So please provide a substantive counter exit

[whistler162]

strategy to the Afghanistan war.

Please be as detailed as possible.

[BeFree]

1. First

Let the MIC be as detailed as possible with the plan to stay.
All I hear is: 30,000 more of the same last 7.
The MIC works for us, let them provide what they will do differently.

But no, they won't do it.
Why should they when there are so many who let the MIC slide while demanding that peace lovers deliver.

The MIC have us right where they want us. Well, some of us.

[Clio the Leo]

5. the two heads of the "MIC" are explaining that right now....

http://cspan.org/Watch/Media/2009/12/03/HP/R/26694/Afghanistan+hearings+continue+top+Officials+defend+new+plan.aspx

for the second day straight.

What do you think of what they said yesterday?

[BeFree]

14. Well

The two heads are not on exactly getting into details, I imagine.

Sen. Kerry, however, groks the situation pretty well:

"I would hope that just as the exit strategy is based on conditions on the ground, so too should our strategy for escalation be based on conditions on the ground. I continue to believe that, absent an urgent security need, we should not send American troops in to clear places unless we are confident that we have the Afghan partners and resources in place to build on our victories and transfer both security and government functions to legitimate Afghan leaders. Frankly, I am concerned that additional troops will tempt us beyond a narrow and focused mission. And, with 30,000 troops rushing into Afghanistan, I believe we will be challenged to have the civilian and governance capacity in place quickly enough to translate their sacrifice into lasting gains.

Through conversations with the President and Vice President in recent days, and the President’s speech, I have been assured that the Administration recognizes the need to meet these conditions. How we answer these challenges will go a long way toward determining our overall prospects for success. I am eager to hear in detail how we intend to do better than we’ve done on each of these conditions."

[stray cat]

2. You mean Peace Good War Bad is not a substantive meaningful plan?

:sarcasm:

[tekisui]

3. That isn't our job.

If Obama gave the order, the military would figure out how to do it.

A withdrawal is not dependent upon an escalation. Obama wanted some show of win or victory. That was his primary objective, the exit was secondary. Had the primary objective been leaving--they would have developed the strategy for that.

[Bluerthanblue]

6. what do see "our job" as being?

simply to criticize and complain when "our" perspective doesn't jibe with the plans of the administration?

I believe the primary objective IS one of leaving- John Kerry spoke out about how easy it was to begin a war and how difficult it was to end one back during the build-up to the war with Iraq. He was right and anyone who is thinks otherwise is living in denial. I'm not saying that the plan that has been chosen is the 'best' one, but it isn't as simple or easy as you seem to want to make it out to be.

:shrug:

[tekisui]

7. Listen to Kerry.

It is easy to escalate, but incredibly difficult to end. I simply do not buy that escalating is going to bring us closer to a withdrawal. It is only going to make it that much harder to leave.

And, yes. My job as a citizen and voter is to express my views to those in power. When I agree, I say so and defend the policy. When I disagree, I don't hold back my criticism.

[Bluerthanblue]

8. I have listened to JK- are you aware of his perspective on the

'escalation'?

WASHINGTON, D.C.--Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry (D-MA) released the following statement this evening following President Obama’s speech on Afghanistan:

"I believe that the President defined a narrower mission tonight, not an open-ended nation-building exercise. A key component of that mission is providing that the troops will only clear and hold in places where there is capacity to build and transfer beneath them and that there will be significant partnering with Afghans in all of these efforts. That includes finding reliable Afghan partners in governance. If these criteria are met, then there is a chance for success. The President is correct to say the essential focus must be on Pakistan. What happens in Pakistan, particularly in the west, will be more critical to the outcome in Afghanistan than the increase in troops or shift in strategy there. I will support additional troops, providing their deployment stays within the strict understanding of the need to transfer and build as well as partner with Afghans. The only way to be successful is to rapidly transfer responsibility to the Afghans and anything short of that will end in failure, no matter how many troops we send to Afghanistan. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee will continue to examine our Afghan policy in public hearings in the coming days and beyond."

:hi:

[RaleighNCDUer]

11. You do understand that leaving is not the problem.

It is leaving without leaving a giant fucking cesspool of terrorism and extremism behind that is the problem.

We could just abandon Afghanistan. Just like we did in '91, under Bush1. Remember what happened then? Remember what happened when we just abandoned Somalia? It is sure a model of stability and peace today.

It is not about a 'show of win or victory'. There is no 'win' possible. It is about it not biting us in the ass ten years from now.

[tekisui]

12. We will leave a giant fucking cesspool.

It is just a question of when.

[RaleighNCDUer]

13. That may be. But after having essentially destroyed that country

I believe we owe them the chance to fix it, to re-establish civil authority, before we go, because we are at the moment the only ones who are keeping the Taliban at bay.

The Taliban is not some giant mythical beast that can't be destroyed. They are a relatively small, but determined, group of fanatics whose numbers have been augmented by people who do NOT believe as they do but see them as the best chance for stability.

You are aware, aren't you, that the only way the Taliban took power in the first place was because we first supplied the mujahadeen with weapons and money to defeat the soviets - who were supporting a progressive, democratic socialist, woman-friendly regime - and then when the soviets withdrew we did nothing to support the secular government that took power. All those weapons in the hands of the jihadists guaranteed the overthrow of the weak central government.

So, today, who is supplying the Taliban with stingers to shoot down helicopters? Why, NOBODY. Who is covertly re-arming the Taliban? Not Pakistan, now that the Taliban has also declared war on them. It must be NOBODY.

They were once an army - now they are terrorists. The Taliban engendered truck bombings in Pakistan are not a sign of their strength, but of their weakness. Through terror they have established control over many provinces in Afghanistan, but they can only hold it through terror.

The additional troops we are sending can create safe zones where re-building can begin, where training of Afghan police and army can proceed. The Afghans will partner in the holding of those safe zones, and beginning in the summer of 2011 we will withdraw from them, leaving the Afghans to their own devices.

The Taliban will continue to be a problem for years. The question is, do we want them to be a small problem ten years from now, or a huge problem in six months?

[backscatter712]

15. Think Somalia, with nukes...

Remember that it's not just Afghanistan's government that would get overthrown by the Taliban, but Pakistan is in danger of falling as well.

And Pakistan has nukes.

Think of the implications. The GOP would tell us that the Taliban would give some of those nukes to Al Qaeda. Maybe, maybe not. But what will happen is that India, Pakistan's adversarial neighbor, will freak out at the prospect of the Taliban getting nukes, and the India/Pakistan cold war will suddenly get really warm. It might even result in a Cuban Missile Crisis style standoff. At that prospect, another close neighbor, Iran, will suddenly find that they're getting tired of potentially hostile neighbors having nukes when they don't, and they'll finish their nuke development. Then you'll see others getting in on the nuclear chaos, like Israel...

[arcadian]

4. Through Iran.

That's the plan Obama has been told to follow. Or at least the next GOP President, Obama is just a place holder to maintain the staus quo til they can get a real war hawk in there, just like Clinton was supposed to keep the war fires luke warm til they got another Bush in office. Then they turned it up.

[phleshdef]

10. I love batshit insane "Glen Beck from the left" conspiratorial nonsense like this.

It reminds me how sane I actually am.

[vaberella]

9. There is none. I've been asking that even before the President made his announcement.

They have no clear idea. One thing they do know for sure is that they want the soldiers out and to leave the Afghani's in even more destruction and peril because of our own doing. None of these people who are so called Anti-escalation---care to take see that the US has to take responsibility for the 9 years of agony we added to the already dismal history of Afghanistan. In my eyes they are support doing what Bush did to the US after leaving. Exit immediately and fuck whatever else happens.