When it comes to Afghanistan, we’ve tried everything. The lesson is: Nothing works.
.. We’ve tried “light footprint.”
.. We’ve tried big footprint.
.. We’ve tried nation building.
.. the United States had spent $104 billion on Afghan relief and reconstruction funds, most of it for security but also nearly $30 billion for “governance and development” and $7.5 billion on counternarcotics.
.. Result: As of 2015, more than three in five Afghans remained illiterate. Afghan security forces lost 4,000 members a month
.. The country ranks 169th out of 176 countries on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index, ahead of only Somalia, South Sudan, North Korea, Syria, Yemen, Sudan and Libya. Opium
.. We’ve tried killing terrorists. Lots and lots of them. As many as 42,000 Taliban and other insurgents have been killed and another 19,000 wounded
.. Result: The Taliban’s numbers in 2005 were estimated at anywhere between 2,000 and 10,000 fighters. Within a decade, those numbers had grown to an estimated 60,000 fighters.
.. We’ve tried carrots and sticks with Pakistan. In 2011, Washington gave $3.5 billion in aid to Islamabad.
.. American leverage with Pakistan has declined as Chinese investment in the country has surged, reaching $62 billion this year.
.. The group’s insistence that all foreign troops withdraw before it enters talks gives away its game, which isn’t to share power with the elected government, but to seize power from it... What about two supposedly “untried” options: another surge, exceeding what Obama did in troop numbers but not limited by deadlines or restrictive rules of engagement; or, alternatively, a complete withdrawal of our troops?But that’s been tried, too. Soviet forces in Afghanistan in the 1980s practiced a “bomb-the-stuff-out-of-them” approach to warfare, likely including the use of chemical weapons.
.. Between 1990 and 2000, tens of thousands of Afghans — as many as a million people, according to one estimate — died in three waves of civil war.
.. President Trump may think he’s trying something new with his Afghan policy. He isn’t. Obama killed a lot of terrorists. George W. Bush pursued what amounted to a “conditions-based” approach, without target dates for withdrawal. Both were often stern with Pakistan. Both conducted intensive policy reviews.
.. Even if we could kill every insurgent tomorrow, they would return, as long as they can draw on the religious fanaticism of the madrasas, the ethnic ambitions of the Pashtun, and the profits of the heroin trade.
Two Killed in Portland While Trying to Stop Anti-Muslim Rant, Police Say
Mr. Christian yelled racial slurs, made threatening remarks about Muslims, Jews and “fake Christians” and referred to himself as a nihilist.
.. The attack on Friday occurred around 5 p.m. in a train car on Portland’s light-rail system. The attacker began yelling — calling Muslims “criminals” — shortly after the two women boarded, said Evelin Hernandez, a train passenger.
“He said, ‘Get off the bus, and get out of the country because you don’t pay taxes here,’” Ms. Hernandez told KATU-TV.
When the men tried to intervene, Mr. Christian pulled out a knife and slashed them, Ms. Hernandez and the police said.
U.S. Says it Has Shifted Strategy in Fight Against ISIS
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis says new goal is to kill militants in Syria and Iraq rather than force them to flee
The U.S. has switched to “annihilation tactics” against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, surrounding fighters instead of moving them from one spot to another, the defense secretary said Sunday.“Our strategy right now is to accelerate the campaign against ISIS. It is a threat to all civilized nations. And the bottom line is we are going to move in an accelerated and reinforced manner, throw them on their back foot,”.. Our intention is that the foreign fighters do not survive the fight to return home to North Africa, to Europe, to America, to Asia, to Africa,” Mr. Mattis said Sunday. “We’re not going to allow them to do so. We’re going to stop them there.”.. those remaining behind Islamic State lines lack clean water, medicine and food, and have been herded by the militants into explosive-laden houses to be used as human shields.Islamic State snipers have deliberately targeted children, said Stephen O’Brien, the top U.N. humanitarian affairs official.
Jesus as Scapegoat
Picture yourself before the crucified Jesus; recognize that he became what you fear: nakedness, exposure, vulnerability, and failure. He became sin to free you from sin. (See 2 Corinthians 5:21.) He became what we do to one another in order to free us from the lie of punishing and scapegoating each other. He became the crucified so we would stop crucifying. He refused to transmit his pain onto others.
.. Your sin largely consists in what you do to harm goodness—your own and others’. You are afraid of the good; you are afraid of me. You kill what you should love; you hate what could transform you. I am Jesus crucified. I am yourself, and I am all of humanity.
.. You never asked for sympathy. You never played the victim or asked for vengeance. You breathed forgiveness.
.. We humans mistrust, murder, attack. Now I see that it is not you that humanity hates. We hate ourselves, but we mistakenly kill you. I must stop crucifying your blessed flesh on this earth and in my brothers and sisters.