This is not a good thing....
From Fox News:
Kyrgyzstan's government submitted a draft bill to parliament Wednesday that would close a U.S. base that is key to the American military campaign in Afghanistan.
The move came a day after President Kurmanbek Bakiyev said the base would be shuttered and shortly after the Central Asian nation secured billions of dollars in loans and aid from Russia, which resents the American presence in a country that Moscow regards as part of its traditional sphere of influence.
The possibility poses a serious challenge to the new U.S. administration and President Barack Obama's plan to send up to 30,000 more American forces into Afghanistan this year.
Earlier Wednesday, the U.S. Embassy in Kyrgyzstan said the United States had received no formal notification of the closure.
Talks are due to continue on keeping the air base in the country, despite the Kyrgyz president's announcement, the embassy said in a statement.
The government said the decision to order the closure of the Manas base was made because the base has fulfilled its purpose of supporting military actions in Afghanistan.
God Bless America
Bryan
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Wednesday, February 4, 2009
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6 comments:
This is very interesting, especially since the Taliban blew a bridge up stranding NATO supply trucks in Pakistan.
I know....I was watching that also. Very interesting....
Bryan
OK, it's "spot the dummy" time. As we get strangled out of honoring our humanitarian and strategic obligation to Afghanistan, I can't help but wonder about shifting our sites to our southern border. Now I understand that our new Director of Homeland Security is concerned about our NORTHERN border, but it's looking like she could look off her back porch and see that Mexico's heading toward becoming a failed state. (At least Palin had her eye on the Russians!) So, while we prepare to have 30K troops half way across the world with no access to supplying them, Mexico's infrastructure vacuum is ripe for Russia, Iran or AlQ to move on in. (I ponder Putin's long handshake to Venezuela and Cuba. So why wouldn't they "reach out" to our neighbors whose refugees flee north?)
Our finite military resources will be stranded in A'gan, border guards won't guard for fear of being imprisoned, and "refugees" will be indistinguishable from bad guys who flow north.
OK. I'm done. Tell me I'm insane and I'll sleep at night.
flyonthewall
Fly,
Your not insane, far from it. It's worse case courses of action like those that bother me also. Theres a lot going on right now, and much is in flux. I'm unfortunately just watching from a distance right now. But, I have a feeling that much is about to change in the next year.
Bryan
I think the economy is going to play a big role in National Security. A tanking economy is felt faster in poorer regions. I think I worry more about the power of drug cartels over terrorist organizations. However, I guess they use the same tactics.
Perhaps changes will occur before next year:
LTC Nagl gave a talk last night entitled COIN in Iraq and Afghanistan. In it, he emphasized info ops as the critical element of COIN effort, and linked his description (implicitly at first, then explicitly after I asked the question) closely to Smith's "war amongst the people" concept (albeit expressing a preference for calling it "the long war"). Point is, constructing a compelling narrative was emphasized as critical to successful COIN. __At the same time, Nagl applauded Obama's rumoured backing away from ambitious goals in Afghanistan. Which raises the question in my mind as to how you construct a sufficiently compelling narrative - compelling enough for Afghans to suffer short term pain for long term gain - while pursuing minimal goals, including the kind of authoritarian rule that emphasizes control over responsiveness that has typified previous Afghan regimes? __And more broadly, how can cooperating with Uzbekistan not undermine our narrative in Kilcullen's global counter-insurgency? __In the both the former and latter, local conditions might be paramount, but one's credibility to address/resolve local grievances (thus disaggregating them from the larger struggles global jihadists try construct) seems to at least be partially linked to broader global legitimacy, esp. vis-a-vis the values used to distinguish ourselves from our opponents.__I've yet to see or hear anyone reconcile these apparent contradictions in Obama's emerging strategy.__MK_
exerpted from:
https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=5440908667613269425&postID=8379554357214503845
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