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2008-09-23 Afghanistan

'Grim' Afghanistan Report To Be Kept Secret by US

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Posted by GolfBravoUSMC 2008-09-23 15:04|| || Front Page|| [10329 views ] Top

#1 It this report from the same folks that reported Anbar was lost?

Posted by Sherry">Sherry 2008-09-23 15:43|| 2008-09-23 15:43|| Front Page Top

#2 Perhaps the same ones that said Iran quite working on nuclear bombs back in 2003, Sherry.

Posted by trailing wife ">trailing wife 2008-09-23 15:46|| 2008-09-23 15:46|| Front Page Top

#3 I suspect that this is yet another "election contingency plan", and intentionally negative report purely for political reasons.

Clearly, by what we know of the situation, it sucks, because unlike Iraq, Afghanistan to a great extent *is* like Vietnam, but instead of Laos and Cambodia giving free run to insurgents, there is half the border shared with Pakistan.

That is, until we can freely smite the troublemakers, they can endlessly trickle across the border an endless supply of thugs to create trouble and keep Afghanistan destabilized.

That is a no-win.

Posted by Anonymoose 2008-09-23 16:19|| 2008-09-23 16:19|| Front Page Top

#4 IMHO we lost Afghanistan as soon as we invited NATO.

Posted by AlmostAnonymous5839">AlmostAnonymous5839 2008-09-23 16:21|| 2008-09-23 16:21|| Front Page Top

#5 Great Iraq report to be kept secret by MSM.

Posted by Bright Pebbles 2008-09-23 16:31|| 2008-09-23 16:31|| Front Page Top

#6 Hand wringing admirals be damned! I want to hear General David Petreaus' assessment.

Posted by Besoeker 2008-09-23 16:48|| 2008-09-23 16:48|| Front Page Top

#7 I don't get why anyone expects Afghanistan to become Wisconsin when that place has never been united or even functional. That we should spend blood and treasure to do so is insane. All we should care about it is that they never again be used as a launch point to attack us and the dire consequences clearly explained to them.

Posted by ed 2008-09-23 17:11|| 2008-09-23 17:11|| Front Page Top

#8 As I understand it, the adversary there has changed. An infusion of well-trained, well-equipped militants from Iraq means we have to rise to the occasion. If Afghan and Pak governments get serious, it becomes very doable. The experience AQ's get caught in a border squeeze and squirt out to cause trouble someplace else. Northern Africa?

Posted by Richard of Oregon 2008-09-23 17:18|| 2008-09-23 17:18|| Front Page Top

#9 Maybe we can get them to move to Chechnya.. give Putie something to keep him occupied instead of muscling in on his neighbors

Posted by Solomon Granter5477 2008-09-23 18:02|| 2008-09-23 18:02|| Front Page Top

#10 Alexander the Great also got in trouble here

In the 4th century B.C., Alexander the Great fell afoul of Pashtun tribesmen in today's Malakand Agency, where he took an arrow in the leg and almost lost his life. Two millennia later the founder of the Mogul empire, Babur, described the tribesmen of the area now known as Waziristan as unmanageable; his main complaint seemed to center on his inability to get them to pay their taxes by handing over their sheep, let alone stop to attacking his armies. A couple of hundred years later, in the middle of the 19th century, the British experienced disaster after disaster as they tried to bring the same Pashtun tribes to heel, particularly in the agencies of North and South Waziristan. In 1893, after half a century of jockeying for position with Imperial Russia in the "Great Game," the British administrator of the northwest of Queen Victoria's Indian Empire, Sir Mortimer Durand, demarcated the border between India now Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Durand line, as it is still known to foreigners the Pashtuns call it "zero line" and completely ignore it separated the tribes on both sides of the line into 26 agencies, each with its own laws and tribal councils. It was this area that became the buffer between the British and Russian Empires, an agreed-upon "middle of the lake." The tribes were then left mostly to themselves for about 80 years.

Posted by GolfBravoUSMC 2008-09-23 18:12|| 2008-09-23 18:12|| Front Page Top

#11 #8 Richard of Oregon has it about 110% right. We've got lots going on in Djibouti(military & civilian), we're advising the Ethiopians and Kenyans, Dept of the Navy did a little stretching, warm up sorties into Somalia in January and February of this year, President Bush proved our commitment to the Africans in general by stemming the tide of AIDS/HIV with billions in Rx, doctors and education starting back in '01 and continuing to this day. Africa is where we'll bleed 'em till they get the point. Probably get the Chinese on board when the jihadis start interrupting their commerce.

Posted by Last Breath Farm Resident 2008-09-23 19:22|| 2008-09-23 19:22|| Front Page Top

#12 I have little patience for the war in Afghanistan. Unless the Pak's get serious, there is no way we are going to win there. Flattening the tribal areas while trying to remain in A-stan is NOT an option. Other than not wanting another hell-hole failed state (which the tribal areas are anyway, with Pakistan close behind) what is the upside of the years and years and billions it is going to take to get this place to a point where it can be regarded as a normal state? Rathole if you ask me.

Posted by remoteman 2008-09-23 19:37|| 2008-09-23 19:37|| Front Page Top

#13 A copy of the NIE has already made it's way to the NYT, who will sit on the story till Nov 1st.

Posted by Skunky Glins 5***">Skunky Glins 5*** 2008-09-23 20:18|| 2008-09-23 20:18|| Front Page Top

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