On July 4 visit to Kabul, GOP senators say U.S. needs to win in Afghanistan

[DonViejo]

Source: The Washington Post




By Pamela Constable July 4 at 11:29 AM

KABUL — A bipartisan U.S. Senate delegation Tuesday called for more American troops and more aggressive American military action in Afghanistan, as well as pressure on neighboring Pakistan, saying the United States needs “a winning strategy” to end the 16-year war here and prevent the spread of terrorism.

“We are united in our concern that the present situation in Afghanistan is not on a course for success. We need to change that quickly,” Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a news conference at NATO and U.S. military headquarters in the Afghan capital at the end of a three-day visit to the region. “America is the strongest nation on earth,” but “we are not winning, and obviously we need a new strategy to win,” McCain said. “We are frustrated that this strategy has not been articulated yet.”

The Trump administration has been working for several months on a new policy for the region, where U.S. and Afghan forces have been fighting insurgents for the past 16 years. But the plans have been delayed by internal debates, while both Afghanistan and Pakistan have faced a renewed rash of suicide bombings and insurgent attacks.

McCain and Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), who visited Pakistan and Afghanistan this week with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and two other senators, said they plan to take back a message to President Trump that he needs to adopt a bold military plan for the region but also complement it with a strong and informed diplomatic policy.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/on-july-4-visit-to-kabul-top-gop-senators-say-us-needs-to-win-in-afghanistan/2017/07/04/e3e2e5a2-60bc-11e7-80a2-8c226031ac3f_story.html

[LuckyLib]

1. Yeah, "winning" has been so successful there for decades. Let's do more of it!

Get. Out.

[sarge43]

14. decades? Centuries

Afghanistan is where armies go to die.

Get.Out.Now.

[Wellstone ruled]

2. And to think Putin is

arming the Taliban. Yah,right,thanks to Dumb Donnie we will be there for years.

[gilligan]

3. Win?

Win What? What has it been now 15 years? God the $$$ spent and the mass destruction. Rise in opium production
.I could go on and on

[keithbvadu2]

4. John and Lindsey, tell us what the winning strategy is,,,, then tell us why Dubya refused to do it.

John and Lindsey, tell us what the winning strategy is,,,, then tell us why Dubya refused to do it.

[OldRedneck]

5. Did any one of this crowd of braying jackasses . . .

. . . define "WIN?"

Well, did they?

I'm an old soldier -- 28 years in uniform; retired in 1995; combat tours in Vietnam; served on SECDEF staff; been there.

The task of the political leadership is to define the conditions they want to establish and devise a strategy to establish those conditions. That is: What do you want the place to look like, now, how do you get there?

The military is only a part of the equation. Yet, the Trump Freak Show has turned things over to the military. That's not our job.

Deciding on the definition of win is the task of the likes of McCain and Graham. They don't understand what they are doing. McCain's only claim to fame is that he graduated at the bottom of his Annapolis class and was shot down during the Vietnam War; he rode his admiral father's coattails. Graham is a goddam rear echelon Air Force Reserve lawyer.

Meanwhile, 20-year-old kids are coming home in body bags. I've been down this road before and the end is ugly. Very, very ugly.

[SergeStorms]

16. Trump can't be bothered.

There's a FAR more important war going on at the moment, and it's the twitter war Trump has going with Morning Joe and Mika. The very soul of the nation is at stake.

When you're President, you have to choose your priorities and follow through on them. You can't let yourself get distracted by small issues flaring up on the periphery. Like Afghanistan.

Don't worry, anyone. Trump's got this.

[turbinetree]

6. Three trillion in national debt on this credit card shit, reinstate the fucking DRAFT

not counting lives lost, this is just fucking BS

I keep thinking of Westmoreland saying to the I Corp and the press body counts.................then came TET

[onecaliberal]

7. They all need to enlist along with their entire family. WTF are these people doing.

There is no status of force agreement. They asked us to get the fuck out.

[Coventina]

8. Good luck with that. It's not called the Graveyard of Empires for nothing.

[Blue Idaho]

9. I propose a special force

Made up of the grandkids of GOP Senators and Congress critters - let them do the winning...

[TomCADem]

10. I Think the Focus Is On Having A Strategy. Period.

Who says Trump does not have a strategy? It is bomb the shit out of Muslims regardless of whether they are combatants or civilians, particularly when he needs a distraction from the scandals at home.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/the-world-is-getting-a-taste-of-the-trump-doctrine-w476839

The World Is Getting a Taste of the Trump Doctrine

What to make of the sudden jump in "collateral damage" – i.e., the piling up of dead civilians in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Somalia and Afghanistan, thanks to U.S. airstrikes? Do the out-of-the-blue missile attacks against a Syrian air base last Thursday and this week's deployment of a 21,600-pound, never-before-used "mother of all bombs" in Afghanistan signal that the White House has given the green light for what Donald Trump promised in 2016 – "I would bomb the shit out of ISIS" – with little regard for innocents caught in the blasts?

Based on the results of a lengthy string of attacks, beginning just days after Trump took office in January, it sure looks that way.

Despite his bomb-ISIS outbursts, Trump ran a neo-isolationist electoral campaign, repeatedly slamming Hillary Clinton for her vote in favor of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Thus, his startling bout of muscle-flexing is a sharp departure from his America First posturing. The dropping of the GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) in eastern Afghanistan, in the remote hills of Achin District in Nangarhar Province, unleashed a weapon of staggering power, one widely described as the largest non-nuclear explosive device in the entire American arsenal. "The after-effect, the shock wave, not only has physical effects but psychological effects," Col. Cedric Leighton (Ret.), told CNN.

"This is not the war on terror but the inhuman and most brutal misuse of our country as a testing ground for new and dangerous weapons," former Afghan President Hamid Karzai wrote in a series of tweets.

http://www.latimes.com/politics/washington/la-na-essential-washington-updates-white-house-drops-mother-of-all-bombs-1492102824-htmlstory.html

Air Force drops non-nuclear 'mother of all bombs' in Afghanistan

The U.S. military dropped the most powerful non-nuclear bomb in its arsenal Thursday on a cave and tunnel complex that it said was used by Islamic State fighters in eastern Afghanistan, a stark reminder of a U.S. war now in its 16th grinding year.

The behemoth bomb, officially called the Massive Ordnance Air Blast, or MOAB, is also known as the "mother of all bombs." It is 30 feet long, weighs nearly 11 tons and produces a devastating above-ground explosion that sends a mushroom cloud roiling high in the sky.

Originally developed for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the MOAB has never been used in combat before.

Like the U.S. retaliatory missile strike in Syria last Friday, however, use of the monster munition in Afghanistan is more symbolic than tactical since it is unlikely to change the course of America’s longest war.

[haele]

18. Other than a strategy of uniting the tribes against you?

Historically, only one military leader has ever "won" in Afghanistan - Alexander the Great. And even then, he didn't have control over more than half the modern country.

The British couldn't even pacify the country; the best strategy they came up with the least loss of life and drain on the national treasury was to basically let the tribes run themselves and bribe access to the natural resources with modern conveniences. And not even try to bring the country into a developing nation.

You might be able to bring your armies in and set up tentative settlements, but the tribal leadership and inter-tribal warfare still dictates the culture of the country. And they will stand together, even if they are mortal enemies, if an "outsider" disrespects "their traditions" and tries to rule over them.

As was said up-thread - Afghanistan is where Empires go to die.

Haele

[Bernardo de La Paz]

11. Echoes of "winning" in Vietnam. . . . nt

[Solly Mack]

12. 16 years.

Children were born, learned to drive , and will graduate high school before too long. Some of whom will enlist in the armed services and continue to fight for a "win".

16 years.

[Greywing]

13. Never going to happen ... Russia tried it and the muhjadeen beat them down

We need to be out of any war in the middle east. I don't know why people don't wake up.

[NCDem777]

15. Trouble is,

no President, regardless of party, will ever win in Afghanistan because, and I know I'm gonna get heat for saying it, the locals don't WANT to win. There will never be democracy in Afghanistan because the locals are more interested in their tribal nonsense. They had the golden opportunity when the Taliban was deposed. But their tribal nonsense was more important.

Pull out and don't go back. Don't send them aid no matter what.

[shadowmayor]

17. Warren and Whitehouse too?

Que WTF? There came a point in the Viet Nam conflict where it was decided to abandon the prospect of winning. Peace with honor is how that crook Nixon framed it.

All of the billions we've poured into Afghanistan with hardly anything going to actually help the people who are suffering. Any time democrats are in alignment with Magoo and Lindsey I get worried. Magoo hasn't met a problem yet that (he thinks) can't be solved by more troops and more bombs.

Shame on the United States.

[cagefreesoylentgreen]

19. Won't happen because the MIC needs a sandbox to play in

Gotta use their expensive toys on something and someone, ya know.