Inept US cannot fix Afghanistan: Saudi prince

[LilOlLady]

Inept US cannot fix Afghanistan: Saudi prince

Sunday, May 16, 2010

* Says Afghanistan needs shift from nation-building to countering terrorists

RIYADH: An “inept” US cannot fix Afghanistan’s problems and should simply focus on “chasing the terrorists there”, former Saudi intelligence chief Prince Turki Al Faisal said on Saturday.

Turki, also former ambassador to Washington, said the US-led NATO troop’s presence in Afghanistan has irrevocably alienated the Afghan people and has no hope of rebuilding the country.

“What Afghanistan needs now is a shift from nation-building to effectively countering terrorists,” Turki, the brother of Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al Faisal, told a small audience in Riyadh.

He said US President Barack Obama “should not be misdirected into believing that he can fix Afghanistan’s ills by military means”.

“Hunt down the terrorists on both sides of the Afghan-Pak border, arrest them or kill them, and get out, and let the Afghan people deal with their problems”.
Daily Times - Leading News Resource of Pakistan

Radical Right believe we have invested too much to leave now but if it cannot be fixed we don't need to invest anymore and we should leave and let Afghanistan take care of Afghanistan. Cut our losses and leave before we lose anymore. We have aleady lost too much. We cannot fix Afghanistan anymore than we can fix illegal immigration with more. If they cannot stand up after 10 years they never will.
We cannot kill every taliban and every terrorist, Afghanistan is the home of the taliban and they will be back when we leave. We cannot change hearts and minds of thousands of years of traditions and religions. Waste of time, money and lives. WTF do we think we are?

 

[Katzndogz]

The US is inept because it is an ineptocracy.

 

[waltky]

Taxpayer money bein' squandered in Afghanistan...

Special IG for Afghan reconstruction cites rampant fraud, waste
January 10, 2013 WASHINGTON — Much of the $28 million the United States spends daily to build up Afghanistan is thrown at projects without planning, and little attention is paid to whether the work ever gets done right, the U.S. official in charge of oversight of Afghan reconstruction said Thursday.

Meanwhile, security is so bad in many areas that keeping watch over projects is nearly impossible, while bribes and corruption continue to flourish, said John Sopko, who in July took over the job of Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction, or SIGAR. In his first public speech since his appointment, he painted a grim picture of the state of the U.S. campaign to remake Afghanistan, an effort that has cost thousands of U.S. lives and hundreds of billions of dollars. The quarterly reports that Sopko, a longtime prosecutor and congressional counsel, has since issued form a counterpoint to more optimistic assessments coming from the Pentagon and other parts of the U.S. government.

In order to wisely use U.S. taxpayer money to reconstruct Afghanistan, U.S. military and civilian officials need to start asking tough but simple questions, Sopko told an audience at the Stimson Center, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank focused on global security issues. “Are these programs and buildings needed? Have you asked the Afghans if they want them?” he said. “Have we designed them to meet any specific needs that the Afghans have? And have we designed them in such a way that they can be sustainable in the future?” Frequently the answer is no, Sopko said. He gave the example of an Afghan army garrison constructed in Kunduz province on unstable ground, a mistake which led to buildings cracking and falling apart. When asked to explain why the base was built there, or how it was decided it needed to be built at all, U.S. officials could offer no explanation. “We got blank stares,” he said. Although the $70 million base is unusable, the Department of Defense paid the contractor who built it, an action Sopko called “inexplicable.”

In another case that received attention last fall, SIGAR investigators discovered that anti-IED grates required on culverts to keep bombs from being planted under roads were never installed — negligence that may have cost American lives, he said. Sopko said his office has 60 of its investigators on the ground in Afghanistan, out of a total staff of 200, making it the largest U.S. oversight agency in country. They are assisted by U.S. military units they frequently embed with, and Sopko praised U.S. commanding general in Afghanistan, Gen. John Allen, for facilitating SIGAR investigations. Sopko said he’s driven by the knowledge that with the war winding down and U.S. troop levels dropping, he needs to act fast to give Afghanistan a chance to benefit from the massive but shaky reconstruction effort the United States has mounted. “If we don’t get it right, then those lives and that treasure that we have spent over the last 11 years will have been wasted, will have been spent in vain,” he said.

Source

See also:

Obama, Karzai agree to speed military transition
Jan 11,`13 WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Friday they have agreed to speed up slightly the schedule for moving Afghanistan's security forces into the lead across the country, with U.S. troops shifting fully to a support role. The leaders also said Obama agreed to place battlefield detainees under the control of the Afghan government.

Obama, appearing in the East Room of the White House with Karzai at his side, said accelerating the transition to Afghan security control this spring would set the stage for further withdrawal of U.S. and other foreign forces, although he did not say how quickly a U.S. drawdown would be carried out this year and next. There are now 66,000 U.S. troops there. "Starting this spring our troops will have a different mission: training, advising and assisting Afghan forces," Obama said. "It will be a historic moment." He added later that even in a backup role he could not rule out that U.S. troops could be drawn into combat. But he emphasized that their main role would be support, such as training and advising.

Karzai said he was pleased by the agreement, in part because it means that by spring there will be no foreign troops in Afghan villages. Asked about the decision to accelerate the transition to Afghan security control - a shift that previously was scheduled to happen this summer - Obama said it was not yet clear what it would mean for the pace of U.S. troop withdrawals this year. He said that was "something that isn't yet fully determined" and is awaiting further internal deliberation. Casting the move in a positive light, Obama said plans remain on schedule to have Afghan forces fully responsible for security nationwide by the end of December 2014 - with no backup, theoretically, by U.S. or other international forces - at which point, "this war will come to a responsible end."

The capabilities of the Afghan army are "exceeding initial expectations," the two said in a joint statement released after their private White House meeting and working lunch and in advance of a joint news conference. As a result, Obama said he acceded to Karzai's desire to put Afghan forces in the combat lead across his country this spring, rather than wait until summer. In their statement the leaders said they discussed the possibility of a continued U.S. troop presence beyond December 2014, when the U.S. and allied combat mission is to end. But they did not settle on any specifics. The U.S. now has 66,000 troops in Afghanistan.

U.S. commanders in Afghanistan have proposed keeping 6,000 to 15,000 U.S. troops after 2014 to continuing pursuing terrorists and training Afghan security forces. But the White House, which tends to favor lower troop levels than the generals do, says Obama would be open to pulling all U.S. forces out of Afghanistan at the end of 2014. "We wouldn't rule out any option," Ben Rhodes, Obama's deputy national security adviser, said earlier this week. "We're not guided by the goal of a certain number of U.S. troops in the country. We're guided by the objectives that the president set - disrupt, dismantle, defeat al-Qaida." Friday's meeting was the first between Obama and Karzai since November's U.S. presidential election. Heading into his second term, Obama is shaking up his national security team, including key players who deal with Karzai and the war.

MORE

 

[whitehall]

The US can't "fix" Afghanistan because democrats have forced the greatest Military in the world to fight on terms set by the enemy who exists in the 6th century. The current administration is willing to kill civilians anonymously with drones but every Soldier knows that he will face time in a military prison if a round that he fires kills a civilian. Troops can't get an artillery strike without permission from the fat asses in the Pentagon who haven't seen a round fired in anger in their whole careers. The liberal media ignores the stalemate in Afghanistan because they don't want to get involved. Meanwhile the US is developing laser machine guns when the Navy ships can't even defend themselves with 20th century technology against row boats or jet skis. The democrat party got what it always wanted, a bloated blind giant that cares more about diversity than security.

 

[theHawk]

The US isn't inept, that's just Obama.

 

[RoccoR]

theHawk, et al,

US/Coalition success really, have very little to do with the President.

The US isn't inept, that's just Obama.

(COMMENT)

Either US Policy and Military Strategy is successful, or it is not.

Remember, we've had 20th Century thinkers on this for some time. While Obama is President today, he wasn't when it started and for seven years, it was under his watch. Now, with a failed foundation, you expect some else to work a miracle and fix the mistakes of the past.

It is time to cut our losses and leave as fast as our little feet can take us. Over a decade and we still haven't got it right. Time to go.

Most Respectfully,
R

 

[Sallow]

Perhaps the Saudis should take over.

They've done wonders at FOX.