America Falls into the Afghanistan Trap

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,785419,00.html

09/09/2011
Opinion
The Demoralized Nation
By Gerhard Spörl

<snip>Afghanistan also falls into this category of the wrong wars in the wrong places at the wrong time. It is a country that can be conquered but cannot be ruled. That's why the conquerors always withdraw eventually. When America fell into the trap, it joined a long list of countries that had made the same mistake.

Naturally the Iraq war made me take a different look at the earlier wars. The neo-cons wanted to do everything right and turned many things on their head. They thought the domino theory would play into their hands: First Iraq would become a democracy, then Syria, and so on. They wanted to change the world and actively impose their ideology on others. It was probably the last time the America would try to fulfil its historical mission of shaping the world according to its own vision of what it should be.

Today we know that it was the global power's last gasp. It was a major drama, and the turning point is now behind us. Barack Obama, and what a shame this is, is left with administering the country's gradual decline. He will go down in history as the president who ended two wars, in Afghanistan and Iraq. And probably also as the president who failed to lead his country out of recession (and was also prevented from doing so).

[Fumesucker]

1. And no one is hated more than those who were screaming about this as it developed..

No one is kept further away from the national conversation than those who were correct right from the very beginning.

Right for the wrong reasons, no doubt.

[kenny blankenship]

4. Even here.

[PATRICK]

2. Money

Empire of wealth thinks anything can be manufactured as simply as bubbles and fake money. ALL reaslity was thrown under the bus in favor that blindness and greed hubris. The real strength of the US was thrown into the pit and made to crawl downwards on a one way impetus toward real destruction. What keeps this going until the end is all the hoarded money safely offshored and locked away from its relation to the real world until the fantasy makes reality "behave".

Eventually reality bottoms out. It would be sane if the fantasy preceded it but it keeps itself at the back of the consequence line like any true organizer of war.

[Bosso 63]

3. You fell victim to one of the classic blunders

You fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders - The most famous of which is "never get involved in a land war in Asia" - but only slightly less well-known is this: "Never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line"!

The Princess Bride (1987)

[daa]

5. We are invaders and they are defending their homeland period

[KG]

6. word.

[Bosso 63]

7. and your point is?