You know what bothers me about this escalation?

[nadinbrzezinski]

We are eight years late to change the dynamics that have existed in that area of the world for oh at least two millennium.

Yes the WEST, no, not just the US... refused to help change that dynamic back in 1991... and of course after the Taliban fell.

So the US will learn the same lesson Alexander the Great learned.

Two things.

Afghanistan is NOT a nation, but a collection of tribes.

Afghanistan has defeated every invader since oh Alexander...

Oh and Al Qaida... long gone... and this war on terror is a war on a tactic... one we invented in its modern form.

But yes, the dynamics could have been changed, but we are about eight years too late.

[Ken Burch]

1. K&R

n/t.

[tekisui]

2. We are throwing good troops at an unwinnable war.

[ShortnFiery]

3. It's never too late for us taxpayers to GIFT another trillion bucks to the corporations comprising

the Military Industrial Complex.

No, there's TONS of money to be made through DEATH and DESTRUCTION.


FOLLOW THE MONEY! :evilgrin:

[mod mom]

4. We still have a tainted electronic voting system w proprietary source code, so those in power

are not afraid of their actions. You're correct -follow the money.

[lapfog_1]

5. More like 20 years too late.

We bailed on them before, right after we supported what is now the Taliban in kicking some Soviet ass... then after the Soviets left, we left. We should have stuck around and provided them with infrastructure rebuilding (schools for both boys and girls would have been nice). And some economic opportunity (grow something else besides poppies, or grow poppies and find a different use for them).

[nadinbrzezinski]

7. That is 1991

and at heart this is a civil war between urban elites (and tribes too) and rural populations

And yes I am simplifying the living daylights out of this.

[RaleighNCDUer]

15. You are aware that the government the soviets were backing

provided equal opportunities to women including posts in the government and university educations - and WE supported the people became the generation of drug lords and misogynists.

If we had never interfered in the first place NONE of this would have ever happened, and Afghanistan would be a moderately prosperous democracy today.

The SOVIETS were on the RIGHT SIDE.

[lapfog_1]

17. Of course. That's the irony.

We've switched sides.

[Ghost Dog]

19. Bingo. And much the same would apply to Iran.

[thereismore]

6. Maybe we'll manage to split Afghanistan along tribal lines, right after some ethnic cleansing.

That'll be the lasting peace solution. :sarcasm:

[nadinbrzezinski]

11. Oh that will happen whether we are there or not

The army is now dominated by the Tajik... and that could be bad news... not that this would be different if ANOTHER tribe was dominant either...

[HughMoran]

8. There is a way to win.

It's quite simple. Ask anybody who wants to live to leave. We will provide the buses. Vaporize the land. Done.

[nadinbrzezinski]

9. You are serious

use nukes....

Well then... shall we just use the 100 that we need to get a nuclear winter going?

I mean that will solve the global weather change problem too.

[HughMoran]

16. Now there's clever thinking!!

We could save a bunch on all this cap and trade bullshit in the process!!

I think you should be president ;)

































oh, and for the terminally reactive, :sarcasm:

[berni_mccoy]

10. Two things

Al Qaida isn't gone.

The entire world is engaged in this conflict... on one side against Al Qaida and the Taliban.

[nadinbrzezinski]

12. Yes, Al Qaida is across the border

and that was told by General McChrystal oh in March.

And NATO is NOT the entire world.

[tekisui]

14. The entire world:

[berni_mccoy]

20. Your graph is wrong

The NATO force, ISAF has over 75,000 troops in Afghanistan, of which only 30 thousand are US.

[tekisui]

21. Link?

BBC is the source on that chart.

[berni_mccoy]

23. From the NATO itself

As of Oct. 22nd: http://www.nato.int/isaf/docu/epub/pdf/placemat.pdf

[spanone]

13. bu$h* fucked it up beyond just pulling out the troops.it'll be Obama's war now, but that's the truth

[Chulanowa]

18. Bush who?

We're democrats, we don't know who this "Bush" is you speak of! Obama started this war, and he's making it worse now! We should all start voting Nader!

:sarcasm:

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

22. Oh for fuck's sake.

1. Alexander the fucking Great fucking CONQUERED what's now modern Afghanistan. Hellenism endured there for hundreds of years after his death. Sure, 19th Britain failed. The Soviets failed. Alexander the Great didn't. Not that an analogy between a modern army and a 300 fucking BCE would ever apply anyway.

2. Afghanistan WAS a nation, a good one relatively speaking, and can be again.

[RaleighNCDUer]

24. Of course, the Brits failed because the Tsar was providing arms to

anti-British insurgents and buying the friendship of tribal chiefs. The Brits leaving and the Russian Revolution pretty much ended the messing with Afghanistan and it was a moderately prosperous and stable and even progressive country which the king modeled after post-Ottoman Turkey.

And the Russians failed because WE were providing money and arms to a minority insurgency. Things were relatively easy for them until we started giving anti-aircraft weaponry to the mujahadeen.

But it is the Graveyard of Empires. Everybody knows that.




This stuff is the result of people making decisions based on history classes that were too boring to stay awake through.

[Romulox]

26. LOL at going back to Alexander the Great (356–323 BC) to justify nation building in 2009!

Well played!

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

27. Is that how you read that?

Shame about all that wasted community college tuition.

[Romulox]

25. I think the idea that "the WEST" can give a group of stone age tribes a civil society

smacks of more than a little "white man's burden". :shrug:

Take up the White Man's burden--
Send forth the best ye breed--
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild--
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child.