Troubled by Afghanistan policy

[SHRED]

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Yes we need Barack.
Yes I have donated to his campaign.

But for the life of me I cannot understand why the continued push for getting us further in the quagmire known as Afghanistan.
Didn't we learn anything from the Soviet's experience?

Please tell me that Obama/Biden are not as serious as they sound.
Please assure me this is "politics".

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[elocs]

1. I have posted before that Afghanistan is where superpowers go to be brought to their knees,

but there is hope for us in Afghanistan if we learn from the failures of Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and our own failures in Iraq. A different approach and philosophy by us concerning Afghanistan is needed. We do need more troops there for the time being, but we do need to set a timeline for how long we will be there so the Afghanistan people can better take control of their own country and destiny. We can continue to give them financial support, but we need to understand that not everyone wants the same kind of life we have or the same kind or form of government.

[SHRED]

3. I am concerned...

...with the hawkish mentality infecting the politics of our ticket.

[elocs]

6. If simply sending more troops to Afghanistan is coupled with a hawkish mentality,

then it will never work. We need to think and strategize outside the box and employ new methods and approaches. We need to set and establish goals and make them clear, and make them clear to the Afghanistan government and people to let them know that the future of their country is ultimately up to them.

I believe that Barack Obama's approach will be entirely different than that of Bushco. I believe he has a good chance to bring success to Afghanistan and add more troops to Afghanistan to stabilize the borders and to help the Afghan people to have the opportunity to find their own way. I don't believe that Obama will send more troops to Afghanistan with the old hawkish mentality of fighting more battles and killing more of the enemy which is a way that has never worked for us.

[SHRED]

7. My understanding is that...

...the Afghans, like most people, deplore foreign soldiers on their soil.

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[elocs]

9. While that is undoubtedly true, what about the thousands of Afghanis that have helped us?

If we were to precipitously pull out, what would happen to them? It is not universal that all Afghans deplore foreign soldiers on their soil, but by the same token they also should hate foreign insurgents who come into their country and have no qualms about killing civilians. There is no simple and quick either/or solution to this and that is why we need new and better approaches to this situation.

[JohnyCanuck]

2. The Times: "British envoy says mission in Afghanistan is doomed"

British envoy says mission in Afghanistan is doomed, according to leaked memo

Britain’s Ambassador to Afghanistan has stoked opposition to the allied operation there by reportedly saying that the campaign against the Taleban insurgents would fail and that the best hope was to install an acceptable dictator in Kabul.

Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, a Foreign Office heavyweight with a reputation for blunt speaking, delivered his bleak assessment of the seven-year Nato campaign in Afghanistan in a briefing with a French diplomat, according to French leaks. However sources in Whitehall said the account was a parody of the British Ambassador’s remarks.

François Fitou, the deputy French Ambassador to Kabul, told President Sarkozy’s office and the Foreign Ministry in a coded cable that Sir Sherard believed that “the current situation is bad; the security situation is getting worse; so is corruption and the Government has lost all trust”.

According to Mr Fitou, Sir Sherard told him on September 2 that the Nato-led military operation was making things worse. “The foreign forces are ensuring the survival of a regime which would collapse without them . . . They are slowing down and complicating an eventual exit from the crisis, which will probably be dramatic,” the Ambassador was quoted as saying.

Britain had no alternative to supporting the United States in Afghanistan, “but we should tell them that we want to be part of a winning strategy, not a losing one”, he was quoted as saying. “In the short term we should dissuade the American presidential candidates from getting more bogged down in Afghanistan . . . The American strategy is doomed to fail.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article4860080.ece

[SHRED]

4. It's a pit

That Obama appears gung ho about.

[JohnyCanuck]

5. The heroin dealers would be sorry to see the US and NATO pullout.

Britain is protecting the biggest heroin crop of all time
By CRAIG MURRAY (former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan)

SNIP

In six years, the occupation has wrought one massive transformation in Afghanistan, a development so huge that it has increased Afghan GDP by 66 per cent and constitutes 40 per cent of the entire economy. That is a startling achievement, by any standards. Yet we are not trumpeting it. Why not?

The answer is this. The achievement is the highest harvests of opium the world has ever seen.

SNIP

Our economic achievement in Afghanistan goes well beyond the simple production of raw opium. In fact Afghanistan no longer exports much raw opium at all. It has succeeded in what our international aid efforts urge every developing country to do. Afghanistan has gone into manufacturing and 'value-added' operations.

It now exports not opium, but heroin. Opium is converted into heroin on an industrial scale, not in kitchens but in factories. Millions of gallons of the chemicals needed for this process are shipped into Afghanistan by tanker. The tankers and bulk opium lorries on the way to the factories share the roads, improved by American aid, with Nato troops.

How can this have happened, and on this scale? The answer is simple. The four largest players in the heroin business are all senior members of the Afghan government ? the government that our soldiers are fighting and dying to protect.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-469983/Britain-protecting-biggest-heroin-crop-time.html

[Dover]

8. Why we're there

Bone up on the Silk Road Policy to find out why we're there, and the plan.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=115&topic_id=171417

There are a few reasons for our presence in Afghanistan, but the PRIMARY purpose has to do with...guess what....oil/gas/pipelines. We are attempting to secure supplies and expand a
pipeline through Afghanistan (that Unocal originally attempted but then determined it too risky). As everyone knows the whole Caspian corridor is a very volatile region and promises to bring endless hostilities that will require more and more money and troops. Pipelines are extremely vulnerable to attack and there are a number of groups who would like to sabotage our efforts. And what this
Silk Road policy suggests to me is that we are not anywhere NEAR moving away from foreign dependency
on oil and gas.

[Marrah_G]

10. The Afghanistan issue MUST be resolved- I agree with Obama 100 % on this.