Just reflect on the lives lost, the maimed and injured, lives disrupted, people simply uprooted and physical damage to property. And that's just the beginning of what encompasses the Afghan war. The whole thing can best be characterised as a disaster, on every level, and all too sadly the poor Afghanis left to pick up the mess.
"On the eve of the huge drawdown of US forces scheduled for next year, Afghanistan's police, military, judicial and financial institutions are inadequate and dysfunctional. President Obama's unspoken strategy is retreat from an unwinnable war, the perpetuation of which has actively damaged US interests and prestige in the region.
"We will declare victory and get out, just as we always do," said Graham Fuller, former vice chair of the National Intelligence Council at the CIA, noting that a pervasive exhaustion permeates US thinking about the war. In other words, the United States is leaving with its "mission" not accomplished. Such purported objectives as nation-building, counterinsurgency and government reform, once deemed "must-dos," have either been downgraded, disregarded or abandoned, even as tours of duty end and time and resources to achieve them run out.
Afghanistan next year is facing what Vanda Felb-Brown, a senior Afghan analyst at Brookings Institution, called "a triple earthquake" that includes Afghan elections, the US withdrawal of its forces and the dramatic shrinkage of US financial resources for "the Afghan Project." Between now and the end of 2014, the United States is, in theory, supposed to complete the training of 352,000 Afghan security forces, help Afghans hold reasonably fair elections to choose Afghan President Hamid Karzai's successor and work out terms for any post-2014 US presence. These goals have been talked about and some have been attempted, but US analysts do not foresee their successful achievement."
"On the eve of the huge drawdown of US forces scheduled for next year, Afghanistan's police, military, judicial and financial institutions are inadequate and dysfunctional. President Obama's unspoken strategy is retreat from an unwinnable war, the perpetuation of which has actively damaged US interests and prestige in the region.
"We will declare victory and get out, just as we always do," said Graham Fuller, former vice chair of the National Intelligence Council at the CIA, noting that a pervasive exhaustion permeates US thinking about the war. In other words, the United States is leaving with its "mission" not accomplished. Such purported objectives as nation-building, counterinsurgency and government reform, once deemed "must-dos," have either been downgraded, disregarded or abandoned, even as tours of duty end and time and resources to achieve them run out.
Afghanistan next year is facing what Vanda Felb-Brown, a senior Afghan analyst at Brookings Institution, called "a triple earthquake" that includes Afghan elections, the US withdrawal of its forces and the dramatic shrinkage of US financial resources for "the Afghan Project." Between now and the end of 2014, the United States is, in theory, supposed to complete the training of 352,000 Afghan security forces, help Afghans hold reasonably fair elections to choose Afghan President Hamid Karzai's successor and work out terms for any post-2014 US presence. These goals have been talked about and some have been attempted, but US analysts do not foresee their successful achievement."
Comments