News out of Afghanistan not good, and Obama continues to be indecisive and stalling. We are apparently reaping the benefits of a president that is not engaged in his job, a man that talked to his commanders but a few minutes over the past few months. He is instead more interested in his domestic power grabs?
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,564121,00.html?test=latestnews
Afghan Outlook Bleak as Taliban Grabs Territory
...
I arrived in Afghanistan in spring 2006, just as violence began to explode. I leave after three years as the chief correspondent for The Associated Press, and never have things seemed so ominous. As one of America's top military analysts, Anthony Cordesman, says: The U.S. "is now decisively losing."
No one thinks Kabul will fall while American forces are here. But even top U.S. commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal's latest assessment says that without reversing insurgent momentum in the next 12 months, defeating the insurgency will no longer be possible.
...
@okie,
Quote:... defeating the insurgency will no longer be possible.
The Afghans are slowly bleeding the NATO insurgents. The US will soon be airlifting folks off the embassy roof; same ole same ole, another US fuckup.
@George,
I am thinking this might be the better strategy since (without using offensive words like Jihad's which get no one anywhere) AQ and other extremist groups including the Taliban is spread out in more than country over there. I never did like the thought of running other countries but I don't think we should just run away from our enemies because it is hard either. We should employ both diplomacy and military means to this fight on extremist terrorism and perhaps these sorts of strategies are being considered now.
I find it really ironic for conservatives to gripe about Obama taking his time to rethink the Afghanistan/Pakistan problem when they saw nothing wrong with taking a four year detour in Iraq of which reason the Taliban and AQ was able to retreat in Pakistan and regroup and emerge now as a bigger threat while we have been bogged down in Iraq.
@okie,
I like indecisive. Bush was never indecisive, but just stuck with policies that ruined our country.
McC's surge would do nothing good. But it would set up more GI's for the ultimate slaughter of our people.
@Advocate,
Advocate wrote:
I like indecisive.
I hope you are in the minority of this country?
Quote:Bush was never indecisive, but just stuck with policies that ruined our country.
Ruined our country? That seems like a pretty far fetched statement at the very least.
Quote:McC's surge would do nothing good. But it would set up more GI's for the ultimate slaughter of our people.
Wait a minute now, this is the general that was hand picked by Obama. If he has no confidence in his judgement, why is he still there? And would Obama who has zero knowledge or experience in the military, is it logical for him to claim to know more about strategy than his generals that made a career of studying and experiencing warfare? That seems like a pretty far fetched thing to hang your hat on it seems to me.
Advocate, for a guy that is intensely interested in Israel and the illegal immigrant issues, I would think your confidence in Obama would be taking a pretty big hit by now, that is if you are actually monitoring what Obama is doing?
@okie,
You are so predictable (sort of like Bush), and always wrong. Obama is surrounded by people smarter than McC. James Jones is an example. Obama misjudged McC and, hopefully, will soon correct this.
I think the country is in deep trouble due to Bush, and is largely ruined. A lot of the damage is invisable to a rightist like you. Hopefully, Obama will pull us out of our terrible situation. This will be tough to do with the traitors on the right devoted to his ruin.
@Advocate,
Wow, those are some pretty heady words you have there. I think as well that the country is in deep trouble, but I believe it for different reasons, that it is due to the irresponsible leftist and non-conservative policies of the past few decades.
I could list all the reasons, but in short it is irresponsible spending and the embedding of entitlement spending commitments that are threatening to break the country financially, examples include social security, medicare, and wild spending sprees like the multi-hundred billion so-called Obama stimulus bill that has not stimulated the economy hardly at all, certainly not long term. The fact is Obama neither believes in capitalism or understands it. The only thing he understands is his own ego and arrogance, that he alone knows better than any of us. It is also the irresponsible basic refusal of the Democratic Congresses to make sure illegal immigration is stopped, primarily because they see pandering to their potential voter constituents as more important than obeying their oath to uphold the constitution and the laws. This one thing alone threatens to take the state of California into total financial ruin. It is also a broken educational system that will not fix itself but instead chooses to protect the jobs of the teachers, the same teachers, administrations, and federal government that place more emphasis on political correctness than the 3 Rs. It is also a Congress made up of mostly lawyers that protect their own, such as the ambulance chasers that leach off of the medical industry, and that refuse to fix the corruption and waste in their very own institutions and bureaucracies.
Ultimately, it is the American people that are responsible for continuing to elect the wrong people, the people that continue to promise more and more for another vote, but continue to do less and less in terms of their constitutionally mandated responsibilities. It is the American people that are becoming more immoral, that shack up with their babes and have kids but then expect the government to pay for them, that spend more on gambling, lotteries, and believe there is a free lunch, and vote for politicians that will promise them one.
Sigh. My major concern is not about the implications for the US, or Obama. It's about the effects of ongoing war on the ordinary people of Afghanistan.
@msolga,
With the Taliban in charge do you believe that the ordinary people will be safer if we left altogether? Were they before we came? Was the Taliban not a harsh regime killing innocent civilians who did not abide by their laws ? I am not saying we should stay or leave or send more troops (I have been rethinking it since last we posted) but it is not as though if we left the person who was fraudulently elected in the last election cycle will be able to keep the Taliban from retaking the country when he can not even control his country now.
Quote:Initially, Taliban Militia rule was welcomed. It was successful at restoring law and order and reducing corruption. However, the Taliban Militia has no desire to mold Afghanistan into a centralized state. It has no established foreign, economic or infrastructure policies. As a result, Afghanistan's standard of living has declined. There are high levels of unemployment, hunger, malnutrition and disease. A high percentage of the population, especially those in urban areas, rely on foreign aid provided by the United Nations and other humanitarian organizations for their daily existence. Furthermore, the United Nations and other international communities have condemned the Taliban Militia's enforcement of their extreme interpretation of Islamic law and subsequent human rights violations. These violations include banning television, music and cinema (considered Western decadences); public amputations and executions; closure of girls' schools; and imposing restrictions on women's work, freedom of movement and dress. The Taliban Militia's rule in Afghanistan is recognized only by Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. On October 10, 1999, the United States government imposed political and economic sanctions on Afghanistan for the Taliban Militia's refusal to extradite Osama Bin Laden, the Saudi billionaire thought to be the mastermind behind the August 7, 1998 bombings of the American embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and the September 11, 2001, bombings of the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon building in Washington, D.C.
source
Taliban Control Spreads in Afghanistan
Quote:Eight years after the terror strike on the United States, which prompted an invasion of Afghanistan to oust the Taliban, there are indications that the insurgents are continuing to widen their reach inside the country. Meanwhile, some high-ranking British and American officials are expressing mounting concern about Afghanistan's fraud-tainted election process.
A respected international think tank has released a new map showing, for the first time, the Taliban have a "permanent presence" in 80 percent of Afghanistan. "Permanent presence" in a province is defined as one or more insurgent attacks - lethal and non-lethal - per week.
Alexander Jackson is a policy analyst at the International Council on Security and Development in London.
"We're now seeing Taliban control across the country. And one of the most significant things that we're seeing in this latest map is the increased level of Taliban presence in the north of the country. Provinces such as Kunduz and Balkh, which previously were relatively stable, are now seeing very high levels of Taliban activity," he said.
And that has resulted in a drastic increase of insurgent attacks against Afghan government, international and civilian targets in those areas.
The report's release comes at a sensitive time.
@revel,
(It's after midnight here, revel, & I must head off to bed very soon ... so my response will have to be brief, at this point, anyway ....)
From my own reading, it sounds as though the ordinary people haven't fared very well, whether it's at the hands of the Taliban, the war lords, the current government, NATO forces, etc .... Interestingly, the accounts I've come across by Afghan
women seems to suggest that the best deal
they received was from the Russians.
I'd be happy to discuss this further when I have more time, though.
@msolga,
You seem to have given the humanity side of Afghanistan a lot of thought and research and I respect you for that.
Friedman, as usual, hits a homerun.
By Thomas L. Friedman
If President Obama can find a way to balance the precise number of troops that will stabilize Afghanistan and Pakistan, without tipping America into a Vietnam there, then he indeed deserves a Nobel Prize " for physics.
I have no problem with the president taking his time to figure this out. He and we are going to have to live with this decision for a long time. For my money, though, I wish there was less talk today about how many more troops to send and more focus on what kind of Afghan government we have as our partner.
Because when you are mounting a counterinsurgency campaign, the local government is the critical bridge between your troops and your goals. If that government is rotten, your whole enterprise is doomed.
Independent election monitors suggest that as many as one-third of votes cast in the Aug. 20 election are tainted and that President Hamid Karzai apparently engaged in massive fraud to come out on top. Yet, he is supposed to be the bridge between our troop surge and our goal of a stable Afghanistan. No way.
I understand the huge stakes in stabilizing Afghanistan and Pakistan. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, our top commander there who is asking for thousands more troops, is not wrong when he says a lot of bad things would flow from losing Afghanistan to the Taliban. But I keep asking myself: How do we succeed with such a tainted government as our partner?
I know that Jefferson was not on the ballot. But there is a huge difference between “good enough” and dysfunctional and corrupt. Whatever we may think, there are way too many Afghans who think our partner, Karzai and his team, are downright awful.
That is why it is not enough for us to simply dispatch more troops. If we are going to make a renewed commitment in Afghanistan, we have to visibly display to the Afghan people that we expect a different kind of governance from Karzai, or whoever rules, and refuse to proceed without it. It doesn’t have to be Switzerland, but it does have to be good enough " that is, a government Afghans are willing to live under. Without that, more troops will only delay a defeat.
I am not sure Washington fully understands just how much the Taliban-led insurgency is increasingly an insurrection against the behavior of the Karzai government " not against the religion or civilization of its international partners. And too many Afghan people now blame us for installing and maintaining this government.
Karzai is already trying to undermine more international scrutiny of this fraudulent election and avoid any runoff. Monday his ally on the Electoral Complaints Commission, Mustafa Barakzai, resigned, alleging “foreign interference.” That is Karzai trying to turn his people against us to prevent us from cleaning up an election that he polluted.
Talking to Afghanistan experts in Kabul, Washington and Berlin, a picture is emerging: The Karzai government has a lot in common with a Mafia family. Where a “normal” government raises revenues from the people " in the form of taxes " and then disperses them to its local and regional institutions in the form of budgetary allocations or patronage, this Afghan government operates in the reverse. The money flows upward from the countryside in the form of payments for offices purchased or “gifts” from cronies.
What flows from Kabul, the experts say, is permission for unfettered extraction, protection in case of prosecution and punishment in case the official opposes the system or gets out of line. In “Karzai World,” it appears, slots are either sold (to people who buy them in order to make a profit) or granted to cronies, or are given away to buy off rivals.
We have to be very careful that we are not seen as the enforcers for this system.
While visiting Afghanistan last July, I met a key provincial governor who every U.S. official told me was the best and most honest in Afghanistan " and then, they added, “We have to fight Karzai every day to keep him from being fired.” That is what happens to those who buck the Karzai system.
This is crazy. We have been way too polite, and too worried about looking like a colonial power, in dealing with Karzai. I would not add a single soldier there before this guy, if he does win the presidency, takes visible steps to clean up his government in ways that would be respected by the Afghan people.
If Karzai says no, then there is only one answer: “You’re on your own, pal. Have a nice life with the Taliban. We can’t and will not put more American blood and treasure behind a government that behaves like a Mafia family. If you don’t think we will leave " watch this.” (Cue the helicopters.)
So, please, spare me the lectures about how important Afghanistan and Pakistan are today. I get the stakes. But we can’t want a more decent Afghanistan than the country’s own president. If we do, we have no real local partner who will be able to hold the allegiance of the people, and we will not succeed " whether with more troops, more drones or more money.
Quote:I am not sure Washington fully understands just how much the Taliban-led insurgency is increasingly an insurrection against the behavior of the Karzai government " not against the religion or civilization of its international partners. And too many Afghan people now blame us for installing and maintaining this government.
Yea, and what was the Taliban's excuse when it ran the country in inhumane ways before Karzai was installed as leader? They merely want their control of Afghan people back; they do not have the good will of the country as their goal anymore than we do. Meanwhile the Taliban still wrecks havoc and is aligned with AQ (in Pakistan) and always has been and pose a risk to our security in the US.
@revel,
Is it your view that it is the duty of the USA to rescue every country that is threatened by its own people? We don't have enough troops, or wealth, for this.
@Advocate,
That is not the point. The point is that the author of the article you posted made out like the only reason the Taliban is killing innocent civilians is because they oppose our presence there. They never were innocent, they were a brutal regime who has been allies with AQ since before the start of the Afghanistan war in 2001. They will still have ties with AQ in the event we leave. AQ still has a war against the US and its western allies not distinguishing between those in the military and innocent civilians and so we remain at risk with the Taliban and AQ. Not to mention AQ was the ones who attacked us supported by the Taliban and they still retain those ties and in fact are stronger than they ever were before.
I am not saying we send more troops just to Afghanistan, Perhaps there should be a broader effort to fight the war on AQ and the Taliban compassing both Pakistan and Afghanistan and perhaps other areas. But I do not believe we should just throw in the towel because I don't think we will loose if keep focusing on those groups who would attack us, we can constrict their movements, but we will have to keep it up. We should in fact defend our country and not just roll over because we might loose; AQ and the Taliban certainly will not even if we do. This is where the fight should have been all along and it makes no sense to give up so soon after revamping it so to speak.
However, along with military means, I do think people are right and that we have to employ diplomatic and other non military measures. If there in fact moderate Taliban or other extremist or groups who just oppose the government, then perhaps we should negotiate with them as well like we did in the (just before) surge in Iraq which turned out to have worked.
Well, gotta get ready to take my daughter to the hospital to have a baby tomorrow. Will be there all night and likely tomorrow, so you will be spared any more pontificating from me for a while.
@revel,
Good luck with your daughter and her baby.
First, the AQ is in Pakistan, not Afghanistan. We should not stay in Afghanistan, killing many Afghans and sacrificing our kids and wealth, on the chance that AQ will move back into Afghanistan, and be tolerated there. It is as simple as that.
@Advocate,
Thank you, she had a her baby and so far, the baby is doing well too. Will likely go to see her again today, so will be gone again.
We are not waiting on some chance AQ will move back into Afghanistan so your premise is wrong. We have had this Pakistan/AQ and Taliban discussion a few time now, advocate, and you do not seem be grasp the point that although AQ is mostly in Pakistan, the Taliban has been collaborating and is basically partners with AQ and they have been carrying out acts in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Taliban has control of 80% of the country in Afghanistan. I left links to all statements in the past.
Quote:PESHAWAR, Pakistan " A trio of suicide attackers, including a rare female bomber, set off two blasts outside a police station in the northwest Pakistani city of Peshawar on Friday, killing 11 people in the latest bloodshed in an unrelenting wave of terror plaguing the country.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility but suspicion fell on the Taliban, who have been blamed for two weeks of attacks that have killed more than 150 people across the country and appear aimed at forcing the government to abandon a planned offensive into the militants' stronghold along the Afghan border.
source
@revel,
You say that AQ is mostly in Pakistan. That is quite an understatement considering that only about 100 AQ are in Afghanistan.
You have no proof that they are collaborating in any significant way.
If your statement that the Taliban controls 80% of Afghanistan is true, then it is all over, and we should get the hell out.
@Advocate,
Quote:You say that AQ is mostly in Pakistan. That is quite an understatement considering that only about 100 AQ are in Afghanistan.
Mostly is not an understatement.
Quote:You have no proof that they are collaborating in any significant way.
I showed you proof of their collaboration in very significant ways, you have just chosen to ignore it. As of today the Pakistan military is now fighting both the Taliban and AQ in South Waziristan, Pakistan where they have a stronghold.
Quote:If your statement that the Taliban controls 80% of Afghanistan is true, then it is all over, and we should get the hell out.
According to the reports it is true, but that is no reason to get out, in fact the opposite is true.
