HappySqurriel said:
While I am fully willing to admit that I may have been misinformed, I thought that the war in Afghanistan was predominantly NATO forces against (so-called) insurgents who are not from Afghanistan. Essentially, that the forces in Afghanistan were mostly imported from Pakistan, Iran and Saudi Arabia, and they were there to fight against the "Americans" not to fight for Afghanistan. |
I am sure there is some of that (like we did to help Afghan beat the russians.) But the bigger issue, is Afghanistan is just not a centrally run country. Karzai does not have the full support of his country. Balance that with him being backed by the US, who is not well liked in many parts of the country, and in some cases, he has no power at all.
In Iraq, you could just take down Saddam Husain and Baghdad, and you took down the country. About 20% of the population lives in the city, and most of the country's population lives in metropolitan areas.
Afghanistan is tribal, with a majority of its people living in small towns. of a country with 30 million people, only Kabul has over a million (and it's half the size of Baghdad).
To win there, you have to win the hearts and minds of its people. You have two apposing forces. One is the Taliban, who look the same, talk the same, and have been recruiting and living there for years. They are the ones that beat the russians and earned Afghanistan it's freedom. On the other side, you have the US, who is backing a very corrupt leader who is trying to change the peoples way of life.
Who do you think is going to win that battle? A good example would be Obama and me. I hate everything he stands for. I think he is the worst leader we have ever had. If we were attacked by China however, I would stand next to him and fight by his side. Same thing is happening here. Yea, they hated the Taliban, but they were at least there own people. When a foreign country invades, they stand together. We need to just leave. There is no path to victory.
