I just hope the Taliban were too busying planting roadside bombs, shooting school girls, extorting merchants, or doing whatever is they normally do at 5:30 a.m.–when the vice presidential debate started by Kabul time–to watch the Biden-Ryan slugfest. Because if they had tuned in, they would have heard a message from the vice president–the deputy satan–that would have been music to their ears (if, that is, they did not prohibit music as contrary to their extremist beliefs).
Here is what Biden had to say about Afghanistan:
It is the responsibility of the Afghans to take care of their own security. We have trained over 315,000, mostly without incident. There have been more than two dozen cases of green-on-blue where Americans have been killed. If we do not — if the measures the military has taken do not take hold, we will not go on joint patrols. We will not train in the field. We’ll only train in the — in the Army bases that exist there.
But we are leaving. We are leaving in 2014. Period. And in the process, we’re going to be saving over the next 10 years another $800 billion. We’ve been in this war for over a decade. The primary objective is almost completed. Now, all we’re doing is putting the Kabul government in a position to be able to maintain their own security.
It’s their responsibility, not America’s.
But we did not invade Afghanistan in 2001 (a war that Biden supported, as he supported the one in Iraq) as a favor to the Afghans. We invaded because we had been attacked from its soil and wanted to punish the perpetrators and, more importantly, to prevent a recurrence in the future. Yet if we leave prematurely there is a very real danger that the Afghan security forces will fall apart and the Taliban will come back into power, bringing their buddies in al-Qaeda with them.
It is precisely to avert this danger that Biden’s boss, the president, signed a Strategic Partnership Accord with Hamid Karzai this past spring, pledging to support the Afghan government until at least 2014. Biden might have mentioned this accord, which could be seen as a foreign policy achievement of this administration. He did not. Nor did he mention the need to maintain a residual force of American trainers and Special Operations personnel in Afghanistan after 2014, even though all serious military experts agree that such a force will be absolutely essential to buttress the fledgling Afghan National Security Forces, which lack key “enablers,” such as airpower, surveillance and reconnaissance systems, and route-clearance vehicles.
All that Biden said, over and over again, is that we are going to pull out completely in 2014. Obviously that message was intended for domestic consumption, to win votes among a war-weary electorate. But it will resonate on the battlefield and it will do much to buttress the morale of the enemies that 68,000 U.S. troops are still fighting.
Max, Ryan also said they were going to be out by 2014. Didn't he say that? He criticized the process to date but my ears heard him say that moving forward its adios. n nThe question always is what is the fall-back position behind a policy of declared and semi-permanent to indefinite garrison basing in a foreign outpost. There's a) we're leaving but we'll come back and/or make the rubble bounce if our homeland or vital strategic interests are struck from elements here, and then there's b) we'll leave behind friendlies with an organization of home security we will continue to support. n nBut Max, what if, as you yourself are saying here, the friendlies have been so incapable of building up a home security infrastructure after, say, five years hearts and minds efforts spanning two administrations (of a ten year campaign) that they will "fall apart" and are a culture, reading your own post, that have been unable to assimilate and maintain home security technology. n nAn analog would be the breakaway Free Lebanon Army of Saad Haddad "allied" with Israel in South Lebanon. Anyone observing their humorous scrapes and pranks would have to observe there wasn't a snowball's chance in gehenna that these poor puppies would survive an Israeli withdrawal. And they didn't. n nThen what? Your "enabling friendlies" strategy might as well be a "permanent garrison" project. If, as in the old Jewish joke, you are going to have to keep getting out and carrying the cart yourself, "why schlep along the horse?" n nPerhaps those really really objecting to fall-back option a) could organize their own Abraham Lincoln Brigade.
….I just hope the Taliban were too busying planting roadside bombs, shooting school girls, extorting merchants, or doing whatever is they normally do at 5:30 a.m.–when the vice presidential debate started by Kabul time–to watch the Biden-Ryan slugfest… n nI know it's only a rhetorical opening gambit for effect, but it's a pretty grim one at that. n nPerhaps not the best stated opening rhetorical gambit for effect.
Hi Max_Vise president Biden is famous for being an expert in international relationships. He sounds that he is never in doubt but he is always wrong on the premises. I hope people still remember his never materialized idea (thanks god) to split Iraq into 3 countries (Sunni, Shia, and Kurds). And on debates premises it is hard to take him seriously after such un-respectful behavior toward congressmen Ryan. He just brought the whole podium on 10 levels down. Two of them are people who are potentially 1 step away to become a president._On Afghanistan issues I was commenting previously, Taliban is going to get power if we leave and I don’t see how they can be stopped. They are culturally and religiously embedded into the Afghan landscapes. You are a historian. What can we do different from British and Russians to build the Afghan nation who doesn’t want to be build. Al Qaida is on the rise and they have recruiting and training camps all over Africa and Middle East. In war on terrorism or jihadism we need to reevaluate our tactics and strategies and stop saying we are winning because we are not. We are just in a phase of the war as Churchill once said: “It is not beginning of the end but definitely end of the beginning.”_