09-11-2019, 10:13 AM
(09-10-2019, 11:25 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: I feel the same as you about Bolton. I think he pushed things too far with Afghanistan, though; he almost certainly leaked to sabotage the Camp David meeting.
If we had a peace deal in Afghanistan, the Taliban would take over, sure. But so what? This is the place where it costs us $1000 to get a gallon of gasoline in to fuel our tanks. It's an expensive place for us to keep a military presence, and as a landlocked nation, it has zero fundamental geopolitical importance to us.
Yes, Bin Laden launched the 9/11 attacks from Afghanistan. He could just as easily have done it from Pakistan, though, where he hid for years. If the Taliban agreed not to harbor international terrorists, which they probably don't want to do any more anyway, that would satisfy the only possible interest the US had in the place. Some sort of enforcement mechanism would be nice, but having had to fight for two decades the first time they did it would probably be deterrence enough.
I would agree it would have been better if Bolton had been able ultimately to support the President on this, and stayed in the administration.
I'm definitely not a Bolton fan, but anything we do in Afghanistan will be wrong on some level … except for fighting there like it's do-or-die. Bolton loves war everywhere. It's good that he's not around to be war-whisperer, but at least he has the courage of his twisted convictions. Trump just goes for the 5-minute win, and wonders why things keep going bad. I'm amazed that I'm writing this, but I'm not sure we've gained by losing Bolton.
Intelligence is not knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom, but they all play well together.
