NATO patrol in Kabul
The commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan said Sunday he “would understand” if many Afghans switched their allegiance back to the Taliban due to the failure of international forces to deliver needed improvements.
“By this time next year I would understand if a lot of Afghans, down in the south in particular, said to us all, ‘Listen, you’re failing year after year at delivering the improvements which you have promised to us. And if you don’t do something about it,’ that 70 percent or so will start saying, ‘Come on, we’d rather have the Taliban.'”
Since ousting the Taliban, U.S. and international forces have faced complaints that badly needed basic services are not being provided to large parts of Afghanistan. Soldiers have continued to battle insurgents, including remnants of the Taliban.
U.S. forces have helped build the new Afghan military and steadily hand over power authority to NATO forces. Last week, authority in the east was transferred from the U.S.-led coalition to ISAF at a ceremony in the capital, Kabul. ISAF has more than 30,000 troops serving in Afghanistan, more than a third of them U.S. forces.
I wonder what next week’s excuses from Washington will be — passing off similarities between our government’s policies in Afghanistan and the parallel failure of the USSR in the same nation. Of course, there is one distinct difference — the USSR didn’t also try to fight another much larger war in another Middle Eastern nation at the same time.
(1) This General is obviously a Democratic political operative who hates America.
(2) Democrat Gary Studds lost a war in Afghanistan in the early 80s, so I don’t see how this is such a big deal.
(3) We’ll have James Baker look into this and get back to you in six months.
I am dissapointed that there is no thread in which to bash Bush and Republicans over head with DPRK’s Nuke test. Maybe head it up with a youtube video of a Nuke going off like this one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rS_VMX6UaZM
You don’t win these conflicts. You just pass it along to another Administration, and blame the previous one for getting you into it.
Easy solution. Let the GOP send more money via our national BankChina VISACARD with free air miles. No raising taxes (let our kids pay for it…..hehe)
If you are a real patriot, send your check out to Haliburton and they will make that place like Las Vegas in no time!!
GregA — chuckle — you obviously know as little about nuclear weapons as you do about politics. DPRK does an underground test of an A-bomb and you “discover” a US underwater test of an H-bomb.
This is like comparing a roadtest of a Sandisk mp3 player with a Cray. 🙂
Here’s hoping that the E.U. members of NATO will step up their involvement and enable this country to rebuild their economic infrastructure after 20 plus years of abject poverty. Another wish, that the U.S. government will sign an agreement to buy the opium derivatives from the local growers, and use the goods in the completely legal production of medical morphine, but that might upset our largest importer of this good Turkey.
How many governments have been installed by a foriegn nation and survived? WIthout being propped up by a military junta of course.
Let’s see, the money and lives wasted in Iraq could have been used to wind up Afganistan a long time ago, or been used to strengthen US security (really, not just for show). We also wouldn’t have depeleted men and equipment to the point that North Korea isn’t seeing us as any kind of threat.
And now we have two countries that are going to really be as determined to beat up on us as we were to beat up on terrorists after 9/11.
Most neo-cons are unwilling to accept the price of “pre-emptive” wars being that you have to use taxes to fund them, and you have to have a draft. Which is worse: “cut and run” or “lacking the will to fight”? Amount to the same thing don’t they?
The “War on Terror” is just as effective as the “War on Drugs”.
I don’t understand why there is so much complaining about the president & the vice president.
When they were elected any preson with a brain knew both Bush & Cheney had failed in every aspect of their lives except being a politican.
Bush had one losing business after another, only to be bought out each time by people who wanted access to his dad.
Cheney is a career politician whose only private experience is taking a once highly respected oil services company, Haliburton, to near bankrupcy during his incompetent management. He started an unprovoked war to pay back Haliburton & has made sure that Haliburton’s off-shore tax havens have stayed intact.
Any thinking person knew what we were electing. Why the big surprise now?
We made this mess,
We need to clean it up…
[edited: see comment guidelines]
Why is it that every foreign policy based discussion on this blog always spirals into clichĂ©, moveon.org Bush bashing rhetoric? Is there no interest in actually discussing the pro’s and con’s of a given policy area? Please respond, but strive for relevance & coherency.
–“Most neo-cons are unwilling to accept the price of “pre-emptive” wars being that you have to use taxes to fund them, and you have to have a draft.” Response: (1) All wars require taxes, not just pre-emptive ones, (2) If their is a large enough international body, ie NATO, running the show there is no need for a draft as the burden is shared across a large set of countries (3) most neo-conservatives disagree with Bush so you might agree with them on more principles than you think
— Comments by W. O’Dumbass, I don’t see how this is relevant to NATO & Afghanistan
–“How many governments have been installed by a foreign nation and survived?” (1) The people of Afghanistan voted for their representative government (2) you do have a point in the case of the U.S.S.R. with Najibullah, but he was viewed as a puppet of the Soviets, I believe that the majority of the Afghans do not view Karzi in this manner
–“passing off similarities between our government’s policies in Afghanistan and the parallel failure of the USSR in the same nation. Of course, there is one distinct difference” (1) I think you really need to brush up on the history of the Soviet invasion, there are several differences (2) When the Soviets invaded they did not have the support of the people, Afghanistan’s current Government has the support of the NA, slim majority of the Pashtuns, & the Tajiks/Uzbeks
#11 – Why is it that every foreign policy based discussion on this blog always spirals into clichĂ©, moveon.org Bush bashing rhetoric?
I don’t believe that does happen by default, but keep in mind these threads get a shelf life of just a day or two and there is little space for a scholarly dissertation here…
But honestly, who can look at the last 5 years as say with a straight face that Bush is handling this well? He’s Commander in Chief. The President. The leader of the free world. Like it or not, fair or not, blame for failure falls on his desk, and US policy in the Middle East is beyond that debate phase and all that’s left to do is call it a failure and execute a new plan…
The United States has failed in the middle east? That sounds quite debatable. Broaden the scope, the western nations have failed in bringing about peace in the middle east. It is not the lone fault of this particular administration, but all western leaders over the past fifty years. Furthermore, I do not see how a resurgence of the Taliban in isolated areas of the Pashtun south is a failure. If this uprising of violence is anyone’s particular fault I would be critical of the Pakistani government for failing to bring down the numerous training camps on their western boarder. If one was to ask the entire population of Afghanistan the legendary question, are you better of today then you were 5 years ago, I think you’d get a timid yes, followed by a long list of grievances. As far as trying something new, how about the neo-liberal ideology that is being applied to Afgahnistan as we speak.
On #13. How do you reconcile the ‘Opps, my bad” exit from Afghanistan coming from the same folks currently hanging on with a death grip, to the notion of not cutting and running from Iraq? And no, it’s not different, other than oil being a bigger factor in Iraq. And further the only ideology that is likely to be applied to Afghanistan, post occupation, isn’t neo-anything, it’s old fashion fundamentalist Islamic.
This guy heads the NATO troops….he’s right. While the NATO troops(especially the British) have been having some very good success with regards to the Taliban resurgance in the south, the pace of reconstruction is very slow. Why? Mainly because there isn’t enough Afgani troops yet to guard the newly built infastructure. A lot has been done in some of the larger cities, but a whole lot more needs to be done. We do need to buy out the Poppy growers, so they can have a steady income until new forms of agriculture is able to take hold and keep the poppies off the black market…..as a Conservative,, I think thats like….*Just say no*….only to the Herion producers.
Nex thing is that Pakistan has to flat out be told(and they were by this same General last week) to shit or get off the pot, when it comes to allowing the Taliban to operate training camps in the border areas. It’s the Pakistani Intel service thats behind these camps. A few well placed bombs might convince them to rethink their policy’s.
11,
Without a military Junta. AND did it survive? And name two more, just for fun. Outside of Afghanistan. And you don’t have to use only American enforced democracies. You can pick any country in the world.
#11, Why is it that every foreign policy based discussion on this blog always spirals into cliché, moveon.org Bush bashing rhetoric? Is there no interest in actually discussing the pro’s and con’s of a given policy area? Please respond, but strive for relevance & coherency.
…Comment by mxpwr03 — 10/9/2006 @ 12:10 pm
So where is your discussion? I see a lot of dismissive criticism, but precious little meat.
You’re assuming that Afghanistan’s government is a junta. I think that it is not, the Taliban was and yes you’re correct it failed. The current government was formed through a democratically elected parliamentary system. That is why it will work. Fusion I offered advise on point number 6.