United States Trump fires Bolton

ShieldWife

ShieldWife

Marchioness
www.nytimes.com

Trump Ousts John Bolton as National Security Adviser (Published 2019)

President Trump had complained privately in recent months that Mr. Bolton was too hawkish, a tension made worse in recent weeks over Iran and North Korea.
www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com

Donald Trump has fired John Bolton as national security adviser.

Personally, I think that this is a great move. Hiring Bolton in the first place was one of those unwise decisions that was holding back Trump from being a great president. Trump has it in him to be a peacemaker and undo some of the harm that previous presidents have done with their disastrous foreign policy.

Trump could have made peace with North Korea, Trump could have ended the Syrian Civil War, Trump could have deescalated conflict with Iran. I think that he could still do that and since he’s fired Bolton, I feel more optimistic about his intent and ability to follow through on his America First campaign promises.

That is one of the major reasons I voted for Trump, I hoped that he would have a less interventionist foreign policy than previous presidents or his competition.
 
Saw this, and saw the reasoning given.

Bolton was, as a friend of mine put it, a 'scarecrow' used to make Trump seem like the 'Good Cop'. But this backfired on Trump from what I can tell, as he wants to end wasteful wars, and Bolton...doesn't.

The fact this was over a secret meeting with Taliban leaders at Camp David also makes it rather obvious Bolton wants more blood and treasure spilled trying to unfuck that hellhole. Afghanistan has been fucked since the Mongols rode through and basically salted the earth, and no amount of US blood, guts, or money will ever fix that place. But Bolton doesn't seem prepared to accept that.
 
You should have bombed the Taliban, went in and killed every pocket of resistance you came across with extreme predjudice, and then packed your stuff again and left. The Soviets at the height of their power didn't get a hold of the place, and they had more boots on the ground and were a good deal less squeamish about things there, and even they didn't turn that hole around. Cut your losses and leave.
 
Lightershoulders said:
Bolton was supposedly the only person who said hell no to attempting to make peace with the Taliban.

Bolton deserved to get fired, but not for that. That idea was fucking insane.

Edit: peace with the Taliban was a stupid idea back in 2011 under Obama, and it's still a stupid idea now.
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What other option is there? Spend another 19 years of blood and treasure fighting a fight that cannot be won?

Afghanistan is called the 'Graveyard of Empires' for a reason. The only thing making it worth keeping any boots on the ground at all is the rare earth deposits that we'd like to keep out of China's hands. And with Japan's newly found undersea deposits of rare earths, even that is barely a justification anymore.
 
Optics wise, a better move would be to simply withdraw on account of staying not serving the US national interest.
Afterwards, if and how the sovereign government of Afghanistan makes peace with the Taliban, is of little concern to USA.

Bacle said:
What other option is there? Spend another 19 years of blood and treasure fighting a fight that cannot be won?

Afghanistan is called the 'Graveyard of Empires' for a reason. The only thing making it worth keeping any boots on the ground at all is the rare earth deposits that we'd like to keep out of China's hands. And with Japan's newly found undersea deposits of rare earths, even that is barely a justification anymore.
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Ironically, effective and large scale exploitation of those would probably require stabilizing at least the parts of Afghanistan involved in it and transport routes anyway.
It's an interesting question, if China wants Afghanistan, is stopping them a reason to stay in Afghanistan, or a case of textbook "interrupting an enemy when they are making a mistake"?
 
Lightershoulders said:
Bolton was supposedly the only person who said hell no to attempting to make peace with the Taliban.

Bolton deserved to get fired, but not for that. That idea was fucking insane.

Edit: peace with the Taliban was a stupid idea back in 2011 under Obama, and it's still a stupid idea now.
Click to expand...
The alternatives to peace with the Taliban are
1. Total war and thorough, painstaking reconstruction of Afghanistan.
2. Genocide of the Pashtuns (which would probably spill over into war with Pakistan).
3. Continuing to piss away American blood and treasure for very little result.

I'll take peace with the Taliban. Enough is enough.
 
In the longer term, the US is probably better off simply pulling out and ignoring Afghanistan. Making "peace" with the Taliban isn't really politically acceptable at home and they can't be trusted to honor the terms, so unless the US is willing to enforce said terms with force then a peace treaty just makes the US look weak.

At this point it doesn't serve US interests to handle Afghanistan how it should have been handled back in '01/'02. Ultimately, Bush (and later Obama) was/were unwilling to eat the political bitching that would have come from properly handling Afghanistan. It should have been put under the control of a US military governor with zero attempt to give any kind of power to a nominally independent Afghan government. Martial law should have been declared (and enforced) with partisans shot on sight. The nation should have been conquered, occupied, and then had the US's boot kept on its neck for fifteen to twenty years while the sons and daughters of the local upperclass/powers that be were "invited" to the US to be educated and indoctrinated into the US system. Then, around now, they should have been returning and being the first generation of "local" leaders. Winning in "free and fair" (i.e. rigged to all hell) elections and strongly supported by US money and manpower. Give it another twenty years after that before the US really pulls out.

While this is going on, you take over all the radio and TV stations (and fire HARM on any unapproved transmission sites), and make the internet and cellphones basically the NSA's version of the great firewall of china, you build mixed gender schools, bring in teachers from the US, and then make attendance mandatory. You embed Green Berets into the local population with orders to kill anyone who attempts to build a political movement against you, and any religious leaders who aren't willing to toe the line.

But the US, since the end of WW2, is incredibly unwilling to actually do what is necessary to pacify, indoctrinate, and integrate a conquered territory.
 
Emperor Tippy said:
In the longer term, the US is probably better off simply pulling out and ignoring Afghanistan. Making "peace" with the Taliban isn't really politically acceptable at home and they can't be trusted to honor the terms, so unless the US is willing to enforce said terms with force then a peace treaty just makes the US look weak.

At this point it doesn't serve US interests to handle Afghanistan how it should have been handled back in '01/'02. Ultimately, Bush (and later Obama) was/were unwilling to eat the political bitching that would have come from properly handling Afghanistan. It should have been put under the control of a US military governor with zero attempt to give any kind of power to a nominally independent Afghan government. Martial law should have been declared (and enforced) with partisans shot on sight. The nation should have been conquered, occupied, and then had the US's boot kept on its neck for fifteen to twenty years while the sons and daughters of the local upperclass/powers that be were "invited" to the US to be educated and indoctrinated into the US system. Then, around now, they should have been returning and being the first generation of "local" leaders. Winning in "free and fair" (i.e. rigged to all hell) elections and strongly supported by US money and manpower. Give it another twenty years after that before the US really pulls out.

While this is going on, you take over all the radio and TV stations (and fire HARM on any unapproved transmission sites), and make the internet and cellphones basically the NSA's version of the great firewall of china, you build mixed gender schools, bring in teachers from the US, and then make attendance mandatory. You embed Green Berets into the local population with orders to kill anyone who attempts to build a political movement against you, and any religious leaders who aren't willing to toe the line.

But the US, since the end of WW2, is incredibly unwilling to actually do what is necessary to pacify, indoctrinate, and integrate a conquered territory.
Click to expand...
You left out a crucial thing:
Make marriage to anyone closer than a fourth cousin result in confiscation of the clan's assets. This should be very strictly enforced.

This would pay dividends by destroying the clan structure that Afghan, and specifically Pashtun, society is built on. It's almost a softer version of the Francia plan for Paraguay.


But the chance is over. Time to go home.
 
Emperor Tippy said:
In the longer term, the US is probably better off simply pulling out and ignoring Afghanistan. Making "peace" with the Taliban isn't really politically acceptable at home and they can't be trusted to honor the terms, so unless the US is willing to enforce said terms with force then a peace treaty just makes the US look weak.

At this point it doesn't serve US interests to handle Afghanistan how it should have been handled back in '01/'02. Ultimately, Bush (and later Obama) was/were unwilling to eat the political bitching that would have come from properly handling Afghanistan. It should have been put under the control of a US military governor with zero attempt to give any kind of power to a nominally independent Afghan government. Martial law should have been declared (and enforced) with partisans shot on sight. The nation should have been conquered, occupied, and then had the US's boot kept on its neck for fifteen to twenty years while the sons and daughters of the local upperclass/powers that be were "invited" to the US to be educated and indoctrinated into the US system. Then, around now, they should have been returning and being the first generation of "local" leaders. Winning in "free and fair" (i.e. rigged to all hell) elections and strongly supported by US money and manpower. Give it another twenty years after that before the US really pulls out.

While this is going on, you take over all the radio and TV stations (and fire HARM on any unapproved transmission sites), and make the internet and cellphones basically the NSA's version of the great firewall of china, you build mixed gender schools, bring in teachers from the US, and then make attendance mandatory. You embed Green Berets into the local population with orders to kill anyone who attempts to build a political movement against you, and any religious leaders who aren't willing to toe the line.

But the US, since the end of WW2, is incredibly unwilling to actually do what is necessary to pacify, indoctrinate, and integrate a conquered territory.
Click to expand...

If you want to unite literally everyone in the country against you, up to and including the Northern Alliance, Pashtun clans and Shia militias, this is how i'd go about it.

Not to mention a death toll likely OVER the already high current one.
 
Comrade Clod said:
If you want to unite literally everyone in the country against you, up to and including the Northern Alliance, Pashtun clans and Shia militias, this is how i'd go about it.

Not to mention a death toll likely OVER the already high current one.
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And at that point, uniting them all "against" you (and you wouldn't) is just fine. It gives you "legitimate" grounds to decapitate and destroy the potential power bases that could cause you problems down the road.

As for the death toll, it would absolutely be higher. It is also irrelevant. You don't invade and occupy a nation expecting to avoid killing a lot of locals. Afghanistan aided and abetted an attack on US soil by a hostile power and then doubled down by choosing to provide sanctuary to the group that carried out said attack. That was more than sufficient cause for a war and (despite what people seem to think) an attacker in a just war has zero obligation to keep the enemy civilians alive or happy or to rebuild the nation being attacked.

Resisting occupation outside of uniform makes you, under international law, liable for summary execution. If the US had been willing to take the PR hit then under international "law" it could have put a bullet in the head of every insurgent the moment they were captured.
 
Emperor Tippy said:
And at that point, uniting them all "against" you (and you wouldn't) is just fine. It gives you "legitimate" grounds to decapitate and destroy the potential power bases that could cause you problems down the road.

As for the death toll, it would absolutely be higher. It is also irrelevant. You don't invade and occupy a nation expecting to avoid killing a lot of locals. Afghanistan aided and abetted an attack on US soil by a hostile power and then doubled down by choosing to provide sanctuary to the group that carried out said attack. That was more than sufficient cause for a war and (despite what people seem to think) an attacker in a just war has zero obligation to keep the enemy civilians alive or happy or to rebuild the nation being attacked.

Resisting occupation outside of uniform makes you, under international law, liable for summary execution. If the US had been willing to take the PR hit then under international "law" it could have put a bullet in the head of every insurgent the moment they were captured.
Click to expand...

That's a stupid ass position because all the aforementioned groups who are on your side against the Taliban would desert to form their own lot or even throw their lot in with the Taliban. Because at that point you'd be the worse option for them.

Also an excellent way to get more US soldiers killed, after all if you're going to be executed anyway whats the point of not fighting?
 
LifeisTiresome said:
To me the US presidents must already realize that Afghanistan is a lost cause and that they should pull out if they don't want to be stuck there forever but they don't want a repeat of Vietnam where the South fell and we had all that drama of evacuations and people gloating about the US losing a war hence why they stay there.
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This and the fact that we kind of promised the Northern Alliance that they'll essentially control the place after we take out the Taliban. Or so I've heard. The NA simply did what they promised to do (bring proper democracy to Afghanistan)...
 
Pretty ambivalent on Bolton. I like that Trump decided to have a diverse team representing him though including people who obviously ran contrary to his own instincts as opposed to a bunch of yes-men. Maybe Dorothy Kearns-Goodwin can write a sequel to her Team of Rivals book about how awesome the Trump Cabinet was. :sneaky:

Aaron Fox said:
This and the fact that we kind of promised the Northern Alliance that they'll essentially control the place after we take out the Taliban. Or so I've heard. The NA simply did what they promised to do (bring proper democracy to Afghanistan)...
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If there's only two main factions, the Taliban and the Northern Alliance, it's kind of hard to have an interim government without the Northern Alliance. Because the 2002 loya jirga resulted in an ethnic Pashtun in Hamid Karzai getting the nod, and NA commanders of different ethnic groups being the Vice Presidents.

Still it's an odd statement, it's like saying we promised to put the Free French in charge of France after it was liberated.
 
Bacle said:
What other option is there? Spend another 19 years of blood and treasure fighting a fight that cannot be won?

Afghanistan is called the 'Graveyard of Empires' for a reason. The only thing making it worth keeping any boots on the ground at all is the rare earth deposits that we'd like to keep out of China's hands. And with Japan's newly found undersea deposits of rare earths, even that is barely a justification anymore.
Click to expand...
Sol Zagato said:
The alternatives to peace with the Taliban are
1. Total war and thorough, painstaking reconstruction of Afghanistan.
2. Genocide of the Pashtuns (which would probably spill over into war with Pakistan).
3. Continuing to piss away American blood and treasure for very little result.

I'll take peace with the Taliban. Enough is enough.
Click to expand...

Pull out and let them do whatever. Let the Chinese stick their dicks in the blender.

If they attack us ever again, retaliate by airstrikes or special forces response. They are never going to manage an attack on the scale of 9/11 ever again.
 
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