While America was consumed this summer with quarrels over town-hall radicals, "death panels," the "public option" and racism's role in the plunging polls of Barack, what happens to health care is not going to change the history of the world.
What happens in Afghanistan might.
Gen. Stanley McChrystal has done his duty. He has bluntly told his commander in chief what he must have in added combat troops and warned that if he does not get them, America faces "mission failure."
Translation: a Taliban victory and U.S. defeat, as in Saigon 1975.
Not only does President Obama face the most critical decision of his young presidency, this country is facing a moment of truth. Obama, now the Decider, has four options.
There is the Biden option of drawing down troops, drawing away from Hamid Karzai, and focusing McChrystal's men on what they do best -- running down and killing al-Qaida, be they in Afghanistan or Pakistan.
Second is the option of indecision -- holding off on more troops until the 68,000 already committed have arrived by December, and seeing how McChrystal does with them until spring.
The third option is to give McChrystal some but not all the tens of thousands he says he needs.
Final option: Give Gen. McChrystal the blank check George W. Bush gave Gen. David Petraeus, with the surge of 2007 in Iraq, which radically reduced the violence and set the stage for U.S. withdrawal beginning in 2010.
If Obama meets some or all of McChrystal's request, America will stave off defeat in the short term. But the cost will be hundreds and perhaps thousands more U.S. dead, tens of billions more sunk, growing divisions in our country and more innocent Afghan victims. And the surge may simply push a U.S. withdrawal and Taliban takeover a few years off into the future.
This assumes that Afghanistan is unwinnable, that America does not have the perseverance or will to send the hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops for the decade needed to crush the Taliban and create a government and army able to stand on their own when we depart.
If, however, Obama comes to believe the cost of "victory" in blood, money and years is not worth it, or the American people, already against the war and adding more troops, will not sustain it, or the war is unwinnable, then we need to look defeat in the face.
For that is what McChrystal says we are risking, if Obama dithers or draws down troops.
Russia's withdrawal of 1988-89 led to the collapse of the Soviet Empire. What would a U.S. withdrawal do to the American Empire?
A Taliban triumph would mean the Afghans who sided with us in this war would face the same retribution as our allies in Cambodia and Vietnam.
Western aid workers would have to flee the country.
Under Taliban control, Afghanistan would be a sanctuary for the Pakistani Taliban, which would be emboldened to settle scores with the Islamabad politicians who had sided with the United States.
Taliban allies in the Pakistan army and intelligence services would be seen as on the wise and winning side, while those who sided with America would be seen as losers. The odds would rise that Pakistan would face a revived insurgency and acts of terror against the regime. The odds on the survival of a pro-American regime in a country already marinated in anti-Americanism would fall.
Among Islamists worldwide, news that the Afghan Sunni Taliban had defeated and driven the United States out, as their fathers had the Soviet Empire, would be electrifying. Muslim governments aligned with America would be shaken and perhaps imperiled.
Al-Qaida, thwarted by U.S. security services and ravaged by U.S. Predator and Special Forces strikes, would be seen as having helped inflict a defeat on America unseen since Vietnam.
Osama bin Laden would be a candidate for Man of the Decade.
With his 9-11 attack, he had fired a shot heard 'round the Islamic world, sucked America into two wars that bled, divided and helped to bankrupt her, and seen the last superpower off in Afghanistan.
Osama's ultimate goal from the start -- the removal of all U.S. troops from sacred Saudi soil and expulsion of all Crusaders from the Islamic world -- would no longer be an impossible dream.
For America, loss of Afghanistan would poison U.S. politics as did the loss of China and of Vietnam. It would discredit nation-building for decades and ring down the curtain on Wilsonian interventionism for a generation. And it could bring about the defeat of Barack Obama as the liberal who lost the war al-Qaida began on 9-11.
Whether Obama cuts U.S. forces and advances the day of a Taliban victory, or doubles-down and sends the tens of thousands of U.S. troops Gen. McChrystal demands, Afghanistan has claimed another hubristic imperial power.
Last edited on Fri Sep 25th, 2009 05:23 pm by QueenB
What are we fighting for? With current US policy we can not win! Afghanistan is an Islamic Republic, no better than Iran and probably worse! Death penalty to all apostates. Hard core Sharia Law. It is a political order where citizens are put to death for what they think! The Taliban is really just another hard-line Islamic political party - outlawed, for now. We must give them all meaningful choices in religion as part of US policy. There can be no peace in Afghanistan until enough people see the light of freedom and have a change of heart because then "if a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand" and the brutal Islamic rule will be defeated.
Taliban Warns Pope Over Christian Missionaries in Afghanistan
The militant Afghani Taliban movement warned the Pope that if he did not stop the Christian preaching activities undertaken by the U.S. army in Afghanistan he should expect to see “harsh reactions from angry Afghan Muslims.” The statement, which was posted on the Internet, condemned what the group described as “a continuation of the Crusaders launched by Bush in Afghanistan” and comes after the Arab news network , Aljazeera broadcasted footage showing U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan being instructed by a military chaplain to "hunt people for Jesus" and spread Christianity amongst the Afghan population. The group also appealed to scholars in Afghanistan to monitor such activities and disallow the preaching of other religions in the country. The group also told the Afghani government to stop defending the “Crusaders” and “return to their senses” instead of pointing their guns towards the militants.
We have to hit them hard right on this point!
____________________ Pecca fortiter, sed fortius fide et gaude in Christo!
Galactic Signature: Blue Self-Existing Monkey
thanks for your great post Phil. It is surely a lost region unless god wants something to change. I hate to see the soldiers in "person" like this You Tube. I would hate to have aloved one over there.
QueenB wrote: thanks for your great post Phil. It is surely a lost region unless god wants something to change. I hate to see the soldiers in "person" like this You Tube. I would hate to have aloved one over there.
You're welcome!
I am sure the families of those fighting in Afghanistan sometimes get overwhelmed with worry and fear. Pray for our soldiers in Afghanistan. This very thing was done at our prayer meeting last week! Your post is a timely synchronicity.
To the glory of God, He gave us free will. If our leaders want to do it their way God will stand back and allow them the freedom to do that. This seems to be the case with our policies in Afghanistan. What I hope is God can turn their adversities into an instrument of transformation for the Good.
Remember when Paul was shipwrecked on Malta? (Acts 28) Shipwrecked then bitten by a viper! Yet the whole bad situation became an instrument of revival:
Once safely on shore, we found out that the island was called Malta. The islanders showed us unusual kindness. They built a fire and welcomed us all because it was raining and cold. Paul gathered a pile of brushwood and, as he put it on the fire, a viper, driven out by the heat, fastened itself on his hand. When the islanders saw the snake hanging from his hand, they said to each other, "This man must be a murderer; for though he escaped from the sea, Justice has not allowed him to live." But Paul shook the snake off into the fire and suffered no ill effects. The people expected him to swell up or suddenly fall dead, but after waiting a long time and seeing nothing unusual happen to him, they changed their minds and said he was a god. There was an estate nearby that belonged to Publius, the chief official of the island. He welcomed us to his home and for three days entertained us hospitably. His father was sick in bed, suffering from fever and dysentery. Paul went in to see him and, after prayer, placed his hands on him and healed him. When this had happened, the rest of the sick on the island came and were cured. They honored us in many ways and when we were ready to sail, they furnished us with the supplies we needed.
Islam says Jesus was holy and He received the divine Word of God, unfortunately according to Islam, the New Testament is a hopelessly corrupted version of the original Word received by Jesus. Furthermore, they claim that somehow they lost the original uncorrupted New Testament. Therefore under Islamic Government it is forbidden for muslims to believe in the New Testament and they will be put to death if they do. The New Testament completely undercuts their authority so they fear people will read the New Testament and discover the truth:
"they received the word with readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so." Acts 17:11
IMHO - If we distributed, say by C-130 airdrop missions, hundreds of thousands of copies of the locally translated Bible with the New Testament all over Afghanistan the Islamic fascists and dictatorships would suffer a huge blow. They might be forced to have authentic equality under the law. Oh well, fat chance of that with the Libtards in power.
I'll sit down now so someone else can stand up and say what they want ot say.
____________________ Pecca fortiter, sed fortius fide et gaude in Christo!
Galactic Signature: Blue Self-Existing Monkey
Everything is crumbling to dust in his hands. We get three more years of this. The latest report from Afghanistan is their government is too corrupt to be effective. I blame Bush for that set up of Islamic fascist government of warlords, but Obama must grow a pair and tackle it! And we need to quit picking on soldiers who hand out free Bibles because that may be the only good that comes out of all the blood and treasure spent punishing and attempting to rebuild the country responsible for 9/11.
____________________ Pecca fortiter, sed fortius fide et gaude in Christo!
Galactic Signature: Blue Self-Existing Monkey
"Islam says Jesus was holy and He received the divine Word of God, unfortunately according to Islam, the New Testament is a hopelessly corrupted version of the original Word received by Jesus."
Islam says Jesus was just another prophet. (They put him on a par with Muhammad.)
What these soldiers are doing is what the Lord commissioned them to do. Who has more authority and power? Their commander, the usurper so-called "president," or the King of the universe?
James 4:17
"Whoever knows what is right to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin."
James 5:1-6
"Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that coming upon you. Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have rusted, and their rust will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure for the last days. Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out; and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. You have lived on the earth in luxury and in pleasure; you have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. You have condemned, you have killed the righteous man; he does not resist you."
____________________ Politicians and diapers should be changed often - for the same reason!
_________________
Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit. Proverbs 18:21
The commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan bitterly complained in an interview Sunday about the Pentagon bureaucracy that he said was hampering his efforts to fight insurgents.
In a profile on CBS television's "60 minutes," Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal said he faced pressure to move quickly from Defense Secretary Robert Gates while the Pentagon had moved slowly to get officers assigned to his staff.
"The secretary talks in terms of 12 to 18 months to show a significant change and then we eat up two or three months just on sort of getting the tools out of the tool box," McChrystal said, according to a transcript of the show to air later Sunday.
"That really hurts," said McChrystal, shown in a video conference with the Pentagon.
The four-star army general, who was appointed to lead U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan in June after the previous commander was sacked, demanded the Defense Department had to move with more urgency.
Watch CBS News Videos Online
"The average organization when someone asks when you want something, they pull out a calendar," he said.
"But in a good organization, they look at their watch and we really got to get that way."
McChrystal said he was slightly surprised by the strength of the insurgency when he took over his post.
"I think that in some areas that the breadth of violence, the geographic spread of violence -- places to the north and to the west -- are a little more than I would have gathered," he said.
He also repeated his warning that if the NATO-led mission was perceived as an occupier that posed a threat to civilians, the war would be lost.
"If the people view us as occupiers and the enemy, we can't be successful and our casualties will go up dramatically," he said.
McChrystal said 265 civilians had been killed by U.S. or allied forces in the past 12 months.
In a quarterly report released Saturday, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said 1,500 civilians had died between January and August, with August the deadliest month so far this year.
Military officials have credited McChrystal with reducing civilian casualties in recent months by ordering a change in tactics, including scaling back the use of air strikes and artillery fire, as well as requiring soldiers to exercise more caution when driving on Afghan roads.
____________________ Politicians and diapers should be changed often - for the same reason!
_________________
Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit. Proverbs 18:21
