Whilst the war in Afghanistan - and neighbouring Pakistan - is ratcheted up, a depressing picture of how it seems almost inevitable that the Western allies in Afghanistan won't succeed in their venture, emerges from a piece "Democracy at Gunpoint Guarantees U.S. Defeat" in truthdig.com:
"An account from the Taliban side of the Afghanistan war, which was published in The New York Times on May 5, provides devastating evidence of the failure that almost certainly will eventually overtake the United States and NATO. It is a long interview with a young Taliban “logistics tactician” who has been speaking with Jane Perlez and Pir Zubair Shah of the Times for many months about the Taliban view of the war, and about what he sees as their inevitable victory.
It amounts to an implicit challenge to the “democracy development” strategy adopted by the Pentagon and the Bush administration, and that now seems the policy of the Obama government as well. It is a strategy that assures a very “long war.”
This strategy, overall, is described by one of its American critics as “to install democracy at gunpoint inside failed or backward societies, along with unrealistic security guarantees to states and people of marginal strategic interest to the U.S.” (The critic is Douglas MacGregor, a retired Army officer, in an article entitled “Refusing Battle” in the April Armed Forces Journal. It’s to be recommended.)
“Refusing battle” simply means not fighting battles and wars you know you will lose. This is what the Times article confirms that the United States has again done, in Afghanistan as it did in Vietnam. In Afghanistan it is fighting a guerrilla war in which it has left to the enemy the choice, timing and location of battle, as well as a permanent option of withdrawal and dispersion."
For different dimension on Afghanistan read this CounterPunch piece "Afghans to Obama: Get Out, Take Karzai With You" by Patrick Cockburn .
"An account from the Taliban side of the Afghanistan war, which was published in The New York Times on May 5, provides devastating evidence of the failure that almost certainly will eventually overtake the United States and NATO. It is a long interview with a young Taliban “logistics tactician” who has been speaking with Jane Perlez and Pir Zubair Shah of the Times for many months about the Taliban view of the war, and about what he sees as their inevitable victory.
It amounts to an implicit challenge to the “democracy development” strategy adopted by the Pentagon and the Bush administration, and that now seems the policy of the Obama government as well. It is a strategy that assures a very “long war.”
This strategy, overall, is described by one of its American critics as “to install democracy at gunpoint inside failed or backward societies, along with unrealistic security guarantees to states and people of marginal strategic interest to the U.S.” (The critic is Douglas MacGregor, a retired Army officer, in an article entitled “Refusing Battle” in the April Armed Forces Journal. It’s to be recommended.)
“Refusing battle” simply means not fighting battles and wars you know you will lose. This is what the Times article confirms that the United States has again done, in Afghanistan as it did in Vietnam. In Afghanistan it is fighting a guerrilla war in which it has left to the enemy the choice, timing and location of battle, as well as a permanent option of withdrawal and dispersion."
For different dimension on Afghanistan read this CounterPunch piece "Afghans to Obama: Get Out, Take Karzai With You" by Patrick Cockburn .
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