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Thread: Trump strategy in Afghanistan

  1. #31
    BrownWings: AirViceMarshall Senior Member Furunculus's Avatar
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    Default Re: Trump strategy in Afghanistan

    Quote Originally Posted by Kagemusha View Post
    Im confused.Isnt Westphalia state in Germany?
    yes, why yes it is. why do you ask?
    Furunculus Maneuver: Adopt a highly logical position on a controversial subject where you cannot disagree with the merits of the proposal, only disagree with an opinion based on fundamental values. - Beskar

  2. #32
    Iron Fist Senior Member Husar's Avatar
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    Default Re: Trump strategy in Afghanistan

    Quote Originally Posted by Kagemusha View Post
    Im confused.Isnt Westphalia state in Germany?
    I assume he is referring to something something philosophy about states and attacking as found in the treaty of Westphalia.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_of_Westphalia

    If not, then he is appropriating my culture!!!


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  3. #33
    Member Member Crandar's Avatar
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    Default Re: Trump strategy in Afghanistan

    To be fair, foreign intervention contributed greatly to Afghanistan being a failed state. Anyway, the current war is unwinnable, unless America increases exponentially its budget on the rebuilding of Afghanistan. From the perspective of the American tax-payer, the withdrawal from the Middle East is totally beneficial.

  4. #34

    Default Re: Trump strategy in Afghanistan

    Quote Originally Posted by Crandar View Post
    To be fair, foreign intervention contributed greatly to Afghanistan being a failed state. Anyway, the current war is unwinnable, unless America increases exponentially its budget on the rebuilding of Afghanistan. From the perspective of the American tax-payer, the withdrawal from the Middle East is totally beneficial.
    Someone correct me if I'm wrong on any of this: in late 2017, Trump ordered a surge of troops. By early 2018 the number had increased from 11K to 16K. Trump's recent call for a drawdown of 7K would bring the number to about where it was when he took office.

    Can't find it, but even Mattis acknowledged in 2017 we're in there to preserve stalemate, because status quo is all we've got left to live for I guess. I wonder if Russia, China, and Pakistan don't mind the NATO presence as long as someone is paying to contain extremist spillover into South and Central Asia to some extent. At this point anyway, there are no good options so even a anti-imperialist has to acknowledge that bad shit's going to happen no matter what America chooses.

    For Afghanistan specifically, if someone told Trump there's a trillion dollars worth of mineral and metal deposits underneath Afghanistan, he'd probably be calling for a surge tomorrow. If even wonks, to say nothing of us here, can hardly begin to grapple with the consequences of Afghanistan, Trump is surely exhausted by any attempt to make a complex, abstract, and theoretical case for staying in what looks like a lost and uneconomical commitment. His Youtube vlogs were deleted after the election and I don't know if they exist elsewhere on the Internet, but here's a 2011 presidential campaign interview (he's bruited running in every election for the past generation) that has much of the same content as his Youtube video I'm referring to, if less funny in context:

    ...

    Interviewer: What I'm saying is, would you intervene in [Libya] or not, if you were President Obama?

    Trump: I'd have to find out who the rebels were, but I'm only interested in Libya if we take the oil. If we don't take the oil, I have no interest in Libya.

    I: So your Middle East policy is basically guided by our interest in oil?

    T: MLxlrjwts. I always heard that - I always heard that when we went into Iraq, we went in for the oil. I said, 'Ahh, that sounds smart.' Except we never did. So we're into Iraq for $1.5 trillion, thousands of lives, and wounded, thousands and thousands of lives and wounded, and here's what's going to happen, as sure as you're sitting there: As soon as we leave Iraq, as soon as we leave Iraq, Iran is going to go in, going to go in to Iraq, and take over those huge oil fields (second largest to Saudi Arabia). And that wouldn't happen - believe me - if it were up to me.

    I: So you would keep troops in Iraq after this year?

    T: I would take the oil.

    I: I don't understand how you would take the oi- -- does that mean keeping troops there or-or, staying involved in Iraq?

    T: You heard me, I would take the oil. I would not leave Iraq and let Iran take over the oil. Because, you know what? We have thousands of people that died, our great soldiers, they died. Men and women, lots of people. We have thousands of people all over this country that are wounded, horribly wounded, with legs, and arms, and lots -

    I: I think hfwre6hiaf no -

    T: lots of - Excuse me.

    I: I'm sorry.

    T: And I would not want to be the one to tell their parents that your son, your daughter, has died, in vain, been wounded, in vain. But I would not want to be the one who goes up to somebody that had a son or a daughter that died in Iraq and tell them, "By the way, Iran is taking over Iraq because we have so weakened that nation that they essentially don't have an army that could fight back as they have for hundreds of years [sic]."

    [I stopped watching here, halfway through]
    lululemon

    Here's a comedy video portraying Trump's vlogs (between 2011-2014) though, I recommend all of you watch it. It's lovely.
    Last edited by Montmorency; 12-23-2018 at 18:17.
    Vitiate Man.

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    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 


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