The tribes and mountains of Afghanistan have been defeating armies since Alexander the Great. If the Russian army, who have never been known to have too many qualms about doing what they needed to do to defeat their enemies, and has never been led by anyone with a PC bone in their body, couldn’t conquer the country, we certainly aren’t going to.
That said, I don’t think we can pull up stakes and get out, although I wish we could. We’re between a rock and a hard place. The country is NEVER going to be a democracy, it’s a tribal culture in an country so impassible and isolated that a central government is almost impossible to establish and enforce, as we’ve found out.
Just about everyone in that government is corrupt, and unless we plan on totally taking over the country and installing a new government, which is illegal, expensive, and unsustainable, we are stuck dealing with people we don’t trust, and can’t be counted on to do the right thing for their own people, let alone our interests.
Let’s not even talk about the NATO concerns. This is a mess. I don’t pretend to have any good answers for how we can salvage this without spending years there, losing more and more soldiers, and spending more money we don’t have on a situation that hasn’t even begun to “fight terror”.
BTW, I do not blame Obama, either. He inherited this mess, a mess we’d probably be in no matter who was or is president.
“Once again, to suddenly announce: “sorry, we changed our mind, we’re pulling out”, would destroy US leadership in the world at a time when countries like Russia and China are seeking to fill any vacuum that we may create.”
This is of course an undeniably good point. I don’t for a minute think that Obama is actually going to withdraw from Afghanistan, both for your excellent points and for fear of the wimp label. However, I do think that it will lead to nothing good.
Unbelievable finish to that game–biggest moment ever for US soccer! So psyched! I was listening to my father in law groan upstairs as every chance went begging and then I went up to watch the last 5 minutes with him in my living room. GOOOOAALLLL! right after I arrived. I would love to see soccer explode in popularity here.
They almost got screwed again on a bogus offsides call.
…
His big toe was offsides.
;
Seriously though, when you miss two open nets and clang a couple more off the post/crossbar, time to stop whining about the refs. Should have been 3-0 or 4-0.
Super amped they got through, but no way can you blame it on bad calls. When you get opps you have to bury it.
But big time props for staying on the attack the whole game; they really outplayed Algeria throughout, just took 92 minutes for the scoreboard to reflect that.
“The going got tough in Iraq too for a while and it looked like a quagmire. We stuck it out and prevailed.”
Iraq is such a different country in terms of topography, tribal structure etc as to be irrelevant to Afghanistan. There should be room in public discourse to look at a situation and decide you were wrong. In this case we will eventually withdraw from Afghanistan with less than victory (unless we are unlike every other regime to try this) eventually. The question is how much money and blood do we want to spill?
Wow, what a soccer game.
So excited I bought Champ #1 a Landon Donovan shirt last week.
US Women Soccer team won it all. so let’s reserve the celebration when the Men actually win something.
The tribes and mountains of Afghanistan have been defeating armies since Alexander the Great. If the Russian army, who have never been known to have too many qualms about doing what they needed to do to defeat their enemies, and has never been led by anyone with a PC bone in their body, couldn’t conquer the country, we certainly aren’t going to.
That said, I don’t think we can pull up stakes and get out, although I wish we could. We’re between a rock and a hard place. The country is NEVER going to be a democracy, it’s a tribal culture in an country so impassible and isolated that a central government is almost impossible to establish and enforce, as we’ve found out.
Just about everyone in that government is corrupt, and unless we plan on totally taking over the country and installing a new government, which is illegal, expensive, and unsustainable, we are stuck dealing with people we don’t trust, and can’t be counted on to do the right thing for their own people, let alone our interests.
Let’s not even talk about the NATO concerns. This is a mess. I don’t pretend to have any good answers for how we can salvage this without spending years there, losing more and more soldiers, and spending more money we don’t have on a situation that hasn’t even begun to “fight terror”.
BTW, I do not blame Obama, either. He inherited this mess, a mess we’d probably be in no matter who was or is president.
And they win their group…good grief.
Slovenia knocked out but they would have been anyway if the phantom goal had been allowed from their game against USA.
“Once again, to suddenly announce: “sorry, we changed our mind, we’re pulling out”, would destroy US leadership in the world at a time when countries like Russia and China are seeking to fill any vacuum that we may create.”
This is of course an undeniably good point. I don’t for a minute think that Obama is actually going to withdraw from Afghanistan, both for your excellent points and for fear of the wimp label. However, I do think that it will lead to nothing good.
Unbelievable finish to that game–biggest moment ever for US soccer! So psyched! I was listening to my father in law groan upstairs as every chance went begging and then I went up to watch the last 5 minutes with him in my living room. GOOOOAALLLL! right after I arrived. I would love to see soccer explode in popularity here.
By dirty_hipster on June 23, 2010 11:53 AM
They almost got screwed again on a bogus offsides call.
…
His big toe was offsides.
;
Seriously though, when you miss two open nets and clang a couple more off the post/crossbar, time to stop whining about the refs. Should have been 3-0 or 4-0.
Super amped they got through, but no way can you blame it on bad calls. When you get opps you have to bury it.
But big time props for staying on the attack the whole game; they really outplayed Algeria throughout, just took 92 minutes for the scoreboard to reflect that.
“The going got tough in Iraq too for a while and it looked like a quagmire. We stuck it out and prevailed.”
Iraq is such a different country in terms of topography, tribal structure etc as to be irrelevant to Afghanistan. There should be room in public discourse to look at a situation and decide you were wrong. In this case we will eventually withdraw from Afghanistan with less than victory (unless we are unlike every other regime to try this) eventually. The question is how much money and blood do we want to spill?