"All men are timid on entering any fight. Whether it is the first or the last fight, all of us are timid. Cowards are those who let their timidity get the better of their manhood."--General George Patton Jr., from War as I Know It (1947).
"All men are timid on entering any fight. Whether it is the first or the last fight, all of us are timid. Cowards are those who let their timidity get the better of their manhood."
--General George Patton Jr.
Listen up. The Daddy is reading up on General Patton. He's is trying to learn some things on his own so he will not feel so ignorant when he meet friends for coffee on Sunday, most of whom are Vietnam vets. But, hey, they're not just vets. They're straight-up military historians.
You know what? The Daddy feels that some of this stuff that Patton is writing about soldiers applies to civilians too. For example, when Patton says, "...all of us are timid. Cowards are those who let their timidity get the better of their manhood."
A brotha is also feeling Truthout. Truthout is another one of those online progressive magazine The Daddy checks it everyday. A few days ago, Truthout's editorial staff wrote a fascinating and piercing piece about Afghanistan. It urges congress to stop funding endless wars and the oval office to stop signing off on it. Check it out:
Truthout to Congress: Stop Funding Endless War
On the war's eighth anniversary, we urge our president, our Congress and our country to cut the military purse strings and reject an escalation of violence in Afghanistan.
Yesterday, the Senate passed $128 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This appropriation could fuel a "surge" in deployment of US troops to Afghanistan; Gen. Stanley McChrystal recommends an increase of up to 40,000 soldiers.
If the American people had voted on this latest defense spending bill, they might well have rejected the funding. Most polls find that a definitive majority of Americans oppose an escalation of combat troops in Afghanistan. A recent McClatchy survey found that only 35 percent favored sending more troops.
This widespread public skepticism is understandable, given the war's mounting fatality rate. In August, one American died in Afghanistan every 14 hours. September also took a heavy toll, and 17 US soldiers have already died in Afghanistan in October.
President Obama has lately shown well-warranted caution in preparing to deploy more US troops, and remains wary of McChrystal's calls for a quick escalation. Still, he has not wavered in his support for the war.
"If left unchecked, the Taliban insurgency will mean an even larger safe haven from which al Qaeda would plot to kill more Americans," the president said less than two months ago. "So this is not only a war worth fighting. This is fundamental to the defense of our people."
In the lead-up to last year's election, we hoped that Obama's hawkish rhetoric on Afghanistan was simply a savvy campaign choice, intended to capture the votes of "moderates," who feared the prospect of a soft-on-terror commander in chief. Now we wonder whether Obama has succumbed to his own warlike words.
Though the Obama administration has rebranded the "war on terror" as "Overseas Contingency Operations" (or - to distance the name even further from its brutal reality - "OCO"), its ill-conceived mission and methods remain the same.
Truthout calls on the Obama administration and Congress to embrace a firm shift in mindset and engage in the critical thinking necessary to end the war by peaceful means.
How to prompt this transformation? Last month, Congressman Dennis Kucinich suggested a logical first step toward halting the military machine in Afghanistan: cutting its purse strings.
"If the Obama administration refuses to bring this war to an end, then Congress should use the power of the purse, granted by the Constitution, to end the war and bring our troops home," Kucinich said.
As Congress debates the much-needed health care reform legislation, Republicans argue that we cannot afford a massive new spending bill with the economy in its current condition. They neglect to mention the string of gargantuan war appropriations bills that have plagued our budget for eight years. America needs to take care of our needs at home before we continue to pour billions of dollars into an unwinnable war.
To read the rest of the story click here:
Do you feel that Afghanistan is a winnable war? If so, why? If not, why?
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5 comments:
Hi MacDaddy,
I suppose wars against modern states are winnable, assuming there is a defined objective and the state is seen by it's citizens as being their legitimate representative, so the people see the state acting in their interests when it surrenders.
Those things don't apply here. There hasn't been a representative state in Afghanistan for many years.
Our mission never made sense. So IMO it is unwinnable.There is no good,easy solution. The sooner we get out the better,for everyone. Our intentions were never good here,in spite of the propaganda.
On a related note,my daughter was commenting on how none of the MSM news talking heads ever questioned troop buildups in either theater under Bush. With Obama, suddenly they're questioning the war. It's not as if the MSM is suddenly peace loving. They want to see a Black man fail no matter which way he goes.
This is an extremely complicated subject with a long and dangerously secretive history. It's like peeling an onion, and the more you learn, the more you cry. Given this, there's no way in hell we'll be out anytime soon.
Is it winnable, you ask?
My answer might surprise you:
It better be.
Find your way to the core of that onion and you'll understand why.
Oso: Good points. True, no solution is easy. But I think we should do three things:
1-Begin to reduce soldiers from the war theater.
2-Move some of these soldiers to Pakistan to train and advise Pakistani Army officials and soldiers.
3-While leaving Afghanistan, leave enough soldiers to train Afghanistan officials and soldiers to fight their own war. Of course to do this right, a few soldiers must be in the theater, on the ground, involved in the fighting.
The soldiers left to train Afghanistan soldiers need not be all Americans. The British and possibly the French could be involved as well. In this way, we could have even less American soldiers involved and getting killed.
4-Develop a priority list for dealing not with Afghanistan but the entire region. Obviously, the first priority should be Pakistan. They are the ones with missiles we need to ensure does not get into Al Queda's hands. They are the ones with soldiers who have shown a willingness to fight Al Queda. Some Pakistanis have belief in the government. And it is less corrupt than the Kazai regime, which is as corrupt as corruption gets. The people of Afghanistan have no faith in the Kazai regime.
There you have it: a few suggestions on getting out of Afghanistan.
Kit: How you doin, Sis? I agree that Afghanistan is a complicated situation. One thing we should all remember: The U.S. has been involved with this nation for some time. So, when Afghanistanians say they don't trust Americans and want them to leave, they have good reasons for doing so...
I'm coming over to see you at Keep It Trill. Blessings.
No I don't think it's winnable. I don't think anyone can even define victory for one thing.
It's a horrible waste of lives and money for no purpose.
http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2009/11/03/tossing-the-coin-in-afghanistan/
ShadyGrady: Amen.
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