Want To See Some Of The 'Progress' We're Making In Afghanistan?

[unhappycamper]

[Webster Green]

1. Give it another century or so.

These things take time. :nuke:

[DrDan]

2. time for a surge - let's throw 100K more troops into the country - at a mere

million per troop annually, it would not be a big impact on tax-payer dollars

[xchrom]

3. recommend

[lunatica]

4. Stop dilly dallying. Send in more troops.

:sarcasm:

[Altoid_Cyclist]

5. I don't think that I've ever seen a better example of the old adage

that a picture is worth a thousand words.

Way past time to get the hell out of there!

[TxVietVet]

6. Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires.

We really had no reason to there other than help UNOCAL get a pipeline in.

I agree. Out of Afghanistan now.

[Botany]

7. So after 18 months of our surge Kandahar is still extremely insecure?

Time to declare victory and get out.

Of course the Brits, the Russians, the Indians, the Mongols, the Tartars ....... might have
told us something.

W screwed the pooch in 2002 & 2003 when we still had a slime chance and we were seen
as friends by some of the population now we are just one more outside force trying to
occupy Afghanistan.

[lonestarnot]

8. Mmm yeah. Our tax dollars at work. Just what the fuck they're buying or working at, nobody knows.

How many billions have been disappeared now?

[Supersedeas]

9. time to apply a little more scrutiny to the Admin. objectives here

[Botany]

10. We are going to stay there until a strong central government along w/ ...

... a well functioning military & police force are up and running
and that is something the country never has had. Except it did have
a central government when the Russians were there.

[tiny elvis]

18. and it had a well functioning mil force when the russians were there

and the russians left
and it goes in circles
the correct response is, 'nine eleven they are evil doers and they hate us (for our freedoms) nine eleven'

[Amerigo Vespucci]

11. Glass 1/20th empty or glass 1/20th full. USA! USA! USA! USA!

And the worst part is that in many ways, I believe Afghanistan is the "forgotten war." It has even less of a presence in the news than Iraq, and it seems to only come up when someone says we're leaving, or when that changes the next day to "We're not leaving, actually, we're staying another 10 years."

[robdogbucky]

12. Dear SOS Clinton and Pres. Obama:

Your democracy is killing us.

The People of Afghanistan



"There never was a good war, or a bad peace."

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, letter to Quincey, Sep. 11, 1783

[truedelphi]

13. And here I stupidly thought that the war in Afghanistan was a total

Bust.

Glad to see we are occupying three provinces quite efficiently. Otherwise that 33 billion bucks voted in by Congress last summer would be a waste, wouldn't it?

[sad sally]

14. here's some more progress...

http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,2040942_2223894,00.html?click

[truedelphi]

15. K & R. n/t

[Name removed]

16. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[david13]

17. I really think you are trying to whitewash the situation there. It is

much worse than that.
dc

[Leopolds Ghost]

19. Wasn't Russia in Afghanistan for ten years? It broke the back of the Russian army.

We're doing better than Vietnam, much much better, and it hasn't caused the US to collapse like the Soviet Union, so that must mean we're winning right? Maybe if we stay longer we can prove our staying power, like getting to the next level of a really hard video game.

:shrug:

[PuraVidaDreamin]

20. Col. Ann Wright says we have over 400 military bases there

http://www.mauitime.com/Articles-i-2011-01-20-75645.113117-Retired-Colonel-Ann-Wright-Discusses-Why-the-War-in-Afghanistan-is-Unwinnable.html


Now, recently returned from a fact-finding trip to Afghanistan, Wright has plenty to say about America's oft forgotten, decade-old war.

You went to Afghanistan in September 2009, and then again last month. What, if anything, has changed?

The change that I noticed and that was talked about the most by Afghans was the huge increase in U.S. military bases—now over 400. We saw the construction of a huge base just north of Kabul. The high wall on the front side of it stretches over two miles and encloses a large training area. In the shadow of the wall, just across the road in an internal displacement camp, are tens of thousands of Afghans who have fled the fighting in the South and East of the country. They are living in abject misery in small dirt hovels, with no water or sewage and only a few sticks of wood each day to cook a tiny meal. Yet across the road are hundreds of millions—if not billions—of dollars spent on infrastructure for military training and operations. Villas built with the huge profits from the multi-million dollar U.S. logistics contracts to support our military presence are rented back to the international community contractors and non-governmental agencies for $10,000 to $15,000 per month. Yet most Afghans live in poverty.

In travelling outside of Kabul north of the Panjshir Valley, we went past the turn-off to Bagram Air Base, now an American city with over 20,000 U.S. military living and working there, as well as an infamous prison with over 10,000 detainees who are being held without any judicial process, many for years. We observed two new, 'smaller' U.S. military bases on the way to the valley—with the standard and expensive bomb-blast protective walls with at least 50 pre-fab buildings in each and an American flag flying above each base.

With its latest $500 million expansion project, the United States Embassy in Afghanistan will be the largest in the world, even bigger than the mammoth U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq. Over 1,400 U.S. government employees will reside inside the walls of the compound, which is expanding to take over the Afghan Ministry of Health grounds and part of an Afghan Ministry of Defense area. The U.S. is building two consulates, one in Heart and one in Mazir Sharif. Each will cost $50 million.

[PuraVidaDreamin]

21. There are only about 440 military bases in the continental US

BTW

[Leopolds Ghost]

22. What is they're investing all this shit in for? Not OBL, they don't seem to want to find him...

Both sides of the aisle and the sheepish public are curiously mum on that, no?

[Catherina]

23. Terrible. Just terrible. Rec'd n/t