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Afghan conflict 'serious' and 'deteriorating'-Mullen

Renae

Renae

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WASHINGTON, Aug 23 (Reuters) - The situation in Afghanistan is "serious and deteriorating," Washington's top military officer said on Sunday.
"I think it is serious and it is deteriorating, and I've said that over the past couple of years, that the Taliban insurgency has gotten better, more sophisticated in their tactics," Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, told CNN.
(Reporting by Phil Stewart; Editing by Stacey Joyce)
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Reuters AlertNet - Afghan conflict 'serious' and 'deteriorating'-Mullen

So where are the NY Times editorials, the SRM news stories, and the magazine articles on the "Quagmire in Afghanistan"??
 
MrVicchio said:
Reuters AlertNet - Afghan conflict 'serious' and 'deteriorating'-Mullen

So where are the NY Times editorials, the SRM news stories, and the magazine articles on the "Quagmire in Afghanistan"??
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There are plenty of them. If you haven't seen them, you haven't been looking very hard.

Afghanistan is one of those states that has never really been a nation. It's one of the most failed states in the world, and has been for decades. Honestly I don't see it ever (in the foreseeable future) becoming a successful state with a functioning government. Our original mission was to defeat the Taliban and al-Qaeda...and I think that is about all we can accomplish. We can't make their government more democratic or more respectful of human rights, and we can't permanently help them expand their authority outside of Kabul.
 
Kandahar said:
There are plenty of them. If you haven't seen them, you haven't been looking very hard.

Afghanistan is one of those states that has never really been a nation. It's one of the most failed states in the world, and has been for decades. Honestly I don't see it ever (in the foreseeable future) becoming a successful state with a functioning government. Our original mission was to defeat the Taliban and al-Qaeda...and I think that is about all we can accomplish. We can't make their government more democratic or more respectful of human rights, and we can't permanently help them expand their authority outside of Kabul.
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Sure, link us three, dated June 2009 or later please.
 
MrVicchio said:
Sure, link us three, dated June 2009 or later please.
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So you don't actually want to talk about the headline or what to do about Afghanistan, you just wanted to create some infantile partisan flamebait. Whatever. These are all from the last week, and required almost no digging on my part to find them:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/world/asia/23marines.html?_r=1&hp
U.S. Agenda in Afghanistan Creeps Toward Nation-Building - TIME
The Taliban Are Resurgent in Afghanistan's North | Newsweek International | Newsweek.com

Now if you don't actually have anything to say about the topic, I'm done here.
 
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Kandahar said:
So you don't actually want to talk about the headline or what to do about Afghanistan, you just wanted to create some infantile partisan flamebait. Whatever. These are all from the last week, and required almost no digging on my part to find them:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/world/asia/23marines.html?_r=1&hp
U.S. Agenda in Afghanistan Creeps Toward Nation-Building - TIME
The Taliban Are Resurgent in Afghanistan's North | Newsweek International | Newsweek.com

Now if you don't actually have anything to say about the topic, I'm done here.
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All three of those articles show guarded hope, and are not the the level of "It's a failure!" as the articles on Iraq while Bush was in office. Your articles show there are problems, and challenges, they do not state or show we cannot succeed there.

If the Afghan national government can provide more resources and security forces — and the Marines add more men — then the United States may be able to leave in two to three years, Colonel Grattan said.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/world/asia/23marines.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hp

The time article goes into how Obama has to sell Nation Building to succeed...

Since that election, the story of the Taliban's resurgence in the south is well known. In majority Pashtun areas like Helmand province, they have harassed civilians, disrupted governance, organized protection rackets, and battled U.S. Marines. The military component of President Obama's "Afghanistan surge" is centered almost entirely on the country's south; most other nations with troops serving in Afghanistan have even refused to let their soldiers see combat in that area.
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The Taliban Are Resurgent in Afghanistan's North | Newsweek International | Newsweek.com

Again, it's not unwinnable, a mes a quagmire. It's a tough road, that's all these articles state, nice try though!
 
Kandahar said:
There are plenty of them. If you haven't seen them, you haven't been looking very hard.

Afghanistan is one of those states that has never really been a nation. It's one of the most failed states in the world, and has been for decades. Honestly I don't see it ever (in the foreseeable future) becoming a successful state with a functioning government. Our original mission was to defeat the Taliban and al-Qaeda...and I think that is about all we can accomplish. We can't make their government more democratic or more respectful of human rights, and we can't permanently help them expand their authority outside of Kabul.
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That was what alotta Europeans thought about the United States way back when.

It took the United States twelve years to radify our current constitution. I don't think it's all that shocking when a country like Afghanistan doesn't accomplish the same thing in half the time.
 
apdst said:
That was what alotta Europeans thought about the United States way back when.

It took the United States twelve years to radify our current constitution. I don't think it's all that shocking when a country like Afghanistan doesn't accomplish the same thing in half the time.
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The United States in the 1770s and 1780s was already much more developed than Afghanistan is today. It already had functioning state governments, an established rule of law, a population with at least some limited access to media, a feeling of kinship between the states, and very little guerilla warfare (at least after the Revolution).

The problems facing Afghanistan are more comparable to what's been happening in Somalia over the last 20 years.
 
Kandahar said:
The United States in the 1770s and 1780s was already much more developed than Afghanistan is today. It already had functioning state governments, an established rule of law, a population with at least some limited access to media, a feeling of kinship between the states, and very little guerilla warfare (at least after the Revolution).

The problems facing Afghanistan are more comparable to what's been happening in Somalia over the last 20 years.
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Exactly my point and it still took 12 years for them to radify the Constitution.
 
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