Yes, this new “troop surge” will succeed. Yes, it will also fail.
The first thing you have to do is realize what the escalation of troops in Afghanistan is meant to accomplish.
As Rachel Maddow is, as I type, explaining, the entire goal of the surge is to provide enough cover for President Karzai’s government that, within 18 months, we can leave and his government is no longer threatened.
(crossposted at Daily Kos)
Get this into your head now. It is not about the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, or even that they are now based in the northern parts of Pakistan.
It is all about the fact that President Karzai doesn’t have the support, or the military man-power, to hold onto his power.
Amb. Susan Rice is saying that the goal is to keep Al-Qaeda from having safe-haven in Pakistan. The problem is, our government will not, can not, declare war with Pakistan. We have been supporting whatever government rules in Pakistan because they have nuclear weapons. They are no longer in Afghanistan. To keep them from coming back to Afghanistan, we have to keep Karzai in power. Period. That takes troops.
Why will this fail? Numbers.
Gen. Shinseki rightly said that it would take several hundred thousand troops to occupy and stabilize Iraq. We didn’t put that number into Iraq, and, it never stabilized. Afghanistan is three times the size of Iraq. Another 30,000, or 60,000, troops in Afghanistan cannot stabilize the region. What it CAN do is provide security for the Karzai government.
Why will it succeed? The ultimate goal.
We cannot let President Karzai’s illegitimate government fail and be pushed out of power. As Amb. Rice states, once Karzai’s government falls, the Taliban WILL retake Afghanistan.
This is not a Republican vs. Democrat issue. This is what EVERY administration since the 1950’s has wanted — our presence in the Middle East.
Amb. Rice is WRONG. Al-Qaeda can have cells in any country. This is NOT about stopping Al-Qaeda, as Rachel Maddow rightly calls her out on.
We lost several thousand of our troops to prop up a government in Iraq that ultimately kicked us out. We are now putting the same number of troops, with the same number likely to die, to prop up the government in Afghanistan.
You will never totally eradicate extremism, or terrorism, when they have a cause to fight for, or against. To do so requires genocide.
Yes, Obama said he would focus on Afghanistan. He had the ability to see that Iraq was already lost, that we were already committed to leaving, when he said it. What he DIDN’T say was that he was focusing on Afghanistan for the same reasons Bush went into Iraq.
And… Amb. Rice has just said that same as I just did… on Rachel Maddow’s show.
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The entire purpose of this is to give taxpayers grandchildren’s money to his bosses at General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, etc, and to turn what little is left of the US into a military state.