[tw]

Originally Posted by Sundae Girl

The upcoming NATO meeting in Riga should hopefully lead to better coordination of efforts in Afghanistan rather than what seems a rather piecemeal approach at present. ...

In the Helmand province, Britain has built 13 health clinics, 89 reservoirs, 423 wells and eight classrooms. But if you build in areas where the Taleban would rather blow things up than see conditions improve for their own countrymen it's going to be a long and expensive slog.

Those Afghanistan numbers are no different than numbers put forth for Iraq in 2004 The Cellar. Too little; too late. Taliban are even interviewed by BBC reporters only 10 miles outside of Kabul because the country has fallen that far. Assumed are same myths promoted in Vietnam - that they are evil because they would rather blow it up rather than see conditions improve.

What those claims forget to mention, for example, are all those Iraqi water treatment and drinking water plants almost immediately not functional. But numbers made spin look so good and insurgents so evil. Those numbers completely deny reality.

NATO meeting will accomplish nothing because Afghanistan needs a few hundreds of thousands of troops now. Such operations typically take 6 and more months just to start. Afghanistan would not have required such massive troops had, for example, we even installed Kabul water system as promised. At last look, that fresh water system still was not installed when it should have been installed and working by the end of 2002. Those 13 clinics, et al accomplish little because they were not built in 2002. Too little; too late; but it looks good.

Look that numbers necessary for Afghanistan. Hundreds of thousands. How many troops does Britain have deployed? A few thousand? Taliban has grown so powerful that NATO troops rarely leave compounds without full security even in the few safe provinces. Welcome to 1965/6 Vietnam.

Meanwhile, neocons are still fighting trench warfare to win "Mission Accomplished". Don't fool yourself. Neocons will subvert only to 'stay the course'. Even Tony Blair is so foolish as to say that a major part of the answer lies outside of Iraq. The Economist of 18 Nov 2006 replies:

He is wrong.

Michael Rubin, a political adviser to Bremer in Iraq, has quit Baker / Hamilton's Iraq Study Group writing in Weekly Standard

Many appointees appeared to be selected less for expertise than for their hostility to President Bush's war on terrorism and emphasis on democracy

Previously, experts were mocked by neocons who knew only neocons were right because “conservative” was associated with intelligence. Neocon’s ostrich mentality remains that extreme - still advocate so much mental midgetry as to still not realize how anti-American they have been. They cannot understand the obvious: Iraq is lost. Neocons cannot see that Afghanistan is right behind Iraq. And so we have trench warfare in Washington.

Meanwhile, appreciate why intelligent people give neocons disrespect they deserved. Again, those seven segments of Frontline's The Lost Year is essential to understand how neoncons think and why they really still believe in ‘stay the course’. Neocons would even create a disaster in Afghanistan using a myth that Iraq can be won.

Again, the topmost post is not that Iraq is in civil war. Some who replied missed the point. The lurker should have seen civil war coming how many years ago? Same applies to Afghanistan. Did you realize we are down to same options in Afghanistan: go big or go home? Did you realize how bad Iraq has been and how bad Afghanistan now is? Neocon influence (ie Rush Limbaugh) remains that strong in America. There are still that many neocon Americans with so much hate for American soldiers as believe 'stay the course'.