Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Is it time to leave Afghanistan?

So what are we continuing to fight for? So a village girl doesn't have to wear a burka? Prolly a ugly biotch anyway.
Sure doesn't look to me like the people want the freedom being offered.

It's all fairly simple.We made a halfassed attempt to get osama the first time in 2001,because it was bush's intention to go into iraq from the beginning.

Afghanistans only source of money is opium.What has america targeted the most in Afghanistan?Opium!

Afghanistan is crawling with both DEA agents and analysts.It's turned into another halfassed war on drugs.Add to this a bunch of poor halfassed goat farmers who depend on opium to pay for the most basic of goods.The result is these goat [bleep] can't sign up with the taliban fast enough,in hopes of getting their opium cash crop back.

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To you and a few others it might have been taken as a joke, But to alot of Canadians that is a slap in the face. Lets agree to disagree and close this feud, we've both said what was on our minds. Truce?

Allow me to postulate a bit here. Given the current admins apparent drive to destroy the US. IF a complete withdrawal is done, the enemy would most certainly have a safe haven to indoctrinate, train and prepare for more real attacks on the USA. Real and exremely destructive and deadly attacks would most certainly follow very soon thereafter. The outcry here to be "protected" would result in the creation and implementation of a police state to he nth degree and it would have, at least initially, the support of the usual helpless creeps and sheeps.This is the other half of the problem. No, this one has to be fought OVER THERE,NOT HERE! The alternative is even more repulsive. It has always been more repulsive.

They've already got safe havens in syria etc. to carry out training and planning.Our occupation does nothing but provide us with an expensive foothold in the middle east and help create jobs for both the military and law enforcement branchs of the US.

It's a subcontractors wet dream.You've got companies making millions playing soldier over there and it's provided pay increases for thousands of law enforcement officers that have hung up their badges and hired out as security forces.Not to mention tax breaks etc.on wages and income of these guys.I've got a neighbor that got started in this [bleep] when the US was sending over security to Kosovo and other satellite countries.These same guys simply pick up and move with the work.In europe these operators were making up to 300k a year tax free and then coming home and paying cash for houses,cars etc.

You are right, of course, but the majority of this country does not give a [bleep] about anything that doesn't slow them down on the highway.

We know that the Taliban have been funded over 100 billion dollars.

Most of the money IS NOT coming from drugs sales. That's only a small portion.

Most of the money is coming from two sources.

Iran AND It's coming out of our pockets, U.S taxpayers are funding the Taliban.



It's a known fact the factions in the Pakistan Army, Generals
have supplied that money to the Taliban. Where do you think the Pakistan Generals are getting the money?

Read this article below.


SLAMABAD, Pakistan � The United States has long suspected that much of the billions of dollars it has sent Pakistan to battle militants has been diverted to the domestic economy and other causes, such as fighting India.

Now the scope and longevity of the misuse is becoming clear: Between 2002 and 2008, while Al Qaeda regrouped, only $500 million of the $6.6 billion in American aid actually made it to the Pakistani military, two army generals tell The Associated Press.

The account of the generals, who asked to remain anonymous because military rules forbid them from speaking publicly, was backed up by other retired and active generals, former bureaucrats and government ministers.

At the time of the siphoning, Pervez Musharraf, a Washington ally, served as both chief of staff and president, making it easier to divert money intended for the military to bolster his sagging image at home through economic subsidies.

"The army itself got very little," said retired Gen. Mahmud Durrani, who was Pakistan's ambassador to the U.S. under Musharraf. "It went to things like subsidies, which is why everything looked hunky-dory. The military was financing the war on terror out of its own budget."

Generals and ministers say the diversion of the money hurt the military in very real ways:

�Helicopters critical to the battle in rugged border regions were not available. At one point in 2007, more than 200 soldiers were trapped by insurgents in the tribal regions without a helicopter lift to rescue them.

�The limited night vision equipment given to the army was taken away every three months for inventory and returned three weeks later.

�Equipment was broken, and training was lacking. It was not until 2007 that money was given to the Frontier Corps, the front-line force, for training.

The details on misuse of American aid come as Washington again promises Pakistan money. Legislation to triple general aid to Pakistan cleared Congress last week. The legislation also authorizes "such sums as are necessary" for military assistance to Pakistan, upon several conditions. The conditions include certification that Pakistan is cooperating in stopping the proliferation of nuclear weapons, that Pakistan is making a sustained commitment to combating terrorist groups and that Pakistan security forces are not subverting the country's political or judicial processes.

The U.S. is also insisting on more accountability for reimbursing money spent. For example, Pakistan is still waiting for $1.7 billion for which it has billed the United States under a Coalition Support Fund to reimburse allies for money spent on the war on terror.

But the U.S. still can't follow what happens to the money it doles out.

"We don't have a mechanism for tracking the money after we have given it to them," Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Mark Wright said in a telephone interview.

Musharraf's spokesman, retired Gen. Rashid Quereshi, flatly denied that his former boss had shortchanged the army. He did not address the specific charges. "He has answered these questions. He has answered all the questions," the spokesman said. Musharraf took power in a bloodless coup in 1999 and resigned in August 2008.

The misuse of funding helps to explain how al-Qaida, dismantled in Afghanistan in 2001, was able to regroup, grow and take on the weak Pakistani army. Even today, the army complains of inadequate equipment to battle Taliban entrenched in tribal regions.

For its part, Washington did not ask many questions of a leader, Musharraf, whom it considered an ally, according to a U.S. Government Accountability Office report released last year.

Pakistan has received more money from the fund than any other nation. It is also the least expensive war front. The amount the U.S. spends per soldier per month is just $928, compared with $76,870 in Afghanistan and $85,640 in Iraq.

Yet by 2008, the United States had provided Pakistan with $8.6 billion in military money, and more than $12 billion in all.

"The army was sending in the bills," said one general who asked not to be identified.

My take,

Until the United States is willing to deal with those who funds the Taliban I am not supporting this war. It's a total waste of man power and sources.

This thing is Vietnam all over again. A politicians war.

Obama has no intention of winning it. He wants to contain it.
and it will cost us dearly over the next 8 years.

btw, my son, MY SON! in going over in January with the Marines. I don't want him to go. Proud as heck of him. But I don't support the top brass and I don't support our President.

War is the most the most heinous act of mankind on God's green earth.

Until we are ready to utterly devastate the Taliban in every way possible we are going to lose. There is no stalemate and never will be.


WIN IT OR GET OUT!

I keep saying the international banking cartel funds both sides of the war.

We're there bleeding for a people who are unwilling to bleed for their own freedom. Cut 'em loose and bring our own back home.

Another issue is these chieftans or warlords switch sides constantly,depending on which side is paying better.The US found that out when we were supplying afghans with weapons systems to fight the soviets.You'd have warlords selling weapons that they got for free from the US,to other tribes at a profit.

The stinger missles had no impact on the soviets other then it forced them to fly night missions.

Stop a war?!!,..Just stop it?!!

Are you mad?!!

The young people would take over if the old people didn't keep continually killing them off by sending them off to war!!

*gee*,..stopping a war,....the very idea.

You're a sorry excuse for an old person for even suggesting such an idea.

Damn right they do.The fall of the USSR created a segment of mega wealthy and many are involved in less then honest business among them being arms dealing.

Hell Iran has bought up millions if not billions of gold bullion.They're creating a better gold standard then the US has.

My son is a Marine. I am conflicted, confused and proud.

Out.

Bush half-assed it, Obama is half-assing it. No American should die in a half-assed war.

That or go big, but I can't say in good concience that we have any business going big in a war in Afganistan. In the long run, it's unwinnable. So what's the point, really? Kill some more of them... they kill some more of us... more dead people, same result in the end.

Out.

Do you think he should come home - now?

Sending our youth off to die in silly ass, ill conceived wars which are implemented by rich people who don't give a rats ass about the lesser people of the country is what has made America great!

Anybody who would want to stop a war conceived by rich people is downright un-American.

He's not there now, so it would be unfair for me to answer that.

His service is much-appreciated by a family here in Kansas.