This bothers me a bit, I always thought Bolton knew his stuff.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/tr...3oOuN276qO5iNOzCikOxNAuRGW6hXONqqyK5DoMPI8oig
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/tr...3oOuN276qO5iNOzCikOxNAuRGW6hXONqqyK5DoMPI8oig
Trump fires John Bolton
- Thread starter Guard Dad
- Start date
I wondered about that. Bolton would have been dead set against it as he has recommended sending in up to 30,000 troops to mop up. There were obvious problems with the location, timing, and high level of the proposed meeting, but if we get out we will need to eventually talk to the Taliban. 18 years and little has changed on that point.
He was fired for pushing against Trump policy with media leaks...
"So in the past 10 days we killed 1,000 Taliban and just did the first carpet bombing since the Vietnam war."
"We've dropped 40 ton of bombs on an Iraqi island infested with ISIS."
Seems to me that Bolton was wrong on almost every action we've taken...
Good riddance.
I do not proclaim to know the ins and outs of national security policy. If you will be honest no one reading this does either. While I am not against diplomacy when that is a viable option it is not always viable. We "may" be able to negotiate with foreign entities who are not fanatics but you cannot negotiate with a fanatic. You cannot negotiate with someone who wants you erased from the face of the earth and uses philosophy religious or otherwise to justify their methods and achieve their end result. Do not fool yourself Islamic fanaticism wants you to convert or die. If you are Christian, Jewish, American, European, Black, White, Homosexual, Buddhist, Hindu, Atheist, passive Islamic, Hispanic or anything but hard core Muslim they want you dead. I have no problem with Bolton being a conservative hawk. Call him a warmonger maybe he is I or you do not really know for sure. Maybe Bolton needed to go or maybe he did not, again I am not the expert. I hope Bolton did need to go and it is not just DJT pitching a tantrum because someone told him no. Trump is dead wrong thinking you can negotiate with the Taliban, Afghan tribesmen or possibly even the North Koreans. You cannot bribe a bully it just makes them a bigger bully. You have to punch them in the nose until they decide they don't want to get punched anymore. It is all they understand. If I sound hard core well maybe it is because of the date today. I have not forgotten.
It's been 18 years. Eighteen years. What have we accomplished?
We have lost 14,000 more US lives. That says nothing about the 250,000 civilians dead who were unlucky enough to have been born in Afghanistan or Iraq.
We have spent 2 trillion dollars.
We have installed a malleable government who will become the regions largest dealer of US arms in exchange for power when we leave. These arms will end up in the hands of our enemies.
Those enemies, by the way, are the exact same Taliban who we went over there to eradicate eighteen years ago. Some are the exact same people.
So I ask, how is all this war stuff working out for us? We could have left 17 years ago, we could leave today, or we could make eternal Mideast war part of the US Constitution, and the Mideast will forever be a den of heathens and terrorists who want to kill us. The only question is how much more blood of our countrymen are we willing to spend in some insane attempt to make ourselves feel like we aren't the same losers, for the same reasons, we were in Vietnam. Bombs don't change minds. Bombs defeat armies.
We have lost 14,000 more US lives. That says nothing about the 250,000 civilians dead who were unlucky enough to have been born in Afghanistan or Iraq.
We have spent 2 trillion dollars.
We have installed a malleable government who will become the regions largest dealer of US arms in exchange for power when we leave. These arms will end up in the hands of our enemies.
Those enemies, by the way, are the exact same Taliban who we went over there to eradicate eighteen years ago. Some are the exact same people.
So I ask, how is all this war stuff working out for us? We could have left 17 years ago, we could leave today, or we could make eternal Mideast war part of the US Constitution, and the Mideast will forever be a den of heathens and terrorists who want to kill us. The only question is how much more blood of our countrymen are we willing to spend in some insane attempt to make ourselves feel like we aren't the same losers, for the same reasons, we were in Vietnam. Bombs don't change minds. Bombs defeat armies.
If we pulled out of Afghanistan, the Taliban would be back in control of the country shortly afterward. It would once again become a safe haven and training ground for terrorist like it was before 9/11. It's a precarious situation; damned if we stay, damned if we leave. There's no negotiation with the Taliban as they won't keep their word anyway.
I don't think we could truly conquer it because of all the radical Muslims and the Afghans themselves. More than 75% of the people there are illiterate. We built lots of schools for children there and the Taliban would blow them up. The Taliban doesn't wan the people to be literate, because if they were, they would know the Taliban has been deceiving them for years.
There are similarities between how we operated in Vietnam and Afghanistan. One you can't tell who the enemy is in Afghanistan because the Taliban is not a uniformed army; much like the Viet Cong. Second, outside the urban areas the people live like their ancestors did hundreds of years ago. That was another problem we had in Vietnam. In Vietnam if a village was friendly and cooperative with our troops, they would end up being terrorized by the VC. It's the same in Afghanistan; if a village becomes friendly and cooperative, the Taliban terrorizes them.
The Taliban is secure in the mountains because the caves and tunnels give them a secure refuge. We can bomb the hell out of the mountains, but those mountains are damn good bomb shelters and we kill very little of the Taliban this way. The only way to be effective in attacking them in these shelters would be to use napalm as it would suck the oxygen from the caves and tunnels. Napalm also has a huge psychological that is beneficial to those who use it. What condemnation would we receive from world organizations if we did? You also have to consider if we used this approach, what would be the response from radical Muslims around the world? I think you would see more terrorist attacks occur not just around the world, but in the US as well.
It's a tough situation for sure.
There are similarities between how we operated in Vietnam and Afghanistan. One you can't tell who the enemy is in Afghanistan because the Taliban is not a uniformed army; much like the Viet Cong. Second, outside the urban areas the people live like their ancestors did hundreds of years ago. That was another problem we had in Vietnam. In Vietnam if a village was friendly and cooperative with our troops, they would end up being terrorized by the VC. It's the same in Afghanistan; if a village becomes friendly and cooperative, the Taliban terrorizes them.
The Taliban is secure in the mountains because the caves and tunnels give them a secure refuge. We can bomb the hell out of the mountains, but those mountains are damn good bomb shelters and we kill very little of the Taliban this way. The only way to be effective in attacking them in these shelters would be to use napalm as it would suck the oxygen from the caves and tunnels. Napalm also has a huge psychological that is beneficial to those who use it. What condemnation would we receive from world organizations if we did? You also have to consider if we used this approach, what would be the response from radical Muslims around the world? I think you would see more terrorist attacks occur not just around the world, but in the US as well.
It's a tough situation for sure.
