Have we won the War on Terrorism?

[Peter Dow]

[Peter Dow]

The Afghan nation is not militarily capable of successfully defending the territorial integrity of its internationally recognised claim to sole jurisdiction over all the land of Afghanistan.

In other words, the Afghans can't stop the Taliban, an enemy force sponsored by Pakistan and Saudi Arabia and others from invading Afghanistan and waging war against the Afghan nation with the secret aim to establish a vassal state for the Pakistani military empire.

Although Afghans tried to defend their country versus the Taliban before we invaded, they were not successful and the Taliban state of Afghanistan was established.

Even now, before we have fully drawn-down our forces to much below the level they were at before the surge ordered by President Obama, we see the Taliban operating unchallenged in parts of Afghanistan.

No shame on Afghans for failing to exclude an enemy presence in Afghanistan because it is a difficult, perhaps impossible country to secure the borders of - except perhaps in the depth of winter when many mountain border crossings become impassable.

Therefore while I do propose that NATO occupy airbases in Afghanistan - and to do so securely by fortifying versus the threat of siege so that the airbases can be supplied entirely by air - for the purposes of fighting enemy terrorists and their state sponsors in the region, the net effect of such a limited military occupation would be significantly to defend and to enhance the exercise of Afghan national sovereignty and sole jurisdiction over significant parts of Afghanistan that would be in severe jeopardy of being lost entirely to the Taliban should we withdraw all our forces or deploy only a trivial force level in an insecure way as mere potential hostages for the Taliban.

In other words, the writ of the national government of Afghanistan will run over more of Afghanistan with us there as occupiers of a limited number of bases, perhaps 4, than us not there at all.

Lest we forget, we are in a state of war against state sponsored terrorism and in times of war then legal technicalities of sole jurisdiction of national government sometimes have to be infringed upon.

We have our own national sovereignty of the NATO and allied nations to put first (which is threatened by terrorists sponsored by states in the region) before questions of Afghan national sovereignty though no democrat such as myself would ever be insensitive to such important matters.

I propose that we sign BSAs and SOFAs with any and all representatives of the people of Afghanistan who wish us to maintain our military presence in parts of Afghanistan. I would seek above all the signature of candidates for the Afghan presidency.

One such signature would be sufficient to justify our continuing presence, more would be better but I do not think it would be necessary to either have BSAs or SOFAs signed with either the elected president of Afghanistan or by the speaker of the parliament of Afghanistan.

Sure that would be nice to have the representatives of a majority of Afghan votes signing a BSA & SOFA. That would be worthwhile but not so necessary as to compel us to make foolish compromises with our security - to agree foolishly not to launch counter-terrorism raids from our bases against targets in Afghanistan and Pakistan, to agree foolishly not to fortify our airbases versus the threat of siege so that our supplies could be blocked and our forces held to ransom and so on.

Greedy rulers like Karzai and those of Pakistan seek a stranglehold on our forces to exert leverage, to blackmail and to extort money and power from us, making us weaker while they grow stronger at our expense. That would end if my approach is adopted by NATO.

So as far as I am concerned there is no "Karzai veto" or "Afghan president veto" or "Afghan parliament veto".

The power of a national veto can be lost in war and it was lost as far as Afghanistan and Pakistan are concerned on 9/11.

Now at least we can be honest about our limited but necessary infringements upon Afghan territory which contrasts with the dishonesty of the secret infringements of the Pakistani military which sponsors the Taliban precisely to remove Afghan national authority over all of Afghanistan.

One somewhat similar example to think of is the US Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. This military base is on the island of Cuba but it does not significantly infringe upon Cuban national sovereignty - which is much more threatened daily by the Castro dictatorship than by the base.

If the Afghans and Pakistanis can cease state sponsoring of terrorism then they have as little to fear from NATO Afghan airbases as do the Cuban people from the US Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay.

Likewise as the US Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay is not a hostage to the Castros then the Castros are not able to get rich with a veto over the US Naval Base operations, are not able to blackmail and to extort ever more for permission to remain.

So it would be with NATO Afghan bases. We would be there without fear or favour; offering friendship and support to all who would be our real friends but resolute in confronting our enemies.

[PoS]

Peter, I challenge you to a game of RISK, the stakes will be world domination.

http://www.pogo.com/games/risk

[broken robot]

[Peter Dow]

[exploited]

...what???

[Doncorelone]

Yeah we will all win. Muslim and Non Muslim.

Al Qaeda are conservative reactionaries to a Muslim society which is becoming slowly (mind numbingly slow sometimes) liberalised. They are failing to make the West or the Islamic world fall into the trap of 'a war of civilisations' because I think, Western societies in general are becoming more 'used' to Muslims, and realising that they're human and can be normal which in turn, allows some people from Muslim countries to be less defensive about their faith and more receptive to criticism and debate (Though in light of what's been going on, it's a slow process, but in the right direction) Something which the likes of Al Queda are trying very hard to prevent.

[Bauce]

I haven't heard anything about Condoleezza Rice in this thread. Can anyone fill me in what her thoughts would be regarding this matter?

[Doncorelone]

Her thoughts would be once lesbianism is accepted in the Muslim world, then we've won.

[Peter Dow]