- Heinz Guderian

“Treat ‘em rough”.

- The motto of the US Army Tank Corps in WWI.

We are not facing an organized force in uniform.

We are in a regionally organized country with porous borders where tribal boundaries cross the lines in almost impassable terrain.

The Soviets killed about 1 million Afghans and bombed them back to grass soup.

Although we recognize the roots of war are economic, we talk to Nation Building but we are not organized, equipped, or trained to do that.

Meanwhile we’re heavily in debt.

So I don’t think the way ahead is clear nor are the decisions easy.

The only thing I can see working are fortified villages with re-establishing the agricultural infrastructure.

You wrote: “For leaving: ”

You mean, the U.S.A. could hold on indefinitely to Iraq and Afghanistan if they wanted to, “because they have that option” ?

In 1968, you had over 500.000 soldiers in Vietnam, plus heavy bombers, tens of thousands of helicopters and chemical weapons, and left.

America has already achieved its objective of destabilising the middle-east to the point where all the different sub-groups are at each others throats. This way no one single country or alliance that will be formed that will be able to rise and stand up to america on a military, economic or political level. As long as the region remains unstable enough to prevent this from happening, but stable enough to supply oil, as far as america is concerned, it’s all good. Also this move would boost public opinion of the current leadership allowing them to be re-elected (keep your eyes peeled for that as the next election cycle starts approaching).

First off, we will ignore press & publicity, mainly because in the long run it is meaningless.

For staying:

Well currently america is a war economy. The military-industrial sector is doing very well, spending is up, and arms exports are at an all-time high. This means jobs, income and a strong military (and thus the ability to tell people what to do). Pulling out would immediately have negative results for the arms industry, as funding would get cut, programs would be shut down and acquisition would be scaled back. Strategically america would also have to give up having a major prescence in both afghanistan and iraq, which could have negative effects in future tensions with russia (which will start getting serious in about 5 years or so) and iran.

The central conviction of Obama’s ideology is that America is guilty of limitless moral failures and is the chief architect of the world’s ills. Obama has boundless enmity for America, its key institutions, and its longtime allies.