U.S. soldiers from 3rd platoon Bronco troop 5-20 infantry Regiment attached to 82nd Airborne patrol with Afghan national Army soldiers in Zharay district, Kandahar province, southern Afghanistan 22 April 2012. (Photo: REUTERS - Baz Ratner)
Douglas A. Wissing, The Hill: Let's admit the obvious: Afghanistan War is unwinnable
The Afghanistan War is unwinnable. Partnered with a corrupt and ineffective Afghan government, U.S. forces confront a robust and growing insurgency, substantively funded by skimmed American contracts. After 15 years of dysfunctional U.S. development schemes costing over $100 billion, Afghans remain near the bottom of most human development indices.
Beyond the counterinsurgency failures, many Afghans remain resistant to ideas imposed by foreigners. One Kentucky sergeant, frustrated by his team's failed development mission, drawled to me, "The Afghans ain't buyin' what we're sellin'."
There is no good way forward. The systemic failure of the 21st-century American way of war and development cannot easily be reformed. The many entrenched beneficiaries, both Afghan and American, have perverse incentives to continue the futile war. "It's the perfect war," one intelligence officer told me. "Everyone is making money."
Doing more of the same won't yield a different outcome.
Read more ....
WNU Editor: This is one of those situations where I wished President Obama had ordered U.S. forces out in 2009. Instead he chose to expand the war .... and then left it to fester to where we are today. President Trump's Generals now want to expand the war again .... my hope is that the new President will chart a different course .... to leave and let the Afghans and Afghanistan's neighbours sort out the mess that they are in and who seem to want it to continue. My prediction .... 2017 is going to be the year where the war will expand everywhere and to a level not seen since 2001, and the hard decisions on what to do next will finally start to be made.
3 comments:
Again. .what does winning here look like from a military point of view? What was the definition 10 years ago, what is it now?
We can pull pout at let the central Asian countries fall.
We can pull out and let Iran, Pakistan, China and Russia fight each other.
Russia put pressure on the central Asia Republic so that they would not lease any of their airbases to us.
Air freight is so much more expensive than sea freight. Nonetheless, it lessened our dependence on our enemy-ally Pokistan.
So why not throw this in Russia's lap?
Why not throw it in Pokistan's lap? If they had not set up safe zones in Pokistan and aided the Taliban after 2001 this wore might have been over.
I am sure that Iran will let Pokistan have full hegemony over Afghanistan. I am sure that Iran loves people coming across the Pokistan/Iranian border and attacking Iranian border posts.
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