There is one main military objective in Afghanistan: Provide a secure environment in which the seedlings of a democracy can grow. This means keeping the Taliban out, and that requires muscle.

You can't kick the Taliban out of Afghanistan, the Taliban are the Pashtun and vice-versa. It makes almost as much sense as this sentence:

There is one main military objective in America: Provide a secure environment in which the seedlings of a democracy can grow. This means keeping the Christians out, and that requires muscle.

Yeah why didn't I think of that. Grabbing our panties and running screaming like a sacred little girl! How Obvious a solution to terrorism! What genius!

Well, we could stick around for another ten years, spend a few hundred billions, kill a few millions Afghans, leave the place littered with unexploded munitions, watch a few thousand Americans get killed and wounded before leaving in ignominy. So when are you sending your children there?

Afghanistan, the graveyard of Empires…

“A War in Search of a Reason: the McChrystal Report”
The report which stresses understanding Afghanistan in depth was put together over a month by a group of a dozen mostly defense hawks, including several neocons, without any Afghanistan expertise. It stated that the US policy goal was to keep Afghanistan from becoming again “a base for terrorism.” That is an incredibly vague policy and does not take into account how conditions have changed since the initial US invasion. al Qaeda has morphed over the last 8 years into a loosely affiliated terrorist network. Despite our efforts and those of Pakistan, al Qaeda has succeeded in maintaining headquarters for its senior officials across the border in Pakistan. At the same time, it is no longer tied down to any one country and has or can move bases to other countries like Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. Why we need a large, comprehensive counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan, as the report recommends, but not in these other countries goes unaddressed and unexplained.

http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/8386

Hope y'all will read and respond.
g'nite.
Joe

How do Sacred little girls run and how do you know?
Been chasing them have you?
<g>

Great point, Michael!
Can any of the war hawks here define our current goal in Afghanistan or define what would constitute victory?
Can anyone point me to a link where Gen. McChrystal has indicated what the “goal” is or what “victory” would be? He should know and he should be talking about it. Maybe he has, which is why I'm asking somebody to show me that he understands what his mission in Afghanistan is. “Keep fighting” is not a goal or a mission.
Every military operation has to have a mission. I haven't seen any indication that ANYONE knows what the mission in Afghanistan is anymore. (It was quite clear in the beginning; we wanted to deprive Al-Q of a safe haven, which the Taliban provided.)
Now?

Now that our man Karzai has won the election and that Afghanistan is a “democracy”, we should declare victory and go home…

Yeah why didn't I think of that. Grabbing our panties and running screaming like a sacred little girl! How Obvious a solution to terrorism! What genius!

So everyone in government except Representative Lee approved of going into Afghanistan.

Time to give someone a promotion…

We are talking about Afghanistan, you know where Osama Bin Laden planned 9-11.

Not to put to fine a point on it, but the planning was done in Germany and the flight training in the USA… When can we start “shocking and awing” those two countries?

What Should Obama Do About Afghanistan?

Now that our man Karzai has won the election and that Afghanistan is a “democracy”, we should declare victory and go home…

The military mind is one programmed for robotic fight-and-win mode

Actually, the military is made up of a variety of thinkers with different perspectives. They can't be pigeonholed into one category and its insulting of those who risk their lives for our country to be so insulted by someone sitting on the sidelines. You can disagree with military operations or strategies and thats fine with me, but when you are so insulting to members of the military in this way I must condemn you for your statement.

Our presence there was the result of just a whole lot of evil and bad policy making on behalf of the Cheney administration.

We are talking about Afghanistan, you know where Osama Bin Laden planned 9-11. Where every single member of Congress voted to invade. Only 1 person in the entire Congress voted against the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists, Barbara Lee – D-CA. it authorized the use of United States Armed Forces against those responsible for the attacks on September 11, 2001. The authorization granted the President the authority to use all “necessary and appropriate force” against those whom he determined “planned, authorized, committed or aided” the September 11th attacks, or who harbored said persons or groups.

So everyone in government except Representative Lee approved of going into Afghanistan.

Not!…lol…

The military mind is one programmed for robotic fight-and-win mode. Diplomacy, withdrawel and surrender are all words foreign to that mind. So naturally any advice they will give or push they want to do will center around avoiding any one of those three words.

The military is a tool of higher minds. Higher minds have common sense and longterm goals in mind. The Commander In Chief has that title because the People elected his mind to think sensibly about how to use the military tool. That's why he gathers information from this tool, but ultimately makes a sane and sober, multidemensional decision on how to use it. The tool cannot think for the Mind.

Our presence there was the result of just a whole lot of evil and bad policy making on behalf of the Cheney administration. Our continued presence there is therefore, just a blatant mistake. Al Qaida, who still curiously strikes out and flexes whenever Cheney has an agenda that needs some scare-factor, is a lot like shadow-boxing. I say, wish Islam well and let them know we aren't infidels. That would go a whole lot farther than trying to destroy the greased eels that will always slip from our fingers. True, it won't be glorious and bloody, but it makes sense. It is a mature and sensible decision.

Leave the tools in the toolbox when examining the final blueprint and subsequent plan of action.

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/middle_east_and_…

Etc.

There is another difference which Kathy may not agree with me on, and that's in Iraq the surge and Petraeus had the full support of the president. I don't think that is the case with Obama and McChrystal. Trying to “pull a Rumsfeld” with inadequate troops will be a recipe for disaster. I think Obama either needs to commit whole-heartedly to a surge or start looking for a way to get out.

Afghanistan's history, culture, ethnography, geography, everything, are completely different from Iraq's. Not to mention that to the extent the surge accomplished its goal, it was because Sunni leaders were willing to work with us. That is not the case in Afghanistan. You don't have a cohesive population there who want to work with Americans.