“The plan is to win. The plan is to be successful. So while some folks may hear that we are departing in 2014 as a result of the Lisbon conference and the transition, we’re actually going to be here for a long time.”-John Allen, General USMC
The original publicly, and loudly stated goal of invading Afghanistan was to get Osama bin Laden, and al Qaeda. A secondary goal was to topple the Taliban government. All those goals have been achieved, but General Allen says we’re not leaving.
The United States could be in Afghanistan for decades. Maybe we’ll even invade Pakistan, especially since the U.S. main stream media is now touting the Pentagon’s claims that the Taliban are using Pakistan as a base of operations.
There are Pakistanis that might call themselves Taliban, but the word means Student! So how many people are simply calling themselves a student, and U.S. intelligent agents are taking it as Terrorist?
Then there’s the Haqqani “network” which is nothing more than a family run freedom fighter operation (notice that any freedom fighter in Afghanistan is automatically labeled Taliban by the media), after all we invaded them, not the other way ’round! Once again, not one Afghan was involved with 9/11! Just as well, not one Pakistani was involved with 9/11!
Another thing, the majority of Afghans (42%) are Pashtun, they just happen to make up most of the members of the political organization called Taliban. Many of the people in northwestern Pakistan are Pashtun (second largest ethnic group in Pakistan). They are direct relatives of those in Afghanistan. That’s because northwestern Pakistan used to be part of the Kingdom of Afghanistan (before the British took control, in fact there was no Pakistan until after World War 2).
So, from the view point of the Pashtuns (who’re considered the dominant ethnic Afghans) they are not “using” Pakistan as a base, because they see that area of Pakistan as their ancestral Afghan territory to begin with. This is one of the reasons the Pakistani government is so hesitant to take direct military control over that region. Ever since the creation of Pakistan the northwestern territory has actually been under direct control of the Pashtuns.
Basically the United States has decided to wage war with the majority of the people in that region, in order to impose upon them a government run by a pro-U.S. minority. Sounds like Vietnam.
Towards the end of the war between the U.S. and Vietnam many people warned that the U.S. had to stay in Vietnam to prevent possible attacks against U.S. territories by Vietnamese commie terrorists. Gee, I guess we’re still waiting for those dreaded Vietnamese attacks, 36 years later!