On Monday night, Mr. Trump finally put forward a broader strategy for
Afghanistan, one that would require thousands more American troops but
place more conditions on the Afghan government....As a private citizen, he repeatedly called on Mr. Obama to withdraw the troops.
Foreign Affairs:
Afghanistan,
Graveyard of Empires, November/December
2001,
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...This spot...has witnessed the traverse of the world's great armies on campaigns of conquest...All eventually ran into trouble...
Alexander the Great...ran into fierce resistance...Genghis Khan and the great Mughal emperors...a millennium later...established the greatest of empires -- but only after reaching painful accommodations with the Afghans...
In the nineteenth century...the Great Game, the contest between the United Kingdom and Russia for control of Central Asia and India...[saw]...[t]he first Afghan War (1839-42)...British commanders sent a huge army of British and Indian troops into Afghanistan to secure it against Russian incursions, replacing the ruling emir with a British protege...by January 1842 the British were forced to withdraw from Kabul with a column of 16,500 soldiers and civilians...only a single survivor...made it to Jalalabad...
...The British would repeat [their] mistakes in the second Afghan War (1878-81), as would the Soviets a century later...
If Afghanistan isn't the graveyard of empires,
perhaps
it's the hospice where empires expire,
where aiming for victory, clean and complete,
in the end all anyone finds is defeat.
(Meantime: Bannon back at his old professions
contemplates corps of modern day Hessians
contemplates corps of modern day Hessians
and Trump, as he views the eclipse with bare eyes,
says, "The sun never shines brighter than me!")
says, "The sun never shines brighter than me!")