With the prospect of a decline in US influence in the region in sight, Russia and China are reaching out to Pakistan and Afghanistan in a bid to improve economic ties and to secure their southern borders against the spread of Islamic fundamentalism. (Foreign Policy)
They can succeed in AfPak where we have failed...
Russia and China suffer under no such scruples. China is not content with slavery within its own borders. It now runs slave camps all over Africa, complete with armed Chinese soldiers and mandarin bureaucrats. Do you think Russia will care about Karzai or the Pakistani’s hurt feelings? If they try the crap on Putin that they do on us, he will simply cut off the money and twist their tits until they cry uncle, all the while never changing his stony expression. Yes, the Russians and the Chinese know how to play the great game, we do not. We should admit it and quit the region. It’s a ruthless place and we just don’t know how to roll like that.
An Alignment of Strategic Objectives
We don’t want Afghanistan to revert to a terrorist haven. China and Russia share that goal, and it’s their backyard…
Both China and Russia will be happy to see US troops leave Afghanistan, but they are equally worried about the Taliban and other extremist groups penetrating Xinjiang province in southern China and the Central Asian republics, whose national security is very much in the hands of Russia.China is deeply concerned by the long-running crisis in Pakistan, fearing that it may lead to a strengthening of Islamic fundamentalism. (Foreign Policy)A perfect opportunity to get them to pay the freight
We’re worried about who will fund the Afghan government, police and military? If Russia and China want to enrich themselves exploiting Afghanistan’s natural resources while checking terrorism, they will have no choice but to pony up the money to secure the place. Us getting out of there and leaving them to foot the bill would be a major feat of strategery.
China Gets Approval for Afghanistan Oil Exploration Bid
26 comments:
The liberals are asking us to give Obama more time. (Drum Roll) .
I think 25-to-life would be a good start!!
Barack Obama walks into a bar with a duck. The bartender asks, “Where did you get the jackass?” Barack looks puzzled and replies, “It’s a duck.”
(Drum Roll)
The bartender says, “I was talking to the duck.”
I seem to be drawing an inference here that was, perhaps, unintended. This piece could be interpreted as a roundabout way of saying that the USA lacks the testicular fortitude to achieve its objectives -- that we would need to acquire or adopt the sort of ruthlessness and callous insensitivity to human life possessed by Russia and China in order to succeed in taming "problem areas."
In other words we have permitted ourselves to be bamboozled into abandoning the questing, acquisitive, boldly confident spirit that enabled us to found and develop his nation into the great power it once was not so long ago -- before Nuremberg foisted the bizarre, enfeebling concept of International Law on our consciousness, and inculcated the notion that increasing Internationalization and the eventual establishment of One World Government were noble and desirable goals.
Since Nuremberg, one would think that the USA and its former Allies had been the Bad Guys richly deserving punishment and humiliation.
In short after literally saving the world we were emasculated at Nuremberg, and were conned into thinking ourselves morally superior for letting our wings as well as our gonads be severed, removed and tossed on the scrap heap of history.
We can't "win" anymore, because we have been voluntarily complicit in weakening ourselves to such an extent that we now resemble the toothless lions or paper tigers of myth and legend.
The high-sounding ideals set forth at Nuremberg were in fact the product of wily, insidious treachery on the part of leftists, who seized the opportunity to rob the West of its natural ascendancy and redistribute what-had-been-exclusively-ours to our enemies -- real and potential.
As a consequence we now must cede whatever spoils we might once have gained in places like Afghanistan to powers hostile to our best interests.
Though you couched it in positive terms, Kurt, -- as though this should somehow work to our advantage -- it still comes across as an admission of Ultimate Defeat.
"Once castrated no nation may ever regain its testicular fortitude."
~ FreeThinke
FT,
We can't "win" anymore, because we have been voluntarily complicit in weakening ourselves to such an extent that we now resemble the toothless lions or paper tigers of myth and legend.
That's where we are, all right.
All that American blood and treasure spent in Afghanistan. For what?
@ FreeThinke: This piece could be interpreted as a roundabout way of saying that the USA lacks the testicular fortitude to achieve its objectives -- that we would need to acquire or adopt the sort of ruthlessness and callous insensitivity to human life possessed by Russia and China in order to succeed in taming "problem areas."
Bingo! (and it was intentional)
But more to the mark, we shouldn't messing around in places like that. And I was also point out that China and Russia can get away with rape and pillage where we cannot.
We couldn't win in Afghanistan for a couple reasons. First, we didn't have the backbone to do what needed to be done. Too much emphasis on diplomacy and less on slaughtering the enemy. "Winning the hearts and minds" doesn't work, and you can see the awful result of this in the reaction of the citizenry after the recent Koran burning debacle. Second, we are fighting a war against an ideology. You can't beat an ideology with bombs and bullets or diplomacy. The only way to beat an ideology is with an idea, and we have yet to do that.
I would also like to point out the obvious coalescing of these nations against the United States. Russia, China, Pakistan, Iran, Venezuela, North Korea, Turkey, and a few other so called "allies" all seem to be cozying up to one another in a mutual defiant stand against the traditional superpower...us.
" Our most sincere efforts are dogged the whole way ... "
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Our most sincere efforts do do what, strip the natural resources?
No, we're there to bring freedom and democracy. Come on, Silverfiddle, your military. You've been through much more intense indoctrination than even a home schooled Protestant.
Although you are correct that we are lousy at the great game. It's not that we don't want to but we've always been isolated from threats by the two oceans. All we had to do was kick Mexico's ass now and again.
Hack, does Pakistan have the right to be involved in war in Afghanistan, a neighboring country, or are is that strictly the prerogative of the world's only superpower?
Asking stupid questions
Is a waste of time
Hatched within the bastions
Of a seditious mind.
~ Anne Animus
We lost our way in Afghanistan many years ago. I agree that China and Russia will do a better job of containing radical Islam in AfPak because it is in their interest to do so. They won't give a damn about nation building or poppy fields. They will payoff whom ever is necesssary to get what they want.
Our self imposed Rules of Emgagement have never been suited to guerrilla warfare.
SF, your first paragraph about CHina and Russia is particularly well said. I wish it weren't the truth.
It reminds me of how we are always condemned for collateral damage when our enemies' whole goal is as much collateral damage as possible.
Or how we have a senate overseeing what our generals can do but Al Qaeda and other terror groups have nothing to keep them from it.
And our media...yes. CNN BBC ABC NBC CBS etc...so rarely do we hear condemnation of anyone BUT us.
Scary times...and they must change.
YOu are SO RIGHT; THEY can pay now. I wish the Left had been right and Iraq was about OIL because we could sure use some of it, huh?
Bush dropped Afghanistan in favor of invading Iraq. We had the backing of most of the world, until Bush made that decision.
Being isolationists has never worked, and invited trouble. WW II is a good example.
Can't just back away from being the leader of the free world. In fact our enemies would love it, if we back away and let them control that part of the world, and give them more area to attack us from.
Off topic:
SILVERFIDDLE WAS HERE
From a photo essay on Fort Revere in Hull Massachusetts which served as protection for Boston harbor from the Revolutionary War till WW I.
It is now a graffiti palace with barely a marker. If the walls could talk. Well, maybe they do.
There is however a very nice park which overlooks the ocean and is perfect for picnics. Don't know why someone left two good ears and a skillet.
they will have no choice but to pony up the money to secure the place.
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No, they'll just pay off the warlords like we do.
... except the only resource we develop is heroin.
It goes to show what a Greek tragedy the Cold War was, how our fiddling around in Afghanistan back in the 1970's and 80's came back to embroil ourselves in a pointless, silly, stupid, paranoid, moronic endeavor as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"Russia and China suffer under no such scruples."
Had we left Afghanistan to the failing Soviet empire, the Soviets would have been out of there soon enough anyway, and then would have been a good time to help Afghanistan. When they needed it. And we didn't.
The Russians and Chinese have serious proximity issues with Afghanistan and Pakistan. It is natural and understandable that their interests are more acute than ours here. It's like our relationships with the other countries of the Americas. I wouldn't worry too much about all that as an American. I can live with it. Can you guys?
JMJ
Here's the way to end war once and for all. It's easy:
Whenever you are confronted with an aggressor, drop everything, put up your hands, and say,
"Take me, I'm yours. Wherever you want me to march, I will go, whatever task want me to perform, I will do. Whiter thou goest, I will go, and whither thou lodgest I will lodge."
Peace Through Surrender
So you don't like working in the salt mines?
TOUGH!
SUCK IT UP, for PEACE!
That's the Canardo Way.
~ FT
@ Ducky: No, they'll just pay off the warlords like we do.
But it will be them paying them off and getting ripped off at the bazaar, not us.
Freethinker, only a right wing bed wetter would feel threatened by a country that doesn't contain a single factory.
In the case of Iraq you were staining yourself as Auntie Condo talked about Saddam's nuclear capability.
We tried to tell you that a nation with no air force, no missiles, no armor, no navy, no missiles, and a thread bare army wasn't a threat but the fringe right wing lunatics tried to fight a conventional war and got stymied for years.
Remember, white supremacists like yourself and mustang are the ones who will destroy this nation's values, not Muslims.
Ducky, exactly what planet do you live on?
No Air Force?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2856907.stm
No Missiles?
http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/iraq/missile/index.html
No Armor?
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/iraq/ground-equipment-intro.htm
No Navy?
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/iraq/navy.htm
No Nuclear Capability?
http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/statements/2003/ebsp2003n006.shtml
No Kidding!
Jersey, the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979, the war lasted until 1989, and the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.
You don't think those events are related?
What would have been your suggested path of action? Let them be? Need I point out that the Soviet Union wasn't exactly failing in 1979?
The cold war was an economic war, a fact you and your ilk obviously miss. Since there weren't Abrahms tanks rolling into Red Square we obviously didn't have anything to do with it. Yeah... if left to itself the Soviet Union would have fell on its own just like communist China.
Your grasp of the geopolitik is like the grasp of child on a rag doll, dragging it around by one leg and losing it in the most unlikely places, crying until your mommy finds it and brings it back to you.
Your naivette is both frightening and astounding.
Yeah... if left to itself the Soviet Union would have fell on its own
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So you admit Communism is a viable economic system which could have succeeded?
I think you're full of shit, but it is a surprising position.
And of course being one of these American exceptionalism drones you give no credit to the peoples of Russia and Eastern Europe who resisted, weakened the system and did the heavy lifting.
Ducky: "... you give no credit to the peoples of Russia and Eastern Europe who resisted, weakened the system and did the heavy lifting."
The best, if somewhat passive, expression of that resistance was epitomized in the saying, "As long as the bosses pretend to pay us, we'll pretend to work."
I can't imagine a better commentary on the inherent lack of incentive in Marxist economics.
Piffle!
"As long as the bosses pretend to pay us, we'll pretend to work."
Might those sentiments have any connection -- direct or otherwise -- to the construction of Potemkin Villages, Viburnum?
~ FT
So you admit Communism is a viable economic system which could have succeeded?
No, I'm saying it was a viable totalitarian authoritarian system that could have kept its people subjugated in pretty much the same abject state they were in when it existed.
And no, I do give credit to the peoples of Russia and Eastern Europe who resisted, I just don't think they would have been as effective without the external and monetary pressures applied by NATO.
In other words, we would still have a Soviet Union today, were it not for the economic warfare of the cold war and it would still pretty much be a totalitarian-authoritarian state.
On second thought... it seems to be fairly approaching that now!
Cheers!
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