Not One More American Life Should Be Expended for Afghanistan

[Right_in_Virginia]

Not One More American Life Should Be Expended for Afghanistan
American Conservative, Aug 21, 2018, Robert W. Merry

There is no prospect for any kind of American victory in the war against the Afghan Taliban that would correspond to what U.S. officials have been promising throughout the 17-year struggle. As if any rational observer needed further evidence of this fundamental reality, the Taliban a week ago attacked the strategic city of Ghazni, located barely 100 miles from the Afghan capital of Kabul, and laid waste to major parts of it. The insurgents killed dozens of Afghan soldiers and police officials, seized strategic points in the city, and cut the central artery between Kabul and important southern regions.

In reporting on this turn of events, reporter Mujib Mashal of The New York Times wrote, “The Ghazni assault has demonstrated a stunning display of Taliban tenacity that belies the official Afghan and U.S. narrative of progress in the war….” The Wall Street Journal dispatch, by three reporters filing from Kabul, put it similarly, saying the the drawn-out confrontation, “requiring at least 1,500 government forces backed with U.S. firepower to put down a far smaller and more lightly armed number of insurgents,” has “cast doubt over the progress of the U.S. military in building security forces in Afghanistan.” 

According to reports, some 1,000 Taliban and assorted insurgent allies stormed the city and killed some 100 Afghan combatants as well as about 20 civilians. The Times quoted an Afghan military spokesman as saying the insurgents had been cleared from the main part of Ghazni, but added that fighting had continued for a fifth straight day and that hundreds of bodies were strewn about the streets and in the Ghazni River. As one local man told The Wall Street Journal, “The city stinks of human remains. People are traumatized.”


More:  https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/not-one-more-american-life-should-be-expended-for-afghanistan/

[sneakypete]

The goal from the beginning was to get Boy Jorge re-elected and provide defense jobs. They never had any intention of winning,only fighting.

This is not the 1940's. We no longer have to declare war against an entire nation to reduce threats to our nation. All we have to do today is track the money,and eliminate the people transporting it and profiting from it,and take them out. No money to pay the soldiers,feed them,and transport them means no soldiers to fight. Killing the bankers,Arab noblemen organizing it,the middlemen who arrange the actual shipping,and the major suppliers means there is no war to fight.

If we really want to get medieval with them,we have the ability to just shut down the countries providing the men,weapons,and money. Nothing goes in or comes out until there is a regime change.

Since we have done none of this,the obvious conclusion is we don't WANT to do any of this.

[TomSea]

I keep up with this news,  Secretary of Defense Mattis seems to indicate this is a tactic the Taliban is using right now, the surprise element, one would have to search it out for themselves. But yes, that was a bad attack last week and the news is moving fairly quickly.

[TomSea]

I just posted this in the Military forum,

Blackwater founder Erik Prince is pushing to privatize America's costly war in Afghanistan — and going on cable TV to persuade Trump
Gervasio Sanchez/AP

    Erik Prince, founder of the controversial firm Blackwater, is trying to convince President Donald Trump to privatize America's war in Afghanistan.
    His pitch was rejected by senior administration officials, most notably Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, last year, but he has revived his pitch and is pushing for an audience.
    Prince believes the situation in Afghanistan can be resolved with a few thousand men and around $3.5 billion.

Billionaire Blackwater founder Erik Prince has a vision for America's war in Afghanistan, one that the former Navy SEAL and businessman claims will turn around the conflict the US has been fighting for 17 years with no end in sight.

Read more at: https://www.businessinsider.com/blackwater-founder-erik-prince-aims-to-privatize-us-war-in-afghanistan-2018-8

http://www.gopbriefingroom.com/index.php/topic,328765.0.html