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Document: McCain Amendment to FY 2018 Defense Budget on U.S. Afghanistan Strategy

The following is an Aug. 10, 2017 amendment to the Fiscal Year 2018 National Defense Authorization Act, offered by Sen. John McCain, to craft a U.S. national strategy for the ongoing war in Afghanistan. 

  • Bo

    A heroic POW does not make a brilliant strategist or even and “expert” on what defines torture, anymore than my Stage-IV cancer make me an Oncologist. McCain proves this more and more every day.

  • publius_maximus_III

    “(D) establish security conditions in Afghanistan necessary to encourage and facilitate a negotiated peace process that supports political reconciliation in Afghanistan and an evetual diplomatic resolution to the conflict in Afghanistan;”

    With all due respect to the Senator from Arizona, he needs to watch a video of Afghans playing their national sport, Buzkashi, wherein horsemen take turns stealing a decapitated goat carcass from each other. Their riding crops are used more on each other than on their mounts. Here is an excerpt from Wikipedia: “Buzkashi is the national sport and a “passion” in Afghanistan where it is often played on Fridays and matches draw thousands of fans. Whitney Azoy notes in his book Buzkashi: Game and Power in Afghanistan that “leaders are men who can seize control by means foul and fair and then fight off their rivals. The Buzkashi rider does the same””

    Terms like “negotiated peace process,” “political reconciliation,” and “diplomatic resolution” are not part of the national lexicon over there. You cannot change in 16 years, or even 160 years, what has been part of the norm there for thousands of years, dating back to the Mongols. Time to fold our air conditioned tents and steal softly into the night.