The Impending #Afghan Defeat | #US hates the word "defeat" Americans hate the word “defeat” but that is what we face in Afghanistan. After nearly 12 years, the longest war in U.S. #history is winding down with an almost inconceivably staggering cost in blood, treasure and what economists call opportunity cost — the value of the best alternative forgone. Yet, while future historians may provide the details of the U.S. defeat in #Afghanistan, one assessment is possible now: The United States was defeated most of all by its own arrogance and ignorance. The cause for this defeat was bipartisan, implicating both #Democrats and #Republicans, #neoconservatives and #neoliberals as well as hubristic officials at the #CIA and tunnel-vision generals dispatched by the Pentagon. The folly dates back more than three decades to 1979 when President Jimmy Carter’s hard-line national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski devised a plan to poke at the Soviet Union by helping Islamist #mujahedeen warriors harass the Soviet-allied government in Afghanistan. Brzezinski hoped the provoked Russian bear would fall into an “Afghan trap.”
Posted on: Fri, 12 Jul 2013 15:25:27 +0000
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