interested to know how the "hold" and "build" aspects have gone. I know a year ago Marjah seemed to be improving in terms of ISAF-Local relations. The reason I'm bringing this up is because Marjah was being held up as a shinging example, if it has "worked" then it could boad well for the rest of Helmand. The East of the country is a altogether more tricky one.

  5. #45
    Council Member 82redleg's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by omarali50 View Post
    The question is how to get out while obtaining the best possible consequences. And that depends on what the desired ends in the region are.
    My hope (vain hope) would be that the US gets out while making friends with Iran and India and while getting Pakistan to do the same.
    Of course, I know thats not going to happen. But what a boon that would be to the people of the region!
    I think that the US is already "friends" with India- to the extent that nations can be friends.

    Why on earth do you think we would be anything but enemies with a regime in Teheran that opposes our existance and everything that we stand for in the world? When the Iranian people finally get rid of the crazies, then there will be something to talk about. Until then....

  6. #46
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    Here are my reasons for being friendy (ier?) with Iran:
    1. it is a real country with a real culture and its not going away.
    2. Its people are some of the most "modernized" (in the deep sense of the word) in the entire region and already are, and will be, a force to be reckoned with in that region.
    3. Its cultural influence extends well beyond its borders and is a huge step above the cultural influence US ally Saudi Arabia has been peddling in the region for the last few decades.
    4. Its regime is not crazy. They certainly don't "hate us and everything we stand for" with anything approaching the hatred the average Wahabi or even the average ISI officer feels for "everything we stand for".
    5. I dont take their rhetoric too seriously..its not meaningless, but they are not as crazy as they sometimes sound.
    6. There ARE truly dangerous people in that regime (dangerous most of all for their own countrymen and neighbors, less for for faraway United States) but so, there are dangerous people in the Pakistani and Saudi and Whatever regimes and the US manages to work with them or around them or even through them.
    7. "Friends" may not be the first step, but a lot can be done before that stage is reached. irrational enmity is not a good policy.

    and so on....we can agree to disagree.

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  8. #48
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    Ray:

    Great maps.

    Steve

  9. #49
    Council Member Dayuhan's Avatar
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    Have to wonder, though, about all those points in Afghanistan labeled "production, trading, mining". What, if anything, is actually being produced, traded, and mined in those locations?
    “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary”

    H.L. Mencken

  10. #50
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    Plans. We all have plans.
    "but verily, Allah is the best of planners.."

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