If we have not earned enough trust in Afghanistan after all this time will we ever?

There have been great strides made in Afghanistan. Part of the problem is that we are interfering in another country. Rather than send guns, Reagan should have sent humanitarian aid and funding for rebuilding the country’s infrasturcture after the Russians left. It would have been a lot cheaper, and would have enabled moderation to get a toehold more quickly. We should shift our spending to rebuilding.

The projects that are working in Afghanistan are citizen-led infrastructure programs and education initiatives.

One of the hard things for the US when it comes to Afghanistan, is we can’t help but look at their cultural practices and think that our’s are better. So we sometimes try to help by trying to westernize people. That has the effect opposite to what is intended. They become more skeptical about why we are there and less willing to trust us when it appears that we are doing things to alter their culture. Just an observation.

Hopefully Petraeous will be a game changer like in Iraq, but I’ve my doubts. Karzia is “crooked as snake!” The Republicans would never go alone with leaving also. It’s “dang if you do and dang if you don’t” situation. Lot of money and lives spent there. Personally, considering the pluses and the minuses, I would like to our men come home.

The Afghan area has been historically taken over by outsiders for centuries. The people are used to outwaiting the attempted conquerors.

They are very much keep to themselves and keep their culture in the face of invasion.

No, I don’t think we have a chance against that.

Afghans tend not to warm to the idea of American soliders killing civilians for sport. I know these alleged murderers are in a minority, but you have to question the attitude of the entire US mission that allowed these people to think they could get away with it. Indeed, there was no investigation at all into the deaths during the four-month killing spree, they were only caught because of a coincidental investigation into cannabis use by troops, which isn’t a set of investigative priorities to encourage the locals.

To go back to the beginning I felt that after 9/11 we had to invade Afghanistan to get rid of the Taliban regime but what have we done since? It seems we have made a terrible mess of an opportunity to help the people of that country. Our efforts seem entirely military, endlessly dropping bombs and missiles with the inevitable civilian casualties. We have already been defeated, no matter how many people we kill we can no longer win.

Um, that just feels off, to me – I don’t have trust in the U.S. in Afghanistan. I never thought Aghanistan needed to prove something to us, quite the contrary.