georgephillip
Senator
Who profits from extending the 16 year-old conflict in Afghanistan?
According to this 10:49 TRNN interview, last year was the deadliest so far for Afghan civilians and soldiers, yet the US is escalating the killing as Colonel Andrew Bacevich points out:
http://therealnews.com/t2/story:19102:Afghanistan:-U.S.-Poised-to-Extend-a-War-it-Can't-Win
"Andrew Bacevich is a professor of history and international relations at Boston University. He is a retired colonel and Vietnam War veteran and the author of many books including American Empire: The Realities and Consequences of US Diplomacy (2002), The New American Militarism: How Americans are Seduced by War (2005), The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism (2008), and most recently, Breach of Trust: How Americans Failed Their Soldiers and Their Country."
TRNN host Aaron Mate asked the colonel if the current US escalation strategy in Afghanistan makes any sense:
"AARON MATE: Even if the strategy makes sense within that limited framework, is this perhaps possibly just the reflexive imperative of escalation where because the U.S. has been there for so long and has escalated, it's going to, just by virtue of it being locked in this escalation strategy, it's going to keep throwing in these troops for the sake of continuing the strategy, not necessarily for the sake of actually achieving anything?
"ANDREW BACEVICH: This is a way to dodge confronting the first order question. Is this war winnable? Why? Is this war worth continuing after these many, many years? Are there or not some alternatives? To confront those questions is to confront the reality that this war is inescapably a military failure that rests at the feet of the United States. I think that the generals who called the shots in the Pentagon, the generals who run these wars like Afghanistan, and our political leaders are just exceedingly reluctant to face up to that reality, the reality that U.S. military power is limited and may indeed be irrelevant to some of the circumstances that we've committed our troops to.
"AARON MATE: What sort of specific questions would the U.S. have to confront in order to change course?
The short answer is to involve the Taliban in the Afghan political process.
According to this 10:49 TRNN interview, last year was the deadliest so far for Afghan civilians and soldiers, yet the US is escalating the killing as Colonel Andrew Bacevich points out:
http://therealnews.com/t2/story:19102:Afghanistan:-U.S.-Poised-to-Extend-a-War-it-Can't-Win
"Andrew Bacevich is a professor of history and international relations at Boston University. He is a retired colonel and Vietnam War veteran and the author of many books including American Empire: The Realities and Consequences of US Diplomacy (2002), The New American Militarism: How Americans are Seduced by War (2005), The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism (2008), and most recently, Breach of Trust: How Americans Failed Their Soldiers and Their Country."
TRNN host Aaron Mate asked the colonel if the current US escalation strategy in Afghanistan makes any sense:
"AARON MATE: Even if the strategy makes sense within that limited framework, is this perhaps possibly just the reflexive imperative of escalation where because the U.S. has been there for so long and has escalated, it's going to, just by virtue of it being locked in this escalation strategy, it's going to keep throwing in these troops for the sake of continuing the strategy, not necessarily for the sake of actually achieving anything?
"ANDREW BACEVICH: This is a way to dodge confronting the first order question. Is this war winnable? Why? Is this war worth continuing after these many, many years? Are there or not some alternatives? To confront those questions is to confront the reality that this war is inescapably a military failure that rests at the feet of the United States. I think that the generals who called the shots in the Pentagon, the generals who run these wars like Afghanistan, and our political leaders are just exceedingly reluctant to face up to that reality, the reality that U.S. military power is limited and may indeed be irrelevant to some of the circumstances that we've committed our troops to.
"AARON MATE: What sort of specific questions would the U.S. have to confront in order to change course?
The short answer is to involve the Taliban in the Afghan political process.
