Comments on: The Obama plan… http://registan.net/index.php/2009/11/10/the-obama-plan/ All Central Asia, All The Time Fri, 25 May 2012 20:24:26 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Toryalay Shirzay http://registan.net/index.php/2009/11/10/the-obama-plan/comment-page-1/#comment-383490 Toryalay Shirzay Fri, 13 Nov 2009 05:17:38 +0000 http://www.registan.net/?p=9961#comment-383490 M Shannon, it seems you don't support this war and you have thus cooked up those numbers to suit your purpose. This is not Vietnam;the Vietnamese didn't go attacking major US and European cities,so lets not lose focus here.This war is a must win for the West if they ever wish to live in peace.The fact is that the US/NATO/UN have mismanaged the war in Afstan and this is why we see not much progress there.One of the biggest problem is this: there is one thing the Americans love more than money and that is spending money;the Americans love to throw money at everything ,tons of it ,and for some reason ,most of this money end up in the hands of crooked ones and other questionable characters.How can this be explained? anyone? The truth is this Afstan war need not cost the 100 or more billions that has been mentioned and a good chunk of this has been wasted and although some Afghans have benefited,most Afghans ,the powerless benefited next to nothing,witness the conditions in Afstan.If all that money had been spent wisely on Afghanistan,it would have been a rich country by now. The West must fight corruption in Afstan with the same zeal it fights international terrorism or risk losing the war.It must find ways to compel the corrupt Karzai regime to abandon its shameless behavior or bring Karzai to trial.The Afghans love public on TV trial of corrupt officials including Karzai himself ;they will get a big kick out of this and will look favorably on whoever does this. M Shannon, it seems you don’t support this war and you have thus cooked up those numbers to suit your purpose.
This is not Vietnam;the Vietnamese didn’t go attacking major US and European cities,so lets not lose focus here.This war is a must win for the West if they ever wish to live in peace.The fact is that the US/NATO/UN have mismanaged the war in Afstan and this is why we see not much progress there.One of the biggest problem is this: there is one thing the Americans love more than money and that is spending money;the Americans love to throw money at everything ,tons of it ,and for some reason ,most of this money end up in the hands of crooked ones and other questionable characters.How can this be explained? anyone? The truth is this Afstan war need not cost the 100 or more billions that has been mentioned and a good chunk of this has been wasted and although some Afghans have benefited,most Afghans ,the powerless benefited next to nothing,witness the conditions in Afstan.If all that money had been spent wisely on Afghanistan,it would have been a rich country by now.
The West must fight corruption in Afstan with the same zeal it fights international terrorism or risk losing the war.It must find ways to compel the corrupt Karzai regime to abandon its shameless behavior or bring Karzai to trial.The Afghans love public on TV trial of corrupt officials including Karzai himself ;they will get a big kick out of this and will look favorably on whoever does this.

]]> By: M Shannon http://registan.net/index.php/2009/11/10/the-obama-plan/comment-page-1/#comment-383447 M Shannon Wed, 11 Nov 2009 02:46:33 +0000 http://www.registan.net/?p=9961#comment-383447 We should try to clarify what McChrystal actually asked for: 80,000 US combat troops and 1.2 civilians in Afghanistan for every US soldier. At least $ 100 billion extra per year in direct costs for personnel plus whatever it would take to house and supply six or eight brigades and another two "brigades" worth of western civilians. For every dollar spent there will be another $ 2 in long term costs and interest so he actually proposed an additional $ 3 trillion dollars over a decade above current costs. In effect he asked for a tripling of the US effort and to what end? He'll get less than he asked for but it's still wasted money that will weaken the US. We should try to clarify what McChrystal actually asked for: 80,000 US combat troops and 1.2 civilians in Afghanistan for every US soldier. At least $ 100 billion extra per year in direct costs for personnel plus whatever it would take to house and supply six or eight brigades and another two “brigades” worth of western civilians. For every dollar spent there will be another $ 2 in long term costs and interest so he actually proposed an additional $ 3 trillion dollars over a decade above current costs.

In effect he asked for a tripling of the US effort and to what end?
He’ll get less than he asked for but it’s still wasted money that will weaken the US.

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