Why are we still in Afghanistan?

We are on our way out, but it's bad to leave precipitously. We have a number of allied tribes there that we must take care of and not leave in the lurch. That was our problem when we backed the Mujahadeen against the Russians. The instant the Russians left, we left them to fight it out among themselves and the Taliban emerged.

The plan is to change the situation from a NATO occupying force to one where the Afghans people run their own country. This means letting them do that they have always done, which is to fight each other on a tribal basis and occasionally all band together to fight an outsider.

What we intend is to leave them with a clear understanding that they cannot allow the country to be used by Al Qaida or any other faction as a base to launch attacks against the United States. They know what we can do by now. They know the B-52's and cruise missiles can return, the drones aren't going anywhere, and that our Special Ops now know the country, know the enemy, and can conduct devastating raids.

The incentive for them is to go back to fighting each other and growing opium and making babies instead of letting rich Saudi and Pakistani radicals use them as a base for jihad against a friggin' Superpower that will come in and lay waste to everything and stay for as long as they want when they get pissed.

 

Why, Obi-Wan?

I'm talking about the Taliban, who will certainly, with a few other powerful tribal coalitions will control large portions of Afghanistan . . . as they always have. First of all they are religious students and don;t go around raping women. They go around covering women up with black robes.

More importantly, When the Taliban gained control of Afghnaistan after the Russians left, the made a critical mistake when they allowed foreign AL Qaeda to base it self there and openly unleash terrorist attacks on the United States itself. They foolishly thought that their defeat of the Russians (with American help) meant that even Superpowers dared not fight them.

After 9/11 they made a fatal mistake when they were ordered to turn over bin Ladin and Al Qaeda to the US. The Taliban refused and 8 weeks later Kabul fell they were all hiding in caves in Bora Bora with their government a shambles.

They are not going to make that mistake again.

The Taliban may be insular, poorly educated, and self-righteous, but they have not missed the point that the US has quickly overwhelmed and occupied two middle-eastern countries, conducted missile attacks against five countries, overflies everybody with drones, and has an infestation of CIA and SOF assets throughout the region.

The Taliban don't like losing and are going to pick their battles better next time. They will fight each other, as they have for thousands of years.

Well yeah, the Iraqis simply hid underground until the war was lost. Shock and Awe worked perfectly. Their command and control was demolished and left them nothing to do but wait for an invasion force to swiftly eliminate their army and park their tracks in Baghdad.

 

The taliban are not part of the axis of evil, they are part of the axis of medieval. They are not nice people, but they did not attack the US, the enabled Al Qaeda to do so and they won;t be doing that again, they have seen the consequences. They will go back to the 12th century until some other tribe takes over. It has always been this way in Afghnaistan. It is a tribal culture totally incompatible with western democracy. It is a waste to try to make it so.

We went there to take down Al Qaeda and kill bin Ladin and we have done so. The locals hate us and there is nothing more we can do for them. Time to go. The taliban will not be a problem for us for a long, long, long time.

We must focus on the active terrorist bands, not trying to take down and westernize the middle east. Makes no sense at all.

Pakistan is another matter and the main reason that we need to get of of Afghanistan. We have to supply our army through Pakistan and we have to take their crap in the meantime. The day we don't need 200 trucks rolling across the Khyber pass every day, we can get tough with Pakistan.

Good for them. They are no threat to us. We have proven all of our points. We can come, take down you country and stay as long as we want to. We don't need to stay forever to make that point. They get it. We win this war by leaving them to stew in their own chit.

 

Not cost effective. There aren't enough special weapons in existence to get it done. It will just piss them off, not to mention the Russians and Chinese downwind.