I say let's get Fred liquored up and send him in with a couple .45's and some extra mags. . .
"It really doesn't matter how President Obama divides the Afghan baby, how he splits the difference between McChrystal and Biden. Because the war has been lost," Thompson said on his radio show today. "I say this because of one sad and simple fact. The president does not have the will and determination to do what's necessary to win it. His heart's not in it, and never has been. The Taliban knows it. Al Qaeda knows it. Our allies know it. And the American people know it.
"Our enemies are now emboldened and our friends are discouraged. We cannot prevail if the American people are not willing to make the sacrifices necessary for an extended effort. The case has not been made to them to justify this effort. The case can only be made by the president. This president is unable or unwilling to make that case," Thompson said.
4 comments:
Some of what Thompson says is correct.
The war in Afghanistan is lost. But,
his portioning out of blame for this is completely wrong.
The war in Afghanistan has been lost since before it started. Invasions of Afghanistan, dating back to Alexander, have, uniformly, failed.
There is no reason to suppose that this invasion will succeed.
Did no one in the profession of politics learn anything from the fiasco of Vietnam? A country, even one as big and bad as the USA, can not successfully prosecute a war many thousands of miles away, with no allies and no hope of buying or coercing cooperation from the indigenous population. QED!
What should have been done to root out AlQaeda and its zanies was to send in highly trained, language qualified special forces and or cops, to operate below everyone's radar. That would have been feasible and would have nailed Bin Laden. Instead, because the shrub and his government wanted to be sexy and high profile, vast numbers of troops and huge quantities of equipment were sent, to appear on the nightly news, along with the commanders of same, who claim there is light at the end of the tunnel.
That is wishful thinking at best. We, the USA, are again caught in a tarbaby. And, as my Great Uncle Edwin used to say,"You can shit in one hand and wish in the other. Then check out which one fills up first."
Any professional soldier, if (s)he is honest, will tell you it is impossible to fight a war successfully thousands of miles from home, with unsecured supply lines and no understanding of who and or what you are fighting against.
So, the pentagon should have sent out for a pentagram when the shrub started talking war in the wilds of Asia. Instead, predictably enough, they toadied and said "YESSIR,YESSIR,THREE BAGS FULL."
So, there you have it. The war was lost before it even started.
or that spin. . .
We did not go, as ALL OTHERS DID to conquer Afghanistan, warthog. To take their land.
We went to KILL those who killed us, and the govt protecting them.
They need KILLING not conquering.
One might argue as Fred has that the American people will not countenance killing 50 people at some wedding to get some Al Qaeda or Taliban, and I agree, THEY WILL NOT. Not now. Not yet.
But until the Afghans come to the conclusion that wherever the Taliban and Al Qaeda go, death for their own sons and daughters and families will INEVITABLY follow sooner or later, nothing will change.
Each tribe must reach the conclusion that soundless and invisible death from above or raid for them and their families MUST FOLLOW the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
If in the end they love death more,..and the American people understand what that means...
"This war differs from other wars in this particular. We are not fighting armies but a hostile people, and must make old and young, rich and poor feel the hard hand of war." WT u know who
Epaminondas, you seem to be advocating the "spare the rod and spoil the child" approach to international relations. I do not think that approach works very well.
If an occupying force is not willing to exterminate the population of the place they are occupying, then, automatically, they are sowing the seeds of future trouble. There is nothing like public humiliation to make someone enraged. And, there is nothing like an occupation for causing deep feelings of humiliation.
So, if one turns loose the hounds of war,but, they don't obliterate the people they face, they are creating the next generation of opposition as they go along.
As for making sure that the hounds of war do a thorough job, that aint easy. Even among fully indoctrinated(brainwashed) soldiers, there are not many who are not sickened by their jobs.
I stick to my earlier assertion that the capture of Bin Laden and his zanies should have been managed by cops or special forces, quietly and under the radar. This would have resulted in far fewer deaths,
much less loss of international prestige for the USA, AND, it would have cut back, greatly, the number of people who hold what they think are legitimate gripes against the USA. In short, it would not have turned Afghanistan into a school for terrorists, which the present policy has done.
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