"Some Straight Talk on Afghanistan" by Mayhill Fowler

[StarfarerBill]

"I was in the White House last week. I'll give you first-hand what their thinking is -- it's an indefinite commitment. . . . At 18 months we're going to be evaluating whether our strategy is working. . . . We're not saying forever.... We might go from 100,000 to 98,000 if we are succeeding."

"When it appears we are getting out, there will be a rush to the exit. What will be the consequence? Very quickly, a return to fighting. . . . Iranians and Russians and their clients, Indians and Saudis, all jump in. . . . Pakistan picks up their Pashtun card. . . . everyone trying to salvage what they can for their own interests . . . Afghanistan becomes a killing field. . . Taliban come back in to settle scores. . . . There is a refugee crisis and a humanitarian crisis tracked back to the international command . . . . The Taliban, these are not nationalists . Now they all share the idea of an Islamic state in their image. It is the caliphate for this region."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mayhill-fowler/some-straight-talk-on-afg_b_381562.html

[mmonk]

1. The Taliban are made up of one of the largest ethnic tribes

in Afghanistan, the Pashtun. The last election, they were kept from participating. As long as they are left out of the equation, there will be conflict.

[BeFree]

2. yeah

Sure. All hell might break loose.

As it is, it is a controlled hell.

Afghanistan is an old, old place. There are, buried in the sand, ancient cities and many signs of ancient civilizations.

We moderns, in our arrogance, greed, and need to control everything, have inserted ourselves onto this ancient battlefield where no one gets out alive.

And in the meantime ship back our boys in bodybags.

If there were a real plan, if all the truths could be told and all the people knew what the end game was in Afghaniastn, then there just might be a way to do it right.

As it is, with all the lies and deceptions being offered the public as a reason to be over there trying to transform this ancient culture, there is nothing but bad that can be foreseen on this course. We've seen this type of activity before and it never turns out good.