Juan Cole: Top Reasons US should get out of Afghanistan

[pampango]

Never before in the Afghanistan War, the longest-running military conflict in US history, have so many US troops been wounded in one day. Some 5 Afghans were killed and some 77 American military personnel were wounded at a forward operating base in Wardak Province in the Pashtun south by a suicide bomber with a truck Note that Wardak is not that far from Kabul, the capital, but even at this distance the government is unable to provide security.

Former radicals also maintain that Afghans are fighting the US/ NATO troop presence now, and would put down their arms if the foreigners left.

According to Robert Crews of Stanford University, the large US/NATO troop footprint in the country, along with the US-engineered overbearing presidency, which the US uses to try to control the country– all this contributes to fanning the flames of insurgency. That is, Washington thinks that the Taliban and other insurgents can be crushed by Western military force, but in fact that very foreign military presence creates a bigger and bigger insurgency.

A decisive victory over the Afghanistan insurgents cannot be won as long as they have safe havens in the Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA) of northwest Pakistan. ... Since the Pakistani army cannot or will not move against these safe havens in a thoroughgoing way (despite some operations, as in South Waziristan), they will remain in place. The US cannot go in after them with American troops because Pakistan would not allow it. Drone strikes appear not to do the job decisively. ... Since the cross-border problem is insoluble, the Afghanistan War is ipso facto unwinnable.

http://www.juancole.com/2011/09/77-us-troops-wounded-in-truck-bombing-of-base-in-wardak-top-reasons-us-should-get-out-of-afghanistan.html

[liberal N proud]

1. A decisive victory over the Afghanistan insurgents cannot be won.

Period!!!

[sfpcjock]

2. Bump &R