U.S. Continues Quagmire-Building Effort In Afghanistan
chippy
quagmire-building efforts continued apace in Afghanistan this week, as
the geographically rugged, politically unstable region remained
ungovernable, death tolls continued to rise, and the grim military
campaign persisted as hopelessly as ever.
n fact, many government officials now believe that the United States
and its allies could be as little as six months away from their
ultimate goal: the total quagmirification of Afghanistan.
"We've spent a lot of time and money fostering the turmoil and despair
necessary to make this a sustaining quagmire, and we're not going to
stop now," President Barack Obama said in a national address Monday
night. "It won't be easy, but with enough tactical errors on the
ground, shortsighted political strategies, and continued ignorance of
our vast cultural differences, we could have a horrific, full-fledged
quagmire by 2012."
Added Obama, "Together, we can make Afghanistan into a nightmarish
hell-scape Americans will regret for generations to come."
The U.S. plan to build a lasting quagmire in Afghanistan calls for the
loss of at least 5,000 coalition troops, nearly 1,500 of whom have
already been killed, and a wasted investment of nearly $1 trillion, a
quarter of which has thus far been spent.
With more than 80 percent of the country currently under Taliban
control, Defense Secretary Robert Gates argued that U.S. nation-
dismantling efforts are actually proceeding ahead of schedule.
"We've made a complete mess of local institutions, and moving forward
this substantial lack of infrastructure will be the cornerstone of our
strategy to ensure long-term chaos in the Afghanistan-Pakistan
region," said Gates, gesturing to a complex, 6-foot-tall wall map of
what were either newly established al-Qaeda bases in Waziristan,
tribal trade routes over the Hindu Kush, or perhaps U.S. military
outposts of some kind. "I couldn't be happier with our progress. This
place is a complete clusterfuck."
A number of Pentagon officials said they were proudly holding on to
their false glimmer of hope for a victory that remains forever out of
reach, and explained that waging a war that can only end in sorrow has
validated all their efforts.
The U.S. effort in Afghanistan hasn't always looked so bleak. In 2004,
when Afghanistan ratified a new constitution and directly elected a
leader for the first time in its history, a number of government
officials feared the quagmire would fail and perhaps even lead to
relative peace and security. But American military and diplomatic
initiatives to prop up the corrupt regime of Hamid Karzai paved the
way for this year's utterly fraudulent presidential election, an event
which gave the quagmire-building effort a much needed shot in the arm.
"Some say the war in Afghanistan is already a quagmire, being as it's
gone on for eight years and the situation on the ground continues to
rapidly deteriorate," said Gen. Stanley McChrystal. "But I know we can
do better. There are still dozens of tribal allies to alienate, troop
morale could sink even lower, to the point of mutiny, and by
continuing to fire a bunch of missiles from unmanned predator drones
we have the opportunity to scare the living shit out of every last
civilian in the region."
Continued McChrystal, "If we play our cards right, the word
'Afghanistan' could soon replace the word 'Iraq' as the agreed-upon
successor to the word 'Vietnam' in the American political lexicon."
The loose network of warlords who rule the Afghan countryside were
also optimistic about quagmire-building efforts.
"Our nation is already impossibly fragmented, but I believe the United
States has the ability to make things even worse here," said a local
tribal leader, who asked to speak anonymously due to his constantly
shifting alliances with the two sides. "Afghanistan has a proud,
ancient tradition of quagmires: Soviet Russia, the British Empire,
Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan. These are big shoes to fill, but if
anyone can do it, these foolish Americans can."
With President Karzai's government maintaining ties to known drug
traffickers, and 68,000 U.S. soldiers struggling to police a harsh,
challenging landscape, all the conditions for a multigenerational
quagmire seem to be in place.
For many analysts, the question now is: How will Obama ensure the U.S.
entanglement in the region remains permanent? By deploying more
troops, by withdrawing them and leaving behind an unspeakable
disaster, by increasing sympathy for the Taliban in nuclear-armed
Pakistan? There are so many options on the table that many feel a
quagmire is virtually guaranteed.
"We have so much to thank the Americans for," said Marshal Muhammad
Qasim Fahim, a notorious warlord who will become vice president if
Karzai wins a runoff election scheduled for Nov. 7. "Not only have
they created a lawless environment that has allowed us to capture 90
percent of the opium market, but their heroin habits have made a few
of us very rich."
"I love the Americans and I hope they stay for many years," he added.
"Many, many, many, many years."
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/u_s_continues_quagmire_building
Buzzard
His advisors could see what an unwinnable quagmire
Afghanistan, and especially alqieada was;
but he didn't want to just pull out and come home
in defeat, so he figured he'd pull the switcheroo,
kick Iraq's butt first, and THEN come home.
That way, the troops'd come home victorious,
and hopefully by then everyone would have just
forgotten about Afgan and alqieda.
Too bad, everyone remembered the unfinished war,
and forgot that it was one that has been fought
before and noone has won. Russia lost, (and didn't
the UK lose too?), and now here we are, fighting there
in a place where the enemy scatters like rats before
a searchlight, leaving behind deadly bombs that
remain undetected until they explode.
Terrorism isn't a solid thing, like a nation that
can be pinned to one location and waged war on, its
a behaviour; and it can have different participants
every time. And the more angry people we drive into
that behaviour, the bigger our hidden, sulking, deadly
shadow enemy gets.