The Pakistani journalist tries to explain to Jon Stewart the convoluted relationship between Afghanistan, Pakistan and the US, complicated by the differences between the Afghan Taliban and the Pakistan Taliban. Short version: The situation in Afghanistan became a mess as soon as the US shifted its attention to Iraq without first building decent infrastructure in Afghanistan, and it is now time to leave.
(This clip appeared on March 28, 2012. To get suggestions on how to view clips of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report outside the US, please see this earlier post.)
I entirely agree with this assessment. If the effort that was put into Iraq had, instead been put into Afghanistan, the Taliban would have been totally defeated a long time ago and we would be out of there. The misguided Iraq adventure turned Afghanistan into a backwater, allowing the Taliban to recover from it’s initial setbacks.
As Napoleon once said, “I may lose a battle but I will never lose a minute.” We lost several years, thanks to the incompetents in the Bush Administration.
More good info here than in a days worth of CNN. And undefiably more than you’ll get from Fox News. Division by zero never works.
I hope Rashid has friends who have his back in high places. Pakistan is not exactly journalist-friendly.
I can actually see my local Pakistani consulate from my bedroom window. I think they were wise to locate in such an obscure corner of NW Houston. There has been only one protest march in the last five years. Big contrast with the Chinese consulate in Montrose, which has protesters every week. There are advantages to having your consulate in a suburban ghetto.
And think of the squandered international goodwill. There are countries with troops in Afghanistan to this day that W is afraid to travel to.
“The situation in Afghanistan became a mess as soon as the US shifted its attention to Iraq without first building decent infrastructure in Afghanistan, and it is now time to leave.”
Obviously. I noticed that already back in 2003, when Bush decided to invade Iraq. For several years after I have fostered the hope that in Afghanistan still something good could come out of it. But I lost it when I learned that the Americans thought the quite successful Dutch approach in Uruzgan just for pussies.
Now I think the Dutch efforts in Uruzgan were in vain as well.