You realize I wasn't responding to you, right?
No, I didn't. Thanks for clarifying that.
The news, since the event, has been babbling about "shows of strength" as a message to the DPRK and others.
That might be some people's "read" on the situation, but I don't believe that is why it was used. Pundits will spin and try to find interesting stuff to say about any piece of news, but I don't find it important.
It's not implausible that that be among the primary motives for the MOAB bombing, and the government hasn't, as far as I've heard or seen, refuted the notion that it was. The Pentagon has been surprisingly mum about the whole matter. Even the announcement that the MOAB was used came from the WH, which alone suggests that "messaging," domestic politics and publicity are major drivers to the event.
no credible and believable messages being issued that show why doing so was prioritized and highlighted over completing the defeat of ISIS in Syria and Iraq where it is far stronger than it is in Afghanistan
My understanding (and I could be wrong) was that the war in Afghanistan has been going longer and that we have more troops there than in Iraq and Syria. I keep hearing reports now and then that the terrorist activity is growing. It seems we have had more troops in Afghanistan killed recently than in Iraq or Syria. So I'm not sure why Afghanistan as a theater of operations should have any less emphasis than Iraq and Syria. Perhaps we should learn our lesson from ignoring ISIS when it first got a foothold in Iraq. If it is now growing in Afghanistan, it might be a good idea to stop it now rather than later.
First, I want to be clear that, unlike many Americans, I don't consider any violent act by a Muslim or local in A-stan, Iraq, Syria, and other primarily Muslim countries to be terrorism. I say that because what's going on in A-stan is largely a conflict between the government there and the Taliban, which mostly is a band of loosely aligned pastorally provincial "warlords" of sorts battling over relatively small discrete "turfs" and against the central government's authority over them, which is the source of their alignment. The Taliban are not terrorist threats to the U.S. and
they and ISIS do not see eye-to-eye.
What may well be happening in A-stan is that ISIS is trying to establish a foothold amidst the chaos resulting from the conflict there, much as they did in Syria and Iraq. A-stan, though it does have a central government, culturally is essentially a feudal society, and that inherently creates an opportunity for ISIS to insinuate itself there as it seeks refuge from Syria and Iraq. In light of that, the preemptive aspect makes tactical and strategic sense.
If you ask me, it's quite plausible that there is legitimate purpose to bombing ISIS in A-stan. That there is and that Trump concurs it's "worth it," however, represents
a dramatic reversal in Trump's position, a reversal that essentially aligns with the position of the prior Administration. As goes Trump himself, I don't mind that he's changed his mind; I mind that he's not openly owning the fact that he has. I also mind the spin he's putting on it.
As for why we are fighting in A-stan, well, the reasons have evolved over time, but
the primary reason for the past few years is to help the central government get control of the place. Initially we sought that end roughly as
an aspect of nation building -- it's not that the nation being "built" wasn't already present and favorable to the U.S.; it was that its government was (and still is) too weak to hold its own against all comers -- and because
Al Qaeda was hunkered down there and the Afghan government was powerless to do anything about it. In more recent years, however, it's more about
quelling the chaos that the Afghan government cannot and which provides openings for ISIS.
Note:
The U.S. doesn't innately have a political issue with the Taliban. We did, after all, aid and abet them in their fight against the USSR. The problem with the Taliban is that they are too loosely confederated to constitute a strong enough government that can deny "comfort" to organizations like ISIS. Even being of a mind to deny groups like ISIS a place in the country, they lack the means to stop them.
That left the U.S. having to choose between two weak groups that want control over A-stan: the Taliban and the central government. In my mind, that's an easy "top level" choice; go with the central government because the alternative is to try collaborating with 50 to 100 feudal warlords who don't particularly get along all that well among themselves and who don't see any value in caring about what goes on outside their little corner of the world.
At the end of the day and as goes other nations, the U.S. wants and needs one thing above all others: stable governments that have control of their respective countries and that aren't lead by "nut jobs." The U.S. government does not and never has really been all that bothered by what foreign governments do so long as they aren't physically attacking the U.S. and have control over their own lands.
China is a fine example of that. For all our outcry about human rights, the fact of the matter is that China is very stable. Take the Xinjiang province in China. The people there are culturally more like the "Stans" (any of them not just Afghans) than they are like Han Chinese, yet one doesn't find Taliban or ISIS groups taking refuge in Xinjiang. That's because the central government in China isn't having it. That works for the U.S. and is more important than is whatever other issues our government may have with the PRC government. (Make no mistake, U.S.-China "issues" are governmental. Chinese citizens, the "rank and file," are wholly enamoured with Americans and pretty much anyone else. They are actually very pleasant people.)
