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Posted by: zanshin,
2009-02-19 01:07 |
Open-Ended Issue
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Issue: Is the war in Afghanistan "winnable" for the USA and NATO
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Background and Context
Evaluation of this Open-Ended Issue
| Criterium : |
Value |
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Desirability : |
Desirable |
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Importance : |
X-High |
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Volatility : |
X-High |
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Likelihood : |
Medium |
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Confidence : |
High |
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Argument Tree
Vieuw in Silverlight
Issue: Is the war in Afghanistan "winnable" for the USA and NATO
YES: The war in Afghanistan is "winnable" for the USA and NATO
>>The USA is sending more troops to Afghanistan.
>>In the USA, the White House announced that 17,000 more troops would join the existing 65,000 Western troops in Afghanistan “to stabilise a deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, which has not received the strategic attention, direction and resources it urgently requires.”
>>The USA is helping Afghanistan to build a bigger army.
>>USA pilots and their Afghan charges dominate the air in Afghanistan.
>>The USA still enjoys a good measure of support among ordinary Afghans.
>>The USA has broad international backing for its actions in Afghanistan.
>>The Taliban, al-Qaeda and their allies do not have the support of a superpower.
>>"I think it's still possible for us to stamp out al-Qaeda to make sure that extremism is not expanding but rather is contracting.
I think all those goals are still possible [ ... ]
-- Barack Obama, President of the USA, in an interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corp
>>NO: The war in Afghanistan is NOT "winnable" for the USA and NATO
>>The USA has failed to understand that controlling Afghanistan is much harder than invading it.
>>The insurgents in Afghanistan profit from the ´sanctuary´ in Pakistan.
>>The sanctuary enjoyed by insurgents in Pakistan gives them the ability to fight more or less indefinitely.
>>“We can hunt down and kill extremists as they cross over the border from Pakistan.
[...]
But until we … eliminate the safe havens from which they operate, the enemy will only keep coming.”
Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently remarked
>>Counter-insurgency requires large numbers of troops and policemen.
>>Afghanistan´s army needs to be much bigger than the planned 134,000.
-- According to Abdul Rahim Wardak, Afghanistan’s defence minister
>>In Afghanistan, the police forces are weak, corrupt and often drug-addled).
>>
References
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