Absolutely the most correct answer.

That's just great. Sad. But great.

Last I heard they were working on an oil pipeline right alongside where they placed all the bases. Plus it has geo-strategic importance and lots of mineral deposits.

Taking oil from where to where?

The only major oil producing nation bordering Afghanistan is Iran and I doubt we are helping Iran.

....are Iran & Turkmenistan. Neither country are close US allies.

Maybe you've been asleep but last time I checked the US was in bed with some pretty despotic regimes and have fought over oil for the last century and a half. Anyway, I put my links up there with lots of good info. You attacked the source which means that you and I are done as I don't have time to go rope a dope with someone who doesn't read the articles. Have a nice life! Read em and weep. He explains the vested interests in Afghanistan and specifically mentions big oil.

At no point is Global Research a place I would go for "good info". Quack theories, yes.


While many of Globalresearch's articles discuss legitimate humanitarian or environmental concerns, its view of science, economics, and geopolitics is broadly conspiracist, with a strong anti-Western bent. It's no surprise that the site has long been a crank magnet for moonbats of all stripes. If you disagree with mainstream sources on 9/11, or HAARP, or vaccines, or Gaddafi, or H1N1, or climate change, or anything published by mainstream "Western" media, then Globalresearch is guaranteed to have a page you can cite in support.
Globalresearch may be best described as the moonbat equivalent to WorldNetDaily. Whenever someone makes a remarkable claim and cites Globalresearch, they are almost certainly wrong.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Globalresearch

Real News which is out of Canada and often features Chris Hedges and Col. Lawrence Wilkerson.

This guy? lol


Engdahl argued that the problem with global warming is much exaggerated. He claims that global warming, like peak oil, is merely a "scare" and a "thinly veiled attempt to misuse climate to argue for a new Malthusian reduction of living standards for the majority of the world while a tiny elite gains more power."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._William_Engdahl

Sorry if I don't place much stock in wackos theories.

are still making money off of it.

Because of the executive orders Bush signed.

bring in big $$$$$$$$$$$$'s to many. War has always been a big money maker. It's sickening. Nothing fattens a wallet quicker than perpetual wars.

the military-industrial complex Ike warned us about is making money.

What's it to ya!

or to prove we can do what the Russians could not.

...interesting.

.....for dropping support of the Afghans after the Soviet's left.

This vacuum is filled by demagogues that preach hatred against us, and voila, a never-ending war that requires trillions of dollars for parasites like Halliburton.

Have you considered our drone attacks have actually created more terrorists than they've killed?

That other poster is forever grasping for bizarro-world rationalizations to excuse US violence. The underlying implication of the post I initially replied to, is that the US was helping Afghanistan when it deliberately provoked the Soviet invasion in 1979, and spent ten years and billions of dollars cultivating and empowering extremist elements. We did not "abandon" Afghanistan, and the extremism that exists there today, is clearly a result of Operation Cyclone.

Speaking of "bizarro-world rationalizations"....

How exactly did the US do that?

Prior to the arrival of Soviet troops, the pro-Soviet Nur Mohammad Taraki government took power in a 1978 coup and initiated a series of radical modernization reforms throughout the country. Vigorously suppressing any opposition from among the traditional Muslim Afghans, the government arrested thousands and executed as many as 27,000 political prisoners. By April 1979 large parts of the country were in open rebellion and by December the government had lost control of territory outside of the cities. In response to Afghan government requests, the Soviet government under leader Leonid Brezhnev first sent covert troops to advise and support the Afghani government, but on December 24, 1979, began the first deployment of the 40th Army. Arriving in the capital Kabul, they staged a coup,killing the Afghan President, and installing a rival Afghan socialist (Babrak Karmal)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Afghan_War

What exactly are you trying to say with your link? Does that information mean something to you?

My linked showed that was not the case at all.

said the US initiated Operation Cyclone in July of 1979, six months before the Soviet invasion, and that the purpose was to provoke the USSR, with hope of causing 'their Vietnam'. This was later confirmed by Zbigniew Brzenzinski in an interview in the French publication, Le Nouvel Observateur. They were the chief architects of the intervention. I can't think of a single reason to not take their word on the issue. The interview of Brzenzinski has been posted here many times, over the years. I find it very difficult to believe that you've never seen it.

Wikipedia, by the way, is not a reliable source on politically divisive issues.

/sarcasm

I guess that Obama has learned from what happened when America withdrew its troops from Iraq.

much called the shots on our fiscal policy since 1963. And what can be better for shareholders than a forever war that curtails civil rights in the name of 'safety,' births a huge new 'security' apparatus, and can't ever really end?

Damn, it is a capitalist parasite's wet dream!

or fill-in-the-blank or maybe just a disease of Empires we caught from the British who are still enamored of the far off places where they got whipped or kicked out to no purpose really whatsoever.

Oh, what did George Washington mean by foreign entanglements?

Make no mistake - every dead person, every wounded, is the direct result of the lack of political courage in Washington DC.

There are no strategic objectives for the US in Afghanistan.

There are not even any stated objectives for the US in Afghanistan.

Hell, the Pentagon itself can't even say for sure who the enemy there is.

The war in Afghanistan is emblematic of the complete failure of politics to honor its duty to first and foremost serve the needs of the people, and all the ways private profit corrupts the system and prevents positive change.

near as I can tell

The US presence in Afghaistan was a mistake.
And when the US leaves, Afghan women will become more miserable.
Heads, nobody wins, tails, women lose.

It's time we left that region for good. It's a mess all around.

or so we're told.... https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2016/01/26/the-u-s-was-supposed-to-leave-afghanistan-by-2017-now-it-might-take-decades/

The US gave military aid to the Mujaheddin for one reason and one reason only. To stick to the Soviet Union and give them their own version of Vietnam.

Once the Soviets bailed, we bailed as well....which left a huge power vacuum that resulted in the Taliban taking control and sheltering Al Qaeda...which resulted, well we all know.

And Russia hasn't shown much interest in reasserting itself there either. And why would they?

The country descended into barbaric violence for decades, its going to take even longer to rise out.

We understand only military intervention. We don't know how to do anything else. Well, we do, actually, but that would mean listening to a bunch of dirty fucking hippies, and Halliburton's bottom line doesn't get bigger by doing that.

...before you subject him to the same criticism and innuendo?

We don't want the country to fall back into Taliban hands, for whatever reason. the consensus on DU is that we're still there just to make money for defense contractors and mineral corporations, but that's too facile.

I prefer to think that humanitarian concerns for Afghanis, particularly the non-Pashtun and the less-fanatically religious Pashtun, enter into Obama's calculus.

there is also the matter of winning elections at home, and not leaving Dems exposed to the "we're quitters" accusation from the Repukes.

the permanent solution is dissolution along ethnic and tribal lines.

The reasons are myriad, of course, but the simple answer is Afghanistan, as a country, can't stand on its own two feet, and will invariably fall under the dominion of the strongest player in the region. The two likeliest outcomes of an American withdrawal are 1) the country falls into civil war with a resurgent Taliban, or 2) the country falls under the influence of Iran.

Make of that what you will, but the people in charge don't seem to like those options. So the death and misery continues.

In addition to the reasons you mention, this president isn't about to admit that he made the wrong choice when he decided on this course instead of the on VP Biden suggested.

4 more wars, 4 more wars, 4 more wars!