re: Trump to address nation on Afghanistan

The plan is out, thousands of new troops. Sad

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thousands of new troops

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I had read last week where Pence was pushing for additional troops to be sent.

If he sends more troops I am going to be badly disappointed.

It's a shite situation, for sure. Afghanistan was one of the few American wars that I was not in favor of, but by 2007 or so I had come to appreciate the need push back against the terrorist groups in Pakistan in the NWFP that were running wild across the border, and against their own government.

Whether he admits or not, Musharraf needed us to be there to help keep the country relatively stabilized during the transition phase after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto in December 2007. But the transition happened, and Musharraf left in 2008. And then SEAL Team Six took out Osama bin Laden in May 2011. And then in September 2014, Ashraf Ghani replaced the wretched Hamid Karzai as president of Afghanistan. So even though I was not in favor of the war initially, I could see that there were good reasons for a U.S. presence over the years.

That being said, the situation is starting to get hopeless, because the source of the problem (i.e., Pakistan) is getting worse, and now Iran and Russia are adding their nefarious influence to make things even worse. So I'm flexible to whatever plans McMaster, Mattis, & Kelly, might have, but I'm skeptical of anything too big.

It would be better to concentrate our efforts more directly on the real sources of the problems--i.e., Iran, Pakistan, and Russia.

When a President claiming he wants to drain the swamp is in favor of continuing a 16-year war that only benefits a small number of war profiteers and the Washington political class, it is a sign that our political system is irreversibly broken.

At times I have hope that Rand Paul could win the Republican nomination and possibly the Presidency, but seeing stuff like this makes me think they'd try and kill him if that happened.

If he doesn't say we're pulling out, then I'm not interested.

I think there is a split among Republican strategists on what to do in Afghanistan, but that feelings are not very strong either way.

Trump has clout to lose, and nothing to gain, in Afghanistan. But (A) that would be true for any other President too, and (B) the political risks to Trump from Afghanistan are relatively small.

If he pulls out too quickly, he could face a backlash accusing him of doing what Obama did in Iraq in 2011, but that's unlikely, because if he pulls out, he will probably trust his generals to execute a much more gradual tapering. (The political situation/excuse that Obama used for exiting Iraq immediately doesn't apply to Afghanistan.)

If he ramps up too much and gets burned with casualty lists, it will hurt him with his base, but his base isn't going anywhere, and one could even argue that this would hurt more mainstream hawkish Republicans more than Trump.

So while this is a very tough decision, it is unlikely to be anything ultimately determinative of his political legacy. There are so many bigger issues that he will be judged against. On foreign policy, there is Iran, North Korea, and Russia... and now Pakistan too, because the Kashmir situation is getting hot again. (China is our best tool to use against both North Korea and Pakistan, by the way ... and maybe even against Russia at the UNSC.)

On domestic policy, there is health care, and then there is everything else. Not looking too good at the moment. One the one hand, it's not really his fault that he doesn't have 60 votes in the Senate. On the other hand, he hasn't helped matters any, and he was the person who raised expectations unrealistically without having any organized plan for legislative lobbying efforts.

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Not poppies but rare earth minerals. Are what big business wants.

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Afghanistan = The Graveyard of Dynasties

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the brits, soviets and now USA.

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and the Mongols (Ghengis Khan), the Greeks (Alexander the Great), the Sihks (Maharajah Singh), the Persians (Darius I) and the Rashadan Caliphate (Umar).

The land of Afghanistan has never been completely conquered by any faction.