Not good on history Issues Beyond Palo Alto, posted by Ted Rudow III, MA, a member of the Palo Alto High School community, on Jun 29, 2011 at 1:01 pm
U.S. leaders often are just not good on history.
The 19th-century British started trying to pacify the Pashtun tribes of what are now northern Pakistan and southern Afghanistan, and they sent in tens of thousands of troops. They fought the Third Anglo-Afghan War. They fought engagements against the tribes way back during the teens and the twenties.By 1947, as the British rule was ending in that region, it was more in turmoil and less under control than it ever had been before. The full might of the British Empire at its peak was unable to bring order to those regions. The idea that a relatively temporary and relatively small American expeditionary force can go into some of these provinces and shape them up for the long term is just very unlikely.
Posted by Unconquerable?, a resident of Menlo Park, on Jun 29, 2011 at 5:20 pm
More recently, how'd those Ruskies do in Afghanistan?
Anyone notice our ANNUAL air conditioning bill for Iraq and Afghanistan? Of course, our troops deserve air conditioning.
Twenty BILLION a year for air conditioning. Individual canvas tents with giant a/c units attached to each one. Probably purchased at inflated contractor prices, to be abandoned and left to the locals. Web Link
Isn't there a better way to spend that at home, along with the other hundreds of billions?
View in an RSS Reader
E-mail this topic.
Print this topic.
