Plz Define the Mission in Afghanistan/Pakistan

[Puppycow]

What is the long-term goal of the NATO mission in Afghanistan/Pakistan, and is it achievable?

Is it worth achieving considering the cost?

 

[Texas]

What is the long-term goal of the NATO mission in Afghanistan/Pakistan, and is it achievable?

Is it worth achieving considering the cost?

With Bush it was nation building and was doomed to failure. If I understand Obama's goal it is simply to capture or kill Osama which is almost certain to fail and to use it as a way of pulling troops out of Iraq. That is why he is finding so little support fro NATO countries for more troops.I have predicted we will be out of Afghanistan very soon because there is really no strategic interest for us there. If the Taliban takes over again and starts trouble for us we can always bomb the crap out of them again.

 

[Puppycow]

Are the logistics of the misson feasible anymore? I heard that the bridge over which most of the supplies crossed was blown up and also Kyrgyzstan is kicking us out of its bases, which was another supply route.

The main economic activity is poppy growing, which we want to eradicate. How can you build a nation while suppressing its main bread-and-butter?

ETA: I would like to capture Osama, but that's it. I also don't want the Taliban to take over in either Afghanistan or Pakistan. I don't care about the poppies; let them grow all the poppies they want as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Texas]

Are the logistics of the misson feasible anymore? I heard that the bridge over which most of the supplies crossed was blown up and also Kyrgyzstan is kicking us out of its bases, which was another supply route.

The main economic activity is poppy growing, which we want to eradicate. How can you build a nation while suppressing its main bread-and-butter?

ETA: I would like to capture Osama, but that's it. I also don't want the Taliban to take over in either Afghanistan or Pakistan. I don't care about the poppies; let them grow all the poppies they want as far as I'm concerned.

I think the deciding issue will be how far the rest of NATO is willing to go. It appears right now that they are not willing to stay much longer.

 

[gdnp]

What is the long-term goal of the NATO mission in Afghanistan/Pakistan, and is it achievable?

Is it worth achieving considering the cost?

I'd say the long term goal is to avoid Afghanistan/Pakistan from again turning into a safe haven and training base for terrorists, and to avoid nuclear weapons from falling into the hands of a fundamentalist muslim regime.

 

[SteveGrenard]

Here is a report of interest.....

US supplies via Russia to start soon

By JIM HEINTZ – 1 day ago

MOSCOW (AP) — The shipment of U.S. military supplies for Afghanistan through Russia will begin soon, news agencies quoted Russia's foreign minister as saying Saturday.

"The transit will take place literally within days," Sergey Lavrov told TV Tsentr, according to the Interfax, ITAR-Tass and RIA-Novosti agencies.

Foreign Ministry officials could not be reached for comment late Saturday, and the reports did not say whether the supplies would transit Russia by land or air. However, Russia announced last week that it would allow U.S. shipments of non-lethal military supplies to Afghanistan.

Supply routes to Afghanistan for the U.S.-led international military operation have become an increasingly critical issue in recent months amid growing militant attacks on the land routes through Pakistan that carry about 75 percent of U.S. supplies.

The U.S. plans to send around 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan this year.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j433uep2PZrSoonajNcqEyhScwFwD96BK3FO0

Russia may be having second thoughts about being complicit in the U.S. departure from Krgyzstan. Failure in Afghanistan could result in the spread of Islamic fundamentalism inside Russia and its former states.

MOSCOW - When the USSR ended its disastrous near decade-long occupation of Afghanistan – the last Soviet troops were extracted 20 years ago Sunday – war hero Gen. Makhmut Gareyev was left behind to advise the Kremlin's client regime on means of survival. He too fled three years later as waves of Islamist rebels, formerly armed by the US, hammered at the gates of Kabul.

General Gareyev, now president of the Russian Academy of Military Sciences, believes the perceived threats that originally induced the USSR to invade Afghanistan are still very much alive. The Kremlin leadership feared the spread of Iranian-style Islamist revolution to Soviet central Asia, a challenge that has only grown worse in the interim, and Gareyev says he doubts that the current NATO mission in that region has much chance to deliver long-term stability.

"Nothing can be done in Afghanistan using military means," he says. "If the Americans go on with the policy they have now, it will be useless."

Talks in recent days between US and Russian officials have brought a ray of hope that the two countries may finally begin cooperating on a much-needed transport corridor through former Soviet territory to resupply struggling NATO forces in Afghanistan. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov even hinted that an accord on the supply line could signal a wider thaw in relations between Moscow and the Western alliance, which have been frozen since Russia's war with Georgia last summer. But most leading Russian experts, especially those burned by past experiences, like Gareyev, remain dubious about the prospects for eventual US success in Afghanistan and deeply fearful that the consequences of their ultimate failure may fall heavily upon Russia and former Soviet central Asia.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0217/p25s01-wogn.html

 

[Texas]

I'd say the long term goal is to avoid Afghanistan/Pakistan from again turning into a safe haven and training base for terrorists, and to avoid nuclear weapons from falling into the hands of a fundamentalist muslim regime.

It may be too late for that unless we are willing to actually invade Pakistan:


http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/15/pakistan-islamic-law

Sunday 15 February 2009 18.39 GMT Article history
Pakistan is to impose Islamic law in a vast region of the north-west called Malakand in an attempt to placate extremists, even as President Asif Zardari warns that they are "trying to take over the state".
Pakistani Taliban militants who are in control of the Swat valley in the region announced a ceasefire tonight, reacting to the government's agreement to bring in sharia courts.

Malakand is part of North West Frontier province, a regular part of Pakistan, not the wild tribal area, which runs along the Afghan border.

Critics warned that the new sharia regulations represented a capitulation to the extremists' demands, and that it would be difficult to stop hardliners elsewhere in the country from demanding that their areas also come under Islamic law.

"This is definitely a surrender," said Khadim Hussain of the Aryana Institute for Regional Research and Advocacy, a thinktank in Islamabad. "If you keep treating a community as something different from the rest of the country, it will isolate them."

 

[Puppycow]

I'd say the long term goal is to avoid Afghanistan/Pakistan from again turning into a safe haven and training base for terrorists, and to avoid nuclear weapons from falling into the hands of a fundamentalist muslim regime.

Sounds good, but:

1) Does our military presence in the region actually help to achieve that goal?
2) How much will it cost to achieve this goal?
3) Can it be achieved more indirectly?

 

[SteveGrenard]

Sounds good, but:

1) Does our military presence in the region actually help to achieve that goal?

No. It's probably stemming the tide but....

2) How much will it cost to achieve this goal?

How much would you be willing to pay in money and blood not to be ruled under religious or Sharia law? That's what this is really about. There is no problem believing whatever they want to religiously but there is a major problem when a religion's leaders also want to make and enforce laws, in effect supplanting secular authority. Sharia is a throwback to medieval times, 700 years, and is particularly brutal. There are no rules regarding physical evidence and all someone has to do is testify to cause one to be convicted and punished. Punishments are extremely harsh, even as to manner of carrying out a death sentence. And women are treated very unfairly.

3) Can it be achieved more indirectly?

No. I hate to say this but we and NATO are fighting a religious war in the region. Religion has caused more wars and more grief than it is worth. Its 2009 and we are still at it. I wouldn't be surprised if Russia joins in on our side.

A significant side issue:

Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah has decided to name a woman as deputy minister of education and is signalling a move away from religious fundamentalism and Sharia.

An expert on girls' education became Saudi Arabia's first woman minister on Saturday as part of a wide-ranging cabinet reshuffle by King Abdullah that swept aside several bastions of ultra-conservatism.

Nora bint Abdullah al-Fayez, a US-educated former teacher, was made deputy education minister in charge of a new department for female students, a significant breakthrough in a country where women are not allowed to drive.

"This is an honour not only for me but for all Saudi women. In the presence of a comprehensive operational team, I believe I'll be able to face challenges and create positive change," she told Arab News. Fayez said she would study the state of girls' education in Saudi Arabia before commenting on the task before her.

In his first reshuffle since assuming the throne in 2005, King Abdullah also replaced two powerful enemies of reform, the chief of the Saudi religious police, Sheikh Ibrahim al-Ghaith, and the country's most senior judge, Sheikh Salih Ibn al-Luhaydan. Ghaith, who runs the commission for the promotion of virtue and the prevention of vice, known as the mutawa, which enforces bans on alcohol and drugs, has gained a reputation for brutality. Luhaydan ruled last year that it was permissible to kill owners of satellite television channels broadcasting "immoral" programmes. Several other hardline judges were sacked as part of a challenge against the kingdom's hardline religious establishment.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/16/saudi-cabinet-woman-minister

 

[gdnp]

Sounds good, but:

1) Does our military presence in the region actually help to achieve that goal?
2) How much will it cost to achieve this goal?
3) Can it be achieved more indirectly?

1) Don't know
2) Not a clue
3) I wish I knew.

That's why Petreus and Gates get paid the big bucks. To figure this stuff out.

 

[gumboot]

Pakistan is rapidly turning into a Radical Islamic state with nuclear weapons, and there's nothing we're willing to do to stop it. Once Pakistan falls Afghanistan will be close behind, and then our troubles really begin.

We are going to suffer the consequences of failing to address the problem of Radical Islam.

 

[Texas]

Pakistan is rapidly turning into a Radical Islamic state with nuclear weapons, and there's nothing we're willing to do to stop it. Once Pakistan falls Afghanistan will be close behind, and then our troubles really begin.

We are going to suffer the consequences of failing to address the problem of Radical Islam.

I think India would be the wild card should that happen.

 

[Puppycow]

Pakistan is rapidly turning into a Radical Islamic state with nuclear weapons, and there's nothing we're willing to do to stop it. Once Pakistan falls Afghanistan will be close behind, and then our troubles really begin.

We are going to suffer the consequences of failing to address the problem of Radical Islam.

Say we had the will, what would it actually take?

 

[lupus_in_fabula]

Pakistan is rapidly turning into a Radical Islamic state with nuclear weapons, and there's nothing we're willing to do to stop it. Once Pakistan falls Afghanistan will be close behind, and then our troubles really begin.

We are going to suffer the consequences of failing to address the problem of Radical Islam.

Say we had the will, what would it actually take?

Maybe something along these lines:

First, engage in a dialog with the moderate Talibans, eventually trying to instigate a relative calm in critical areas. If necessary, spread some of that cash around.

Second, see to it that the military stays united, which might mean backing off from pressuring them to strike at their own people. So far they are united, at least at the higher echelons. Public opinion is however relevant if that is to remain the case. Time is not in their favor thou.

Third, and most importantly, massive economic and political incentives towards building a national education system and social development in general. The rate of illiteracy is staggering in Pakistan, and so is poor nutrition, which can be seen by the fact that over half of the children are stunted (failure to achieve expected height for age).

The Pakistani officials or military spokespersons may say they are under threat from extremists, thus they say they must protect their people. But in reality, they haven't done much for "their people" in the first place, and people are well aware of that.

Can we really blame the parents who send their sons to the infamous religious schools (madrassas); at least they learn to read and write there; they get at least some education where the other option is none; it means less mouths to feed for families who's already struggling. Give them some real options; a chance to have proper education on a large scale would be a good start, then follow up with other social reforms.

 

[gumboot]

Say we had the will, what would it actually take?

Honestly? I'm not sure there's anything we can do. We're too late to stop what looks to me to be increasingly inevitable. Perhaps the only viable solution is to determine the location of those nuclear weapons and secure them when everything goes pear shaped.

 

[SteveGrenard]

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/02/16/pakistan.taliban.sharia.law/?iref=mpstoryview

Its naive to think NATO and the US can buy the Taliban. They have access to hundreds of millions of dollars in heroin monies.... NATO and the U.S. have done little or nothing with respect to the heroin. We are now sending back Amb. Richard Holbrooke who was infamous before for his hands off the heroin policies. Ditto for General Eikenberry. Maybe that's their plan? Addiction and HIV for all. That would work, eh?

"Outside Afghanistan, there are, regrettably, two other reasons we could not make inroads in Helmand and Kandahar: Ambassador Richard Holbrooke and Lieutenant-General Karl Eikenberry.

"U.S. President Barack Obama has just chosen Mr. Holbrooke, a former Clinton administration official, as his special representative in the region, and Lt.-Gen. Eikenberry as his ambassador to Afghanistan.

Tallyban wants schools but only religious schools they can run. They have already launched attacks and have detroyed government schools, particularly for girls.

Taliban blocks foreign aid groups from supplying food and services because they are afraid this would minimize their power in the eyes of the people. They prefer to be the sole source of such benefits ....if they decide they want to provide them.

Canada, Nato and Afghan-Pak Drug Trade:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090214.wliveafghandrugs0217/BNStory/Front

Here’s an interesting piece of “fake fact” from an Islamic propaganda online site:

Cannabis is turned into heroin after having been transported to heroin plants in the Pak-Afghan tribal areas. Though the Karzai government has banned cannabis cultivation, the local warlords have allowed farmers to cultivate cannabis by levying taxes on them.

http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/...agename=Zone-English-Muslim_Affairs/MAELayout

idiots. Do they actually believe cannabis is processed into heroin?

Here’s Russia’s take on the heroin situation:

http://uk.reuters.com/article/usTopNews/idUKTRE51B4RP20090212

And Russia’s not the only one suffering from an increase in addiction and HIV, so, apparently is
Iran. Yet Iran stubbornly refuses to do anything but support the Taliban.

 

[The Atheist]

No. I hate to say this but we and NATO are fighting a religious war in the region. Religion has caused more wars and more grief than it is worth. Its 2009 and we are still at it. I wouldn't be surprised if Russia joins in on our side.

Won't that be hilarious?

Pakistan is rapidly turning into a Radical Islamic state with nuclear weapons, and there's nothing we're willing to do to stop it. Once Pakistan falls Afghanistan will be close behind, and then our troubles really begin.

Nah, you're scaremongering.

There's another thread on this same subject which should probably be merged.

Zardari is strictly a temp and I imagine an army coup must be due very shortly. I just can't see the established ruling clique in Pak allowing the mullahs to take over, and the army has always tried to stay radical-free.

The very best thing we can do about Pakistan is leave it alone. Any offence would be disastrous.

We are going to suffer the consequences of failing to address the problem of Radical Islam.

That's funny. I would have said that our continued efforts to **** up the Middle East has enabled the growth of radical islam. Addressing it more is just going to make it worse.

 

[dudalb]

SO I guess letting the planners and origniators of 9/11 get away with it is acceptable in your book, then?
Well, not mine.

 

[The Atheist]

SO I guess letting the planners and origniators of 9/11 get away with it is acceptable in your book, then?
Well, not mine.

What does that have to do with what I said?

 

[SteveGrenard]

I think dudalb means since Pakistan/Afghan borderlands are being used as safe havens for AlQeda and the Taliban and it was suggested we leave Pakistan alone. We are not leaving them alone, however. We are attacking terrorist positions with drones/missiles. The Pakistani government complains but clearly is, off the record, happy we're doing this. You are right about Pakistan internally to having to come to terms with this.

Insofar as them getting away with the 9/11 and other attacks as well, they've already done that. They do have to be stopped from continuing their insane program to impose Sharia on the world.

I frankly don't agree that Sharia and radical Islam is prospering because of our involvement in the Middle-East. First of all this is not the middle-east we are talking about here, it's Pakistan and Afghanistan which are farther east. All of the middle east save for Israel is Muslim already although there are signs throughout the region of pulling away from the fundies. Saudi Arabia, see above. AbuDhabi and Dubai, for example. Proponents of fundamentalist Islam and Sharia would be following their own agenda whether we were there or not. We do make a handy propaganda tool for them to target. Creeping Islamic Fundamentalism is working its way through poorer nations such as India and those in southeast Asia. And don't forget the Islamization of Africa. There are outposts in Indonesia and even in the Phillippines. It sorta reminds one of the ideological conflicts between communism and capitalism that sparked Viet Nam. It's no longer about getting the 9-11 planners, its much much more that is at stake. I don't want to wake up tomorrow living under Sharia. I can deal with it but it is just too brutal and too scary in its application. I don't know how anybody else feels about that.

Finally I think a little scaremongering is justified.