U.S. aid plan seeks to shield Afghanistan from end to war economy

It's a good idea for geostrategic reasons. It may also be a good idea to extend a similar relief package to Middle America, so that they can make jobs, keep their houses and generate the sort of taxes required to subsidize Afghnistan.

Obama orders Pentagon to prepare for full troop withdrawal from Afghanistan





http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...al-Afghanistan



If the United States cannot come up with one scenario in which it would return American troops to Afghanistan in large numbers, it should fold its tent and leave by the end of the year.


Karzai, even though he's on his way out, isn't playing ball with the Americans, refusing to conclude a new bilateral security agreement (BSA). Perhaps Karzai's successor will be more agreeable but that still doesn't leave the Americans much time if they're to keep the option of a complete departure by the end of 2014.

Maybe this is all a matter of optics.


Nobody in Washington, either on Capital Hill or the Pentagon, wants to be tagged with another "last chopper out of Saigon" moment.


Yet that's the very scenario they might be creating if they leave behind a face-saving, token contingent that could be run out of the country in the ensuing civil war.

Obama should bear in mind the warning of a British general a century ago:

“When planning a military expedition into Pashtun tribal areas, the first thing you must plan is your retreat. All expeditions into this area sooner or later end in retreat under fire.”

So wrote British general, Andrew Skeen, in the early 1900s in his guide to military operations in the Pashtun tribal belt.

So if you're giving an aid package to middle America, where will the money come from? To make a significant dent in the deficit, the US would have to raise taxes all the way down to the middle class, there just isn't enough money to be had from taking just from the rich. Middle America doesn't need welfare money, it needs good paying jobs to generate the tax revenue that America needs. Otherwise it just becomes a bottomless pit. Same is true of Canada. Can't keep a nation going when you gut the middle class be eliminating their jobs.