And we suspect neither of them understand any of that 4GW stuff. At least here at TAC, we have to assume Bush was a complete fool. And so the accident that he picked his battles, and pulled those 4GW muslim extremists into a more civilized environment, so they could come from all over the mid-east and fight us where there were roads… Lucky break.

A lucky break that might have given Afghanistan it’s chance.

Now if I were the head of the Afghanis, and could pull my own head out of the corruption for a moment, I would make a proposal to the US.

Let the US finance building a 4-lane highway that circumnavigates Afghanistan, and spokes to the major cities. In return, central govt can become a reality, and the economy of Afghanistan is jump-started, and the Afghanis can create their own rapid-response forces. Control the road, and win hearts and minds of rural towns, and pull those 4GW enemy fighters onto a civilized battlefield. Where the enemy attacks the road, they attack the livlihood of the folks who would come to depend on it.

Should be about 2-cents worth there.

“While I think there’s some logic in this I suspect its effect will be greatly swamped out by A.) the tremendous increase in fighters generally in both Afghanistan and Pakistan who just don’t like seeing their countries occupied/made into U.S. satellites, and B.) the number of Afghan fighters who will go over into Pakistan and use it as a relative safe-haven, much as the N. Vietnamese and VC did with Cambodia and Laos.”

You definitely make a good point. The situation in Afghanistan certainly is dissimiliar to Iraq in that we shouldn’t count on Al Qaeda’s barbarism to help us appear as the lesser of two evils in the eyes of the local populace.

“Seems the better argument to me that if we left Afghanistan that it would act as a pressure release valve allowing the Fundies to go back in *from* Pakistan, and might give Pakistan enough breathing room to survive as a non-Fundie nation. ”

You may be right. Much of this is contingent on how we conduct the operation. After all, there has not been a popular uprising in Afghanistan as some predicted, at least not yet. Unfortunately, the number of American casualties that would probably be sustained in order to avoid enraging the locals with airstrikes, artillery, etc… will not be tolerable to the American public. Then comes the withdrawal option.

I think we can agree that, whether we stay or go, substantial risk is involved.

One can’t help but wonder, can Afghanistan in its present form be governed? Can Pakistan?

“[U.S. forces being in Afghanistan] will most likely draw fighters away from Pakistan into Afghanistan thereby making the Pakistani governments security job ‘easier.’”

While I think there’s some logic in this I suspect its effect will be greatly swamped out by A.) the tremendous increase in fighters generally in both Afghanistan and Pakistan who just don’t like seeing their countries occupied/made into U.S. satellites, and B.) the number of Afghan fighters who will go over into Pakistan and use it as a relative safe-haven, much as the N. Vietnamese and VC did with Cambodia and Laos. (And remember what happened there.)

No, in the first place I think one has to acknowledge that it was our occupation of Afghanistan in the *first* place that has *already* destabilized Pakistan to a very significant degree. We just pushed the Fundies over the border where their Fundie brothers felt they had to welcome them in, and then we had Pakistan go after them all and, one can argue, they are now in the process of kicking Pakistan’s ass pretty well. (Esp. in having gotten rid of Mushareff, and killing Benazir Bhutto.)

Seems the better argument to me that if we left Afghanistan that it would act as a pressure release valve allowing the Fundies to go back in *from* Pakistan, and might give Pakistan enough breathing room to survive as a non-Fundie nation.

Not 100% sure, but that’s where the odds tilt it seems to me at least.

Cheers,

It is heartening, at least, to hear more voices pointing out the Imperial nature of the presidency – I would not be the first to suggest a “coalition of the small”, those in favor of a less burgeoning empire in some fashion or another.

I have a different read on your paragraph 3. You say “one party” and “establishment”. Actually, there is a struggle between groups of crooks, up on a level that is largely invisible to the US public. (The reason this distinction is important, is that my scenario implies that the antidote is an honest class of citizens rising to re-take the country.)

And, in paragraph 9, you say he is “kicking the can down the road” for political reasons, but implying that it is not relevant to the 2010 US elections. I would argue that it is precisely BECAUSE of the elections, and wanting to use the war as a liberal tool leading up to the elections, that Obama is taking this tack. Obama’s timing has been precise, in the delaying of McChrystal’s request, to precisely place the “18th month” about 8 months past the 2010 elections. The left will get a “bump” from the antiwar.com folks prior to the 2010 elections, and the left will have another “crisis” in the summer of 2011, to be used as fodder for the 2012 elections.

Our job, then, is to get the antiwar.com folks to wake up and quit being “tools” for such Liberal machinations.

Let us pump honesty and personal responsibility into the left half of the populus, and let us convince the right half that being “security at home”-oriented does not necessitate foreign interventionism, nor necessarily force upon us a secularism or feminism-gone-awry. (Let’s convince the “neocons” that dead US babies are every bit as important to us as foreign “bombed-out” babies. Let’s convince the “libs” that we can honor Human Life without removing a woman’s-or a man’s-right over their own body or personal space).

This is the start, this is where we build our tent for the American public to overthrow the crooks.