"Afghan war faces flurry of setbacks as new U.S. military..." Topic

…policy nears.

"As American military officials complete plans that are likely to send several thousand additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan, a flurry of setbacks in the war have underscored both the imperative of action and the pitfalls of various approaches.
Further complicating the picture are questions about how to deal with neighboring Pakistan and balance separate fights against Afghan and foreign-based insurgents.
In the latest attack Sunday morning, Taliban fighters stormed a police base in southeastern Paktia province after detonating a suicide car bomb outside. At least five members of security forces and several civilians were killed, officials said. The attack came one day after an Afghan army commando shot and wounded seven U.S. troops inside an army base in northern Balkh province…"
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Amicalement
Armand

Why bother? Afghanistan can never be tamed because it's a "Forever War" that the west simply doesn't have the patience for. Back in 2009 we had a 33,000 troop "surge" in Afghanistan under the previous administration to solve the "Taliban problem." They won some tactical victories and withdrew two years later.

The Talis are back as strong as ever. One of the ANA's commandos just killed three of our 101st AB boys last week in one of those "green on blue" incidents. This means he was admitted into the ANA special forces program after being "vetted/background checked," underwent the rigorous training to become a commando, did a decent job acting like he's "one of us" to fool everybody and bided his time until the perfect opportunity arose to kill Americans before dying in a "blaze of glory" after the act.

Never mind that the ANA is compromised by the Taliban. Unless we're allowed to prosecute the Talis with the same extreme prejudice as IS it's a losing proposition. I just don't see how that's possible as long as Pakistan provides them sanctuary.

The Afghan government and armed forces will limp from ugly episode to ugly episode for a long time to come, and will continue to struggle with some very fundamental problems (especially corruption) long in to the future.

But as long as they continue to have robust support from the international community the government will continue to function (in its own way) and the army will continue to fight (again, in its own way). "Functional" looks different over there than it does in countries that didn't spend the last 4 decades locked in civil war. Just take a look at how many casualties the ANA takes in a given year. It's an awful lot, yet they don't melt away en masse. Even if many units perform poorly in a particular clash, the army as a whole keeps showing up to fight.

This is going to take generations of engagement by the international community. If we want to go back to the days where Afghanistan is left on its own to spiral down in to hopeless, violent chaos again, and just hope and trust that it won't have dire consequences for the rest of the region, we're going to be disappointed.

The struggle is long and very messy, but it is not hopeless or pointless.

I would argue that improving conditions in a war-torn third-world hellhole is not worth hundreds of US and allied dead and wounded. It's not a responsible use of manpower or finances.

Ignoring that hellhole could have it's own consequences. It's a case of damage limitation – the US and allied dead are dying in the countries involved, rather than in the US, etc…

Yes, there are terrorist events in the West – how many more if the terrorists have 'safe' access to good training grounds?

Those hell holes existed before, in the the same way, look at history. They just could not send their crap flying our way. The simpler, safer, cheaper way would be to completly sanitize their exits, ( incl internet) no plane no travel, no biz…
But of course many lobbies are doing a good deal of money from your "help" and would never agree.
Even Pakistan…
They all are zero to the world economy as a whole.

They are not zero on Drugs business… they are quite important…

Amicalement
Armand