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Someone else gets it wrong about Afghanistan and
Posted on: August 23, 2017 at 08:23:00 CT
GA Tiger MU
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Trump's decision - which was right the first time. This is mindless babble, which like all of these justifications for "fighting" and "rebuilding" and "winning", blah blah blah, never gives how it will benefit THE UNITED STATES.
Oh, and we understate the troops in Afghan. Its a little over 12,000 now and has been.
Trump Changed His Mind About Afghanistan Policy — And It's Good He Did
Afghanistan: President Trump, in announcing a new strategy for Afghanistan, has surely angered and perhaps perplexed some of his most ardent followers. But 17 years into this conflict, the U.S. cannot, and should not, simply walk away.
Democrats would love nothing more than to blame Trump for this mess he — and all of America — inherited.
President Obama's lack of attention and outright neglect ensured that whatever gains the U.S. had made in Iraq and Afghanistan were squandered. To be generous to Obama, politically, he really could do little else. His party had veered so far left and away from the War on Terror — even to the point of denying that blowing up and slaughtering innocents was even terrorism — that even if he had wanted to increase the U.S. commitment it would have posed a major political problem.
So the problem is now Trump's.
Trump reportedly now will expand the current 8,400 U.S. troops in Afghanistan by about 4,000 in an attempt, as Trump bluntly put it, to "kill terrorists" and "defeat the enemy."
"Terrorists, take heed. America will never let up until you are dealt a lasting defeat," Trump said, announcing the new strategy to a soldiers stationed at Fort Myer, Va.
Yes, it sounds bombastic, and perhaps it was meant to. But the plan behind the words seems both sound and reasonable.
To begin with, Trump actually wants to bring the Afghanistan war to a satisfactory conclusion. He admitted that his "original instinct was to pull out." But, wisely, rather than shooting from the hip, he actually gave it a great deal of thought. As he put it, he "studied Afghanistan in great detail from every angle," and held "many meetings, over many months" with his advisors, Cabinet and generals.
"I arrived at three fundamental conclusions about America's core interests in Afghanistan," Trump said.
"First, our nation must seek an honorable and enduring outcome worthy of the tremendous sacrifices that have been made," he said.
"Second, the consequences of a rapid exit are both predictable and unacceptable," he added. "A hasty withdrawal would create a vacuum that terrorists — including ISIS and al-Qaida — would instantly fill, just as happened before September 11."
"Third and finally, I concluded that the security threats we face in Afghanistan and the broader region are immense. Today, 20 U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organizations are active in Afghanistan and Pakistan — the highest concentration in any region of the world."
To ignore the terrorist threat is to invite another terrorist attack. Trump now understands this. But he also understands that just ramping up U.S. troop presence there isn't enough. President Obama sent some 33,000 additional troops to Afghanistan in 2009, but after two years of losses and facing re-election, he began bringing them home in 2011. Since the start of the fight, some 2,403 Americans have died in Afghanistan, more than half — 1,762 — under Obama.
Trump doesn't want to repeat Obama's mistake. And his change of mind bears the unmistakable imprint of the highly competent military minds that now serve as key aides in the Trump White House.
To begin with, while he's keeping mum on some of the details of our military operations there, he said the main goal was to train and advise Afghan forces to make them more effective against the Taliban and the 19 other terrorist groups now operating in the region, including al-Qaida and ISIS. And Trump explicitly called on Pakistan and India, both allies, to help the U.S. in its fight.
More important, Trump has defined the U.S.' goal in Afghanistan. As Frederick W. Kagan, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, put it, Trump's "minimum required outcome" would be "an Afghan state able to secure its own territory with very limited support from the U.S. and other partners."
This is doable. It's about time the U.S. got realistic about its goals. Most Americans aren't aware of what a giant black hole Afghanistan has become for the U.S.
The National Review's Jim Geraghty described just how large the U.S. commitment has been: "From 2002 to 2016, Congress appropriated more than $113 billion to rebuild Afghanistan, paying for roads, clinics, schools, civil-servant salaries, and Afghan military and police forces. That total does not include U.S. military spending on the country."
And how much is that? "Adjusted for inflation, the amount we've spent to reconstruct Afghanistan now exceeds the total amount we gave to the Marshall Plan that helped rebuild Western Europe after WWII." And that doesn't include the close to $45 billion we're now spending each year for military ops there.
Given the loss of life and the waste of money so far, we understand that some conservatives, in particular those in the "nationalist-populist" camp, are disappointed with Trump's plan, especially given his earlier comments on the campaign trail that he would pull out of Afghanistan.
"The speech was a disappointment to many who had supported his calls during the campaign to end expensive foreign intervention and nation-building," said a piece on the Breitbart website.
We're sympathetic. We know that they, along with many other Americans across the political spectrum, share a deep aversion to the deaths of more U.S. soldiers in a faraway land.
Pulling out would be the easy thing. But it would not only be a betrayal of the 2,400 Americans who gave their lives, it would also eventually turn Afghanistan into a kind of terrorist Disneyland, a safe haven for radical jihadists from which they could plan and launch terrorist attacks around the world — in particular, against the U.S. That's simply not acceptable.
Given that Trump has promised to eschew nation-building and to focus instead on limited goals related to curbing the threat of terrorism, this is the only policy that really can work. Remember after the 9/11 attacks, when troops were first dispatched to Afghanistan to rid it of al-Qaida and its worst terrorist elements, we all vowed "never again." Trump's new Afghan policy gives us a reasonable chance of achieving that.
Oh, and we understate the troops in Afghan. Its a little over 12,000 now and has been.
Trump Changed His Mind About Afghanistan Policy — And It's Good He Did
Afghanistan: President Trump, in announcing a new strategy for Afghanistan, has surely angered and perhaps perplexed some of his most ardent followers. But 17 years into this conflict, the U.S. cannot, and should not, simply walk away.
Democrats would love nothing more than to blame Trump for this mess he — and all of America — inherited.
President Obama's lack of attention and outright neglect ensured that whatever gains the U.S. had made in Iraq and Afghanistan were squandered. To be generous to Obama, politically, he really could do little else. His party had veered so far left and away from the War on Terror — even to the point of denying that blowing up and slaughtering innocents was even terrorism — that even if he had wanted to increase the U.S. commitment it would have posed a major political problem.
So the problem is now Trump's.
Trump reportedly now will expand the current 8,400 U.S. troops in Afghanistan by about 4,000 in an attempt, as Trump bluntly put it, to "kill terrorists" and "defeat the enemy."
"Terrorists, take heed. America will never let up until you are dealt a lasting defeat," Trump said, announcing the new strategy to a soldiers stationed at Fort Myer, Va.
Yes, it sounds bombastic, and perhaps it was meant to. But the plan behind the words seems both sound and reasonable.
To begin with, Trump actually wants to bring the Afghanistan war to a satisfactory conclusion. He admitted that his "original instinct was to pull out." But, wisely, rather than shooting from the hip, he actually gave it a great deal of thought. As he put it, he "studied Afghanistan in great detail from every angle," and held "many meetings, over many months" with his advisors, Cabinet and generals.
"I arrived at three fundamental conclusions about America's core interests in Afghanistan," Trump said.
"First, our nation must seek an honorable and enduring outcome worthy of the tremendous sacrifices that have been made," he said.
"Second, the consequences of a rapid exit are both predictable and unacceptable," he added. "A hasty withdrawal would create a vacuum that terrorists — including ISIS and al-Qaida — would instantly fill, just as happened before September 11."
"Third and finally, I concluded that the security threats we face in Afghanistan and the broader region are immense. Today, 20 U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organizations are active in Afghanistan and Pakistan — the highest concentration in any region of the world."
To ignore the terrorist threat is to invite another terrorist attack. Trump now understands this. But he also understands that just ramping up U.S. troop presence there isn't enough. President Obama sent some 33,000 additional troops to Afghanistan in 2009, but after two years of losses and facing re-election, he began bringing them home in 2011. Since the start of the fight, some 2,403 Americans have died in Afghanistan, more than half — 1,762 — under Obama.
Trump doesn't want to repeat Obama's mistake. And his change of mind bears the unmistakable imprint of the highly competent military minds that now serve as key aides in the Trump White House.
To begin with, while he's keeping mum on some of the details of our military operations there, he said the main goal was to train and advise Afghan forces to make them more effective against the Taliban and the 19 other terrorist groups now operating in the region, including al-Qaida and ISIS. And Trump explicitly called on Pakistan and India, both allies, to help the U.S. in its fight.
More important, Trump has defined the U.S.' goal in Afghanistan. As Frederick W. Kagan, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, put it, Trump's "minimum required outcome" would be "an Afghan state able to secure its own territory with very limited support from the U.S. and other partners."
This is doable. It's about time the U.S. got realistic about its goals. Most Americans aren't aware of what a giant black hole Afghanistan has become for the U.S.
The National Review's Jim Geraghty described just how large the U.S. commitment has been: "From 2002 to 2016, Congress appropriated more than $113 billion to rebuild Afghanistan, paying for roads, clinics, schools, civil-servant salaries, and Afghan military and police forces. That total does not include U.S. military spending on the country."
And how much is that? "Adjusted for inflation, the amount we've spent to reconstruct Afghanistan now exceeds the total amount we gave to the Marshall Plan that helped rebuild Western Europe after WWII." And that doesn't include the close to $45 billion we're now spending each year for military ops there.
Given the loss of life and the waste of money so far, we understand that some conservatives, in particular those in the "nationalist-populist" camp, are disappointed with Trump's plan, especially given his earlier comments on the campaign trail that he would pull out of Afghanistan.
"The speech was a disappointment to many who had supported his calls during the campaign to end expensive foreign intervention and nation-building," said a piece on the Breitbart website.
We're sympathetic. We know that they, along with many other Americans across the political spectrum, share a deep aversion to the deaths of more U.S. soldiers in a faraway land.
Pulling out would be the easy thing. But it would not only be a betrayal of the 2,400 Americans who gave their lives, it would also eventually turn Afghanistan into a kind of terrorist Disneyland, a safe haven for radical jihadists from which they could plan and launch terrorist attacks around the world — in particular, against the U.S. That's simply not acceptable.
Given that Trump has promised to eschew nation-building and to focus instead on limited goals related to curbing the threat of terrorism, this is the only policy that really can work. Remember after the 9/11 attacks, when troops were first dispatched to Afghanistan to rid it of al-Qaida and its worst terrorist elements, we all vowed "never again." Trump's new Afghan policy gives us a reasonable chance of achieving that.
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Someone else gets it wrong about Afghanistan and - GA Tiger MU - 8/23 08:23:00