So what did we actually achieve?

[Gob]

US President Barack Obama has warned of "hard days ahead" at a Nato summit in Chicago dominated by the issue of withdrawal from Afghanistan.

France's new President Francois Hollande has again said he will pull French troops out by the end of 2012, nearly two years ahead of schedule.

Nato is preparing to hand over security to Afghan forces by the end of 2014.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai said his country was fully aware of its responsibilities.

Some Nato members have pledged aid to help Afghan forces tackle the Taliban insurgency on their own.

The BBC's defence correspondent Caroline Wyatt says the summit is seeking to reconcile two different messages.

It is telling the public in Nato countries that the fighting in Afghanistan is coming to an end for their troops, while reassuring the Afghans that the alliance will not abandon them after 2014, our correspondent says.

So what did we actually achieve? Anything?

The wars of George the Moron and Evil Dick Chaney, what was the outcome?

[Lord Jim]

Well, I suppose you could ask Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Ladin if we accomplished anything...

Oh wait....


We removed two virulently anti-Western regimes. In the case of Afghanistan we also destroyed the privileged sanctuary of the best organized and financed terrorist organization on earth, making it much more difficult for them to ply their trade. In Iraq we removed a regime that was providing active support for terrorism in the mid east, (including $25,000 payments to the families of suicide bombers) and that had twice invaded it's neighbors and that actively terrorized it's own people. A hugely disruptive presence in the Mid East.

I suppose you could also ask the hundreds of thousands of girls in Afghanistan that are now able to go to school if we accomplished anything....

We accomplished a lot of things. It can be argued that the cost for accomplishing them was too high, but it can't really be credibly claimed that we accomplished "nothing"....

[BoSoxGal]

The situation for women and girls in the majority of Afghanistan is not terrifically improved, and formal efforts to educate girls are crumbling in the face of renewed insurgent/Taliban rise to power. Extensive coverage of this in both the WashPo and NY Times in recent months.

[Grim Reaper]

In the case of Afghanistan we also destroyed the privileged sanctuary of the best organized and financed terrorist organization on earth, making it much more difficult for them to ply their trade.

And they moved to Pakistan, where we can't do anything openly against them.

[dales]

In the case of Afghanistan we also destroyed the privileged sanctuary of the best organized and financed terrorist organization on earth, making it much more difficult for them to ply their trade.

The GOP?

[Lord Jim]

No Dale, the National Education Association.....

[Big RR]

Jim--yes, we achieved regime change, but give it time and they'll be right back where they were before (unless we step in and impose a dcitator leaning toward us). Unless the people of a country participate in making the changes themselves, the changes rarely last, as we have seen again and again. Indeed, how amny times has out heavy-handed bundering actually achieved any lasting change in the interest of the people in the last 50 years? I can't think of any.

[Sue U]

We removed two virulently anti-Western regimes.

Both of which the West (and particularly the US) was instrumental in bringing to power and providing support in the first place.

Rumsfeld & Saddam, 1983:



Reagan and the Afghan Mujaheddin leadership, 1985:



Is our leaders learning?

[Lord Jim]

Sorry Sue, but I've never been impressed with that sort of reasoning....

At the time we supported Hussein and the Mujaheddin, it made perfectly good sense to do so, given the context of the times, (Iran was poised to defeat Iraq and establish a hugely enhanced strength in the Mid-East and the Mujahedin were bleeding the occupying Soviet forces.)

It makes no mores sense to say we shouldn't have supported them at the time than it would to say we shouldn't have supported the Russians during WW II since we wound up after that having to oppose them in the Cold War.

Just because other problems are created later doesn't mean that you shouldn't deal with the threats you face at the time.

If we took that approach, we might not have the luxury of facing those new problems....

[Sue U]

At the time we supported Hussein and the Mujaheddin, it made perfectly good sense to do so, given the context of the times, (Iran was poised to defeat Iraq and establish a hugely enhanced strength in the Mid-East and the Mujahedin were bleeding the occupying Soviet forces.)

Iraq was the aggressor and invaded Iran hoping to take advantage of instability in Iran following the revolution. Iran has been in conflict with its Arab (Sunni) neighbors for centuries, even back to pre-Muslim times. As for Afghanistan, whatever you may think of proxy wars, the mujaheddin had always pledged to bring a restrctive and regressive form of Islamic law to their country, and it was exactly that religious factionalism that, with the assistance of the religious right in Pakistan, led to the rise of the Taliban. None of this was rocket surgery, nor were its results unforeseeable.

[Gob]

We removed two virulently anti-Western regimes.

Which?

In the case of Afghanistan we also destroyed the privileged sanctuary of the best organized and financed terrorist organization on earth, making it much more difficult for them to ply their trade.

hmmmm.....

More than 90 people have been killed in a suicide bomb attack at a military parade rehearsal in Yemen's capital, Sanaa, defence ministry officials say.

The bomber, who was reportedly wearing an army uniform, blew himself up among a group of soldiers at al-Sabin Square, near the presidential palace.

An al-Qaeda source told the BBC one of its members had carried out the attack.

It was the deadliest incident in the capital since Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi was elected president in February.

One of Yemen's security chiefs was sacked after the attack by a presidential decree.

[rubato]

(I've said this before, a lot)

We had to go into Afghanistan and overthrow the Taliban who, as the nominal government, had harbored Al Qaeda and helped them to attack us. The government of the United States was morally obligated, and practically obligated to attack Al Qaeda and to overthrow any regime which supported them and supported international terrorism. This was perfectly clear at the beginning; Liberals, Conservatives, and the international community all agreed on this. This was what we had to do and we accomplished it.

Having invaded and overthrown a government we incurred some obligation to the people of that country (and everyone else) to leave in a way which made it possible for them to form a stable, legitimate government which has a reasonable chance of success. That is what we have been doing for most of the time after. But it must be admitted that in the end it is the people and leaders of Afghanistan who will either fail or succeed. We cannot guarantee success and it is not our responsibility to do so. But we were obliged to try and we have done that. (although the stupid, lying and unneccessary attack on Iraq made it less likely we would succeed by removing resources at the critical time. Republican president = stupid decision. )

I'm shocked at how inane and unthinking some of the current criticism is.

It is important to establish the principle that no country in the world can harbor another Al Qaeda unless they expect we will invade and tear their shit up again. We don't actually HAVE to make nice afterwards. We are doing so here because we are better people than most. Most of our allies, apparently, too.

We achieved all of the important things we had to. We will continue to pursue Al Qaeda in Yemen or anywhere else they are with all of the weapons we have.

yrs,
rubato

[Lord Jim]

Strop, you seem to have confused the concept of "achieve anything" with the concept of "make every thing perfect"....

In seems inarguable that our efforts over the past 12 years have greatly degraded the capabilities the terrorists possessed prior to 9/11 and greatly enhanced our ability to monitor, infiltrate and foil their efforts...

Surely you would not dispute this?

[Gob]

Not at all old son....

[Lord Jim]

Iraq was the aggressor and invaded Iran hoping to take advantage of instability in Iran following the revolution.

Yes, but so what?

We didn't provide aid to Saddam in order to help him "win" if by win you mean some sort of strategic advantage over the Iranians.

At the time we started providing aid to Iraq, the Iranians had started to pull their act together as a military force, and the tide of battle was turning against Hussein. (Saddam will certainly not go down in the annals of history for as a great militarily strategist or tactician...)

We wanted them to punch each other out to a stalemate that would essentially restore the staus quo ante prior to Hussein's invasion...

Which is pretty much what happened, and the best possible result to the conflict from the standpoint of US and Western interests....

It was the right policy, and it largely succeeded in achieving the objective.

Re Afghanistan:

You are aware I presume that the policy of aiding the Mujahedin began under Carter...and in fact it began even before the Soviets invaded. For the purpose of trying to provoke a Soviet invasion. In the late 90's Zbigniew Brzezinski actually bragged about this:

Question: The former director of the CIA, Robert Gates, stated in his memoirs ["From the Shadows"], that American intelligence services began to aid the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan 6 months before the Soviet intervention. In this period you were the national security adviser to President Carter. You therefore played a role in this affair. Is that correct?

Brzezinski: Yes. According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.

Q: Despite this risk, you were an advocate of this covert action. But perhaps you yourself desired this Soviet entry into war and looked to provoke it?

B: It isn't quite that. We didn't push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.

It's a fascinating interview:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/BRZ110A.html

I have often wondered why in all the years since Brzezinski made this stunning admission...(which got very little press attention; I didn't even find out about it till a couple of years ago) that I have never once seen a reporter interviewing TIC question him about this....

It's not like he's camera shy....

[MajGenl.Meade]

(I've said this before, a lot)

I've never seen it put so clearly though. Thank you.

Meade

[rubato]

I've said it better before, imo.

But the odd thing is just how primitive the Taliban were, mentally. After Clinton attacked the Al Qaeda bases with cruise missiles for the "Cole" bombing and dropped a few in Sudan they should have understood that we will certainly use force? After we erased Saddam Hussein's army in a few hours in DS I they should have understood that they were nothing compared to that?

I think we should just do a cost-benefit and if the numbers come out that way just give up the nation-building idea and decide to go in every 5-10 years and blow their shit up, if they tolerate terrorists, until they 'get it'.

yrs,
rubato

[Sue U]

It is important to establish the principle that no country in the world can harbor another Al Qaeda unless they expect we will invade and tear their shit up again. . . . We will continue to pursue Al Qaeda in Yemen or anywhere else they are with all of the weapons we have.

What criteria would be employed to justify such a preemptive attack? Is "membership" in Al Qaeda, or "association with" Al Qaeda, or merely "sympathizing with" Al Qaeda a sufficient basis to warrant an assassination by drone strike, without actually being charged, tried and convicted of anything that might be a crime? Are there no limits on the exercise of deadly force against anyone deemed (by whom?) a "terrorist"?

[Lord Jim]

Well, will wonders never cease....

I find myself in 100% agreement with rubato...

[MajGenl.Meade]

Are there no limits on the exercise of deadly force against anyone deemed (by us) a "terrorist"?

Fixed