Quote Originally Posted by Sir Terrence the Terrible
I don't think our enemy is the Taliban, I think Karzai is our enemy. I think Obama was right for letting Karzai know that this is not an open ended engagement, and he needs to get his government in order(get rid of the corruption), so his own people can trust in it(at least as much as we trust ours, which isn't much). The Afghan people are a stronger army than ours in this case. The west cannot look at Afghanistan they way it does. It is not a country per se, but a series of providences run by locals. Trying to establish a central government in a country that has been run by providential government is not easy. When you have a government in place that the people have no faith in, it becomes impossible. The Taliban are harsh people, but if non Taliban Afghani's are not willing to fight them, then why should we?

We need to get out of there ASAP. We should have learned from our Iraq debacle that the people in Afghanistan do not appreciate our sacrifice of blood and resources. And we should not be there trying to muscle our way in on their minerals.
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Indeed I think all Afganis are our enemies. All regions and tribes fundamentaly disrespect us. And this is nothing new, it goes back to British attempts to subdue the region in the 19th century. We'll never win their hearts & minds.

I would ordinarily say that when you invade somebody's country you owe it to them to leave in a peaceful and reasonably stable state. Maybe we can do that in Iraq, but I really doubt it's possible in the Afgan case. Too big a proportion of the population there really just want to get back to killing each other.

Biden has more discretion than McChrystal, but I recall at one point he said the most we should and can do is punish El Qaeda and others whose main intent is to attach western nations, but leave the Afgans to fight their own civil war. That was fundamentally good advice