Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Iraq & Afghanistan Reconciliation Agreement with the Taliban

Looks like we've decided that we can trust the Taliban, and are signing a deal to get out.

cpwill predicts: this will prove A) Popular, and B) Foolish.

No matter what we do, or don't do, in that region, the net result is going to be a big bummer for Afghans, and for us.
I predict that only China will be a big winner in Af-Pak from now on.
Eventually the new Chinese "silk road" will reach that region, and Afghanistan will finally begin to leverage the trillions in resources that they are sitting on.

Of course, with them being a developing country, count on China exploiting "the resource curse". Oh well, if it wasn't them, it would be us, or it would have been the Brits.

China is there, right now. Has been for a while. One of our jobs, there, is to protect their interests in rare earths that they have claimed to have bought and paid for and is theirs. (China has been buying up rare earths for a number of years, even in the United States of America).

Everytime any American president has messed with the middle east they have been hornswaggled, screwed, and corrupted, and otherwise lied to. How many times did Obama get screwed over after he had been convinced this group or other was on his side? Afghanistan has a rep - "Graveyard of Empires". They took on Alexander the Great, the British Empire, the Russian Empire and the American Empire (amongst others). We spent almost 20 years learning the lesson (the Russians figured it out quicker!) I don't even know they will actually let us leave as we are a huge supplier of bribes (we actually have bribed the Taliban to let us bring in our supplies over roads they control).

I feel bad about the Women of Afghanistan, they are going to get well and truly screwed over - in every way. There is absolutely nothing we can do about that. On the bright side the Taliban will stop the raising of Opium poppies. We will also save a lot of money if we can actually get the hell out of there.

The Russians didn't learn it quicker, they just ran out of money.
They were "doing it wrong" if you were to ask any member of The Caryle Group.

It took us twenty years because before we ever even had thoughts of going in, we had a fully developed profitable war industry, and they knew that they would make vast fortunes win or lose, and in point of fact, losing was even more profitable than winning, it made for a marvelous extension of the gravy train!

Winning wars sucks if profit is your motive. Winning, or even accomplishing honest goals, is counterproductive if you're in the war to make money. What you want is endless chaos, the kind Cheney hinted at when he first opined that we might be in the MIddle East and Af-Pak for another seventy years.
When he said that back around 2005, he had an almost visible erection I'm sure. I guarantee you his buddies in the industry did.

Belly up to the bar, boys! We're in it for the long haul!

If we were just going to lose anyway, we could have done that a long time ago. Kind of like Vietnam. But I guess we needed a place to test our new drone capability with inconsequential live targets. Now that they are perfected, we can give it back. Hopefully it turns out as good as Vietnam has. I hear it's a nice place to visit now, as long as you avoid the old mine fields.

Looks like an election move to me. Maybe a deflection from the Coronavirus. It's a political move, nothing more. I would welcome an end to the eternal wars but I doubt if this is that.

I kinda like to blame our military. They have reported their success regularly. They have also announced any number of plans and have duplicated several of them but they keep on trying! They also keep on losing whatever they are trying to win. The problem, for me, is that I have never really read what they are going to win or what they have won. Everybody just keeps on killing. Then there are the mercenaries that we have hired too - that one is a real conundrum for me.

Then there is the political advantage for our military. It keeps literally millions out of the work force thereby making the unemployment stuff look good. I am not against bringing them all home and putting them to work on the highways and infrastructure until we have the need to kill off a few thousand evil foreigners to prove our bravery.

I remember the good old days when our military was worried that our military was not properly 'blooded' and we needed to take care of that. We have been getting them 'blooded' pretty good!

Yep, its a real winner for everybody but the tax payers. I have said it before, any number of times. You cannot depend on the american voter to make any decision in their own best interest as they just don't seem to understand what that means. The ones they always seem to vote in are the very ones that are not on their side. Bernie, the incredibly unsuccessful legislator, is one of those. He has, basically, done nothing since something like 1972 but get re-elected. Makes no difference, he has a large following. I find it all pretty odd.

This is an outgrowth of an effort that stretches back years. We thought we had a deal this summer - remember the cancelled Camp David visit?

Somehow I doubt Trump has the foresight to anticipate the Coronavirus by that long, and plan only this as his distraction.

The timing of the announcement is vaguely suspicious is all. I don't think Trump likes war. He might actually want to end it. But I don't think this will end it. Trump is probably unaware of the humanitarian disaster that will unfold if we just pull out. Perhaps that's for the best, a man with a soul couldn't do it. But it needs to be done.

Gotta say, I think I called this would turn out badly.