Personally, I think it's hopeless, though our military leaders use vague terms like we're making "progress," we need to "turn it around"---what that is we never know because with these double-speak phrases they never specify, or we've "turned a corner," or there's a "light at the end of the tunnel," or other endless nonsensical terminology to justify what will eventually become a 50-year war.
Evidently, the rest of the world doesn't consider the Taliban and Al-Qaeda to be the threat that we do because we're shouldering almost the entire burden of the war on terror alone. It's the US versus world terrorism. We fight the war in Afghanistan , and the rest of the world watches, or ignore it.
If it's such a threat to world peace and stability as we say, why is it just US?
Since the war in all probability can't be won, a clear-cut military victory, maybe we should opt for a different kind of plan, a shared stalemate instead.
Here's what we do. We fight the war in shifts. How many members of the United Nations are there? We take a vote in the UN to share the responsibility. This year the US fights the Afghans. Next year it's the Chinese turn to fight, then the Japanese, then the Russians, then the following year after the Russians it's the Italians turn, then the Canadians, then the Australians, then Israel , and so on.
We could fight a 53-year stalemate that way. The infrastructure, the military bases and landing strips are all there, already in place in Afghanistan . All we have to do is have one team move in, and the former move out.
Rotating shifts.
We could share worldwide the burden of fighting terror, the cost and the blood, rather than the US as usual doing it all because we're the only country that can serve as the world's policeman.
Small countries because they're small could double up. For example, Switzerland , Ghana and Thailand could fight their shared shift in Afghanistan as allies.
Think of the possibilities.
All these countries could hone their fighting skills with hands-on experience and test the weapons we supplied them with. It would be front-line experience, but it would be shared, rather that the US getting fuc'..ed alone.
I earlier said we ought to copy Star Trek and create a multi-national force like the Federation on the TV show to share the burden of fighting world terrorism.
The other option is to divide Afghanistan into 53 zones of occupation and have 53 different countries occupying Afghanistan , with jointly shared occupation of Kabul , the capital city. This would confound our enemies on where and against who they should direct their operations.
For countries that did not want to participate there would be UN approved economic sanctions, you have to pay more for the privilege of not fighting. You have to pay a higher rate to fund the cost. In other words, pay a fine.
If nobody is willing to go along, then maybe it's a realization that only the US thinks the operation is important.
The problem is our military leaders lack imagination, that's why they went into the military in the first place. We need creative out-of-the-box thinking at the top. We're not getting it.
"The other option is to divide Afghanistan into 53 zones of occupation and have 53 different countries occupying Afghanistan , with jointly shared occupation of Kabul , the capital city. This would confound our enemies on where and against who they should direct their operations."
This sounds creative, at first, but then when you think about it, that's what happened to the Middle East and Eastern Europe after WWII, and it just complicated problems even more. Germany was one of those divided states, and so was Iraq, if I'm not mistaken. Say, how about if we acknowledge that the entire Afghan border is not sustainable, but we take only the most viable chunk of it and protect that part, and to hell with the rest of it? After all, it's not like there's this one, big unifying national pride in Afghanistan, otherwise they would have fixed themselves.
Dear G - It sounds, creative, but it's not workable because you can't get 53 countries to participate. I was kidding, sort of.
I'm not certain what you mean when you say use of occupation zones happened to Eastern Europe after WW2 and created problems. It did create some. Eastern Europe was occupied by the Russians, and it would have been hard to kick them out of countries like Poland short of going to war with them, which the American president at the time was not prepared to do.
Germany was occupied in zones. The Russians captured Berlin at great cost. They didn't have to let us share occupation, but they did.
As for creating problems, as imperfect as it was, the occupation did end Nazism in Germany.
That's better than an endless war.
What you propose by occupying parts of Afghanistan and ignoring the rest is dangerous. That was tried in Vietnam, called the Enclave Plan, without success. Leaving an undefeated enemy in possession of large parts of a country and whose strength can grow leaving them the freedom to pick and choose further attacks is not a wise move.
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