Petraeus: We Won't Repeat Russia's Mistakes In Afghanistan

General David Petraeus said on Thursday that the United States fully understands the long history of defeats foreign powers have suffered in the hills of Afghanistan. And as President Obama contemplates sending an additional 40,000 troops into that eight-year long war, the head of U.S. Central Command vowed that America would avoid the pitfalls that doomed the most recent occupation, by Russia.

Heeding history, Petraeus said, "certainly means don't try to do what the Russians did, which was a very oppressive and very brutal occupation. There has been concern, legitimate concern, about our footprint. And we should be concerned about that.

"What we have to do is make sure the reasons [for] concern [are] mitigated by our actions," he added. "The Afghans will be welcoming or not to foreigners if those foreigners are seen to be improving their lives or not. If those foreigners distribute toys that are explosive, as the Russians did, needless to say, over time they will certainly wear out their welcome."

Speaking before The Atlantic's First Draft of History Conference in Washington D.C. Petraeus's remarks appeared to be geared more towards the broader political audience (which is growing increasingly skeptical about U.S. commitments to the Afghanistan war) than to the crowd of elite opinion makers in his immediate vicinity.

Petraeus, who stressed that he had not yet endorsed a plan from the Afghan command to send an additional 40,000 troops, pushed back against comparisons between this war and Vietnam. He even rejected comparisons between Afghanistan and Iraq - where he personally oversaw the surge of U.S. forces in 2006 and 2007.

"I'm much more sensitive to resist the notion that what worked in Iraq will work in Afghanistan," he told the crowd.

Petraeus backed up the Obama administration on several occasions for its handling of the war, complimenting the president for the amount of time and energy he has devoted to the issue as well as Vice President Joseph Biden for visiting the troops abroad.

He also announced that there will be two additional three-hour consultation sessions between the president and his military advisers in the next week.

Interviewer Brian Williams of NBC News asked Petraeus right off the bat what the purpose was of being in Afghanistan, and what the definition of success would be in that war.

The general said that the United States needed "to make sure [the country] does not become a sanctuary for Al Qaeda and other transnational terrorists." And he said victory would resemble a situation similar to that in Iraq, "in which we can hand off to Afghans responsibility for security and for governance, keeping in mind very much that Afghanistan is not Iraq. It has completely different context to it, if you will, a very different history, very different levels of resources, and so forth."

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Comments

[buttonz]

Im surprised by the hypocrisy here. A year ago everyone here used to say that Afghanistan was the noble fight and we should not be worrying about Iraq and focus on Afghanistan. Now that Iraq is no longer a problem people have shifted their attention to complaining about Afghanistan. Do you really need to protest EVERY war? Have people forgotten that the AQ and the Taliban are actually evil who murder on the percentage ratio that makes the Nazs look like angels?

[Chipher]

DFAS.mil

The mission of DFAS is to "Direct, approve and perform finance and accounting activities for DoD"

Our mission is about the customer. It is delivering responsive accounting and finance services to the men and women in uniform. ****DFAS.mil is the world's largest finance and accounting operation, and much more.****

Oh, yes, much more! DFAS.mil is also the SOLE SOURCE for auditing and reconciling the lapses in the finance and accounting services of DFAS! The Defense Finance and Accounting Service is engaged in a program to reconcile accounting, finance and contractual records, that is it's basic mission.

https://www.fbo.gov/?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=dafb35c90b889bfa5e9e7f75bedcdecf&tab=core&_cview=0

e.g. The world's largest finance and accounting operation just got a sole source contract to ****audit and reconcile ITSELF****.

Why are Americans so &*(^) da mn passive about wholesale theft of their children's inheritance?!

[buttonz]

Are you people clueless?? Patraeus turned Iraq from a a complete mess into something viable and now he is working with something far less messy than Iraq ever was. Granted Iraq still has ways to go but what he did was beyond everyone's expectations.

We are not invading or occupying Afghanistan. Afghanistan is a police action and we are trying to secure an area that is being invaded by the Taliban who aren't from Afghanistan to begin with. This has nothing to do with what the UK, Russia, or past empires tried to do.

Anyone who knows anything about Afghanistan knows that it used to have a working and stable government that lasted a long time. We will be leaving Afghanistan as soon as Afghanistan can protect itself as well as having the Taliban being destroyed.

[Chipher]

That's like saying, "The UN will be leaving Afghanistan as soon as America can protect itself as well as having the Republicans and Blue Dog Dixiecrats being destroyed."

Mission Impossible! We are creating four Taliban for every one we kill, just review the kill stats. Obama is creating Republicans faster than Ronald Reagan ever dreamed of.

Clear and Hold™, and THEN WHAT!? Afghanistan is as big as Texas! It's like General Santa Ana saying to his troops, "Clear and hold the Alamo, and those Yankees will fade back into the hillls."

OEF-A is trapped in an Israeli-Palestinian endgame, surge one and now surge two, 40,000 more troops and another $100B in emergency funding, that's $200B a year ON TOP of the Defense budget. but nobody wants to lose their career over pointing that out, except maybe Peter Galbraith.

[horhay]

If we intend to fully destroy the Taliban, we could be there forever. Afghanistan has never had any government that has lasted longer than about 40 years, because the tribal alliances govern themselves. They could care less what a central government is dictating to them while they're living far away in the remote hinterlands of Afghanistan. Very desolate and mountainous terrain that makes a border with another country, like Pakistan, porous & almost impossible to delineate or patrol.

The name Afghānistān, comes from the Sanskrit word Upaganasthan meaning 'land of the allied tribes'. Sometimes those tribal alliances fall apart though. It's been said that the Afghanis unite when an invading force needs to be fought, but when there isn't an occupying force the tribes fight amongst themselves.

It would be nice if we could ensure freedom for the Afghanis, but we may be beginning to overstay our welcome. It's their country, and right now We need to take care of ours. We need to bring the Troops home & quit wasting lives & money on endless useless wars.

[beudrep]

Just what we need another EDUCATED FOOL . I guess he feels IRAQ turned out just fine! Good Job general.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

Realistically, how can we pull out of Afghanistan and other places if America has been de-industrialized and the only signifigant remaining industry is the war industry?

[codycap]

Let us beat our swords into fuel cells and their spears into wind mills.

[newsmctado]

Russia ca. 1984: We wont repeat Britain's mistakes.

Britain ca. 1838: We wont repeat the Mongul's mistakes.

Monguls: We wont repeat the Arab's mistakes

Arabs: We wont repeat Alexander the Great's mistakes.


Do you see a pattern here?

[greyhound2]

It is apparent that Petraeus doesn't have a clue about the Soviets in Afganistan. That country elected a communist as President who didn't sit well with Islamic war lords and the Soviets were invited into Afganistan to prop up its new President. Islam and Communism don't mix and the Soviets were doomed from the start. What gave the rebels an upper hand was the sale of Stinger missiles from the US which were very good at shooting down Soviet helicopters.

The Soviets didn't surrender, they just gave up on wasting lives and treasure on a worthless piece of real estate populated by people two steps out of the Stone Age. The British, after World War I, also gave up and left as they were tired of being shot in the back from some dark alley. Neapoleon twisted his ankle there, the Islamic Empire was there in the 800's and Alexander the Great got to waste time there in 200 BC on his way to India.

It is no wonder the US has spent 9 years floundering around in Afganistan under the delusion that Americans will be looked up to as heros just like as billed in Iraq. It is not the military's fault that they are stuck in a quagmire in Afganistan, they were ordered there by Bush and his criminal friends. The new administation needs to give them marching orders to get out while they still have their skins!

[horhay]

Excellent comment, fanned.

West Point & Annapolis has to teach history & the lessons of important battles. How could Generals Petraeus & McChrystal think the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan will be any different than what past Empires have endured there? Is it arrogance & pride? Somehow the U.S. will fare better than those previous invasions?

The Generals & Pentagon(& Americans) should remember the saying,"the bigger they are, the harder they fall."

[ydnas639]

too late

[Kiver]

One of the Soviet Union's biggest "mistakes" was having the US training, supporting and supplying the mujaheddin with weapons, explosives and missiles which are now being used against us?

[audadvnc]

And of course, all those Taliban are running around with brand new weapons, imported from .... ?

[codycap]

Without the support of the people the survival of a guerrilla movement becomes extremely vulnerable.

The opposite is true if the people do not support the government; a guerrilla movement becomes extremely effective.

"to make sure [the country] does not become a sanctuary for Al Qaeda and other transnational terrorists."

Are we going to do the same thing in Pakistan, Somalia, ETC. ETC,?

The point that should be recognized is that they are, as the General points out, transnational terrorists."

His argument does not make sense unless we are willing to invade every country including our own that has terror cells.

With the last corrupt election we should take a hard look at whether war would be the best politics. We lost our chance at Tora Bora to do what we originally went to Afghanistan for right at the beginning. We cannot turn back the clock.

Biden is right,

“Vice President Joe Biden, who attended the meeting, has been reluctant to support a troop increase, favoring a strategy that directly targets al-Qaida fighters who are believed to be hiding in Pakistan.”

That was our goal before mission creep, and we should return to it.

[DCinFrance]

Well, General, if not already have repeated the mistakes of the Russians, how about we just repeat our own mistakes in Vietnam?

[DCinFrance]

...that turned out good.

[DavidDial]

Believe me, DCinFrance, I will never forget Vietnam and I don't think we should fail to apply the lessons we hopefully learned there whenever and where ever they should be applied. I just don't believe the parallels between Vietnam and Afghanistan are absolute. There is no doubt that you can't help the helpless and if the only strategy we can come up with means relying at all on Karzai and his government we might as well quit right now. But if there is another way, and I think there is, we should explore it. We were attacked from Afghanistan and we can't allow that to happen again. We also have to make sure that our strategy is one that gives Pakistan support in their fight against the Taliban. It is in everyone's interest to keep Al Qaeda and other radical Islamic groups on their heels until we can help eliminate, through non military means, the social and political injustices that give them life. There is no question that if our goal is to run Afghanistan in person or by proxy through military means, we will fail but I also think that now that the idiot neo-con politicians are no longer in charge that is not our political goal and Petraeus and his generation of military leaders did learn and will apply the lessons of Vietnam and will realize that the role the military can play is limited.

[DCinFrance]

I'm not at all sure what the truth is, David. We have been lied to so much and so often, I'm not even confident that we were attacked by "Afghanistan" at all. What I do know is that hundreds of thousands have died, and many, many of them innocent. Many of them of our own, innocent in their own way. What I do know is that this nation of ours has no intention to correcting the sociopolitical injustices that exist in our own nation, let alone anyone those that we have perpetrated elsewhere.

The historical parallels are not absolute, but they are there. There is no tangible objective defined. If it's to never allow attacks upon us to ever happen again, then we can never leave.

[stillable2think]

We already have repeated Russia's mistakes ...... now what?

[Macready]

that's exactly what I was going to say . . . . some general he is

[KIVPossum]

General Betrayus can say what he wants. He's wrong.

[JBVT]

General Bozo,

I'm laughing at you!

Have a nice day...

[JiminNC]

Correct General, your orders will arrive soon.

[S1m0n]

General Petraeus, you already have repeated more than enough of their mistakes.

~~

But here's one more to think about: right now NATO is losing badly, and the Russians are keeping their fingers out of the pie. That's no coincidence: they don't need to to do anything, because you're failing under your own steam. However, this will change in seconds if the situation begins to turn around. There is no way that the Russians are going to let the US succeed at a task the Soviets failed at, and especially not on their very own doorstep. Long before that takes places, they will take whatever steps need to be taken to make you fail. You're having enough trouble already; think of how much more fun you'll be having if the Taliban had some good anti-helicopter rockets, for instance.

[Norge]

Simon,

That is also a good point, America help the defeat and removal of the ussr and it was a deliberate
stragedy by America to give the Soviets their own VietNam and another reason central supplied those folks with stinger missiles, training and monies. Osama Bin Laden was centrals' key man in Afganistan.

[JiminNC]

Surely, any thinking person is aware that Russia is already doing anything they can to support Iran. They consider it payback in kind for our support of the Mujaheddin during their visit with history in Afghanistan. It is difficult to say they are unjustified and maintain intellectual honesty.