Bernie Sanders on Afghanistan: An Unwinnable War

[Enrique]

Run time: 02:21 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4MbkcUh2TU   Posted on YouTube: September 03, 2009 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: September 05, 2009 By DU Member: Enrique Views on DU: 1121

 

[gopsucks1]

1. Sorry Bernie but....

We are not trying to win a war. We are trying to win the peace. Weren't these people all screaming the same stuff about Iraq? The most irresponsible thing to do now would be to leave. Not only would it trivialize all the deaths that have already occurred, it would royally fuck the Afghani people! Talk about leaving is irresponsible. Plain and simple.

The time for this type of talk was before even going in there in the first place and almost NOBODY was against that back then........where are they now? Was Bernie one of them?

[Enrique]

2. so how long will we be there?

forever?

[gopsucks1]

3. That is the responsible question to be asking.

Not "cut and run". Not on ideology or pride either. It's about responsible withdrawl. I support staying as long as is necessary but not in the McCain sense of forever with NO timetables either.

[Mithreal]

9. Poor Little Bo Peep. nt

[green917]

4. History bears out Senator Sanders' opinion

Senator Sanders is absolutely correct. If you look back through history, NO foreign force has ever been able to achieve victory or peace in Afghanistan. The only one who even came close was Alexander the Great and it took him several years, thousands of men and he had to marry his way out of the war (after Spitamenes was killed by his own men who then sued for peace w/ Roxana as a part of the bargain). You speak of winning the peace in a country that has not known real peace in almost 100 years. That is as much a fool's errand as attempting to bring Democracy to a country that has never known it and isn't really willing to fight for it on their own. We can't win in Afghanistan whether our goal is victory or peace.

[avaistheone1]

7. If we are trying to win the peace, we had better get out the hell of there now.

Fighting a war is not the road to peace. These people? as opposed to you neocons?? lol Just asking. Well these people like Senator Sanders happened to be right. Iraq was a total waste of time, money and effort. Our involvement in Iraq was based as on misinformation at best, lies and deceptions at worst, was a mistake and should never have occurred. Sending more Americans to die for some unknown purpose in war without end makes no sense at all. For the record the Afghan people were most recently fucked today. US Kills at Least 95 in Afghan Air Strike
http://news.antiwar.com/2009/09/04/us-kills-at-least-90-in-afghan-air-strike/ I am sure that has won us alot of hearts and minds.

Afghanistan history is of a land that has been a target of various invaders and conquerors, as well as a source from which local powers invaded surrounding regions to form their own empires. Even Russia could not win in Afghanistan. Neither will we win.

This argument for the continued occupation of Iraq and continuing the war in Afghanistan is clearly incoherent. It is as though our political leaders have accepted that the American public is incapable of rational thought and will accept any reason and justification for war as long as it is presented as furthering our national interest and feeds our national ego regarding our benevolence and moral superiority in the world.

I know of no one who wants Osama’s dirty wars to continue in Afghanistan or Iraq. Nor was he elected to continue these wars. These wars are bankrupt and if you have checked the newspapers lately so is our country. So how are we going to fund it? lol

I spent thirty-three years and four months in active service as a member of our most agile military force-the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from second lieutenant to major general. And during that period I spent most of my time being a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street, and for bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism....Thus I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American Oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank to collect revenues in....I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras "right" for American fruit companies in 1903.

General Smedley D. Butler

[Why Syzygy]

8. The Afghani people survived after the Russians left

There's no reason to think they cannot get along without us as they did for thousands upon thousands of years before.

***

The big difference, so far, is that after years of remorseless losses the Soviet leadership realised the war was unwinnable. Mikhail Gorbachev tried talking to the enemy to form a coalition Afghan government (shades of the current ''Do we talk to the Taliban?'' debate), and when they and their Western backers refused, he pulled out. Does Obama have the sense to do the same? In January 1989, six weeks before the Russians completed their withdrawal, I wrote: ''The Soviet invasion was an outrage which the majority of the world's nations rightly condemned … But the manner of their departure has been nothing but honourable … What led to the U-turn was a combination of factors: the political mistakes of their Afghan allies (in 2009 read ''the corrupt Karzai Government''), awareness that the entry of Soviet troops had turned a civil war into a holy crusade, and recognition that the mujahideen could not be defeated. It required a new leadership in Moscow to accept what Russians had privately known for months.''

Yuri put it graphically: ''It wasn't a Soviet-Afghan war. It's a civil war. A powerful country like ours can't be defeated. If we had sent in more men, it would have been outright occupation or genocide. We thought it was better to leave.''
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/afghanistan-failings-sound-echoes-of-russias-forgotten-war-20090901-f6vd.html?skin=text-only


ps. Happy you see you got your trophy today.

[ro1942]

10. bloodthirsty american revenge

that what it started as, but it's really about Pipelineastan and control of the middle east.

[snake in the grass]

11. Give me a break!

How do you expect to "win the peace" by using weapons, unless you are advocating outright genocide? Afghanistan is not called the Graveyard of Empires for nothing. From Alexander the Great to the Soviets (and many in between) empires have tried and failed, and we'll get pinched in the ass as well. We had our chance to "bring to justice" those supposedly responsible for 9/11 and we blew it. Furthermore, the use of the argument that we will trivialize all the deaths if we pull out now is the biggest piece of gibberish one could bring to the table. Are you saying the only way we can avoid trivializing these deaths is by adding to the death list? Part of the reason we are in this mess is because so many fellow citizens like yourself are totally oblivious to the history of that part of the world. They've seen too many Charles Bronson flicks and actually believe having the bigger gun is all it takes to win.

Very sad.

[drexel dave]

12. win the peace

that's funny!

Militaries don't win peace. They kill their enemy until he or she either gives up, or is taking a dirt nap.

Afghans never quit.

[Mithreal]

5. Unrec's for Bernie is so not cool.

Edited to remove how I really feel.

[slipslidingaway]

6. knr # 3 again??? nt

[ScottLand]

13. There never was a good war or a bad peace.

(Yes, Benjamin Franklin said it). We can't continue to just be there. After a while, we start asking the same questions as we did about Iraq. Why do we think the whole f'ing world can't get along without our help?