To say that we are mired in stalemate seems the only realistic, yet unsatisfactory, conclusion.In response, President Lyndon Baines Johnson said to an aide
If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost Middle America.Freelance writer Michael Yon isn't quite Walter Cronkite—who is today?—but he is someone whose opinion is to be respected. In a short note he starts out with:
This war is going to turn out badly. We are wasting lives and resources while the United States decays and other threats emerge. We led the horse to water.Yes, "We led this horse to water" but will the horse drink? This is an interesting analogy, given that there is a book out there, The Strong Horse, by a Lee Smith, which talks about what drives politics in Arab lands (not that Afghanistan is an Arab land, but we are reasoning by analogy here).
Just to make things worse, a Afghan Soldier, one of the guys on "our" side, shot and killed four French Soldiers. There is a Reuters Report to be found here, with video. President Nicolas Sarkozy has suspended French military operations in Afghanistan.
Now, a well travelled and well experienced American, blogging from Afghanistan, says it is time to pull the plug on this operation.
I am not yet ready, but Michael Yon has caused me to move my position and to entertain the idea of pulling out. For sure, the ultimate salvation of Afghanistan, the safety of those young women walking to school, for example, is for the Afghanis themselves to work out. We can't fix this all by ourselves. Nor can we fix it if we are swimming against the will of the Afghani People. We are not and can not be the world's policeman. If some groups are just going to do awful things to themselves, then they are going to do awful things to themselves and there is little we can do to prevent it, especially in remote locations that cost us a lot of money to get to and stay in.
I am looking forward to hearing what returning Captain Greg Page has to say. To the relief of this family and friends, he is "SHORT".
Thinking time.
Regards — Cliff
5 comments:
"We can't fix this all by ourselves."
Yeah, but one wonders how much more we might have been able to do without the neo-con adventurism in Iraq.
We are there largely because of a now dead Texas Democrat backed by a lady with lots of dollars and "goodwill" on her mind. In the final analysis that is the truth. Folks today can put pink silk on the pork....but it is what it is. Since then of course, the ivory tower set has literally invented hundreds of geopolitical reasons for us to spend the lives of our young men and women on that God-forsaken backwater of the world. That anybody today thinks that the "war" in Afghanistan began with Operation Enduring Freedom only shows the abysmal lack of informed thought that pervades this society. What most people "know" they "know" from some 6 PM talking head who got what THEY "know" from some other talking head. The average American doesn't even know where the country is located on the globe.
We have neither the Federal leadership nor the national will to do this "war." The pack of socialists who are running the war are more concerned with ratings and reelection than making someplace "free for democracy." Moreover....none of them in the WH has worn a uniform....let alone see the tools one uses. And they get the vast amount of their "strategy guidance" from Ivy League post graduates who don't even know where the nearest military base is located...let alone what it does.
It would be lamentable if the problem was "loosing middle America" but frankly...and realistically.......middle America is just completely uninterested....the attitude being...."I have problems of my own. If it doesn't affect my "God's Little Acre," I don't want to hear about it or know about it.
It has always been my understanding that the Afghans would be free to choose their own type of government. To second guess what type of gov't they choose is not our goal nor our problem. We need to stay as long as we are asked to stay. To leave too soon is to undermine all the good we have fought for. To leave too late is to undermine all the good we have accomplished. We left Vietnam too soon (as archived records from their gov't tell us) and we don't want this to become Vietnam. To leave when the Afghan people are not safe is to leave too soon. If we are asked to leave then it changes the matter. Just my opinion.
"We left Vietnam too soon."
Are you friggin' kidding me? We spent 12 years, 58,000 lives, 300,000 wounded and hundreds of billions on that cesspool of corruption and treason and you says we left TOO SOON!
It is history, so there are no final answers, but I tend to agree with Mr Uno. We cut back aid to the Republic of Viet Nam, thus grounding some of their equipment. We promised to use airpower to help, in the event of an attack, like we had done once before, when we had pulled most of our ground forces and North Viet Nam had tried a mobile offensve. This next time we didn't help. We had moved on.
Unfortunately for the South Viet Namese, they didn't have any place to move on to, except out to sea.
Regards — Cliff
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