What a surprise
Re: Gains in Afghanistan to be lost after US drawdown: US intelligence
Pretty obvious, I doubt the Afghan Army, if it is an army, can hold any city for a meaningful time if the Americans aren't there.
What a useless pointless war. When they leave everything will be in even a worse position than 2001.
Re: Gains in Afghanistan to be lost after US drawdown: US intelligence
Instead of wasting trillions of dollars, I think the US should have invested on the people living in Afghanistan in early 2002 when the taleban were on the run. 12 years of this war and we are still on square one.
Re: Gains in Afghanistan to be lost after US drawdown: US intelligence
To be honest I do not understand even from their own POV what did they achieve?
They have made their own country unsafe, lost soldiers, wasted money, with Taleban coming back to power when they leave they have lost the chance to make Afg a puppet state.
I do not see any strategic gains here, I can’t believe their policy makers, who planned this?!
Restored attachments:
Re: Gains in Afghanistan to be lost after US drawdown: US intelligence
george bush and co. 
when the only purpose was “teach them a lesson for 9/11.”
Re: Gains in Afghanistan to be lost after US drawdown: US intelligence
All the money spent did go to coroporations.....defense contracts n all......
Re: Gains in Afghanistan to be lost after US drawdown: US intelligence
George Bush actually was more interested in Iraq than Afghanistan. It was Obama who focused on Afghanistan.
Re: Gains in Afghanistan to be lost after US drawdown: US intelligence
All the money spent did go to coroporations.....defense contracts n all......
Yes it did which in turn are often owned by large contibutors to campaign funds for the republicans. So these big companies get their man in who makes policies which will benefit the arm companies. I think it's called the war machine. Others here will know a lot more about it than I do.
Re: Gains in Afghanistan to be lost after US drawdown: US intelligence
as the say US has built a war economy...
Re: Gains in Afghanistan to be lost after US drawdown: US intelligence
^This..and isn't it obvious that..phitto government of Afghanistan will not last long. Hence another civil war. And i would be equally horrified if Taliban once again take over. Which would mean..we are back to square one.
Re: Gains in Afghanistan to be lost after US drawdown: US intelligence
George Bush actually was more interested in Iraq than Afghanistan. It was Obama who focused on Afghanistan.
obama was stuck with two wars started by the great son of texas. he managed to exit one - quick trial of saddam etc. but without nabbing bin laden, exiting afghanistan would have been political suicide.
i dont think US is making any real money off the wars, that might have been one of the intentions in iraq but iraq turned out to be exactly the kind of land that needs a saddam. afghanistan is a lost cause unless a generation or two of its backwardly gunloving pashtuns are educated. aint nobody got time for that. god save its northerners and neighbours.
Re: Gains in Afghanistan to be lost after US drawdown: US intelligence
^This..and isn't it obvious that..phitto government of Afghanistan will not last long. Hence another civil war. And i would be equally horrified if Taliban once again take over. Which would mean..we are back to square one.
The sad thing is that uncertainty in Afghanistan would hit us badly as well. US will pack up and leave and let the region suffer.
Re: Gains in Afghanistan to be lost after US drawdown: US intelligence
In short they are saying that we lost the war, and we wasted 13 years in that country.
Re: Gains in Afghanistan to be lost after US drawdown: US intelligence
I think the NIE is pretty much alluding to the fact if all troops are gone, even though it gives a teaser of things going back to null by 2018 even with advisers (troops I assume?).
What I see is that it is a jobs program and the employees and their employers (especially) are afraid of loosing the gravy train. Everything can't go to "zero" with any US presence as not only would USAF / Marines / USN be there to counteract any large taliban offenses, but it also means that Pakistan would be "paid" so the generals wouldn't give taliban such supplies to begin with. This sort of scenario was already discussed in Time magazine before.
"Afghans", unlike Eye-raqis, are keen on a SOFA agreement. The kite runners aka the loya jirgas want their gravy and unlike iraq, afghanistan doesn't have a developed resource like oil to subsidize their lives. The stay in afghanistan is not ultimately about Afghanistan anyway ! ... ;)
In fact, bill maher made fun of it many months back that we needed Pakistan to get into Afghanistan and now we afghanistan to make sure Pakistan is "fine".
Re: Gains in Afghanistan to be lost after US drawdown: US intelligence
In fact, bill maher made fun of it many months back that we needed Pakistan to get into Afghanistan and now we afghanistan to make sure Pakistan is "fine".
Interesting observation, but the US does not need Afghanistan to bet their hedges within pakistan. They can find many willing people within Pakistan, the compensation should be right though. The US is building a big embassy in Pakistan for a reason.
Re: Gains in Afghanistan to be lost after US drawdown: US intelligence
I think that he was making a point about having that military capability that was used in OBL raid but in a sarcastic manner about how military likes to make up excuses. In this, I think the Obama administration is culpable itself.
The tv shows try to follow the line of the government and there has been interesting ISI arcs regarding Taliban and even agents murdering americans who had plans to take Pakistani nukes on NCIS, so the fear is there. As Clooney quoted Obama that Pakistan keeps him up at night! :D
Re: Gains in Afghanistan to be lost after US drawdown: US intelligence
Taliban to grow in strength by 2017, says US report - DAWN.COM
Re: Gains in Afghanistan to be lost after US drawdown: US intelligence
As Clooney quoted Obama that Pakistan keeps him up at night! :D
Pakistan na ho gaya koi chuRail ho gayi...
Re: Gains in Afghanistan to be lost after US drawdown: US intelligence
Just an observation:
US has permanent presence in almost all of Middle East on the pretext of Iran, and now we have another bogeyman which they are using to stay in South/Central Asia.
Re: Gains in Afghanistan to be lost after US drawdown: US intelligence
An illegal Imperial war more tha twice as long as WWII and after trillions of dollars wasted, millions of innocent slaughtered and entire region destabilized, what exactly are they leaving with? What about liberating women? What about fighting barbaric religious fundamentalists and establishing democracy? What about bringing Human Rights, Justice, Education and prosperity to poor old Afghan? Oh dear of dear....
The aim was never to help poor old Afghans or finish the Taliban. This is US' second adventure in God forgotten land and despite the popular stereotype that Americans are dumb, I'm pretty sure they knew they could never defeat a tribal resistance since their partner in crime, Great Britain must've told about the lesson they've learned from History. I guess it's matter of time before we see the Yanks setting up a murderous One Worldists' surveillance regime in Central Asia. The combat mission may have been laid down to rest but the Americans aren't going anywhere, at least not in 2014.
The only good news for Pakistan is that their army has found a new hobby other than bulldozing civilian governments. They certainly have found something else to worry about otherwise who would've though the someone like Zardari would be given given full five years to rule?