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So your position is based on fantasy. Well, that explains a lot.
It's based on history.
So your position is based on fantasy. Well, that explains a lot.
It's based on history.
I don't either, but I do remember them being about as successful with their venture as we are with ours.
Genghis Kahn wasn't trying to establish democracy either, and whatever he was trying to accomplish was also a failure.
Genghis Kahn objective was rape and plunder.
agreed. suppose we had left a presence in Iraq? we'd be combatting ISIS in Anbar province for sure.Let the Saudis and the those Sunni Arabs.....run in to save the day. Get a little bit of that front line action on a grand scale. So they can taste whats its like. Rather than just talk and talk and talk and beg others to go and do the their dirty work for them.
"Pipelineistan" is the given name. I don't know if by now we could control the Caspian reserves, but it very well could have been a key motivation.An article in the Guardian of London headlined, "A pro-western regime in Kabul should give the U.S. an Afghan route for Caspian oil".
"The invasion of Afghanistan is certainly a campaign against terrorism," wrote author George Monbiot in the Oct. 22, 2001, piece, "but it may also be a late colonial adventure."
He wrote that the U.S. oil company Unocal Corp. had been negotiating with the Taliban since 1995 to build "oil and gas pipelines from Turkmenistan, through Afghanistan and into Pakistani ports on the Arabian sea."
To make things even smoother, the U.S. engineered the rise to power of two former Unocal employees: Hamid Karzai, the new interim president of Afghanistan, and Zalmay Khalizad, the Bush administration's Afghanistan envoy.
John Pilger in an Oct. 29 commentary in the British-based Mirror wrote, "Bush's concealed agenda is to exploit the oil and gas reserves in the Caspian basin, the greatest source of untapped fossil fuel on earth."
"Just as the Gulf War in 1991 was about oil, the new conflict in South and Central Asia is no less about access to the region's abundant petroleum resources," writes Ranjit Devraj in the Hong Kong-based Asia Times, a business- oriented publication.
Khalilzad was a key player in setting up the Afghanistan-America Foundation in the mid-1990s, a lobby that during the Clinton administration became very influential because of its spinning of TAP, hyped as a key pipeline to bypass both Iran and Russia
Karzai has always denied – including to this correspondent – he was a minor Unocal employee plus entertainer of Taliban delegations visiting Houston and Washington in 1997.
Khalilzad’s relationship is less murky: he was a certified Unocal advisor. The “prize” – from president Bill Clinton to Bush and now Obama –
is still the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan pipeline, then known as TAP and now known as TAPI, with the inclusion of India (See Pipelineistan goes Af-Pak Asia Times Online, May 14, 2009).
You have a time machine? Let me borrow it.
With Afghanistan we just need to get out and keep the drones and bombers handy. Back in the 1950’s when the domino theory was first envision, it was correct. Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, South Vietnam and Malaysia were ripe to fall. 15 years later Thailand had strengthen their national defense to where that country probably could stand on its own against the Vietnamese. But Laos and Cambodia just didn’t have the population or the will. Thailand did and those 15 years meant the domino theory would now stop at Thailand’s door whereas back in the late 50’s, Thailand was very weak, militarily and with the unity of the nation.I have a memory that goes back to the Vietnam War. Luckily for us, the North Vietnamese government didn't turn out to be nearly as "Communistic" as we supposed, and, as we now know, the so called "domino theory" was a lot of hoakum.
But, after more than two decades in that country, Nixon finally pulled the troops out and went home. To this day, the hawks maintain that the war could have been won had it not been for the "liberals" who pulled us out prematurely.
With Afghanistan we just need to get out and keep the drones and bombers handy. Back in the 1950’s when the domino theory was first envision, it was correct. Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, South Vietnam and Malaysia were ripe to fall. 15 years later Thailand had strengthen their national defense to where that country probably could stand on its own against the Vietnamese. But Laos and Cambodia just didn’t have the population or the will. Thailand did and those 15 years meant the domino theory would now stop at Thailand’s door whereas back in the late 50’s, Thailand was very weak, militarily and with the unity of the nation.
As for winning that war, we never had the will. We went into Vietnam with a goal of not winning, but with preserving the status quo, gaining a stalemate. There are days I wake up think, yes we could have won. Then there are others when I wake up and know there was no way. But I was too deeply involved to have a non-biased opinion on Vietnam.
An article in the Guardian of London headlined, "A pro-western regime in Kabul should give the U.S. an Afghan route for Caspian oil".
"The invasion of Afghanistan is certainly a campaign against terrorism," wrote author George Monbiot in the Oct. 22, 2001, piece, "but it may also be a late colonial adventure."
He wrote that the U.S. oil company Unocal Corp. had been negotiating with the Taliban since 1995 to build "oil and gas pipelines from Turkmenistan, through Afghanistan and into Pakistani ports on the Arabian sea."
To make things even smoother, the U.S. engineered the rise to power of two former Unocal employees: Hamid Karzai, the new interim president of Afghanistan, and Zalmay Khalizad, the Bush administration's Afghanistan envoy.
John Pilger in an Oct. 29 commentary in the British-based Mirror wrote, "Bush's concealed agenda is to exploit the oil and gas reserves in the Caspian basin, the greatest source of untapped fossil fuel on earth."
"Just as the Gulf War in 1991 was about oil, the new conflict in South and Central Asia is no less about access to the region's abundant petroleum resources," writes Ranjit Devraj in the Hong Kong-based Asia Times, a business- oriented publication.
I don't either, but I do remember them being about as successful with their venture as we are with ours.
Genghis Kahn wasn't trying to establish democracy either, and whatever he was trying to accomplish was also a failure.
How so? Khan despoiled Khwarezemia and dominated Afghanistan until it was in turn absorbed by the Timurids. Afghanistan has been conquered and subdued repeatedly throughout its history.
Yes.
Alexander the Great conquered and pacified the region; even after his death,it was sufficiently under the thumb to be mentioned in both the Partition of Babylon (323 BC) and Partition of Triparadisus 321 BC), documents drawn up by Alexander's generals dividing his empire between them.
The fact that the Indian client king Porus was leading an army to the support of Eumenes against Antingonus in 317 BC, during the wars of the Diadochi, is further indication that Afghanistan was still controlled by Hellenistic satraps, as Porus would have to cross the area to reach Eumenes.
In 1842, British forces defeated an Afghan army and occupied Kabul, destroying all its fortifications and the Central Bazaar (centre of economic activity in the country). However, deciding that Afghanistan was both too dangerous and,more importantly,unprofitable, The East India Company decided to withdraw the British presence from Afghanistan permanently (this is clear from surviving correspondence of the Company with its London offices).
We went in not only with the goal of not winning, but with no vision of what winning would have even looked like. If the goal was status quo, why even get involved at all? Meanwhile, today we are in Afganistan with the goal of... what again? How do we know when we've won if there is no exit strategy?
And I, too, was too involved to have a non biased view of Vietnam. It just seems to me that there are parallels with Vietnam, Afganistan, and Iraq.
I have a memory that goes back to the Vietnam War. Luckily for us, the North Vietnamese government didn't turn out to be nearly as "Communistic" as we supposed, and, as we now know, the so called "domino theory" was a lot of hoakum.
What are you suggesting Juanita? Karzai is going, and there will be elections, its just a matter of whether or not Karzai gets his man in there.
If it was a fair election, how could you be sure that the Taliban wouldn't win? Ban them from standing and you just made it unfair.
interesting, haven't thought about the elections -found this:
Will Afghanistan Survive The Aftermath Of Its 2014 Presidential Elections? Will A Former Warlord Or Pro-Western Technocrat Replace Karzai?
This year’s elections will see 11 candidates, ranging from Western-educated technocrats to former warlords with bloody histories.
Afghanistan’s economy is largely dependent on international assistance as well as the presence of coalition forces in the country, which generates demand for goods and services.
In 2010 to 2011 the civilian and security-related assistance was the equivalent to 98 percent of Afghanistan’s GDP, and with the transition Afghanistan will have to rely more on domestic revenue generation to meet its budgetary needs.
This year’s presidential election can provide a critical opportunity for a renewal of legitimacy, a boost in confidence and a start to correcting the ineffective and corrupt governance that characterizes Afghanistan,” Vanda Felbab-Brown, a senior fellow with the Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence in the Foreign Policy program at Brookings, a non-partisan Washington think tank, said.
But Brown warned the election could trigger “extensive violence, a prolonged political crisis that paralyzes governance and the collapse of international support,” which could strengthen the Taliban.
We could buy the election--put our own guy in...
Let the Saudis and the those Sunni Arabs.....run in to save the day. Get a little bit of that front line action on a grand scale. So they can taste whats its like. Rather than just talk and talk and talk and beg others to go and do the their dirty work for them.
Right. And when the USA leaves, which they must sooner or later, and Afganistan returns to an authoritarian hell hole once again, then the cry will be that we could have won if the liberals hadn't made us pull out.
An article in the Guardian of London headlined, "A pro-western regime in Kabul should give the U.S. an Afghan route for Caspian oil".
"The invasion of Afghanistan is certainly a campaign against terrorism," wrote author George Monbiot in the Oct. 22, 2001, piece, "but it may also be a late colonial adventure."
He wrote that the U.S. oil company Unocal Corp. had been negotiating with the Taliban since 1995 to build "oil and gas pipelines from Turkmenistan, through Afghanistan and into Pakistani ports on the Arabian sea."
To make things even smoother, the U.S. engineered the rise to power of two former Unocal employees: Hamid Karzai, the new interim president of Afghanistan, and Zalmay Khalizad, the Bush administration's Afghanistan envoy.
John Pilger in an Oct. 29 commentary in the British-based Mirror wrote, "Bush's concealed agenda is to exploit the oil and gas reserves in the Caspian basin, the greatest source of untapped fossil fuel on earth."
"Just as the Gulf War in 1991 was about oil, the new conflict in South and Central Asia is no less about access to the region's abundant petroleum resources," writes Ranjit Devraj in the Hong Kong-based Asia Times, a business- oriented publication.
Take him out and put our own handpicked guy in.....
We could buy the election--put our own guy in...
Vietnam, today, is a pile of ****. It would not be had it maintained ties with the West and pursued democracy, human rights and development.