Afghanistan gains will be lost quickly after drawdown, U.S. intelligence estimate warns

[DonViejo]

Source: Washington Post

By Ernesto Londoño, Karen DeYoung and Greg Miller

A new American intelligence assessment on the Afghan war predicts that the gains the United States and its allies have made during the past three years are likely to have been significantly eroded by 2017, even if Washington leaves behind a few thousand troops and continues bankrolling the impoverished nation, according to officials familiar with the report.

The National Intelligence Estimate, which includes input from the country’s 16 intelligence agencies, predicts that the Taliban and other power brokers will become increasingly influential as the United States winds down its longest war in history, according to officials who have read the classified report or received briefings on its conclusions. The grim outlook is fueling a policy debate inside the Obama administration about the steps it should take over the next year as the U.S. military draws down its remaining troops.

The report predicts that Afghanistan would likely descend into chaos quickly if Washington and Kabul don’t sign a security pact that would keep an international military contingent there beyond 2014 — a precondition for the delivery of billions of dollars in aid that the United States and its allies have pledged to spend in Afghanistan over the coming years.

“In the absence of a continuing presence and continuing financial support,” the intelligence assessment “suggests the situation would deteriorate very rapidly,” said one U.S. official familiar with the report.

:::snip:::


Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/afghanistan-gains-will-be-lost-quickly-after-drawdown-us-intelligence-estimate-warns/2013/12/28/ac609f90-6f32-11e3-aecc-85cb037b7236_story.html

[dipsydoodle]

1. Tough.

.

[TwilightGardener]

2. Welp...wish we had gotten out of that shithole already. That troop surge was pretty

much for naught--just created more people and things for us to pack out, in the end. The whole counterinsurgency thing was kind of a sham, no one should have listened to Petraeus and the Kagans and whoever else was running the show at CentCom. We didn't really have a strategy there, beyond the generals and the contractors digging in for the nation-building long haul. Time to go--no more troops, no more good money thrown after bad.

[rug]

3. There were 27 months and one week between the Paris Peace Accords and the fall of Saigon.

[hollysmom]

4. These are people who don't have the easiest of times. being occupied over and over

is not the best. of course they will go back to growing opium as it is the really best income. The government is not really elected or representative. If you are not in a safe city, you are always a target. What exactly were the gains?

I remember and interview with someone representing the UN and the day after the visited the progress in a school, the school was bombed. They needed constant security even in the cities. What exactly did we do?

[cosmicone]

5. There is a way to keep the Afghanistan gains in perpetuity

Just cripple the Pakistani military and ISI -- the main source of Taliban's recruitment, training, funding, arms and logistical support.

[former9thward]

16. How do you propose to do that?

[warrant46]

6. Just make it the 51st State

Send in the NYPD

And get Bloomberg to pass a few zero tolerance health and behavior laws--That should work

</sarcasm>

[Comrade Grumpy]

7. What a tragicomedy this exercise in imperial hubris has been.

An exercise in futility at a cost of a trillion dollars or so, not to mention 5,000 or so American dead and tens of thousands of American wounded. And NATO dead and wounded. Not to mention all the dead Afghans, because who wants to mention them?

We ran Al-Qaeda out of there in the winter of 2001-2002. That was 12 freaking years ago.

And now out little Afghan adventure has us regularly droning folks in Pakistan, the type who hold grudges. And, of course, the innocent bystanders and their unhappy friends and families.

And Afghanistan is going to end up like it was in the mid-1990s, after our previous imperial adventure there. Chronic civil war, warlordism, crazy guys with beards wreaking havoc. After what we've done to them in the last 35 years, I wouldn't blame the Afghans if they never wanted to hear the word "America" again.

I think it's time for Empire to take a break. We could have done something useful with a trillion bucks, other than get a bunch of people killed and enrich some war pigs.

[Kablooie]

8. So it's been all a big waste of time and money for everyone.

Better to cut our losses and get out of there.

Either that or make it a state so we can control it forever.

[tblue]

9. No one could see that coming.

Improving the lives of Afghans was never the objective anyway. And I call BS--only because I think someone is just looking for an excuse to prolong this awful engagement.

[Javaman]

15. +1 nt

[ConcernedCanuk]

10. What would make them think that?

.
.
.

I mean, - Iraq is just swimmingly peaceful now!

USA winning hearts and minds is on the march!

Ruh roh!

CC

[Solly Mack]

11. Damn

[Douglas Carpenter]

12. of course it will. There is a price to be paid for creating artificial and permanently dependent

states with no genuine independence or viable indigenous base. The old colonial powers discovered this. The former Soviet Union discovered this. I thought the U.S. learned this in Indochina - but they apparently forgot the lessons learned.

[sendero]

13. There were no "gains" to begin with..

... merely the illusion of gains propped up with our lives and treasure. The only way to preserve the illusion is to funnel endless lives and treasure into infinity.

No fucking thanks.

[Bradical79]

14. IF there was any chance of making lasting "gains"

that hope probably evaporated after Bin Laden escaped into Pakistan and Bush proceeded to focus on Iraq. It was an effort with little chance of success in the first place if "nation building" is what you were looking to accomplish, and was thoroughly fucked by incompetence pretty early on.

[Drew2510]

17. No doubt, and I truly am

fearful of the reprisals that will most likely occur, particularly against women

[snooper2]

18. Well no shit, when people use a 2000 year old "holy" book to justify their behaviors

what do you think is going to happen?

I say anyone who wants to be/is educated and leave the country gets transported on US military plan to a country that will take them. Outside of that, say goodbye!