Gorbachev Says Obama Should Start Afghan Withdrawal

[laststeamtrain]

Source: Bloomberg

Gorbachev Says Obama Should Start Afghan Withdrawal (Update2)
By Chris Burns and Patrick Donahue

Nov. 10 (Bloomberg) -- Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, drawing on his experience of military failure in Afghanistan in the 1980s, said the U.S. can’t win the conflict there and should begin pulling out its soldiers.

Afghanistan, where U.S. and NATO forces are battling a Taliban-led insurgency, is too fragmented between clans to be controlled militarily, Gorbachev, 78, said in an interview today in Berlin. While he said President Barack Obama would be unlikely to take his advice, Gorbachev said he saw no chance of success even with more U.S. troops.

“I believe that there is no prospect of a military solution,” Gorbachev said in Russian through a translator. “What we need is the reconciliation of Afghan society -- and they should be preparing the ground for withdrawal rather than additional troops.”

Gorbachev, who became general secretary of the ruling Communist Party in 1985, at age 54, initiated a restructuring program known as perestroika that eventually led to the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991. He spoke a day after he joined Chancellor Angela Merkel and current world leaders in the German capital to mark the fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago.

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aP_6NUKjFaSM

[optimator]

1. Obama doesn't take advice from hippie peaceniks

only chicken hawk bloodthirsty warmongers are allowed at the table.

[YvonneCa]

36. ???????

???? Gorby?

[rgbecker]

2. The guy should know...Afghanistan was the straw that broke the Camel's back.

That invasion by the Soviets was protested by the US as they refused to send athletes to the Olympics. Then the world saw the Soviets beat by the Afghanis helped by the US and the eastern european countries lost all fear of the Soviet army. That's my read on the subject anyway.

[corpseratemedia]

3. +1

[ieoeja]

14. Actually, Afghanistan was their last hurrah.

It provided a rally-round-the-flag moment that, combined with a bellicose Reagan administration, extended popular support for communism a few more years.

As a result of Detente, the Soviet people got their first good look at the West. And what they saw was average Westerners living a lifestyle they could only dream. Add to that the rebellious spirit enjoined by the rock-and-roll era -- a former Soviet Ambassador to the United States claimed The Beatles ultimately brought down the Soviet Union -- and the people began clamoring for change.

Then Reagan became President and tried restoring the Iron Curtain. But PepsiCo, after defeating the Reagan administration in court, opened up a Pizza Hut on Red Square. While this deal served as a proof of concept that you could do business in the Soviet Union, having to take your profits in the form of vodka -- the Ruble was not traded on the open market -- severely limited the amount of business that could be done in the Soviet Union. Accordingly, as soon as the Reagan threat was removed, the Soviets entered the international market and pretty much went bankrupt five seconds later.

[Fool Count]

25. The Soviet people were not "clamoring for change", the Soviet elites were.

I should know, I lived through it myself. The reform was 100% conceived and implemented from above by the Communist Party
leadership. Only at the later stages did they lose control of the process and popular movements became a factor. Ordinary
people initially needed to be subjected to several years of Glasnost' - the kind of reverse propaganda campaign pounding
them over the head with how bad everything is in their country - to get somewhat behind the reform, and even then the majority
of supporters was far from overwhelming. I am not saying that there were no real problems in the USSR, but mass disaffection and
discontent among the populace were definitely not the drivers of change, at least in the beginning. The reform was driven
entirely by disaffection and discontent among the elites. While the ordinary Soviet people did have a lower standard of leaving than their
Western counterparts, in all honesty, it was not all that low and quite bearable for most. Most had all modern conveniences like
shelter, electricity, running water, household appliances, healthcare, education, childcare, enough free and vacation time to enjoy
their hobbies, pursue sports and arts. They even had professional sports and a thriving pop culture to occupy their minds.
They may not liked waiting in long lines to buy subsidized meat or to see a doctor, but they were far from coming into the
streets to protest. Their life was not all that different from the life of ordinary americans or frenchmen, in fact it was far less
stressful, if somewhat less luxurious. And the life was even much better in East European countries. I would claim that in the most
advanced of them, like East Germany, Czechoslovakia and some parts of Yugoslavia the standard of living would compare quite
favorably with the poorer West European countries like Greece and Portugal. What was markedly different was the lives Eastern
and Western elites enjoyed. There was no comparison between the luxury yachts, private jets, palatial houses and leisurely pursuits
of the Western ruling class and the meager privileges of the Eastern apparatchiks and their intelligentsia servants, like an extra
bedroom in a government flat, a rundown dacha or a chauffeured Volga car. So, naturally, looking at their Western colleagues,
the Soviet elites felt that they were being shortchanged for the great job they were doing of running the country. They thought
they deserved a bigger piece of the pie, and the whole reform was about getting it, and by any measure in that respect it was
the most resounding success. Well, that's my take on it anyway.

[unkachuck]

26. thank you....

....Fool Count, for the personnal insight....and a hardy welcome to DU!

[Fool Count]

27. I got a bit off topic, which was what? Oh, yes, Afghanistan.

It was, indeed, a major factor in the USSR's demise, but not in a way most people think. Sure, that defeat cost Soviets a lot of treasure,
lives and self-confidence, but on its own it would not even make a dent. What was decisively devastating for them was Saudis' decision
to flood the world markets with their oil dropping the prices to under $10 per barrel very quickly. Oil exports was the main source of
income and foreign currency for the Soviets. There was nothing else they could plug this budget hole with and their fiscal position became
unsustainable very quickly. They had to resort to printing money to cover the deficit, but with all prices being fixed by the government
and the inflation politically untenable, that resulted in severe shortages of most consumer goods straining the economy to the limit.
You may ask what does it have to do with Afghanistan? Very simple, without Afghanistan, US would have very little chance of convincing
the Saudis to increase their oil production and sacrifice untold billions just to hurt the Soviets. With the holy war going on there, it was
easy. Saudis were the main source of funding for the mujahadeen and beating the Soviets in Afghanistan became their obsessive goal,
so so sacrificing oil revenue to achieve that goal was totally worth it for them. The Soviets would have still lost in Afghanistan even with
high oil prices, but they would probably survived that loss.

[AlphaCentauri]

29. Your description of the USSR make sense

we have been thought that everything there was misery

[Turbineguy]

37. Interesting. Thanks!

That make a lot of sense. A (former East) German colleague of mine said things were better for him when the communists ran things. I think he meant that he knew how to get around the corruption. Unification changed all that without really giving him a bigger piece of the pie.

And a Hearty Welcome to DU!

[theoldman]

4. The French warned us about Vietnam and we did not listen to them either.

[GreenTea]

6. But there's so much corporate profit to be made from wars, fuck everything else...Bush set

the imperialistic war profit machine in full throttle knowing it wouldn't or couldn't just be stopped....Fuck America and fuck the soldiers & innocent victims...there's corporate profits & fortunes to be made (from our tax dollars - Fuck health care for all)!

[MissDeeds]

20. Word!

Thanks for having the courage to state the facts.

[amandabeech]

7. Are we forever the adolescent country as opposed to the essential country?

Well, at least when it comes to getting involved in war.

It sure looks that way to me.

[madrchsod]

9. yes

[classysassy]

33. MacArthur

warned us before the french,"never get involved in a land war in asia"

[itcfish]

5. And He Should Know

Remember the fall of the USSR?

[martymar64]

24. And it'll cause Amerika to fall as well

It's just a matter of time.

[madrchsod]

8. obama`s war

[AlphaCentauri]

30. in two more years it will be

that is probably his time window to resolve or to continue the war

[TygrBright]

10. And damn, he oughta know. n/t

[harun]

11. Sound advice from someone with experience.

[pundaint]

15. That "I got this" pic used to be reassuring.

I am very sad to say that my visceral reaction to seeing it today was more one of concern. I wish there was just one big thing where he strongly advocated the principles that drove many of us to support him. I can't find one.

[harun]

18. I am starting to agree with you.

[closeupready]

12. He's right. It is a myopic Western idea that these tribal societies want democracy

They don't want it, they want peace (not war), they want self-determination, and they are not going to take orders from outsiders - not now or ever.

What I could see happening is that we install a dictator to keep people in line, bust some heads when necessary, like we had in Iran with the Shah. That, of course, ended in failure.

But again, like a broken record, we don't learn from our prior experiences.

[pundaint]

16. These tribal societies have democracy

No corporations determine their leaders for them. What we want is for them to be rolled up into one easily manipulated ball, because we get confused with so many divergent leaders to bribe to surrender their natural right to live as they choose.

[closeupready]

17. They have a kind of democracy, yes.

It's not the kind of democracy our authorities approve of, however, therefore, it has to go, and if that means it's replaced with a US-friendly dictatorship, fine with us.

[Reform]

13. to little to late

Nobel Peace Prize winner Barack Obama has decided to send close to 40,000 more troops into Afghanistan over the course of 2010, according to insiders.

"Informed sources tell CBS news he intends to give General McCrystal most, if not all, the additional troops he is asking for," the network reported Monday night.

According to the report, Obama has decided to send four combat brigades plus thousands more support troops, bringing the total of new troops to be deployed close to 40,000.

The first troops will arrive in early 2010, and it would take until the end of 2010 before all the additional troops were in position.

[pundaint]

21. He's fighting for Peace

not

[timzi]

19. Gorby is Correct-A-Mundo!

http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=33&Itemid=74&jumival=466


For those who didn't see it the first time around on this website, here is an excellent interview from a couple of weeks ago that is billed as about torture but which also addresses Afghanistan in a substantial way. Makes me extremely sad and disappointed that BO is seriously considering expansion there. Can only hope that sanity will prevail. (I know, I know..... "hope in one hand and crap in the other and see which one fills up first". But he was the one who suggested such audacity.....)

[fascisthunter]

22. he won't, because he's not the one making decisions

and I truly think he supports our meddling in the middle east for that fucking pipeline, like the rest do. And while they do, they will waste life, and our tax money, all while destroying our own country in the process.

[clear eye]

23. He should know. n/t

[ozone_man]

28. Make it so.

Gorbachev speaks the truth here. Obama is beholden to the MIC though, not the populace I'm afraid.

[Bigmack]

31. Just re-watched "The Beast"...

about a Soviet tank crew during their little clusterfuck in Vietghanistan.

S/be required viewing for anybody who thinks we can bomb those people into either submission or democracy.

[JI7]

32. this is the guy who is really responsible for the fall of the Soviet Union

isn't he ? not reagan

yes, he knows their history including the war in afghanistan.

[David Zephyr]

34. Kicking this up.

There is no prospect for a military solution.

[WheelWalker]

35. I'd rec if I could...a kick will have to do.

:kick: