Increasingly resigned to the reality that the US simply isn’t going to stumble into a military victory in Afghanistan, US military commanders are looking to redouble their efforts. The goal now to to not just kill people, but “shape the political environment” ahead of negotiations.
Officials now see their goal increasingly as bolstering America’s bargaining position in inevitable negotiations with the Taliban. Their tactics for this are, unfortunately, further escalation of the raids and airstrikes that failed to win the war in the first place.
“You turn the dial up,” Gen. Miller said of the US intentions now that they think the Taliban are willing to negotiate. The assumption is that the Taliban will want an end to the war and start making concessions to avoid further US escalations.
Yet this ignores the entire 17+ year history of the war, in which the Taliban has always been content to wait out US surges, particularly those that seem extremely temporary, and continue to amass gains where they can.
Excuse me but I think 17 years is long enough to charge tax payer for an illegal war. Stop using our tax dollars for war and start using it for our infrastructure inside the USA. How can America be great when you have pollution, dirty water, a government that doesn’t give a flying fart about its people other than to take their money and continue ripping the people off so government keeps getting richer by the day. Most unethical in the human history of man, running us into the ground and the cowards supposed to keep him in check are too afraid to open their mouths. Most DEPLORABLE government in the history of mankind.
The government is not rich at all due to the fact only little people pay taxes and a tiny handful of people collect the interest off that debt.
The good news is that most of the current debt is fraudulent, the bad news is that most folks don’t believe it or understand it.
So much like Vietnam. When will we ever learn? Maybe when US helicopters are rescuing stragglers from the top of the US embassy? I’m thinking not. This so-called war on terror will go on and on. Heaven help us, the MIC won’t.
It doesn’t matter how badly any foreign war goes, as long as they’re able to finance the next one, they’ll keep going. There’s only two things that I forsee that could stop this. Collapse of the Petro Dollar and Invasion of the USA. In either scenario the US goes from shithole country to where shithole countries take a dump…It’s kinda hard to BS people about war when they live and breathe it everyday…
When the USA finally does take over the whole world, what is it going to do with it?
Stamp out socialized medicine
“You turn the dial up”
Yeah, what the hell. Lets ramp up the killing so we can have leverage in future talks. Is there a better example of how much we value life?
They are going to end up killing the other sides negotiators. Then what? Taliban isn’t going anywhere.
Don’t be so sure, they might be lured into Iran or elsewhere in order to destroy more societies that live on top of natural resources or strategically advantageous locations.
It almost worked in Syria so the practice run is out of the way already.
Miller is obviously lying. The objective is not bargaining at all. Concessions? Au contraire, this war is going deeper. Trump is on board 100%. He wants to proclaim total victory by the presidential debates. Get crackin’, servants!!!
“You turn the dial up,” That’s MIC code for, “you create yet another generation of terrorists”, since terrorists can be herded into any country you want to plunder for it’s natural resources or your own strategic advantage against yet another country in the same neighborhood.
They also work great for fear mongering your own citizens into sacrificing their civil rights and serving up their children as cannon fodder due to fake patriotism and dog whistle style phony religious fervor.
They’re gonna need a new terrorist group to fight this war pretty soon since the Afghan forces are dropping like flies and there’s no way of actually manning another surge of US troops.
Looks like another general is well on his way to a lucrative golden parachute retirement thanks to the MIC !