Gates: 'A few years' of combat in Afghanistan

WASHINGTON – The Pentagon presented a grim portrait of the Afghanistan war Thursday, offering no assurances about how long Americans will be fighting there or how many U.S. combat troops it will take to win.

Defeating the Taliban and al-Qaida will take "a few years," Defense Secretary Robert Gates said, with success on a larger scale in the desperately poor country a much longer proposition. He acknowledged that the Taliban has a firm hold on parts of the country President Barack Obama has called vital to U.S. security.

Congress wants answers to what lawmakers described as basic questions to soothe a war-weary American public.

"In the intelligence business, we always used to categorize information in two ways, secrets and mysteries," Gates, a former CIA director, told a Pentagon news conference.

He added: "Mysteries were those where there were too many variables to predict. And I think that how long U.S. forces will be in Afghanistan is in that area."

With 62,000 U.S. troops already in the country, and another 6,000 headed there by the end of the year, Gates suggested there is little appetite in Washington to add many more.

He said his top commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, is free to ask for whatever he needs, but Gates said when the general submits a revised war plan in the coming weeks it will not contain a request to expand the U.S. fighting force.

[...]

Obama has made Afghanistan one of his top foreign policy priorities. But his administration is grappling with refocusing on Afghanistan, which the U.S. invaded in October 2001 to hunt for Osama bin Laden, while disentangling 130,000 American troops from Iraq.

In a report released earlier this week, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee warned the Obama administration that unanswered questions about lingering U.S. involvement in Afghanistan could frustrate the public.

"The administration has raised the stakes by transforming the Afghan war from a limited intervention into a more ambitious and potentially risky counterinsurgency," the Senate report concluded. "These core questions about commitment and sacrifice can be answered only through a rigorous and informed national debate."

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Gates: 'A few years' of combat in Afghanistan - Yahoo! News

The problem the war in Afghanistan is suffering from is the same exact problem that plagued and afflicted the war in Iraq. Both wars were based on absolutely ludicrous premises, which are that Islam is a Religion of Peace™ that is being hijacked by a few fundamentalist radical extremists, that the majority of Muslims in the world today reject the fundamentalist radical extremists hijacking their religion because they are moderate Muslims, that terrorism is a direct result of poverty, despair, hopelessness, and institutionalized oppression, and that we can correct the problems endemic to the region by winning the hearts and minds of Muslims, lifting them up out of poverty, despair, and hopelessness, and eliminating institutionalized oppression by establishing democracy.

The real reality is poverty, despair, hopelessness, and institutionalized oppression are not the root causes of terrorism anymore than they also cause other disparate non-Muslim populations around the world to also perpetrate systematic acts of terrorism. I mean look around the world, it is only Muslims, Muslims alone, and no other groups of people besides Muslims systematically perpetrating acts of terrorism or rioting in response to perceived insults to Islam.

Islam is not a so-called Religion of Peace™. Study history and the texts and tenants of Islam. Islam since its emergence in 622 has always been a violent Religion of Conquest, as it’s sole purpose is to make the world sovereign for Allah via the imposition of Islamic Sharia Law whether through peaceful means or otherwise violent means, and nothing has ever happened since Islam’s emergence to change Islam’s fundamental mission or make the majority of Muslims reject that fundamental and universal mission incumbent upon all Muslim people.

Finally, the majority of Muslims are not so-called moderate Muslims and that is easy to observe, discern, and ascertain. Indeed, if that were remotely true and the actual case today, then no non-Muslims living inside Muslim countries would be systematically persecuted and oppressed the way they are without exception in every Muslim country in the world today.

In addition, if the majority of Muslims in the world today were truly moderate Muslims as premised by the powers that be then we would see the Muslims that have immigrated and migrated to the West eagerly assimilating and integrating into Western society. However, in reality just the opposite has happened in every country in the world just like clockwork where Muslims have immigrated to the west, without exception not only have the Muslims by and large refused to assimilate and integrate, but those host Western countries in time as the Muslim populations inside their countries continued to expand and increase soon became the victims of Islamic terrorist attacks and riots.

Finally, it is impossible to win the hearts and minds of Muslim people because they are under strict obligation to hate our guts no matter what we do for them. Hence, the war in Afghanistan just like the war in Iraq is predestined to fail because the premises it is based on are all ludicrous and indeed exceedingly fantasy based.

Therefore, we need to recognize and acknowledge these premises are all false and baseless, regroup, rethink and reformulate new strategies to address these problems.

Some day there will be no one left to kill.

On that day I will go to AA and stop drinking.

But there will be no one there, not even me.

JW Frogen said:

Some day there will be no one left to kill.

On that day I will go to AA and stop drinking.

But there will be no one there, not even me.

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So according to you the purpose of war in this case is not self-defensive and altruistic but instead motivated by a primal instinct inherent in human beings to kill?

Turbeaux said:

So according to you the purpose of war in this case is not self-defensive and altruistic but instead motivated by a primal instinct inherent in human beings to kill?

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"It makes no difference what men think of war, said the judge. War endures. As well ask men what they think of stone. War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner. That is the way it was and will be....
War is the ultimate game because war is at last a forcing of the unity of existence. War is god."

Cormac McCarthy Blood Meridian

You will never "defeat" religious fanaticism. Nor will you ever force the taliban out of Afghanistan. And no one has ever managed to pacify the country. So will we have a few more years of combat? If we try any of that we will.

His was simply a predictable liberal response..

I would have responded something like this:

"We're kicking their a**es and when we get through kicking their a**es we'll be finished. Thank you... next question"

The problem the war in Afghanistan is suffering from is the same exact problem that plagued and afflicted the war in Iraq. Both wars were based on absolutely ludicrous premises, which are that Islam is a Religion of Peace™ that is being hijacked by a few fundamentalist radical extremists, that the majority of Muslims in the world today reject the fundamentalist radical extremists hijacking their religion because they are moderate Muslims, that terrorism is a direct result of poverty, despair, hopelessness, and institutionalized oppression, and that we can correct the problems endemic to the region by winning the hearts and minds of Muslims, lifting them up out of poverty, despair, and hopelessness, and eliminating institutionalized oppression by establishing democracy.

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That is a completely ridiculous assertion. The war in Afghanistan was started because the Taliban sheltered bin Laden and other al Qaeda officials after 9/11 and refused to hand them over for prosecution.

Kernel Sanders said:

That is a completely ridiculous assertion. The war in Afghanistan was started because the Taliban sheltered bin Laden and other al Qaeda officials after 9/11 and refused to hand them over for prosecution.

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The war was started because we were attacked on 9/11 by OBL and AQ. Furthermore, Mullah Omar was not even aware that OBL and AQ were responsible for 9/11 beforehand. Indeed, when Mullah Omar confronted OBL about the 9/11 terrorist attacks OBL lied about it to his face. In any event, providing an ultimatum to a Muslim leader like Mullah Omar and threatening war at the same time was an invitation for Mullah Omar to inevitably reject our ultimatum and was about the dumbest thing we could have done.

The reality is we had no business jumping into the middle of a civil war in Afghanistan between the Taliban and the Northern Alliance, we should have stayed out of it, and we should have limited our mission instead to the eradication of OBL and AQ only.

As a matter of fact, because we jumped into the middle of a civil war and got sidetracked by attempting to win the hearts and minds of Muslims, which is absolutely impossible to do in any event, OBL and AQ were able to escape, meanwhile we needlessly created an enemy we didn’t have before and have been bogged down in a quagmire like the Soviets were for the past 8 years pursuing a silly fantasy based mission.

Occupying Iraq after ousting Saddam and scouring the country for WMD was a pretty stupid decision, but becoming sidetracked occupying Afghanistan to pursue a fantasy based nation building mission after what happened to the Soviets, was about as stupid as stupid gets.

Tell me…what’s wrong with eradicating our enemies and then when the mission is accomplished and our enemies have been eliminated, going home and leaving our death and destruction behind to fester and to serve as a constant reminder of what happens to those that make the mistake of crossing the USA?

Where did all this idiotic altruistic nation building garbage come from and the idea that we must win the hearts and minds of our enemies?

Indeed, every time we have gotten involved in nation building missions in Islamic countries just like clockwork it has turned into an unmitigated disaster. How about eliminating our enemies with overwhelming brute power, then going home, and letting our actions speak for themselves by creating deterrence?

Hell, at the rate we are going, countries are going to start wars with us just so that they can benefit from American altruism!

ConservaBill said:

His was simply a predictable liberal response..

I would have responded something like this:

"We're kicking their a**es and when we get through kicking their a**es we'll be finished. Thank you... next question"

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I guess it's good that we keep people like you from positions that involve critical thinking.

Turbeaux said:

The war was started because we were attacked on 9/11 by OBL and AQ. Furthermore, Mullah Omar was not even aware that OBL and AQ were responsible for 9/11 beforehand. Indeed, when Mullah Omar confronted OBL about the 9/11 terrorist attacks OBL lied about it to his face. In any event, providing an ultimatum to a Muslim leader like Mullah Omar and threatening war at the same time was an invitation for Mullah Omar to inevitably reject our ultimatum and was about the dumbest thing we could have done.

The reality is we had no business jumping into the middle of a civil war in Afghanistan between the Taliban and the Northern Alliance, we should have stayed out of it, and we should have limited our mission instead to the eradication of OBL and AQ only.

As a matter of fact, because we jumped into the middle of a civil war and got sidetracked by attempting to win the hearts and minds of Muslims, which is absolutely impossible to do in any event, OBL and AQ were able to escape, meanwhile we needlessly created an enemy we didn’t have before and have been bogged down in a quagmire like the Soviets were for the past 8 years pursuing a silly fantasy based mission.

Occupying Iraq after ousting Saddam and scouring the country for WMD was a pretty stupid decision, but becoming sidetracked occupying Afghanistan to pursue a fantasy based nation building mission after what happened to the Soviets, was about as stupid as stupid gets.

Tell me…what’s wrong with eradicating our enemies and then when the mission is accomplished and our enemies have been eliminated, going home and leaving our death and destruction behind to fester and to serve as a constant reminder of what happens to those that make the mistake of crossing the USA?

Where did all this idiotic altruistic nation building garbage come from and the idea that we must win the hearts and minds of our enemies?

Indeed, every time we have gotten involved in nation building missions in Islamic countries just like clockwork it has turned into an unmitigated disaster. How about eliminating our enemies with overwhelming brute power, then going home, and letting our actions speak for themselves by creating deterrence?

Hell, at the rate we are going, countries are going to start wars with us just so that they can benefit from American altruism!

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Because winning hearts and minds is proven to work and scorched earth tactics followed by withdrawal are proven not to work.

Turbeaux said:

As a matter of fact, because we jumped into the middle of a civil war and got sidetracked by attempting to win the hearts and minds of Muslims, which is absolutely impossible to do in any event, OBL and AQ were able to escape, meanwhile we needlessly created an enemy we didn’t have before and have been bogged down in a quagmire like the Soviets were for the past 8 years pursuing a silly fantasy based mission.

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What are some examples of activities the US engaged in to "win the hearts and minds of Muslims" and how did they contribute to bin Laden's escape?

In Afghanistan for a few more years? With what money??

Laila said:

In Afghanistan for a few more years? With what money??

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China's money, of course

creation said:

Because winning hearts and minds is proven to work and scorched earth tactics followed by withdrawal are proven not to work.

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Altruistic nation building missions in Muslim countries and winning the hearts and minds of Muslims has not only never worked but it is in fact about as counterproductive as it gets. Not to mention that winning the hearts and minds of Muslims is absolutely impossible in any event because Muslims are under strict obligation to hate all non-Muslim kafirs no matter what we do for them.

In addition, putting the lives of our troops at risk for the good of others instead of for the defense and protection of Americans is about as immoral as it gets!

Finally, if we consistently use overwhelming brute force to obliterate leaders who make the mistake of crossing us and then go home and let our actions speak for themselves, whoever takes that leaders place will think twice before he emulates his predecessor and suffers his same fate. Yes deterrence works!

Kernel Sanders said:

What are some examples of activities the US engaged in to "win the hearts and minds of Muslims" and how did they contribute to bin Laden's escape?

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Isn’t it obvious…I mean instead of focusing ONLY on eradicating OBL and AQ in retribution for 9/11 and also to send a loud and clear message to all other would be OBLs in the world, we got sidetracked by jumping into the middle of a civil war we had no business jumping into on the side of the Northern Alliance that were just as hardcore Muslims as the Taliban.

Thus, while we were preoccupied flying in supplies in preparation to occupy a Muslim country in order to win hearts and minds and while we were also dropping care packages from the sky to attempt to win the hearts and minds of Muslims, which is absolutely impossible in any event, OBL and AQ were busy escaping.

Meanwhile, instead of following OBL and AQ inside of Pakistan to eliminate them, we instead chose to occupy an Islamic country to pursue a silly fantasy based nation building mission and to pretend that if we lift Muslims out of poverty, despair, and hopelessness by establishing democracy, that it will somehow miraculously eliminate Islamic terrorism, when the fact of the matter is Islamic terrorism has nothing whatsoever to do with poverty, despair, and hopelessness but everything to do with Islam and jihad.

Laila said:

In Afghanistan for a few more years? With what money??

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Your money!