"The "Improving Customer Experience in Banking" report shares the results of a global survey done to determine the CX maturity of banks and credit unions. The findings show that most organizations are not prepared for the future of increased consumer expectations.
The financial services industry has been impacted by the increasing use of technology from smartphones to wearables. This transformation in methods of transacting has enabled more personalized engagement, allowing customers to engage engage in seamless banking across channels. This has also increased both the potential and complexity of creating a positive customer experience.
Unfortunately, according to the 85-page report,
Improving the Customer Experience in Banking, the objective of delivering a positive customer experience has become secondary to other bank priorities, resulting in a transactional banking relationship for the customer. For financial organizations to change this dynamic, and meet the evolving needs of today’s customers, there are five areas that have emerged as crucial priorities:
- Move focus of digital engagement from cost reduction to experience enhancement.
- Leverage advanced analytics, machine learning and contextual engagement to provide a highly personalized experience.
- Allow the consumer to engage with their bank on the channels they prefer at the times they want to engage.
- Transition advisory and sales activities from being reactive to being proactive.
- Engage end-to-end throughout the customer journey, from shopping to account opening, to onboarding and through relationship expansion.
Our global research of banks and credit unions for this report was intended to better understand the ‘CX maturity’ of financial institutions and to provide a benchmark for future strategies. We would like to thank
Deluxe Corp., who sponsored this year’s report development and distribution. Their partnership and commitment to improving customer experiences for financial institutions enabled us to collect insights never provided in the past.
Improving the customer journey and providing a positive customer experience (CX) was ranked as the number one trend, as well as top strategic priority, in the survey of global banking leaders for the
2017 Retail Banking Trends and Predictions report. Unfortunately, the research into CX maturity in banking found that many of the industry’s initiatives are unsupported, misdirected, underfunded and poorly measured.
- While all FIs believe that improving CX is a significant priority, the importance is significantly less at smaller organizations.
- Only 37% of organizations have a formal CX plan.
- The customer experience objectives at most organizations focus on internal benefits (selling and cost cutting) and not customer benefits (simplicity, ease, responsiveness).
- Despite research that shows digital experiences drive satisfaction, FIs focus too much on products and branch engagements.
- Investment in CX is increasing at most organizations, with more investment committed over the next 3 years.
- Most firms have seen only a modest impact of their CX initiatives.
- The biggest challenges in CX efforts are with data analytics, technology and getting a complete customer view.
- Measurement of CX efforts varies widely, with revenue measures mostly missing from the mix.
The Never-Ending War in Afghanistan
Hand it to the British: they tried three times and failed to subjugate Afghanistan. But they gave it everything they had. Whatever their numerous faults, these colonizers did colonialism right. They came, they stayed, they settled in.
From the start, our strategy has been to set up an unpopular puppet regime, underfund it so it can't even pay its personnel, much less bribe people into supporting them, set up bases near the major cities, and hope that the rest of the country sorts itself out. Even with the surge, that basic strategy has never changed.
It's an idiotic war fought with an idiotic strategy based on an idiotic assumption (that Afghanistan had something to do with 9/11; that was Pakistan).
No Americans should have fought there. No Americans should have died there. No Americans should have killed any Afghans there.
What a total waste.
That requires a clear objective, and we don't have one.
It requires a plan to get to that objective, and of course we don't have that either.
What do you do with a war that has no objective, no plan, and so can't possibly be won? Get out.
Obama tried to fix that, to get an objective and a plan for it. He made that a major point of the first six months or so of his Presidency, and he returned to it from time to time. He failed. It defied his best efforts.
That is enough. If it could not be done then by him, it can't be done now by Trump and his team. So, just get out.
Anything else is just a waste of lives and money. In fact, it is murder. Killing just to kill is murder, even if we call it war. Verdun was murder. Afghanistan is murder.
Things will not change until a significant part of the American voting public has a stake in war. We should have a draft covering males and females - no college deferment (call it a "gap years" program on the government) and no out for heal spurs (remove the spur at gov't expense, then swear them in. Unless we change how many have skin in the game, we will not move from having endless wars which are on almost no one's radar.
Afghanistan has ranked at the bottom of Transparency International's corruption index for as long as they've kept score. The simple truth is you are wasting your time trying to do business with a corrupt government. All the improvements to roads, schools, and irrigation systems changes nothing.
Much of Afghanistan is dominated by tribal culture. The tribes battle for control of land, water, and poppy. Not much else matters to them.
The enemy to improving conditions in Afghanistan is not ISIS or the Taliban, but corruption combined with the deeply rooted tribal culture. We've been fools to think our counter insurgency efforts would succeed.
Brilliantly stated. Sadly, few Americans will pay much attention to this column, much less the legislators who fund these immoral enterprises. Most have become numb to never ending war.
Immoral & disgusting.
Our foreign policy misadventures in Afghanistan, begun under Carter and continued under Reagan, are to blame for Osama and the Taliban.
Forgetting something existed does not work. Eventually, the pernicious affects of amnesia come back to bite a person in the derriere.
My 60 years has taught me Americans are stupid and naive when it comes to war. A vast majority supported the Iraq war, based upon lies about WMD. Even if there were a draft back then, my guess is a majority would still have supported attacking the country that had nothing to do with 9/11.
Just go to a sporting event and view first hand the unhinged nationalism stoked in our country by the military as jets fly over. Sure there are a few who think about the victims on the other side of those fast flying bombers, but most cheer wildly.
Sadly, there will always be parents willing to encourage their sons (and daughters) to make the ultimate sacrifice no matter what the supposed cause. We don't have to directly face the consequences of our never ending wars, much less ever see the results on the nightly news. It is sanitized and propagandized.
The only way to end war is to elect legislators who oppose it. Sadly, there are few brave enough to take on the Pentagon.
G. E. Patrick Murray, Ph. D.
Emeritus Professor of History
Valley Forge Military College
Considering our history since the fin de siecle, I wonder, when, exactly, the avoidance of war figure as a national priority?
Maybe we don't feel existentially fulfilled without which we are killing people and destroying things and pinning medals on chests. With a short interregnum after the unmitigated disaster of Vietnam (about twenty years), that's pretty much been our history since about 1898.
The overwhelming evidence of what we've done, not what we've said, is that we don't avoid war as much as seek it. It seems war is hard-wired into the American DNA. Or, at least, war is hardwired into the DNA of a certain subset of the American culture--mostly the portion that benefits thereby, i.e., the Military-Industrial Complex--and the rest just go along, happy to have heroes and sacrifices to cheer, as it makes them feel ennobled of spirit to be supporting such an important endeavor as killing people and destroying things.
In that regard, maybe Afghanistan is not so bad a thing. At least it placates the MIC, giving it an excuse to seek ever-greater portions of the treasury, and it placates the noncombatants, providing heroes and touching moments of reunion for their television viewing pleasure. What it doesn't do is accomplish much else.
The Military Industrial Complex has no expectation of winning nor intention of getting out. Afghanistan is a cash cow and they are going to milk it dry.
Yet in the case of Afghanistan it is now clear that the consensus in 2001 was misguided: fighting the terrorists and tracking down the killers should not have involved attacking the country known as "the graveyard of empires".
American tax payers are being fleeced and all the funds needed for infrastructures and environmental protected are diverted by useless military spending (made worse, of course, by the recent Trump administration décisions).
The rest of the world would also benefit from a more peace-oriented US spending more to stop global warming and protecting its forests and waterways.
Not likely with the warmongers around Trump but maybe after disaster strikes reason will reappear. What is good for the US (a greener more equal society) is also good for the world.
If involuntary soldiers filled the ranks of today's U.S. military, there's no way that we'd be financing and pursuing endless war.
But, most of us didn’t need the caption below the picture to know which was the Afghan solider and which the American.
The author gives many good reasons why Afghanistan remains such a mistake, and I’ve used them all myself, here and elsewhere. But it all comes down to this: when considering other societies as abysmally failed as Afghanistan, the only ones that come readily to mind are Haiti and North Korea. Cuba is a shining example of success by comparison. WHATEVER are we still doing there, and WHY?
The only real justification we ever had was punishment of the Taliban for their support of Qaeda for 9/11. After bombing them into an earlier version of the Stone Age that always was their normal state, we should have called it “mission accomplished” and simply done what Biden eventually proposed we do: put a cordon sanitaire around the whole mess and bomb the bejeezus out of anything within it that moved threateningly. Why Obama failed to take that very good advice is anyone’s guess. The Taliban never will be uprooted or permanently defeated, their regrouping and renewed pressure after every “surge” will be perpetual; and, in the end, they’ll win.
Trump is my president: I supported him here (and still do) and I voted for him. My own advice to him: bring our guys home for good and begin, finally, the process of forgetting that Afghanistan ever existed.
It was disconcerting to make arrangement to meet..then on the way back to our compound..the locals would shoot at us or lay IED's along the way. In short, the locals wanted to take, but give nothing back in terms of sustained peace with emphasis on some facets of reconstruction and development post war.
None of this has transpired since 2003..some 14 years ago...or almost 3 times the time we fought during World War II.
The bottom line is Afghanistan as a country...Afghanistan as a mission to bring peace is and will be a total failure..under any metric of measurement.
In my modest opinion and in hindsight...the best option would of been to allow the Northern Alliance to have lead in controlling the north..and telling the Pastuns..they should terrorist training camps return..then US air power would once again lay waste to those targets.
We would be trillions ahead, saved nearly 2400 Soldiers and avoided nearly 20-22,000 WIA who required evac.
I like many others went onto Iraq..another failure..then onto what is now South Sudan..same! So it goes!
We have fought quagmires in the lat half century. We go in, fight, destroy the government, but are stuck in permanent occupation or have to cede the "win" to a government as bad as the one we defeated. Quagmire.
Afghanistan is a quagmire. They do not have a stable government to take over. They have had lawless territories for most of their history, protected by impassible terrain. They are ripe for strongmen - warlords or Taliban.
When you can't win, you shouldn't try to occupy. The British failed. The Russians Failed. But we somehow think we will prevail. Right.
What point is it to speak of dollar values when a nation is already morally and compassionately bankrupt?
The history of nations that have allowed themselves to be dominated by a professional military class should serve as a sobering reminder of this dangerous arrangement.
Consider the geopolitics of the whole region around Afghanistan and its strategic position between Iran and Pakistan. US forces, with a permanent foothold in Afghanistan, are performing a similar function, and more, to those forces in South Korea and to those in Okinawa. Not to to mention other US forces dotted across Africa and Europe, about which we rarely hear about.
Afghanistan, however, is categorically crucial for the USA. First, to act as implicit brake on Iran's ambitions in the Middle East; second, as a safe base from which to launch Special Forces into various adjoining countries, as and when required. From the time pf Alexander the Great to the British Raj, Afghanistan has been a perpetual killing ground and the indispensable key to maintaining control of the entire region, right up to the Chinese border.
There is, I suggest, little probability that the USA will ever leave Afghanistan IF it wants to maintain military supremacy and dominance, not only there, but throughout the rest of the so-called free world. The British recognized the strategic value of Afghanistan in the 18th and 19th centuries. So also USA now.
We have to stop trying to remodel South East Asia on our own image and seek out a George Washington of the East to take over the land. Just stop.
Our enemies have noted and understood all these historical examples and have applied them effectively and successfully to their war strategy. Some American Generals seemed to understand and apply them, (Petraeus, Mc Chrystal), but for some reason they seem to keep getting prematurely purged. Our Presidents (Johnson, Clinton, Bush 43, Obama and Trump), Congress and most senior military leaders seem to have difficulty grasping this concept.
Much like the "War on Crime", the war in Afghanistan is merely a catch phrase for, as in both of these "wars", there are no clearly stated "goals" defining their "ends" but there are certainly many agencies and arms manufacturers who benefit from money dispensed to fight these "wars".
The tribal nature of most of the country and the complete compliance of one of our "allies" in allowing enemy combatants to flow freely from one country to the other compounds the difficulties. I refer to Pakistan home to both Al Qeada and the Taliban when it's convenient for the two groups.
I don't understand why admitting "defeat" is so difficult especially when we can't define when we've "won" this thing. Meanwhile, young Americans come home in body bags with no end in sight.
A sad way to spend the precious capital of volunteer soldiers and Marines.
Get out of there and do it soon.
It's that simple.
Imagine If the press did their jobs and put the bloodshed on TV. every night, including the grim reality to servicemen and women ( along with their families ). The hardships and sacrifices they are making ,and for what ?
If it was in front of us 24\7 and not out of sight and out of mind ( just the way certain people want it to stay ), I am still not sure it would make even a tiny dent in our psyche...
*shrugs shoulders
The Soviet Empire likewise acknowledged defeat by the Pashtuns.
The Afghans are playing the U.S. for fools, and have not yet started on the Greatest Fool in U.S. politics.
The American Afghan war will last for eternity if you let it. Just get out, get out entirely, and get out forever. The Brits and Soviets can tell you that's the only "solution."
If we did demand that, GOP lawmakers, who are so happy to send other people's sons and daughters off to die in a distant desert, would change their tunes immediately.
We Americans are willing to be taken as the worst kind of marks by the Afghans because we have equally vile forces here at home happy to use the conflict for their own selfish purposes.
In the process, real people get hurt and killed, but there's a lot of money sloshing around, so who cares about the victims?
woukd be have had to endure draconian budget cutsat home if we weren't committed to such titanic waste abroad, fighting an impossible battle?
I feel rooked and at the very least, I want my money back isn't going to cut it. too much damage has been done. doing even more, forever, is no solution.
Get out.
Take responsibility!
Had we actually stayed out of Iraq and focused completely on Afghanistan, maybe we could have fostered permanent change. But a halfhearted effort is worse than none.
When my nephew was killed in Afghanistan in 2012 on his fourth combat tour, I found it mind-boggling that we were still at war there, eleven years after 9/11. That we are still at war there five years later, sixteen years after 9/11, with more deaths, and no real improvements or end in sight, is obscene.
After fifteen years we are still struggling with the war without a solution.
Yes, apparently there is no one can pull the troops out immediately. It is not a task which can be accomplished by the Defence Department alone.
It has to solve the social problems in Afghanistan, before solving the military problems. It has to be started from education.
Nevertheless, we must have a plan to get out Afghanistan without leaving problems as we did in Iraq. We certainly do NOT want to face another ISIS.
It takes a team including military, socialist, education experts and may be others to accomplish it.
The worst is to sit on our hands, doing nothing, but spending billions of tax dollars there with no results.
And those same big defense contractors hire those same generals who who earn ribbons in Afghanistan and lucrative consultant contracts when they retire.
Just prior to the invasion an American oil company was negotiating with the Taliban over a huge potential pipeline deal. While the project has since been shelved, you can bet that it hasn't been forgotten.
These American wars, Iraq, Afghanistan and now Syria each have at their core economic ambitions that have nothing to do with our security and everything to do with potentially enormous profits in oil and gas. We are like the European powers of the 17th century battling over trade routes, plantations and empire.
The war will only end when the American people wake up and demand it. Or when it's clear that the the defense contractors and the fossil fuel giants have squeezed every drop of blood and oil they can get out of that ground and decide to move on to the next war.
Note that the president did mention Iran in his speech and the oil giants have already cozied up to central Asia.
The US military has not won a war since 1945 ( Kuwait here defined as a "war exercise") Any college would have fired the football coach with a losing record like that. But let's pour in another 50 billion or so on top of the 700 billion we spend a year. Perpetual war is our new normal .....what could go wrong with that?
Great article.
When the Soviets withdrew, we could have invested in resettlement, education and development, returning Afghanistan to the trajectory of education and development that it was on a half century ago. But that would have been "foreign aid" -- Reagan withdrew, leaving people in refugee camps with devastated infrastructure and the armed extremists his policies strengthened.
The first price we paid for jumping in for military action while ignoring the soft power of good deeds was 9/11. Those of us who opposed invading Afghanistan in response were few in number and ridiculed. (Is there a way to read old NY Times comment boards?).
The second price for refusing the penny wise investment in education and infrastructure is the ongoing destruction of lives and treasure, paid both by us and the Afghanis.
Republican voters and commenters who rail against "foreign aid" eagerly pay the far larger emergency bills of blood and treasure abroad, while squandering opportunities to invest the funds and patriotic young lives in a positive vision of the future here at home.
We should leave, and let the Afghan people control their own fate. If the majority want secular, Western style democracy, then they'll have no problem achieving it. If not...well that's unfortunate, but it's their country, not ours. Let's worry about our own people.
america will be in afg forever
when your kids and grandkids ask you what became of their future, tell them its buried in the afg desert
The whole point of the war is to perpetuate the myth that Americans can change the situation and, of course, keep the war machine churning.
The Pentagon pays an average of $400 to put a gallon of fuel into a combat vehicle or aircraft in Afghanistan.
The statistic is likely to play into the escalating debate in Congress over the cost of a war that entered its ninth year last week.
Pentagon officials have told the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee a gallon of fuel costs the military about $400 by the time it arrives in the remote locations in Afghanistan where U.S. troops operate.
“It is a number that we were not aware of and it is worrisome,” Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), the chairman of the House Appropriations Defense panel, said in an interview with The Hill. “When I heard that figure from the Defense Department, we started looking into it.
-
The U.S. military consumes 22 gallons of fuel per soldier, per day. And each gallon costs $45 or more to haul to the battlefield.
That’s according to a new Deloitte study, flagged by our friend Paul McLeary at Aviation Week.
Actually, $45 per gallon is a lowball estimate; according to the Navy, it’s more like $300 to $400.
New data shows that America’s war in Afghanistan is costing taxpayers roughly $4 million an hour, despite the Obama administration’s drawdown of troops leaving only 10,000 soldiers in the country.
The cost of deploying just one solider in Afghanistan is approximately $1 million a year, ... Unique to Afghanistan is the additional cost of as much as $400 a gallon to deliver fuel to troops moving through mountainous terrain.
Even so, the $700 billion price tag for the Afghan War is misleading, according to NPP, as it doesn’t include a full accounting of all the costs of the war. Missing is potential future spending on medical care for wounded soldiers and veterans. Additionally, the budget doesn’t include interest payments on national debt resulting from war spending.
https://www.rt.com/usa/273457-afghanistan-war-costs-usa/
Is there any redeeming value to this endless conflict ?
The answer is a resounding NO.
Our best and brightest soldiers are battle tested in the most harsh environment on the planet, other than practicing the art of non-winning warfare there is absolutely no redeeming value to our presence there.
James Michener in his book Caravans spoke of the Afghani's in the 1960's when the book was written. At that time he wrote " the people of Afghanistan will fight you unmercifully and with every bit of energy they can muster, they will fight you until either you or they are dead".
The former Soviet Union discovered this during their decade of attempting to control the Afghani's as they sent their son's home in body bags, one after the other in a constant stream of death and dismemberment.
NO ONE HEEDED THESE SIGNS
Now our son's and daughters are caught in the same meat grinder. Their hopes and dreams dashed in an endless series of useless slaughter. The human cost are high, the economic costs are beyond comprehension.
This is a useless battle in a pointless situation.
Once budgeted, the Defense Department spends every dime, and then some.
No--run from the military as far as you can as your child's life is NEVER worth the supposed cause drummed up by a President and Legislators worth dying for.
Sorry, our civil liberties are not protected by killing people in nations most Americans could never find on a map. If anything, our wars are creating terrorists aimed at inflicting harm on our country, thereby giving Legislators the excuse to dial back our freedoms.
I will never trust or believe a President who makes the case for war. Never.
An Afghan and American soldier apparently guarding the Governor's compound at Kandahar: the Afghan slouched, his body at ease, his automatic weapon dangling carelessly from his body, far removed from his hands; the American soldier sitting erect and alert with his hands either on or adjacent to his automatic weapon, ready to fire if necessary.
When are we going to cry enough and stop this carnage of American blood, finances, and effort; and get the hell out of this corrupt and medieval country?
I can only imagine how much worse the situation is today. Income inequality and an all-volunteer armed forces waging permanent war--these two things are far from unconnected. In fact, the worse the former the more likely a rich country is to have the latter.
How many NYC, Paris, Istanbul and Berlin apartments have been purchased? How
Many Swiss bank accounts? How many hedge funds supported? It is not in Afghanistan
A president could decide he wanted to thoroughly defeat the Taliban. That would require a massive investment over a short period of time of boots on the ground and weapons systems. There would be a huge outcry from the public.
Or a president could decide to cut our losses and get out. Then he/she and the party he/she represents would be criticized as the ones who lost Afghanistan, even though it is not really winnable. No leader wants that claim to be leveled against them.
Therefore we have stalemate and the low-grade war continues ad infinitum along with its death and continual dribbling out of wasted investment. It would take a true leader to really end this war. Such leaders do not exist in the US now.
Our purpose was to do as much damage as possible to Al Qaeda. A second purpose was little understood by the American people: we also tried to kill the established Taliban government. Our effort was partly frustrated by Pakistan which, presumably tipped off, flew many Taliban leaders out of Afghanistan before our attack.
What we attempted was well understood by the Taliban and by Pashtuns more generally. They will remember and will fight our occupying force for generations, if needed. This should not be surprising. What is surprising is that they have not made counterattacks upon our homeland.
All this because of a secondary decision in 2001 to add Taliban targets, since we had many more bombs and missiles than required to obliterate the few Al Qaeda installations.
Or was it secondary? The ultimatum was considered necessary, since we planned to attack the government. Had we targeted Al Qaeda only, there would have been no warning or ultimatum. And Al Qaeda would not have been warned (setting aside the Pakistan leak). In short, we gave up surprise in order to attack the government. Could it be that regime change was our primary goal and that the attack on Al Qaeda was a pretense? A pretense which will haunt us far into the future.
Just like VN.
When it eventually "ends, "with a whimper, not with a bang," I suspect that most Americans will either be unaware or totally indifferent. Especially Millennials.
High school students, data shows, cannot locate countries on a map.
I daresay, most Americans do not know the locational or identifying differences among the multiple nations "over there" who are at war with "terrorists."
And what is the threat to the U.S.?
Money ("trillions") spent overseas is money not spent in America. Eisenhower was correct in warning of the "military-industrial complex."
"Bring down that wall."
USA in Afghanistan.
"Build up that wall."
I don't really have a point. Just an observation.
"American spending to reconstruct Afghanistan now exceeds the total expended to rebuild all of Western Europe under the Marshall Plan."
I wonder if we'd have had a better result if we just paid them to play nice.
The horror!
Our attempt to convert Afghanistan into a 21st century democracy with Western values was a nonstarter.
We are pouring money and lives down a rat hole.
And thank you for Iraq and ISIS too.
- Hamdullah Mohib,
Afghan Ambassador
The idea war is a normal condition is an insane perversion of a proud heritage of military service and our supposed Christian values. When Americans were dying at a fierce rate from automobile accidents, we did not just throw up our hands. We passed seat belts laws, improved traffic flow, attacked drunk driving and the carnage fell.
We have done our best and all our combined military might cannot fix this Humpty Dumpty country. I do not wish to give another folded American flag to a family at graveside with the paltry "Thank you for your service" to accompany it. Not for this.
I would tell the Afghan government and people this: if you do not want your country, we do not want it either. We leave you to your djinn. If your country again becomes the exporter of violence to the world, we will tell you now and warn you again just before we end the export trade with nuclear annihilation one province at a time.
I also don't listen to the other side because most people know little of the issues and they simply root for their team: its the Dems vs. the Repubs....as if we were at camp where its Redbirds vs. the Bluejays teams.
I read analyses and fact-check the few issues I'm most interested in. Many TV "journalists" don't.
I can't be an exception... Or most people more or less tune out
war stories from A and I.
PS: I would most heartedly recommend his book. 'America's War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History'. For the specialist and general reader alike it is a terrific primer on the area and our involvement there.
We have a hard time with this concept when we talk about military intervention. If we have already spent a trillion dollars for no visible impact in Afghanistan, it's absolutely the wrong to take the approach that we need to pour in more money because of the cost (in dollars and lives) previously incurred if our chances of success aren't good. Afghanistan is a money pit, a sump of cash and the lives of American service men and women. I believe that an host assessment of the Afghan situation leads inevitably to the conclusion that nothing we do there will make the situation appreciably better. It's a tribal society and were trying to hold back the tide by pretending that we can somehow knit a democratic republic out of this.
A war in perpetuity ?
3/4 of a trillion $$$ ?
2000+ killed ?
20,000+ wounded ?
An unknown # of PTSD & TBI yet to be diagnosed ?
"A large-scale government project to bestow favors, distribute largess & satisfy ambitions" ?
Is this the new definition of "infrastructure project" ?
Colonel Bacevich is asking us questions & I haven't heard any reasonable answers yet.
bring our guys home for good and begin, finally, the process of forgetting that Afghanistan ever existed.
So long as Afghans believe their lives and freedoms are to be subject to the delusional utterings of a 7th century tribal witch doctor, then they will forever be stuck in the 7th century. American soldiers should not be tasked with building soccer fields or schools or hospitals for a people who believe in "honor killings" or stoning women for the crime of being raped by men who cannot control their teenage urges.
Bring the troops home. It's what Obama should have done, and didn't. Blaming Trump for Obama's failure to comprehend what the American Military is for - defending American lives and American freedoms - is just deranged.
We were rewarded with coffins.
This is still an unwinnable war, it is long past time to pull out and declare our desire not to pursue this dead end.
Doug Giebel
Big Sandy, Montana
The are identical reasons for this new trend of un-ending wars:
Irreversible 21st-C factors -widespread information technologies usage with their reliable camera, internet/social media contents; 24/7 TV coverage of all wars; easier military secrets hacking; more disparate peoples legally in same nations and armies; very reliable air travel; mass refugees migration; global terrorism; etcetera- ensure wars and their dark consequences can no longer be 'hidden' or 'sanitized' to an inquisitive world by any military power.
These factors are yet ignored by the creators of armed conflicts, their compliant populations and World Press. But unfailingly, they render all wars, not only Afghanistan, as 'un-winnable' and frustrating contests.
Until the world appreciates this newly established trend, it will continually moan of routine recurrence of wars; and any available absolute war preventive measures cannot be accepted.
And since no effective checks against their exclusive war-creation privileges currently exist anywhere; national political leaders (creators of almost all wars) will continue with their plans for fresh conflicts. And ironically, they and their close family members would always be shielded from the aftermaths of their arranged conflicts by their respective suffering populations.
This war (if it is one) creates jobs and provides stimulus to our economy. What's wrong with that? Lockheed Martin's stock is at an all-time high and, with the help of Russia, I'm betting it will go higher. Afghans surely are thankful that we've spent $8.5 billion to help (?) opium production reach an all-time high. [Note: there seems to be a typo in the article. Or, perhaps the author is confused; why on earth would we be spending billions to "battle" narcotics, only to have opium production increase 43% in the last year alone?] Opium creates jobs, and Afghanistan's economy really needs these exports. Apologies, but I see a success story here. Let's give ourselves some credit.
I have difficulty understanding the anti-business tenor of this article. Are we really at "war" with the Taliban, or is this term just used for marketing purposes? War makes for exciting news, business is boring. If the Taliban is our enemy or business partner or business competitor -- or all three -- who cares so long as business is good? As the author correctly states, nobody.
And, then there are the commenters shouting for victory. "Wars are to be won"! Really? Whatever you wish to call our engagement with Afghanistan, our objectives there are indeed clear, and they are being accomplished quite handsomely and for the benefit of many.
The US Marine Corps hymn memorializes that round of war, "shores of Tripoli," anyone? We now have East African Islamic pirates, no music for it though, yet. But not much change otherwise.
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Re 'when will it end?' - We do not think of 'when will we no longer need police to stop crimes,' we accept that we need police forever.
A-stan is that same issue.
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The view here, is that Obama was a ditherer, and by inclination or by temperament, an incompetent war leader, for example, throwing away a victory in-Iraq, a quiesce, and now we are fighting Iraq for a third time.
So blame The Long War on (1) Obama (2) Mohamed.
A-stan gave is Osama; Obama gave us ISIS, there can be no doubt, were we to slack off, that the war would come here, as it does anyhow, the domino theory, as it were, along with the infiltration theory.
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We'll see if T has a plan, the issue is containment, thank you George Kennan; and THAT is eternal. This war will go until; the heat death of the sun, and longer if we colonize exoplanets.
Funny how not too many people old enough to have come of age during Vietnam supported this war and there is no doubt that few younger people would have supported it if there was a mandatory military draft.
And, by the way, everyone around you remembers exactly who supported this war *and* the Arab Spring, so kindly hang your head in shame and learn from your mistakes.
If you live in a climate with termites, you can understand this. You are in a perpetual war with termites. You can never win. But if you choose not to fight the termites, your house will be destroyed. You cannot ignore termites. Nor should you overdo it, thereby adversely affecting your health and also wasting money. But you need to keep the termites at bay.
As long as the enemy is willing to send their fighters to a God-forsaken battleground far from our homes, we should thank them, and eliminate them thoughtfully.
Op-Eds have been written on how much better our money would have been spent on education and infrastructure (both of which are sorely needed here), trying to win over their minds. The fact remains that regardless of how much we spend over there, it's futile. It's a thoroughly backwards country trapped in a time warp from centuries ago. Family and tribal loyalties matter far more than any nationalist sentiments. Eradicating opium is the height of folly, that's their cash crop.
Wasn't always like that. 90% Sunni, thank our Saudi allies for exporting their Wahabbist fundamentalism there through their madrassas. Before, hippies used to travel there for the beautiful geography, cheap opium and hashish, and wonderful cuisine and hospitality. Those days are gone, it's just another on a long list of utterly failed Muslim states. Things won't get better in our lifetime, and probably not for many generations, if ever.
The Saudis don't get enough blame for all the problems they've caused.
Sounds like defeat to me. Guess that's the point, eh?
1. Every military assistance mission in the Greater Middle East has been a failure. Nevertheless these missions support arms exports despite their practical futility. The Congressional committees provide no meaningful oversight of military assistance missions.
2. Massive corruption is accepted as a "cost of doing mission" in the Muslim world. Since endless war, not the promotion of future stability, is the overall goal, corruption keeps the client state dependent.
Overall, the acceptance of corruption probably presages the eventual complete collapse of American foreign policy in the Greater Middle East. A half-billion people will eventually throw the rascals out--Americans included, as happened in Iran after its revolution.
Next, Afghanistan's population must learn to transcend tribal identity and deep rooted misogyny, and this will only happen when there is a concentrated push to educate boys and girls. A long road ahead, but this has to be lead by Afghanis. Other rich Muslim countries should provide financial help, though it is very doubtful they will step up.
Unbelievable!
In the words of Major Clipton, "Madness! . . . Madness!"
If not being attacked, war is usually an investment of treasure for an end result of land, water or natural resources. I'm only guessing it is about the natural resources and the private companies who want them.
Remove our military from Afghanistan, Iraq and say a big no to Syria.
We have no business remaining or being in any of these countries.
Declare victory, disengage, and leave them to their own devices.
Let's get out!
profiteers. We have no other reason to be over there.
Despite the claims of 3 million fake voters? Despite the assertion that Obama tapped the Trump Tower phones? Are you turning a blind eye to the blatant conflicts of interest toward his companies and interests? As well spoken as you are, do you honestly admire this dolt?
I'm sorry, Richard, but "your president" is destroying everything that was good about this country and you have become his tout. I don't know how you sleep at night.
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing.
- Macbeth (400+ years ago) "When will we ever learn ...... ?
Besides, the Saudis--people and charity--have been financing their own conservative Wahabe brand of Islam, which is not far off--with a few Draconian tweaks--from that practiced by ISIS, and others. Their common cause is to evict the Infidels from their land. In essence, they have taken 14th Century ideas--when people did not freely travel to distant lands--and packaged them to contribute toward their Caliphate.
All of our firepower and technology cannot defeat an army that wears no uniforms, can blend-in with the local people, and can sell their brand of ideas to seem quite similar to that of the local population.
When you add an ignorant person, who knows little beyond New York City, lacks either the curiosity to learn (what he doesn't know) or the willingness to understand: Voila--you have Donald Trump!
https://thetruthoncommonsense.com
Just to get one guy, Bin Laden?
Invading and occupying a whole country just to get one guy?
One guy who was only found 10 years later in another country? Why? Why?
Oh, well, at least it's not my sons fighting it.
Do our "allies" in Afghanistan believe in educating girls, treating women as anything more than chattel, allowing anything resembling free expression?
We are in bed with some very unappetizing nasties and the only real motivation seems to be we have found some even worse people to fight.
We tolerate failed states in Somalia, Libya and who knows where else?
The whole notion of denying terrorists "sanctuaries" is so ludicrous as to be beneath addressing: Suffice it to say Berlin and Florida seem to provide as commodious a terrorist nest as anything in Afghanistan.
well since the mic controls your country they decide what has a benefit
dont they
I believe the wars continue without end and unnoticed by Americans because we no longer have a citizens army, called up for service when the U.S. resorts to aggression. Instead we have career soldiers that amount to a mercenary army. If citizens were drafted to fill the ranks of the infantry in response to 9/11 I guarantee you that the war would have ended many years ago. The pentagon learned their lessons very well from the Vietnam war.
That's an excellent reason to stay the hell away, since it's a war we can never even hope to win.
The reason for Afghanistan's fall from prominence is far simpler: no one has a way to win it. Like Vietnam, we've dug ourselves into a war we have no way of seriously winning, and anything we accomplish there will quickly fall apart without the continued presence of American troops; unlike Vietnam, though, there's not enough outcry to force a full withdrawal. Politicians love to talk about wars when they have suggestions for winning them, but when it comes to a losing war like Afghanistan they'd rather just pretend it doesn't exist and hope we'll all forget about it.
- same game, different shills -
None of the 9/11 attackers visited Afghanistan. Sure, the chief planner was there, but that plan could have been hatched and directed from a Starbucks.
In essence, pull out, leave the Afgans to themselves, and spend our nation's blood and money on our own infrastructure in our own country.
Just how long are we supposed to do this for? We've been in Afghanistan longer than any war ever fought in American history. Time. To. Leave.