U.S. 'not winning' in Afghanistan, Mattis tells Congress

[SirReginald]

I see where this is going

 

[Dafunkdoc_Unlimited]

If the USSR couldn't 'win' in Afghanistan in the 70's, WTF would make anyone think the US could......EVER!!!!!!?????

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[GnauzBookOfRhymes]

FAct is US hasn't been able to accomplish political objectives for the last 60+ years via invasion starting with Korea and coming to the present.

Interesting point but it's really a matter of perspective and trying to determine what the true political objective was. There is never just one, and even among the many it can be difficult to determine the order of predominance.

For instance, everything the US has done in the Middle East in the post cold war era can be seen as a failure if you assume that democracy/human rights/WMDs were the true priority. But if a relatively stable (in other words cheap) world oil market and ensuring that no single muslim majority country becomes strong enough to adjust the status quo were the actual political objectives being sought - your view may change.

As of today, Saddam is gone; Iran has been relatively tame; Iraq/Libya/Syria are in chaos; Egypt is back in the fold; Jordan is Jordan; Saudis are still in the fold; UAE/Qatar/Bahrain relatively stable and still close to the US and Israel is stronger than ever.

But even with all of the chaos in Iraq/Libya, look at the charts below. Increase in Iraq more than makes up for the lower Libyan output (compared to Qaddafi era):

 

[David_TheMan]

Interesting point but it's really a matter of perspective and trying to determine what the true political objective was. There is never just one, and even among the many it can be difficult to determine the order of predominance.

For instance, everything the US has done in the Middle East in the post cold war era can be seen as a failure if you assume that democracy/human rights/WMDs were the true priority. But if a relatively stable (in other words cheap) world oil market and ensuring that no single muslim majority country becomes strong enough to adjust the status quo were the actual political objectives being sought - your view may change.

US objective is the make the middle east one big Saudi or one big Egypt. They have failed.
They wanted to run the opium trade in SE Asia, it blew up on them domestically
They tried to make all of latin america a colony, blew up with their death squads being made public
Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, same thing.
They have failed.
Now the objective seems more to make money on continuing a war, for the sake of war, than anything real, that said when your money supply is losing value and you have Europe on the verge of another bank run in Spain and Italy, its just all points to a negative

 

[Patrick Kane]

Ain't no winning, it's just strategic positioning for the U.S to corner Iran and keep a closer eye on Russia and their actions in the Middle East

U.S officials could careless whats happening on the ground in Afghanistan

 

[GnauzBookOfRhymes]

US objective is the make the middle east one big Saudi or one big Egypt. They have failed.
They wanted to run the opium trade in SE Asia, it blew up on them domestically
They tried to make all of latin america a colony, blew up with their death squads being made public
Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, same thing.
They have failed.
Now the objective seems more to make money on continuing a war, for the sake of war, than anything real, that said when your money supply is losing value and you have Europe on the verge of another bank run in Spain and Italy, its just all points to a negative

Breh look beneath the surface. Turning the entire M.E. into one big U.S. puppet is impossible for a wide variety of historical, cultural and religious reasons. That is not the objective.

The only interests the U.S. ever had in Latin America is to make sure it never became a Soviet base (same with Afghanistan).

 

[David_TheMan]

Breh look beneath the surface. Turning the entire M.E. into one big U.S. puppet is impossible for a wide variety of historical, cultural and religious reasons. That is not the objective.

The only interests the U.S. ever had in Latin America is to make sure it never became a Soviet base (same with Afghanistan).

Nothing to discuss really, we disagree, we'll just leave it at that.

 

[TNC]

I always said Afghanistan was the "more just" war...but the whole nation building thing is stupid.

Go in, fukk up Al-Qaeda, bounce.

I hear what you are saying bruh and in theory this works, but EVERY TIME we go into a place, fukk shyt up and leave, a bigger threat arises. We wouldn't have ISIS had we maintained heavy pressure or at least what they currently are now.

 

[THE MACHINE]

we shall bring exotic spices and fabrics from afar to please caesar