Trump and "The Graveyard of Empires"

I am very biased on this issue, so, take my answer with a grain of salt. As I have stated before, I only write based on my personal experiences, because anything else is just conjecture and cannot be backed up. I have been here 3 years, the first 18 months in Kandahar and Helmand. I spent a lot of time on the failed drug trade. An interdiction and destroy policy that through the International Narcotics and Law Enforcement (INL) agency, (an arm of the state department) wasted 8 Billion dollars of the taxpayer money.

Here is a typical example of the way things work here:

My unit had tracked down and identified a warlord who was selling/ smuggling massive amounts of drugs across the border into Iran. Long story short, we were told to back off, let him alone, because he “supports us”. “Go find another one who doesn’t and take him out”

Thats the way it works here, it depends on what team you play for that week. and the sides switch all the time. Lies rule the day.

I hate ISIS, I have seen what they do first hand, so, I will kill them any chance I get. However, what happens if we stay here? the Afghan government only controls 60 percent of the country on a good day, ANA / ANP are rife with ISIS/ Taliban and those that aren’t, will take a bribe from anyone to change sides.

Ok, we leave. The Afghans will do nothing and ISIS/ ISIS-K will take over large sections of the country. So what? If we had a strong government that cared anything about our country, we would say “fuck that” and unleash the MOAB’s. There are ways to destroy your enemies, we just dont do it.

The biggest change we can make is CUT THE MONEY OFF. Do you know that all the money the USG gives to Afghanistan, we have no control over? It goes into a general government fund and the Afghans can decide where it goes. pure insanity. The only thing Afghans understand is money.

Cut the money off, take contol of our OWN MONEY and that doesnt help change the culture of the Afghan government, pull out.

IMHO it is a waste of lives and money. leave.

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Even if I live in Canada, you deserve respect Idaho.

It makes my blood boil that we bring so much of these people to the west.

The free and still decent world will die because of that.

Thank you for the insight. It is very much appreciated.

Unaudited money sent to awful regimes is borderline traitorous behaviour.

Good hunting, and Godspeed, sir.

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Seconded. @idaho, biased or not - your insights are great to have here. Stay safe.

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I say, I hope you are right. It sounds good enough. I would ponder that the reason no one has successfully conquered the place is a reluctance to pour tons of resources in to a shit hole. But shit hole or not, it’s holy ground for terrorists, therefore we must consider it a treasure chest.

In one regard I will applaud Trump. Pakistan is a major source of the problem here.

They can act like they are bona fide allies all they want, but Osama wasn’t picked up in a comfortable mansion in Salt Lake City or Dallas.

Some food for thought:

http://www.intelligencerpost.com/us-spending-hundreds-billions-projects-afghanistan-waste-corruption-fraud/

http://taskandpurpose.com/us-spent-78-million-afghan-anti-corruption-scheme-failed-epically/

I need a question answered, please.

In full disclosure, I am patriotic to the point of being stupid and I don’t have a degree in international relatons, in fact, my degree is in archeology, which should tell you something right there. Basically, I am just a knuckledragger with a gun. So, someone explain to me why or how our government decides we will pour money into every country we can, besides our own? Why do we pour billions into Pakistan and Egypt, when you know damn well their governments will just steal the money?

Let me give you a small example of the insanity I have witnessed serving and working for the USG.

Let me give you a typical example of how I see the “average government official”. I was once part of Diplomatic Security detail that provided protection to diplomats traveling in Iraq. Two “high ranking officials” arrived and my team was responsible for keeping them alive.

So, we flew out to various Iraqi government compounds (birds) and stood guard while they talked, had tea, and basically kissed Iraqi ass.

We were flying back to the US Embassy and one of these officials, leaned over and screamed in my ear that he just realized what Iraq needed to help “get the youth on our side and not follow in the terroristic footpath” Actual quote, by the way.

“What? I said. “We need to build more basketball courts, I notice flying over, there are no basketballs courts, we build courts, and they will have a place to play “

I said,” You do realize you are in a Muslim country, right” “They play soccer here”.” In fact, I don’t believe, I have ever seen kids playing basketball here”. He gives me a shit eating grin and says, ‘ I am going to change that”

IMHO we are the dumbest people on this planet and our lack of leadership is destroying the country I love.

Our leadership are some of the most half witted people alive, and their bull is spreading to the populous at large. More and more people choose to only see things from ones own perspective rather than see a thing for what it really is. Politically correct tells us a spade is not in fact a spade, but instead we should feel sorry for it because it has a disease or sickness etc.

Our leaders take no responsibility for their own actions, and the population is being told that their bad choices are not their fault. Things like sacrifice, self control, discipline, the bigger picture, have given way to selfishness, arrogance, short shortsightedness, and ignorance. We could use a few more Pattons.

In my opinion;

Many New World Order types in the US worry that Russia and China will spent their billions in those other countries, if we do not. Somehow, in there view, if that happens, the US “loses.”

Its as if they forgot how Pres. Reagan defeated the USSR in the 80s. Make the other guy waste all HIS resources.

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Retarded rationalizations like that are reason of why we in the west are in so much trouble in dealing with Islam. Islam has not existed for 17 centuries. So whose 17th century are they talking about? It can’t be Christianity, because Islam is a rejection, a repudiation of Christianity.

If you read their books Islam codifies into religious doctrine,prehistoric practices of tribal warfare that were ancient when the koran was written.

The belief that Islam is simply the same as Christianity so we can expect it will follow the same path of evolution over time is dangerously naive. They are not the same, so the idea that the problems we are having with Islam are simply growing pains, that we can wait them out is going to get us killed.

The problem is an ancient one, so we need to look to the past for our solution. Our forefathers would have eliminated the problems with Islam by eliminating Islam itself, and they would have accomplished that by eliminating the Muslims. Until we become willing to be ruthless we are just going to be nibbling away at the edges of a growing problem.

Couldn’t get past this part. You might want to google how centuries work.

Bro, if they get Afghanistan, we’re next.

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Then probably our best solution for the Afghans that does not involve extermination would be to convert them back into Zoroasters. Zaroastria is a monotheistic religion, the three wise men of the New testament were Maji,or Zaroastrian priests. It would fit well with their culture and allow them to get along with the rest of the world.

To justify taking it from Americans; those billions are more dangerous in the hands of citizens.

The problem with simply pulling out of Afghanistan is in the short term it would go back to being a haven for Islamic terrorists to launch attacks on the west.

In the long term we need to consider the history of the people in the region. The border between Afghanistan and Pakistan was drawn by Europeans so it doesn’t necessarily reflect the culture and ethnicity of the people on either side of the border.

If the Taliban regain control of Afghanistan they could mobilize supporters inside Pakistan and provide an avenue of attack for other Islamist groups such as ISIS to launch an overthrow of the Pakistani government.

Unfortunately because Pakistan has nuclear weapons we can’t just pull out of Afghanistan and see what happens next.

Probably our best solution would be to get India to supply troops while we facilitate them with logistics, equipment and training. The benefit would be less Americans getting hurt. While the Indian military would benefit from the training and even more importantly combat experience which would give them an advantage in the opening days of a war with China.

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The Iranian Navy could take over the Mediterranean!

Is there any way America can repay itself back with the ressources in Afghanistan? What would be the hurdles preventing America from doing so if it is not already doing it?

What is now called “foreign aid” was pioneered by the British after the War of the Spanish Succession. The Brits realized the couldn’t field a significant land army in continental Europe against France anymore, as the ever expanding Royal Navy was taking even increasing numbers of manpower and those professional soldiers were needed for far-flung theaters of war such as India and North America, King George’s northern Germans notwithstanding.

So the Brits needed a land army to fight France - and they found the solution in their ally Prussia. Britain basically offered to straight up pay for Prussia’s war effort and cover all the costs for recruiting, training and equipping Prussian soldiers, who were at the time considered best in the world. So the British substituted money for manpower.

Pretty smart move which in turn they applied inside their own Empire a century later - the British East India Company and later the British Raj were pretty often in the red and needed direct funding from the UK (what is now called foreign aid), and the Raj in turn provided the Indian Army - a couple hundred thousand Indian soldiers ready to fight in the remote corners of the Empire.

Again, money for manpower.

Fast forward to WW2 and the Brits realized they needed to wage a war by minimizing casualties - they’ve seen how several million dead young men in France pretty much destroyed the fabric of society for several generations. When the US entered the war, FDR and the Joint Chiefs of Staff agreed with this - hence so many planes, ships and tanks being built. All that mechanization, in the grand scheme of things, was supposed to reduce Anglo-American casualties compared to WW1 numbers.

And the lend-lease agreement provided additional opportunity for the US to exchange manpower for money. USSR provided the cannon fodder, the US war materiel. Russians driving Studebakers, Shermans and flying Warhawks and Aircobras meant less US casualties.

So in short, this was the purpose of “foreign aid” - that someone else does the dying as much as possible. But after WW2 the underlying message got lost and “foreign aid” became an end to itself.

How does this relate to Afghanistan? Well, in a parallel universe, the US would be providing “foreign aid” and Pakistan (or Iran for that matter) would be doing the dying. Except for a smattering of military advisors, nobody would even know that there was a war in Afghanistan. No US boots on the ground, no casualties, just a line or two every few months “suicide bomber kills X Pakistani soldiers”.

But of course, this is a parallel universe in which the North Western frontier doesn’t arbitrarily divide the Pashtuns and ISI is not funding the Taliban etc.

Here’s another perspective - why is Saudi Arabia buying billions and billions of US weaponry that they won’t nor ever will need? The answer is pretty simple - they’re exchanging money for manpower. From their perspective they’re giving the US money (“foreign aid”) and in turn the US provides manpower - US soldiers, sailors and airmen would be doing the dying in case of regional conflagration with Iran. Not Saudis.

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Could generalized nepotism giving things like this be responsible of the degradation of America?