“If we pull out and people like al-Qaeda go back, it’s unacceptable for any political administration in the [United States]. It would just be disastrous, and it would be a pain for us. If we put more troops in there and we fight forever, that’s not a good outcome either.”
Right. But the fact is that al-Qaeda and the Taliban and the Islamic State are in Afghanistan, and just biding their time until we leave. Are we going to stay there until the end of time? What we should do is pull out and adopt a strategy modeled after the old containment strategy that was used in the Cold War. I’ve harshly criticized the foreign policy establishment for retaining old Cold War paradigms and failing to adapt to the new realities of the world, particularly the resurgent jihad, but in this case the wonks would do well to revisit some Cold War history. What would be contained today would be jihadis: we would focus our efforts on preventing them from ever leaving Afghanistan and sowing mayhem anywhere else, while giving up our quixotic aspirations of Wilsonian nation-building. Accompany that with a robust and unapologetic affirmation of American values (freedom of speech, equality of rights of women, etc.) instead of the support we have given to Sharia in Afghanistan (and previously in Iraq), and an honest acknowledgement of the motivating ideology behind jihad activity, and we might actually start getting somewhere.
But none of this is likely to be done. Muddling along is the order of the day.
“OPINION: Stanley McChrystal’s Strategy For Afghanistan? ‘Muddle Along,’” by Lawrence Sellin, Daily Caller, December 7, 2018:
There is a mind-numbing consensus among U.S. military leaders, past and present, that goes a long way to explain the 17-year stalemate in Afghanistan. They are clueless and stuck on automatic pilot.
Stanley McChrystal, the former commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, who gives highly paid lectures on “Lessons of Leadership,“ recommended to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that we continue to “muddle along” in Afghanistan.
When asked what should be done, McChrystal responded:
I don’t know. I wish I did … If we pull out and people like al-Qaeda go back, it’s unacceptable for any political administration in the [United States]. It would just be disastrous, and it would be a pain for us. If we put more troops in there and we fight forever, that’s not a good outcome either. I’m not sure what [is] the right answer. My best suggestion is to keep a limited number of forces there and just kind of muddle along and see what we can do.
Echoing those muddle-along sentiments at a Washington Post Live event, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford stated his basic assumption:
Were we not to put the pressure on Al-Qaeda, ISIS and other groups in the region we are putting on today, it is our assessment that, in a period of time their capability would reconstitute, and they have today the intent, and in the future, they would have the capability to do what we saw on 9/11.
Dunford added, “If someone has a better idea than we have right now, which is to continue to support the Afghans and continue to put pressure on those terrorist groups in the region, I am certainly open to a dialogue on that.”…
Undaunted says
Bomb them back to the Stone Age – not a far distance – and bounce the rubble every couple weeks.
Use Afghanistan as a life-fire practice range.
Strangerinastrangeland says
Well, duh. They are in the Stone Age. Seriously, they (most) don’t have modern utilities.
Mac-101 says
They all appear to have cell phones and tower coverage over Afghanistan better than here in Kentucky.
.
The main purpose of Afghanistan is to keep feeding ALL our corrupt PoliTicks and Military Industrial Complex in billions. Remember about 6 years ago Karsi was complaining that the Americans were stealin most of the aid before he could steal it? LOL!
Indiana Tom says
I think Afghanistan has better cell coverage than Indiana as well.
I cannot wait for the USA to perform nation building in the USA.
Mac-101 says
Amen Tom of Indiana!
.
The worst thing is they use those cell phones on the mountain tops to track coalition aviation and troop movements
Richard says
Sad to say, that is exactly how you win wars. The Marquis of Queensberry Rules don’t work with Afghan tribesmen. As Kipling put it almost two centuries ago:
“When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan plains
And he women come out to cut up what remains
Just roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
And go to your God like a soldier.
Richard says
“THE women”. Sorry
Phil Copson says
“….As Kipling put it almost two centuries ago:….”
—————————————————————
Two centuries ?? He wasn’t THAT old ! If Kipling wrote that poem in the 1820s as you imply, then even if you assume that he was only twenty when he wrote it, he would still have been in his HUNDRED and twenties to have written the memorable epitaphs – (“Their Name Liveth For Evermore” / “A Soldier Of The Great War Known Unto God”) – for the fallen of the Great War.
And as Kipling died in 1936, that would make him about 156 years old, by your reckoning…
More seriously – bearing mind that Kipling’s work at the War Graves Commission was to commemorate the deaths of those who gave their lives – (including Kipling’s own son) – to save Europe from domination by a single, central authoritarian power – are there any JW readers in England whom I can still persuade to attend the Brexit march in Westminster tomorrow ?
J D S says
The war in Afghanistan can’t be won by cell phones, cell phone towers , flushing toilets in every tent or 40 acres and a mule. It’s a drastic, deadly, ungodly thing that would have to happen … total destruction! Sounds awful and sickening. numbing, mind blowing and not natural, against everything we’ve been taught…but that, with the mindset of the Muslim peoples, would be the only way to win in Afghanistan. There’s just no clear way to make a democratic, peaceful nation out of staunch Muslim nations who only understand. Fear and force…Muddle along….JUST NOT ACCEPTABLE……What a quandary????
Indiana Tom says
The women are too busy getting beaten to a pulp by the men to cut you up.
gravenimage says
I think the Muslim men gave them a short break in between beatings to go out and murder badly-wounded Infidels–then it was back to the lash.
Indiana Tom says
Let them build their little Jihad nests and then mow the grass with B-52 Arc Light Raids.
Instead of nation building, we need to emulate General Sherman’s March to the Sea.
In this case we march to the mountains and just burn the entire place to the ground including poppy fields, food, houses, Mosques, buildings, crops, livestock.
Think Georgia, and the Carolinas in 1865.
Alarmed Pig Farmer says
McChrystal’s right. We’ve been muddling along for over 14 centuries now. It’s working, I think. Why fix an unbroken clock?
mortimer says
APF, I thought you were referring to Islam. The Islamic JIHADIC SYSTEM IS WORKING LIKE A SWISS CLOCK or like the coils and stomach acid of a boa constrictor.
Emilie Green says
Dunford added, “If someone has a better idea than we have right now, which is to continue to support the Afghans and continue to put pressure on those terrorist groups in the region, I am certainly open to a dialogue on that.”
Dunford’s lying. If true, he would have long ago taken Spencer’s suggestions to heart. Dunford, McCrystal, Mattis, and 000s of others, past and present, are all NWO/my-career-first types willing to do the elites’ marching orders. “Victory” is NOT in the vocabulary.
You don’t get to the E Ring of the Pentagon – Joint Chiefs, their staff, higher level military ring-knockers (=those who went to one of the academies) – if you’ve demonstrated any sort of wish to win. You will have been knocked off of the promotion ladder long before.
Mac-101 says
Well said. The International Globalist Pigs own these top military dogs!
Indiana Tom says
You just insulted all our hard working K9s in the military. How dare you call these sleaze balls dogs.
Mac-101 says
Oh my goodness! You are correct. However I meant to insult just the top Brass, Not the soldiers and dogs in the trenches.
mortimer says
Agree with Robert Spencer’s analysis: “Muddling along is the order of the day.”
That’s because this is an IDEOLOGICAL CONTEST between ISLAMIC SLAVERY and WESTERN FREEDOM.
No Western country is EXPORTING THE IDEOLOGY of FREEDOM in the FULL KNOWLEDGE that MUSLIMS DON’T WANT FREEDOM in MUSLIM COUNTRIES.
Muslims are TOTALLY TWO-FACED. They MIGRATE to FREE WESTERN COUNTRIES … SPECIFICALLY FOR THE FREEDOM, but ‘back home’ in BERZERKISTAN, Muslims refuse to be modernize their ideology… remaining in the 7th-century’s BRONZE-AGE BARBARITY of Mohammed.
Only DEPROGRAMMING MUSLIMS RIGHT OUT OF ISLAM will stop the jihad.
Here is an example of deprogramming:
Was Mohammed a mad man?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkX_MRPxPXA
Prebangian says
If the US stays there and muddles along, it is synonymous with paying the jizya to our conquerors. Seven trillion dollars and counting. This violence centric, supremacist cult is, so to speak, sucking all the air off of the Earth.
RonaldB says
Actually, we do have a strong objective in Afghanistan. The objective is to avoid making a hard decision by any means necessary. Just muddling along reflects poorly on no one in particular. If someone made a decision to withdraw, or to actually invade the whole country and administer it as a military dictatorship, that person could be criticized.
The attacks on Nairobi and Dar es Salaam notwithstanding, costing a few American lives, the only real vulnerability al qaeda could exploit was the willingness of the State Department to admit the most questionable Saudi applicants on visitor visas. These Saudis were the 9/11 hijackers. If the US had simply enforced its borders, properly vetted visa applications, and tracked visitors properly, 9/11 would have been stopped.
The problem is, small events get big publicity and set policy. For example, if the Taliban infiltrated into Kenya and blew up 10 or 20 Americans, there would be a major blowback towards the US government. But a policy slowly killing thousands of soldiers and costing trillions of dollars can slowly simmer with no real examination.
Castro once famously told the Cuban diplomats, who reported they were being targeted “Get yourself some guns.” The proper response to Islamic countries is to keep them at arms length, generally keep their people out of the country, and do damage control concerning terror plots. By the way, the exploding US government deficits financed by Saudi oil billionaires opens us up to HUGE vulnerabilities. He who pays the piper calls the tune. No country is independent that operates on a deficit.
gravenimage says
Stanley McChrystal, former NATO commander in Afghanistan, unveils new strategy: “just kind of muddle along”
……………………….
It is this “strategy” that is costing us a fortune, and–much worse–getting a lot of Americans killed.
James sang says
The solution is to restart the Christian beliefs. It can be done by protecting and encouraging Christianity. The problems are their because the belief system is mainly Islam . And they want to convert everyone to Islam through force. So, the armed forces should focus on the current legal system and be aware if any Christian’s are being forced to convert. If this is happening ,then the armed forces should forcibly stop these actions and enforce our constitutional beliefs in their legal systems. The whole idea is to introduce majority belief systems of more tolerance through protecting other belif systems: Christianity, buddism, con fucianism and other beliefs in order to make Islam beliefs a minority in the order. The armed forces will have to be their forever, otherwise Islam will force their beliefs over the others by force.
FYI says
“Just muddle along”.
Sounds a bit like NATO itself.
{As long as Uncle Sam foots the bills.}
Sounds like one of those NATO exercises.. like the recent fiasco in Nordic countries..
{How the Russians must laugh…..}
They should have one of those names for Project Afghanistan.
Something like..
Operation Flaccid Response,Operation Limp Wrist,Forward Retreat,Exercise Catch-22,Iron Petunias….Never-ending Story…
Indiana Tom says
Catch-22 was a classic. More accurate than any would think.
CogitoErgoSum says
Play the game that was played in Viet Nam. Just declare victory and withdraw. Then don’t look back and resolve never again to go to war unless you are willing to do whatever it takes to win. Also, next time know your enemy.
Indiana Tom says
We are fighting for peace in Vietnam.
Walter Sieruk says
First, on television of FOX NEWS there was a top ranking US General who was interviewed and he spoke hopefully about the then ,at that time, incoming President- elect Donald Trump. This Top US general said that maybe Donald Trump is much better and more cooperative than President Obama had been in the subject of Afghanistan and how to defeat the terror jihad groups as the Taliban, Al Qaeda and other similar entities that threaten the US interest in the country as well a the security and safety of Afghanistan as well. For Obama has kept on refusing the take the advice on the US military general regarding how to handle the security and safety of Afghanistan. What folly .What foolishness. Such a pride -filled and arrogant Obama who is always contradicting, or bucking, the advice of the US generals had only led to disaster. Donald Trump has the good sense to heed the US generals regarding Afghanistan. As the wisdom found in the book THE ART OF WAR by Sun Tzu instructs “He will win who has the military capacity and is not interfered with by the sovereign.”
Second, President Trump is the Commander and chief in the Oval Office he does have the intelligence to heed the wisdom and knowledge of his military generals. They have advised and will further advise President Trump about how to handle the problem of the Taliban in Afghanistan. The US military generals know that the brutal, cruel, and murderous jihadist/Muslims who compose the Taliban cannot be reasoned with. For the Taliban don’t care about nor are interested in or understand language that contains logic and reason. The only language that the Taliban will understand is the language of them being on the receiving end of many very strong powers of military might. As Thomas Jefferson has, so well, declared, “With every barbarous people…force is law.”
Third, President Trump is so intelligent that he listens to the wisdom of the US military generals on many important subjects concerning the Taliban . Unlike his predecessor, Obama ,who was so egotistical that he thought knew more than the US military generals. This very important topic of Afghanistan and the brutal and murderous Taliban. The US generals should inform the President that even the idea of having worthwhile, constructive “negotiations” with the Taliban is sheer folly. For the deceptive and disingenuous Taliban have proven many times over, by their own actions, that they are a ruthless, brutal vicious gang of thugs with no honor. So in any kind of “dialogue” the Taliban will speak the truth only when it happened to suite them. The rest of the time they will be speaking half-truths and also be outright lying. Likewise, the Taliban will keep their word in anything that they may happen to promise only and long as in fits into their agenda and no longer. So before engaging of the foolishness of attempting to have genuine “talks for a peace alliance” with Taliban, the officials of the current government would do well to heed the wisdom of Sun Tzu found in THE ART OF WAR. For it instructs “We cannot enter into an alliance neighboring’s princes, until we are acquainted with their designs.” To put this in a more updated and current way, it may be said that “We cannot enter into a peace alliance with the Taliban until we know the actual intentions and real schemes.”
BC88 says
We do not belong in Afghanistan. Heed the words of our first General Washington who warned about getting entangled in foreign wars.The Generals we have to day are ill informed .
As we fight in Afghanistan with no chance of victory the CAIR jihadis are installing their Sharia operation in our homeland.
cornelius says
ROBERT: What would be contained today would be jihadis: we would focus our efforts on preventing them from ever leaving Afghanistan and sowing mayhem anywhere else, while giving up our quixotic aspirations of Wilsonian nation-building.
Question, how do we ‘prevent them from ever leaving’ without a presence in the country?
Terry Gain says
“Were we not to put the pressure on Al-Qaeda, ISIS and other groups in the region we are putting on today, it is our assessment that, in a period of time their capability would reconstitute, and they have today the intent, and in the future, they would have the capability to do what we saw on 9/11.”
…………
The United States was not attacked by Muslims living in other countries on 9/11. It was attacked by Muslim who had been allowed entry into the United States. The lessons of 9/11 have yet to be learned: Islam is an ideology of conquest which is a threat to the free world. What is to be done?
1. Tell the truth about Islamic doctrine and history.
2. Ban further Muslim immigration.
3. Recognize that Muslims who are here have legal rights but no Muslim has a right of entry.
4. Monitor mosques for proJihad activity.
5. Condemn sharia laws against blasphemy and apostasy.
6. Admit and lionize articulate and courageous ex-Muslims.
7. Condemn the lack of civil rights in Muslim countries.
8. Award Robert Spencer so many Honors he becomes a household name.
11B40 says
Greetings:
Me, I’m thinking that the General (ret.) still hasn’t recovered from Hillary Clinton losing even with his publicized vote.
tgusa says
It is beyond obvious to any thinking American that our soldiers, sailors and airmen are the best but our generals are habitual losers. That hurts our country deeply and gets a lot of good soldiers, sailors and airmen maimed or killed.
Frederick King says
Try something different. Basically pull out. As the terrorist bunch moves in, bomb the Heads of government, and jam all cell and satellite phones. Take out internet next. Basically blockade the places. They will behave better.
Hell Awaits says
How about pull out the troops and carpet bomb the area?
brane pilot says
Leave. Now.
Issue no visas to Afghan nationals under any pretense. Ever.
Islamic terrorists cannot harm you if they cannot get into your country.
If we are attacked by terrorists based in Afghanistan, bomb every bridge, dam, airport and transport facility in the country.
Repeat as required.
You cannot turn an Islamist state into a modern, humanistic Democracy.
You might as well try to pound sand into gold, like we’ve been doing since 2001.
Indiana Tom says
Just remember that McChrystal said that the 5.56mm rifle round is too powerful for civilians. Yeah, that is why I have a .243.
NWO Global Elite tool.
Tim says
Robert is right about containment although, of course, this containment should be the entire Muslim world. McChrystal is half right. It would be politically untenable once wholesale beheadings commence. It would be Obama’s Iraq pullout all over again. It is time for a simple change of mind-set.
Afghanistan is no longer a war zone, it is a duty station like Camp Pendleton or Okinawa albeit a live fire duty station. Combat troops are sent there for training along with support elements. The primary reason the American military is so good is because of the training its had ever since the Berlin Airlift. One regiment rotates in every nine months to avoid any particular unit or infantryman.multiple deployments. A 20 year man would have two, maybe three, deployments every 20 years and the US military maintains a constant level of combat vets something China and Russia don’t have. Get the money from Saudi Arabia and the other gulf states.
Theo Prinse says
The west cannot leave Afghanistan because it will become a save heaven for jihadis worldwide. The Trump administration is merely limiting loss of men and material. The US needs new international support from European countries like England, Netherlands, France but they need a new government first. 2nd. The Taliban is Pakistans proxy in Afghanistan and that must end definitely. Pakistan is negotiating with China and the IIMF for China’s $900 billion New Silk Road. Trump already ended cooperation with Pakistans army and reduced financial support.
gravenimage says
Islam just needs to be contained–it largely was for almost 200 years, and we were mostly safe from Jihad in the West during this period.
“Nation building” cannot work in a place that is almost 100% Muslim.
BC88 says
The only way to contain Islam is to keep them out of your country.
BC88 says
Ask Sun Tsu what he would do . He would say bring your army home and secure your homeland. Fighting them over there while you let millions in over here every year is a fools game. The Jihadis that you are fighting over there, are alive and well over here, under the name of CAIR. Counsel on American-Islamic Relations founded by members of HAMAS from the middle east. They are playing the political game now and in the last election these Sharia adherent Muslims have just won 50 elections nationwide.The proper defense of our homeland is the way to prevent future attacks here. 911 could have been prevented if the politically correct State department was not bending over backwards to let Muslims into our country every day issuing visas to anyone and everyone. In particular the 19 hijackers who pulled off the attacks on 911.
It’s a wonder that the Muslim leadership haven’t ruptured themselves laughing at us.