Good decision, but I’m not surprised. In the first place, Obama administration should have never floated the zero option strategy, it demoralize the Afghans and encouraged Taliban/AQ terrorists. And I’m glad that in 2013 I was one of those who criticized the zero option strategy:
https://defence.pk/threads/why-zero-is-not-an-option.265438/#post-4549430
Pakistani342, as an American taxpayer, trust me, I fully understand your frustration, but the problem is if we prematurely cut our losses and run, then all the human and financial sacrifices we have made so far will go in the drain and top of that the US will lose all its credibility, it will give a tremendous boost to our enemies, (especially the Global Jihadist) the consequence of that will be more chaos in South Asia, Africa and Middle East, keep in mind, most of the oil supplies of the West comes from these regions.
My brother
@RabzonKhan, forgive me for the curt response but your argument's weight is,
give or take: zero.
Let me unpack that for you again (as I believe our previous discussions followed the same lines of logic):
There are several follies that the human mind has not evolved to comprehend. For example:
1.
The Gambler's folly: since I lost the last 4 hands, my luck must be about to turn:
NOT, I end up loosing my shirt
2.
Naive physics: if I jump of the third floor, say a atop skateboard and just a few feet off the ground, I again jump off, this time the skateboard onto terra-firma, I'll be fine:
NOT: the best case is I'll end up in the emergency room with every major bone in my body fractured
3.
But my favorite (and one that US senators and the Pakistani common man seem to suffer from a most is):
Sunk cost: I've spent $1,000,000 to build a house that I don't need and no one else will buy spend a $100 dollars for. But let me spend another $1,000 to finish it so my existing $1,000,000 investment does not go to waste: feels right doesn't it -- but is also sheer-stupidity.
Your argument falls in this category
Now if we go by the current Afghan narrative (which I believe to be largely accurate), specifically the one Ghani sab has been able to enunciate (not the US or Pakistani public narratives):
Afghanistan is fighting an undeclared war imposed on Afghanistan by Pakistan. Or in other words the Pakistani GHQ is using an unlawful means of war to achieve policy objectives in Afghanistan. What are these policy objectives: that Afghanistan should accept Pakistani
*guidance* (euphemism for control) over its foreign and defense policies.
This is totally acceptable to me as a US taxpayer and is inline with US interests and spending a single taxpayer earned dollar or two drops of blood of our servicemen's and women's blood is an outrage.
Sovereignty means being able to pay your bills (the same argument applies to Pakistan, and all the other good sovereign nations of the world), Afghanistan
cannot be a sovereign country if its government's salaries are footed (including those of our brother
@A-Team) by my tax dollars and 10% of its population lives in its principal enemy county (Pakistan) --
If Afghanistan is not a sovereign country and is unwilling to either foot the bill from its own coffers, it should accept the *Jurnails* terms, they are are reasonable.
The
*Jurnail sahiban's* terms are actually very good for me as a US citizen (and for the common Afghan citizen, and believe it, even for the Afghan elites), if securing their strategic depth, makes the
*Jurnails* sleep better at night, it makes them less twitchy and thus less likely to unholster their nukes in their next confrontation with
*Chappan-inch-ki-chatti-wala*, the last one was in 2008 so the next one is
sadly overdue according to the clock. If the
*Jurnail-sahiban* are less twitchy it makes it
more likely that they will allow the civilian government to
promote trade with India and encourage
people to people contacts. If there is decreased tensions it may even allow
*Chappan-inch-ki-chatti-wala* to reciprocate.
The Afghans elites don't have a case. 10% of their population lives in Pakistan. Their poor masses (
not select few elite) come to Pakistan for health needs, education and trade. Let's be serious: Afghanistan in its current form,
absent my hard-hard earned tax dollars is the 5th province of Pakistan -- if you want to be
*proud Afghan* (as brother Saleh is so fond off) then put you dollars where your mouth is -- not my dollars please. I you want to be a proud sovereign Afghanistan, display your pride by leaving Pakistan and going back to build your country: Afghanistan. Further, if the 15 Afghans want to get their legs waxed and skin exfoliated so they can wear those short-short
*eskerts* (skirts) please do it with your own dollars and not my hard-hard earned tax dollars [who knows maybe our brother
@A-Team is actually our sister
@A-Team -- makes no difference to me].
Just remember my friend, the last time we abandoned Afghanistan (and Pakistan), Afghanistan ultimately ended up as international terrorist hub from where the Al Qaeda planned, trained and executed attacks on our embassies in Africa and the September 11 attacks.
Our minimum goal should be to leave the country stable enough that it does not plunge into yet another civil war, which can also severely threaten the stability of nuclear Pakistan.
My brother, again, I cannot find a kinder word for this, above, piece of yours, other than:
sheer stupidity. The horrendous crime of 9/11 was actually planned in
Hamburg and a major part of it was executed in
Florida and 17 or 19 Hijackers (the numbers may be off by 1 or 2) were
Saudi citizens. As I get older my memory has been failing more and more, but I don't remember that we sent an invasion force to Florida or flattened Hamburg or sanctioned Saudi Arabia till Saudi women can bathe nude on the corniche of Jeddah.
The sad reality of this form of post modern conflict is that it can come from anywhere, and if the unthinkable were to ever happen again it will most likely happen from areas that are closer to us and where the people are more economically mobile and educated: Syria, Iraq, the greater Levant and North Africa.
Further if Afghanistan is to accept the *Jurnail's* terms, the instability in Afghanistan will subside and we can focus on curing the real afflictions of Islamic extremism and not the cosmetic ones. If 3,000,000 Afghans refuse to go back to their country despite the harassment they receive in Pakistan, perhaps the remaining 27,000,000 Afghans will be better off as a Pakistani citizens (even if: as second class citizens, hey I was a second class citizen of Pakistan and it was tolerable, if not desirable) -- [note emphasis on better off -- I advocate nothing less of than equal citizenship under a loose federation]
----
Post script
I think it was either
*Prince Saraj Ali* or
*Generaail Wardak* who mused to his American counterpart that he would love to go riding atop a tank in downtown Kabul (meaning our tax dollars should buy him a cute Tank so it's cannon's barrel can add to his
*length*) -- to which his American counterpart responded: do you know how much a Tank costs?
[best bitch-slap I know off]
Post Post script
Plus a mutually sovereign Afghanistan and Pakistan must have Ghani sab is the next chief of Pakistan Army staff, etc. etc. -- I think
*Jurnail Ghani* with his temper won't need that bamboo reed/crop that
*Pakistani Jurnails* need to appear
*ghabru-javun*. And, we can have our brother
@A-Team as the spokesman [or spokes woman] for the Pakistani foreign ministry. He is much better at authoring and orating language that uses words such as "
Partnership", "
International Partners", "
Gender equality", "
Brotherhood of Man", "
Cure of Cancer" and last but not least "
Integration"
it is all about interests my friend, AF and US interests converge and thus we welcome their stay in AF for as long as its needed.
not buying this one 
