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Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RMF who wrote (37573)	10/2/2009 11:24:12 AM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

Re: [Is the 'game' actually worth the candle?] "First of all, I gotta tell ya' it bothers me that I don't know what the heck that means. If that's a literary reference I musta never read that book." English phrase I think.... It means: Are the COSTS worth paying for whatever potential gains there may be? (Basically... do you stand to win or to lose more?) Re: The REST of your post seems to be saying "if we can't beat them in THEIR neighborhood we should just get completely out of the area." Oh, no! That was 100% not my intention AT ALL. What I was actually trying to say was "Are their other strategic actions, other and different policies that we might try... that stand a BETTER CHANCE of achieving our national aims, rather then the no-win high-cost policies we have been following for about eight years over there already?" Re: "It will ALSO become the place where they plan the overthrow of Pakistan." I think you have that one exactly BACKWARDS! The Pastun people span a contiguous area that stretches across both Pakistan and Afghanistan... (and the Taleban is almost entirely a Pastun tribal group.) The Pastun are the largest ethic group in Afghanistan (covering most of the Southern half of the country), and they are, I believe, the second largest group in Pakistan --- but there are more of them in Pakistan then there are in Afghanistan. There has been war and rebellion and much talk of the Pastun people uniting to form their own nation for centuries, (and much of this current conflict is a continuation of that long-simmering fight). When the British colonial administrators arbitrarily drew the Durrand Line on a map --- which carved what is now Afghanistan and Pakistan off into separate colonial areas --- their GOAL was to divide local tribes (like the Pastuns) so they would be politically WEAK (and thus more easy for the British colonialists to rule.) This was exactly the same tactic that the British tried in Iraq, and it failed dramatically there, and it failed in South Asia too, because it placed the British Colonialists in opposition to the strong force of NATIONALISM. The British colonial actions left behind a 'schizoid' geopolitical arrangement in the areas... the problems still manifesting today. What I was suggesting (thought experiment only...) was that we might try to turn the most powerful political force of the 20th. and still in the 21st. century to our advantage: The powerful NATIONALISTIC YEARNINGS that people have.