Why Afghanistan Is Going To Fall To The Taliban Again. And It's Not Why You Think.

[homersapien 11,367]

http://www.huffingto...4b0768127024d1b

...The Taliban has since charged that Afghan intelligence purposely gave the U.S. the hospital's coordinates. Even the possibility that such an accusation is true -- and the duration of the sustained attack suggests that something unusual happened -- points toward the reason that Afghanistan is headed back toward Taliban control: The government is thoroughly corrupt, and the U.S. has been unwilling to take measures to address the situation. While a handful of civilian and military leaders identified corruption as an existential threat to the country, the problem remains unsolved...

Reporting from the region makes it clear that the Afghan government lost the population as a result of its corruption. The way it erodes public support is intuitive: Imagine that you are an Afghan civilian generally opposed to the extremism of the Taliban. Yet for nearly everything you need to do -- travel to and from work, transport merchandise, enroll in school, open a business -- you get shaken down, often by somebody of a different ethnicity. The Taliban, with all its piety, at least might not be corrupt, you start to think. As The New York Times reported last week:

Over the past few years, faith in the government and the warlords who were allied with the government, never strong, has rapidly diminished. Militias and Afghan Local Police forces installed by the American Special Forces were largely unaccountable. They extorted protection money from farmers, and committed rapes and robberies. But because they had guns and the backing of local strongmen close to the government, people’s complaints were ignored.

In Khanabad, a district southeast of Kunduz City, for instance, residents complained that the local militias were worse than the Taliban in part because while the Taliban would only demand payment once for a harvest, there was often more than one militia, each demanding its own share.

Over time, as villages threw their lot in with the Taliban, the insurgents’ cordon around Kunduz grew tighter. By last year the city felt so under siege that police officers were resistant to driving in a marked government vehicle for fear a Taliban fighter on a motorbike would slap a magnetic bomb on it......

[autigeremt 6,601]

Obama has a part in this one. He has to own it along with others.

[homersapien 11,367]

Obama has a part in this one. He has to own it along with others.

So, in your opinion, all we needed to do in Afghanistan is just stay longer or double down and then stay longer?

Did you read the article at all?

[autigeremt 6,601]

Obama has a part in this one. He has to own it along with others.

So, in your opinion, all we needed to do in Afghanistan is just stay longer or double down and then stay longer?

Did you read the article at all?

I read what I've known for months.......in my opinion the issue results in a failed set of policy making by the US since the invasion across both presidencies. Anything else Jack?

[aujeff11 6,243]

Obama has a part in this one. He has to own it along with others.

So, in your opinion, all we needed to do in Afghanistan is just stay longer or double down and then stay longer?

Did you read the article at all?

I read what I've known for months.......in my opinion the issue results in a failed set of policy making by the US since the invasion across both presidencies. Anything else Jack?

Could you be any more vague?

[homersapien 11,367]

Obama has a part in this one. He has to own it along with others.

So, in your opinion, all we needed to do in Afghanistan is just stay longer or double down and then stay longer?

Did you read the article at all?

I read what I've known for months.......in my opinion the issue results in a failed set of policy making by the US since the invasion across both presidencies. Anything else Jack?

Only the theme of the article.

[autigeremt 6,601]

Obama has a part in this one. He has to own it along with others.

So, in your opinion, all we needed to do in Afghanistan is just stay longer or double down and then stay longer?

Did you read the article at all?

I read what I've known for months.......in my opinion the issue results in a failed set of policy making by the US since the invasion across both presidencies. Anything else Jack?

Only the theme of the article.

You read and posted it. The "theme" is pretty cut and dry.

[cptau 169]

America is still obsessed with liberating countries and making them republican democracies. We did it successfully after the Spanish American War and WWII. We failed with Vietnam, Iraq and apparently will with Afghanistan.

We can destroy the evil forces, but if the local people aren't interested in helping themselves, the countries will not become democracies.

The best we can hope for is a King, or dictator that is tolerable. The Brits and French tried leaving Kings in the middle eastern countries, who soon were overthrown by dictators and later Islamic theocracies. Going there and trying to leave elected rulers in charge will not worked.

Afganistan is made worse because it is a collection tribes. No one from the outside has been successful with those tribes.

It's Time to just come home and warn the Talban or whomever that we will attack them if they threaten us, attack us or harbor groups that have attacked us.

[JoeBags7277 734]

America is still obsessed with liberating countries and making them republican democracies. We did it successfully after the Spanish American War and WWII. We failed with Vietnam, Iraq and apparently will with Afghanistan.

We can destroy the evil forces, but if the local people aren't interested in helping themselves, the countries will not become democracies.

The best we can hope for is a King, or dictator that is tolerable. The Brits and French tried leaving Kings in the middle eastern countries, who soon were overthrown by dictators and later Islamic theocracies. Going there and trying to leave elected rulers in charge will not worked.

Afganistan is made worse because it is a collection tribes. No one from the outside has been successful with those tribes.

It's Time to just come home and warn the Talban or whomever that we will attack them if they threaten us, attack us or harbor groups that have attacked us.

Hear, hear. The latter will take care of the former. Our neverending meddling in their affairs provides the fuel for the extremist fire. Without it, the common man would have no interest in attacking us.

[icanthearyou 4,462]

America is still obsessed with liberating countries and making them republican democracies. We did it successfully after the Spanish American War and WWII. We failed with Vietnam, Iraq and apparently will with Afghanistan.

We can destroy the evil forces, but if the local people aren't interested in helping themselves, the countries will not become democracies.

The best we can hope for is a King, or dictator that is tolerable. The Brits and French tried leaving Kings in the middle eastern countries, who soon were overthrown by dictators and later Islamic theocracies. Going there and trying to leave elected rulers in charge will not worked.

Afganistan is made worse because it is a collection tribes. No one from the outside has been successful with those tribes.

It's Time to just come home and warn the Talban or whomever that we will attack them if they threaten us, attack us or harbor groups that have attacked us.

Yes.

[alexava 6,973]

America is still obsessed with liberating countries and making them republican democracies. We did it successfully after the Spanish American War and WWII. We failed with Vietnam, Iraq and apparently will with Afghanistan.

We can destroy the evil forces, but if the local people aren't interested in helping themselves, the countries will not become democracies.

The best we can hope for is a King, or dictator that is tolerable. The Brits and French tried leaving Kings in the middle eastern countries, who soon were overthrown by dictators and later Islamic theocracies. Going there and trying to leave elected rulers in charge will not worked.

Afganistan is made worse because it is a collection tribes. No one from the outside has been successful with those tribes.

It's Time to just come home and warn the Talban or whomever that we will attack them if they threaten us, attack us or harbor groups that have attacked us.

Hear, hear. The latter will take care of the former. Our neverending meddling in their affairs provides the fuel for the extremist fire. Without it, the common man would have no interest in attacking us.

[autigeremt 6,601]

America is still obsessed with liberating countries and making them republican democracies. We did it successfully after the Spanish American War and WWII. We failed with Vietnam, Iraq and apparently will with Afghanistan.

We can destroy the evil forces, but if the local people aren't interested in helping themselves, the countries will not become democracies.

The best we can hope for is a King, or dictator that is tolerable. The Brits and French tried leaving Kings in the middle eastern countries, who soon were overthrown by dictators and later Islamic theocracies. Going there and trying to leave elected rulers in charge will not worked.

Afganistan is made worse because it is a collection tribes. No one from the outside has been successful with those tribes.

It's Time to just come home and warn the Talban or whomever that we will attack them if they threaten us, attack us or harbor groups that have attacked us.

:starorange: :starorange:

[Grumps 3,704]

America is still obsessed with liberating countries and making them republican democracies. We did it successfully after the Spanish American War and WWII. We failed with Vietnam, Iraq and apparently will with Afghanistan.

We can destroy the evil forces, but if the local people aren't interested in helping themselves, the countries will not become democracies.

The best we can hope for is a King, or dictator that is tolerable. The Brits and French tried leaving Kings in the middle eastern countries, who soon were overthrown by dictators and later Islamic theocracies. Going there and trying to leave elected rulers in charge will not worked.

Afganistan is made worse because it is a collection tribes. No one from the outside has been successful with those tribes.

It's Time to just come home and warn the Talban or whomever that we will attack them if they threaten us, attack us or harbor groups that have attacked us.

I also agree. But I would add that if you are going to publicize cutting off peoples' heads due to their religious beliefs or you are going to kidnap 300 schoolgirls, we will use you for a Marine training exercise even if our people are not involved.