expedition to Kandahar in 1880, push in
to "defeat" Taliban allied with Al-Qaeda;
then safely withdraw? Perhaps do
Gen. Stanley McChrystal, U.S. commander in Afghanistan, is reported warning that an increasingly powerful Taliban is gaining the upper hand.
In response the U.S. is changing its strategy in the eight-year-old conflict by increasing the number of troops in heavily populated areas like the volatile, historic southern city of Kandahar, the former capital of the Taliban and the present insurgency's "spiritual home."
(The same Kandahar General Roberts relieved back in 1880. See a "soldier's letter to a mother at home," penned from Kandahar before the days of email, for a vivid picture of just how brutal Afghan fighting could be.)
Lord Roberts' memoirs on the internet give a most graphic description of the challenges of defeating Afghan nationalists.
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Hopefully Americans can refine their skills at targeted assassination, pinpointed drone bombings, even negotiating with potential Taliban allies.
American war aims, it is said, are limited: to destroy Al Qaeda, and kill and capture its leaders.
Yet this could become a "quagmire."
Let us hope for the best, but not be surprised by the worst. Sometimes, even the "the worst case scenario" becomes real.
So let us consider the alternative proposed by columnist George Will: to withdraw and target and kill enemies from offshore.
Knowing full well that great powers seldom scale down their objectives -- until after they "bleed."
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This commentary by former CIA analyst Michael Scheuer suggests the current American strategy may be even more complicated than it seems.
He has warned that Americans may be tempted to follow the disastrous Soviet occupation policy of the 1980's rather than the successful conquer and then withdraw campaign waged by Britain's Lord Roberts in 1880.
Scheuer could turn out to be dated, totally off base. He could be right on target.
Obama must determine if there are alternatives to a costly "quagmire" of occupation and a massive expeditionary force designed to take the Taliban out.
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Yes, General Roberts pulled back.
The move coincided with election as British prime minister of that Scottish moralist, William Gladstone, arch enemy of the man he defeated, Benjamin Disraeli, author of Britain's "forward strategy" in Afghanistan.
In his famous Midlothian election campaign Gladstone had rejected the "forward strategy." After warning of the dangers of entrapment and defeat as during the First Afghan War of 1839, he preached the Christian virtues -- and railed against the reprisal burning of Afghan villages for attacks upon British soldiers.
Afghan women and children, he intoned, also are human and should not be left starving in the snow.
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An Aljazeera correspondent on the road to Kandahar
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